Chapter 27
XAVIER KNELT AND with steady hands he struck the flint and set the tinder to the fuse of the firebomb. The small flame continued to burn, and then it went out—the fuse unlit.
Xavier cursed.
He tried again, determined to light the fuse. The goddamned powder could not be wet. He had not gotten a single drop of water on the oilskin. His hands still remarkably steady, he again tried to light the fuse. The flame burned, flared, and died.
In that moment Xavier knew that he had been betrayed. He himself had stolen and smuggled the powder ingredients with the help of Tubbs and Benedict. Since then, clearly, someone had tampered with them, sabotaging their plans. He had little doubt now that Tubbs had met with the same failure as he.
Unless he could think of another way to destroy the Pearl, and quickly, this entire operation was doomed.
Soft, racing footsteps made him stiffen and tum.
The sight of the tall, lithe Arab rendered him briefly speechless. Alexandra dropped down beside him. “Here,” she said, shoving something at him.
Absolute confusion incapacitated him.
“Here!” she cried.
Xavier’s vision cleared. He realized what she had handed him and he struck the flint again. “How long are the fuses?” He would not even try to fathom now what she was doing there, or why.
“Not long,” she said.
Their gazes met. Understanding passed between them. The fuses appeared to be short. They would both have to run like hell to get off the ship before it blew. As suspicious as Xavier was, a surge of admiration for her filled him. And with it, respect. He lit the fuse.
Tubbs came running. “Let’s go, Cap’n,” he shouted.
And Xavier realized that Tubbs’s gunpowder had not been tampered with, that the fuse was lit and burning. Xavier was on his feet, hauling Alexandra up with him. “Run!” he shouted.
They ran after Tubbs.
Tubbs leapt over the railing, stumbled, and went down on the dock. Xavier threw Alexandra over, then climbed over himself. Tubbs and Alexandra were both on their feet, the sailor running—but Alexandra did not move. She turned to wait for him.
He leapt to his feet, shouting, “Run!”
She held out her hand. Xavier took it, and racing for their lives now, he pulled her with him. They took three steps, four, five. Xavier was acutely aware of anticipating the moment of the explosion.
Suddenly cries rent the air—the shouts of a horde of Turkish soldiers descending from God only knew where upon them.
Xavier saw them on the edge of one wharf. Then he looked past the wharf and saw another dozen janissaries entering the harbor at a run. Christ, he thought. They had truly been betrayed.
And then the night was ripped apart by a huge explosion. The ground under their feet actually rocked, rolled, and jumped.
And Xavier and Alexandra were hurled forward through the air.
They landed hard in the dirt. For one moment they lay still, stunned.
Xavier shook his head to clear it and managed to shove himself to his hands and knees.
Spitting dirt and gravel, he looked back just in time to see the second blast. The bow of the Pearl was in flames, fire leaping up the mainmast, the unfurled canvas sail ablaze.
Without warning, the stem jackknifed, exploding.
Fireballs shot high into the air. Pieces of wood and metal rocketed upward.
It was a fireworks reminiscent of any Independence Day celebration.
The magazine of the ship suddenly exploded, and within seconds, every inch of the Pearl was aflame.
The ship had become a living inferno, her own funeral pyre.
“Halt! Halt! In the name of Jusef Coramalli, the bashaw of Tripoli!”
For one brief moment Xavier stared at his ship, mesmerized. Then he heard the thud of footsteps and the command to halt again. Xavier hauled Alexandra to her feet. Not thinking, he obeyed his instincts, which were to protect her. “Tubbs, take her back to the palace, now!”
Tubbs, a few yards ahead of them, grabbed Alex’s arm.
“Xavier, no,” she began, begging. “Come with me—I will hide you!”
Pushing her away, he shouted, “Get out of here!”
She turned white. He realized now that her face was scratched and bleeding. Tubbs jerked her forward, and then, obediently, she turned and ran.
Xavier stood still for another instant, watching them flee.
Her behavior made no sense. But before he could even begin to sort it out, he turned, watching the dozen janissaries approaching at a run, scimitars drawn.
He knew they had seen Tubbs and Alexandra fleeing down a side street.
When the janissaries were almost in shooting range, Xavier turned and began to run away from them. With no real intention of escaping.
“Halt! Halt now!”
Xavier looked over his shoulder and saw that the dozen men were following him, while the first group had dived into the water and were swimming after Allen, who foolishly thought he could swim the quarter mile to the cruising Vixen.
No one had yet to run after Tubbs and Alexandra, but another two dozen soldiers had appeared ahead of Xavier.
They saw him amidst much shouting and gesturing, and they began to rush forward.
He was surrounded. There was no hope. But he had never thought this anything other than a suicide mission. Xavier stopped running, raising his hands high in the air.
And only then did he see Jovar riding forward on a white Arabian mare. Peter Cameron halted his horse, lifting his pistol. And he pointed it directly at Xavier’s head.
Alex stumbled into her bedchamber.
Murad rushed forward. Although it was two-thirty in the morning, her room was fully lit with oil lamps and he had been there pacing, waiting for her.
Any reprimand he was about to make died when he saw her torn, dirty clothes, her bleeding face and tangled hair.
He gripped her shoulders. “Are you all right?”
Alex choked, collapsing against him. “Oh, God, what will happen to Xavier? I am so afraid! This plan was stupid! To destroy the Pearl without escaping afterwards.…” she could not finish.
Had the soldiers killed him? Alex had stopped running when they were in the alley for one fleeting instant, long enough to see Xavier race into the harbor with the soldiers in hot pursuit and closing in on him from all sides.
It had been clear to her that he thought not of evading them, but only of leading them away from her—only of protecting her.
He might have acted differently, but clearly he cared about her.
Murad put his arm around her and guided her to the bed. “He did what he had to do. You yourself told me that he is a man of courage and conviction. You knew as well as he or I that the Pearl had to be destroyed.”
Alex leaned her head on Murad’s shoulder and gave in to her tears. Her chest felt as if it were being ripped apart. “Please don’t let him die,” she prayed.
Murad cradled her against his chest. “The entire palace is awake. Probably all of Tripoli as well. From the courtyard you can see the harbor ablaze. Do you want to look? He did it, Alex.”
Alex shook her head. She would never forget the sight of the Pearl aflame. She would never forget the sight of Xavier streaking through the harbor, a dozen fully armed Turks almost on his heels.
“It was a very successful mission, Alex,” Murad said, removing the kaffiyeh and stroking her thick, unbound hair. “Let me get some soap and water to clean your wounds and some salve to help heal them.” He smiled slightly at her. “We don’t want you to scar.”
“I Will die if he dies.” Alex whispered.
“He is strong and capable; do not think the worst.” Murad walked into the bathing room.
Alex paced to her window, shoved open the latticework shutters, and stared across the galleria and over the courtyard. The night sky in the horizon over the harbor was an unholy orange. It had been a successful mission; the Pearl had been destroyed.
But even now, Xavier might be dead, struck down by one of the savage Turks.
Murad returned. “I thought you promised not to interfere,” he said mildly, but his gaze was piercing.
Alex sat down and met his probing regard. “I did not interfere. I helped.”
He made a disparaging sound.
Alex did not bother to defend herself. Murad began washing the dirt from her face, and then from her hands and arms. Alex winced a little, the soap stinging.
He ignored her, dabbing salve on her wounds now.
“You are a brave woman, Alex, but one day you are going to get yourself into something that you cannot get out of. I worry about that day.”
Alex pulled away from Murad. “What if the soliders killed him? Oh, God! I have to know!” She turned pleading, tearful eyes on her slave.
Murad rose grimly. “All right. I will go see what I can find out.” Then he paused. “But get out of those clothes, Alex, before someone sees you in them and realizes what you were doing tonight.”
Alex swallowed and obediently began to strip.
Murad said, “Even if Jebal wanted to be lenient with you for what you have done, the bashaw would not allow it.”
Alex froze. Her heart pounded. It hadn’t occurred to her that she might one day be at the bashaw’s mercy instead of Jebal’s. The thought was terrifying.
Murad left her room.
“They knocked him down and began kicking him viciously.
In the chest and stomach, in the legs and in the head.
Xavier curled up into a ball but could not really defend himself.
Pain exploded behind his temples and in the back of his head.
The air was knocked from his lungs. Someone struck his back with the butt of a musket.
Xavier gritted his teeth. His world slipped into fuzzy darkness, the shadows suffused with red-hot pain—but Xavier was determined not to pass out.
“Enough,” came a familiar voice. It was the Scot renegade, Jovar. “Return him to the bagnio with the others. We want him alive—in order to make an example of him.”