Chapter 38
Malla
THEY SHOOK HANDS.
Xavier was on board Preble’s flagship, the forty-four gun USS Constitution.
The Danish merchantman he had escaped Tripoli upon had rendezvoused with a French brig at Alexandria, and Xavier had arranged transport to Malta, where Preble was currently at anchor.
The two men’s gazes held. And then Preble smiled and reached forward, embracing Xavier warmly.
Xavier pounded his back. They had served together in the recent French war, before Xavier had resigned his commission. “My God, I wasn’t sure I would ever see this day,” Xavier said with a sigh. He was acutely aware of being free—and as acutely aware that Alexandra remained in captivity.
“Nor I. I have been distraught, first upon learning of the capture of the Pearl, then upon learning of your disappearance. The entire world has thought you dead this past year, Xavier.” Preble’s dark, intelligent eyes were piercing and curious.
“It is a very long story.”
“Tonight then, over a good meal and a bottle of port,” Preble said decisively. He paced the confines of his small cabin and paused by his desk. “I am indebted to you. I received your letter. How timely it was. Unfortunately I cannot say more.”
“Not even knowing I came to Barbary secretly commissioned by President Jefferson?” Xavier asked.
“Accept a commission from me,” Preble said abruptly. “I need more men like you. You can resign whenever you please.”
Xavier had not a doubt that war was in the air.
Upon arriving at Malta he had remarked the fact that half of the United States squadron was present.
But he had also counted six gunboats, each capable of carrying thirty-five men and armed with twenty-four-pounders, and two bomb vessels sporting thirteen-inch brass mortars.
Gunboats and bomb vessels were vital to the kind of operation that any intelligent commander would launch against Tripoli, and were not usually in tow.
Their presence at Malta was highly significant.
“Perhaps I can help you,” Xavier said, pacing himself now.
He turned and stared out of the porthole at the night-darkened sea.
He was facing south. He was facing Tripoli.
There was an aching in the vicinity of his chest—he could not shake himself free of a deep sense of loss, a vast regret.
And he was so worried about her. “Perhaps we can help one another,” Xavier said slowly.
“Go on.” Preble was as cautious.
Xavier faced his old friend. “I might consider a temporary commission—just for the duration of the action at hand. But I also wish to launch an operation of my own.”
Preble’s brows drew together. “I do not understand.”
“There is a woman being held against her will in Tripoli. An American. I wish to rescue her.”
Preble stared.
She had lost track of the time. Many days had passed since Xavier’s escape. She thought about him constantly. She still believed that he would return to rescue her, yet she was so worried—so terrified. Rescue seemed to be an impossibility.
She’d had no word from Murad, either, whom she missed terribly. She prayed for his welfare, assumed he had fled Tripoli, where he had no future now—because of her.
Alex had no contact with the outside world. Her guards were under strict orders not to converse with her. She was not allowed any visitors, and even Paulina did not dare violate Jebal’s command. Not after what had happened to Zoe.
Alex tried very hard not to think about the other woman’s horrible death. During the day she managed to block it out. At night she had nightmares—and eventually the woman in the sack became herself.
How lonely she was, how frightened. If Xavier failed to rescue her, her own fate was quite clear.
Then, overnight, Alex sensed a change in the ambience of the palace. A silence, a tension, so heavy it was ripe, pervaded the corridors beyond her tiny, enclosed, self-contained world. Something was happening, but Alex could not fathom what.
The slave who brought her her daily rations was mute, which was no coincidence, but that morning Alex used the opportunity to question her guards. “Why do I have the distinct feeling that something is wrong?” she asked them.
They ignored her.
Her door was wide open, the mute slave was setting her table.
Staring out into the hallway, Alex strained to hear.
All day long, the gardens outside of her shuttered windows had been silent, when usually they were filled with happily conversing women.
Only the howling wind could be heard, a wind that had kicked up overnight.
“Has something happened? Has someone died? Why are the gardens so quiet?” Alex begged. “Where is everyone?!”
She did not really expect an answer.
One of the Turks faced her, startling her. “Seven American ships have anchored outside of the harbor—with gunboats and bomb vessels. Clearly they intend to attack. The bashaw has been readying Tripoli’s defenses since they were spotted last night.”
Alex turned white. In all of her wildest imaginings, she had never dreamed that she might be inside the palace when Preble attacked. “When? When will he attack?” Was it possible? Was it already early August? How had the days turned into weeks?
“No one knows. When the wind changes. A northeaster has been blowing since the ships arrived.”
A northeaster, a gale. Alex returned to her room, her pulse racing.
She found herself at her window, staring through the latticework of the shutters, which were nailed shut.
She could just glimpse the sea, a collage of frothing whitecaps.
The palm trees in the garden swayed in the raging wind.
But she could not, of course, see Preble’s squadron.
Although the palace was perched on the northern side of the neck of land facing the Mediterranean, her windows overlooked the sea east of the harbor, facing Alexandria.
She swallowed. They had already changed history by making good Xavier’s escape.
Jovar had been executed in his place. Alex thought now about how Xavier had supplied incredibly intimate details of Tripoli’s defenses to Commodore Preble.
There was going to be a war. As soon as the wind changed.
Before her advent in Tripoli, Preble’s attack had been devastating. Now what would happen?
She was afraid.
Afraid for herself—and afraid they had changed world history too much.
August 3, 1804
The attack began at precisely 2:45 in the afternoon.
Alex heard the explosions first. Cringing, she froze. Boom! Boom! It sounded as if bombs were exploding just beneath the walls of the palace, perhaps even striking those walls. More explosions sounded—Boom!—even closer and louder than before.
Her bedroom rumbled beneath her very feet.
When there was a brief lull in what Alex realized must be broadsides fired directly at the palace, the afternoon was still filled with the hissing screams of mortars and the lighter sound of exploding firebombs and ceaseless pistol fire.
She ran to the window. At first she could see nothing but the shimmering sea.
“Dammit!” She strained for a wider view.
And Alex glimpsed a huge brig flying the stars and stripes of America.
It was cruising within six or seven hundred feet of the palace, dear God.
As she stared at what might very well be the squadron’s flagship, she saw the bright red lights of numerous cannons firing simultaneously.
Boom! The cannons, perhaps twenty of them, roared.
And they were firing directly at the palace—directly, it seemed, toward her.
Alex dove to the floor.
The cannonballs hit hard. On the rooftops above her, on the walls outside, and inside the gardens.
Explosions sounded furiously at once everywhere.
Around her, overhead. Even beneath her. The walls of her bedroom shook visibly, but this time the frescoed ceiling cracked.
A huge piece of marble crashed to the floor and splintered, sending up veils of dust.
Alex lay unmoving, panting, covered with sweat. Her arms shielded her head.
That same huge, deafening roar was repeated as the brig fired another round of broadsides at the palace.
Alex remained unmoving, her heart lurching with dread.
Boom! The floor shivered beneath her and she heard wood and stone and marble cracking violently again.
She waited for her bedroom to collapse on top of her head.
But it did not. An eerie, deathly silence suddenly reigned, punctuated only by the more distant sounds of grapeshot, shelling, and firebombs.
Trembling, she waited for another broadside from the United States brig, but it did not come.
And through the other incessant sounds of war, Alex heard the men. Men shouting, men screaming—men in the throes of injury or death.
Cautiously Alex got up on all fours. She froze, waiting for another destructive round of cannon fire. When she did not hear the familiar roar of the god-awfully close broadsides, she scrambled to her door.
It had crossed her mind that her guards would have fled during the very first exchange of fire. Alex stood, pressing her ear to the wood, shaking violently, uncontrollably. She heard nothing. They were gone.
This was her chance to escape. Alex reached for the doorknob and pulled on it. It did not give.
Horrified, she realized she remained locked in.
And then she heard the roar she had so quickly come to dread.
Boom! Alex dove to the floor, and an instant later a dozen cannonballs hit the palace, exploding loudly, simultaneously, this time causing Alex’s entire room to shake wildly, the way high-rises did during earthquakes in the motion pictures.
Alex prayed for her life.
* * *