Chapter 3
Hope filled Zoe as she beamed at Heath. “We’re going to rescue the children?”
He pressed his lips together, and Zoe was momentarily distracted. They were very nice lips; plump and luscious. Heath had looked suave in his business suit, but now there was an edge of danger to him.
“They may have been moved,” Heath told her.
She blinked, taking a second to remember what they were talking about. “We can find them. I gave them my mobile. It has a GPS tracker on it.”
Heath took out his phone. “What app?”
She told him the name. “Everyone at the embassy has to use it in case we run into trouble.” Kidnapping was a risk that had been raised when she’d accepted the job.
Heath downloaded the app and took a bite of his dumpling. “It won’t be long before the government shuts down all communications, but GPS should still work.” He handed her the phone. “Log in.”
Quickly she did so. She clicked on the marker. “Here. They’re still at the docks.”
“Assuming your phone reached them.” Heath took the phone back, glanced at the screen and then swiped away, pressing some buttons.
Her gut clenched. He was right. While she knew and trusted Nisha, there was no guarantee her son had given Zoe’s phone to the children.
“Is your friend taking part in the protest?” Heath asked.
“I’m not sure.”
“Do you have her number?”
Zoe nodded. “It’s on my… phone.” Which she no longer had. She really had to look into backing it up to the cloud. Something on her to-do list which never seemed particularly urgent until now. “We could visit her.”
Heath grunted, neither agreeing with nor dismissing the suggestion.
“We don’t have a lot of time. The dust storm is either going to smother the protest or allow the protesters to overrun areas.
” He shook his head as if he couldn’t believe he was doing this.
“We don’t know whether they’ve taken control of the port, or if the ship will sail during the storm… we know almost nothing.”
“Nisha might know more.”
He sighed. “What about Nisha’s husband or friends? Are they likely to see us as bargaining chips?”
Surprise filled her, and she considered the question carefully. “I don’t think they will, not if they know we’re trying to help the children. One of them is Nisha’s niece.”
Heath finished his coffee. “We need to move.”
She gulped the rest of her drink, wincing at the taste, and grabbed a dumpling from the plate. “Where to?”
He handed her a pair of goggles before looping another pair around his head and pulling up a scarf he’d wrapped around his neck. “We’ll find a car first, then we’ll go to your friend’s place. If she’s not there, we move on to the next plan.”
“Which is?”
“I’ll tell you when I make it up.” His eyes crinkled to show he was smiling underneath the scarf. “Pull the goggles up and cover your nose and mouth. It might be hard to breathe outside. Stay right behind me.”
She nodded. She’d witnessed dust storms from the comfort of her office or apartment before but had never gone out in one.
Zoe packed her laptop and swung the bag over her back. As they stepped outside the building, the wind hit her, along with tiny pricks of sand hitting her hands and clothes like a swarm of unhappy bees. Thank goodness she had everything but her hands covered, because the sand stung.
Heath headed straight towards a white sedan that had to be over twenty years old.
The sand blotted out the sun, turning the day dark with an orange tinge, and no one was within the thirty metre diameter of her vision.
Heath jimmied the lock and then reached over and opened the passenger side. “Get in.”
She hurried around the other side and leapt inside, relieved to be out of the wind and dust. She inhaled deeply, which set off a series of hacking coughs.
“Keep your breaths shallow for a minute,” Heath said as he fiddled with a tool. In a matter of seconds, the car started.
“What is that?” Zoe asked.
“Fancy tech,” Heath said, slipping it into his pocket. “This car isn’t as sophisticated as more modern ones so I could have hot-wired it, but this causes less damage.” He glanced at her, his goggles and scarf still in place. “Which way?”
Zoe took a second to get her bearings and then pointed. “Down there, and it’s the second or third street to the right. I’ll know it when I see it.”
“If you can see it,” Heath pointed out.
He was right. The haze and dust made it almost impossible to see anything.
She held her breath as he pulled onto the main road but there was no squeal of brakes or loud crashes.
He accelerated, but only fast enough not to be a hazard and she stared out at the street, trying to spot the building she used to tell her when it was time to turn.
Normally she was coming from the city, so they were almost past it when she recognised it. “Here.”
Heath turned the wheel, executing a near-perfect hand brake turn as he headed down Nisha’s street.
“It’s just up ahead.” She leaned forward to get a better look. “On the left.” She pointed, and Heath parked in front of the door on the opposite side of the street.
He placed a hand on her arm. “You need to follow my lead in there,” he said. “If I say go, we go. If I tell her we have a full team of soldiers waiting for us, you nod in agreement. If I say bark like a dog, you bark, got it?”
She cracked a smile, but heard the seriousness in his voice. “Woof, woof.”
“Good. Let’s go.”
***
Heath hoped he was doing the right thing. He should have got the supplies, stolen a car, and got the hell out of the city, but the whole time he was in the souq he couldn’t stop thinking about the children.
The stalls reminded him of a peaceful time as a child when he’d followed his mother through the labyrinth of shops to get the day’s groceries.
Though even that was marred as he searched the faces of men, looking for one with a hooked nose and missing finger, who’d changed his world forever.
It was a habit he couldn’t drop whenever he was in the Middle East.
He remembered the terror of their flight out of the country and the helplessness of being unable to control their fate.
He couldn’t let another child go through that.
Not when he had the skills to do something about it.
So instead of accompanying Zoe safely out of the country, he was heading into a building with an unknown number of potential hostiles.
Not his best day at obeying orders.
What he could see of the street was empty.
Anyone who supported the uprising was either at the protest or sensible enough to get out of the storm.
Perhaps if Zoe was safe at Nisha’s place, he could go alone, rescue the kids, find transport for him and Zoe, and then come back for her.
A good option, but his mission was to get the embassy personnel home, and leaving Zoe unprotected, even if she thought she was safe, did not sit well with him.
There was no telling what Nisha’s husband would do, and whether he would want to use them as leverage.
But the other option was taking Zoe with him, and while she had done what he’d asked of her thus far, she didn’t have the skills to help with the rescue.
At least the dust storm gave them cover. Zoe knocked on a door of a downstairs apartment.
A female voice called in Arabic, “Who is it?”
“Zoe.”
The door swung wide and a short Pakistani woman stood there in a bright blue sari. “Have you got the children?” Her eyes widened as they fell on Heath, but she ushered them inside, looking over their shoulders for more people.
Heath stepped inside and moved down the corridor to give her space to close the door against the wind.
The noise outside muted as he took in the area.
The apartment was small with two rooms on each side of the corridor, the first on the right a sitting room which contained an older man with his foot in a cast, perhaps Nisha’s husband, and three children ranging in age from about ten to fifteen.
He continued down the corridor, taking in a kitchen area and two bedrooms, all empty.
Returning to the sitting room, he nodded at the man and pulled down his scarf, lowering his goggles as Zoe made the introductions.
“Why are you here?” the husband, Adnan asked.
Zoe glanced at Heath.
Good. She remembered what he’d said. “Would you prefer we speak in Arabic or Urdu?” Heath asked.
The man raised his eyebrows. “Urdu.”
It was a test, almost a challenge, but Heath had no problem conversing in either language. And this way he could fill Zoe in on only what she needed to know.
“My mission is to get Miss Yelton out of the country,” he said. “But she told me about the children who are being smuggled, one of whom I believe is related to your wife.”
The man nodded.
“I would like to help them if I can, but I need information.”
“Why would you help?” Suspicion creased Adnan’s face.
“Because your people helped my family when we fled Iran.” Without their help, his family might not have survived.
The suspicion faded somewhat. “What do you need to know?”
“Do you know the protesters’ plans?”
“They were marching today, and I can’t march with them.” He gestured at his broken foot.
“Just in the city, or at the port as well?”
“They left the port to protest in the city. It should be empty aside from those in charge.”
Good. “Any security?”
“They may have locked the gates and have people guarding it.”
He needed up-to-date information. “Is your son still at work?”
A nod.
“Can you contact him?”
Another nod, and Adnan drew out a phone from his pocket. A few moments later, he was explaining the situation to his son. He then handed the phone to Heath.
“Salam Alaikum,” Heath said. “Did you give Zoe’s phone to the children?”
“It’s on their container. The container has been loaded onto the ship.”
Damn it. “When? How? I thought the workers had left the port.”
“There are a few who did not attend the protest, and the ship was already at dock.”
“When is it due to sail?”
“As soon as the paperwork is done.”