Chapter 11
T hey set off at first light.
Hannah felt a jolt of anticipation as she stepped outside into the cool morning air. This was it—the point of no return. From here on out, they were exposed. Out in the open, hunted.
She wore her disguise, a flowing robe layered over the shalwar kameez Tom had picked up for her and the gray headscarf wrapped tightly over her freshly dyed dark hair.
Her reflection in the bathroom mirror that morning had startled even her. She was no longer the American personal assistant, but someone who belonged here. And for now, that was the goal.
She felt much better after a night’s sleep, even if she had woken up a few times.
The room had been unfamiliar, and the bedding had smelled of Tom.
But knowing he was in the next room, had been a great comfort.
She hadn’t felt safe, not since leaving the palace compound.
But last night, lying on his bed, in his house—she’d come close.
Looking over, she admired how seamlessly he blended in.
Gone was the crisp, commanding Marine from yesterday.
In his place was a rugged, dust-streaked freedom fighter.
His beige combat trousers were worn, his T-shirt clung to his chest beneath a threadbare military jacket.
A bandana masked the lower half of his face, leaving only his eyes visible—and even those were different now. Sharper. Hardened. Dangerous.
Where he'd gotten the gear, she didn’t know. But if she hadn’t seen him load the M4 over his shoulder herself, she might not have recognized him at all. He didn’t just look the part—he became it.
And he wasn’t the only one carrying. Nearly every man they passed had a rifle slung across his chest or strapped to his back.
This was a city on the brink, a powder keg waiting to ignite.
The streets pulsed with tension, but no one looked twice at them as they made their way from Tom’s apartment through the residential area.
He leaned in, his voice low. “Keep your head down. Hakeem’s people will have spotters out looking. You can bet on it.”
She nodded, keeping her gaze on the pavement as they passed a group of men gathered at a corner café.
“They must’ve found the document in the souk by now,” she murmured.
“Does Hakeem know about your memory?” Tom asked, eyes scanning the windows above them.
“I don’t think so. It’s not something I advertise.”
“But he’ll know you read it. That’s enough.
” His jaw flexed. “He doesn’t need to know what you remember, just that you saw it.
You could’ve taken photos. Passed it on.
With comms down, he’ll assume you haven’t sent anything yet—but he’s not going to wait to find out.
He’s going to throw everything he’s got at stopping you. ”
She gulped as anxiety clutched at her chest.
Tom’s pace never slowed, but she sensed the tension in his body. Muscles coiled, eyes alert, head constantly moving, but not making it obvious. Always that control. His hand resting lightly on his weapon, ready to spring into action, should the need arise.
They pressed deeper into the city. The buildings around them grew taller and narrower, many still under construction.
The country’s immense oil wealth had resulted in a massive surge of development.
Hakeem had also invested billions into banking and tourism.
He’d wanted Syman to rival Bahrain or Dubai.
A pearl of the Gulf. Now, with the protests and civil war imminent, the work had been abandoned.
They stopped outside a battered newsstand. Tom grabbed a local paper, scanning the bold Arabic script that covered most of the front page.
“Can you translate this?” He tapped a smaller headline toward the bottom, away from the horrific images of burned buildings and bleeding civilians. She tried not to look at those.
“It’s a sandstorm warning,” she said after skimming. “It’s coming in today.”
His eyes narrowed. “When?”
She checked again. “Three p.m.”
He checked his watch. “We’ve got until fifteen hundred to reach the base. After that, visibility will drop, and we’ll be forced to take cover. We won’t be able to move for a while.”
Hannah felt her throat tighten. “That doesn’t leave us much time.”
He folded the paper and tossed it back onto the stack. “No, we’d better up the pace.”
They set off, faster than before, but still not rushing. Still not drawing attention to themselves. Hannah noticed that Tom didn’t even take the most direct route to the southern highway. Instead, they zigzagged through town, merging with other people, acting as normally as possible.
They didn’t talk much. He issued instructions on which way to go and when to stay in the shadows, but apart from that, he remained silent. That suited her. She was still trying to get her head around the fact that she was a walking memory stick of information, vital to ending this war.
They’d just turned into a short road bustling with pedestrians when Tom gripped her arm.
“Watch out!”
A group of men sprinted past, rifles slung across their backs, bandanas tied around their faces. They looked like rebels. A few seconds later, another group followed—grim-faced, underdressed, and armed. The tension in the air thickened.
“What’s happening?” she asked.
“Protest rally.”
They slowed as they neared a wide, circular square, where two main roads converged in a chaotic knot of foot traffic.
The area had once been designed for leisure.
There were ornamental palms, benches, contemporary glass facades set beside centuries-old stone buildings.
But now it swarmed with people. Angry civilians and armed rebels, their banners waving, fists raised.
It was chaos.
Hannah flinched violently, as a gunshot cracked the sky. Someone else yelled an anti-government slogan, and soon a group of them were chanting it, waving their guns in the air.
Then came the scream behind them.
They both turned in unison.
A woman had fallen. Two large men in dark uniforms stood over her, grabbing her arms to pull her to her feet. Definitely not locals. It was then she noticed the woman was a westerner and had blond hair. Her stomach flipped.
“Oh my God, it’s Abdul Anwar’s men,” she cried.
Tom didn’t even look. “Don’t make eye contact,” he snapped, but it was already too late. One of the men had seen her and raised his hand to an earpiece.
She reached blindly for Tom, clutching his shirt. “What do we do?”
“We’re going in.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her straight into the crowd. “We’ll lose them in the rally.”
Bullets peppered the wall beside them with a sickening rattle, shards of stone and paint exploding around them.
“They’re shooting at us!” She was living a nightmare. The whole thing seemed totally surreal.
But Tom’s grip on her hand was iron. “Keep going. A moving target is harder to hit.”
The crowd swallowed them. He moved with brutal precision, zigzagging through bodies, dodging elbows, leaping over curbs. His focus was absolute. She tried to keep up, her breath burning in her lungs.
The protesters grew thicker by the step until there were hundreds around them, maybe more. Mostly men, packed shoulder to shoulder. Everybody had guns, and the chanting roared in her ears.
“Free Syman!” over and over, rising in intensity.
“We’re safer inside it than outside,” Tom shouted over the din. “They won’t fire into the mob.”
She couldn’t see the two men anymore, there were too many bodies crushing around her, but she felt the danger pressing in from every side.
“We’ll push through the middle and exit on the other side.”
She stumbled, and had she not been clinging to Tom, she would have been crushed underfoot. It was like being in the middle of a stampede.
A sob caught in her throat, but Tom steadied her, putting his hands on her shoulders. “Hannah, I’ll get you through this, but you have to trust me.”
She met his gaze—clear, fierce, and steady. A lifeline in the storm.
Her voice was hoarse. “I trust you.”
He nodded, just once, then charged forward, pulling her in his wake.
A loud bang sounded as someone discharged a shotgun only inches away.
The noise of the crowd dimmed, and she clutched her head, knowing as she did so that it wouldn’t do anything to stop the sudden, shrill ringing in her ears.
Tom didn’t miss a beat. He linked an arm around her waist and thrust her through the mass of protesters, using his bulk as a shield and his incredible strength to barrage his way through.
She let him half-guide, half-carry her to the opposite side. She felt battered and bruised, and more than a little disoriented by the time they got to the relative safety of a mosque entrance, set back from the square.
“You’re okay now.”
His words were dim, unclear. Everything was muted, like she was watching the television on a very low volume.
“Hannah, look at me?”
She raised her head.
“Breathe.”
Only then did she realize she’d been holding it. A man brushed past, and she staggered. She put a hand on Tom’s chest to steady herself and could feel his heart beating underneath her palm. Steady, solid, reassuring, not going like a jackhammer like hers.
“We’ll wait here until you get your breath back.”
She dropped her forehead to his shoulder, waiting for the ringing to subside. “That gun discharged right in my ear.”
“It takes a while.” His arms came around her, not stiff or awkward, but protective, while he kept a lookout for Hakeem’s men.
Without thinking, she pressed closer. Her cheek grazed his collarbone. She breathed in the scent of him—sweat, gunpowder, and something masculine. She wasn’t thinking. Just needing. Anchoring herself in the feel of him.
Tom went very still.
Then, slowly, he pulled her in tighter. His breath caught, and she was suddenly aware she was flush against him, enveloped by his arms. When she dared glance up, the way he was looking at her stole the air from her lungs. It was raw, intense, wanting.
It made her melt. It made her weak with longing. For a moment, she almost forgot the chaos around them.
A shot cracked in the distance.
He jerked away, his eyes scanning the crowd. A man had climbed up on a statue and was shouting slogans at the crowd. They yelled back in unison. Protesters poured in from all directions. Another shop window shattered. The crowd surged again.
“It’s turning,” Tom muttered. “Time to go.”
They cut through the back alleys, weaving their way through the city. How he knew where they were going, she had no idea. She’d never been in this area before. They finally emerged beside a dingy sidewalk café that looked out toward Highway 80—the main artery south.
“The base is ten miles that way,” Tom said, watching the road from beneath the grimy awning. “We’ll try to catch a ride.”
“From here?” she asked, watching cars barrel through the intersection, their tires screaming on the cracked pavement.
“No. We’ll cross over, head for the shoulder, and wait it out by a rest stop. That’s the safest bet.”
Other civilians had the same idea. Whole families were on the move, dragging suitcases and clutching children. Everyone wanted to leave the city before the violence began.
Hannah’s heart ached watching them. She wanted to tell them it would be okay, that she had a plan, that the world wasn’t going to end here in the dust and heat. But what if she was wrong? What if they couldn’t get out in time or if she was captured? What then?
“Won’t Hakeem’s men be expecting this?” She felt sick to her stomach. In a way, all these people depended on her, and she in turn depended on Tom. She glanced at the U.S. Marine, so confident, so capable. But would he be able to protect her from a regime that couldn’t afford to let her live?
“They’re looking for a blond Westerner, not a local woman with a rebel sympathizer. Those two guys in the square wouldn’t have seen your hair, and if they did, they wouldn’t have had time to relay the information back to their colleagues yet. We’ve got a narrow margin in which to exit this city.”
They crossed at the traffic lights. Hannah kept her head well down, shuffling like she’d seen the local women do in their long robes. Beside her, Tom remained alert, always one hand on his rifle.
No one stopped them. They were just part of the civilian exodus from Syman City.
They’d almost made it to the rest area when a convoy of police vehicles screamed past, sirens wailing. Tom pulled her into the sparse vegetation at the edge of the road. Tom yanked her off the road and into the brush.
The convoy braked ahead—hard.
“Shit,” he said under his breath.
Hannah turned to him, her pulse thudding.
“What is it?”
His voice was cold.
“It’s a roadblock.”