[Lothithil]

The Art of Smuggling Camels
part four, Doorway In The Sand
(chapter title an homage to my favourite author, the late R. Zelazny)

It was a familiar tangle of clichés; the sun was beating down, the sand was hot enough to cook eggs in the shell, and Pete's throat was dry as a bone. He wasn't sure now how much time had passed since he and the rest of the rescue team had begun their mission. He'd been wounded during the attack, then captured by the escaping terrorists. They'd taken him along as a hostage when they'd fled to Afghanistan for one of their hiding place in the north of Africa. After a few days he'd managed to escape them by running into the desert. He had feared that they'd pursue him, but now he realized that they more likely had given him up as good as dead-- just as his own people had probably done by now.

But Pete wasn't dead and he wasn't going to give up on himself so easily. The Thornton's were a tenacious breed, even among Irishmen, and Pete was as stubborn as they come. He laid in what little shade he could find by day and walked in the night, for as long as the water in his stolen canteen lasted.

That water was long gone, but Pete kept his canteen, just in case he found a well or an oasis. It banged softly against his leg as he walked, like an echo of hollow laughter. Each dune he crossed looked familiar, and he wondered if he were indeed walking in circles.

There was a dancing wave of heat above the crest of the next dune. A mirage, perhaps, or water vapor-- Pete hoped for the latter. He sloughed up the dune and down the far side. His feet sank into the muddy soil as he slid down the last few feet. He had found water.

But he had found trouble, too. The mud sucked at his feet and held him firm. The edges of the pit crumbed away as he clawed for a handhold to try to escape. He sank deeper, until his chest was buried and the hot mud seemed to be sapping the strength from his body. The cruel sun mocked him. He drew in a breath to shout his defiance, but it came out as a call for help.

A rope slapped the surface of the quicksand, knocking dirt and filthy water into Pete's face. He shook his head to clear his eyes, and tried to crane his neck around to see from where it had come.

"Don't move around! You'll sink faster." The rope was pulled taunt, closing the noose around Pete's chest below his arms. He reached back and grabbed the rope, pulling desperately to draw himself out of the mud. "Just keep your head up. Dingo will pull you out. Hut! Hut!"

With a great surging jerk, Pete was hauled up out of the mud and dragged several yards through the sand. He could hear someone bellowing Whoa! but it wasn't him; his mouth was full of sand. He rolled over and coughed, fumbling to get the tight noose from around his bruised chest.

Hands were helping him, and that was the first thing he noticed about his rescuer; his hands were long-fingered, tanned; weathered but young. And the voice was pure American with an unmistakable Minnesota twang. "Told you we'd get you out, bud. Piece of cake." The hands offered a canteen. Pete took it and drank, spacing long sips with long breaths.

Pete studied his rescuer as he recollected himself. The man wore a turban with a long scarf wound over his nose and mouth, in the style of the Bedouin in the deep desert. He was dressed in sand-colored robes and dirty white athletic shoes. He tapped at the knees of the large camel until it knelt on the sand, casting them both in a long shadow, then he coiled the rope and sat on it. He opened a second canteen and drank from it, then poured some onto his hand to rub on the camel's nose. "Good boy, Dingo," he said to the beast, slapping it's dusty flank with rough affection.

After he had washed the sand from his mouth, Pete spoke. "I would be dead if you hadn't come along, stranger. Thanks."

"Just glad I could help," the man answered. "My name's Mac."

"I'm Pete."

"Hi, Pete. Do you mind if I ask what you are doing on foot in the middle of the Nafud?"

"Would you believe I'm a tourist?" Saving his life or not, Pete was still aware that his mission was classified, and he couldn't tell anyone the real reason he was there.

Mac's eyes sparkled with humor above the concealing scarf. "Right. Me too. And I suppose that the pack of Afghanistan terrorists that are riding around the Empty Quarter, searching... are just looking for a contact lens that someone dropped... and not a US Army officer who's been presumed dead for over a week."

Pete spilled some of the water he was trying to drink. He glanced sharply at Mac, but the man was climbing to his feet and retrieving the canteens. "We had better be going."

"Where are we going?"

"Jedda is close, but the sand between us and it will be crawling with people we don't want to meet. If we can make it to Cairo, we can...

"Cairo? Egypt? That's hundreds of miles from here!"

"Exactly. It'll be the last place they'll look."

Pete was still trying to protest as Mac grabbed one of his feet and hoisted him onto the back of the camel. ‘Dingo’ snorted at the extra weight when Mac climbed up behind him, but he swung into an easy loping-trot when Mac touched his flanks gently with the coiled rope.

“Hut! Hut!”

It was all Pete could do just to keep from sliding off. He groaned through clenched teeth and grabbed two hands-full of scruffy fur.



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[Amy]

I missed this in it's first run! Glad I took the time to read it so far...can't wait to see what's next!