needs it delivered tomorrow,” Harper replied. “Make sure it is not damaged in the transportation. It’s fragile and expensive equipment.”
“And the other part of our transaction?”
“I have it here.” Harper opened his briefcase on the table. Slowly, he turned the briefcase around until Minos saw its contents. “And three million in bearer bonds.”
“For Booker McKnight, Sandra Haddad and Riorden Trygg dead,” Minos murmured. “That’s quite a bounty for three people.”
“Do we have a deal?” Senator Harper handed Minos the piece of paper. “These are the coordinates to his camp.”
“That leaves McKnight and Sandra Haddad.”
“Chances are if you find Trygg, you will find McKnight and Omar’s daughter,” Harper snapped. “Trygg is hunting them down.”
“He is that close?”
“Close enough,” Harper replied. “Trygg is planning on moving his laboratory. Very soon. If that happens, you might not be able to track him.”
“Move?”
“He’s built his lab in the belly of the airbus we managed to acquire for him,” Harper explained. “I didn’t think the son of a bitch could pull it off, but he did. He plans on dumping the CIRCADIAN on Taer.”
“He wants to wipe out the royal family?”
“He wants to decimate them, along with most of the country,” Harper corrected. “And frankly, I don’t care if he does or not. Just so long as you take care of him soon. That’s our deal, Minos.”
“Yes, General. We have a deal.” Minos paused, thinking.
“Who knows, Minos? If you play your cards right, once Trygg hits Taer with the CIRCADIAN, there might be enough left for you to finally have the country for the Al Asheera.”
“You can’t rule the dead, Senator,” Minos murmured. He took a short sip of his whiskey. “What about Omar Haddad?”
Harper’s eyes went cold. “I am meeting with him in a few hours.”
“A meeting?”
“More like a conversation about old times,” Harper corrected. “Don’t worry about Omar. I’ll take care of him.”
“He is not a man who is easily taken care of,” Minos pointed out. He placed his drink on a nearby table. “And he, like you, is a father who will stop at nothing to avenge his daughter.”
Chapter Thirteen
They traveled most of the day until the heat of the sun forced them to seek shade.
After taking a small break to relieve her bladder, Sandra settled cross-legged on a nearby boulder, closed her eyes and listened.
The wind kicked and howled across the desert floor, stirring sand, loose scrub...and memories.
Its restlessness touched something in her, made her feel connected to the desert more than anything—or anyone—could.
She spent many hours sitting on top of the boulders, when the need to be alone became too much.
One time, when she was no more than ten or eleven years of age, Bari joined her. “I see you up here on your perch, day after day. What are you thinking about, little bird?”
“Daydreams mostly,” she said softly. “I imagine my wishes are caught up in the desert winds and taken across the sands.”
“And where does the Sahara take your dreams?” he asked gently.
Sandra shrugged, not ready to share something so personal. Instead she said, “Aunt Theresa used to tell me that the Sahara was a beautiful woman filled with magic and emotion. Do you think she was right?”
Sadness creased the corners of her uncle’s eyes, deepened the brown to a black, mournful and lackluster.
Theresa Bazan had been murdered only a few months before.
Sandra’s older brother, Andon, was taken several years earlier than Theresa. Both had died at the hands of the Al Asheera.
While Sandra was too young to remember her brother, she knew and loved her aunt.
“Oh, yes.” Bari studied the horizon. “A beautiful woman, full of mischief and surprises.”
“Mischief?” Sandra smiled.
“And danger,” Bari warned. “Don’t ever forget that, Sandra.”
“But only to those who don’t respect her,” Sandra argued. “Even so, the danger adds a sense of adventure. Doesn’t it?”
Bari laughed. “You are loyal to the land, little bird.”
“Not the land, Uncle. My home.”
Bari placed his arms around her shoulder and gathered her close. “My Theresa would have agreed with you.”
“I miss her, too, Uncle. I miss her so much.” Sandra was close to her mother, but in a different way. Unlike Sandra’s mother, who went from her father’s home to her marriage with Omar, Theresa Bazan had traveled the world. She’d been independent, a world-renowned Nobel Prize–winning photographer.
As a Christian, she’d been unable to marry Bari, a royal. So she’d lived with Bari without marriage, and later had given birth to Quamar.
Bari loved her, too. Enough that he’d given up his throne to travel the desert with