trembled. There was a sheen in her eyes. Her friends were glowing behind their stoic goodbyes.
Leon didn’t waste time trying to interpret it.
“Everything is in order?” he confirmed, forcing the soldiers to look at him. “I’ll take my wife and daughter to my boat, then.”
CHAPTER TWO
“I’LL DRIVE YOU to the marina in my uncle’s car,” Aksil offered as the soldiers left. “His plates are known. We won’t be bothered.”
Tanja had one last chance to hug Kahina, who had become like a sister to her, then her friend hurried across to her brother’s house.
Tanja cradled Illi against her shoulder as she climbed into the back of the sedan. Her bags were so meager Leon didn’t bother putting them in the trunk, only set the small knapsack on the floor and the diaper bag on the seat beside her before taking the front passenger seat.
Now she felt as though she was running, not even worrying over the lack of a car seat. It was a short drive, and her muscles were tense and twitching, her skin coated in clammy perspiration while her lungs felt as though they couldn’t sip enough oxygen. Escape loomed so close she could taste it. She only had to make it a little farther.
Tanja didn’t fully understand who Kahina’s uncle was, only that Kahina had appealed to him when the school had been shut down and all the female students forced into seclusion. The cleric and his wife had interviewed Tanja about how Illi had come to be in her care. After a few weeks of making inquiries, they had concluded she was telling the truth. Illi’s parents were dead. Her only living relative, her adolescent brother, was impossible to locate. The cleric had decided Tanja could continue to mother the girl so long as she didn’t draw negative attention to Kahina or the rest of their family.
Tanja had inadvertently broken that deal this evening. She had waited in terror for the cleric to denounce her to the soldiers, but he’d calmly forged a birth certificate and handed her the document before accompanying Kahina across the street to await the return of his car.
“I presume I owe your uncle a donation?” Leon asked as Aksil turned toward the marina. Leon stripped off his pullover so he was only in a body-hugging T-shirt, shoulders straining the light fabric. He unzipped a hidden pocket of the pullover. “This is euros. I had dinars, but they took it as a ‘moorage fee.’” He pronounced that with disdain. “I also have American dollars and pound sterling on the boat.”
“You hope,” Aksil said dourly, pointing to the glove box.
“Not my first unfriendly port.” Leon left the euros in the compartment. “They won’t find all my stashes.”
“We’ll see.” Aksil dropped his uncle’s name when they arrived at the marina and escorted them down to the slip.
Despite the security the armed guards had supposedly offered, the trimaran had been relieved of nearly everything that wasn’t nailed down. Some of the goods were piled on the dock beside the craft.
“At least they left the sail,” Leon muttered.
“Do you think they siphoned the fuel?” Tanja asked in an undertone.
“Less ballast if I have to paddle,” he retorted grimly, stepping aboard with her bags. “That’s cargo I brought so take what you need from it.” He nodded at the packs of disposable diapers and shrink-filmed cases of formula stacked on the dock.
The soldier who’d been guarding the stockpile shifted warningly. He knew as well as she did how much formula was worth here.
Tanja took what she needed for a few days of travel and, under the watchful eye of the nearby soldier, gave Aksil a last goodbye with Illi.
“We’re going to miss you both,” he said, touching the sleeping baby’s cheek. “My children will be upset they couldn’t say goodbye. Siman will cry.”
“I wish you could all come,” she whispered. The craft was so small it would barely carry the three of them, let alone a family of six plus Kahina, but she meant it.
“We have protection here,” Aksil said with quiet confidence. “And this is our home. You want to go back to yours. But you’ll bring our Illi back to visit someday.”
“I will,” she swore. “Tell your uncle thank you.” There weren’t words for what he’d done for them.
If only he could work a similar miracle with Brahim. She didn’t let herself grow emotional over Illi’s brother, though; otherwise, she’d be tempted to stay, and Brahim had made her promise to take Illi to Canada if