Copyright © 2012 Mary Hughes
All rights reserved
The horde of men in quasi‑military
“Ah, modern conveniencesthe
quintessential Middle Yemeni driver.” The man stopped, pulling her
to the side of the narrow street. He planted big fists on his narrow hips and
grinned at the oncoming truck. “They don’t have speed limits here in Misr, you
see.”
But her rescuer had
said Misr. It confirmed they were in the capital of Middle Yemen. Fahrrad’s
capital city.[MH2]
“This is our chance,” the man said.
“You can’t possibly mean…” Vickie
stared at the oncoming truck. “… If we
get even close to that thing we’ll almost surely be killed!”
“If we stick around here, the
probabilities are even greater.”
Naturally that was when
he grabbed her and slung her over his shoulder—and jumped onto the side of the
truck. She squeaked[MH3] .
The truck careened down the street. Cursing
and wailing rose from behind. Vickie knew they’d
The man set her down,
guiding her hands to small metal handles riveted to the side of the truck. They
appeared to have been surprised to see the
two foreigners gone.installed to give
people the ability to hitch a ride on the truck’s outside.
“This is insane!” She clutched the
small handholds with a death‑grip. Her feet scrabbled to
find a narrow ledge of running board, clinging hard with her bare toes.
The man hung next to her, his hair
blown artfully by the wild speed, his eyes sparkling and his grin almost rakish.
Programmers on a pogo stick. Here she was, barely hanging on as a madman truck
driver tore up the narrow streets of Middle Yemen, and this
guy looked like an ad out of GQ.
Vickie reached out a foot to kick him
in his complacency, but the wind caught it and threw her off balance. Her toes
slipped, her grip was torn from the handholds and
she felt [MH4] herself fallingfell.
She rolled off the truck and into
something hard. Ooof. Dazed, she sat
up and looked around.
She was not as injured as she
expected because the hard thing she’d hit was the man,
who was a lot less hard than the pavement would have been. He’d apparently jumped
as she fell, and pulled her into the concussion‑absorbing roll that had saved
her life.
But she’d have more bruises.
She stared in disgust at her arm, where even now purple flowers were starting
to blossom. Stupid translucent skin.
“Get up.”
“Oh, give me a second!” She scooted
around on her butt to face him.
He stood, nonchalant, against the
night sky. His hands were open on his hips, and his legs spread and stable,
like the trunks of some great tree. Vickie’s heart started hammering, and some
howsomehow she didn’t think it was from
running. Slowly, so he wouldn’t see how she was tremblingtrembled,
she rose.
He moved aside then, and pointed. Behind
him, stars twinkled in the sweltering heat, glittering off the gentle swell of
black sea.
“It’s a port?” Vickie said.
The man nodded.
“Is that where we’re going?”
“That’s where you are going.” The
man shouldered her.
“Wait!” She tried to kick him in the
rear but missed by several inches of now wished‑for height. “Put me down. I can
walk. Just put me down!”
He did finally put her down, in the dimly-lit
hold of a large ocean freighter. “This ship is bound for Boston . .”
“Aren’t you coming?”
Disappointment warred with relief in her gut.
“No. Kul is here. He’ll
take care of you.”
“Oh. Well, thank you.”
What did she expect? That he’d swept her off her feet to make mad, passionate
love? Romantic rescues didn’t make a gal feel like kitty litter. “You probably
saved my life.”[MH5]
“Probably,” he agreed. “Stay
here with Kul until the ship is under way, then go to the captain. Use my name.
He’ll see you to safety.”
“Wait a minute,” she called as he
swung out through the hatch. “What is your name?”
He barely glanced back over his broad
shoulder. “Cliff.”
Chapter 2
“Cliff. Simply lucking fuvely. ‘Hello,
captain, yes, I know I haven’t booked a passage and you don’t know me from Adam,
but, hey, it’s okay. Cliff said so.’” Vickie leaned against a nearby crate., one
amid a giant child’s jumble of crates in the dim hold, her arms crossed over
her chest. “[MH6] That’s sure to get me the red carpet
treatment. Cliff!”
But if he could be trusted—and
instinctively she knew he could—two days of terror were almost over. She rolled
her shoulders. What had her life come to, that her freedom depended on a man
she’d met an hour ago? If she’d known the new account would be this much trouble
when she’d been assigned to it she would have shoved it back in her boss’s face.
But she’d never imagined it would lead to her being kidnapped. If it hadn’t
been for a chance escape, and then meeting that man, Cliff…
He loomed up in her memory as big as
he had loomed in her sight. She rarely gave in to fantasy, but, after all, she
would never see the man again. So she let her mind play over her first
astonished sight of him, the dim lighting cutting deep grooves in his sleek
torso, of the. The feel
of the weight of his body on hers, his hand, tangled in her hair, his mouth,
sweet on hers, his tongue…
“Hello, young lady.” The pleasant
baritone voice came from her right. She whirled, ready to fight or flee.
A slim, middle-aged man
faced her. “Please, miss. Come with me. Cliff has arranged for—”
“You know Cliff?” Excitement overrode
her fear. Now maybe she would learn something about her rescuer.
“Of course. It was Cliff who brought
me here. I am Kulinahr. But please, we must—”
“Prince Kulinahr? The ruler of Middle
Yemen?”
She’d researched the country when Fahrrad first approached her company. She’d
liked everything she read about Kulinahr[MH7] .
Kulinahr led Vickie between crates,
bales and bags to a largish crate marked with stencils “SAND SAMPLES ‑ DO NOT
DROP”. One side was open. “Quickly. Come in and help me close the crate.”
She ducked inside with him and together,
they swung the side of the crate closed. She heard Kulinahr fumble in the close
darkness. Suddenly a small, battery powered lantern, sitting in one corner of
the crate, illuminated the cramped confines.
Grim, tired lines etched the former
ruler’s unshaven face, lines that weren’t in his official photographs. His suit
was dusty and torn on one side.
Kulinahr picked up the lantern, and ran
it along the bottom edge where they had closed the crate. He gave a small sigh
of satisfaction, set the lantern down, and pulled hard on a thin white cord
snaking from the same corner as the lantern had occupied. A pungent smell crept
through the crate. “Pepper.” He straightened. “Fahrrad uses dogs in his
clearance searches, ostensibly to search for drugs. Pepper will block their
sense of smell for days, yet it’s harmless.”
“And Cliff managed to arrange for all
this? How? When?”
“I will explain as soon as we leave
the harbor. But right now we must be silent.”
Vickie sat carefully on the rough
wood of the crate’s floor. Kulinahr sat opposite her and turned out the light.
[MH1]This
was misleading, making it look like a friend of Cliff's is driving the truck.
It's just how people drive here where the streets are narrow and the center of
the road is safer because there's more of a margin if a bomber rushes you from
the side
[MH2]I
moved most of the backstory past page 30 because of a "rule" I
learned. Backstory isn't the same as setting, though.
[MH3]I
had to work to overcome missing steps. Instead of spelling out ABC I often
simply described A and C, ignoring B.
[MH4]Felt,
saw, heard etc are filter words that distance the reader from the POV
character. Cleaner just to say fell.
[MH5]Like
most people I have blind spots for my own writing. Vickie hadn't explicitly thanked
her rescuer.
[MH6]Again,
backstory isn't setting. We need at least an establishing shot in a new setting
before rushing into the scene, or to experience the setting through the POV
characters action
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