Xavier knelt, running his hand over the stone of the wall, abrading his palms and fingers. Something groaned. A crack appeared in the wall. Xavier grimaced, pushing against the wall, and the stone door opened.
“Inside,” he shouted.
His men rushed into the tunnel. The ground beneath their racing feet trembled from the bombardment of the palace; chunks of dirt and stone rained incessantly upon their heads. Someone remarked breathlessly that they were all going to die, buried alive when the tunnel caved in.
Xavier did not reply. They had reached the other end. He put his foot on one man’s clasped hands and climbed upward, pressing the tunnel’s trapdoor up and open. He heaved himself out. Not waiting for his men, who he knew were following, Xavier raced through the deserted, burning gardens.
Fires had started everywhere.
He saw the galleria outside of Alex’s room. A small fire had just begun at one end. Flames licked the wood beams holding up the galleria’s roof. His strides increasing, he broke into a run.
“Alexandra!”
He pounded up the steps to the porch, and without stopping, heaved himself at the locked door there. It burst open.
And her chamber was empty.
She was not there.
They ran through the palace, which was deserted. Alex gripped Murad’s hand. “Why can’t we use the tunnel?” she panted as they turned one corner.
“It’s about to cave in. It’s not safe,” Murad flung, spinning her down another hall.
“Where is everybody?” she cried as they rushed into the bashaw’s huge, oddly empty, receiving hall.
“The royal family always hides in times of war,” Murad said. “The bashaw has special rooms for just such a siege.”
Of course, he would be a coward. Alex could not say that she blamed him. As they left the hall, a bomb landed, causing one of the arches supporting the ceiling to crack apart. Huge chunks of blue and white tile crashed to the floor.
They fled outside into the first courtyard, as eerily vacant as the palace had appeared to be. Gravel spewed from beneath their soles. The sky above their heads, above Tripoli, was brilliant with explosions and fire and dark with smoke. They careened into the last courtyard. Ahead were the palace front gates. They were closed.
Murad and Alex came to an abrupt halt, hand in hand and out of breath. In disbelief. For two soldiers, white faced with fear, stood just inside those gates, guarding them.
“Ohmygod,” Alex whispered. They were trapped.
And the soldiers turned, lifting their pistols—pointing them at them with trembling hands.
“Don’t shoot!” Murad cried.
They hesitated.
“Do you want to die?” Murad shouted. “Open those gates. Tripoli has surrendered. We must all flee. Flee, or be murdered by the Americans!”
As they raced back through the tunnel, it began to collapse.
Xavier’s men coughed, choking on the huge amount of dust billowing up as the sides of the dirt walls fell, as the roof caved in, timbers and all.
“Captain!” someone screamed.
Xavier turned as his men barreled past him, another section of the ceiling raining huge clumps of dirt and stone down upon them. O’Brien was buried up to his shoulder in black dirt and gravel.
Xavier rushed back to him. His face a mask of determination, Xavier gripped him beneath the armpits. “Don’t leave me,” O’Brien begged.
Xavier did not answer, bracing himself. The tunnel throbbed with the muted noises of the bombs exploding outside, too close for comfort. The walls and ceiling continued to shake. Xavier gritted his teeth … and pulled.
O’Brien remained chest deep in the earth.
And then another one of his men was beside him and together they heaved and tore O’Brien out of the ground. O’Brien sagged against him.
