Another explosion sounded, this one louder, closer, than the others. Perhaps directly overhead. Dirt poured down on them, burying their feet, their ankles, coming up to their knees.
“Run!” Xavier shouted.
They burst from the tunnel as it caved in behind them. Coughing and choking, his men paused beneath the palace walls. Xavier also paused, gulping the acrid air, sweat pouring down his soot-and dirt-blackened body. He looked up at the palace’s turrets and towers. Realizing that he could not leave.
“Back to the prize,” he ordered. “Now!”
Still coughing, his men obeyed and began to flee. O’Brien suddenly stopped and turned, his face expressing his surprise. “Captain? You’re not coming with us?”
Xavier did not hesitate. “No.”
O’Brien’s eyes went wide.
Xavier turned and looked toward the palace’s front gates. He was going to have to go back inside to find her. He had no idea how they would escape Barbary once he did, or how they would even escape the palace should she be with Jebal, but he would find her—and they would escape.
And suddenly four figures emerged through those front gates. Two soldiers—and an Arab slave … and an Arab woman.
Xavier froze. The afternoon light was fading, but he would recognize that brilliantly red hair anywhere. And he began to run. “Alexandra!”
She halted, whirling. He saw her face, covered with cuts and grime. Her eyes widened. Her arms lifted, outstretched. “Xavier! Xavier!” She rushed toward him.
He rushed toward her.
They embraced fiercely. Hugging, clinging. Xavier was only vaguely aware of the two Turks running past them. He gripped her face. Exultation made his heart pump harder than ever before. “We have to get out of here, now,” he said urgently.
Her green gaze, tear filled, held his. “I’m ready. I’d follow you anywhere.”
She was so fierce that, in spite of the war raging so violently around them, Xavier smiled.
“Let’s go,” he said firmly. They moved as one.
“Wait!” Alex halted, turning. “Murad!”
He stood behind them, his back to the palace, his silver eyes shining. He did not move—except to shake his head.
“Murad!” she screamed now.
Xavier understood. “Come on, man, there’s not much time. We have to escape now—while we can still make it out of the harbor.”
“No,” Murad said. Tears ran down his sweat- and blood-streaked face. “I wish you both Godspeed—and may Allah keep you.”
Xavier could not comprehend why Murad refused to go with them, and there was no time to try to understand—and he knew iron resolve when he saw it. He gripped Alex’s arm. “Let’s go.”
Her chest was heaving. She was also crying. She did not move. “Please,” she begged. “Please come with us—at least leave Tripoli.”
“Ma’el Salama.Good-bye, Alex,” he said, choking. “I love you.”
Alex sobbed.
Xavier wrapped his arm around her, and together they ran after his men.
PART FOUR
THE RETURN
39
ALEX LAY EXHAUSTEDon the small, narrow bunk. She could hardly move—but she would never be able to sleep. For, in spite of the fatigue that was far more than bone deep, exhilaration coursed through her veins. They had escaped.
