Reluctantly he took the small book, opened it. He stared at the dates. Dates, he could read. The calendar was for the year 1996, and there was also one for 1995 and 1997. “This is odd, but you might have had this made up,” he began. But he was wondering why on earth she would do such a thing.
“Why would I do that!” Alex cried. “You’re my best friend! I would never lie to you!”
Murad glanced at the red leather book one more time, then slowly he met Alex’s eyes. She would never deliberately lie to him. She believed what she was saying. Completely. Shivers ran up and down his spine.
And she was the most unusual woman he had ever met. But that was because she was an American.
“I am not crazy,” Alex insisted. “The reason I know so much about Tripoli is because I was studying the U.S. war with France. You know how I can always identify ships without fail? I am a naval historian. That’s why I am so familiar with different forms of sea power. While I was studying, I read about Blackwell and fell in love with him. Why won’t you believe me, Murad?” Alex cried. “You are my best friend! I wanted to tell you the truth ever since Jebal gave you to me.”
Murad could not speak. What Alex said was impossible. Nobody could travel through time, neither backward nor forward, nobody. Yet Alex believed her own fantasy, which meant she was mad. “Alex. I don’t want you to speak of this to anyone else. Promise me.”
Alex licked her lips. “The current blockade? Which Morris just ended so stupidly? It is nothing now. But by next summer Tripoli will be starving, Murad. And next summer Preble will assault the city—he’s the next commander of the United States Navy in the Mediterranean—and he is nothing like Commodore Morris! Some of the palace and much of the harbor and the city will be destroyed by Preble, Murad.”
Murad was frozen. A new thought had occurred to him. One he found infinitely frightening.
And Alex understood. “Don’t look at me that way! I am not a witch! I am from the future; I swear to you, that is the truth.” Alex jerked on his sleeve. “Listen to me. In October the USSPhiladelphiawill run aground. The bashaw’s corsairs will attack, and its captain will surrender. He will think he has scuttled his ship, but three days later the winds will shift and thePhiladelphiawill float free—and be taken into Tripoli Harbor, an incredible prize.”
Murad did not move. Allah help us—Alex could see the future.
Alex had to wet her lips again. “On February sixteenth, 1804, thePhiladelphiawill be destroyed right here inside the harbor by the Americans, in the middle of the night.”
Or she thought that she could see the future.Murad realized his arms were folded tightly across his chest. He was sweating. The look in Alex’s eyes, the ring of authority in her tone, had mesmerized him. Perhaps she was not a madwoman after all. Perhaps she was a prophetess. “We will see,” he finally said dryly.
“I thought you were my best friend,” Alex said with a rush of bitterness.
“I am, Alex.”
“No, you’re not. Because if you were my best friend, you would trust me—and you would believe me,” Alex flung.
“I believe that you think you are from the future, Alex,” Murad said truthfully.
“Oh, thanks! When I was captured and Jebal decided to marry me, I knew Blackwell was truly my destiny. Don’t you see? Don’t you get it? He was executed for sleeping with the wife of the bashaw’s son! And I am now Jebal’s wife. I had nothing to do with that, Murad! Jebal chose me!”
Oh God, Murad thought, if Alex could see the future, then they were all doomed. “I think that you are a soothsayer, Alex, not a witch, not insane, and that it comforts you to believe yourself a time traveler, but what you are saying is truly beginning to frighten me. You aren’t thinking about what you are saying.”
“I have done nothing but think about what I have just told you!” Alex cried fervently. “Clearly I have been sent here, have become Jebal’s wife, because Blackwell is my destiny. I love him—and he loves me—and we are supposed to be together, as lovers!”
Murad grabbed her arm. He shook her once. He himself was shaking. “Alex, don’t you understand your own words?
What you are saying is that he is going to be put to deathbecause of you.”
Alex froze.
Murad stared at her, hearing her labored breathing and his own roaring heartbeat. Then he said, “And what happens to you? The adulterous Moslem wife?”
She blinked. “I don’t know. I never found out.”
“If Blackwell is caught and executed because of you, you can be certain that you were executed, too. Moslem men do not forgive their wives adultery, Alex,not ever.”
Alex did not speak at first. “We will escape. We will escape and change the future, Blackwell and I.”
“No one escapes Barbary.”
“There have been a few successful escapes over the years, and you know it,” Alex said desperately.
“A few—as in one or two.”
Alex’s face crumpled. Tears suddenly filled her eyes. “This is one of the happiest moments of my life, and you are ruining it.”
