Chapter 25 — The Desert Night

Karim and Saleck

Karim’s hands tremble as he turns the sat phone off. Cool desert darkness presses against him. Saleck arrives in a battered Toyota Hilux, features half-lit by dashboard glow, eyes narrowed like a man who has seen every cruelty the sand can conjure.

“You brought water?” Saleck asks, voice terse, eyeing Karim’s pack.

Karim nods, and without another word, Saleck spreads a battered map across the hood.

“Wind’s from the southeast tonight. Tracks will vanish by sunrise. We search creek beds and the old Tuareg trail. Pray her captors are not professionals — yet.”

Night falling, they set off: two beams of light trawling vast emptiness. Every dip and shadow becomes a potential lead. Karim calls Elena’s name into the darkness; Saleck silently scans the sand for tire marks, broken shrubs, cigarette butts — any ghostly clue. Anxiety claws at Karim’s resolve, but Saleck’s methodical presence keeps him grounded: always moving, always searching, hope flickering with every turn of the tires.

---

Tarmo, Sandi, Mikael

Thousands of kilometres east, Tarmo’s phone won’t stop buzzing. Sandi, voice clipped and businesslike, barks into her Bluetooth headset while tossing a flak vest onto the bed. Mikael stands nearby, fingers flying across a tablet, mapping possible kidnapper contacts and triangulating recent phone signals with help from a local Mauritanian informant.

“I want the French embassy security officer awake in fifteen minutes,” Mikael snaps, pacing the suite. “We need a fix on the jihadist splinter cell — no, the other one. And bribe whom you must.”

Tarmo interrupts his rapid-fire directives.

“Mikael — Saleck and Karim are in the field. They have maybe six hours before the trail goes cold. Once we land in Nouakchott, we’ll need wheels and local support.”

“Handled,” Mikael replies, opening a laptop, already pinging contacts from Niamey to Nouadhibou. “If Issa the old Dogon is running this, he’ll want money, but not before proving he’s in control. Sandi, flag any encrypted texts in French or Tamacheq after the storm — it’s his style.”

Sandi nods, swearing softly. Tarmo watches her shift from lover to operative — a master at turning chaos into a plan.

---

Elena

My wrists burn. Head throbbing, I blink awake in the dust-lit interior of a squat mud-brick hut. Outside, Issa’s rasping voice — French first, then low Hassaniya — gives clipped orders, calm but absolute.

Issa ducks inside, his silhouette filling the doorway.

“You, an anthropologist, yes? Your university will pay well.”

I meet his eyes, refusing to cower. “If they believe you’ll keep me alive.”

Issa grins, white teeth gleaming. “You are valuable. You will behave and wait, or you will suffer. That’s simple.” He turns, then pauses. “Tell me: why do white women cross my desert, alone with men not their kin?”

I shrug. “Curiosity. Sometimes stubbornness. Maybe for telling your story.”

Issa laughs — rich, surprised — and leaves. I listen. The men rotate guard by a scrubby acacia; one dozes, another plays with a battered radio. I catalogue details: the number of footsteps, the clang of the cookpot, whose cough is deepest. The beginnings of a roadmap out.

Karim is out there, scouring the desert with Saleck, growing hoarser with every kilometre. Sandi, Mikael, and Tarmo are drawing invisible lines across countries, hunting for any strand to reel me home. And somewhere, Issa sits by the embers, fingers steepled, plotting his price.

Then — deep in the night — the stillness shatters. Growling, yelps, a pack of wolves prowling just beyond the firelight. Men scramble, curses flying as rifles crack the silence.

“!أطلق النار! أوقفهم! الذئاب، الذئاب!” “Arrêtez-les! Les loups, ils reviennent!” “يمين! فوقك! اللعنة عليهم!”

(Shoot! Stop them! Wolves, the wolves! / Stop them! The wolves, they’re coming back! / To the right! Above you! Damn them!)

The animals circle, eyes glittering gold in the darkness.

I wake disoriented, shirt damp, golden liquid beading through the fabric, pressing against my breasts. Hope and warning fizz inside me simultaneously. Before I can move, a shadow slips into the tent.

Asdar. He crouches beside me, relief crossing his face, and quickly, gently unties my hands. He searches my face for damage, then kisses across my cheeks and brow — tender, hurried.

“Next time you are in heat, call me, Elena,” he whispers, half-chiding, fierce with concern. “This happened because you unsettled your Karim — passionate and loyal to a fault. He’s lost when you are lost.”

Gunshots and shouts rattle outside.

“!الظلام! انتبهوا — لا تدعوهم يدخلون!” (The shadows! Watch out — don’t let them inside!)

Asdar presses my hand, eyes glowing faintly in the gloom.

“Listen closely. Tune out the noise. Concentrate, like before. You’re almost four months — the magic from the babies only grows. You can use it, just for a moment, to transport yourself somewhere close. Picture it in your mind, even a kilometre. My wolves will keep the men distracted. Go. Hurry.”

He looks at me with a deep, unspoken affection that needs no borrowed language.

“Poți să faci asta. Sunt cu tine.” (You can do this. I’m with you.)

His voice is strange and ancient in my ear, equal parts love and command. My heart batters against my ribs. I press my shaking hands over my belly, feeling the strange tingling warmth surge from my chest down to my womb. Outside, howls and gunfire tangle into a single cacophony.

I close my eyes. I summon the ruined well I glimpsed at sunset — a tumble of stone and brush, maybe eighty metres from the camp’s perimeter, half-hidden by thorny scrub and the bent silhouette of a dying acacia. I lock onto it. The golden warmth rises, flooding my senses, every nerve alight.

With a dizzy lurch, the world folds in on itself — air thick and gold for one suspended heartbeat — and then I drop, breathless and shaking, behind the ancient well. I land awkwardly in the dust, knees scraping stone, palms flat against old rocks, their roughness the only solid thing I trust.

Distant gunfire rattles through the darkness. Men shout in French, Hassaniya, Tamacheq, their voices tangled with the wolves’ howling:

“Dha’at! Dha’at!” “!دوّروا عليها! ما بعيدة” “Vite, vite! Elle peut pas s’éloigner!”

(She’s gone! She’s gone! / Look for her! She’s not far! / Quickly, quickly! She can’t get far!)

I crouch low, heart hammering. I press my palm to my belly, feeling the strange echo of power ebbing away. Less than a hundred metres from the camp. Shadows and chaos shield me. If I am careful, silent, and lucky, I can slip into the vast indifferent desert before they understand what they are actually looking for.

I.Ph.