Page 6 of Trust Me

It would take time to get a team together, even more time for them to travel to wherever it was they were taking her in Jordan. And what if they crossed the border into Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia, or Israel?

She kept her gaze fixed out the window, ignoring the throbbing pain in her ankle and the itchy spot on her arm. They were out of the city now, and there was nothing but sand for miles. They’d taken her smartwatch, so she could only guess they’d been driving for about two hours, but her sense of time could be skewed.

Fear did that.

Even in the air-conditioned vehicle, looking out over endless sand made her thirsty. She wasn’t to the point of desperation, but it could be worth it to try to engage with her abductors again, who’d said nothing after binding her hands behind her back and securing her bound hands to the built-in child car seat hooks mounted next to the seat belt.

Abductor number one had then climbed back into the front passenger seat of the moving vehicle and proceeded to fall asleep.

“Water?” she asked in English.

The driver just grunted and ignored her. She considered trying again in Arabic but wasn’t sure how much these men knew about her. Did they know she was nearly fluent? It seemed like a good idea to hide her language skills. They might reveal something they wouldn’t otherwise.

After winding through the city, they’d gone south on the King’s Highway. Historically, it was an important trade route that went from the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt to Damascus and the Euphrates River in Syria, while the modern King’s Highway in Jordan was a winding and scenic road that connected Amman on the Mediterranean Sea to Aqaba on the Gulf of Aqaba.

The road cut through desert composed of granitic and metamorphic rocks overlain by sandstone, along with limestone and phosphorite that capped the central plateau. The phosphorite stone was the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan’s principal export. In some places, the drive offered glimpses into slot canyons like the one that gave the first dramatic view of the Treasury in Petra. On any other day, traveling this road would be breathtaking. Something she hadn’t tired of, even though she’d driven from Amman to Wadi Rum several times in the last few months.

Today, it took her breath away, but for an entirely different reason.

Now the car left the main road, and she’d lost track of where she was. Another wadi—a gully or stream that was only wet during rainy season—among many. Today, it was two months from the start of the rainy season, and the earth baked in the late afternoon sun as the canyon walls closed in.

Jordan had wadis both big and small, famous like Wadi Rum, and relatively unknown like this one. After some time, the car made another turn, entering a narrower canyon with offshoots on all sides. A maze of rock walls. The road went from paved to packed sand as they wound their way through sandstone and granite pillars.

The car stopped when the canyon narrowed to the point of no longer being passable. Her sleeping abductor sprang awake, making her wonder if his dozing had been an act. Not that it mattered one way or another.

He climbed from the front seat and circled to her side of the car and yanked the door open. He brandished a sharp knife, then pushed her forward and cut the zip tie that bound her to the child car seat anchor.

He then tugged her out of the vehicle without giving her a chance to right herself in the seat. She fell to her knees on the hard ground. Hot wind swirled around her, and she closed her eyes against the sting of the bright, burning sun and fine sand particles that whipped through the air.

The man yanked her to her feet and dragged her away from the car, toward a gap in the slot canyon that was wide enough for a camel but not a car. She stumbled on her weak ankle, but finally managed a few steps that hid her limp.

Don’t let them see any weaknesses to exploit.

Behind her, the car door slammed, then she heard the rumble of tires on gravel and sand. The vehicle that had delivered her here was leaving as the man dragged her down the narrow canyon.

After a hundred meters, it opened up, and before her was a line of five Bedouin tents. The Arabic name was beit ash-sha’ar, meaning “house of hair.” The dark goat hair and sheep’s wool curtains would usually be draped over a frame of wooden poles made from fig trees, but these looked like they had aluminum frames.

Was this camp her final destination? If so, all she needed was a working satellite or cell phone and she could send out her SOS.

She turned to see the tight canyon walls behind her. The tents were pressed up against another wall. There were fingers of the canyon that spread in other directions, all too narrow for vehicles. Not even camels could fit through some of the gaps. She looked upward and wondered if the high, narrow canyon walls would prevent a satellite signal from reaching space.

Everything about this moment felt surreal. This couldn’t be happening. She was asleep in her bed in Amman, or better yet, asleep in her condo in College Park, Maryland.

But the heat on her skin and the sting of sand in her eyes told her this was all too real.

She again studied the tents. The Bedouin styling had to be a form of camouflage. A way for a terrorist cell to hide in plain sight. Her abductors might be from Jordan, but they weren’t Bedouin any more than she could claim to be an Indigenous American just because she was born in a city named for Chief Seattle.

Men holding AK-47s guarded the various canyon openings. She could see three narrow slots and wondered if there were more. Escape would be impossible. She’d easily get lost in the twisted threads of dry gullies. Plus, without water, she wouldn’t last long.

Her captors didn’t need their automatic rifles or sharp knives to keep her in line. Only a fool would set out alone from here. She was many things, but a fool wasn’t one of them.

Her abductor shoved her toward a tent and barked at her to move or he would drag her by her hair.

She took several steps, patting her head to make sure her hair was fully covered before it registered that his words had been in Arabic. So much for keeping her fluency secret.

They’d probably known all along. While the security company didn’t know why she needed a guard at the Friday market, they did know she was an archaeologist working on a dig for a university.

She’d gotten a research grant to work with a university in Amman from Gardner Holdings, an American company that controlled several businesses, including a large retail chain called Historie, which sold replicas of artifacts and art in addition to licensed cards, mugs, and other trinkets. The company made millions from replicating artifacts and selling them to a high-end market.

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