The cleric handed Tanja a piece of paper. She smiled politely, but her lips trembled. There was a sheen in her eyes. Her friends were glowing behind their stoic goodbyes.
Leon didn’t waste time trying to interpret it.
“Everything is in order?” he confirmed, forcing the soldiers to look at him. “I’ll take my wife and daughter to my boat, then.”
CHAPTER TWO
“I’LL DRIVE YOU to the marina in my uncle’s car,” Aksil offered as the soldiers left. “His plates are known. We won’t be bothered.”
Tanja had one last chance to hug Kahina, who had become like a sister to her, then her friend hurried across to her brother’s house.
Tanja cradled Illi against her shoulder as she climbed into the back of the sedan. Her bags were so meager Leon didn’t bother putting them in the trunk, only set the small knapsack on the floor and the diaper bag on the seat beside her before taking the front passenger seat.
Now she felt as though she was running, not even worrying over the lack of a car seat. It was a short drive, and her muscles were tense and twitching, her skin coated in clammy perspiration while her lungs felt as though they couldn’t sip enough oxygen. Escape loomed so close she could taste it. She only had to make it a little farther.
Tanja didn’t fully understand who Kahina’s uncle was, only that Kahina had appealed to him when the school had been shut down and all the female students forced into seclusion. The cleric and his wife had interviewed Tanja about how Illi had come to be in her care. After a few weeks of making inquiries, they had concluded she was telling the truth. Illi’s parents were dead. Her only living relative, her adolescent brother, was impossible to locate. The cleric had decided Tanja could continue to mother the girl so long as she didn’t draw negative attention to Kahina or the rest of their family.
Tanja had inadvertently broken that deal this evening. She had waited in terror for the cleric to denounce her to the soldiers, but he’d calmly forged a birth certificate and handed her the document before accompanying Kahina across the street to await the return of his car.
“I presume I owe your uncle a donation?” Leon asked as Aksil turned toward the marina. Leon stripped off his pullover so he was only in a body-hugging T-shirt, shoulders straining the light fabric. He unzipped a hidden pocket of the pullover. “This is euros. I had dinars, but they took it as a ‘moorage fee.’” He pronounced that with disdain. “I also have American dollars and pound sterling on the boat.”
“You hope,” Aksil said dourly, pointing to the glove box.
“Not my first unfriendly port.” Leon left the euros in the compartment. “They won’t find all my stashes.”
“We’ll see.” Aksil dropped his uncle’s name when they arrived at the marina and escorted them down to the slip.
Despite the security the armed guards had supposedly offered, the trimaran had been relieved of nearly everything that wasn’t nailed down. Some of the goods were piled on the dock beside the craft.
“At least they left the sail,” Leon muttered.
“Do you think they siphoned the fuel?” Tanja asked in an undertone.
“Less ballast if I have to paddle,” he retorted grimly, stepping aboard with her bags. “That’s cargo I brought so take what you need from it.” He nodded at the packs of disposable diapers and shrink-filmed cases of formula stacked on the dock.
The soldier who’d been guarding the stockpile shifted warningly. He knew as well as she did how much formula was worth here.
Tanja took what she needed for a few days of travel and, under the watchful eye of the nearby soldier, gave Aksil a last goodbye with Illi.
“We’re going to miss you both,” he said, touching the sleeping baby’s cheek. “My children will be upset they couldn’t say goodbye. Siman will cry.”
“I wish you could all come,” she whispered. The craft was so small it would barely carry the three of them, let alone a family of six plus Kahina, but she meant it.
“We have protection here,” Aksil said with quiet confidence. “And this is our home. You want to go back to yours. But you’ll bring our Illi back to visit someday.”
“I will,” she swore. “Tell your uncle thank you.” There weren’t words for what he’d done for them.
If only he could work a similar miracle with Brahim. She didn’t let herself grow emotional over Illi’s brother, though; otherwise, she’d be tempted to stay, and Brahim had made her promise to take Illi to Canada if she had the chance. Hopefully, once she was safely home, Tanja would be able to contact him and help him, too.
“The map you wanted...” Leon emerged from below to hand off what was no doubt another handful of notes to Aksil. “And some chocolate for your children.”
One or the other would be a final bribe to the mercenaries circling like sharks. Whatever got them out of the port without being shot at, Tanja supposed.
Leon helped her aboard with Illi, then tried the engine while Aksil cast off. The motor turned over and so did her heart.
She ought to be urging Leon to wait until first light to set sail, but she was anxious enough to get off Istuval that she was willing to take her chances in the open waters of a dark Mediterranean. Leon was a very experienced sailor. She knew that much about him, even if he was a stranger in other ways.
Her marriage had become something of an urban legend among her friends, only mentioned if someone was persistent about asking her on a date or setting her up. Since the summer she’d married Leon, Tanja’s life had been school and work, school and work. She hadn’t had time for socializing, never mind a serious relationship. Perhaps if she had met someone who had really tempted her, she might have felt compelled to seek a divorce sooner, but she never had.
Nevertheless, when she had come to Istuval, it had been with the intention of going to Greece afterward, to properly end things with Leon.
Everything had gone sideways shortly after her arrival. Had she procrastinated contacting him? Absolutely. She’d been so hurt and angry after his initial betrayal, she had resolved to force him to come to her if he wanted a divorce. It was a juvenile attitude she had come to regret when five years passed without a word, but the longer their silence went on, the harder it became to be the one to break it.
So she’d put off reaching out to him until she reached Istuval. Then she had told herself she’d contact him once she was settled in her flat and job. She had pushed that until she had her class schedule and her lessons started. As soon as she felt comfortable teaching, she would definitely let him know she was in the “neighborhood.”
By then she’d been so caught up in Brahim and Illi’s situation, chasing her absent husband for a divorce had ceased to be a priority.