According to the report, Mahmud had been last sighted in a small, rundown cafe mostly known for catering to Bedouin customers. More often than not, these individuals were fairly young - late teens to early twenties - and had been tasked by the leaders of their tribes to trek down to the city for supply runs.
When Altair and his team arrived at the cafe, the place had already been shut down and cordoned off by the police. A fight had obviously broken out during Mahmud's visit, and forensics were already hard at work collecting blood samples.
The first thing that caught his eye, however, had the sheikh sharply drawing his breath.
Yara, seeing her cousin suddenly bend down, automatically reached for her gun. She had thought the sheikh was ducking to avoid being hit, but instead—-
What the hell?
Altair was now crouched down on one knee, and she saw that he was staring hard at what seemed like newly etched lines on the floor. A broken bottle was nearby, and Yara could imagine someone using one of the larger shards to draw the lines. But as to what those lines meant—-
"You remember the letter our people could not decode?" she heard the sheikh suddenly ask in a grim tone. "The one the princess had sent to her father?"
"Nem."
"He taught me the means to crack it." Altair, albeit not taking his gaze from the wooden floor, could nevertheless sense Yara's shock at his words.
"You never said—-"
"I had no reason to at that time."
A moment passed, and then Yara saw the sheikh's lip twist in a humorless smile.
"Actually, that is a lie. I did not admit it because Sheikh Mahmud had also informed me that the one pulling the strings, the one behind all of the attempts to overthrow Khalil...is one of us."
Yara frowned. "You already told us this—-"
"You misunderstand," Altair said tightly. "When I say one of us, I mean just us—-"
The sheikh's meaning finally became clear, and Yara was both stunned and incredulous. An Al-Atassi was behind this? Such a thing did not make sense at all, but as things turned out—-
Altair tapped on one of the lines on the floor. "Mahmud left us a clue, Yara."
It was not the only revelation that would shock her, and this time Yara almost felt as if she needed to ask for a break just to get a grip on things. If Mahmud had left them a clue...then did that mean he was not a traitor, after all?
Yara, seeing the sheikh suddenly rise to his feet, quickly did the same.
"We need to hurry."
And then they were running, all of them doing their best to keep up with the sheikh as he headed straight for the maze of alleyways behind the cafe.
"What are we looking for?" Yara managed to ask as the sheikh marginally slowed down and allowed her to catch up.
"Mahmud did not escape to flee us," Altair gritted out. "The old man escaped to lead us to the person directly responsible for the coup."
Since Altair had yet to explain what they were doing in the alleyway, Yara focused her attention instead on the sheikh's words—-
Oh!
If the sheikh's guess was correct, and he usually was in these cases, Mahmud's escape had merely been the older man's way of proving that he was still against the royal family. And because Mahmud had taught Altair how to crack his code, the same code was thus used to create a trail for Sheikh Altair to follow, and one which would eventually lead to—-
Altair suddenly stopped in front of a dumpster, and Yara's heart started beating hard as the sheikh silently gestured for them to prepare for the worst-case scenario. Yara reached for her gun and took aim as a couple of soldiers slowly lifted the lid open—-
Nothing.
Altair gestured for his soldier to check what was inside—-
And the younger man immediately gasped in shock.
"Alshaykh!"
Altair and Yara stiffened.
"It is Princess Tamara! She is alive!"
After so many years, the hidden face of the enemy had finally been exposed, and it was none other than Altair's aunt and Tarif's own mother.
WHEN A CONVOY OF MILITARY vehicles suddenly sped past the palace gates, the dozens of paparazzi encamped outside wasted no time in packing up, and soon after media vans were racing down the same lane in an effort to catch up with the envoy.
Police cars had already swarmed the area by the time the convoy reached its destination, and behind them, media crews were tripping over their own feet in their hurry to obtain the best vantage point for their camera men. Although none of the military vehicles had yet to open its doors, the reporters quickly noticed that the kingdom's royal army commander was already in action behind the barricades: the grim-faced sheikh appeared to be in conversation with several of his soldiers, and as powerful lenses zoomed in on the scene, it was then they noticed the middle-aged woman seemingly being held against her will. She was struggling violently even though her wrists already appeared handcuffed behind her back, and a stoic-looking soldier flanked her on each side.
A slight commotion ensued as soldiers finally stepped out of the convoy of military vehicles, and cameras quickly swung in their direction.
Excitement rippled through the crowd when they saw that the passengers were none other than the royal sheikhs of Ramil: Malik, Tarif, Rayyan, and finally, the Emir Sheikh himself, and as the four walked to join Altair behind the barricade, the woman in handcuffs started screaming—-
Shock jolted the throng of reporters when the woman's face was revealed.
Although the heavy military presence along with the arrival of the royal family were already more than enough clues for the paparazzi to know beforehand that something big was about to take place, just how big it was, not one of them had been able to foresee.
Because this woman before them—-
This woman whom everyone believed to have been executed by the tyrant that previously ruled the kingdom of Huzna—-
Princess Tamara, sister to the former king and mother of Sheikh Tarif Al-Atassi, Ramil's public relations chief—-
"I was going to make you a king, Tarif! A king!"
She was alive, after all, but by the way her own son and the rest of the royal family was staring at her, it was all too clear they would have preferred she had remained dead.
In death there was honor.
But now—-
There was only betrayal, and it was the kind that none of the sheikhs would ever forget...or forgive.
MAHMUD WAS NOT THE only one good at breaking out of captivity.
Safiya, too, knew how to slip away even with dozens of experienced soldiers watching her. Some might be forgiven for thinking the skill had to do something with genes, but the truth was far simpler: it was a skill she had to learn at a young age, and a skill she had to practice...if she hadn't wanted to die of starvation.
Having the princess locked in her room without anything but water to drink for the entire day had been Saul's way of exerting his control over her. Physical beating was to be avoided as it left scars. But hunger? It was torment invisible to the naked eye, and the first few times Saul had deliberately starved her, she had nearly lost her mind with hunger.
She probably would have, too, if not for sheer desperation forcing her to take risks that would've made grown men shake in their boots. Because that was the only thing that mattered when wanting to escape: one had to be bold, and Safiya had been that. She had no choice. If she had allowed herself to pass out in hunger, it could've given Saul a chance to have his way with her, and that...