Sahara Crosswind by T. Davis Bunn

civilization, surrounded by men and women who could neither read nor write, and felt himself to be the richest man on earth.
    Abruptly Pierre stood, helped Jasmyn to her feet, and motioned for Jake to join them. He raised his hands for silence, then said through her, “I have told this to Omar, but I wish to also speak these words to all the tribe. It is only because of the help you have given that my brother is here and alive today. The tribe of Al-Masoud has placed upon me a debt that can never be repaid.”
    â€œHear, hear,” Patrique said hoarsely.
    â€œAlthough much of my time and energy has gone to caring for my brother, still I have learned much from my time withyou,” Pierre went on. “One such lesson is that questions are rarely asked about what is considered private or personal. Still, I think you may like to hear how we came to be with you.”
    An appreciative murmur rose around the fire. Pierre looked at Jake and asked, “Shall you start, or shall I?”
    â€œYou’re doing fine so far.”
    Pierre began with the cries of the young Lilliana Goss through the wires of the detention camp—in mistaking Pierre for his missing twin Patrique, she had set the whole saga in motion. Pierre carried them through the search for his brother in Marseille, took them along on the hot, dusty train ride to Madrid and Gibraltar, then told how Jake had saved his life both in a smugglers’ cafe and again on a boulevard in Gibraltar.
    The tribesmen showed themselves to be a marvelous audience. They drank in the story with the rapt attention of a people raised on stories, a folk bereft of books and film or any entertainment save what they made for themselves.
    Pierre, too, became caught up in the telling, filling the spaces created by Jasmyn’s translations by using his wiry body and expressive face to describe the things of which he spoke. Quietly Jake lowered himself down on his haunches so that he too could enjoy watching his friend act out the spectacle of two terrified assassins tied to hospital beds in a Gibraltar cave, with great Barbary apes glowering and screaming down at them. Jake took great pleasure in joining their delighted roar of approval.
    But the desert people’s strongest reactions were saved for the scenes that took place in Telouet, for here was a place they knew. When Pierre threw himself into a parody of Jake’s saluting the diminutive official Hareesh Yohari, the entire camp howled. They silenced only long enough to hear of how Jasmyn had directed the search to the palace dungeon. But when Patrique stood on shaky legs to display the festering scars remaining on his wrists and ankles from the dungeon’schains, they roared like a pack of hungry lions. All had seen or heard of Patrique’s injuries by then, yet now the story lived for them.
    Pierre next described Jake’s attempt to pull out the dungeon’s window bars by means of ropes attached to the sultan’s antique Rolls Royce. At that point, one of the elders became so excited that he sprang to his feet, grasped Pierre’s robes, and began shaking the grinning Frenchman back and forth, jabbering at the top of his voice.
    Omar himself had to stand and lead the old man back to his place before Pierre could describe the grand finale, which occurred when Jake finally lost his temper and crashed the car into the palace walls. The image of him throwing caution and silence to the wind and using a Rolls Royce as a battering ram against the palace wall had the audience rolling about the fire in helpless convulsions. And they laughed even harder at the notion of hundreds of sleepy traders being transformed into pole vaulters and high divers as a car suddenly flew down an otherwise empty street, before the sultan’s own guards saluted Jake and Pierre as they drove through the gates and off to freedom and safety.
    Jake watched the people gathered about the fire, saw the hands raise to wipe