Footprints in the Desert: A Novel

Footprints in the Desert: A Novel

by Maha Akhtar
Footprints in the Desert: A Novel

Footprints in the Desert: A Novel

by Maha Akhtar

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Overview

As the Arab Revolt brings down the Ottoman Empire, a spy for Lawrence of Arabia must make the ultimate sacrifice in this thrilling historical novel.

The second novel from Maha Akhtar weaves a story of espionage, love, courage, and loyalty, told from the perspectives of the revolutionaries who fought alongside Lawrence of Arabia—and the women who gave them strength.

Salah escapes Turkey, fearing he is about to be unmasked as a spy for the Arab Revolt. Meanwhile, Noura, his best friend’s widow, flees Beirut, and the two find themselves in Cairo. When he’s not carrying out spy missions with the legendary Lawrence of Arabia, Salah is hiding from the Ottoman secret police in the bustling labyrinth of the Khan el-Khalili market. Noura starts over, finding strength and support in new friendships forged at Rania’s Café, where everyone is somehow involved in the struggle for Arab independence.

But independence comes at a cost. And when Lawrence plans an attack on Aqaba, the price may be very high indeed.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781497690387
Publisher: Barcelona Digital Editions
Publication date: 08/04/2015
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 375
Sales rank: 978,567
File size: 3 MB

About the Author

Maha Akhtar (b. 1966) is a journalist, author, and speechwriter. A contributor to Departures magazine, she also writes about wine for several influential restaurateurs in New York City. A graduate of Bryn Mawr College, Akhtar started her career in the music business as assistant manager for the Cure. Six years later, she moved into public relations for Zagat Survey before entering CBS News, where she worked closely with Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News. Akhtar is the author of two memoirs and two novels previously published in Spanish. She lives in New York City.

Read an Excerpt

Footprints in the Desert

A Novel


By Maha Akhtar

BARCELONA BOOKS

Copyright © 2014 Maha Akhtar
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4976-9038-7


CHAPTER 1

May 1916


It was an unseasonably hot and humid spring in Izmir, western Turkey. The mercury rose to dizzying heights and the accompanying mugginess created a cloying cover, a miserable haze that even the sun couldn't burn through. The rumble of thunderclouds and flashes of lightning in the distance dangled hopes of a cooling rain, but it was only a tease. The clouds never came west. They roiled over the Bozdag mountain range, drenching villages and the valley beyond Mount Yamanlar, but never ventured towards the Aegean coast. The city was tense, like a volcano about to blow.

Just past seven in the evening on May 3, Salah Masri was staring out the large bay window of his small wood-paneled office that looked out onto Konak Square. It was swarming with Ottoman and German officers and soldiers. He noticed a new checkpoint at the north end of the square that led to the German military chief of staff's residence. He saw people rushing around, getting their evening errands done before the recent nightly curfew began. Country women, almost all of them dressed in black, their heads covered with the traditional black scarf, were being stopped as they entered the market just beyond the square with their produce, their baskets searched.

A loud commotion broke out on the street in front of one of the many coffee houses around the square. Salah couldn't quite make out what it was about, but policemen were taking a man away while two women on the ground held onto his legs, crying and screaming. "I've done nothing!" Salah thought he heard him say. "That's what you all say," and he watched as one of the policemen elbowed the man in the ribs, causing him to double over.

Salah took a deep breath and slowly released it. He walked back to his desk. Yes, the noose was tightening. But he was almost done. One more mission. That was it. He would have fulfilled his side of the bargain.

There was a knock on the door.

"Masri Pasha ..." It was a young man who worked as an assistant.

"Yes."

"Sorry to bother you, but this telegram just arrived."

Salah slit open the envelope and pulled out a piece of paper.

They're on to you. Get out. Docks, 8 p.m. MN


Salah looked back down into the square. He saw four men in black suits and tarbush caps walking toward the building. In front of them was Colonel Omer Erdogan, who was rumored to be the new head of the Ottoman secret police. Salah's pulse rate picked up.

Damn!

He looked at his pocket watch. He had no more than five minutes before they reached his office. He hurriedly gathered the papers strewn across his desk and shoved some of them in an old, weathered cognac-colored leather pochette. The rest he inserted into a brown folder marked "Confidential" and threw it in a safe behind him. From the same safe, he pulled out an envelope and quickly thumbed through the lira notes before placing it in the breast pocket of his jacket. He also took out three passports and put them in along with the money. Finally, he opened the middle drawer of his desk. Inside a small locked compartment was a gun, a 9-millimeter German Luger. He checked the chamber to make sure it was loaded, unclicked and clicked the safety switch, and put it in the shoulder holster he had begun to wear. He got up, adjusted his jacket, and walked toward the door of his small office. Out of nowhere, a man appeared in the doorway.

"Colonel Erdogan!" Salah exclaimed.

The Ottoman officer crossed his arms across his chest and tried to puff himself up to Salah's height.

"You look a little flustered, Masri," he drawled.

"Just this damned heat," Salah replied, taking a handkerchief out of his pocket to wipe his brow.

Omer Erdogan stared at him for a moment through narrow, steely eyes.

"Where are your manners? You haven't offered me any coffee."

He placed two fingers on Salah's arm and moved him aside.

Salah allowed himself to be moved.

Born of a Lebanese father and an Egyptian mother, Salah was surprisingly tall. He was well over six feet, almost six foot three, and he was big: big body, big hands, big feet, big belly, big voice, big laugh. While he did not have movie-star good looks, Salah was attractive; his height and size and commanding voice creating a daunting presence. But his face suggested a different kind of person. His skin was pale olive, his eyes dark brown and lively, and his nose long and aquiline. A slender mouth, where a mischievous smile always danced around the edges, hid behind a cropped moustache and an equally cropped beard that looked more like two-day growth. He had short, dark wavy hair that he tried to tame with gel and water every morning, but it inevitably did as it pleased. All in all, Salah was a gentle giant of a man with a kind, expressive face.

Erdogan, on the other hand, at five feet ten, was by no means short, although next to Salah he seemed to be. He was muscular and lean and rather dashing, with prominent cheekbones and a chiseled jaw. His fair skin was sun tanned, his eyes icy blue, and he wore his thick dark blonde hair slicked back. He was wearing the Ottoman Army officer's uniform: a green jacket over grey pants tucked into black boots and a brown holster belt. On his head he wore a black fez.

"Nice office you've got here, Masri."

He strode in, his hands behind his back, as he surveyed the office. He ran a finger along the edges of Salah's desk before inspecting the large map on the wall of the Hejaz Railway that ran from Damascus to Medina, one of the many railway lines that crisscrossed the Ottoman Empire.

"You must be proud of this railway," Erdogan said, turning around and walking back to the desk. "I hear you had a lot to do with its completion."

"Look, Erdogan, I'm late for an appointment," Salah said.

Silence ... broken by the sound of boots creaking on wooden floorboards.

"Erdogan, I don't mean to be rude, but ..."

"You're to come to Damascus with me."

"Why? When?"

"Jemmal Pasha wants to see you."

"Why does the governor of Syria want to see me?"

"Aren't you one of the engineers for the Hejaz Railway?"

"Yes ... but why me?"

"I have my orders."

"Erdogan, I'm a very busy man. I insist that if Jemmal Pasha needs any information, he should talk to the interior minister or his German advisor."

Erdogan shrugged, uncaring.

"I don't argue with Jemmal Pasha. We leave in the morning."

With that, the colonel swept by him, his saber clanging in its scabbard.

Halfway down the hallway, he turned. "By the way, Masri, your office looks unusually tidy for a busy man. I've noticed that most people sort out their affairs when they're planning on never coming back. You weren't thinking of leaving us now, were you?" Erdogan mock saluted Salah before walking away.

Son of a bitch.


As soon as Omer Erdogan was out of sight, Salah turned and walked quickly down the five flights of creaking wooden stairs on the far side of the hallway, his mind whirring. What do they know? He stopped only once to wipe the sweat from his face and the back of his neck. He could feel his heart beating faster and he knew that the white shirt he wore under his navy blue pinstriped double-breasted suit jacket was drenched. In the lobby, he waved to the two guards on duty and stepped out onto the street.

Once outside, he stopped for a moment. He looked left and right. The street was empty, apart from a few people hurrying home, trying to escape the heat or potential trouble. Salah took a cigarette out of a rumpled packet, struck a match, and cocked his head as the flame lit the tobacco. And through the thin gray haze of smoke, he saw a couple of men come out of a café and walk over to the newspaper kiosk a few yards away in the middle of the square. Erdogan's boys. He was sure of it. Salah's heart pounded. Stay calm. Not wanting to let on that he knew who they were, he took a couple of puffs of his cigarette, adjusted his jacket, tucked his pochette firmly under his arm, and crossed the street toward the market.

The market in Alsancak, known for the produce that came from the countryside, was crowded. Housewives were shopping for the evening meal, arguing with vendors about their prices, while their bored husbands looked on, wishing they were sitting at the bar with their friends playing backgammon and enjoying a glass of wine.

Salah wound his way through the narrow aisles between rows of figs, pomegranates, melons, and peaches. Vegetable sellers shouted their prices, hoping to steal away their competition's customers by lowering them with every call. A plump old woman, her cheeks red from the sun and stained purple from burst spider veins, offered Salah some of Izmir's renowned Tulum cheese. He shook his head and moved on as she yelled at him for being so ungrateful. Every now and again he glanced back, but the two men were behind him, keeping a safe distance, their black tarbushes bobbing in and out of the crowd.

Up ahead, Salah saw Ilham, the olive oil seller, who was as slippery as the oil he sold.

"Brother Masri!" Ilham shouted and waved him over.

Salah did not reply. With his eyes he gestured over his shoulder to the two men who were following him. Ilham nodded and pointed to the tiny alley next to his stall. Salah quickly ducked in. Seconds later, he heard shouts and two consecutive thuds.

"You clumsy fool!" he heard a man yell. "What do you mean the jar slipped out of your hands? Look at us! We are covered in oil. And my friend here has a twisted ankle."

Salah scurried down the alley. At the end of it, he stopped. The main road was just ahead. He peeked around, quickly looking left and right. A couple of Erdogan's men were standing about a hundred yards to his right. Salah ducked back in. Taking a deep breath, he ventured out.

"There he is!" he heard one of the men shout. "Get him!"

Salah took off as fast as he could. He looked around as he sprinted down toward the sea. Erdogan's men were closing in. Salah reached the main road that ran along the coast. He saw a line of horse taxis waiting for a fare. He needed something faster. The Turks were almost on top of him. Just then, he saw a motorbike and a sidecar attached to it, sitting patiently next to a streetlight in front of a café. Two German officers were enjoying a coffee at one of the outdoor tables. Salah headed for the bike. He pushed down heavily on one of the pedals and the bike roared to life.

"Hey!" he heard someone yell behind him. "Halt! You! Halt! That belongs to the Germany Army!"

But Salah stepped on the accelerator, and drove off, headed straight for the port.


The Port of Izmir was bustling when Salah arrived. Freighters, cargo ships, passenger ships, and German war ships and U-boats — now part of the Ottoman navy — were getting ready to leave with the evening tide.

Salah abandoned the motorbike outside. Keeping his head down, he made his way to the customs house, a large stone building between two piers that also served as an immigration post for foreigners entering the empire. The quickest way to find who he was looking for in this mayhem was to ask the port captain, Mehmet Reza, a friend he didn't necessarily trust.

Mehmet was a diminutive man with a rotund head, exacerbated by a lack of hair, and a just as rotund body. He had small, beady black eyes, heavy jowls set beneath a lunar face, and a thin moustache above thin lips. His teeth were small and stained brown from coffee and cigarettes. He was writing at his desk, a monocle in his left eye, when Salah knocked on his door.

After a few minutes of greetings, a quick cup of Turkish coffee, a foul-smelling cheroot, and slaps on the back and promises to get together for a long dinner to catch up, Salah made his way to Quay 7.

"Come on, you lazy bastards!" a voice boomed, "we don't have all night. We have to unload this ship and reload and be out of here in twenty minutes! Now get a move on!"

"What I need to buy you is a whip," Salah addressed his old friend Musa Nusair's back.

There was a moment of silence.

"And if you did, I would use it," Musa replied, without turning around.

"Now listen carefully," Musa added, keeping his back to Salah. "Can you find your way to my office on the ship?"

"I guess so."

"I'll meet you there in ten minutes. Go quickly."

"Come on, you good for nothings! Get all those crates off the ship!"

Salah slipped away and made his way up the gangplank. There was no one on the ship. Everyone was on the quay.

There was a small office in the passageway toward the bridge. This was probably it. Salah opened the door. The air was scented with a mixture of pipe tobacco and cigars. On a small cabinet, a black cat lay fast asleep. Yes, this was Musa's office indeed. Salah sat down on a wood and leather chair that swiveled, and looked around while he waited. On the wall, there was a portrait of the Ottoman sultan, Abdul Hamid II, looking regal in his ceremonial turban, one hand on his sword and the other on his waist. There were a couple of empty nails next to the portrait and shadows on the wall indicating that, at one point, something had hung there. Musa probably changed the pictures around depending on the port he docked in. That crafty Yemeni bugger. The desk itself was a mess, papers of all kinds strewn everywhere, pencils, an inkpot, and a small gas lamp. Partially buried behind a piece of paper was a photograph of a woman surrounded by seven children. Musa's wife, no doubt.

Footsteps in the passageway. Salah jumped out of the chair and took a quick step toward the door and hid behind it, his hand on his gun, just in case it wasn't the ship's captain. Moments later, Musa Nusair walked into the office, sat down heavily in the chair Salah had vacated, took off his white captain's hat, and slammed it down on the desk, scattering the papers in all directions. He was a good-looking man. His black skin was smooth and relatively unlined. His face was round, his eyes were small and very dark, and he had thick lips and a big, toothy smile. Like Salah, he was tall, well over six feet, and large, his broad shoulders straining under the cotton strands of the white sweater he wore with black pants.

Salah stepped out from behind the door. Musa indicated that he close it.

"So what's going on?" Salah ventured.

Musa cradled his hands behind his head and took a deep breath, staring at the portrait of the Ottoman sultan. He exhaled slowly and sat forward, his elbows resting on his thighs, his hands clasped. "You've got to get out of here, brother."

"Yes, I know ..."

"Tonight."

"Nusair, I've got one more thing ... it's important."

Musa shook his head. "Masri, it's all over. The French ambassador's house in Beirut was raided. Apparently, Ahmad Jemmal has letters and correspondence between the Arabs and the British and the French, saying that the Arabs will revolt against the Ottomans with the support of the British and in return the British will recognize an independent Arab state."

Salah took a deep breath. "They have names?"

"Yes, Erdogan has already made several arrests in Beirut and Damascus."

"Wissam? Rafic?" Salah asked about his best friends.

"And Khaled too," Musa added sadly. "I just took him and wife back to Beirut a couple of weeks ago."

"To Beirut?" Salah shouted. "I told him you would get him out of Izmir, but why the hell did you take him to Beirut?"

"That's where he insisted on going. I tried to dissuade him, but he wouldn't listen. Something about his wife wanting to give birth in Beirut."

"His wife? Noura? Pregnant?"

"Yeah," Musa nodded. "So pregnant that she gave birth on my ship."

"Oh my God!" Salah exclaimed.

"Look, Masri, if they have your friends, you're next."

"But my name couldn't be on any piece of paper they may have found in the ambassador's house."

"You hope it isn't ... but in any case, it doesn't matter. Jemmal won't need a piece of paper to throw you in jail."

"How much do they know about what I've been doing?"

"I don't know, but they know you're involved. Look, you have to disappear, tonight! You don't have any time. Once they arrest you, you'll rot in jail until they have their proof of treason."

Salah was silent

"Masri, Erdogan is on his way," Musa said, his tone urgent.

"He's already here. He came to my office just after your telegram arrived."

"As I said, you go with him and you're as good as dead."


(Continues...)

Excerpted from Footprints in the Desert by Maha Akhtar. Copyright © 2014 Maha Akhtar. Excerpted by permission of BARCELONA BOOKS.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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