Captive Read Online Free PDF

and the bay, and Alex had a pefect view of the harbor where Blackwell would have first arrived.
    The bottleneck entrance to the harbor was guarded by a mole. The pale stone ruins of a fort stood atop the farthest end of the mole. Ancient cannons were still mounted on the fort’s walls. Behind the mole, in the harbor, which was a cluster of docks, fishing trawlers and cargo ships were placidly at anchor, alongside many smaller dories and rowboats. The city itself, a jumble of five- and six-story buildings made of pale stone, was set on a small neck of land, surrounded on three sides by the sea. Orange tiled roofs and the onionlike domes of a hundred mosques glinted in the bright, hot African sun.
    In her mind’s eye she pictured Blackwell, standing tall and proud and manacled on a two-masted corsair cruiser. Above him, the tricolored flag of Tripoli flew. He was surrounded by Turkish janissaries and perhaps even the rais himself. A crowd would have gathered on the wharf to watch the spectacle of Christian captives being brought to Tripoli in chains.
    Alex shook herself free of the very vivid image. She lickedher parched lips. The flight to and then from Paris had been endless. Meeting her contact in Paris and receiving her forged passport had been hell. Libyan customs had been nerve-racking, as well. She had shown the stone-faced officials some handwritten French manuscripts and had been interrogated briefly—in French—before being allowed to enter the country. Luckily, Alex was fluent in the language. And even then, she had been warned that she must report to Libyan customs again within twenty-four hours. Apparently she was a suspicious person and guilty of God-knew-what until proven innocent, and the bureaucrats intended to keep tabs on her.
    Her taxicab, a twenty-year-old Mercedes sedan, inched forward. Horns blared. Young boys and adult men in T-shirts and polyester pants or blue jeans weaved dangerously through the stalled traffic on rickety bicycles. The cars surrounding her taxi were all small, older-model Renaults, Fiats, and Volkswagons, and the roadway appeared strange. Several heavily veiled women carrying plastic shopping bags stood waiting for the stoplight to change at the intersection. Exactly to Alex’s right, the beach was pristine white and dotted with a few male sunbathers. Gawky teenage boys were trying to catch a wave.
    A few minutes later her taxi—which was not air-conditioned—crawled into the U-shaped drive in front of Tripoli’s best hotel, the harborfront Bab-el-Medina. The hotel was made of shimmering white limestone, balconies Jutted out from every room, lush palms lined the drive, and the front walk was tiled in a beautiful blue, white, and gold mosaic pattern. Alex got out of the taxi, her white suit sticking to every inch of her. Because she was in the Middle East, she was wearing classically cut trousers instead of a skirt.
    As she registered, she took in her surroundings. Alex was pleased to spot several men who were clearly European in the dimly lit lounge to the right of the lobby’s atrium. But all the women she had so far noticed were entirely veiled, including an animated group in the lobby. Alex grew more uneasy. So far she had received numerous looks from the bellboys, the concierge, and even the clerks registering her; even the European businessmen and the Moslem women stared. She felt more like an alien from Mars than a tourist. Clearly she stood out like a sore thumb.
    Pocketing her room key, she stopped at the concierge for amap of the city and directions. Alex was not going to waste even a single minute by relaxing in her room even though her body was telling her somewhat desperately to stop and rest.
    Alex hurried out of the hotel. The sunlight blinded her and she paused to don dark sunglasses. She took a deep breath of the salty air. Ohmygod. She had made it, she was here, here in Tripoli. Alex could hardly believe it.
    She had intended to walk over to the harbor first,