Zaid didn’t want to waste any more time arguing with the woman—he was too worried about the trouble Rebecca might get into foolishly going off on her own. “Fair enough,” Zaid said. “Keep up. Stay close.”
As they approached the waterway that cut inland from the bay and separated the waterfront district from Rajak, Zaid’s heart sank. There was no way to hide the stark contrast between the two sides of the bridge over the waterway. On one side, the waterfront district was new and modern. It was clean, bright, and populated by tourists and wealthy Emiratis. On the other side, the buildings were dilapidated and obviously outdated. There were large gaping holes where doors should have been. A few windows sat patched up with plywood. The people wandering the streets were noticeably downtrodden. The differences were painfully obvious.
But what seemed to have Candace’s attention was the figure standing on the bridge over the waterway. It was Rebecca, in her gray suit and skirt, digging through a bag she carried on her shoulder with an emaciated teenager standing in front of her, an anxious look on his face as he waited for whatever was in her bag.
Zaid and Candace watched as Rebecca pulled a small bundle out of her bag and handed it to the teenager. The look of gratitude on his face was easy to read even from where they stood. He pulled something out of the bundle that looked like either cake or bread and started eating.
Zaid looked at Candace. “Is she…?”
“Feeding people?” Candace finished for him.
“She is, isn’t she?” Zaid said as the realization hit him. He wanted to be upset with her for being so stubborn and running off the way she had, but he couldn’t help but admire her. As furious as he was at her for sneaking off and making him worry, he was impressed by her boldness and her kindness. He sighed as his feelings about Rebecca, the feelings that already weighed on him heavily, became even more complicated.
“Is that the place she wanted to visit?” Candace asked Zaid.
“Yes, that’s it,” Zaid said with contempt. He hadn’t wanted Candace or any members of the tour to see Rajak or Timina. The run-down, poverty-stricken areas of town could easily deter any investors.
“I knew this place existed, but I didn’t anticipate that it would look so different from the rest of Sharjah. It’s so… poor,” Candace commented.
“Yes, it is,” Zaid agreed. “It’s one of the areas we’re still working to bring out of poverty,” he said absently, watching as nearby two men eyed her shoulder bag. “Listen,” he said, motioning to one of the guards, “you need to get back to the Waterfront Palace. My guard will escort you.” He wanted to get her out of there before anything bad happened. With too few guards with him, things could escalate quickly and he didn’t want to be divided on who he was protecting.
“But...” Candace started to argue.
“But nothing. You can see for yourself that she’s safe. There’s nothing else here for you and your presence makes us less safe. Now, go!”
As Candace turned to leave and head back to the restaurant with the guard following, Zaid told the remaining guard to call for the car before he headed towards the bridge where Rebecca stood. The two men who had been watching her had begun to close in. Zaid could see they were still eyeing her bag, no doubt planning to snatch it from her. It was only a matter of time before they struck.
Though he had insisted that she not go to Rajak, if anything happened to her it would inevitably fall back on him. The safety of everyone involved with the tour was his responsibility. But that was not the only reason. He couldn’t let anything happen to her.
He hit the bridge just as one of the two men shoved her hard sending her tumbling to the ground and the other reached for her bag, yanking it from her shoulder. In a few quick strides, he had overtaken the first man as he started to run after the man with her bag. Zaid, having a considerable size advantage, could have at least grabbed one of the men and detained him, but when he heard Rebecca cry out, he was far more worried about her.
After the men ran off, tossing items from Rebecca’s
bag as they ran, he motioned to the guard who had run up behind him, to pick up the few personal items that had spilled onto the bridge. As Zaid marched over to her, his adrenaline surge suddenly drained away, leaving nothing but anger behind.
Rebecca was sitting hunched on the ground, her arms wrapped around her knees.
“I told you we weren’t going to Rajak for a reason. Are you happy now?” he admonished as he approached. “I should send you back to the States for endangering members of your party with your reckless behavior.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, looking down at her feet. She wouldn’t look up at him as he approached her.
“You could have been hurt. Or worse, Rebecca. And now Candace has seen this place, your whole party is going to know about the crime and poverty just around the corner,” he continued.
“Of course,” she said. “I don’t know what I was thinking.” She answered him in a monotone, which only seemed to fuel his ire.
“You weren’t thinking. That’s the problem. You were over here trying to play humanitarian instead of thinking about what you were doing or where you were. You are not in America, Rebecca. You don’t have the same protections here as you would at home. If I hadn’t figured out where you were headed…” His voice wavered, as he tried to control his rising panic at losing her when she’d only just come back into his life. “I don’t even want to think about what could have happened to you.” He wanted to scare her. He wanted her to be as afraid as he had been when he saw what was about to happen to her, what could have happened if he hadn’t stepped in when he did. She needed to be afraid.
“What do we do now?” she asked meekly.
“A car is on the way to take us back to the palace. Everyone else will return to the hotel for the evening. The tour is over for the day thanks to you,” he answered, his voice hard. Except then he saw she was trembling. His anger softened in the face of her vulnerability. This was Rebecca he was looking at, the little firecracker that wasn’t afraid of anything. Yet, here she was, visibly shaken by what had just occurred.
He put a hand on her shoulder, a feeble gesture for sure, but it was better than doing nothing.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” he said more calmly. “I just…dammit Rebecca, you could have been hurt. Please, don’t do that again.”
She finally looked up at him, and he saw tears welling up in her blue eyes, threatening to spill over. He wanted to take her in his arms and embrace her, to hold and comfort her, but not here. Not now. She was visiting him on official business. It would have been improper for either one of them to be caught displaying any affection toward each other.
Holding his hand out, he helped her stand as they walked toward the black Mercedes that had just pulled up. A member of the security team stepped out of the front passenger side. “Is everything okay?” he asked as he approached Zaid and Rebecca.