Well, here is my first story on this site. I am not happy with it but I decided to just stop fiddling with it.

Erin, If you want to suggest someone to edit it, you would have my gratitude.

Chapter 1

Desert Princess 1
By
Gwen Brown

Beautiful young Khadija stood perfectly still behind the grilled screen on the balcony in the early morning Sun. The Sun filtered through her ash blonde hair, and filmy clothing, making her silhouette appear angelic. She could hear the melodic songs of birds outside as they chirped enchantingly in the lush green garden below. The garden its self was a contradiction when compared with the scene out side the walls of the Palace.

Over the wall, she could see no living thing as far as the eye could see in any direction. She did not move lest they become startled, stop singing, and fly away. The garden and birds were one of the few pleasures she was allowed to enjoy.
Not permitted to move outside the palace harem alone, she considered the birds’ one of her few actual pleasures.She let her mind wander as she stood watching the avarian comics below.

When she did go out, an escort was always with her and her wrists and ankles were confined by chains under her Burqua. It was never just her and her escort. There were always other women too.

She could now remember it all before she came to the middle of the desert. A little at a time, her memory had returned until she could recall everything. Her old life was nothing like this new one. The youthful appearing woman had not told anyone of the revisitation of her memory because she believed they would take her life.

Khadija believed herself to be a captive in the harem just to satisfy the lusts of some mad Arab, Prince Abdul Azis, who got his rocks off on perversion. Of course, she had never seen it but the way the other women were dressed and the way he looked, to her way of thinking, what else could be true?

While the idea of such a twisting of normalicy repulsed her, unfamiliar forces attracted her to him. She smirked secretly to herself as she visualized him; he was cute. She silently berated herself for even thinking that she could be attracted to a man. That would make her gay!

Thoughts of scandalization coursed through her mind as she thought about her attraction to him, causing her face to redden slightly. Even while she thought about how humiliated she was, her body was producing a thin film of lubrication at the opening to her new vagina. She wondered how her body could so shockingly betray her. As she had already done a hundred times in the past, she wondered what she had become.

All these feelings were so strange to her they threatened to rule her mind. Indeed, new thoughts were doing so but Khadija was so far in denial that she thought that she could lie to herself.

It was all so frightening and yet her life was an adventure that if she would just relax a little, she would be forced to admit she found rather agreeable.

It had taken her some months but her memory had returned in spite of the fact that she felt that her keepers thought there was no chance of that at all. Khadija knew that she must appear to remain the happy, carefree, and the somewhat dimwitted blonde that they made her become. Her captors had used some form of drugging or conditioning; she did not know exactly what they had done to her.

She did not know that her original captors used a demoniacal method of conditioning that rewarded incorrect answers with punishment among other things. The pleasures of a correct answer made her feel like a slut but she knew that resistance was not in her any more.

With deepening fright, she worried that her very life depended upon the success of her continued deception. The Prince and other wives must not know that she had recovered.
Khadija often had nightmares about them finding out about her trickery. So far no one had given any indication that they knew anything about her improved condition.

His; John Savage's troubles had started out, fairly innocently, months ago; or was it years? She couldn’t remember. In fact, she had not been a woman at all but a young male and a recent, college graduate named John Savage. His college major had been in business but his hobby had been computer hacking since he was big enough to reach the keyboard.

Sometimes people asked him why he had not majored in computer instead of business. He did not have a good answer for the question. He had begun to realize that he was far more talented with code than crafty business deals. His lack of the “killer instinct” to close deals eventually relegated him to a back water job sorting leads. He was very good at it and had written data bases to qualify and sort them much more efficiently than even the IT department.

John was always careful about what systems he broke into. He had a lot of fun breaking into his friend’s computers and leaving funny messages. He’d even gotten into the college computer system but to his knowledge no one ever caught him. He was always careful to leave things in the college system the way he found them since his morals prevented any other tampering.

He did do things like make his worst enemy 3’ tall in the record. Once, he published the phone number of an X girlfriend in the school paper, but she liked it. His worst offense in College was when he installed some code that made the Professor’s computers talk to them when they were inputting grades. That little modification, he left easy to locate and in a week or so, it had been taken out of the college system. He graduated with honors and a MS in Business a few weeks later and he thought the fun would be over.

After college he felt really fortunate to get a great entry level job in a company that was listed on the New York Stock Exchange. At first he did his work diligently, but after a year or so of pure boredom with the no brainer assignments they’d given him, his interest began to lapse. He was unwilling to accept that he had to pay his dues before any good work came along.

In his leisure time, which grew as time went on; he began to hack more and more. But, he had no idea that the computer system at the corporation was set up to be particularly sensitive to any prying or semblance there of. He had defeated all sorts of security protocols but this one was way out of his league, much to his later surprise.

Looking back John realized that he should have suspected something when he had gotten in so easily. The security was not set up to prevent break-ins but to quickly establish the identity of the intruder. Outside intruders were problematic since there was not a good way to establish anything but the location of the computer. The fools who broke in from inside the building had no idea about the tiny cameras in their monitors.

They must have caught him the first time that he cracked the door into the secret files. The ones that he was not supposed to know about. One boring afternoon, becoming braver, he uncovered a whole network of fraud and activities treasonous to America within the company and outside it. The amount of money involved was in the trillions and included theft, white slavery and terrorism.

John was not sure what to do with what he knew. He figured something would come to him with a little beer and Pizza to stimulate his mind.

It was the end of the day by the time he thought he had covered his tracks well enough to leave. He intended to pick up some videos, beer and pizza before he went home, it was Friday and he was looking forward to taking it easy. He wished that he had a girl friend to talk to about it but being painfully shy, he had not even had his first date until his junior year, in college and nothing really exciting came of that.

John was one of those short, slightly chubby men with a baby face. He shaved about once a week just to keep his own mind at ease. Even in childhood, his Step father and older siblings had called him sissy; the boys because of meanness but his sister did it out of affection for him. He didn’t mind it from his sister Gloria, but his brothers, Aven and Logan seemed to just hate him.

Even his step dad called him that and he later found out that he had told his brothers that he was going to “beat the woman out of him”. His mom felt deeply hurt for John and to all the others he seemed to be her favorite. Just as he graduated, his mom and step dad were killed in a plane crash while flying out to attend his college graduation. He went through the motions but after the ceremony, he spent almost two weeks in his apartment trying to sort his life out, before taking his present job.

When he got into his car John remembered smelling something pungent and that was the last thing he remembered until wakening as Khadija. Oh, there had been lots of horrible nightmares and wakening for short periods, screaming in terror but, as soon as they could, the nurses put him under again. As his memory returned, John was horribly traumatized to find that they had apparently transplanted a whole scalp onto his head. That along with several other surgical procedures and conditioning and John Savage was gone forever.
Her new locks were about butt length. At first she had no idea how to care for her gorgeous hair, but the other women of the harem quickly took care of that. The only problem is that once in a while her scalp would tingle, itch or burn until it almost drove her crazy. A little Vicoden did a barely passable job of easing the sensations.

She also realized that extensive changes to her facial structure and body had taken place. Her lips felt like a pair of inner tubes pinned to her face and her jaw felt as if it squeaked at times. They’d eased her forehead back since moving her eyes out was impractical. In the end, after she healed, she looked like a teenager and completely unrecognizable as John.

She also found that the surgeons had done a total female organ transplant, complete with cervix and ovaries. She even had her menses and Khadija was completely unprepared to deal with that. The medical procedure had been possible for years but no one ever did one because it seemed pointless. The Doctor seemed to have done some things just because he could.

He must have done something with her feet because she had a definite preference for at least three inch heels. She also suspected he’d done something to her knees because they were really wobbly. Running like she used to was now totally out of the question and now she ran like a woman who had never done anything but primp at the mirror.

At one point she thought that the pills she was taking were hormones but she soon realized that some must be to prevent her body from rejecting the implants. Even her breasts were authentic looking. They had transplanted female breast tissue into her breasts complete with the nipple structure she felt scandalized by them but later she realized they were to conceal the minor scaring around her areola. Someone had also ringed her nipples, pierced her ears several times and ringed her labia. As she thought about it, she fumed that the Doctor must have been a card carrying pervert.

John had never wakened again after that failed trip to get beer and pizza. Once the gangsters had him unconscious, they were going to kill him, but instead found a very eccentric surgeon who paid handsomely for him. Doctor Evil had John for almost a year before the Prince Abdul Azis and his people rescued him. They could have rescued John much sooner but the Prince had been given intelligence that his lab was heavily mined, so the Prince's men had to spend much more time on intelligence before a rescue effort could be mounted.

No one realized that Doctor Evil was turning him into a woman. The Prince Abdul Azis was so angry when his men informed him, that he let them completely destroy the clinic complex that Evil owned. The Doctor had already programmed her to believe her name was Khadija, and even conditioned her to be sensitive to the cultural customs for a woman in conservative middle eastern society.

Khadija came to Prince Abdul Azis’s palace while she was still incoherent from the conditioning Evil had been doing to her. Her recovery was slow and took weeks but eventually she was up and about. Khadija rediscovered her appetite; some of the Middle Eastern food was a real treat to her.

When the other women saw her nipple rings, everyone giggled and had to touch them, until Khadija put her foot down. Well, actually she just started bawling. Once they began to accept her as a person and woman and not some mindless toy, they really rallied around her and helped her regain her health.

There was poorly contained anger when they found the piercing below. It took bolt cutters to remove the ones through her labia. Everyone was so impressed with her other piercings that Khadija decided to leave them in. Nipple rings can be quite painful for a long time, but she decided to wait to see if the pain subsided.

Khadija discovered that she loved to play tricks on people and her sexual drives were mischevious and somewhat kinky.

The young woman had not known then that after her kidnapping, she had been interrogated to find how much she knew and then handed over to the lawless Doctor “E” who did lots of plastic surgery on those sought by the law to allow them to be on the streets.

So, Khadija was just another experiment to him. No, she would be the pinnacle of his work. He had completed all his modifications and she was in recovery when her rescuers arrived. He was extremely angry but in the face of real danger a complete coward. He disappeared through a door as they were wheeling the girl out, but the commandos felt sure that the explosion afterward had killed him.

It was Prince Abdul Azis’s intent not to bring anything about her past up until she was ready to ask questions. He had no idea that the past would frighten her so much.

The other women in the harem were stirring. She knew that breakfast would be cooked very soon, and it was not her day to help so she was in no hurry to get into the Kitchen. The young woman found that she liked to cook but so did the other women, so some of them got quite indignant if she went in there to work on her off days.

Today, she was supposed to be in the tubs soaking and caring for her nails, hair and complexion. One of the women, Enit seemed to be sort of the head wife and she actually got quite indignant, slapping the other members of the Harem if they did not take care of themselves or gained too much weight. Khadija wanted no part of that. So, after she tore herself away from the birds in the garden, she sauntered into the tub area to do her duty.

Khadija’s name was given to her by Prince Abdul, since he considered John to be inappropriate. She was now very compliant and took the name without complaint. The other women readily adopted it since it was the name of The Prophet Mohammad’s PBUH (peace be onto him) first wife, and very honorable. When they were told of Khadija’s story, they all seemed to draw her to their breasts in love and compassion.

Khadija had actually made some good friends and she was looking forward to her time with them. She wondered what they would be doing today. Mondays were usually shopping days. Khadija, much to her amazement had enjoyed shopping from the beginning. She enjoyed haggling with merchants and soon the other women saw Khadija as one of them. One of the merchants had even escorted her to the door and said to the male escort, “Here sir, I give you back your Bedouin Woman”. She did not know if that was a complement or not but she knew that she had gotten what she wanted at almost the price she wanted it for. Neither man had shown even a glimmer of a smile. The other women laughed hysterically when they heard what the merchant said.

Arabic was really hard for young Khadija but she was making progress. Still many of the Merchants knew English well enough.

As her memory returned, Khadija was surprised to have adapted so well to the huge change in her life. In spite of all that had happened to her, she really enjoyed her new existence. Her old life was gone but it meant a lot to her to be among friends who really seemed to care for her. Now that memory of her old life had returned, she realized that she had never had real friends before and the change felt wonderful.
The Prince and his house hold were devout Muslims and Khadija had decided to just go along with the practices to keep the peace. As she entered into the lounging area, the other women were filing into the women’s prayer area. They all lined up foot to foot and shoulder to shoulder. It began with Allahu Akbar…………. The prayers were somehow reassuring, though her belief in Allah extended only to the idea that someone had created everything.

Breakfast arrived and she sat down on a huge pile of pillows with her best friend Huda. She had been educated in the states as a Chemist but when she got home from the US, her father gave her to the royal Prince Azis. At first Huda said she was outraged, disappointed and depressed for quite awhile and realized that her role had been set for her since she was born.

Oh, she said she had heard things but never actually believed her father would do it. She said that she had given the Prince Abdul Azis a child last year and having the baby helped her so much that she came to accept her life quite well.

Prince Azis only had four wives so Huda got to see quite a lot of him. Huda knew that she could not be his favorite and sharing him with the rest the wives satisfied her well enough. Her child was a year old now and she and the baby went with the other women regularly on shopping trips.

Prince Abdul also allowed Huda and the other wives quite a lot of freedom to practice their interests, having built her a lab in the palace and allowing her contact with outsiders on the internet. Still the country being Islamic had many strict rules for what women were allowed to do.

Huda told Khadija that it grated on her but the Prince saw to it that she had as much freedom as she could safely enjoy. Abdul had seen to it that one of his cousins was available to accompany her when she went out on business.

One thing that seemed odd to Khadija was that some of the women seemed to be much more watchful and alert than her; never seeming to relax. There were other women in the Harem besides the Wives and Khadija had no idea that she knew little of the reality of her situation.

Prince Azis and his father had been clashing with the evil people who had infiltrated the corporation for a long time. Though it did not show to the casual observer, the palace was more of a fort than a summer home.

Khadija had no idea what so ever that Prince Azis’s father was the owner of the conglomerate where she had worked as a man.

After breakfast the women all got dressed in their Burquas. Khadija allowed her good friend Huda to put the chains on her ankles and wrists as part of an agreement that Huda had come to with the palace guards. The ankle chain was held up with a sash around her waist so it would not prevent her from walking in a suitably feminine manner. Khadija had thrown many tantrums about the issue, one getting her a humiliating spanking at the hands of Enid. She could not understand why she was the only one so confined. Khadija was careful to complain a lot in each time she was chained now, but she rebelliously did not want them to think they had won.

Huda was careful to let Khadija know that she did not wish to chain her. Slowly, over time Khadija began to act as if she had begun to accept the restraining chains. Khadija had no idea that the chains were for her protection and not confinement. If she could not wander off, she was easier to guard. The young woman had no idea that she was the object of an intense search by many evil men.

The women usually started shopping for clothing first and they got some great bargains. Their harem garments were always soft filmy and sexy attire that pleased Abdul. Outside the palace they all had to be covered in the Islamic tradition.

And when she noticed lots of women dressed in western attire in public, she complained bitterly. Huda told her that it was Prince Abdul’s desire for his wives to not look like western sluts. In the outdoors, the garments often became stifling but in most of the shopping centers there was air conditioning. Just before the women returned to the palace they would purchase their perishable groceries so they had less chance of spoiling due to the heat.

The days became months and months stretched first into a year and in the end two. By now the restrains were no longer used. Khadija had become very close to the other women and even Prince Abdul Azis. She knew not to wander off and stayed close to the other women since she had seen a woman kidnapped in the open market.

She had remembered all her college and computer expertise, and she and Huda spent a lot of time web surfing. When Khadija was alone, she continued subtly probing into the heinous activities she had discovered in New York. She was sure that Huda and the Prince Abdul Azis probably already knew. She never discussed it with either and felt that she must deny any accusations. Khadija had no idea how the Prince Azis would respond but she feared that he would kill or badly hurt her. She still had no idea that she was in the hands of the “good guys”.

The Prince had never made love to her and the young woman suspected that it was because they both knew that she was no real woman. Still the long hours of conversation and the internet research projects that he gave her really made up for a lot. On her sad days, Huda and the other women generously saw to her sadness and, gave her lots of affection. Khadija, in spite of the knowledge about herself knew that her thinking had changed profoundly since her abduction. She even found herself fantasizing about having her own baby; not suspecting that she really could.

One day Huda seemed disturbed and then Khadija was called to the Prince’s Chambers. He carefully began to ask her questions about her past. Khadija was at first terrified and shaking. She just knew that she would be murdered. She could not understand how it was that the Prince was so calm when she was so obviously terrified.

Khadija’s heart felt as if it had stopped when he said that his father was the president of Centurion Corporation, her old company, At this point Khadija fell to her knees and then face down in front of the Prince. While she and Huda were not subservient like some of the women, Khadija knew how to plead for her life. She was bawling as she begged him for mercy. “Oh please your highness, do not murder me. I have been silent and I will remain so for all of my life.” She said. She then began to weep piteously, thinking her life was forfeit.

Much to her astonishment, Prince Azis began to laugh. Khadija did not resist when he picked her up under her arms and laid her across his shoulder.
“My dear Khadija, you are in no danger at all from me. I am your Prince Abdul Azis, and guardian and I have more regard for you than you can imagine.” He said lovingly to her. He told Khadija how the last two years had been an elaborate masquerade to protect her. The president knew that you were smart to have discovered the evil in his business.

And, he knew that he needed to protect you for the future trial of the men, who were quite ruthless. Those who had done all this perversion in his Father’s company would pay eventually.

The Prince's father had not been able to spirit John away before the criminals had taken her. Still, he used his private funds to locate her and then asked his son to go in and extract her.

His Father had not been able to use any of the police agencies in either country, because he suspected that key members in those agencies were compromised and involved much more than anyone suspected. This whole matter was much more serious than Khadija could even begin to suspect.

Secretly, the Father and his son, Prince Azis, had finally found some non corrupt men in the American Defense Department and a few true followers of Allah SWT in his own country.

Prince Abdul continued to explain that high ranking men in both American parties and key men in his own country were involved in enough illicit activities that the Prince and his father felt that none of them could be trusted. And, who knows who else would be revealed when the whole money making scheme began to fall apart.

No one suspected that it was much more than money; rather being about world domination and unspeakable evil. Few men in the world knew of a secret international association whose members were so evil and satanic that it boggled the mind.

Huda, having been stationed by the door began to speak and told her that she was not really the one of the Prince Azis’s wives but that she was an employee of the President of Centurion. He’d secretly recruited her and several other people as his doubly private security force. Not even the security people of the corporation knew about her or the others.

Then Huda tenderly told Khadija, “I have grown to love you Khadija for your gentle, kind and spunky personality. To me you are no longer a project but a dear friend and I hope that you are still mine”.

At this Khadija was weeping openly and ran to Huda, hugging her as if she were the best thing in her life. Before they were finished the Prince Abdul Azis called Khadija back to his side; she did not see Huda depart.

By now, he was reclining on his couch. When she got to his side, he pointed to the floor beside him. Still not having digested it all, Khadija quickly knelt at his side. He looked at her red eyes and finally just pulled her to him and draped the terrified and unresisting Khadija upon his shoulder.

She had stopped weeping by now and was simply shaking like a leaf. Khadija had no questions at all because she was just so thankful that he was not going to murder her. Her relief was short lived because he went on to tell her that only his best and most loyal guards were allowed in this part of the palace. Prince Azis suspected that key people on his own staff would betray the secret if it became known to them. “So, just keep being who you have been, you are in great danger if you reveal your true past.” He said.

The young woman began to get control of her emotions and just softly hugged the Prince Azis. She felt drained and would have dozed had he not continued to talk about the plot. Besides, she rather liked to be held in his arms. Had she begun to love him?

Much later, Khadija wakened and realized that she had fallen asleep on his shoulder. The Prince Abdul Azis was dozing also but as she stirred, wakened also.
Khadija gasped in surprise when he told her that one of these trusted guards had almost been murdered just outside the door of the harem door last week. The guard had been seriously wounded but the intruder was now dead. Abdul said that their efforts to protect her had almost failed. That is why he felt he needed to tell her.

“Khadija my dear, I needed you to be aware and perhaps to help in your own protection. Have you ever handled a gun?” he said.

She replied that she had done some duck hunting with his brother and father when he was in high school. Khadija told Abdul, who she thought of as her master, that she did not know if she could shoot anyone now.

He told Khadija that he knew that her mind had been pacified, but that he was hoping that her friend Huda could help her overcome that. He then told the frightened woman that Huda had been her personal guard every since Khadija had come to the harem. Only three of the rest of the women there were actually his wives.

Khadija would learn later that Aisha was his true love and of the other two, one was her cousin, whose husband had died in an oil drilling accident. The other was the widow of one of his drivers. He had taken both of them in out of charity for them.

Khadija told him that she felt really guilty that Huda had endangered her own baby protecting her. He quickly informed her that the baby actually belonged to one of the other wives in the harem. As Khadija thought about it she realized that the way the children were passed around there, the deception would have been fairly easy. Khadija resolved to have a sincere conversation with Huda.

Khadija quickly was on her knees and front of the Prince Abdul Azis thanking him and his family for all their care. She did not feel like a slave any longer but was nearly overcome by gratitude. Americans might have seen this as demeaning but Khadija’s gratefulness and previous conditioning completely overwhelmed her sense of pride. The Prince encouraged her to come back and lay down by him and she was so exhausted emotionally that she was quickly sleeping.

When he was sure that Khadija was sleeping deeply, he rose and went to talk to the rest of his family and the other women.

In the morning, Khadija wakened in his huge luxurious bed beside him, sandwiched between his other wives. As her eyes opened she could see him gazing upon her. The look he was giving her thrilled Khadija and for a few moments she thought that there could be a future for them. Then, with sudden pain in her heart, Khadija realized that she could never be as a woman to this man.

“Khadija, darling what is bothering you? You wakened with such a heavenly smile and then it disappeared.” He said. “Oh my lord, I can never be your wife because I am not really a woman. I believe I think like one and sometimes my emotions rule me. I care for you wholly. I never want to leave your side but it can never be as I wish".

Prince Abdul did not miss the single tear that ran down her soft cheek. “A hope I have is to at least live by your side". She said.

The Prince allowed her to lay there with her thoughts but inside his head he was working something out. This woman did nothing wrong and many things right. He’d watched her for over two years now and she had never revealed any maleness at all. Something would need to be done to reassure her.

Later that day after breakfast and a conference with the family and some of his key guards, Huda took Khadija to a part of the palace that she had never visited. It was a Gym for hardcore exercise and combat. In another room was a pistol and small arms range. Khadija knew full well that she was out of shape and not strong.

She also knew that she did not have the coordination of an athlete; as a matter of fact, she never had that in the first place. In the coming weeks as much as could be changed about that would be. Huda would work Khadija so hard that she lay in bed at night exhausted and in pain.

Khadija had almost two months before another incident happened. They were at the market shopping and were almost ready to pick up the perishables when a car full of men sped around the corner and began shooting. Only Khadija dropped to the ground while the other women began shooting after they flipped their Burquas up. The incident was quickly over because the men had obviously not expected Burqua clad women to defend them selves.
The two male escorts were even more lethal with weapons and one of them used an M-203 grenade launcher and managed to turn the car into a funeral pyre for the assailants.

Khadija felt humiliated when she saw what the other women had done. Huda was quick to comfort her and Khadija felt so ashamed at her cowardice that she vowed to herself that it would be far different next time. Khadija remembered that as a boy she had been rather expert with a shotgun.
As she got to her feet, Khadija realized that two of the other women, one a royal wife, had been wounded, one in the shoulder and the other in the abdomen. Their attackers all lay dead in their burning car.

They all bundled into the Limousines and rushed back to the Palace. The wound on one of the women was just a flesh wound on the hip and the other was a clean hole through her shoulder. Both would recover.

Khadija could now hear shooting in the streets fairly regularly. This made her feel uneasy because she strongly suspected that the shooting was related to her. The palace and the areas surrounding it had been quite tranquil in that nearly three years that Khadija had been living in the palace.

One morning when she and the other women were just awakening, she could hear running and shouting in the halls. It took only moments for her and Huda to arm them selves and shortly the other women had stationed themselves at the windows. Three of the women had the babies in a more secure room.

The Prince Abdul Azis had made it a rule, long before Khadija had arrived that the door would always be barred in the event of something happening. Things seem to quiet down in the streets around the palace for a while and then there was a quiet knocking on the door of the harem. It was the Prince and several of his guards. They all stepped quietly through the door and secured it again. With the presence of other males in the room, the women quickly donned Hijabs.

The only sound they could hear was the mid day call to prayer echoing through the streets. The women were all sitting around after prayer, some talking quietly while others watched the street. Several of the women trained their guns on the door while one of them opened the door a small crack. It was a messenger and after talking to the prince, he left. The Prince quickly gave instructions to pack lightly but to bring the children and their things. He said that there were rumors that the Russian mafia had smuggled a nuclear weapon into the port, about twenty miles away, and then the police had lost track of it.

Two buses were waiting at the front entrance to the palace but instead of getting on them, they all clambered into the middle truck of a several military truck convoy. They were armed with heavy weapons on the cab and at the rear. Huda handed Khadija a semi automatic grenade launcher, but she declined it in favor of the shot gun she had hidden beneath her Burqua.

Huda quickly informed Khadija that she was not supposed to allow any one to get that close. Huda glared at Khadija for a moment and then laid the weapon at Khadija’s side. Khadija was close enough to Huda to know what the glare meant. Without further conflict, Khadija stashed the shotgun in her sash and picked up the grenade gun. It was quite heavy but carried 15 rounds in one clip. She had fired the weapon quite a lot but still liked the shot gun better.

Khadija looked in Huda’s direction and could see that she was scanning the streets as they drove. In a moment of inexplicable emotion, Khadija quickly made a face and put her tongue out at Huda. Much to her astonishment Huda turned in her direction and in a mock sign of anger waved her finger at Khadija. Both women and those who had been watching the exchange broke into a fit of giggling. One of the male guards, a devout Muslim, looked at them and muttered something. That initiated another round of giggles until they could see that the guard was really getting nervous for them. The women resumed their tense, quiet vigil, stifling any further mirth.

As Khadija had embraced Islam more, she understood why the guards would answer questions, but never did small talk.

She quickly learned to always wear her Hijab when strangers or men not of the Prince Abdul Azis’s family were present. She felt like they sometimes treated the women as subordinates, though Huda and another woman brooked no nonsense from them. The men took every precaution to make sure that Khadija did exactly what she was told but she sensed more regard for her safety than their being overbearing.

As the convoy rumbled down a short street and out into the desert, Khadija could see the buses driving along the freeway and heading away from the palace. They could see explosions in the area of the Palace and then some cars seemed to be chasing the busses while firing weapons at them. If the buses were hit, they could see no sign of it. The buses had crossed a bridge and were on the other side of the muddy, shallow river. The fighting was quite furious, when suddenly both vehicles pursuing the busses exploded after a huge puff of smoke from the back of one of the vehicles.

After this short pitched battle, both the buses and the trucks continued along on the opposite sides of the river but within sight of each other. As they drew away from civilization, the trucks turned toward the river and forded it. Soon the trucks were nestled between the buses, while they continued down the road toward the Airport, according to Huda.

If anything else happened while they were traveling the women did not know about it. Once, several lethal looking fighter jets flew over at low level and out of sight. They had no way to see or hear the US Navy P-2 overhead in the distance. Khadija thought she had seen US markings on the Jets but being unfamiliar with military aircraft, was not sure.

They had no way to know that only certain military forces were involved and that the governments of both the US and the Prince Abdul Azis’s country were certainly in the dark about the events. The only one in the US to know about it was a rather precocious Navy rear admiral. He reported directly to the only civilian to know and he was retired Navy.

Khadija had no idea at all how far they had traveled on the dusty desert track. They had long ago bypassed the airport and since Khadija did not even know where she was she was completely clueless about the destination.

Some time in the middle of the night, Khadija and many of the other women were wakened by a huge blinding flash and later a distant rumble. Some of the Women began to wail in grief as the convoy rumbled along as fast as the vehicles would go.

A few minutes later, they were informed that the palace was gone. Huda said that she thought the loyal people had probably gotten out. If that were so, Khadija wondered why Huda looked so sad.

Twice, the jets swept over them, very low and there were explosions in the distance behind the little train of vehicles. The caravan traveled for most of the night, when it suddenly stopped. Huda and Khadija had been leaning against each other dozing but wakened by the sudden change in the noise level.

Some soldiers helped the women get out of the back of the trucks. They had stopped on a bluff overlooking water but Khadija had no idea if the water was a sea or a lake. The sky was just a becoming brighter in the false Dawn.

In the quiet Khadija could hear a distant motor, and soon she could tell this sound was that of the boat. She still had her shotgun under her outer clothing with the heavy grenade gun in her arms. As she looked around, she could see that everyone else including the women had gotten rid of their tribal clothing. The women were wearing pants and shirts. “Huda, why didn’t you tell me I could wear western clothing?” Khadija said.
Huda said that she did not know that she had not known. The smirk on Huda’s face made it obvious that she was lying.

“Oh, great so here I get to run around in a tent or half naked”, Khadija fumed.
“Oh but you look so charming in that little tent”, Huda murmured quietly to her and seeming entirely unrepentant. It seemed as if Khadija was more closely guarded than Prince Abdul. Khadija felt extremely petulant but knew that she could do nothing to change her situation. With a soft giggle, Khadija accepted that she was cared for.

That is easy for you to say the young woman stormed. But she also knew that she was not getting anywhere with Huda. She decided that they wanted her covered for some reason.

Khadija quickly got over it because a boat with a big square bow hand landed and the front of it was folding out. The Marines who stormed out quickly surrounded them but their guns were pointed toward the desert not toward them. Suddenly an explosion demolished the lead bus and everyone fell to the ground. Khadija could hear small arms fire and more explosions just as it was getting light. She could see something moving in the rocks a long way off and told Huda, who quickly told her guards and the American Soldiers.

They quickly began to fire on the distant shapes and the attackers dropped out of sight. By now Khadija was getting angry and no longer paralyzingly afraid. They kept asking where Khadija had seen the movement and she kept trying to explain.

Incoming small arms fire and then mortar rounds began to impact all around them frightening all the children. They began to wail and scream piteously and this was really making Khadija enraged.

Finally she yelled to Huda, “Here is where they are”, and began firing her grenade launcher a round at a time. The first rounds were too short but it still gave the soldiers an idea as Khadija continued to walk her grenades right up to the spot. Suddenly, Khadija heard the ear splitting thrumming of the 50 caliber Machine guns open up. Much to her surprise, the area she had been lightly seeding with grenades began to bounce like sand in a sifter. She had not seen two soldiers take off toward the activity but at an angle away from the site. As the dust began to settle two Jets made a truly deafening pass over the convoy and suddenly that area ahead of them erupted in a huge explosion and flames so hot that Khadija could feel the heat from them. Several evil looking helicopters swooped in firing their guns with a sickening buzzing sound that made the ground in front of them erupt in dust and flying rocks.

In the midst of all this, the American Marines began herding the refugees into the landing craft. Khadija and Huda refused to move until it was clear that the others were on their way to safety. Khadija had continued to fire the grenade launcher until it was empty and then kept pulling the trigger even though nothing was happening. She had a haunted look in her eyes and Huda could not get her attention.

Finally, one of the marines reached out and pulled the launcher from her hands, only to turn and find him self looking down the barrel of the shot gun. The Marine just stood still while Huda kept calling to her. Finally, Khadija’s eyes seemed to clear and Huda gently grasped the shot gun while whispering in Khadija’s ear that it was OK now.

Khadija suddenly just dropped the shotgun into the dirt barrel down. It was a wonder it did not go off. She turned to Huda and in deep gasping sobs began to say, “Sorry, sorry, sorry” over again and again. The marine that she’d been pointing the shotgun at; picked Khadija up in his huge strong arms and Khadija simply collapsed against the hard muscles of this broad shoulder. His sweaty scent smelled comforting to her.

Even as the boat was carrying them down the river and out to sea, there was still firing. The helicopters continued to flank them all the way back to the ship, a huge flat topped ship that she would later find out was a Helicopter carrier. Even the sound of deck operations could not keep Khadija awake when one of the ship’s medics injected her with a powerful sedative.

Khadija dreamed about swimming to the surface of water from deep below and then slowly realized that she was awake. The stark surroundings of a ship’s hospital was no place to waken a frightened woman and she screamed at first, then calmed herself.

That of course brought everyone running but they were behind Huda who rushed up and knelt down to hug her and comfort her. Khadija was going to start wearing western clothing like the other women but found she felt too insecure to do that. Even the other women, who were wearing pants and shirts, still wore at least a Hijab. They seemed uneasy around that many men too.
When Huda saw that Khadija was going to rise, she quietly asked Khadija to keep her face veiled but said she did not need to Burqua. She felt much better behind the veil, knowing that it was concealing her identity. Some of the other women also wore the Niqab.
The women began to adapt to the cramped life aboard the ship. A company of the Marines were moved out of their quarters and put in a tent on the hangar deck. They did not complain and remained very protective of Prince Abdul Azis and his women.

One morning as she was walking on the flight deck, she noticed one of the marines watching her and something made her feel as if she knew him. Khadija walked up to him and shyly asked him if she knew him. She was careful to not engage his eyes according to custom. He told her that he was the Marine that had carried her off the beach. Then he jokingly told her that he wondered if she pointed a shot gun at every man she met.

The young woman was really shocked by his remark but as he grinned at her, she realized that she actually had done it.

Not yet realizing that the big Marine was flirting with her, he told her that he would have been glad to hug her even without the shot gun. By now Khadija was embarrassed, having never been exposed to such a well muscled and trim looking man who spoke so openly to her. Worst yet, her body was making her feel like a wanton tramp. The feelings were almost overpowering to Khadija, and she quickly retreated back to her quarters after mumbling thanks to him through lips that longed for a kiss and using a tongue that acted like she had never used it before. As she scurried below, she could hear the big marine laughing.