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Authors: Jim Ingraham

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BOOK: ARAB
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“I gave him your orders in your own words, Master.”

Faisal settled onto the narrow bed behind the hanging blanket, dragging the fragrance of a woman into his large nose. It was the other woman. She had been gone more than a week. The mattress still smelled of her, the stupid and disrespectful Salima, but young, with a resilient body. In the old days he would have kept Salima on this bed and thrown Afaf into the street.

Now he was a different man. Old, like Afaf, but not defeated. Maybe God brought him here to show him what happens to people who die before they are dead. His gaze wandered from the formless shape of Afaf at the porcelain sink to the opening in the wall across the room where crumbled stones had dropped into the bottom of the staircase that led down to the ancient tomb.

An image of Abdullah, his beloved son, slammed into his mind—the pale body in a white sheet with rope burns on the slender neck. Although it was eighteen years since the boy had been hanged, the memory was fresh and blistering with hate. They had said that revenge would end the hatred and give him peace. But how could he exact revenge on a high government official who was guarded every moment of his life?

He wrenched the image from his mind.

“Salima,” he said. “How long did she live here?”

“A few months, maybe seven or eight.”

“You needed companionship?”

“God is my companion. She needed a place to live.”

“What does she pay you?”

“She has no money.”

“Why take the risk? She’s a bitch. She’d cut your throat for a
bariza.

“Ten
piastres
is a lot of money to a woman like her, Master. You drove her out. Who can blame her for getting angry? All she has now is that pile of cardboard down the street. How will she face the cold nights of winter?”

“I’ll be gone by then. You should let her freeze. She’s not to be trusted, Afaf. I know the kind. They’re loyal only when you’re good to them. I’m surrounded by people like that.”

“I’ll bring her back when you leave.”

“Then you are a fool.” Faisal pushed the pillows aside so that he could stretch out. “Tell her if she betrays me, I’ll cut her throat.”

“I pray God did not hear that.”

*

 

He was snoring when the men came in. He was on his back with hands folded over his genitals when the tall bearded one in the army shirt entered the room, followed by one in a university T-shirt who stayed in the doorway, holding the curtain aside.

“What?” Faisal cried out, bewildered, head rising off the pillow. “What is this?”

The tall one had rattled the bed, awakening him and causing the German pistol Faisal had hidden under the mattress to fall to the floor. The bearded one picked it up, admired it, stuffed it into the satchel pocket of his army pants.

More angry than frightened, Faisal sat up.

“Who are you?”

They weren’t army or police. Israeli commandoes would have murdered him in his sleep. They were soldiers. Whose?

“You will come with us,” the bearded one said.

Questions thundered in his mind: Where is my bodyguard? Why were there no shots? How did you find me?

“Who are you? What do you want?”

“Get up,” the bearded one said, putting a hand on Faisal’s shoulder as though to lift him if he resisted.

“Who are you?”

“Come with us willingly or we’ll drag you.”

“Who sent you here?”

The man at the door, flashing disgust and impatience at the tall one, came over and grabbed Faisal by the shirt, lifting him to his feet. “We don’t have time to argue,” he said, a heavy odor of cigarettes on his breath. “Move!” He put his hand in the center of Faisal’s back and pushed him toward the curtained doorway.

“You know who I am?” Faisal yelled. “You treat me like this?”

“We don’t have time to coddle you.”

“I am to be respected, you son of a bitch! My shoes! Let me get my shoes!”

“Get his shoes,” the man said to Afaf.

She was cowering at the sink, hands trembling at her face. She scurried to the bed, dropped to her knees and fetched sandals from under the springs. She handed them to the bearded one, cringing from him.

“Diab!” Faisal shouted at her. “Diab!” hoping she would understand what he meant. He was scared now, not of the men; they obviously did not intend to kill him. He was scared because his heart was racing.

Did she hear me? Does she know what I want her to do?

“Don’t push me!” he yelled, pressing fingers into the incision scar over his sternum, deep breathing, frightened by the rapid heartbeats. “I’ll do what you say!”

A black French sedan was parked on the street outside the gate. As Faisal was pushed toward it, he saw his bodyguard slumped against the wall, his head nodding over his knees. There was blood on his face.


Kus amok
!” he screamed at the man. ‘Cunt of your mother!’ being the foulest curse he could think of. “You better be dead!”

He made a desperate kick toward the man as he was lifted off his feet and shoved into the back seat of the car. A woman sat near the window, her face veiled with a scarf. She moved to give him room. When his leg pressed her thigh she wedged her hand between them.

“Don’t touch me,” she said, jostling him away with her shoulder.

He could see only her eyes. They were dark with anger. She was loaded with cologne.

“Who are you?” Faisal demanded to know. He was a man of importance. He would not be demeaned by a woman.

The man in the university shirt got into the driver’s seat and started the engine. The tall one moved in beside Faisal, forcing him against the woman. Faisal could feel the warmth of her buttocks through the fabric of his trousers.

“I don’t want him touching me,” the woman said, squirming away.

“Who are you?” Faisal shouted, rejecting the insult, refusing to be ignored, refusing to be treated like a victim. “Where are you taking me?”

The tall one slammed the door shut as the car moved up the street.

“I demand to know who you are!” Faisal yelled.

The driver turned his head briefly and snapped, “Iskut!”

“I won’t shut up, you son of a bitch. Who do you think you are, talking to me like that?”

“Just shut up,” the bearded one said.

The car was air-conditioned. It had to belong to someone of importance. He had been betrayed. By whom? Not Afaf. Not Diab. How many knew he was in Egypt? Salima? Could that bitch have betrayed him, a homeless whore? Would she know these people? Would she know a person who owned a car like this?

*

 

Before they left the cemetery, the woman turned her face aside and took off her scarf. She handed it to the tall man who made Faisal lean forward while he blindfolded him. They don’t mean to kill me, Faisal assured himself, leaning back, taking deep breaths, pressing his hand to his chest, feeling the nervous thumps of his heart. As they moved through city streets, the car bucked, stopped, jumped ahead, obviously moving through noisy traffic. Twice Faisal felt the car go up onto a sidewalk. The driver rolled down his window, letting in warm air and street odors, yelling curses at other drivers, at donkeys, horses, crowds of pedestrians. Although Faisal had lived many years in Cairo. he had no idea where they were. They had turned east out of the cemetery, then north. That’s all he knew. When the car jolted to a stop or quickly moved forward, Faisal heaved against the woman. Twice her soft body wedged against him, her fragrance bewildering his senses. It had been months since he had touched a woman.

Without realizing it, he placed his hand on her thigh.

“Don’t touch me!” she screamed, digging fingernails into his hand.

The tall one, on the other side of Faisal, started to laugh. Faisal couldn’t help himself; he too started to laugh, sucking blood off his hand. The car bucked, the impatient driver muttering, “Ya’Allah!” in disgust.

After more than a half hour, the car slowed and made a sharp right turn, rising slightly off the flat level of the road. A driveway? The car stopped. Faisal smelled the scent of recently cut grass. He heard men talking, then a sound of something moving. A gate?

I am outside the city. I am at a guarded villa. It’s not my villa.

The blindfold was not removed until he was inside a small foyer and the two men and the woman had disappeared. A short, bearded man escorted him down a carpeted hallway into a large, high-ceilinged room, a white room with gold-framed windows and stiff old-fashioned damask-covered furniture on Persian rugs. A room suited to a conservative man of wealth, a man of importance.

“If you will take a seat,” the short man said. “Over here, please, by the window.” He waved at a cluster of chairs around a small table.

Faisal was furious that he had been forced to come here in these filthy clothes, unbathed, unshaved, smelling like a jackal. He glowered at the servant. He would not sit down. No matter who lives here, I have been insulted! I will be treated with respect! He looked down at himself in shame—dressed like a farmer, stinking of a cemetery.

He was gazing out the window at a row of banyan trees and mustard-colored outbuildings when he heard a door open. He turned. A small, white-haired man in a pale linen suit had come into the room. At the sight of him—a man Faisal had not met but whose image was known throughout the world—his outrage melted. It was Colonel Mustapha Jaradat! I am in the home of Colonel Jaradat!

Instantly he thought: Should I speak first? This man is important, the director of the Islamic Legion. I am also important. His hesitancy turned to embarrassment when the colonel walked toward him saying, “Mr. Ibrahim,” not offering the salute of equals. Not even offering his hand.

“Allow me to apologize for the manner in which you were brought here,” he said, maybe expecting a bow, the insulting son of a bitch! “If my men were disrespectful, I will punish them.”

Faisal nodded a grudging acceptance of the apology, infuriated by his craven unwillingness to speak first, even though, fearing rejection, he himself would not have offered the salute of equals.

“Malesh,
” he said. “It’s not important. What can I do for you?” telling himself it was more dignified to ignore the insult than to carp about it. Regardless of how he had been brought here, he was here; that’s what was important. Very few were allowed to come here. Only important people came here. He wants something from me; otherwise he would have turned me over to the police.

As Faisal settled into one of the small chairs and accepted an offer of sweetened coffee, he reminded himself that this man’s rank of colonel, although official, was not won on the battlefield. It was a political reward for having supported the president’s decision to oppose Saddam Hussein’s mad assault on Kuwait. And that opposition was a clear statement to the Arab world that the Islamic Legion, unlike the Brotherhood, was on the side of moderation.

“We reject the rejectionists!” he had proclaimed in a ceremony honoring the martyrdom of Anwar al-Sadat. “We reject terrorism in all its forms! We reject every fanatic who supports terrorism! We embrace Islam, the religion of peace!”

So what am I doing here? Faisal asked himself. According to my reputation, Colonel Jaradat is my enemy. Or does he think I have joined the camp of Israeli lovers? Did he bring me here behind the darkened windows of a limousine to prevent anyone’s knowing he was dealing with an outcast? Or was it to protect me from the police? No doubt this villa is being watched, just as mine is.

“You look fully recovered from your ordeal,” Jaradat said. “Are you in pain?”

“Very little pain,” Faisal said, shrugging. “It was nothing.”

A smile touched the edges of Jaradat’s mouth. He seemed to be a man of restrained responses, a fastidious man with small hands, very thin pale fingers holding the cup as he sipped at his coffee, his eyes shrewdly appraising Faisal. He was said to be highly intelligent.

“I would like to know about the woman in the car,” Faisal said. He could think of no reason for the woman’s being in the car except to show the two men where to find him. It had to be she who was contacted. Who contacted her?

“She’s not important,” Jaradat said, meaning Faisal’s desire to know was not important.

He insults me! I am nothing to him?

“There’s someone else I prefer to talk about,” Jaradat went on. “A protégé of yours, Mr. Ibrahim.”

“I want to know who the woman is. I want to know how you were contacted.”

“I have many sources of information. The woman is not important.”

What I want is not important, you mean, Faisal thought. He said nothing. Insisting upon talking about the woman would not be productive. And that is how a leader thinks, he reminded himself.

“Bashir Yassin,” Jaradat said. “Let’s talk about Bashir Yassin.”

“I don’t know that name.” Faisal could smell unclean odors rising off his clothes. Probably Jaradat could also smell them.

He humiliates me, makes me feel like I’m dwelling in a cesspool of filth while this fastidious aristocrat sits there pretending not to notice.

“He works for you, Mr. Ibrahim. I believe he occasionally pilots your aircraft.”

“That was a long time ago. I sold that.”

“But he did work for you.”

“If you say so. I don’t recognize the name.”

“I believe he obtained those Strella surface-to-air missiles you brought into Libya from southern Brazil. He has lately been cultivating connections in your trading grounds down there in Foz do Iguacu. Maybe you don’t know about that?”

Faisal knew everything about that but said, “I know nothing of these things. Bashir Yassin, if it’s the one I think you’re talking about—there were many who piloted planes for me. If it’s who I think, I know him only as a mechanic at the airport.”

“And I suppose you know nothing about his little romance.”

“Romance?”

Jaradat smiled. “You expect me to think he went to that girl on his own, a teen-ager, a college student? You didn’t arrange it?”

“What girl?” Faisal said. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Why should he know anything about Bashir Yassin’s love life?

BOOK: ARAB
3.48Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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