Florence of Arabia (27 page)
"This footage that you are about to witness was taken inside occupied
Matar
on March twenty-seventh at the Chartwell Mall, which the usurper Maliq has turned into a place of public execution ..."
Wh
en they were finished, Bobby put a copy of t
he tape inside a packet of cigarettes and drove to the airport. On the way, he called Fouad, a ground-crew chief with Air
Matar
whom Bobbv had recruited years ago. Seven hours later, the tape was in Nicosia, Cyprus, and in t
he hands of an Armenian named Hampigian,
with whom Bobby had also been doing business for years. In anothe
r eight hours, it had arrived at
the CNN bureau in Rome. Within an hour, following a conference with headquarters in Atlant
a that included the chairman of t
he board, the tape was broadcast.
Among the millions who watched were Renard and George. They had set up a makeshift command center
in Rick's office, using more of U
ncle Sam's severance pay. The tape made for very difficult viewing. Even the cynical Ren
ard was unable to speak after it
was over. George had to get up and leave the room after five minutes. But then few people in the West had watched a woman being slowly beaten to death.
The network was flooded with phone calls, mos
tly from people appalled that it
would show such a gruesome thing—the w
orst, some said, since the pict
ures of Americans torturing Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison. But there was intense interest in the American woman who had taken the footage, obviously at great personal risk. She was now an object of official curio
sity—in Washington. Paris, Kaff
a and Amo-Amas; indeed, all over the world. Naturally, the media couldn't resist. They dubbed her "Florence of Arabia."
IMAN MALIQ
BELOVED OF ALLAH, emir of the Royal Kingdom of
Matar
, high prince of the H
ouse
of Bin Haz, sharif of the Um-Kat
ush, was less than
pleased to hear that Delame-N
oir of the Onzieme Bureau was in
Matar
and requesting an "audience." It
did please Maliq that he had put it
that way. "audience" being more august than "meeting."
Still, he felt
that Delame-Noir was conde
scending to him. He didn't like
Delame-Noir to begin with, and now that he had achieved the throne, if th
ere was any condescending to do,
by Allah,
he
would do it. He was in no mood f
or one of Delame-Noir's interminable pedantic lectures about the historicity of Hegelian dichotomies. Nor did Mal
iq desire to be reminded that it
was Delame-Noir who had put him on the throne with the scheme of transforming him from
a
cheating race
-c
ar
driver into
a
religious leader.
King Tallulah and Prince Bawad had been imperious beyond belief, reminding Maliq in every phone call, eve
ry e-mail, every meeting that it
was their troops, their
mukfelleen.
their money and, G
od be praised, their oil that had put him on t
he throne. Between Paris and Kaffa. Maliq
was tired of being grateful. Dammit,
they
should be grateful t
o
him!
H
ad he not selflesslv put himself forward, giving up a brilliant career as a race-car driver, to restore Matar to its glory? (
A
ssuming
Matar
had e
ver actually been glorious.) H
ad he not risked all? What if the coup had fail
ed? Where would he be now? In G
azzy's dungeon, supplementing his diet with beetles. No. he'd had quit
e enough of their telling him, N
ow,
here's what else you can
do
for
us today.
"We will not see the F
renchman." Maliq petulantly announced to
Fetish
, the aide de camp he had inherited from his brother and who had come highly recommended by Delame-Noir. A certain air of pronouncement-making had crept into Maliq's speech of late; this often happens, alas, when one becomes dictator.
"But H
oliness—"
"I have spoken,
Fetish
."
Since
Fetish
was also on the payroll of Delame-Noir's Onzieme Bureau, he pressed as gingerly a
s he could. "Great Imam—would it
not be wise to grant
the Frenchman a few minutes? H
e has traveled a great distance."
"Bah! You make it sound like he crossed the Nefud Desert on camel. He came in his own pr
ivate jet. It's got a bed in it,
a kitchen and a two-star Mi
chelin chef. We ourselves have flown in it. It
is—damn thy impertinence.
Fetish
. It is not for us to explain ourselves!"
"I am but dung beside Thy Augustness,
lord, beloved of
A
llah
,
protector of the one true faith. However,
in my despised humility. I ask,
should not my lord receive the Frenchman just for
a
brief t
ime?"
Maliq made a growling noise but knew
Fetish
was right. "Ten minutes.
Make sure you come in after exactly ten minutes and say, 'Imam, you are urgently needed by ...' Well, by someone important."
"How truly wise and benevolent is my master. Allah truly—"
"Oh, just
get
him,
Fetish
."
Maliq paced in
his office, lingering his worry
beads. Delame-Noir was shown in.
"Altesse!"
Delame-Noir bowed ever so slightly. He looked Maliq up and down, rather—Maliq thought—like a malevolent tailor. "In your person, the magnificence of th
e Bin H
azzim and the purity of the true faith have found their most sublime embodiment. How lucky is Matar to have so wise, so puissant, a ruler. This does not happen every day. Indeed, not since your second cousin's great-great-great-uncle Ali Hashim bin—"
'Ye
s, yes," Malic] said. "
Matar
is once again a holy place. God be praised. So. Here you are."
"I have come to pay you homage,
man emir.
To see the new crown jewel of the Matari in his setting."
"Ah? Well. Good. Here I am. So.
Very
busy time."
"Oh, yes." Delame-Noir grinned Gallicly. "It is truly work, establishing oneself as the unquestioned authority. But you
have,
yes
,
yes, you have. And now maybe it's time to give the signal that, okay, we take our religion seriously, we are very observant, very strict, but we're not going to beat to death
all
the naughty women in the mall outside the Starbucks? Surely?"
Maliq sighed. "We didn't know this Florence woman was going to take a video of it."
"All the same, it's not such a good image for the new Matar,
mo
n
imam.
They are playing it on the Internet now. It's very— Speaking personally; I find it very difficult to watch. It's like a Mel Gibson movie."
"The Internet is an instrument of Satan."
"The theology I must leave to the theologians." Delame-Noir said. "My concern, it's for you. Because this is not good publicity. Look, myself, I don't really care. We chopped off a lot of heads during our r
evolution. For a while it's fun,
and an amusement for the riffraff, but if it goes on too long, it's not good for business."
"What are
they going to do, not buy the oil?"
"No,
no. Oil they would
buy from anyone. From Satan. But
why give yourself such a bad image in the world'.''"
"It's not my image you're worried about. It's yours."
"From
you. wise imam, there is no keeping secrets. But okay, yes, this is making everyone look not so good. Not that France cares what the world thinks, still..."
Maliq threw up his hands. "It's the Wasabis who insist! Tallulah
himself— he calls me every day t
o say he's sending more
mu
kfelle
el
to help me 'purify the
country.' I tell him. Thank you,
you are to
o generous, but we don't need any
more religious police.' And the next thing I know.
Fetish
informs me that another f
ive hundred have arri
ved—by bus! What am I supposed t
o do?"
Delame-
Noir
nodded sympathetically. "It's not easy being imam."
"If it weren't for me,
the
mu
ks
would be holding twice as main executions and beatings."
"Clearly. I have misread the situation.
How
can I apologize to you? H
ow can I help?"
"Just tell me." Maliq grunted, "what am I supposed to do."
"Perhaps there is a solution. Look, why don't you say to Tallulah. 'My dear king, we have had the iron fist, now it's time for the handshake, eh? We have made the people tremble. They are making pee-pee in their
thobes,
T
hey are so full of respect for you. Now we have a very
obedient people. And now it's t
ime for the making pleasant.' Eh?"
"They're Wasabis." Maliq said. "They don't
make
pleasant"
"At least get this publicity
off
your
soil."
"How?"
"Here is a statistic that I happen to possess. It's very secret, so please don't tell who told you. Do you know part of the reason Wasabia is sending you all these
mukfelleen?
Because they don't have enough t
o do there, because the pop
ulation is so scared of them, t
hey don't do anything wrong. They don't even go outside the house anymore. And this has translated into an unemployment situation among the
mukfelleen.
Tallulah is very worried about this,
so he see it
as a golden opportunity to get them out of his country and fully occupied. This is what is going on with the
mukfelleen.
And it's not good to have out-of-work executioners, eh? They get ideas.
"So, why don't you say to Tallulah, "Okay, in return lor your assistance with the change in regime. I am going to send you all our naughty women of Matar to help with your
mukfelee
n
unemployment situation.' If
they want to chop off the women's heads and make the bastinado, then at
least it's happening in Wasabia,
where they expect this barbarism, not here in the former Switzerland
of the Gulf,
eh?"
"But what about this Florence woman? I can't have her running around loose. It undermines our authority."
"No,
no." Delame-Noir smiled. "This we cannot permit. Perhaps for this, too. I have a suggestion."
CHAPTER
TWENTY-SIX
F
lorence
could
tell from the
look
on
B
obby's face
that
it
was
not
good news.
He ripped off
his
gutra
with disgust and tossed
Al
Matar
on the table. Florence saw the front-page headline above the fold:
F
ORMER SHEIKA CONFESSES TO IMMORAL RELATIONSHIP
WITH
AMERICAN FLORENCE SPY-PROPAGANDIST
Bobby said. "They probably didn't bother t
o torture her. Just made it all
up."
Florence read the last paragraph aloud:" "The decision about how to punish her foul sins rests with the highest auth
orities. Acknowledging the enormity of her crimes, the former she
ika has herself stated that strict implementation of
shari'a,
as interpreted by our blessed imam Maliq—a thousand blossoms fall upon his immaculate person—is commensurate with her crimes, too unspeakable to detail here.'
"Aw, shit
." Florence finished.
"Us a trap. This is the bait."
Florence started to gather up her things. Bobby watched h
er. "Does this mean that we're t
akin' the bait?" "I can do this alone."