Florence of Arabia (37 page)

"Tell!" he commanded. "Salim!" Nebkir shouted.

It would all be over in a second, she thought. She closed her eyes and took a breath, perhaps the last she ever would. "Tell!"

Then Florence felt a bolt of lightning inside her skull, and all went dark.

"Idiot! What fucking good did that do?" Nebkir seethed at Sal
im,
who stood over Florence's body. Her temple was gushing blood. Nebkir took out his pocket handkerchief and pressed il against the wound.

"Let her bleed to death and give the body to the dogs," Salim growled.

Nebkir rose and thrust his face into Salim's.
"Rebi! Fool!
Did it occur to you that with all that is now happening, the Americans might intervene? And if the Americans come, do you think that I will take the blame for killing their woman? Do you want to spend the rest of your life in Guantanamo, jerking off to the sound of monkeys?"

CHAPTER
THIRTY-THREE

By
some miracle understandable only to Allah the Wise, the All-Knowing.
Yassim,
attendant to the Camel Royal, was not killed in the blast, though it was not likely he would be leading any more royal parades.

h
e lay on his bed in King Nadir Hospital, encased head to toe in a body
cast, tubes running in and out,
connected to an array of machines that emitted so many cheeps and squeaks that the room
sounded like an electronic aviary
.

Keeping vigil over him were two stern-raced officers of the royal bodyguard—Salim
bin-Judar's
men—and an age
nt of the Ministry of Public Health,
as well as the obligatory
mukfellah,
wearing the trademark scowl of his ilk. his lips moving joylessly
as
he read from his worn copy
of
the
Book of H
amooj.
It was i
nto thi
s cheery scene that Delame-Noir,
a shade paler than normal, uncertainly strode, accompanied by a French woman of efficient aspect wearing the white smock of a doctor and carrying an
attaché
case. Delame
-Noir
did not bother to identify himself to the
Matar
is. H
e was well known lo them.

"H
as he said anything?" he inquired.

One of the M
PH
men shook his head sullenly.

Dela
me-Noir announced in a collegial
yet firm way that Dr. Rochet, the "eminent neurologist." had come from Paris and woul
d now make her examination. So,
if everyone would please excuse them?

"My orders are t
o remain." the MPH agent said.

Delame-Noir eyed him with Gallic
froideur.
"I will make my report
directly to the emir. And to His Royal Highness King Tallulah in Kaff
a. To whom do
you
report, sir?"

The room cleared efficiently.

Delame-Noir bent
over and peered into Yassim's face. It bore the vacant but not displeased expression of one whose veins course with liquid lotus, bringing surcease from pain and blissful phantasmagorias of virgins on lush Technicolor riverb
anks. Yassim was feeding on hone
ydew and drinking the milk of paradise—by the
litre
.

Delame-Noir nodded at his "eminent neurologist." one of the Onzieme Bureau's chem
ical specialists, code name "Fle
urs du Mai." She took from her case a hypodermic and injected ten milligrams of naloxone into the intravenous t
ube going into Yassim's arm. H
is eyes sprang open like window shades.

"Ooooh."

"So,
Yassim, you're alive?" Delame-Noir said. "God be praised. You had us worried, my friend."

"The pain—it
is great. Excellency."

“Yes, yes,
we will take away the pain in a moment, but first you must answer some questions. Okay?" "What is this place?"

"You're in excellent
hands. Good French doctors. Now, Yassini,
the camel Shein—what did he
eat
before the parade of Raliq?"

"The feed. Excellency."

"Feed? What do you mean? Grass? Hay?"

"T
he special feed, from
the king. It was a gift from H
is Highness."

"Gift—a gift for a
camel'?"

"from His Royal Highness King Tallulah. In honor of the Perfidy of Rafiq. For the parade. Excellency."

"Who brought this 'gift'?"

"A man. Excellency."

"Yes, yes, of course, a
man,
but
who,
Yassim? Surely you don't accept food for the emir's camel from just any person."

"The pain, Excellency."

"I will make the pain go away. Who was this man. Yassim?"

"A servant of King
Tallulah. Excellency."

"How did you ascertain this? H
ow did you know?"

"He said so."

"Yassim!"

"He
was very important-looking. H
e present
ed a letter from the king to me, to m
e personally. A great honor." "Go on. Continue."

"The letter said that the feed was from his own royal stables, a symbol of the new friendship between the peoples of Wasabia and Matar."

"This letter, where is it?"

"In my room. Excellency."

Delame-Noir muttered imprecations under his breath. "There was another man. Excellency. Your man."

"How do you mean, my man?"

"H
e said he worked for you."

"I sent no man to you."

"But he had papers—and a letter from you. He was French. There are so many French persons in Amo these days, helping to build the New Matar. The pain. Excellency..."

Delame-Noir reached into his jacket pocket and look out a photograph. It was of Bobby Thibodeaux. He thrust i
t in front of Yassim. "Is this y
our Frenchman?"

"Yes, Excellency. That's the man."

A Few hours later
The New
York
Times posted a story on its website. The headline read:

EXPLOSIVE USED
IN
MATAR
"CAMEL
BOMB"
APPEARS IDENTICAL
TO
TYPE USED
IN
SINKING
OF
VESSEL
TIED
TO
FRENCH
SECRET SERVICES

Investigators report traces of
Exuperine in remains of royal camel, saddle and clothing of wounded emir

SPECIAL
TO
THE NEW YORK TIMES By Thomas Lowell

Within an hour the story was being beamed by satellites into a billion television sets. One of these was in Maliq's apartments at the palace, which had been converted into a hospital wing so that he could recuperate at home.

Few world leaders like to hear grim new
s first from the television set,
but in our modern age
. this is often the way of it. E
ven American presidents hear disastrous tidings in this fashion, rather than from thei
r generals and spy
masters. Maliq furiously pressed his buzzer and bellowed. Attendants, doctors, bodyguards and spiritual advisers rushed in.

FROM THE POINT OF VIEW of France, the timing could have been better. The president of the republic was in Quebec to give support to a referendum that would require all of Canada to adopt French as its sole official language. Eager to assert the supremacy of the language of Corneille
and Racine and Moliere and—if y
ou insist—Victor Hugo, the elegant Gaul instead found himself facing a phalanx of out-thrust microphones and a mob of clamorous reporters demanding to know if he had 'personally approved the assassination of the emir of Matar."

The president "categorically and profoundly" denied these "absurd" allegations: and while he was at it, he denied "for the one thousandth time, okay?" that France had played any
role
in the sinking of the environmental vessel
Whit
epeace.
H
e tried to steer the agenda back to the glories of the French language and why it was imperative that cattle ranchers in Alberta fill o
ut their income-tax forms in it,
but the reporters preferred
to stay on the subject of Fxupe
rine, a sophisticated high explosive manufactured only in France and—so far, at any rate—used only by the French military and secret services. The president was finally forced to take sanctuary inside the French consulate in Montreal, where, fuming, he growled to his aide, "Get Delame-Noir on the phone—
now."

IN
WASHINGTON, a group calling itself Friends of Free Matar and working out of the offices of Renard Strategic Communications was busy placing full-page ads in newspapers and magazines in the U.S. and abroad, heavily promoting Thomas Lowell's
New York Times
stories and calling for an international investigation into the situation in Matar. The ads played up a theme of Thomas's reporting, namely that Wasabia was being manipulated by France; indeed, that Wasabia was "a mere tool" of Paris.

A
ccording to Thomas's well-source
d reporting. Wasabia had been persuaded to back the coup in Matar "by the same secret services who now are planting explosives under the saddle of the emir." France. Thomas asserted, was determined to put "its own man" on the throne i
n order to "keep the Wasabis off
balance."

Nor was that all: The advertisements proclaimed that French and Wasabi elements within Matar had captured both the American woman Florence and the widow of the late ("and much beloved") emir, the sheika Laila. The Friends of Free Matar proclaimed that the two women were being held in a "notorious torture center" outside Amo-Amas—"grim by even American torture and interrogation standards."

At the bottom of the advertisements were the words, in large, accusatory lettering:

WHY
THE SILENCE OF THE U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT?

It
all made for rive
ting reading—in Paris, Kaff
a and Washington. The American president, not a man given to personal coarseness, was moved—having for once actually picked up a newspaper—to say at his regular morning intelligence briefing, "What the fuck is going on in Matar?"

That the situation was approaching a crisis was clear from the headline that appeared the very next day:

PEOPLE FOR THE ETHICAL TREATMENT OF ANIMALS "INDIGNANT" OVER USE OF CAMELS IN ASSASSINATIONS

Calls for Treaty Banning Use of Camels in Political Killings

CHAPTER
THIRTY-FOUR

Quelle
ordure, Delame-Noir thought, pausing before being admitted to the
emir's chambers. He pressed a fine linen handkerchief from the Pas de Calais to his perspiring brow. The past few days had not been good. He had taken calls from a furious president of France, a livid king of Wasabia and an apoplectic emir. But he was resolved to stand upright and
look his best. Delame-Noir was,
when all was said and done, a man
of
une certaine dignite.

The door opened, and he found himself in the familiar place. Yet how much everything had changed.

"Bonjour. mon emir.
You look much better. I
delight to say."

"What?" Maliq barked. "E
h?"

A doctor murmured to Delame-Noir that the emir's hearing was 10 percent of its former capacity. Dela
me-Noir sighed inwardly. He was,
in addition to being a man of certain dignity, a man of nuance—an artist of the gesture and feint. Now he would be reduced to shouting his explanations at close range into the (remaining) ear of a purple-faced, legless Middle Fast tin-pot dictator. This, he knew, would be a grim uphill slog. The situation in Amo-Amas
had deteriorated catastrophic
ally.

Alter the report about the Exuperine appeared on television—
quel desastre!
—Maliq had petulantly refused two calls from th
e president of F
rance. He had also
refused calls from Prince Bawad,
wh
o was desperate to convince him
that
Wasabia was no "tool" of France. Maliq had even refused a call from King Tallulah.

T
he em
ir was fortified in his obtuse truculence by Salim bin-J
udar
,
who had assumed the duties of vizier in addition to royal bodyguard,
Fetish
had been arrested. Not just arrested, but being interrogated by Salim's men. u
ndergoing, as the French has it,
peine forte et
dure.
He had made excuses for Delame-Noir and
la belle France
one too many times. Another cal
amity in the making. Delame-Noir
could only pray that
Fetish
was made of stern stuff, but he knew from experience never to count on the fortitude of paid informers.