The Crisis (11 page)

“Don't you get confused?”

“We have our ways of identifying those we can trust,” he said. Before
she could ask he added, “Women use their father's names too. They do not change them when they are married.”

She blinked out the window, shielding her eyes against the glare. The city—a town really—looked nearly empty. Then, as they passed side streets, furiously active. Here and there a balcony or stuccoed wall reminded her of Italy, but shabbier. The dilapidated, crumbling buildings were one-or two-story, painted either white or bright green or blue. Here and there one had collapsed on itself. A woman in a sarilike robe, colorful as a tankful of cichlids, stared from the shade of a ragged awning. Hundreds of flimsy plastic bags slowly tumbled in the wind, past lean men standing by wooden booths, jiggling something in their pockets. One stepped into the street and spat where they'd just passed.

“What are they selling?” Erculiano said, peering past her. “I don't see anything for sale.”

She twisted, trying to see, but caught only dark visages glowering after them. Her face was black too, but there was no acknowledgment of that in those eyes. Her gaze caught on a line of children sitting against a wall. Their thin legs cocked up in sharp angles. She looked after them for a long time, until they were out of sight.

“Is there famine in the city, Bahdoon?”

“No famine. Plenty of rice and bread. The president feeds us all. Unless of course they are a rebel.”

A few blocks on what looked very much like a mob pushed and shoved in front of a row of shops. “Is there unrest in the city?” she asked. “I saw something going on down that street we just passed. Were those looters?”

“No, no unrest. That is the Indian Quarter. If there is crime, that is for the police to deal with. I'm sure they are on their way. Only a few more minutes to headquarters.” He jerked his neck as if something were biting him between the shoulder blades, and looked away, to the other side of the speeding, lurching car.

Aisha followed his gaze and saw two men beating up a third, who sagged, staring past his assailants as if he weren't participating. All three were in colorful shirts and ragged pants. The victim's gaze followed their car but his expression didn't change as his eyes seemed to meet hers. Probably, given the tinted windows, he hadn't seen her at all.

The mansarded redbrick palace with corner towers was encircled by not just a tall iron fence but a moat. Once it must have been decorative. Now it was a dried-up ring of cracked mud and puddles of scum. The roofs shone the pale green of old copper. More of the troops who'd guarded the airport stood at the gate. A red-and-white crossing barrier from a World War II movie swung up as a guard leaned on the lever arm.

“The Service of Interior Documentation,” Bahdoon explained. “You will meet our minister, Monsieur Mukhtar Samatar. He is eager to give you every assistance in your mission.”

 

SAMATAR however wasn't in, and from the looks of the offices, she wondered if he'd ever return. Despite being ringed by troops, the Palais de Sécurité felt abandoned. Bureaucrats in sweated-through pants and dress shirts sat tensely at desks, blinking, smoking one cigarette after another.

Bahdoon finally found a major who agreed to sit down with them, in a dingy cubby in a subbasement. Apparently a cell block, though now there didn't seem to be anyone in the holding area, which was dark. But the little Ashaaran didn't accompany them, vanishing between the main floor and the basement.

A lower-level policeman who spoke English sat in to translate. An aged, bent, very black clerk or transcriptionist crooned to herself near the door as she bent over an old ledger spidery with ink, which was literally—Aisha looked twice—chained to her desk. A ceiling fan that looked as if it had hung for a century without dusting rocked with a protesting squeal as it rotated at the speed of a clock's minute hand. The major, in starched fatigues, a brown-leather-holstered Makarov automatic at his hip, listened to her without expression. “Here are our passports, visa, and documents,” she said, squaring them on the green paper desk protector. “And the letter from your minister expressing his hope we can work together. Perhaps our first step should be to link up with the local police for a background briefing.”

The translator spoke around a cud of what Aisha assumed was qat. He had a red-eyed stare, as if looking at someone behind her at whom he was very angry. The major, whose name was Assad, said through him, “Unfortunate, Minister Samatar has left the city. Like big assistant. I am senior officer left in charge.”

“I see. Do you know when he'll be back?”

“That major can't talk you. Political situation is . . .
orooyo
at moment.”

She had no idea what
orooyo
meant. Fluid? “Well . . . I'd like to begin by discussing the security situation, and how we can help.” She hesitated. “
Tatakullum arabi, Ra'id
? Do you speak Arabic?”

“
Shwei.
Not much.
Parlez-vous français
?”

She said she did not. Erculiano said nothing, though she glanced at him, so they continued as they were. Assad spoke, leaning on the desk, and the translator spat, “Major say outsiders, foreigners, they give Ashaara too much help. No. Not little help. When to say when.”

“Perhaps I didn't understand that properly. Please ask the major if that is an official comment? For the record?”

Assad shrugged. He said something the translator didn't bother with. Then added, “Any rate, Major will do what I can. Are Americans considering come?”

“I don't know. I doubt it. Background, that's what I'm principally here for.”

“Background . . . background,” the translator mumbled. Assad scowled at him.

“Information. Knowledge about Ashaara.”

“Intelli-jenz,” the man tried.
“Espion?”

“Not exactly. Uh, can the major tell me what are his principal concerns? As an officer of the Ashaaran national police force?”

“He wants to know what yours. What your concerns.”

“Well . . . safety and security of the airport, and the area close to the embassy.”

“
Tous les deux sont parfaitement secure
,” Assad said in what she guessed was exquisite French. The translator said, “Oather okay.”

Oather? “Um, second are what might become personnel safety issues, such as drugs.”

“He say, you interest in drugs? What kind?”

She looked at the bulge in the translator's jaw. “What is this gentleman chewing?”

The man grinned, showing her a grassy mass in his teeth. “This qat. Is no big deal. Is like coffee.”

“Harder drugs, then. Whatever you find most threatening.” She paused, then chanced it. “Monsieur Bahdoon mentioned rebels on the ride from the airport. I knew there was unrest, due to the famine. Food riots? But what is this about a rebellion?”

“Parlero Italiano?”
said Erculiano.

Assad looked blank, but the aged transcriptionist, or whatever she was, turned immediately in her backless chair.
“Sì, parliamo Italiano. Che cosa gradite sapere?”

“
La città è nel corso della divisione.
The city is in the process of being divided,” Assad said through her, then via Erculiano to Aisha as he studied her face. “The president has always governed without distinction of clans. All are equal. As are all religions: Christians, Muslims, even the animists of the Western Mountains, all are equal before the state and the law. The rebels reject this. They fight for loot and power, and for their savage interpretation of the words of the Prophet, peace be upon him.”

“Peace be upon him,” Aisha repeated, earning glances from all three Ashaarans.

Assad cleared his throat. His gaze tracked the creaking fan. “
I ribelli . . .
alcuni di loro ora sono attivi nella parte del sud della città.
Some of the rebels are active in the south of the city. Our troops are moving to address the unrest. Meanwhile, normal police activities continue. Would you find it helpful to accompany us on one of our activities? That would give you better background than sitting through a briefing.”

She said warmly they'd look forward to doing so. Assad rose and bowed, not extending his hand. He spoke for the first time in English, the sentence obviously prepared before he spoke it.

“Monsieur Bahdoon is . . . unavailable. My driver will take you to your embassy.”

 

THEIR “office” was a Conex box. The interior was lined with steel shelving, the shelving with canned water, medical and rescue supplies, blankets, and batteries. All too obviously, it had been a storage unit the day before they arrived.

The embassy lay a quarter mile from the sea, which was just visible between spreading acacias the color of dried parsley and sag-roofed tourist cabins or beachfront cottages. Its walls were brick, no doubt the local product, a soft pale rose, darker inside, where it was chipped. It looked like the campus of a moderately prosperous junior college. The grounds were a half mile across, ringed with a security road just inside the wall, though she hadn't seen everything yet, just driven in and taken a quick meeting with the ambassador's staff assistant and the military attaché, a Lieutenant Col o nel Jolene Ridbout, U.S. Army.

Sitting in a tilting metal chair with a broken caster, Aisha contemplated a career that had brought her to this.

It had started in Georgia, sixteen weeks at the Special Federal Agent course: crime scenes, firearms proficiency, hand-to-hand, arrest procedures. She'd finished third, then blown the criminal law final. But the service had wanted her all the same. Female African-American agents? She wouldn't be the first, but they were still thin on the ground.
Muslim
agents? The director had offered a deal she couldn't refuse.

Her first assignment had been the San Diego Field Office, and the usual new-agent case load: burglary, larceny of more than fifteen hundred dollars, suicide. Having grown up as sheltered as the Muslim community had kept her, it had been sobering. Her first overseas assignment had been Bahrain. There she'd worked for one of the oldest agents still carrying a shield, a legend in the service: the man who'd fingered Jay Harper, the spy, years before.

Since then she'd served on a protective service detail, providing security for visiting dignitaries, secretary of defense–level officials; then done
the obligatory tour of independent duty afloat: in her case, the USS
George Washington
battle group, responsible for not just the carrier, but the whole strike force, destroyers, frigates, auxiliaries. She remembered Commander Candy, and sighed. His smooth mocha skin, in the darkness of his stateroom . . . the only time she'd slipped so far. Then, the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, to improve what was already fairly good Arabic.

She wasn't as naive now. Nor as slim, unfortunately. But she was a GS-13. The next step up could make her a SAC at one of the field offices.

Yet she was no closer than ever to what she really wanted. A family, a child . . . She wiped sweat off her face and tried to concentrate.

She and Erculiano were the lead members of an advance party. The Navy often requested NCIS support in countries where contingency action might occur. Not that it always happened. It usually didn't. But when a landing or humanitarian-assistance mission became necessary, personal relationships with the host government were key to avoiding publics relations disasters, or worse, security problems that could endanger either own forces or the mission.

Of course none of this had been spelled out to their hosts. Her overt orders were to benchmark the host country police on investigational efficiency, respect for human rights, corruption, and technical accomplishment. Then submit a report on what assistance from Justice and DoD might improve their effectiveness in protecting public order and American interests. A carrot that usually prompted cooperation. No one had told her what the advance party was here to prepare for. She suspected another agency time waster, with her report filed for reference. But someone had to do those as well as the big investigations. That was how you got the big ones, after all. By taking on the shit details, and executing them flawlessly.

“Gotta grab a shower,” Erculiano told her. “Feel like there's scum all over the inside of my undershirt.”

This was so unappetizing an image she squeezed her eyes closed. “You go ahead. I'll wait.”

 

THEY'D had dinner at the embassy dining hall, sloppy joes and french fries, and were back in the Conex writing up their reports for the day when the phone birred. They looked at each other. He picked up.

“Out front at the gate,” he said, hanging up. “Assad. With our weapons.”

“Our
weapons
?”

“What he said. You wanted to operate with them? Sounds like he's ready to roll.”

She cocked her head, wondering whether the letter of agreement would
cover that, then dismissed it: Assad was apparently the ranking security officer in the capital. She bent to her suitcase and found the soft heavy pad of her body armor. Then, the hard heavy outline of the SIG.

“Vests?”

“Absolutely. Whenever we're off-compound,” she told him. “At least until we get a reading on what these rebels are up to.” He made a face, but pulled his out of its plastic sheath and squirted it with lilac-smelling baby powder.

She turned her back and flipped a fresh blue silk abaya over her head. Once she wouldn't have done that in front of a man. Even wearing pants and a blouse under it. But she wasn't the little Muslim girl who'd grown up sheltered in Harlem anymore. She wiggled her fingers behind her. “Borrow some of that powder?”

She dusted the vest and pulled it on, buckled the side fasteners, pulled the folds of light cloth back down. She chambered a round, decocked and tucked the pistol into the shoulder holster she could get to without anyone on the outside of the voluminous swathe of cloth noticing a thing. She could even shoot through it, though she'd risk setting the fabric on fire.