by David Poyer
THROUGH the alleys and cobbled streets of the Old City, one technical a block ahead and three more full of his men behind, he smells the difference. In the way shadows fall. How empty clotheslines hang where no woman tends them. The technicals lurch and whine. Dented with fragment scars, shocks and springs broken, they show hard use and the scars of battle. But the guns on their beds are greased and loaded, the breeches wrapped with black plastic against sand. The gunners swing from side to side, searching rooftops and cross streets as they pass. Women duck away, or stare from curtained balconies. The bright hot sky’s visible between buildings, and now and then the black cross of a foreign helicopter passes to an echoing drumbeat. Pulled-up cobblestones are piled in barricades, reinforced with wrecked cars, staircases, shattered masonry, cannibalized machinery. He notes the clan markings on the walls, erased and defaced from block to block.
The city’s changing, dividing. Families wheel carts piled with bedding. Neighborhood militia stand scowling at intersections. Juulheed calls greetings, his men wave the black-and-green pennant enthusiastically, but the sentries stand their ground, allowing passage to such a heavily armed column but not welcoming it. They glimpse an American vehicle, antenna bobbing as it jolts over the road. They slow until it passes from sight, turn left, then right again.
At last they pass a black-and-green banner, then another. The faces at the balconies turn friendly. Plastic flowers rain down. People come out, the street grows not thronged exactly, but not empty, either. Here the women wear burkas, though some still favor African cloth with loud patterns. With a screech the technicals halt at the shabby compound Ghedi knows so well.
He finds himself trembling. Remembering how he came here to learn, at the feet of the man who seemed to see more with no eyes than a hundred with perfect vision.
Armed men step forward to object, but Fiammetta and Hasheer ignore them. They jump out and set guards at overwatch points. The few men Sheekh Nassir keeps contemplate the bores of the technicals’ machine guns and make no objection. For blocks in every direction boys with cheap radios are climbing roofs, watching for the helicopters. The technicals’ crews angle muzzles skyward and arrange feed belts. A vehicle pulls around back, should the foreigners or their hired militia stage a raid.
The Orcharder swings his boots down to plant them on the cracked pavement of the capital. If they hadn’t stopped him, he’d be here as a conqueror. The knowledge smolders. Why stop short of victory, when it was so close?
“Want me to come with you?” Juulheed, beside him. Ghedi considers, then tells him, only to the inner court. But he protests. Talking as if to his devils, Juulheed mumbles, “I won’t let him go in alone, he won’t go in alone.” Ghedi gives up and says he can come.
IN the inner court the air tastes more of danger than it did before Uri’yah. Chickens peck at a scorpion in the dust. Two men demand his rifle. They accompany him and Juulheed up the stair.
The old man sits in the darkened room before a bowl of fruit. The smells trigger Ghedi’s memory, as if he exists in two times at once. Cinnamon and cumin, peppermint and incense. Nassir Irrir Zumali wears a black robe and a velvet cap like a Jew’s. His beard glows against desiccated skin. He sits motionless as Ghedi pauses, surveying those who sit at either hand. The old man works his fingers at his gums.
“Greetings, honored master. Ghedi returns at your summons from our victory over the idolators at Uri’yah.”
“I hear many things of my young son,” the sheekh murmurs. “He is called Tiger of the Desert. Whip of God. Pruner of Dead Branches. Give him one of these mangoes, my brothers. Was he not born where they grew?”
Ghedi bows, though the eyes behind the dark lenses cannot see him. “We are faithful to you and the Holy Word, honored Sheekh.”
The withered fingers beckon in a familiar gesture. Ghedi leans close, closing his eyes as they explore his cheeks, his eye sockets. He winces as they trace his swollen mouth, his truncated beard. “So,” the old man mutters. “No longer our most beautiful son.”
“He’s wounded. Bring chai for our brothers,” says Mahdube, at the master’s right hand. He looks even thinner than before in a Western-style suit, black shoes, even a black tie. Ghedi blinks. Has he returned to teaching? On Nassir’s other hand Ikrane sits motionless as stone, save for an inclination of his head as Ghedi greets him too. The Waleeli spymaster’s not a man to be ignored.
He introduces Juulheed. For once his garrulous deputy’s silent. “What is your clan, my brother?” Nassir asks.
“He’s of the Berdaale,” Ghedi answers for him, then wonders why, if there’s no clan in the Waleeli, the old man asks.
The tea’s served by a nervous-looking young boy in student’s garments. Ghedi regards its dark surface. Then gathers his courage and takes a sip. Unable to resist their smell, he takes one of the mangoes. It’s unutterably delicious, wet and rich and sweet. Its slick flesh and the scent of its juice take him back to being a child, far away, in a village that is no more.
Suddenly his anger takes command and he disregards politeness, courtesy, even the cunning he’s vowed to bring into this room. “Your wisdom is great, your knowledge profound. I am glad to find you and my brothers in good health. But I do not understand. What is happening? I see clan militia, I see neighbor turning against neighbor, I see foreigners unresisted in the streets. Why have you agreed to this cease-fire? No army stands between me and the capital. I could have taken Ashaara, and recognized you as supreme judge.”
The only answer’s a whisper as incense ash topples. The lines on the old cleric’s face grow deeper, as if pain torments. Perhaps so; it’s said he was tortured long ago, in the time of British rule.
Ikrane sits forward. “You’ve built an army, my brother. Killed a general, and made yourself into one.”
“We have no ranks. We are all fighters, all volunteers.”
“You’re not the leader?”
“God only is our leader, His name be praised.”
“Indeed, praise be to His name. It is said you have fifty technicals. Can this be true?”
“I have nearly a hundred, and armored cars as well.”
The assistants nod soberly. “It’s true, the clans are arming. They’re dividing the city, and no one ventures across their lines. Are you equal to them? And even their numbers are as nothing compared to the power of the foreigners, which increases every day.”
“Their aircraft were helpless at Uri’yah. I can defeat them, and the clans as well.”
“Your battle took place during a dust storm.”
He smiles. “The storm was sent by God.”
“All praise to His name,” the old man puts in. “But we cannot count on His sending a storm each time we fight.”
“Is this why you agreed to this cease-fire?” Ghedi asks him. The expression of pain deepens. The old man waves his fingers, then digs into his mouth again.
Ghedi feels something he’s never felt for his teacher before. After a moment he realizes it’s disgust. What is he but a blind old man with bad teeth and a habit of speaking in riddles? Yes, he’s memorized the holy books. But has he built an army from the dry sticks of the desert? Now he sounds as if he doubts God’s power.
Mahdube speaks. “Some call you the Maahdi, the Guided One, he who makes straight the way of Jesus when he returns at the end of days.”
“I can’t control what people say. Those who called me Maahdi were whipped.” He shifts where he sits, growing impatient with this spectacled nobody’s tone of accusation. This academic who’s done nothing in the years he’s sat beside the sheekh eating and drinking and counting shillings. Ikrane he respects; the older man sent him many recruits from the west. But how do they presume to question him? To tell him not to fight? He asks, “Again: Why have you ordered this cease-fire? Why have you cooperated with the foreigners’ government?”
“Certainly the end of days must be near,” mutters the old man, who seems to still be on the subject of the Maahdi. “The great battle that will end with Is
lam triumphant and all the saints returned.”
“It’s not yet a government,” Mahdube says, ignoring him. It’s the first time Ghedi has seen an utterance of the sheekh not treated with respect. “There have not yet been elections. We have spoken to a woman of the foreigners who speaks Arabic like an imam.”
“A foreign woman?”
“An American, but a Muslim. She told us we must give up our weapons. If we do not, we will be outlawed. If we do, we will have a voice in the government.”
“You met with an American woman?” He can’t believe his ears, directs his question to the old man. “You?”
Mahdube says, “At the honored sheekh’s command, I also met with representatives of Dr. Dobleh’s party. Doing so made us part of the interim council. Also, it allowed us to contradict certain lies circulating about you.”
“That I’m the Maahdi?”
“No, that you’ve killed hundreds of refugees. Taken their food and abandoned them to die. Driven them into minefields. Machine-gunned Jews and Christians who refuse Islam.”
Juulheed leans close. He speaks breathily faint, within Ghedi’s ear alone. “They’re selling you to the foreigners. That’s why they called you here.”
Ghedi taps the soft carpet. He sees now deep within it bits of rotting food. “I killed only those God marked for death, who set themselves against Him. Is that not your will? If it changed, no one told me. Are we democrats now? What murtadd is this, that you’re sitting on their councils?”
“No,” says the old man, but again Mahdube speaks over him. “We seek righteousness, as always. But the Americans take killing Jews and Christians badly.”
“The foreigners have strong weapons, but they are not gods.”
“The fact is,” Mahdube says, taking out a cheap lined school tablet, “you have been asked here to make clear certain things, that we can answer to the authorities.”
“What things? What authorities?”
“You cannot question this man,” Juulheed says, speaking aloud for the first time. He jiggles one knee as he sits. Glances at the concrete-still Ikrane. “Who are you to do so? He brings victory. He is our general, our lord of war.”
“Now, now,” the old man puts in, but the spectacled scholar goes on reading from his tablet. Ghedi’s anger mounts till he can no longer sit still. Yet he does, as the little man in the suit and tie reads off lie after lie. Some incidents he recalls, but others are stories. If they happened, it was without his knowledge.
“You deny these crimes?” Mahdube says, and perhaps because of his disbelieving tone Juulheed suddenly leans and slaps him so hard his glasses fly off. The old man cries out. Ikrane seems not to have moved, but Ghedi sees he has a black pistol. He hasn’t said a word, just taken out the pistol.
“Apologize to our brother,” Ghedi says, and his deputy stammers reluctant words. Mahdube holds his face, the tablet shaking in his other hand.
“What is it you want?” Ghedi shouts. “Why did you call me here? Not to question me about worthless pagans, traitors, and backsliders. We could have taken the city. You call the foreigners evil, then you bargain with them.”
“You’ve killed too many. Many Muslims—”
“To make them submit. Were not these deaths justified?”
“Not I,” says the old man, making a rejecting gesture with his fingers. “Not I.”
“It was not you?”
“It was at your word, O Sheekh,” Mahdube bursts out, holding his face. “All is at your word, the talks, the agreement, all.”
“So many deaths,” Nassir whispers. “I see this! I see the war to come! Do you remember the war with Sudan? This will be a thousand times more terrible. The battle, yes. But the way of God is not altogether the way of blood.” Behind the dark glasses he seems to be weeping.
“A wahi,” Mahdube whispers in awe. “A prophecy of the Apocalypse.”
Ghedi stares. “Were not these deaths by the will of God? Is not all that happens willed by Him? That’s what you taught.”
“Not so many,” the old man mutters. “To say God blesses you when you kill, this is haram. You are not the Guided One. He will invite the created to the Creator. His nature is that of the angels.” He catches his breath in a sob, and gropes out. For a moment Ghedi thinks it’s for his hand, or to feel his face again, then realizes. It’s for a mango.
Abruptly he’s filled with loathing. An old man with bad teeth and bad breath, greedy for sweets, pretending to prophesy to get his way. Surrounded by flatterers and jackals. “Come,” he says to Juulheed, and they get to their feet. “You will not judge me. I no longer acknowledge you as leader of the Waleeli. You are softhearted women. Tomorrow you will be the foreigners’ tools. It is my soldiers who do God’s will, not you.”
“Come back,” Mahdube says. “We agreed to the cease-fire only to gather strength. Once the foreigners leave, we’ll strike.” The old man sits with head drooping, fingers in his mouth. On his other side the spymaster sits unmoving.
Numb, Ghedi walks toward the door. A lizard hesitates as he nears, then darts for an open window.
“You were right,” he mumurs as they reach the corridor. Together he and Juulheed pull the small green balls from their pockets.
The men on the carpet don’t move as the grenades bounce across the figured rug. Mahdube stares like a goat about to be slaughtered. The old man’s probing finger pauses at the double thump and roll. Only Ikrane flinches back and tries to aim.
Too late. When they crack open, jarring the air and shattering bowls and vases, the old man jerks but doesn’t rise. He slumps as if falling asleep. The one in the suit starts to his feet, then collapses, white shirt stippled scarlet where scores of the tiny steel balls have sieved it. Only Ikrane manages to rise, spewing blood from his throat. His face is livid. He manages two steps forward, the pistol rising in his big hand. Then it droops, as if weighing more and more, until he can no longer support it. He wades as if through mud, blood pouring from his neck mixed with foam. Then he too topples to the spattered carpet.
Shots snap outside as his men deal with the guards. Ghedi closes his eyes, unable to erase the image of the old man sagging, shattered lenses dangling from one ear. A pulp of mangoes dripping down his knees.
He tries to speak, but words catch in his throat like stones. Juulheed darts him glances. As they step out into the sunlight at the top of the stairs, looking out over the courtyard at the crowd already gathering, Ghedi lifts his arms. Then cannot speak. He tries again, and again something closes in his throat.
It’s faithful Juulheed who raises his nervous voice to carry beyond the walls, into the listening streets.
“The foreigners have killed our beloved sheekh and his trusted counselors. Listen, O ye faithful! His last words were a fatwa against them and their secularist puppets, worms in the body of the Faithful.”
Lifting his rifle, his second in command screams, finally in the mad voice of the demon Ghedi has always known lives within him, “In the name of the foully murdered, we will avenge him. It is the call to jihad!”
21
In the Sawakin Sound
THE stink filled the ship now, so pervasive and inescapable they’d stopped smelling it, like medieval serfs their own stench. Only when Teddy went topside did the clean wind smell weird, after the shithole below. Which was why he’d insisted on going ashore.
Shamal had been anchored inside the sound for two weeks, between the anchored Tahia and the open sea. He’d read the message traffic with growing frustration.
Teddy had floated an assault plan relying on surprise and night combat expertise. They’d board and sweep from the stern forward, cutting electrical power to shut down lighting, then freeing the captives in a zero-light shootout. Unfortunately, the Malaysian government had “strongly advised” against an attack unless hostages were actually being killed. The Filipinos chimed in, insisting on negotiations. As a last straw, Dobleh’s provisional minister of defense had refused to sign off on an attack insi
de territorial waters. Which left Oberg seething but helpless.
A negotiator from the shipping agency had come and gone with no agreement. The pirates either had no idea how much a billion was, or had nothing better to do than lie around, eat, and demand cigarettes from whoever came aboard. At any rate, they flatly refused to take less than nine zeroes. He’d been over every other day to keep the hostages’ spirits up. Each time he came back angrier. Suleyman and his boys were playing the situation for all it was worth. Marooning them aboard hadn’t helped. They acted like the lords of the earth, with Kalashnikovs as their scepters.
“I’m getting sick of this,” he muttered to Sumo. They were in swim trunks, sprawled side by side on the seaward beach. A little time off, though he’d sold it to Geller as a training day. In fact they’d done some conditioning, starting at 0600 by paddling the RHIB a mile to the island, then running the dunes for an hour. Then sand drills on which compartments each team member would hit if they had to do a hasty entry, how they’d reorient if one of them got hit. Then running through it on the beach using rocks to mark doorways and hatches. At last, everyone reeling in the heat, he figured, enough. They’d cooled off with a swim, though he kept it short, recalling the sharks. Now they were just basking, though he had Arkin in a hide site atop the tallest dune with binoculars, a radio, and a carbine, just in case.
“Rather be back in Camp Crawley, polishing your dick?” Kaulukukui rolled over and blew like a papa walrus. “I’ll take this. It all counts on thirty.”
“I’m gonna start calling you Hakuna Matata. You’re fat as a warthog, too.”
“Call me whatever, gotta take it as it comes. For a California dude, your dope’s dialed way too fucking tight.”
“It’s not me. Nobody can make up their fucking minds.”
The Hawaiian jerked a thumb at the water. “The guy who counts, his mind’s made up.”
“Who’s that?”
“Suleyman, that’s who. He ain’t gonna take a dollar less than a billion, and the fucker’s too dumb to know otherwise. Can’t read, but he knows the numbers on his fucking calculator. He thinks every time we offer him a million we’re trying to outwit him. Like rug merchants in some fucking bazaar.”
