Deadline Yemen

by Peggy Hanson

  CHAPTER 76

  “You were kept waiting at the door: I was quite ashamed; but somehow there was a little bustle; for it so happened that we had not heard the knock; and, till you were on the stairs, we did not know anybody was coming.”

  Jane Austen, Emma

  The scene of the crime was turbulent. A police squad ranged over the restaurant, asking questions in a haphazard way. One hard-faced young officer tried to block my way, but Nello stepped in.

  “She’s a witness,” he said in Arabic. “She saw it all. You need her.”

  The pool of blood, still near the table where Christine had been shot, turned a sickening rust hue as it dried around the edges.

  I sidled over to my old friend, whose face showed distress. “What are they doing? What do they think? Did anyone see the shooter?” I asked, resting a hand on Nello’s shoulder to lend him comfort.

  “They cannot find someone seeing shooting. They think it is ferengi problem, not Yemeni. Always, there is difference from foreigners and Yemenis.” His face looked older than it had an hour ago. “And, Elizabeth, how do we know it was Christine they were wanting to kill? You were beside her.”

  Nello’s confirmation of my earlier thought was frightening. Could Christine have been hit accidentally? Was I the target? Not a comforting thought.

  A handsome officer in an army uniform stepped over to us and put out a hand. The military presence denoted the victim’s foreignness, I guessed. Any crime involving a foreigner may create an international scene and thus receives attention from the government. And they must have a team who deals with foreigners. I recognized the man, my “friend” from Michael’s murder investigation. Nervously, I took his hand, which he shook in a perfunctory manner.

  “Lieutenant Surash,” he reminded me, then looked at his notes. “You are Elizabeth Darcy. We met before.” He frowned. “You are here at time of shooting?”

  “Yes,” I acknowledged. “But I didn’t see exactly where the shot came from. I guess the door, since the window isn’t broken.” My voice shook a little.

  “Yes, door.” He pointed to where plaster had been knocked off the wall behind Christine and Jason’s table. “And we have bullets. From AK-47. But many people have this gun. How well you know this person, Miss Helmund?”

  “I just met her a few days ago. She came to the Dar al-Hamd after the murder of Mr. Petrovich. I saw her once or twice more. I don’t know her well.”

  “But you are close to two murders. And you know nothing.” Lieutenant Surash’s voice remained even, but I detected a hint of sarcasm. Clearly, he felt he had found a link between his two murders. Knowing how little I knew, I hoped he didn’t think I was a crucial link.

  “But you go to hospital. You are friend, no?”

  “Lieutenant Surash, I would have gone to the hospital with anyone. I know that young woman a little.” My tone sounded firmer than I felt.

  “Of course. Of course. And where can I be able to reach you later?”

  I was put in my place, as a possible suspect among many. At least, I hoped he had other suspects.

  “As you know, I’m staying at the Dar al-Hamd.” I gave him my card. Again.

  Nello had had enough. “She is old friend. You can ask me if you need see her.” Ostentatiously, he went to the glass-doored refrigerator at the back of the room and fetched a bottle of Shamlan water, which he handed over with a concerned look.

  Lieutenant Surash and his men returned to measuring the crime scene and determining the angle of the bullets.

  “You don’t need me tonight?” I asked Nello quietly.

  “No. No. I can control. You go. Write story, and then sleep.”

  What a brilliant man. Nello definitely has the touch.

  CHAPTER 77

  There is always something dramatic in a letter that comes by a messenger: even in London it has a special charm: here, on the open threshold of night and the open room, the dusty figure seemed a very incarnation of the Unknown.

  Freya Stark, A Winter in Arabia

  As I climbed into a taxi to go back to the hotel, a man brushed against my arm. Glancing up, I recognized Abdul, Halima’s servant. He did not meet my eye but perhaps he had news for me. Yes, paper crinkled against my arm and I surreptitiously stuffed it into my pocket. I avoided looking at Abdul.

  En route to the hotel, I didn’t look at the note. No one must know I received it. I reviewed events of the evening. The shots occurred just after Richard Queens had left my table. Where was he when they rang out? Surely he saw something.

  Or… More sinister thoughts crossed my mind. He’d been jolted that first night at the Dar al-Hamd when he saw Christine and Petrovich and again this afternoon when he saw Christine. I saw him go into Petrovich’s room a few hours before my seatmate was found dead. Was Richard Queens involved in some kind of conspiracy? Did he have reason to kill both Petrovich and Christine?

  The questions in my mind turned more frightening. Did he have any reason whatsoever to kill me? Definitely, I needed to find out.

  And I’d watch my step.

  * * * *

  Back at the hotel, a man sat in one of the lobby chairs, all alone. The scar on his face was accentuated by the fluorescent lighting.

  I looked to the front desk, but the clerk was gone. I fled to my room and locked the door. Mrs. Weston waited for me. I gathered her into my arms and sank my face into her soft fur.

  Opening the note, I saw that it was nothing but a name, and just one name at that: “Samir.” What was I to make of that? He must be my Sa’da contact.

  I washed and changed. Lying in my robe on the bed, a dab of elderflower gel soothing my eyes as night cooled the room, I thought through my Yemen situation: Been here just seven days. Seen Halima twice. One murder, practically under my nose. One shooting, literally under my nose. People were dropping like flies. The police were following me. So were Scarface and his friend, who seemed to have a connection with both Richard Queens and Ahmad Kutup. How could all this be connected?

  It seemed strange to return to everyday concerns in the wake of a crisis, but I had a journey on the morrow. And it was an important journey. God, please help me find Ali.

  My last waking thought was of Alexandra and Christine, juxtaposed. Dark over here, blonde over there. Something bothered me. They reminded me of each other, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Lack of maturity, maybe? Alex had a spoiled, little-girl mentality that would never change. Christine was the epitome of an undeveloped young woman. All these thoughts were unsatisfactory, especially since I wanted to think kindly of Christine. She might be dying tonight.

  The last thing I heard was the late night call to prayer. Allah huwa Akbar. God is great.

  * * * *

  I awoke after fitful sleep. It was still dark when I telephoned Tom Reilly’s house. He answered, not one of the servants.

  “Christine?” I asked.

  “She’s dead. Didn’t make it.”

  Tom sounded exhausted. He’d probably been up all night.

  “I’m so sorry. The whole thing is unbelievable.” Words don’t come in moments of shock.

  “Nice of you to help out as you did.” Tom didn’t thank me for my role last night, which would have indicated intimacy with Christine. Nonetheless, I was sure they had been close in ways I hadn’t clearly defined.

  I jotted a note to Mac back in Washington telling him that there’d been another murder of a foreigner in Yemen. I didn’t tell him I was entangled in it—because, of course, I wasn’t. Suspicions of Richard Queens, of Alex Metzger, of Tom Reilly (had he saved Christine from Larry yesterday or been complicit in almost throwing her off the cliff?), the two shadowy men, the police and the foreign volunteers—even a U.S. diplomat, if one wanted to keep an open mind…these speculations had no place in a Washington newspaper. This was a story as well as a kaleidoscope I was living through.

  And I hadn’t even added Ahmad Kutup to the lineup of suspects. He was related to Halima. That was in his favor.
But he also knew a lot about what the family was going through. And what about those men near his car at the hotel? What if he wasn’t as innocent as they all assumed? What if he and Richard Queens were in something together?

  The more I thought about it, the more I was convinced there had to be a tie-in between the murder of Petrovich and the shooting of Christine. Again, suspicion centered on Richard Queens. He’d looked shocked at seeing Petrovich and Christine together. He’d gone into Petrovich’s room. He had some ties to those two ubiquitous Yemeni men, chubby and thin, who kept showing up, omnipresent and ominous. All roads led to Richard Queens. But he was very good at not leaving footprints.

  CHAPTER 78

  Al-Sukhnah means ‘Hot,’ and the place was living up to its name. A drop of sweat fell from the tip of my nose into my tea with an audible plop. I was too drowsy to mop my face. The torpor was due not so much to the febrile Tihamah night as to the Egyptian soap opera on the TV across the yard.

  Tim Mackintosh-Smith, Yemen, Travels in Dictionary Land

  Richard Queens entered the dining room as I was eating an early breakfast. He held the morning’s edition of the Yemen Daily News. “May I sit down?”

  “Yes, of course.” Just the man I wanted to talk with. “I imagine you know Christine Helmund was shot in the restaurant yesterday, just after you’d left.”

  “I heard about the shooting, yes.” The long fingers buttered a piece of cold, leathery toast—apparently the baker of the wonderful thin bread hadn’t come in today—and then reached for the precious honey that made it edible. He signaled for the waiter to bring him coffee. “Regrettable, indeed. Very regrettable. Did you know the girl well?”

  “No,” I snapped. “But I care that a young woman has been killed. I care that this happened when I was practically sitting at the table with her. And you, after all, had just left.” I no longer had any appetite for breakfast.

  Did Richard Queens’ eyes soften? Hard to tell with all that inbred politeness. “Of course it is upsetting. It was frightening for you, as well. I am truly sorry this happened.”

  “It’s hard for me to think any Yemeni would do this.” I was firm and looking straight into those unfathomable gray eyes. Not a flicker.

  “Well.” His tone was rather gentle. “Perhaps it is more likely to be a foreigner. Are you sure this young woman was the target?”

  He’d touched the raw spot. Was this a threat or an expression of concern? Either way, breakfast had gone on long enough. I made my excuses, asked for my bill, collected my purse, and went to my room to get my things.

  While throwing clothes together for Sa’da, I added the black balto Halima had loaned me the night I was at her house. It fit better than the one I’d bought. One never knows when total anonymity will suit the case.

  Mrs. Weston came in the window. Petting her with one hand, I picked up the phone and called Nello. “Are you okay?” I asked.

  He said he was. I went on, “Can I ask you a huge favor?”

  “Certainly, certainly. Anything for you, Elizabeth. Anything.”

  “There’s this calico cat at the hotel. Would you ask the Dar al-Hamd staff to feed her while I’m gone? She expects me to feed her.”

  “I will have someone take care of her. Do not worry. Just tell the hotel Nello’s people will come in.”

  “There’s a hotel employee named Yahya who seems to like her.”

  “All right. I will talk to Yahya.”

  “Nello, you’re the best! Ask anyone here which cat it is. I named her Mrs. Weston.”

  Nello certainly didn’t know who Mrs. Weston was, and had probably not read any Jane Austen. Nonetheless, he chuckled. “I will do it,” he promised, and we rang off.

  How strange to be arranging pet care in a place like Yemen.

  CHAPTER 79

  Happily, it was now time to be gone. They were off, and Emma could breathe.

  Jane Austen, Emma

  Becca picked me up in her UNESCO jeep. The vehicle wasn’t the last word in luxury, but it was probably the safest option. The northern tribes around Sa’da have never been under the control of the Sana’a government. The traveler needs to be careful of the slogans on one’s car and the tribal affiliation of its driver. Something international and apolitical like the U.N. wasn’t foolproof, but it was the best bet. There had been incidents.

  “Heave ho!” she said, grabbing my overnight bag like a younger sister. “No, Yusuf. I can get it!” The driver waited respectfully, but I caught a glint of humor in his eye. Driving for Becca must be like having a ringside seat at a circus, watching the antics of the foreign women.

  Fortunately, we were leaving early. It was about four hours each way, and it would be wise to avoid driving in the dark.

  “All set back here,” I called to Becca. My overpowering sense of responsibility and guilt lifted in the very act of doing something.

  Yet Christine had died, and my mood swung down again. I hated what had happened to her. I mentioned this, and Becca said she did, too.

  Before leaving the hotel, I’d grabbed a few slices of the unpalatable dry tost bread from the hotel, which I offered to Becca and Ali.

  “Oh, forget all that.” Becca laughed shortly. “We’ve got enough to feed an army.” She pulled a delectable, warm flat bread from the basket beside her and told me to pull off a chunk. “Take one look at me and you can be sure I don’t go running around without plenty of food!”

  A grin emerged, despite the situation. Refreshing to find somebody plump who didn’t suffer body image problems. Becca was attractive in a comfortable sort of way. She must be trustworthy. My instincts told me so.

  Becca hadn’t been joking about the amount of food she’d brought. The box under my feet contained Danish rolls, a plastic bag of apples, boxes of cookies, a loaf of bread, and a jar of peanut butter. That was just on top.

  “Aren’t we coming back tonight? This looks like a lot of food!”

  “Hey, travel in Yemen isn’t always what you expect. Better safe than sorry. And I want to share some goodies with the Dutch missionaries up there.”

  “Christian Missionaries? In Sa’da? I didn’t know about them.”

  “A doctor and nurse run a hospital there. We’ll stop by to say hello and see if they need anything. It’s a brave thing to live in Sa’da for years on end.”

  Yes. Sa’da was a mixing ground for extremist elements from Saudi Arabia, the former South Yemen, Somalia, and the Sudan. Its tribes had supported the Islamic Imam in royalist times and had never quite reconciled with the revolutionary government put in place at the end of the war in 1970. Sa’da was an uncertain place.

  As we drove past the green town of Rawda, near the Sana’a airport, morning sun slanted over rocky crags into the valley. The gracious mud-brick homes set in large gardens looked romantic, but the open-sided jeep gave us whiffs of sewage. Wastes picked up on the streets of Sana’a are dumped near this high-class suburb, for some inscrutable reason. The odor was faint but unmistakable. So much for the idea I’d once had of staying out here at the Dar al-Hamd’s country cousin, the Rawda Palace!

  In trying to cover my nose, I turned and glanced over my shoulder at the road behind us. In the distance was a line of heavy trucks—a hallmark of all Yemeni roads—and a khaki-colored Toyota four-wheel-drive bigger than our jeep. I tapped Becca’s shoulder. She glanced back once and patted my hand. As a foreign resident, I suppose she wasn’t surprised we were followed, but didn’t want to mention it in front of Yusuf. Drivers are known to be wonderful gossips as they stop for tea along the road and fadhal—gossip—with other drivers.

  I’d neglected to tell Tom Reilly I was leaving for Sa’da. I hadn’t contacted the Embassy, either. I was putting a lot of trust in Becca’s ability to maneuver situations. She was happy, and fun to be with. Of course, I didn’t know much about her.

  For the first time that morning, it occurred to me I was venturing into no-woman’s territory fast.

  CHAPTER 80

  �
�They shoot from there,” he said, pointing to a circular mound arranged by nature like a butt at a sportsmanlike distance from the road. “Behold! two of them,” he added, as we passed a man and a boy in the dusk. Their fringed shawls were wrapped about them; they were leaning on guns, and looked far more like Italian opera than anything in the genuine brigand line has a right to do.

  Freya Stark, A Winter in Arabia

  Ahmad Kutup sighed. Family entanglements were the worst kind. They tied up your insides as well as your schedule.

  That young cousin had no idea what position he had placed his relatives in. Well, maybe he did—after it was too late. But Ali had been remarkably thoughtless of Halima and Zuheyla and Sheikh Abdullah, all of whom held less information than Ahmad. All they had to do was tell; it was up to Ahmad to act. And certain circumstances counseled against his acting in this case.

  But other circumstances required him to act.

  Rather grimly, Ahmad sent a message to his office in Kuwait saying he would be late returning due to a family affair.

  He sent an e-mail message to another headquarters and quickly received an answer. Then he changed his clothes, stowing his expensive things in a wardrobe in his room. He threw a kaffiyeh and futha and a pair of plastic slippers into a nondescript bag and prepared to leave Sana’a, heading north into tribal country.

  CHAPTER 81

  “’Amran’s town wall has three gates, and is made of stone, exceptional in this area of mud architecture. The old suq of ’Amran is also noteworthy because of its round stone columns supporting a roof above the shops.”

  The Lonely Planet Guide to Yemen

  Nibbling Danish and apples, we pulled out of the shadows of the mountains around Sana’a onto a black basalt moonscape plateau where nothing much grew. A bush here, a shrub there. The paved road wound around the larger rock protuberances.

  In the distance any direction, mountains, golden in the dusty air, clasped fortress-like villages to their barren breasts. Dust obscured the parallel horizontal lines of terraces on every hill, constructed from the plentiful stones of the highlands, and tended over the centuries by this tough mountain folk.