Deadline Yemen

by Peggy Hanson

  Was Ali one of the ill-starred, young Muslim men?

  I was afraid to ask.

  CHAPTER 136

  “Well,’ said Emma, ‘I suppose we shall gradually grow reconciled to the idea… But I shall always think it a very abominable sort of proceeding.”

  Jane Austen, Emma

  Sunlight gleamed into the dining room. Red cliffs rose majestically through the window.

  We were a motley crew at breakfast—Ahmad, bandaged in several places, Richard, pale as death with his arm in a sling and bandages over much of his face, Halima, sitting as close to Ali as she respectably could.

  Ali was not a terrorist, after all. He had come to Hadhramaut to try to stop the plot.

  The young man we thought had been Ali had been suspiciously close to the truck before the explosion. Was he planning to set it off as the official delegation went past? A truck loaded with explosives packed in honey barrels would need an initiating spark. Perhaps no one would ever know what the young man was doing. His body was found, that’s all. All that was known was that he was Yemeni.

  Good God, I may have killed him in shooting at the truck. Elizabeth Darcy, killer? At some point in the future I’d have to take sleeping pills to forget.

  We all still wore the clothes we were wearing in Sa’da—how many light years earlier had that saga been?—but the hotel staff had laundered them overnight, lending us robes for the interim, so the fresh scent of air-dried damp clothing surrounded us. It was a welcome change from dust, sweat, and blood.

  The Howtah waiters insisted on serving us, though usually guests went to the buffet. Apparently we were heroes for having saved the Congressional delegation—and Yemen’s reputation—and I was receiving a surprising and unfair amount of the credit. I’d only acted on instinct, after all.

  Straight-backed men in military uniform stood around us as an honor guard. One of them stepped forward to speak to me, bowing a little. “We meet again, Ms. Darcy.”

  “Lieutenant Surash! Were you following me, then?”

  “We had to. We did not know your role. You knew many people. You went many places. You even went places we could not go.”

  “Sa’da, you mean?”

  “Yes. Sana’a police are not welcome there. But we have contacts who told us what you were doing.”

  “Well, you tried to keep an eye on me. Thank you,” I said. “I guess!”

  Lieutenant Surash laughed the fresh, open laugh of Yemenis.

  “I’m going to need a lot of explanations,” I announced to my breakfast group. My ankle was expertly bandaged and a couple of ibuprofens were doing their job. My legs were propped up on a chair, modestly draped with the balto I no longer needed as a disguise. My companions were treating me like minor royalty.

  I took over where Alex had left off. “Right, then. Who’s going to start explaining?”

  Halima looked anxious and pressed Ali’s hand.

  Richard glanced at Ahmad, who looked at Ali, who turned to Halima.

  “Well, I suppose since you stopped the attack, we should tell you.” Richard’s voice had lost some of its vibrancy, and his eyes peered like an owl’s out of hollow sockets, but he hadn’t lost all his oomph. “For starters, you now know what we were trying to avert—the attack on the Congressional delegation.”

  “When did you learn about it?” I rather enjoyed being royalty.

  “We were given word in Sana’a that something was brewing in Sa’da. In Sa’da an informant who shall be unnamed…” Richard’s eyes flicked to Ali. “…told us we should come here. Trouble was, we didn’t know who would carry it out, exactly where, or how.”

  Ali hung his head.

  “That is why he came from Sa’da,” put in Halima, too proud of her brother to care what embarrassment he was going through. “Everyone thought he was a traitor to Yemen. They thought he had joined that group in Sa’da that wants to murder foreigners and make Yemen as conservative as the Wahabbis in Saudi Arabia.”

  “Ali has done a good job,” said Ahmad, quickly. I suspected he hoped Halima would stop talking. It was clear he wanted to say the least amount possible while yet clearing Ali’s name.

  I couldn’t resist. “How did you get away from the terrorist group, Ali?”

  The boy hesitated, but finally answered in a low voice. “I was sent to buy bread and supplies in Sa’da. When I got out of the car, the driver threw a knife at me. It was near Mr. Queens’ hotel. Mr. Queens had people standing by who created a diversion. They carried me to the clinic. And you know the rest.”

  Ali stopped and looked up. The door to the dining room opened and all three Congressmen entered, accompanied by yet more security guards, the Ambassador, and Jason Roberts. They strode toward us with that definitive walk that accompanies a firm handshake and unflinching eye contact. Their staffs, smaller than usual on trips, hovered about.

  “This is Elizabeth Darcy.” Jason introduced me with a new touch of deference. I held out my hand—my feet on the chair made standing awkward. Each man took my hand.

  Jason introduced everyone around the circle, ending up with Ali, who looked as though he’d prefer to be elsewhere. “He is from a distinguished family,” was all Jason said.

  “I’m afraid we don’t have time to sit down.” Congressman Phillips of Nebraska had a radio voice and seemed to be the unofficial leader of the group. “But I want you all to know that your actions will be noted and remembered in the U.S. Capitol. We owe you our lives. Let us know if you need anything. I mean that.”

  I never believe people who say, “I mean that.”

  Then the group headed off to the airport, literally surrounded by men in green and gray camouflage. They’d offered to send the embassy plane back from Sana’a for us, which would take a few hours.

  “No,” said Lieutenant Surash. “The Yemeni military will take them. When they are ready to go.”

  It was far too pleasant here in the oasis to think of leaving just yet.

  “Okay. Time for some answers.” I sipped my second cup of coffee and idly dipped a spoon into some of the famous honey. “Who was in on the plot? And what did Michael Petrovich’s murder have to do with it?”

  Richard looked at the honey. “Honey had a lot to do with it,” he said. “They were packing explosives and arms in honey barrels. It’s well-hidden, in special interior pockets so the honey doesn’t spoil the explosives. Weight is about right.”

  Richard sounded tired. Ahmad took up the tale. “Honey can even foil trained dogs,” he explained. “No smell. No one puts a hand in to check… Some of the barrels were shipped out of the country—to places like Somalia and the Sudan. The ringleader of this network is Osama bin Laden, whose family comes from around here—as does the honey.”

  Richard broke in. “Some of the arms and the honey were kept right here, to make trouble in Yemen. As you figured out last night.” His icy gray eyes turned almost sea-blue.

  “Tom Reilly…was he…”

  “…in on the honey conspiracy? Oh, yes. Reilly was in it. So was Petrovich. Both of them wanted money. Arms smuggling has always been a sure way to get it.”

  Well, so much for the charm of Michael Petrovich.

  “And those volunteers in the beekeeping project?”

  “Led in the wrong direction by Reilly. He was working on Christine. And Reilly tried to get Ali, too.”

  “I suppose when that didn’t work, he tried to kill Ali in Sa’da?”

  Ahmad took over. “Reilly was a minor player, just someone who received money for recruitment and gave the group in Sa’da an American face they could point to. The guys up there got suspicious of Ali and decided he should be eliminated.”

  “So why didn’t they succeed? Why was he hurt only a little?”

  Outside the window, on the grass near the swimming pool, a black and white striped hoopoe bobbed its tufted head up and down in search of Hadhrami worms. I leaned back to catch a few rays of sun.

  “I think my cousin Ahmad Kutup knows something o
f this,” said Halima. She couldn’t bring herself to address Ahmad by his first name, but her shining eyes thanked him. He gave her a small, appreciative smile. Would a second intra-family wedding occur soon, in addition to Zuheyla and Ali?

  “Better not to talk of many things.” Neither Ahmad nor Richard was in the habit of explaining things.

  “Well, what did Christine Helmund know? She wasn’t in on the plot. Or was she?”

  “I’m afraid Christine got a little too snoopy. And a little greedy.” Richard sounded very tired.

  “Meaning…”

  “Meaning she let Tom Reilly know she suspected him. She tried to blackmail him. Hiring a motorcycle gunman in Sana’a isn’t difficult. He took a chance, and it worked.”

  My mind leaped back to a fly-buzzing afternoon in Sana’a, when I dozed in Tom’s mufraj and overheard an angry discussion. Tom and Christine? Poor girl. She could have gone either way, good or bad. And now she couldn’t go anywhere.

  Lovely Christine and Michael Petrovich. “So who killed Petrovich?” That murder seemed in the dim and distant past, yet had sparked so many investigations, led to so many twisted paths.

  Ahmad and Richard stared at each other. I frowned. “One of you? Both of you? You mean my government and its allies engage in that sort of assassination? I am ashamed and disgusted. And making it look like a Yemeni crime of honor by using the jambiya. Really!” I would have walked off in a huff except for my throbbing ankle.

  Richard raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Well, this time you can put your shame away. We didn’t do it.” Richard sounded almost smug.

  Ahmad shrugged, but finally spoke. “That murder was of the garden variety, actually. A scorned woman. A furious mother.”

  “Alex Metzger?”

  “None other. She thought Petrovich was corrupting her daughter. We have known that she killed him for some time, but we did not want her arrested. She did for us what we could not so easily do.”

  “She used a jambiya?”

  Another surreptitious glance between the international spies. Finally, Richard answered: “No. The jambiya was an added flourish. Petrovich died of poison. We didn’t want a full investigation and the Yemeni police cooperated.”

  “What kind of poison?”

  “Alex used mercury in her jewelry-making business. Petrovich had a habit of sniffing wintergreen oil to clear his sinuses. She put a couple of drops into his bottle and he inhaled it. Pretty fast-acting. Then she used one of his expensive jambiyas to finish the job—and to express revenge.”

  “But she killed again, last night…” The figure in flowing red, rising and shooting in rage…a tragic maternal heroine. My memories of my old acquaintance would be changed forever.

  “Yes.” No more.

  “And once more, a woman handled something you secret types wanted done… Did you know she was here and planning to kill Tom Reilly?” I was having trouble assimilating the fact that a woman I’d known had killed two people, and that my old friend, Tom, was one of the bad guys. My suspects had turned out to be on my side, however annoying they might be.

  “Just one piece of advice,” suggested Richard. “I’d be careful about making anybody like Alexandra Metzger angry.”

  CHAPTER 137

  “I would not go away without seeing you, but I have no time to spare, and therefore must now be gone directly…have you anything to send or say, besides the ‘love,’ which nobody carries?”

  Jane Austen, Emma

  My article was short and sweet and would probably go on page 6:

  U.S. CONGRESSIONAL DELEGATION HAS NARROW ESCAPE IN YEMEN

  Seiyun, Yemen: A car bomb exploded Wednesday night shortly before three members of the U.S. Congress returned to a south Yemeni hotel from dinner at the President’s summer residence nearby. In the accompanying shootout, two Americans and two Yemenis died. The Americans are identified as Thomas Reilly, a free-lance journalist and long-time resident of Yemen and Larry Smith, a Peace Corps volunteer from Nebraska. According to Tribune correspondent Elizabeth Darcy, who was on the scene covering the Congressional visit, the two Americans were caught in crossfire as Yemeni security men and an unknown number of terrorists exchanged fire. The Yemeni government and U.S. agencies will coordinate an investigation.

  * * * *

  “Phone call for you, Ms. Darcy.” The waiter entered with exquisite politeness to hand me the instrument.

  “Are you okay? What the baloney you doing? What going on there? When you come back to Sana’a?” The rich Italian tones rang satisfyingly down the line.

  “I’m fine, Nello. And yes, I’ll be back soon. Can I bring you anything from the Hadhramaut?”

  “Bring honey. Some pounds of honey. Here. Somebody else wants to talk.”

  “Elizabeth? What’s going on? When will you be back?” Becca sounded her usual cheerful self, though with more than an edge of anxiety.

  “Oh, Becca, it’s a long story… I’m glad you got back to Sana’a without incident.” I felt a little guilty that Becca had been abandoned in the isolated north. Not that I had any choice! And she did have the faithful Yusuf.

  “Elizabeth?” Nello was back on the line.

  “Yes?”

  “Mrs. Weston has had babies. Five babies.” He had the proud tones of a new father.

  Oh, good. Kittens to play with. And then I’d curl up in the Dar al-Hamd with a good book. Emma, of course. And when my flight left Sana’a, I’d think back about this whole adventure and find it hard to believe.

  Handing the phone back to the waiter, I looked around at the group. I met Richard’s wicked gaze, then Ahmad’s more courtly one. Attractive men, both of them. Both provided valuable service to their countries and to international peace, I was sure. Good men.

  “Are you going to tell me who you’re with? Whether you work for the same organization or not?” My tone was a little sharp.

  After a pause, and after they looked at each other, they answered.

  “I’m a businessman,” said Richard.

  “I’m a lawyer,” proclaimed Ahmad.

  I rolled my eyes and shook my head. “Oh, honestly. Pass the honey, one of you.”

  * * * *

  O friend, be patient whenever things get bad. No, no

  O time, the law of the good is always envied.

  Yemeni poetry translated by Steven C. Caton in “Peaks of Yemen I Summon”

  ARABIC GLOSSARY

  Author’s note: Arabic spelling using the Latin alphabet is far from standard. I have selected spellings that best represent—at least, to my ear—common words I have used in the text.

  Aleikum al-salaam — Reply to the greeting

  bakshish — money given to beggars or to workers performing lowly jobs

  balto — long black garment covering a woman (this has other names, such as charshaf or abaya)

  burqa — a black piece of cloth tied around the head at nose level which allows only the eyes to show (Some burqas include a thin black veil that totally obscures the woman’s face.) Again, other names are used in other countries and during different eras.

  chai — tea

  ey-wah — yes

  hubz — heavy bread baked daily in brick ovens

  imam — Muslim holy man; leader of prayers in the mosque

  kaffiyah — checked square head-dress used by Arab men and usually worn as a loose turban or scarf around the neck

  kalem — pen or pencil

  ma’salama — goodbye

  mafish — “It’s nothing.”

  mufraj — long carpeted and cushioned room, usually at the top of Yemeni mud-brick houses, where guests are entertained, tea is drunk, qat chewed etc. Cushions are lined up along the walls and tall vertical windows allow those sitting on cushions in the mufraj to look out.

  muezzin — man who delivers the call to prayer from the minarets of mosques five times a day

  qat — a narcotic leaf which is stuffed into a wad in the cheek and which acts as a stimulant

&n
bsp; Salaam aleikum — Muslim greeting and blessing

  shukran — thank you

  souk — old-style market, with tiny shops lining narrow cobble-stoned streets

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  It has taken me so long to get to the point of publication from that first “gleam in the eye” of writing a mystery, I have used most of my family and friends as supports along the way. I have also benefited from years of friendship with hospitable people in Turkey and Yemen, where I have been so fortunate as to have lived and visited, time and again. There is no way to mention all the wonderful people who, often unknowingly, have contributed to this work.

  There are, however, a few who need special mention:

  My husband, Jim, has read every version of every chapter and without him I wouldn’t have made the leap from reporter to novelist. Jim, I love you and will always be grateful.

  My daughter, Anne Welles Auer, has graciously applied her artistic talents to the book covers, giving the series its unique look.

  Carla Coupe of Wildside Press is an amazing editor/publisher who guided me along the path, always patient, precise and encouraging.

  Liz Trupin-Pulli of JET Literary, my agent, has added her years of editorial talent to making these books as linguistically precise as possible.

  Other heartfelt acknowledgements appear below to friends and writing companions who have read, critiqued, and encouraged my work—and to friends in Turkey and Yemen who, through countless dinners, trips, late-night drinks and all manner of friendship over a twenty-year period have helped me enjoy and understand their complex cultures:

  Anwar Ahmed (Hadhramaut, Yemen)

  Hassan Bahashwan (Hadhramaut, Yemen)

  Hamit Balkır (Istanbul, Turkey)

  Nancy Beardsley

  Cordelia Benedict (Ankara, Turkey)

  Rasha Benjamin (Cairo, Egypt)

  Ginie Çapan

  Oğuz Çapan (Turkey)

  Linda Cashdan

  Katherine Dibble

  Güngör and Güngör Dilmen (Istanbul, Turkey)