Treasure of Eden
Page 18
Once again, McMillan saw the look of longing, the same longing as when Hajj had viewed the beautiful tanzanite necklace. Then again, as if a door shut, it was gone.
What’s holding him back? He should jump at this offer. Unless…
“The eBay deal,” said the sheikh, almost frantic. “I’m afraid I’ll be killed if I do not go through with it.”
Frank snorted. “And will your clan not hunt you down as well? Be safe from all of them, and live like a king, with your new young bride. You don’t believe I can do this? Here. As a token of my good intent–and of my capabilities–let me present you with the rare necklace I showed you earlier.”
Frank handed the hinged box to the old man. The Hajj opened it, and was aghast to see it actually contained the precious gems.
“All you need to do is sell me the box. Of course, I will have to see it to verify you have the real thing.”
Now the look of grave concern, followed by hesitation, with that longing mixed in once again.
Why should it bother him that I will need to see the box? Unless… he doesn’t have it!
Finally, the pieces all fit. Frank understood the fear and concern the man was trying unsuccessfully to hide. He no longer had the box, and desperately needed it for all his dreams to be fulfilled.
Well, this certainly was a setback, but the game was still afoot. The prize could not have gone far, and this man was still the key.
Frank reached over and put his hand on the man’s shoulder, saying quietly and confidently, “I won’t press you for an answer right now, but promise to think about it, all right?”
The Hajj silently nodded, totally dumbfounded at all he had heard.
Frank McMillan turned back toward the camp, confident his prey had no idea Frank had just placed a tracking device in the collar of his robe.
January 26, 2007, 8:22 p.m.
(14 hours, 8 minutes until end of auction)
Judean wilderness west of the Dead Sea
Israel
* * *
Yasmin, the bride-to-be, sat numbly and watched the festivities going on all around her. How could it be that the focus of all this was her? How could it be that she would be leaving her mother’s tent forever, tomorrow?
Yasmin knew that it was extremely unlikely, given the circumstances of her life, that things would have a happy ending. She herself had chosen to force the issue, and the timing, just because she could not continue the life she was living. She’d rather die.
And she might.
She might die tomorrow.
Yasmin had promised her mother she would try to be happy, or at least act happy, at her henna night, but she was too weary. No matter what, she was leaving her mother and her brother behind with the Monster. At least Yasmin’s mother had spoken up. Perhaps she would go through with her threat.
Yasmin didn’t know, but she was almost glad there was something. Was there a way she could save her mother in the future? Would she now have power, as wife of the Hajj, to see that the situation stopped?
Was the Hajj really trying to help her? Had he understood what she’d whispered to him during their meeting? She had decided to tell him then, because if she hadn’t, if the unstained cloth had been a surprise, not even the Hajj could have saved her from the wrath of her own clan.
But she had said it, and it seemed he had heard. He had brought a bride-price, anyway. It seemed they would be married tomorrow.
Still, there was so much that could go wrong. Either he could have misunderstood her situation or she could have misunderstood his intentions. Or someone else could find out the truth of her situation. Perhaps the Monster himself would reveal her shame.
Yasmin herself put her odds at fifty-fifty of living through the next day.
Even if she did, she would be living away from her family, married to a man four times her age. Her husband would have a right to do with her as he wished. There was no way of knowing what kind of rights he would wish.
Maybe it would be better if she could just die.
How many girls had a grand celebration the night before their shame was revealed? How many girls were sung to and painted with henna the day before their death?
“She is so shy,” she heard her mother whisper to a cousin, even though no one had commented in her mother’s hearing about how undemonstrative Yasmin was being.
She didn’t mean to be. But half of her was bemused by the fuss.
Half of her felt as though she were already dead.
January 26, 2007, 9:22 p.m.
(13 hours, 8 minutes until end of auction)
Judean wilderness west of the Dead Sea
Israel
* * *
The Hajj sat among the male friends and relatives who had gathered to celebrate his wedding. He knew them, knew the hard times many of them were facing, knew the problems they had at home, the land disputes, the ambivalence they had about serving in the Israeli Army–which they all did when called–about the new culture shown to them on televisions and radio, about the current state of Islam, which they had always conformed to their own Bedouin beliefs, but it was harder and harder to be allowed to do so.
When had life become so complicated?
He was tired of it.
When he’d found the box those fifty long years ago, he’d thought it would make everything so easy. Instead, it had caused nothing but headaches.
Which was why he’d planned to sell it, take the money, and move away with his new wife.
Now even that simple plan had become so complicated as to seem impossible.
As the CIA man had reminded him, it would be nearly impossible for two Muslims from the Middle East to get permanent visas to live in the United States. In a Western country, it would be illegal for him to claim a fifteen-year-old as his wife. He had read news stories about the Bedouin from the Khawalid tribe in northern Galilee who was now the Israeli consul in the United States. His office was in San Francisco, California. In his naïveté, the Hajj had planned to move to San Francisco, where it seemed a Bedouin couple could buy a place and be welcomed.
He had never planned past that.
What would he do? What would Yasmin do? Would she be thrilled at their new life? Would she enjoy having a television, running water, a washing machine? Would she enjoy exploring and making friends with the other Arab women? Or would she be lonely and alone, so far from her family, her friends, her way of life?
When he had planned it for her, he had seen only the shiny possibilities. He had seen only all the things they would be escaping.
What would they run to? Even if he had the box, and gave it to Frank, and was moved to Los Angeles, what would they do?
Through the open tent flap the Hajj could see the white honeymoon tent in the moonlight. Instead of staying there for the week they would be granted as newlyweds, he had arranged to leave in the middle of the first night. He had arranged a pickup place with a local Israeli driver who made a living ferrying people from town to town.
It would certainly be several days before anyone realized they were gone.
Then–should he survive the fact that he no longer had the box–what would he do?
He looked at the tent again, and sighed. If he could take it all back, not owe the box to a seller on the black market, would he do so? Would he take Yasmin to their honeymoon tent and stay with her? She had as much as told him that someone was taking advantage of her against her will. What did that mean for him? Would she ever come to the point where she would willingly have relations? Would it be possible for her ever to enjoy it?
Or must their relationship remain purely platonic?
If he allowed that, would she be grateful, still consider him her savior, still think well of him?
Would she perhaps be grateful enough that one day she would come to him?
The Hajj had spoken to his distant cousin Ahmet. Ahmet had agreed to talk with the men he knew, those with whom he felt comfortable, about the whereabouts of the box.
Perhaps now all he could do was pray God would bring it back.
“Inshallah,” the bridegroom prayed. “If God wills.”
January 26, 2007, 10:14 p.m.
(12 hours, 16 minutes until end of auction)
Judean wilderness west of the Dead Sea
Israel
* * *
Everything depended on Jaime choosing correctly.
She was aware, at the edges of her fraying consciousness, that the truck had stopped and women who had journeyed back with her from the henna night at the bride’s camp were getting out. They must be back at the Hajj’s camp.
The endless desert sky lay over her like a shroud as she crept toward the rear of the vehicle. She slid off the back and tried to keep her balance by holding on to the truck while finding the ground with her feet.
In a moment, all the women would have dispersed, the truck would be gone. At that point she would be left alone and ill in the dark until she was discovered by a passerby, at which point she would become the focus of attention.
She did not want that.
The women were still talking and laughing, albeit quietly, as they congealed into knots of twos and threes and disappeared into the night, most heading back to the side of the big tent where the women would sleep.
She had to guess right.
Give me wisdom, was the length of her prayer.
January 26, 2007, 10:25 p.m.
(12 hours, 5 minutes until end of auction)
Judean wilderness west of the Dead Sea
Israel
* * *
“Suleiman,” whispered Safia into the darkness outside the horse pen.
“Who’s there?” came the startled reply.
“Shhh. It’s me: Safia. I need you to take a message to Tarif. It’s important.”
“Safia, it’s late! Why are you up? If anyone sees you here–”
“That’s why they must not!” she said. And then, not able to keep from being distracted, she said of the horses, “Which one is going as part of the bride-price?”
“Azul,” he said of the stallion, and as he did, he could imagine the catch in the girl’s throat. But she was being resolute. She didn’t want to get Suleiman in trouble, but she needed him.
“Please tell Tarif to get Ahmet. Ahmet’s sister is ill. Ask Tarif to please bring him to the cave where the spotted kids were born last spring.”
“What if my brother gets into trouble?”
“Your brother can become almost invisible. You know that. I am hoping that he will try. It is Ahmet he should bring.”
Suleiman let his head fall backward. He’d almost thought to himself: This little girl asks for so little, I may as well do her a favor. But then he remembered that Safia asked for horses and night rides and secrecy. She asked for friendship with boys. She asked for everything. And now she was asking again.
“Please tell Tarif,” she pleaded again. “And then the choice is up to him.”
“All right, Safia. You should be running this country. You can talk anyone into anything.”
“Only if they have a kind heart,” she said simply.
She turned to slip away, but then she stopped. “Do you think they’ll give Azul a good home?” she asked.
“Inshallah—if it pleases God,” was all Suleiman could bring himself to reply, as he headed back toward camp.
January 26, 2007, 10:46 p.m.
(11 hours, 44 minutes until end of auction)
Judean wilderness west of the Dead Sea
Israel
* * *
Jaime was in a cave hollowed out of a series of hills of sandstone into which the wind and rain had worn a myriad of nooks, pathways, and caves. The one where Safia had brought her had a wide mouth, then narrowed as it abruptly turned a corner into a hidden alcove.
The girl knew her caves.
Jaime had no idea how long she’d been there, fading in and out of consciousness, when she heard Safia whisper, “She’s here. She’s hurt. And her head is very hot.”
“Thank you,” came a man’s voice in reply, in local dialect. “You’ve been very kind. I don’t want to get you in trouble. You needn’t stay.”
And those words, the timbre of that voice, were all it took to bring Jaime back to alertness.
It was Yani.
He had come.
He would help her; she was in capable hands. But, more than that, she would see him; for however brief a time, she would be with him again. She hadn’t been sure she’d ever see him again in this lifetime.
It wasn’t clear to Jaime whether Safia left her post outside the cave or not. Jaime heard Yani coming forward into the cave, following a small lantern beam around the corner.
He was here.
But when Yani actually stalked into the cave hidden in the hillside, it was nothing at all like the scene Jaime had imagined when Frank was whipping her and she turned to Yani in her mind for strength. The irony was strong: she had imagined him coming to her in a secret cave, and now he was doing just that.
When he came into the cave where she was hidden half a mile from the Bedouin camp, there were no soft pillows, no music, no kind goatherd, no fragrance of tuberose.
And Yani was angry as hell.
As he entered her alcove and knelt down beside her, Jaime expelled her breath. For that one moment, she was relieved. Yani was here. She’d be all right.
“What are you doing?” he hissed at her through gritted teeth. “Do you understand that if anyone finds us here, the entire mission is compromised?”
Jaime had never heard him so irate. She opened her eyes and saw him: the sun-bronzed skin, the quick, assessing brown eyes, the thick black hair beneath his kaffiyeh.
“I’m sorry. I was about to pass out. I didn’t know what else to do.”
“What is it?” he asked. “What’s wrong?”
“My back,” she said. “Frank McMillan. Kidnapped me. Whipped me. Not good.”
Yani put a hand to his head, like this was too much, she was really causing trouble now. “Take off your galabia and let me see.” He silently crept back to the mouth of the cave, making sure the coast was clear. Then he came back.
Jaime was sitting up. She tried to pull her Bedouin dress off, but she couldn’t manage. She’d fallen back against the side of the cave.
He didn’t say anything. He came over, and started with the sleeves, tugging them over her head. As he did, his hand touched her skin and he pulled it back like he’d been burned.
He turned her dress inside out, which put all the coins and tassels inside. Then he laid it down on the floor of the cave. He didn’t have to tell her to lie down. Her head swam when she sat up. There was nothing else she could do.
He held the lantern aloft and inspected her naked back.
“Dear God,” he said. “How did a doctor see this and let you go out on assignment?”
“No one saw it, exactly,” she managed.
“You didn’t show anyone? How could you have done this?” he asked. And again: “This could compromise the whole mission.”
Again: “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“It’s becoming infected,” he said, flinging each word with the slap of an accusation.
As if she weren’t shaking with fever. As if she didn’t know that already.
He had brought a camel’s hair bag with him, and from the bottom of it he withdrew what she recognized to be an Eden medical kit. She usually carried one herself.
Yani didn’t use “the tone,” the reassuring voice she’d heard from him when he was comforting someone in difficult circumstances. He didn’t talk at all. He worked quickly.
First he injected two different medications into her shoulder. Gardener injections no longer involved needles, but she could feel a prickly warmth as the solutions themselves dispersed into her muscle.
Then he brought out some kind of disinfectant and began to clean the str
ipes on her back. Each one burned with such intensity that she wondered if it didn’t hurt more than the original lash.
Jaime wanted to scream with pain, but she knew she couldn’t. Finally, she couldn’t help moaning, and when she did–when she got too loud–Yani didn’t stop, or give her some pain medication, or pat her hand. He reached into his kit and pulled out a roll of bandages.
“Here,” he said. And he went back to work.
It took her a minute to figure out he meant her to bite on it, to keep her quiet.
So she did.
* * *
She thought she may have passed out for a while. Her mind was so foggy it was hard to tell. When she came to, she felt him coating the lashes with some kind of cream. She felt much more clearheaded. Perhaps the medication had broken the fever already.
Jaime knew it was very likely, as the auction was ending the next morning, she might not speak to Yani again on this mission. In fact, in the world in which he traveled she might never speak to him again. But they had unfinished business, and as aggravated as he was, he was here now.
“Ten down?” she asked. That was Operative code for the request to take time to discuss non-mission topics.
“No time,” he said. He had something clamped in his mouth. She looked over to find it was the roll of bandages, which must have fallen from her mouth. He was tearing them with his teeth and fitting them across her back.
“Oh, for God’s sake,” she said. She could only take so much of his king-of-all-Operatives attitude. “Then you can frigging listen while I talk. And when you’re done, you can leave. That way I won’t waste any precious seconds of your time.”
He didn’t answer, but he didn’t stop her, either.