by Rose Fox
“Where is the Bazaar?” Karma inquired and she pointed to the wondrous Mosque of the Imam that was located to the south of the square.
“It’s there, facing us. The Bazaar begins on the north side of the plaza,” and she went down to the street.
“Let’s cross to the shops,” she called out and Karma looked around, trying to find them. He noticed that the two-storey buildings facing him concealed a multitude of stalls and served as a vestibule, leading to them.
In the rear of these buildings, businesses and workshops were revealed that stood in a row. Behind them, cars drove along a road paved with interlocking stones that broke the continuity of these ancient buildings.
The sun glistened on the wet dome of the ‘Lutaf Mosque’ and Karma looked up at it. He noticed that hues of the building varied in from gray to pink, depending on the sunlight, and the grand gate at the entrance to the mosque glowed in shades of turquoise.
Gorgeous, isn’t it? It’s more appropriate for a mausoleum than a mosque,” she said. “Did you know that there is a long tunnel in the ground beneath it?
“What? Where is there a tunnel?” he asked immediately, ticking off something in his memory. “What tunnel are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about the one that connects this mosque to that palace on the other side of the square.”
“Is that so?!”
Now, he remembered the coded message from the transmission, speaking lightheartedly, as he tried not to reveal that he knew anything.
“Oh, how mysterious. It’s bad enough just to think of going down below to it, in the dark, with a flashlight, Brrrrr.” He shuddered. “I don’t understand, why do they dig tunnels like that?”
“What’s to understand? That building over there is a palace and members of royal families always need a secret passage, somewhere mysterious and an escape route that only they know about.”
“Oh, how romantic.”
She let out a sound of contempt. “Romantic? Absolutely not. Think of the fear of the young princes and princess making their way down below, hiding or escaping through this tunnel with a lighted candle in their hand.”
She moved forward, with her back bent, as if holding a burning candle.
“Wow, think of the shadows on the sandy walls, moving and attacking them, Boo!” She jumped and waved her bent fingers in his face.
“Oh, what a wild imagination you have. What else is in that tunnel?”
She pulled him by his hand.
“Let’s go to the palace, have a look around the Royal suite and then we can try and go down below and check it out,” she suggested.
She didn’t pay attention that a woman from the bus, who had sat in the row in front of them, was now standing behind her, listening to her and watching her. She asked:
“May I go with you to the palace?”
Abigail jumped with a start. She hesitated momentarily and saw Karma recoil but, immediately thought that if the woman were to accompany them, it would appear to be nothing more than an innocent stroll.
“Yes, come,” she said and when they went ahead to the mosque, she muttered to Karma, with a smile on her face that was in total contradiction to the content of her remarks:
“Wait with the lady till I return and don’t search for me.” Her smile broadened and she said: “Not to worry, I’ll get there in the end – even if I have to do so alone.”
She did not get to see Karma’s face. This showed he had begun understanding that the time had come to support “Lucy” and he was still trying to grasp what kind of support she required from him.
The visitors were transfixed by the high ceiling that was decorated with images and Abigail stared in amazement at the stained glass windows and collages of glass that cast a golden yellow light everywhere. After a minute, she passed the people by. She went to look for stairs or an opening leading down to the lower level, which would take her down to the underground royal passage beneath them.
No one noticed that she had left the hall and she continued to the last room. There, on its southern wall hung a densely beaded curtain that fell to the floor. She pulled the beads aside and peered into the complete darkness that looked like a black wall. Before entering, she glanced back to check whether anyone was looking at her, then slipped away through the beads that clattered shut behind her back.
The air was moist and musty and the smell of mold constricted her throat. She stood still and was frightened of moving. The darkness was so thick that before she took a step she moved one foot forward to feel out whether there was a floor below her. She stood and listened and took another few steps and sensed that the surface she was stepping on was sloping.
She continued, step by step, touching the wall on her right and feeling the way she couldn’t see with her left arm. All at once, it occurred to her that she ought to count her paces so that she would remember the number when she returned along the same route. When she had counted fifteen paces, the hand that stretched out in front of her touched a wall but, her right hand felt a corner on the right side. Beyond the corner, there was empty space.
She stood still, understanding there was a turn to the right and as soon as she took the turn, she saw a faint light. Abigail imagined she heard undefinable noises and she stopped on the spot. She listened again, but the silence had returned and she wondered if she had imagined the sounds because of her tension. She kept walking slowly, alert and prepared for any scenario that might unfold.
As her eyes grew accustomed to the dark, she noticed dark openings in the wall on her right. She peered into each of them and progressed to the next one. She wondered why the place was abandoned and deserted, without guards or any other presence. It never occurred to her that she was, in fact, being drawn directly into the trap – into the heart of the secret royal underground passage, into the danger that should be avoided at all costs.
In the meantime, Karma waited for her in the crowded, bustling hall. The woman, who had joined the two of them, decided to continue with the people milling around the Bazaar. He sat on a stone bench in the large hall of the mosque and waited. When more than an hour passed, he understood that Abigail had found what she was looking for and that the delay was caused by carrying out her assignment.
He didn’t know what to do. On one hand, she had mentioned that if she were delayed – he should go on without her and that she would get back on her own. But, on the other hand, he needed to know that she was alright. The anxiety that occupied his mind had made him tired. He tried to calm himself with the thought that no one knew she had gone down to the tunnel so there was no cause for concern. He presumed that she didn’t need the support he had been asked to give her.
Just then, there was a commotion and the guards were bustling about in preparation. At first it appeared normal, like the regular changing of the guard ceremony accompanied by marching and yelling loud commands. Then, a soldier entered pulling an Alsatian Terrier behind him on a short leash, moved ahead and disappeared from view. Now, Karma was convinced that something out of the ordinary was happening.
‘A dog?!’ he thought and almost cried out in surprise because he knew that animals are not brought into a holy place like this. Again, he recalled the message he had received:
“Give Lucy back up when she inserts the virus into the tunnel.”
He wondered if the moment had arrived for him to back her up.
Now, it seemed someone was staring at him and he turned his gaze in his direction. Indeed, he saw a man with a mustache at the end of the hall. A flicker of recognition flashed through his memory but, the man disappeared among the dozens of people, milling about the mosque. Karma frowned, trying to recall where he knew the man from and he decided to outwit him.
He stepped back to the wall and raised his head as if to behold the ceiling, decorated with verses from the liturgy and then he noticed the man again. It was his brother-in-law, Effendi Khaidar, his wife Salima’s brother. He almost ran towards him, but his brother-in-law elud
ed him and disappeared again. Karma tried to understand what he was doing here and why he was playing hide-and-seek with him.
His brain worked feverishly. The unplanned meeting with his elusive brother-in-law and the guard, who entered the mosque with a dog made him decide to do something to draw attention to him. He thought that if Abigail was in trouble – any delay he could offer might give her time to resolve the problem or, alternatively, allow her to continue what she was doing without disturbance. Now he looked for something he could do that would make everyone pay attention and focus only on him.
Suddenly he got an idea. He began singing at the top of his voice, then leaped up, screamed phrases from the Quran, murmured prayers and sang religious tunes he remembered. He mimicked the behavior of a fervent religious fanatic and cavorted around like someone who had lost his mind in the holy mosque.
The tourists stared at him, some regarded him with understanding and others, with surprise. After a few minutes a group of men in turbans and gowns approached him tolerantly and surrounded the dancing man with a human ring, touched him and tried to calm him down. Soldiers at the entrance followed what was going on without interfering. Perhaps, they thought that this crazy religious fanatic was now under control and being cared for by the religious authorities of the mosque.
The truth was that Effendi, his brother-in-law, had been following him for many days but, at the same time, was trying to prevent his fellow members of the ‘Kaukab’ organization from assassinating him. He feared his sister becoming a widow.
At the last meeting of the organization, the suggestion to kill Karma had been raised. Effendi’s claim persuaded them to wait.
“We need to keep him alive. He is the goose that lays the golden eggs for us.”
When he saw that the others didn’t fully understand him, he added:
“That guy will lead us to the next assignment of the ‘Mossad’ and I suggest we follow him. What could suit us better than that?”
The idea sounded reasonable to them and the assassination was dropped from the agenda but, Effendi was not gullible. He followed Karma because he believed that there was a good chance they would carry out the hit, in spite of the decision to wait.
That week, Effendi had discovered the romantic connection between Karma and Abigail. He burned with rage and was furious but then, the voice of reason took over and he decided to wait for an opportune moment to deal with the matter appropriately. In the meantime, he decided not to tell his sister, Salima, that her husband had another wife and he tried to keep track of them.
The sounds from above were inaudible in the passageway down to the tunnel and Abigail was still surrounded by gloom and total silence.
She moved forward and suddenly felt her foot suspended in the air. She almost sank forward but immediately drew her leg back and cautiously extended it again. Once more, there was nothing solid to stand on. Before her stood a cavernous shaft that was an impassable abyss.
Initially, she assumed that the renovation was not yet finished. Her next thought was that, perhaps, the floor had collapsed. She got down on her knees and felt around the edge of the shaft. Her hand came upon a stake stuck into the inside edges of the hole, from which a rope hung down. She understood it was probably a rope ladder. Abigail sat on the brink of the shaft and lowered her legs into it. She leaned forward to look down it but was unable to discover its depth or where it led. Although she had tried to avoid turning on a light, she now pressed on the protuberance on her key ring and the ray it produced illuminated the distant floor that continued without an end in view. She turned around, grabbed the stake and lowered a hesitant foot down to the first rung of the rope, stood on it to test if it would support her body weight. She felt it was steady and lowered her other leg, then descended rung by rung and counted thirteen until she was standing on terra firma.
Everything was so dark that she beamed the ray of light again. The long low-ceilinged passage stretched out ahead of her and the air was chilled and musty. When felt the walls, her fingers touched soft and moist hairy circles and bulges that were damp moss, growing like small cushions. The circles were round lights or light fittings. Now, she felt sure she was walking along the Royal tunnel and knew that it went to the ‘Aali Qapo’ Palace. She calculated that a few dozen yards further along, the tunnel would reach the area below the palace itself and come out above the ground on the other side.
Now, she thought about what was happening above with Karma. She tried to guess how much time had passed from the time she went down into the passageway and imagined to herself that Karma had understood that he should continue without her. But, then, she bumped into something hard and almost tripped. Her backpack slipped off and sank to the floor with a thud. When she flashed the light beam again, she saw two huge cables that stuck out of the ground and passed through wooden boards in a dug-out. She understood that this was the computer system, which had been installed a month earlier. Lutfi had faced this problem on his previous visit to the Bazaar, and her heart began to race wildly.
She knelt down right away and pulled the flash drive out of her bra. Without thinking, she felt along the length of the cable and pierced it at the point where it met the wall to create contact. At that very second, she heard a roar and threatening growl of an animal and her blood ran cold.
A blue line was progressing on the Flash-drive and she put her finger on it as if to speed it up and cried silently:
“Please, God, make it go faster,” knowing that right then, the virus was contaminating the powerful computer.
A short distance away from her, she heard a sharp command and the heavy breathing of an animal. She didn’t wait a second longer. She got up and ran like crazy, abandoning her camouflage colored backpack on the floor of the tunnel, near the cables that were conveying the signals to the computers.
Abigail felt around in the dark, looking for the wall which led her to the right – to the thirteen rungs of the rope ladder. Just as she touched the wall, she heard the dog’s bark reverberate in the tunnel. She grabbed into space like crazy for the rope, caught it and put one foot on the bottom step. But, the animal’s teeth bit into her other leg and when she pulled it up, she heard her clothes tear and felt its teeth piercing her flesh.
A cold blast hit her torso, but the pain still did not penetrate her consciousness. All she could think of for the moment was to count another twelve steps in the ladder to reach the stake stuck in the opening of the pit and leverage herself out with its help. Something heavy pulled the rope ladder from the bottom of the shaft and she heard heavy breathing. When she sensed the hot breath behind her, she kicked back at its source with her right leg.
A sharp yelp was heard, followed by a dull thud. Almost without taking a breath, she reached the top of the pit, pulled herself out of it and squatted in the sand.
Now, she pulled out the tiny knife, caught the rope she had just climbed up and quickly cut it. She was almost done when she heard the panting and yelping of the animal, again, leaving it hanging by a thread. She ran in the total darkness, did not remember, for the moment, to count the fifteen paces back. She just continued with her arms extended in front of her, seeking out the beaded curtain at the entrance and her brain was paralyzed with terror.
Blood trickled and dripped from her ravaged leg. But she continued running away, staining the sandy ground with her blood until, at long last, she reached the beaded curtain that closed the way to and from the tunnel entrance. Here, she stopped once more, blinking at the light that blinded her and collapsed on the spot. The moment she hit the floor, she revived. She touched her calf, felt her torn flesh and saw her blood forming a puddle. She pulled off the scarf of her hijab and wrapped it round her bleeding leg.
She heard dogs barking behind her and knew for sure she had to get up and get out of there but, the moment she did get up, she got dizzy again and fell down on the floor.
The sound of voices singing aroused her and she got up with an effort and limped towards where they
were coming from. She had almost reached the large hall when she was forced to grab the wall so as not to fall again. One of the singers sounded like Karma, singing on top of his voice. She focused her gaze and saw him dancing in a circle with clergymen in turbans. She was convinced her imagination had run wild and that she was hallucinating.
”Karma,” she said, though, apparently, she must have yelled his name because everyone fell silent. Karma felt the change and saw Abigail. He stopped immediately and put the most idiotic expression he could come up with on his face, stared at the clergymen, who surrounded him and exclaimed:
“Oh, bless all of you, kind people. I feel better, I’m alright now, thanks to Allah in his infinite mercy for sending holy people like you to help one like me overcome the evil spirit!”
Karma bowed his head and remained standing silently. He watched how the men gradually left the circle around him and disappeared, each of them believing that they had helped a man who had lost his mind in a moment of true holiness.
Karma gazed at Abigail, noticing her unsteadiness and walked over to her. Her face was like a white mask with lips pale and misty eyes. Now he saw her uncovered hair that fell to her shoulders and realized that something was wrong. He took her arm and led her to the entrance, seeing that people were following him with their gaze but also clearing the way for him.
“What happened?” he asked while they were walking, “where’s your backpack?”
She neither answered nor heard him and had he not held her, she would have collapsed again. Karma hesitated to pick her up in his arms because they were still in the area of a holy site. He led her slowly, almost dragging her, to the bus awaiting the group, which was touring the Bazaar. The front door of the empty bus was open. The driver sat at the wheel and threw them a bored glance as he dug his teeth back in the huge sandwich he was eating.
“Water, water,” she muttered, and suddenly noticed Karma beside her. She whispered hoarsely:
“We have to get away from here, they’re looking for me.”
