by Sarah Black
They started it from the beginning so he wouldn’t miss anything. The video showed a three-dimensional picture of an elephant clock, narrated by the words of the explorer Ibn Battuta. There was a phoenix spinning on top, balls dropping into the mouths of dragons, the mahout on the elephant’s head hitting a cymbal, a spinning scribe, whose pen showed the minutes of the hour. A fan shaped crescent at the top, just under the phoenix, told the hour of the day. There was a water tank in the elephant’s stomach, and a water float with a hole sank and rose, moving the other devices. The clock was huge, the elephant and the robots life-sized. “It’s an actual, functioning water clock,” John said, leaning closer. “That’s amazing. I’ve never seen one working before. Pictures just aren’t the same, are they?”
Eli was looking at the computer screen, and he reached out like he wanted to touch the elephant. “That is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen! This guy was a genius.” He looked up at Kim. “My middle name is Hannibal, did I tell you?”
“So you’ve got a powerful natural love of elephants!” He studied Eli’s face carefully, then looked back up at John. “We could build this, Uncle John. We could build the Elephant Clock of Al-Jazari, a joint project between Americans and Tunisians, and we could leave it in Carthage when we go home. A gift to the people of Tunisia.” Kim was still looking at John, and for the first time ever, John couldn’t read what was in Kim’s eyes. Kim turned to the other people in the room. “My Uncle John could totally build this clock.”
“I’ll help,” Daniel said. He was leaning over the back of the couch, slung his arm over Eli’s shoulders. “That would be iced!”
“Did you see that phoenix?” Eli’s green eyes looked like emeralds in his pale, bruised face. “And we can make it just like the book, the colors and the materials and everything!”
Sam studied the screen. “Yeah, we could build that. What do you think the elephant’s made out of, plaster?”
“No, not plaster,” Jen said. “Not with a water tank in the stomach. Something waterproof, like fiberglass.”
“Fiberglass would work, but you’d need to keep it weighted. The wind in Carthage is strong, and the Elephant-Clock is tall.” Abdullah was across the room, wiping his cello down with a soft cloth. He was watching Kim, a strain in his eyes. “We could build it from clay, fire it in a kiln. That would be durable and heavy.”
“Hold up, guys,” John said. “The situation here is complicated, and I’m not sure making things more complicated is the right move. But I will think about it. Okay, everybody, hit the sack. We’re going to muster here at 0700 local time.”
Gabriel came into the bedroom behind him, stood watching him, grinning.
John flopped back down on the bed and clutched his head to keep from screaming. “You have anything else for me to do? Slingshot you into orbit around the moon?”
“Hey, you’re Batman, baby. You can do anything.”
“Clearly I need a cape and some magical fucking powers if I intend to get this squadron of people home safely! What else do I need to do? Oh, right, build Al-Jazari’s Elephant Clock! Did you tell Kim not to go wondering around Tunisia at night, exploring? Abdullah, too, he looks like a young sheik ripe for a little kidnapping. I do not want to negotiate with any kidnappers on this trip.”
“Settle down.”
Settle down? John stared at him across the room, pulling his suit bag straight and hanging it in the closet, then putting his ditty bag on the bathroom sink. Finally Gabriel turned and stared back at John on the bed, his hands on his hips. “You can glare at me with those laser beam eyes all you want, but the accumulated weight of the last week is sitting as heavily on my shoulders as on yours. And we are not going to have a fight. We’re going to have a discussion, but we’re going to do it my way.”
“Are you giving me orders now?”
Gabriel’s jaw flexed dangerously. “Out there, I’m your XO. In here, we’re partners, so you can take it down a notch, General, and hear me out.”
All John really wanted to do was roll over and stuff his head into one of the excellent pillows and scream till his eyes started bleeding.
Gabriel reached down, started unbuttoning his shirt. “Remember a few months back, Kim told us all gay men should do their problem solving naked and in bed?”
“I believe at the time he had a black eye and you had a hangover.”
Gabriel ignored him. “I’ve invented a new way for people to fight. I thought it up on the plane. We can do beta testing. You say your piece, and I can tell you’ve been rehearsing what you want to say to me since dinner, but I want a kiss first, and I want a kiss after. Same goes for me when it’s my turn.”
John watched the trousers unsnap, unzip, slide down Gabriel’s strong thighs. “We might be making new neural connections if we fight this way, bring disparate associations to problem solving. I wonder if we’ll make strange parts of our amygdalas glow on an fMRI?”
“My amygdala always glows when I’m in your company, General Mitchel.” He hung his pants in the closet, giving John a look at his long back, at the line of his broad shoulders. “Your turn to get undressed.” He sat down on the edge of the bed, put his hand on John’s chest. “Allow me. You look tired, old man. You just rest, and I’ll take care of you.”
John started laughing when Gabriel reached down, kissed him on the tip of his nose, his long fingers sliding down a line of buttons until they reached underneath his waistband. “I am tired. I’m tired and you’re full of shit. I’ve said that before, I’m sure.”
“Some truths bear repeating.” Gabriel leaned over and kissed him with his warm, soft, smiling mouth. “I’ll take care of you,” he said again. “Come on, let’s get you out of these clothes. I am so ready to fight.”
John threw his legs over the side of the bed, and Gabriel reached out, pulled him up. “You look like yourself again, back in your jeans. You haven’t ditched the yellow shirt, have you? I liked it.”
“No, it’s just back from the cleaners. I’ve had to clean it twice already. That’s a lot of attention for a new shirt. Would it be ruined if we just threw it into the washer?”
“I think so.” Gabriel slid his arms around John, reached down and kissed him, a hot little slide of tongue. “You keep getting blood on your clothes. It upsets everyone when we see you getting beat up on YouTube.” He reached down, kissed John again.
“I know, and I’m sorry.” He put his cheek down on Gabriel’s chest. He felt a river of something hot and thick rolling down through his belly. “I might really get to like this kind of fighting.”
Gabriel pushed the shirt off his shoulders, pulled his boxers down and then John’s, and threw the clothes in the closet. “We can set up dirty clothes baskets tomorrow,” he said, pulling John over to the bed. “Hey, you want to hear something funny? Guess what song Cody Dial’s got for his ringtone?”
“No idea.”
“Waylon Jennings singing ‘Lonesome, On’ry and Mean.’ I’ve felt like that sometimes. Lots of time, actually, when you weren’t with me, when I couldn’t watch your back. When I was so hungry for your touch it felt like I had a weasel gnawing at my guts. I know you’re upset I brought Kim and Abdullah.” Another kiss, this one full body, with Gabriel’s arms wrapped around him.
“You couldn’t have figured out a way to stop him? I know Abdullah is just coming with to back his play. But what the hell is his play, anyway? What’s going on with that kid? I mean, he just comes strolling into the middle of an active op, says he’s come to help? Families are supposed to stay home and go to school and be safe. Doesn’t he have pictures to take? Last I heard he had his MFA show in a month.”
They climbed on the bed and stopped for some kissing, and this one needed tongues and hands and tangled legs. “I have an idea, but you’re not going to like it.”
“Oh, good, there’s more I’m not going to like? Go ahead.” John could feel Gabriel’s warm skin, thigh against thigh, chest against chest, the smell of the sweat under his hair
line when he pressed his face against Gabriel’s neck and took a sweet bite.
“He showed me the photos he’s been working on for the show, and the tape he put together of the boys pretending to be on the street.” He kissed John again, kissed him until John could feel the heavy weight of both of their cocks, swelling and nudging each other.
“Why can’t he just take some good pictures and get it done? Why drag the other boys into it? I mean, he knows how to take a great picture. He knows how to take pictures with meaning. Isn’t that what art photography is supposed to do?”
“I can tell you why, but you’re not going to like it. Because he really doesn’t care about photography, other than as a means to make his point. He’s doing it because you always told him he was an artist and you want him to be safe. Safe from all the mean, dangerous, cruel things that happen in the world. He can feel the weight of your worry. But he is so hungry for work that has meaning he can’t stand it anymore, pretending. He wants to jump into whatever crisis he can find and start saving people. But once you start looking, I mean, there are crises everywhere.”
Another kiss, this one tinged with sorrow. “Gabriel, you remember when he was six, and he ran into the street and jumped into the middle of that dog fight? He said the big dogs were picking on the puppy and it wasn’t fair. He’s still looking around for the puppies. He’s always had the biggest heart.”
“The biggest heart, and a mind like a steel trap that you don’t even see.” Gabriel reached up, traced his fingers over John’s mouth to keep him from speaking. “He is so much like you. I swear to God, sometimes I think you cloned your mind. He speaks, and it’s you coming out of his mouth. It’s not you, though. It’s him. He’s watched you all these years. He’s learned and studied and worked, John. You remember a few months ago, when he wrote those papers for your class? Sold those final essays to your freshman?”
“They were world class scholarship,” John said. “I was quite impressed.”
“You thought he was doing it as a prank, to tease you. Did you ever consider he was showing you the level of his academic achievement? Like they were a creative way of sending you a resume? Maybe he was hoping you would stop treating him like a silly little artist boy and start to take him seriously. Just because he wears nail polish doesn’t mean he isn’t thinking.”
John opened his mouth to protest, but Gabriel was there, kissing him.
“John, do you know the books he downloaded to his Kindle for the flight? An English translation of the Qur’an, a Foreign Policy report called Revolution in the Arab World, and some book on Islamic science and the Eastern Renaissance. He found a paperback copy of the Rihla, the book Ibn Battuta wrote about his travels across the Islamic world in 1350 or something. He had his nose in that book for four hours. He made Abdullah start to give him Arabic lessons. I caught him drawing outlines on the back of the in-flight magazine. That’s just prep for this op. He’s just like you, John. And he’s tired of waiting for you to notice and give him some work to do.”
“I don’t even know what that means, give him work to do. Like what?”
“If he was a particularly bright junior officer you wouldn’t have any problem finding him work. I mean, Jesus, John, you gave Brightman work, and he’s thick as a plank! Nice kid, but Jen is going to be the brains in that operation.” More kissing, and John felt himself clinging to Gabriel just a bit, just enough to stay afloat, to calm his anxious heart. Gabriel’s breath, moving in and out of his big chest, rocked them both. “I think he had this elephant clock idea a couple of days ago, but he didn’t say anything, decided to come here first and assess the situation. And he said it in front of the group, instead of to you, because you are not taking his ideas seriously.”
“Oh, well, moving to Tunisia for a year to build an elephant clock is a damn good idea!”
“It’s a starting point, as you well know. I will just say one more thing. You might have noticed that his attempts to intervene in the world and protect and defend the underdog have been escalating recently in both complexity and danger. What he’s doing reminds me of that kid, Brandon Cho, who came to interview us. He’s out there alone, throwing out these possibilities, without the sort of mentoring that comes from a large organization of leaders. He’s not getting adequate mentoring at the university. I mean, if he had told you about his racism project, and you could have discussed it with him, would he have been sitting under a tree in the park, filming Billy while he pretended to be homeless, eating his gifted tuna fish and fending off offers of blow jobs?”
“I hear what you’re saying. The last thing I ever wanted was for him to not feel like he could discuss his ideas with me.”
“But safety is your first thought, always. He really is grown up, John. When you were twenty-three, you had travelled around most of the world with Omar. Let him come with you on these adventures. I have a feeling once word gets out, there’s going to be a line of people coming down to Albuquerque, asking for help. If there was ever a boy who needed to be the general’s aide, it’s Kim. Because as he pointed out to me several times in the last week, his IQ is 139 and yours is only a measly 138. Green’s been hurt.”
“Yeah. I’m still worried. I wish we could have our own doctors look him over, but Dr. Shakir was very careful and thorough. It’s early days yet.” John pulled him back down, kissed him again, kissed his tired eyes and the two silver hairs that had recently appeared in the hair that grew on his right temple. “I like your new way to fight.”
“It’s your turn. I’m sure you’ve got lots to say.”
John shook his head, buried his face in Gabriel’s neck. “I missed you very much. I’m glad you’re here. I got turned on thinking about you riding a motorcycle. Let’s see what else. I want to sleep on the elephant clock. I want to sleep. I want to sleep with you for the rest of my life. I think that covers everything I have to say. We can revisit a couple of issues at a later date.”
“I love you, too. You assigned Abdullah to make some calls to the Ministry tomorrow?”
“Yeah.”
“I think I need to take him with me, and he and I go down to the Ministry. Don’t forget I’m a lawyer now, John. I read the post-colonial legal code of Tunisia on the plane until my eyes were rolling like pinballs in my head. I have more skills than I used to have when I was just your pilot.”
John could feel Gabriel sliding his hand down his chest, his belly, wrapping his long fingers around John’s cock, then feeling the heaviness and heat settle deep inside his belly. “You are so very skilled, my friend, in every way. I’m planning to be your slave in our next life.”
Gabriel was still for a moment. “I just want to wake up with our heads on the same pillow. This life, next life, forever and ever.”
Chapter 19
WYLIE and Jackson were back on duty the next morning, and they came in to join the crew for the morning meeting and breakfast. Gabriel was already dressed in the Matrix-ninja killer suit, and he looked ready to sling on a red cape and take on the Ministry of Justice. John had to wonder, watching his lean, elegant form, if Gabriel had been a superhero in another life.
“Wylie, any security issues?”
“No, General.”
“Jen, the XO is going to the Ministry of Justice this morning. No telephone calls out until he gets back and we get a brief on the current situation.”
“We did get another call early this morning, General. It was that man from the Bardo again. I think we ought to invite him over for tea. He sounded very old and very concerned. It’s unusual for an elderly Tunisian man to make a call twice and ask for a favor this way.”
“Yeah, okay, I’ll call him this morning. He spoke to you in English?”
“Yes. I had the feeling he used to speak English but hasn’t for many years. He was trying to reach out to us.” She handed him a piece of paper with the phone number and a name: Ibrahim ibn Saeed ibn Ahmad al-Aziz. It was an old fashioned, traditional name. John hadn’t noticed many men use the older
form of ibn to note father and grandfather in many years.
“Green? Any fever overnight?”
“No, sir.”
“Then you and Forsyth get some PT this morning after breakfast. I need both of you ready to leap small buildings if need be. Kim and Sam, you work me up a proposal on how we could build the elephant clock. Site, building permission, supplies. This is just a brief, understand? Eli and Daniel, you help after you get back from PT.” He ignored the cheers from the group. “Jen, if you would continue to monitor the social media sites for any change in the wind.” He studied their grinning faces. Good God. They actually thought they could do it. “If you can’t see a way we could actually build the elephant clock in a reasonable time-frame, I expect you to come up with an alternate plan. We need to take a reality check and see if this is even possible. I wasn’t planning to move to Tunisia permanently and set up shop as a civil engineer of elephant clocks. However, if you guys decide that’s what we need to do, I will find a way to make it work. Sam, I want the mind map you drew of all the relatives we’ve been able to identify for Ali Bahktar.”
Gabriel walked back across the room. “I’m going to take Abdullah downstairs so we can have breakfast and a few minutes to discuss our plan.”
“Aren’t you going a little early?”
“Part of my strategy, boss. What is the goal for today?”
John thought a moment. “We must find out who has the decision making authority over the charges, and we must find out who has their passports. Best case scenario? You get the passports and the charges dropped. I’m not going to hold out hope for an apology. But if we get that critical piece of information, and you come back with the passports in your pocket, we’ll be a mile ahead of where we are right now and I can get these boys safely out of the country if the situation deteriorates.” John dug the card Madeline Grant had given him out of his pocket. “You could touch base with Dr. Grant, let her know you’re here and going to the Ministry. She might even go with you.” He watched Gabriel’s dark eyes, his face still and quiet while he was thinking.
