Eddie rolled to all fours, wincing from the weight on his knuckles. “Five.” He straightened to his knees. “Six.” Got to a foot. “Seven.” And stood. His chest was blood paste and dust. The referee said, “Hands up.” Eddie did that; the referee stepped out of the way and Ryan Pearce replaced him, one hand after the other. Eddie ducked; Pearce’s chest slammed Eddie backward and they both fell wrestling into ring center.
The bell and the referee’s giant hands ended round one.
Eddie staggered to his corner. The pipe fitter greeted him in the ring, fronting the rusted drum with a stool and towel. He sat Eddie on the stool, then doused him with a water bucket.
Behind Pearce’s corner, the crowd tried to kill one another. Eddie watched thirty men fighting and BAPCO doing nothing. D.J.’s horseshoe mustache appeared and began moving around his mouth. Eddie picked up the words midsentence. “ . . . the Cushing Flash, huh? Ain’t gonna last three like that. I’ll have poisoned the worthless sumbitch for nothing.”
Eddie concentrated on breathing.
“Chickens run when there’s a rooster in the pen and you ain’t the rooster in this pen. That Irishman means to hurt you, bad, and the United States of America can’t have that. You didn’t want me to kill him, but that’s what’s gonna happen.” Bennett tapped the pistol in his belt. “Lotta these people gonna die when I shoot him.”
The pipe fitter nodded, thumbing Eddie’s knuckles.
“Ouch!”
The pipe fitter frowned at D.J., then Eddie’s left hand. “Use the other’un.”
The bell for round two was the referee waving.
Ryan Pearce no longer looked friendly or like a fellow who had extra time. His right eye was closed and he was moving with his left hand up, the crowd screaming on all four sides. Eddie noticed the Arabs had added East Indians to their numbers; an entire side of the ring was now full-sleeved white robes and Indian tunics. A straight right whistled by Eddie’s ear. Eddie countered to the body. Pearce headlocked him and dug fingers for Eddie’s eyes. Eddie grabbed at the hand trying to rip him blind. The referee slammed a forearm that loosened the headlock. Eddie spun away, the ref between Pearce and him.
Debris sailed into the ring. Eddie ducked and checked his corner. East Indians skirmished with Irish. More Arabs and East Indians filed in, hundreds maybe. Strange . . . The ref pushed at Eddie’s shoulder, yelling about fouls. Pearce’s good eye was a coal boring in on Eddie. The ref’s eye-gouge lecture didn’t seem to be registering. The ref stepped out of the way and Pearce threw across the ref’s chest. The punch mashed Eddie’s lips and knocked him sideways into his corner on all fours. His face scraped the drum. D.J. yelled something. Eddie’s eyes fluttered. Hassim was leaving, his head turned back over his shoulder as he and his Bedouins were swallowed by the crowd.
Hassim’s leaving? I’m doing that bad?
The ref was counting again. Eddie swiveled before he stood, making sure Pearce wasn’t waiting. He was, his boot tops shuffling just behind the ref’s. Eddie faked left, stood right, then slid out on the ropes past the ref’s shoulder. Pearce lunged wrong and Eddie was behind him, the remainder of the ring open to Eddie’s back. Pearce turned into a mouthful of hard, overhand right. He staggered. Eddie dug two to the body. The ref stumbled out of the way. Pearce swung wild. Eddie floored him. Like that, tough guy? The ring ropes began caving in near Pearce’s corner. Eddie staggered backward into hands pulling at him from his corner. The pipe fitter yelled in his ear: “Nice work, boy, nice work. Stand off him now, pound to the stomach. Boy’ll be dog-sick soon.”
The bell ended round two.
Eddie collapsed on the stool and nodded at the instructions being yelled, his eyes fixed on the crowd roiling behind Pearce’s corner. Could be Hassim bailed on his gambling losses a bit early. Eddie’s ear felt D.J.’s mustache before Eddie heard him talking.
“Damn, you can fight for a college boy.” Bennett surveyed Eddie’s face. “How’s the hands?”
Eddie remembered how much they hurt. “Maybe another round or two if I don’t use ’em.”
The pipe fitter threw water in Eddie’s face without warning D.J., soaking them both, then knelt and clasped Eddie’s face with his left hand. “He’ll be gunning for ya this round. Micks got tempers. Be careful; move to his right where he’s blind. He’s a man and you ain’t.”
The referee pointed Eddie out of the corner because it was too loud to hear the bell. A wave of number ten cans high-arced in from behind Eddie’s corner, falling like ten-pound bombs on Pearce and his supporters. The Irish answered with beer bottles from three sides. Half landed inside the ring, the other half on the Arabs roaring behind Eddie. Eddie covered his head, as did D.J. and the pipe fitter. The referee drew a revolver, fired five shots in the air, then fanned the gun at the crowd. The cut on the ref’s forehead was almost as bad as Pearce’s eye and Eddie’s chin. Six Royal Marines sliced into the crowd to separate the Arabs and Pearce’s Irishmen. Rifle butts and rifle barrels beat back the hand-to-hand combat into a skirmish line, extending out from the ring’s corner. Men shouted in languages Eddie’d never heard. Prone bodies appeared above the crowd, bloody and ragged. Hand to hand they were shuffled overhead away from the ring.
The referee reloaded his revolver, kept it in his hand, and waved Eddie and Pearce out of their corners, yelling, “Round three.”
Eddie took two steps and the ground knocked him off his feet. A tower of orange fire mushroomed above the refinery’s southern corner. Heat blast poured across the four hundred yards and into the crowd. Four thunderous explosions followed. A mountain of black smoke roiled up out of the pipes and tanks. Eddie tried to stand. Smoke swallowed the refinery and churned toward the ring. Another explosion, a blinding orange flash, then brilliant red flames. The ring crowd reeled and fought for balance using the shoulders of those jammed next to them. Smoke blocked the sun. The crowd panicked and shoved for room. Airborne fire burned through the canteen toward the ring. Eddie felt hands on his shoulder and turned to a USMC tattoo and D.J. yelling, “Tank fire. Get your ass outta here.”
Eddie stumbled up as the dense smoke engulfed the ring. D.J. helped him through the ropes. The ring shielded them from flames and stampede like a dam about to collapse. Hands and elbows flailed in the new darkness. Men screamed. Eddie coughed, staggering behind the stampede, stumbling over men already unconscious underfoot. D.J. ran Eddie out past the main gate. The wind was out of the Gulf and blew the smoke back over men still trapped inside the refinery’s fence.
D.J. leaned Eddie against a vehicle covered in soot. Men straggled out of the smoke shell-shocked, soot-covered, shirts and robes shredded. Most finished on their knees puking beer, oily air, and blood. D.J. pushed Eddie off the fender and farther away from the survivors. Bill Reno staggered out of the smoke wiping at grease and blood streaks on his face. Two Royal Marines were with him. Reno said, “You fellas all right?”
Eddie choked, trying to nod. D.J. glanced at the Marines flanking Reno. “Know something I don’t, Bill?”
“Just about every-fucking-thing.”
D.J. stepped past Eddie to Reno’s shoulder. “The AvGas? Eddie-boy’s section didn’t blow, did it.”
Reno nodded an inch, adding a street cop’s frown. “Like somebody wanted to miss it.” He glanced behind his shoulder at the Marines and spit. “The Brits are looking for Nazis. Could be their aspirations of becoming the Shaikh’s new protector is more ’n a rumor.”
“Nazis?”
Reno nodded. “Hitler just now invaded Austria.”
D.J. took new stock of their surroundings. “The little house painter did it?”
“He did.” Reno and Bennett stared at each other while the camp emptied, a Civil War battle scene with Arab and East Indian extras. Reno checked Eddie, Eddie’s swollen hands patting at a swollen face. Reno said, “Whoever’s responsible, Eddie’s their target, too. Best he be moving away from Pearce and the lads as well. I’ll call into Harold Culpepper, tell him his star refiner
ain’t protectable here for now.”
“Who final tests Eddie’s . . . section?”
Reno screwed his face into D.J.’s. “You gonna sacrifice that boy for Roosevelt? Who looks after your boy’s people in Oklahoma when you goddamn heroes are all done fightin’?”
D.J.’s eyes narrowed. “What and who I am ain’t no stranger to you. That war brewing out there starts . . . there won’t be much anywhere to look after when it’s over.”
“You asshole freedom fighters actually give a shit about Eddie surviving till tonight, his next contract in Haifa best be startin’ today. The Brits in Haifa got good reason and plenty of horsepower to keep Eddie whole. I’ll get the tests done here; you got my word on that. If we need Eddie back, we’ll deal with Pearce and the lads then when their blood’s lower.”
Bill Reno pivoted, looking into the stragglers as they dragged out through the main gate. He spit soot and wiped at the acrid smoke in his eyes. “Anybody seen Hassim?”
CHAPTER 9
March, 1938
Saba had seen the Palestinian, Hassim Dajani. It had been three days ago in the refinery flames. The IRA’s causeway bomb had initially complicated her mission. But once the refinery had been pronounced secure, the bomb proved a benefit, the Marines focused on stopping an attack from without, not within. Saba replayed the bombing, searching for errors then that would kill her now.
The prizefight was ending its second round, the American bloody but rallying after a fierce beating, the crowd pressing and drunk with the blood. Saba, the explosives team, and Hassim had turned away to snake through shouting Arabs and Indians, then past an outer ring of British Marines and BAPCO guards standing on pallets and intent on the contest. Filing toward the worker billets, the men with Saba were loud, complaining of their gambling loss. Bahraini guards acknowledged Hassim without respect or courtesy, one guard grabbing his crotch and hissing. Another said, “Kwanii,” calling him weak, a homosexual, an insult reserved for servants or prisoners. Palestinians, even those with education, were considered refugees who lacked the will and courage to hold their own land. Hassim averted his eyes and added nothing to his stride that might provoke a lesser man’s betters, a signal to Saba’s men to show no anger at the insults. They required no such signal. When all were safely past, Hassim whispered toward Saba’s shoulder, “Bahrainis. The guards believe themselves royal, their Shaikh’s uniforms and oil a way to shed the Arab skin and be as the English.”
As they walked, Saba whispered through her teeth, her tone and inflection that of a man. “The Arab day is coming; it blows down out of the Beqaa Valley and up from the Sinai.” She checked the gate ahead. “I have seen this wind, smelled it, sown it.”
Hassim shied at her tone, unusual for a woman, even dressed as a man. And harsh as if her teeth had bitten many. There were stories of such a man-woman, but that is what they were, stories. Saba glanced at a guard, his disdain for them obvious in how he mishandled his weapon. The guard’s disdain mocked men who were twenty-year guerrilla fighters, trained as sappers by the English in the Great War. The same men who had driven the kaiser’s feared Deutsches Asienkorps from Palestine by bombing the Turkish/German outposts and mining their heavy convoys. A lifetime ago when England had been the Palestinians’ trusted ally.
At the worker billets’ gate, two Bahrainis argued instead of guarding, neither interested in the seven men strung out in a fifty-foot line. Saba and Hassim passed without speaking, as did their third man. The fourth stopped and spoke an insult to the Shaikh’s wives. Both guards snapped to his face, one swinging his rifle. From behind, Jameel Nashashibi looped the rope from his keffiyeh around the guard’s neck, spun to cinch it, and snapped the Bahraini’s neck. The other guard slapped for his pistol. A dagger was driven through his heart. The bodies were dragged three feet to the guardhouse, stripped of their weapons and headdresses, and Hassim restrained from pounding the faces unrecognizable. Saba donned one set of guard clothes, Hassim the other. As guards, they walked the remaining members of the team into the tanks. The shaped charge took one minute to set. The explosion’s chain reaction would pour fire across the refinery. The sappers added two minutes to the timer, engaged the clock, and the entire team sprinted through the mammoth oil tanks toward the prizefight. It took one minute to reach the last oil tank. Beyond the tank, two Bahrainis patrolled the road that separated the tank from the prizefight that was now a riot. Saba stopped her men behind the last tank. She shed the guard’s headdress and the robe covering her laborer clothes, wiped sweat from her eyes, added a keffiyeh to re-cover her hair, and drew the guard’s pistol. His belt fell to her feet. She checked the weapon’s cylinder loaded with six rounds.
Hassim stared at the wings now partially visible beneath Saba’s right eye. His eyes added white; he stuttered as he tried to speak. Saba grabbed a handhold on the last oil tank and waited for the first concussion. A thousand feet behind them, the sappers’ bomb rocked the refinery. The Bahraini guards in the road staggered, fighting for balance. They turned toward the tanks using their rifle butts to remain standing.
Rushing at them had been the myth the strong chose to believe was a lie, her pistol tight in both hands and firing.
Saba finished the replay . . . reasonably confident the bombing had no errors that would kill her when she exited the car she sat. The bomb had done less damage than planned, but she was alive, as were all members of the team. All had crossed the fifteen-mile Arabian Bay without being accosted by England’s Royal Marines. The last three nights had been spent hiding in Dhahran, Arabia. Two of those nights involved heated discussions with an Iraqi representative of Ghazi bin Faisal’s latest reconstruction of his Pan-Arab Army of God and Erich Schroeder. These discussions had not gone as well.
The memory whitened Saba’s hands; she glanced at Erich Schroeder. They shared the rear seat of a car outside Dhahran’s tiny airport. The blond German was far more dangerous than the Iraqi representative, a self-important pig. For two days she had listened to both men praise Arabia’s new king—their host, King Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud—and Ibn Saud’s open hatred of all Jews, his fondness for the Führer, and Ibn Saud’s private fear of England’s domination. The Iraqi and the Nazi fed her hate as if it were lamb, as if she were a child who could not see past the garnish to the meat. On the third night they had offered her today’s mission, it more foreign to her abilities than the last, and again baited her with the benefits. Trusting either man’s final intentions was as laughable as their entrée, but the German’s private promises of support against the Iraqi mullahs and the seed money he had already placed in her hands were another matter. So here she sat in the German’s car, preparing to be someone she had no desire or tools to be—a woman of interest, a seductress, a woman who enjoyed the attention of men.
When she exited this car and walked inside the terminal’s tent, she would be a Bedouin woman of means, her face veiled by a silken yashmak and the hood of a cloak-like burnouse covering her hair. Jameel and a second armed Palestinian would act as her Bedouin escorts. This airport was her third in as many weeks. A silver de Havilland airplane waited on the runway, its giant propellers silent, the desert sun glaring along its enclosed fuselage. She adjusted the veil already covering her face and demanded calm.
Erich Schroeder tapped his finger near Saba’s arm but not on it, gently reinforcing the mission confidence she lacked. Schroeder said, “The flight is full. Sit one of your men in Eddie Owen’s seat. The only empty seat will be next to you. He will be yours for half the day.”
Saba’s skin flushed; this would be the closest she had ever been to America. The anticipation surprised her. Minutes before the prizefight, she had stood within hearing distance of the American, the first of either she had seen. What struck her more than how the American looked was how he sounded. Not at all like she had imagined when reading America’s history. Her Americans had Palestinian accents.
“And I am to do what with this man, Eddie Owen? Kill him? Have his child?” Saba moved he
r arm farther from Schroeder’s fingertips.
“We have been through this. You and I have an agreement and it is your superiors’ wishes.”
“My superiors.” Saba would have spit had there been no veil. “Zealot fools who see God on every sword and Palestine as their future colony. I return to the desert, to fight with those who would liberate my people.”
Schroeder leaned away. A reassuring hand reached for her knee, hesitated, and stopped. “Liberation is expensive. Succeed in my missions and you will have your own camp, your own supply, your own war outside, or against, the Army of God. As promised.”
Saba heard, again, what she wanted to hear.
The German continued. “We wish to know what this very special petroleum engineer Eddie Owen thinks of the Arab, the Germans, the English. You are a woman; in America he is comfortable with women, curious with foreigners. You speak the language and are not German. We suspect Eddie Owen does not yet understand the Nazi mission against the Communists and thinks us cruel to the Jew.”
Saba understood the German mission. It was, in the end, no different than the Iraqi or English mission: rule. She read the Nazi’s lifeless blue eyes instead of answering and wondered if all German skin had the frigid shine of a high mountain lake. His glance lingered again beneath her right eye, the tiny wings hidden by a mixture of kohl makeup and marl paste and covered by the silk yashmak. The tattoo could be covered for a brief trip or souk/medina visit, but she had never intended to hide the wings from close inspection. Sweat would always be a threat she could not control.
“You are nervous; I understand. This is not your usual terrain.” Erich Schroeder nodded to the de Havilland. “With all due respect, you are a compelling woman, quite capable of gaining and holding a man’s attention for a moment or a day or likely as long as you wish.”
Saba accepted the compliment as a lie and prepared to face the airport and its American petroleum engineer, Eddie Owen.
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