"We must speak soon of revenge," Papa whispered to me before Hajjar reached us.
"Against Shaykh Reda," I replied.
"No. Against whoever signed our deportation order. The amir or the imam of the Shimaal Mosque."
That gave me something else to think about. I'd never learned why Friedlander Bey so scrupulously avoided harming Reda Abu Adil, whatever the provocation. And I wondered how I'd respond if Papa ordered me to kill Shaykh Mahali, the amir. Surely the prince couldn't have received us so hospitably tonight, knowing that when we left his reception we'd be kidnapped and driven into exile. I preferred to believe that Shaykh Mahali knew nothing of what was happening to us now.
"Here are your prisoners, Sergeant," Hajjar said to the fat-assed local cop.
The sergeant nodded. He looked us over and frowned. He wore a nameplate that told me his name was al-Bishah. He had a gigantic belly that was pushing its way to freedom from between the buttons of his sweat-stained shirt. There were four or five days of black stubble on his face, and his teeth were broken and stained dark brown. His eyelids drooped, and at first I thought it was because he'd been awakened in the middle of the night; but his clothes smelled strongly of hashish, and I knew that this cop passed the lonely nights on duty with his narjîlah.
"Lemme guess," said the sergeant. "The young guy pulled the trigger, and this raggedy-looking old fool in the red tarboosh is the brains of the operation." He threw his head back and roared with laughter. It must have been the hashish, because not even Hajjar cracked a smile.
"Pretty much," said the lieutenant. "They're all yours now." Hajjar turned to me. "One last thing before we say good-bye forever, Audran. Know what the first thing is I'm gonna do tomorrow?"
His grin was about the most vicious and ugly one I'd ever seen. "No, what?" I said.
"I'm gonna close down that club of yours. And you know what's the second thing?" He waited, but I refused to play along. "Okay, I'll tell you. I'm gonna bust your Yasmin for prostitution, and when I got her in my special, deep-down hole, I'm gonna see what she's got that you like so much."
I was very proud of myself. A year or two ago, I'd have smashed his teeth in, goon or no goon. I was more mature now, so I just stood there, looking impassively into his wild eyes. I repeated this to myself: the next time you see this man, you will kill him. The next time you see this man, you will kill him. That kept me from doing anything stupid while I had two weapons trained on me.
"Dream about it, Audran!" Hajjar shouted, as he and the qadi climbed back up the gangway. I didn't even turn to watch him.
"You were wise, my nephew," said Friedlander Bey. I looked at him, and I could tell from his expression that he had been favorably impressed by my behavior.
"I've learned much from you, my grandfather," I said. That seemed to please him, too.
"Aw right," said the local sergeant, "come on. Don't wanna be out here when they get that sucker movin'." He jerked the barrel of his rifle in the direction of the dark building, and Papa and I preceded him across the runway.
It was pitch black inside, but Sergeant al-Bishah didn't turn on any lights. "Just follow the wall," he said. I felt my way along a narrow corridor until it turned a corner. There was a small office there with a battered desk, a phone, a mechanical fan, and a small, beat-up holo system. There was a chair behind the desk, and the sergeant dropped heavily into it. There was another chair in a comer, and I let Papa have it. I stood leaning against a filthy plasterboard wall.
"Now," said the cop, "we come to the matter of what I do with you. You're in Najran now, not some flea-bitten village where you got influence. You're nobody in Najran, but I'm somebody. We gonna see what you can do for me, and if you can't do nothin', you gonna go to jail."
"How much money do you have, my nephew?" Papa asked me.
"Not much." I hadn't brought a great deal with me, because I didn't think I'd need it at the amir's house. I usually carried my money divided between the pockets in my gallebeya, just for situations like this. I counted what I had in the left pocket; it came to a little over a hundred and eighty kiam. I wasn't about to let the dog of a sergeant know I had more in the other pocket.
"Ain't even real money, is it?" complained al-Bishah. He shoved it all into his desk drawer anyway. "What about the old guy?"
"I have no money at all," said Papa.
"Now, that's too bad." The sergeant used a lighter to fire up the hashish in his narjîlah. He leaned over and took the mouthpiece between his teeth. I could hear the burbling of the water pipe and smell the tang of the black hashish. He exhaled the smoke and smiled. "You can pick your cells, I got two. Or you got somethin' else I might want?"
I thought of my ceremonial dagger. "How about this?" I said, laying it in front of him on the desk.
He shook his head. "Cash," he said, shoving the dagger back toward me. I thought he'd made a bad mistake, because the dagger had a lot of gold and jewels stuck on it. Maybe he didn't have anywhere to fence an item like that. "Or credit," he added. "Got a bank you can call?"
"Yes," said Friedlander Bey. "It will be an expensive call, but you can have my bank's computer transfer funds to your account."
Al-Bishah let the mouthpiece fall from his lips. He sat up very straight. "Now, that's what I like to hear! Only, you pay for the call. Charge it to your home, right?"
The fat cop handed him the desk phone, and Papa spoke a long series of numbers into it. "Now," said Papa to the sergeant, "how much do you want?"
"A good, stiff bribe," he said. "Enough so I feel bribed. Not enough, you go to the cell. You could stay there forever. Who's gonna know you're here? Who's gonna pay for your freedom? Now's your best chance, my brother."
Friedlander Bey regarded the man with unconcealed disgust. "Five thousand kiam," he said.
"Lemme think, what's that in real money?" A few seconds passed in silence. "No, better make it ten thousand." I'm sure Papa would have paid a hundred thousand, but the cop didn't have the imagination to ask for it.
Papa waited a moment, then nodded. "Yes, ten thousand." He spoke into the phone again, then handed it to the sergeant.
"What?" asked al-Bishah.
"Tell the computer your account number," said Papa.
"Oh. Right." When the transaction was completed, the fat fool made another call. I couldn't hear what it was all about, but when he hung up, he said, "Fixed up some transportation for you. I don't want you here, don't want you in Najran. Can't let you go back where you come from, either, not from this shuttle field."
"All right," I said. "Where we going, then?"
Al-Bishah gave me a clear view of his stumpy, rotted teeth. "Let it be a surprise."
We had no choice. We waited in his reeking office until a call came that our transportation had arrived. The sergeant stood up from behind his desk, grabbed his rifle and slung it under his arm, and signaled us that we were to lead the way back out to the airfield. I was just glad to get out of that narrow room with him.
Outside under the clear, moonless night sky, I saw that Hajjar's suborbital shuttle had taken off. In its place was a small supersonic chopper with military markings. The air was filled with the shriek of its jet engines, and a strong breeze brought me the acrid fumes of fuel spilled on the concrete apron. I glanced at Papa, who gave me only the slightest shrug. There was nothing we could do but go where the man with the rifle wanted us to go.
We had to cross about thirty yards of empty airfield to the chopper, and we weren't making any kind of resistance. Still, al-Bishah came up behind me and clubbed me in the back of the head with the butt of his rifle. I fell to my knees, and bright points of color swam before my eyes. My head throbbed with pain. I felt for a moment as if I were about to vomit.
I heard a drawn-out groan nearby, and when I turned my head I saw that Friedlander Bey sprawled helplessly on the ground beside me. That the fat cop had beaten Papa angered me more than that he'd slugged me. I got unsteadily to my feet and helped Papa up. His face had gon
e gray, and his eyes weren't focused. I hoped he hadn't suffered a concussion. Slowly I led the old man to the open hatch of the chopper.
Al-Bishah watched us climb into the transport. I didn't turn around and look at him, but over the roar of the aircraft's motors I heard him call to us. "Ever come to Najran again, you're dead."
I pointed down at him. "Enjoy it while it lasts, motherfucker," I shouted, "because it won't last long." He just grinned up at me. Then the chopper's co-pilot slammed the hatch, and I tried to make myself comfortable beside Friedlander Bey on the hard plastic bench.
I put my hand under the keffiya and gingerly touched the back of my head. My fingers came away bloody. I turned to Papa and was glad to see that the color had come back into his face. "Are you all right, O Shaykh?" I asked.
"I thank Allah," he said, wincing a little. We couldn't say anything more because our words were drowned out as the chopper prepared for takeoff. I sat back and waited for whatever would happen next. I entertained myself by entering Sergeant al-Bishah on my list, right after Lieutenant Hajjar.
The chopper circled around the airfield and then shot off toward its mysterious destination. We flew for a long time without changing course in the slightest. I sat with my head in my hands, keeping time by the excruciating, rhythmic stabs in the back of my skull. Then I remembered that I had my rack of neural software. I joyfully pulled it out, removed my keffiya, and chipped in the daddy that blocked pain. Instantly, I felt a hundred percent better, and without the adverse effects of chemical painkillers. I couldn't leave it in for very long, though. If I did, sooner or later there'd be a heavy debt to repay to my central nervous system.
There was nothing I could do to make Papa feel better. I could only let him suffer in silence, while I pressed my face to the plastic port in the hatch. For a long time I hadn't seen any lights down there, not a city, not a village, not even a single lonely house stuck far away from civilization. I assumed we were flying over water.
I found out how wrong I was when the sun began to come up, ahead of us and a little to starboard. We'd been flying northeast the entire time. According to my inaccurate mental map, that meant that we'd been heading out over the heart of Arabia. I hadn't realized how unpopulated that part of the world was.
I decided to remove the pain daddy about half an hour after I chipped it in. I popped it, expecting to feel a wave of renewed agony wash over me, but I was pleasantly surprised. The throbbing had settled down to a normal, manageable headache. I replaced my keffiya. Then I got up from the plastic bench and made my way forward to the cockpit.
"Morning," I said to the pilot and co-pilot.
The co-pilot turned around and looked at me. He took a long look at my princely outfit, but he stifled his curiosity. "You got to go back and sit down," he said. "Can't be bothering us while we're trying to fly this thing."
I shrugged. "Seems like we could've been on autopilot the whole way. How much actual flying are you guys doing?"
The co-pilot didn't like that. "Go back and sit down," he said, "or I'll take you back and cuff you to the bench."
"I don't mean any trouble," I said. "Nobody's told us a thing. Don't we have a right to know where we're going?"
The co-pilot turned his back on me. "Look," he said, "you and the old guy murdered some poor son of a bitch. You ain't got any rights anymore."
"Terrific," I muttered. I went back to the bench. Papa looked at me, and I just shook my head. He was disheveled and streaked with grime, and he'd lost his tarboosh when al-Bishah bashed him in the back of the head. He'd regained a lot of his composure during the flight, however, and he seemed to be pretty much his old self again. I had the feeling that soon we'd both need all our wits about us.
Fifteen minutes later, I felt the chopper slowing down. I looked out through the port and saw that we'd stopped moving forward, hovering now over reddish-brown sand dunes that stretched to the horizon in all directions. There was a long buzzing note, and then a green light went on over the hatch. Papa touched my arm and I turned to him, but I couldn't tell him what was going on.
The co-pilot unbuckled himself and eased out of his seat in the cockpit. He stepped carefully through the cargo area to our bench. "We're here," he said.
"What do you mean, 'we're here'? Nothing down there but sand. Not so much as a tree or a bush."
The co-pilot wasn't concerned. "Look, all I know is we're supposed to turn you over to the Bayt Tahiti here."
"What's the Bayt Tahiti?"
The co-pilot gave me a sly grin. "Tribe of Badawi," he said. "The other tribes call 'em the leopards of the desert."
Yeah, you right, I thought. "What are these Bayt Tahiti going to do with us?"
"Well, don't expect 'em to greet you like long-lost brothers. My advice is, try to get on their good side real fast."
I didn't like any of this, but what could I do about it? "So you're just going to set this chopper down and kick us out into the desert?"
The co-pilot shook his head. "Naw," he said, "we ain't gonna set it down. Chopper ain't got desert sand filters." He pulled up on a release lever and slid the hatch aside.
I looked down at the ground. "We're twenty feet in the air!" I cried.
"Not for long," said the co-pilot. He raised his foot and shoved me out. I fell to the warm sand, trying to roll as I hit. I was fortunate that I didn't break my legs. The chopper was kicking up a heavy wind, which blew the stinging sand into my face. I could barely breathe. I thought about using my keffiya the way it was meant to be used, to protect my nose and mouth from the artificial sandstorm. Before I could adjust it, I saw the co-pilot push Friedlander Bey from the hatch opening. I did my best to break Papa's fall, and he wasn't too badly hurt, either.
"This is murder!" I shouted up at the chopper. "We can't survive out here!"
The co-pilot spread his hands. "The Bayt Tahiti are coming. Here, this'll last you till they get here." He tossed out a pair of large canteens. Then, his duty to us at an end, he slammed the hatch shut. A moment later, the jet chopper swung up and around and headed back the way it had come.
Papa and I were alone and lost in the middle of the Arabian Desert. I picked up both canteens and shook them. They gurgled reassuringly. I wondered how many days of life they held. Then I went to Friedlander Bey. He sat in the hot morning sunlight and rubbed his shoulder. "I can walk, my nephew," he said, anticipating my concern.
"Guess we'll have to, O Shaykh," I said. I didn't have the faintest idea what to do next. I didn't know where we were or in which direction to start traveling.
"Let us first pray to Allah for guidance," he said. I didn't see any reason not to. Papa decided that this was definitely an emergency, so we didn't have to use our precious water to cleanse ourselves before worship. In such a situation, it's permissible to use clean sand. We had plenty of that. He removed his shoes and I took off my sandals, and we prepared ourselves for seeking the nearness of God as prescribed by the noble Qur'ân.
He took his direction from the rising sun and turned to face Mecca. I stood beside him, and we repeated the familiar poetry of prayer. When we finished, Papa recited an additional portion of the Qur'an, a verse from the second sûrah that includes the line "And one who attacketh you, attack him in like manner as he attacked you."
"Praise be to Allah, Lord of the Worlds," I murmured.
"God is Most Great," said Papa.
And then it was time to see if we could save our lives. "I suppose we should reason this out," I said.
"Reason does not apply in the wilderness," said Papa. "We cannot reason ourselves food or water or protection."
"We have water," I said. I handed him one of the canteens.
He opened it and swallowed a mouthful, then closed the canteen and slung it across his shoulder. "We have some water. It remains to be seen if we have enough water."
"I've heard there's water underground in even the driest deserts." I think I was just talking to keep his spirits up—or my own.
Pap
a laughed. "You remember your mother's fairy tales about the brave prince lost among the dunes, and the spring of sweet water that gushed forth from the base of the mountain of sand. It doesn't happen that way in life, my darling, and your innocent faith will not lead us from this place."
I knew he was right. I wondered if he'd had any experience in desert survival as a younger man. There were entire decades of his early life that he never discussed. I decided it would be best to defer to his wisdom, in any case. I figured that if I shut up for a while, I might not die. I also might learn something. That was okay, too.
"What must we do, then, O Shaykh?" I asked.
He wiped the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve and looked around himself. "We're lost in the very southeastern portion of the Arabian Desert," he said. "The Rub al-Khali."
The Empty Quarter. That didn't sound promising at all.
"What is the nearest town?" I asked.
Papa gave me a brief smile. "There are no towns in the Rub al-Khali, not in a quarter million square miles of sand and waste. There are certainly small groups of nomads crossing the dunes, but they travel only from well to well, searching for grazing for their camels and goats. If we hope to find a well, our luck must lead us to one of these Bedu clans."
"And if we don't?"
Papa sloshed his canteen. "There's a gallon of water for each of us. If we do no walking at all in the daylight hours, manage our drinking carefully, and cover the greatest possible distance in the cool of the night, we may live four days."
That was worse than even my most pessimistic estimate. I sat down heavily on the sand. I'd read about this place years ago, when I was a boy in Algiers. I thought the description must have been pure exaggeration. For one thing, it made the Rub al-Khali sound harsher than the Sahara, which was our local desert, and I couldn't believe that anyplace on Earth could be more desolate than the Sahara. Apparently, I was wrong. I also remembered what a Western traveler had once called the Rub al-Khali in his memoirs:
The Great Wrong Place.
The Exile Kiss Page 5
