The General and the Elephant Clock of Al-Jazari (18 page)

“Coke,” Eli said. John got him a bottle and brought it into the room. Jen followed him, but he turned to her. “Can you check on something for me? The little taping we did in the lobby—I hope the Tunisian government is going to see it and apologize by dropping charges and returning a couple of passports. Will you check if the video is getting around the places it needs to go for the people in power in Tunisia to see it? Maybe if you know how these bloggers work, you can do whatever they do.”

“Of course I know how to blog!”

John raised his hand. “Nothing can come from us, and you need to be absolutely silent. Remember operational security.” He looked at her pug nose and freckles for a moment. “Do you know what operational security is?”

She folded her arms over her chest and sighed. “Yes, General. I understand what you need. Let me get to work. Do you need me to wake up Sam?”

John shook his head. “I’ll try to get along for a few minutes without my aide.”

“What taping did you do in the lobby?” Green was waiting for his Coke, and John handed it to him. He studied the boy for a moment. He wasn’t a boy, he was a young man, probably Kim’s age, and he reminded himself he was going to have to let this younger generation grow up and be men, even when they looked as damp and fresh as newborn baby chicks.

“Jen, can you get it on your phone?”

She reached into the wide pockets of the shapeless brown dress she was wearing, pulled out a phone. Her thumbs moved rapidly across the screen, then she handed the phone to Eli.

Eli stared at the phone, his eyebrows flying up and his mouth dropping open. He watched it through, then played it a second time, his eyes narrowed. John settled into the chair next to his bed, checked the level of fluid in the IV bags the doctor had taped to the wall. “Hey, you speak Arabic! Cool. Why did you say everything in Arabic and English?”

“Why do you think?”

Green looked at him a long moment, his pretty eyes narrowed. “Because you weren’t just talking to him. Did you mean it? Did you mean what you said?”

“Yes.”

“Then you know what I’m talking about. Why I don’t want to just run away in the middle of the night like I fucking did something wrong!”

“Let’s talk about what got you arrested in the first place, Eli.” John pulled the phone from his hand, handed it back to Jen.

“Sir, I’ll go get started.”

“Thank you,” John said. He turned back to the boy and waited.

“I wanted to see the Bardo. Daniel didn’t even care, he was just going with, you know? Well, he had his own thing in Carthage, but not at the museum. Anyway, the Bardo’s closed for renovations. They had this page of a book. I’ve wanted to see the real thing since I was a kid. It’s from Al-Jazari’s book called
The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices
.”

“I think I’ve seen some of the pages of that book. I trained as a civil engineer for my undergraduate work,” John said. “Then when I was in grad school, we came through the Middle East. If I’m not mistaken, there’s a copy of the book in Istanbul at the National Museum.”

“They have some pages in the Met in New York too. So back at the hotel I printed out a copy of the page the Met has on display on their website. I was just so close, you know? I wasn’t going to give up. So I had these color copies of the pages. I printed them in the business center at the hotel, and one of the staff there saw what I was doing. He didn’t stick around long enough to see what they were, just stared at a page with some Arabic script and ran out of the room.” He stopped, drank some of the Coke. “Sir, this book was finished in 1206. It’s like the most incredible book ever written, I mean, the thinking is wild! Doesn’t anybody even know about it anymore? Do people think the only pages of a book an American would have in his possession are pages torn from the Qur’an?”

“Is that what you think happened?”

Green nodded. “After the guy who had been watching me in the business center ran out, I took the copies and put them in my pocket, and then me and Daniel took a cab down to Carthage, to the ruins. I showed him one of the pages in the taxi. It was my favorite one when I was a kid, the one called the Elephant Clock. So we were down in the ruins, walking around, and we’re doing our thing, and next thing I know this whole group of men surrounds us, they’re pulling our jackets open, pulling out papers, and finally one of them holds up the papers from the book. He’s waving them around, talking to the others in Arabic, I guess. I didn’t know what he was saying, but he manages to get the other boys whipped up and the next thing I know, we’re on the ground and they’re kicking us and screaming and pulling hair. I tried to tell them, you know? Tried to tell them what the pages were, about the book. They only looked at the writing for a second.”

“I’m not entirely sure that little shit can read. And I wouldn’t assume it would have made a difference if he knew the pages he was holding were not from their holy book. You were a target of opportunity.”

Eli stared blankly at the wall until John nudged him, and he lifted the Coke to his mouth again. “God, I want a cheeseburger. Half a pound of ground sirloin with cheddar on top from Fuddruckers.”

Just for a moment, John could smell beef on a grill, and his mouth started watering, too. “America is a great country, Eli Green,” he said, standing up, and the boy laughed and closed his eyes.

Jen had the computers pulled up to the YouTube video, one with English subtitles and one with Arabic. She was making notes on a legal pad. “Jennifer, keep an eye on it, but turn the volume down. I’m waiting for a call from anyone at the Ministry of Justice or the Ministry of Culture. When they call, try to set up an appointment here at the hotel. Tell them I’m too tired to drive or I can’t leave these boys, whatever. But set up the meeting on my turf. I’ll be in my room for a few minutes. When Sam gets up, have him check with the front desk and our Marines outside and give me an update.”

“Does that mean it’s time for Sam to get up?”

He smiled at her. She was a smart girl, even though she had stolen the shoestrings from his new shoes. Dr. Shakir had neatly cut the shoestrings when he took off the makeshift splint to examine Green’s arm. John had seen the remains in the trash can. “I need a few minutes to call home.”

Kim picked up before the first ring was done. “Uncle John. We saw it. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine, nothing to worry about. How’s everything there?”

“I’m going to put you on speakerphone. Abdullah and Billy are here with me.”

“Shouldn’t you boys be asleep?”

“Uncle John, are you okay?” It was Billy. John could hear the thread of anxiety in his voice.

“Oh, I’m fine. It was just a piece of democracy theater, Billy. Nothing to worry about. You know, just like in the movies.”

“Really.” Kim could inject so much disbelief into his voice. “Did the other guy, the one punching you, did he also know he was engaging in a little democracy theater?”

“That was part of my genius,” John said. “Listen, boys. I need your help.”

“Me and Abdullah, we’re already packed. We should be there tomorrow.”

“No! Oh, my God. No, Kim. It’s dangerous over here.”

Now Abdullah spoke. “It’s dangerous? Thank you, Uncle John, but I’ve been to the Middle East before, remember? And you might also recall that I speak Arabic, and I look like an Arab, in fact,
I am an Arab!
So I might be of some help. Oh, and did we tell you? We’re grown up now.” He laughed, and John could hear Billy’s voice in the background. “Hey!”

“Okay, me and Kim are grown up. Not Billy, though he is getting close.”

“Uncle John, you’re fifty-two.” Kim had his soothing voice on, like he was trying to talk John down from the ledge. “You’re really too old to be punched repeatedly in the stomach. It’s dangerous. You need younger guys for the physical stuff. You can still be the brains behind the operation, though.”

“Thank you so much!” John wanted to scream, just a small scream, to vent his frustration. Okay, he thought, be the brains. Be the brains of the operation. “I called to tell you guys I was okay and to ask for some help. I need you to research something for me.”

“Sure, of course.” Kim had control over the phone. “What do you need?”

“I went to Tunisia with Abdullah’s father a long time ago when I was finishing up my dissertation. On that trip, we went through Istanbul and visited a museum. I think I saw a copy of a book there, called
The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices
by Al-Jazari. I need you two to track down where the other copies of that book are, what libraries and museums. I know there’s a copy in Oxford, at the Bodleian. Figure out where the rest are and e-mail me the information as soon as you can.”

“Are you giving me busy work to keep me from flying to Tunis?” Kim sounded outraged.

“No, son. This book might be critical to getting us all home. I got the boys out of prison last night. They’re here in the hotel, but they’re still charged with blasphemy. One of the boys, he came here with a copy of a page in that book, the Elephant Clock. His middle name is Hannibal. You get it? He wanted to look at the Elephant Clock of Al-Jazari in the Bardo Museum on his first trip to Carthage.”

“They were in prison? Are they okay?”

“Not really. Take me off speaker phone, Kim.”

John heard a click, then Kim again. “Okay, it’s me.”

“How was Juan?”

“He was okay once the Horse-Lord got here. Seemed like he was himself again.”

“I love you, Kim. Please don’t get hurt chasing down pictures for your MFA.”

“I love you, too, Uncle John. Please remember I’m twenty-three, and while you are a primo problem solver, I’m actually smarter than you.”

“Really? How do you figure that?”

“The psychology department was doing IQ testing. I scored a 139. I know you scored a 138. You told me when I was a kid and I asked you how smart you were.”

“Sure it wasn’t a testing error? Or maybe you charmed the young psychology student into bumping up your points.”

“Charm is a form of intelligence. We’ll find your book. Here’s Abdullah.”

“Uncle John, sure you don’t need a native speaker? I can be there in fourteen hours.”

“I just want you to keep everybody safe, Abdullah.”

“I really don’t think I’m prepared to make any promises in that direction. Hey, Uncle John? I looked through the CD collection in your bedroom. I mean, what gives? KC and the Sunshine Band? The Ultimate Barry White Collection? What is wrong with you two?”

Really?
“Gabriel is in charge of the music.”

“Right, blame the guy who’s in another state and can’t defend himself! I’m going to leave a few CDs for you to listen to, just an easy introduction. Nothing complicated.”

“An introduction to what?”

“To music, Uncle John.” Abdullah was also talking to him like he was a child. He must have caught the bug from Kim. “Rock and Roll, Jazz, Blues? Dancing and fucking, they’re fine in their place, but that’s not music! Oops, sorry. I mean….”

“Abdullah, if you stop pretending to be homeless, I will listen to your tapes.”

“CDs. Nobody listens to tapes anymore.”

“Whatever. You can throw out KC and the Sunshine band, but don’t touch the Ultimate Barry White Collection. That’s my favorite. Now let me speak to Billy.”

“Are you okay? I nearly puked watching it.” John could hear the strain, a fine tremor in his voice.

“I nearly puked when he socked me! But I’m fine. Did you see how sharp I looked?”

“That is an awesome suit.”

“I like the yellow shirt and tie you picked out for me the best of everything we bought. If it’s back from the dry cleaners, I’m going to wear it to the next press conference. So how are you, son? I was craving some of your tea today, that one with the blood oranges and rose hips and hibiscus. I can’t believe I’m starting to like it.”

“That’s my favorite, too. I was thinking we could plant some blackberry and raspberry vines in the back yard, make some fresh teas. You think they would grow here?”

“Maybe. If we built them a deep planter that we sunk in the ground. I’ve heard there were some traditional ways to plant up in northern New Mexico where they dug shallow pits, lined them with rocks, and planted trees in them.”

“I read something about the Hopi, how they planted—I was thinking about waffles, or a grid? I can’t remember. I’ll have to look it up.”

“Billy, do you know anything about the museums in Carthage?”

“Not really. Want me to look them up?”

“I would. Just write me a brief and send it to me, okay? That would be a big help.”

“I looked up some pictures of Carthage. It looks so beautiful, with the Mediterranean right there, and the sky so blue. Sad, though. Like that poem, how does it go? Two vast and trunkless legs of stone….”

John concentrated hard, trying to remember. “Ozymandias, and it was Shelley, I think, or Keats. I used to know it.

“I met a traveller from an antique land who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone stand in the desart. Near them, on the sand, half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, and wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, tell that its sculptor well those passions read
…. I can’t remember the rest. But you’re right, Billy. That poem looks like Carthage. I miss you, kiddo.”

“I miss you, too.”

“I’ll be home soon.”

“If you ask me, a person should be able to go to Tunisia and look out at the sea and think about the ruin of Carthage and elephant clocks, and not get beat up and thrown into prison.”

“I agree. Later, kiddo.”

John punched in Gabriel’s number.

He picked up on the first ring. “John. What in the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Uh-oh
. Gabriel was pissed. “I had a narrow window of opportunity, Gabriel.”

“I am at the butt end of my last nerve, and you’re stomping on it!”

“When are you coming? I need you.” John closed his eyes. “Fucking hell.” He must be more tired than he’d realized.

“I’m on my way. Cody’s driving me into Cheyenne to get on a plane.”

“Is Juan okay?”

“Yeah. He’s been nose to nose with a horse since we got here. Cody’s gonna put him to work.”