Way of Escape (24 page)

A buzzer sounded twice, three times and Jani jumped. “Fifteen minutes to dinner.”

“You must go to dinner,” said Tahireh, “you must say your daughter is being stubborn and rebellious and that…”

“Tell them I'm on my period,” Zhara laughed, “that'll shock them silent.”

“Zhara!” Jani did smile though.

“Then come right back here to her rooms.” Tahireh grabbed the princess by a shoulder. “Can you take my place with the donkey boys that are leaving right now?”

“Yes, I can.” The princess did not hesitate and she smiled, “You have a plan for my mother?”

Tahireh nodded. “As soon as you are outside, find the Haji Mansur. He will be with the Bedouins closest to the fountain. Tell him he will have a wife on the way back. Give him the belt buckle so he can pay the chief. Okay?”

“How do I get the buckle out? The guards often search the boys.” Zhara was beginning to think like the rebel she was.

“Do you have tape?” Tahireh asked.

Jani jumped up, “There, on her desk.”

“You better go to dinner, Mama,” said Zhara, pulling down her pants. Tahireh immediately taped the buckle into the girl's groin. “Owww!” she winced.

“Wait until you rip it off.
That
will be painful!” said Tahireh and pulled Zhara's grubby trousers up over the tape. To Jani, she said urgently, “Go! And come back as soon as you can. I don't relish staying in this room very long. While you're gone, I'll do my best to make a costume for you. Go, hurry.”

The woman sucked in her breath, and trembling with anxiety, pulled her veil completely around her face and dashed out.

“Okay, Princess. Your new name is Kahman Ferook. Here is an ID card.” Tahireh pulled out a battered little piece of cardboard. It was a costly imitation of the Saudi equivalent of an identi-card. “Remember that you cannot read, so you only know what the haji of your tribe has told you about it. Don't elaborate if you're stopped and questioned, don't say any more than you need to and keep your grammar poor. Okay? Ready?”

“Yes.”

They went to the door. Tahireh made her slouch and gave her a heavy slap to both cheeks, turning her face a beet red. “There, that will make you look sunburned under the dirt. Whatever you do, don't mouth off to the guards like the other boys sometimes do. Don't run. You can hurry, but don't be obvious. Blend in and get out.”

“I will.” Zhara rubbed the back of her now ugly fingernails deeper into the grimy pants. “I'm ready. I can do this.” She slipped away down the hallway.

Tahireh, trying very hard to maintain the cool, unperturbed demeanor of the model she was, stepped back into the princess's suite and quickly opened one wardrobe after another. There were many. She chose the oldest robes and the worst T-shirts, some old scarves and long black socks. All of these she rubbed in the dirt of the tipped-over potted plants. Shoes would be a problem. She hoped Zhara would have some old tennis shoes that could be ripped and muddied.

Meanwhile, Zhara slouched past two sets of guards who glanced at her just enough to see that she was headed from the baths with the other boys who had been deloused, and that she was sticking to the path. As she went out the gate, she had a very frightening moment when one ugly guard patted her down. Luckily these old clothes were thick enough to cover her small breasts. She was waved on. She trotted clumsily after the urchins.

Although it seemed to take forever to run the distance around the outside of the compound, it was probably no more than five minutes before she was asking for the haji. A sunburned old Bedouin camel driver pointed to the man in the black abba who sat tending a little campfire of dried dung and roasting his own pot of food. She approached the venerable man and shyly said, “I am Kahman.”

“Good,” he said, “and where is my donkey boy?”

She shook her head. “Still in my room. He said to tell you that you will have a wife going home with you.”

“Ahhh, I will?” the haji nodded with just a hint of surprise in his soft smile. “How will we pay for this wife?”

“I have something.” Zhara looked around, saw a tent nearby. “Can I go in there?”

“Of course. And when you come back, you must join the boys over there and eat with them.”

She hurried into the tent. The “boy” who'd rescued her was right. It hurt far worse coming off.

Jani i-Shibl ate very little. She simply could not overcome her nervousness. The other women had no such anxiety. They had so much to gossip about no one even asked about Zhara. A casual glance from one of the matrons was all Jani noticed of any merit and as soon as was proper, she slipped away. When she reentered her daughter's rooms, the tall boy, who had jumped into a wardrobe as she entered, came out. He held up a bundle of Zhara's old clothes, now ripped and dirty.

“I was able to find some well-used sandals in here, can you fit in them?” asked the boy, holding up a pair of Zhara's. “We can cut them if you can't.”

It took not more than half an hour for Jani to change from a rich Arab woman to a Bedouin hag. Even her teeth got colored. Her posture slumped, she practiced limping. Her entire body and face were covered with rags. Finally she nodded. “I'm ready.”

“Yes,” agreed Tahireh. “You will be my mother, you will drag me out past the guards. My name is Hussein Amir, you can be Mariah Amir. Let's go. I don't have a card for you. I have one for me, so say you lost yours if the guards stop you. I think if you act it up well enough, that you're angry enough at me for running away from you and hiding here in the compound, you won't be bothered.”

“Don't worry, I know what it is to be angry with a stubborn child,” she laughed ruefully.

Lights were coming on throughout the compound making the shadows deeper than the darkness filling the bitterly cold sky. Jani really did take Tahireh's arm and really did drag her along, fussing at her in vulgar camp language. A guard at the servants' gate motioned the hag-woman to stop and she bravely cussed him out, cussed all men in general and her son and husband especially. The guard, snorting in derision, let the old woman through.

Tahireh took the lead, filing between the nomads' small campfires. Zhara, sitting with the donkey boys, jumped to her feet, then pretended she'd made a mistake and sat back down.

“Here is your wife, Habib,” muttered Tahireh, as they arrived at the haji's little area. “Meet Mariah Amir.”

“Delighted,” said Habib, “I hope you know how to cook over a campfire and pitch a tent, wife.”

“Not since I went camping with the Girl Guides as a child,” said Jani, “in the wilds of Wales! I'll do my best though.”

“And how are you, Tahireh, my dear?” asked Habib with great concern. Jani looked up at the boy in stunned surprise. She had not suspected for one moment that this urchin was a young woman.

“I'm fine,” responded Tahireh in her own voice. “It's time to be a donkey boy again. I'd best go. Happy camel ride!” she said to Jani and walked away.

“Do you want to meet our camel?” Habib asked with a grin.

“Must I, at this moment?”

“No, you will have ample time to be acquainted with the big fellow,” laughed Habib and poured them both a cup of campfire chai that steamed in the gusts of sand-filled wind. “And it would be wise if we started to pack him right away. Our group will be leaving in an hour or so. The chief accepted the silver buckle.” Habib laughed sharply, “In fact, he knew its exact value. So much for international trade. Your daughter found a bargain, it is quite valuable. Anyway, we will be heading into the desert quickly now.”

“We, Zhara and I, won't be missed until morning when we don't show up for breakfast.” Jani eyed the tent with wishful eyes. Her soft skin was crinkling already under the brutal desert wind.

“Perhaps, I hope so, and if so, that is good. We will have plenty of time to become one with the sand dunes. Enjoy your hot tea while you can.” Habib glanced around and motioned to the chief standing near the camel herd. The ferocious looking man walked up and down the ranks of his tribe, cursing them, pushing some of them and they, in turn, urged the boys to pack the beasts and line up the donkeys.

Inside the compound, Vizier Radi had just gotten around to taking the matron's daily report on the women. He stroked his pointy beard and thought about the fact that the princess had not come to dinner. Was that important? Or merely her usual ploy to upset the status quo? He debated stopping by her rooms. It would be a wise thing to do. At that very moment, the falconer knocked on the office door and announced that his majesty wanted to see how the new owl from Belize would perform. Could the vizier come to the courtyard?

Radi decided that watching a beautiful yellow owl fly would be much more enjoyable than facing down a rebellious girl.

Russ came into the office late. It was not intended, but a multi-car pileup on the icy interchange kept traffic blocked for almost an hour. Most of the secretaries hardly glanced at him. One though, an older woman who sat near the back of the room, waved at him. He had noticed the imitation dreamcatcher on her wall some time ago. One of those Native American wannabes, he sighed. That's all he needed was a woman who wanted to run with the wolves but couldn't or wouldn't lose enough weight to walk to the corner grocer. It just never made sense to Russ. If you knew that by changing some particular behavior you could improve who you were, why would you not do it? Yet, so few made any attempt to do that one thing.

The inner offices were buzzing. Lily held up a sheaf of interoffice memos for him and then leaned over her intercom and said, “Agent Tidewater, Mr. Snow is here.”

“Where have you been?” the ugly man's throaty voice preceded his appearance. He stormed out of his office.

“Caught on an overpass, sir, with a lot of other vehicles…”

Shaking his head in frustration, Tidewater pointed to Russ's cubbyhole, “Get in there and get us more information. Los Angeles office just called me. They picked up a police report on a missing or kidnapped woman. The husband's a famous guy and he's sure a shelter in Malibu has his wife. The private investigator he had tailing her was taken out the other night, just like Claybourne was. And the ISF tail.”

“Yessir,” Russ was very aware that there was no longer any of the proffered camaraderie from his boss, no sign of mentorship, Russ had become merely an employee. “Is there anything further? I mean, how does that missing woman tie into EW or the Ixeys?”

“Nothing on the Ixeys except they're locked away in the Hermelin castle in Norrkoping, Sweden and the agents are freezing their behinds.” Tidewater pointed to the messages in Russ's hand. “Look through those. Everything the LA office has dug up is there: a tall black woman being put on a plane from LA to Miami the day after the PI got conked, that Barbara Monday paid for the woman's ticket and got the airline to fly the woman under Monday's name.”

“And we know that Monday cancelled her ticket from New York to Miami,” Russ couldn't help but say. “Right, I'll go do some digging.”

As he entered his cubbyhole, he groaned. This would take some very fancy footwork. He would have to give Tidewater enough information for it to appear that he was fulfilling his job requirements, yet keep the important stuff safe.

“Search,” he said to his sleeping computer. “Search air line reservations.” By noon, Russ had discovered that although Monday had cancelled her flight to Miami, there existed a flight reservation by the EW from Miami to Stockholm late tonight. While this search was going on, he picked up an instant message that the Agency office in Miami had tracked the black woman's arrival and that she, under the name Monday, had been met by several women. It was the Miami agent's contention that these women had probably been connected to a local shelter, which one he hadn't any idea. There were quite a few shelters in the Miami area alone, not to mention in nearby towns.

So Russ thought and thought. His mind worked furiously. What could he tell Tidewater? He had to tell him what the Miami agent had reported. The reservation to Stockholm? Would the black woman be leaving on that flight? To Sweden? Russ suddenly grinned. No, he told himself. Emigrant Women would not ship a black woman to Stockholm, Sweden. From all indications, the personnel at EW were very, very cunning. If he were they, with their connections, to make sure a tall woman, six feet tall he'd read, was safe from her husband, Russ would have her shipped to Africa. He said aloud, “Search airline reservations to Africa on today's flights for single female passengers.”

It took only moments before the computer came up with a half-dozen matches. One to South Africa this morning, four to Nairobi as part of a tour group and one to Kampala nonstop via Cairo and who made the original reservations? Yep, it was as he guessed. Siddhu Singh Prakash. The accountant for EW. Smart. Not that many people, even in the Agency would recognize that that name was a man's name, an Indian man's name, being used for a single woman.

Okay.

After several minutes of serious consideration, Russ decided what to do and what to tell his boss. Within an hour, he and Tidewater were on a plane to Miami.

CHAPTER 10: MAN'S DEATH

A courier, female, in bike togs and helmet, stood by the ticket counter and as the tall black woman in African robes swept up, the helmeted girl asked, “Valentine?”

“Yes.” Polly Marie accepted the envelope without a blink and tipped the messenger very well. It was a good exchange. She had now officially become a Ugandan woman, with a Jamaican mother, flying home from Jamaica to be with her dying father. Just like that. The new Eauso Valentine presented her passport and ticket at the counter. Behind her, Sherralyn, dressed in a wildly Jamaican style wrapdress looked like the personal assistant she was supposed to be, pushed a suitcase onto the scale.

“Thank you,” Eauso Valentine haughtily said. “I see you when I return.”

“Yes'm,” responded Sherralyn, playing the part beautifully. She backed away past the waiting passengers and smiling quirkily, glanced toward the potted palms.

Carl-Joran smiled back. So far there was no sign of agents. He slid along the walkway and stood by the entry to the big lounge. Valentine, putting her papers into her large shoulder bag, strode past him. He fell in behind her at a discreet distance. One by one everyone passed through the guard stations with the x-rays and metal detectors. Almost there, thought Carl-Joran, almost done and then he could get on the airplane home, he would be in Sweden, be with Bonnie.

It was at that moment he saw Tidewater striding from the other end of the walkway. Did he know? Did he? Carl-Joran stopped behind a kiosk. The American Indian, Snow, came quickly along after Tidewater waving a photo. They paused to look at the photo and Valentine, calm and deliberate, strode right past them. Russ Snow glanced at her and returned his attention to Tidewater and the photo. Tidewater gazed around the long, long room full of people and shook his head. He pointed in the direction that Valentine had gone, although not at her. They started in that direction, Snow lagging behind.

Carl-Joran, quietly as a cat, pounced on Snow, grabbing him, muffling his cry. The very tall man pulled him into a men's room, keeping his wrist locked in an
ikkyo
twist. Snow's face was a mask of terror as Carl-Joran lifted an open palm hissing at him to be still.

Russ did not fight at all. He smiled all teeth as he managed to squeak, “Are you with EW?”

The broad smile on the tall man's face said it all. “Like you are with the Agency.”

Russ shook his head emphatically. “No more, I want no more of this. I want out. Let me help you. Please,” he begged, “I believe in what you are doing.”

The expression on Carl-Joran's face could hardly be more enigmatic. “Help?”

“Yes,” Russ tried to squirm and the wrist hold felt like an electric shock up his arm. He gave a soft moan. Carl-Joran let the hold up just slightly.

“How to help?”

Russ grunted with pain. “I know Tidewater's contacts in Saudi and Iran. I know he wants to wipe out EW.”

The big man looked very skeptical.

“I have no idea why,” continued Russ, his words hurrying, “and he has at least one agent watching Hermelin's castle in Norrkoping, Sweden.”

Carl-Joran released Russ's wrist and Russ shook the blood back into his numb, tingling fingers. Slowly, warily, he stood up straight. “I want to join up with you guys.”

“With EW?”

“Yes.”

“You must prove this,” Carl-Joran looked around the edge of the door toward where Valentine, at the boarding gate, was presenting her ticket. Tidewater was nowhere in sight. “How can you prove this?”

“I can help you rescue the Thai girl, maybe.”

“You know very much!” Carl-Joran snarled.

“Just about everything,” said Russ and again, held up his hands in supplication, “but I haven't told Tidewater much, not since I found out about Milind, the poor little Thai girl in prison. Look, I do want to help.”

“I must go find Mr. Tidewater,” said Carl-Joran. Towering over Russ, he said down to him, “I will have someone check you out. When he says you are okay, we will tell you.” Carl-Joran turned away and started out.

“You mean when Siddhu Singh Prakash says I'm okay?”

The giant man stopped, glanced back. “Yes.”

“And if I go to Israel or Kuwait before that?”

“You would end up in Haifa, again waiting, until we are sure.” Carl-Joran glared at the man. “You will lose your job here. You will have to pay for your own ticket!'

“Screw the job,” Russ insisted, “I've got Indian money out the gazoo. I don't need a damned job with the Agency.”

“Okay. Get us all the information you can get, first, before you come to us. Prove your intentions and we will welcome you. Siddhu will be very relieved to have a computer expert on the team.”

“You got it.” Russ stood up straighter and suddenly laughed out loud. “So you know about me too?”

Carl-Joran merely snorted as he slipped out the door and down the long hall. The KLM plane bound for Cairo and Kampala was already pulling away from the ramp. Valentine was now safe. It was done. He turned back to see Russ Snow hurrying ahead of him, catching up to Tidewater and Tidewater fussing at him as he shrugged, obviously giving some excuse for not finding Polly Marie. Beyond them were Sherralyn and Tammy anxiously watching for Carl-Joran's signal. With a grin, he gave them the okay sign. The two women turned around just ahead of the American agents and arm-in-arm walked away with a light skip in their step.

In an hour, Carl-Joran would be on another plane, destination Amsterdam, then Stockholm. He sighed as he walked toward the SAS gate. He did not want to think about how many hours he'd been airborne during the last week.

Russ Snow, oddly relieved and calm, walked casually behind Tidewater as the little man rampaged around the international departure gates, the HS offices, the check-in counters, and finally the security offices. Tidewater was not a happy man. Hours went by. The whole while, Russ's mind click-clicked over one question, over and over. Who was the giant man with the black hair and beard who could so easily have killed him, or left him incapacitated like the other agents?

Very late, actually early the next morning when he finally stumbled into his apartment, he managed to extend enough energy to pull up the employee list for EW. No one matched. No one. Except, no! He was blonde, and more importantly, he was dead. Baron Carl-Joran Hermelin, the godfather of EW, whose death by car bomb in Cairo was the cause of all the problems now being faced by EW. Six foot six inches tall, forty-eight years old, blonde with bright blue eyes, trained in guerilla warfare in Central America, severely dyslexic, wife deceased, twenty-two-year old son named Sture Nojd Hermelin…

Damn, thought Russ, if this photo had some age lines around the eyes and the hair was dyed black and there was a beard: yes, by the gods, it was Carl-Joran Hermelin, the baron. He was alive. Why the charade? Why pretend to be dead? It seemed a complicated way to get rid of the fatwa that had hung over his head.

Maybe they didn't expect the financial problems. Maybe the crisis with the Swiss banks was not part of the plan. If so, then the EW really was on the edge of disaster. Their agents were strung out on tightrope wires.

Russ fell into bed. He dreamed wild, escape-filled dreams. He dreamed about a land he had never seen. He dreamed about his mother's brother racing a pinto horse across the prairie and as the wind whipped his braid, he said to Russ, who seemed to also be riding a horse, galloping alongside, he said, “The creatures know the way.”

Tahireh did the best she could with Zhara, who got frustrated easily. After dropping the third rope when a donkey nibbled at her arm, Zhara went stiff, fists clenched, teeth gritting, stifling a scream.

“Either you behave like a donkey boy or you will die,” Tahireh spoke harshly, “and many of us along with you.”

The donkey boys all nodded and began railing at the princess, slapping their thighs, pointing, and shaking their hands. Zhara's eyes clouded up with tears.

“No!” said Tahireh and the boys chorused that.

With great effort, the slight girl, shaking with stress and fear, began doing her assigned chore again. Slowly, deliberately, she tied the third donkey's rope to the second donkey's tail. One or two tears started down her cheeks, but blew quickly away in the wind. She moved on to the fourth donkey and Tahireh and the boys nodded and smiled and went back to their own chores.

The tribe's brief market visit had been a good one, profitable, and all the trade goods had to be sorted as to which beast would carry them. The tents had to be struck and personal belongings stowed. Yet, all this work was familiar to the group and it was done in a rhythm that made it go quickly. In less than an hour, the donkeys started out across the sand urged on by the boys, including Zhara. Not far behind, the camels followed.

Jani sat sidesaddle on Habib's beast, her face wrapped as tightly as possible against the fine sand that, kicked up by the animals, was caught by the night wind and twirled around like small tornadoes.

The hours rolled by. Habib walked steadily on and Jani marveled at the strength in the old man. Well, he wasn't that old, Jani mused, maybe in his late forties, but one ages faster out here in the desert, one truly does. The dunes, the brush, the stars wavering, shimmering in the wind…her eyes were so heavy. Abruptly, Habib was picking her up from the soft, warm sand, shaking her gently from a dream.

“Oh my God!” she laughed aloud. “I fell asleep. On a camel, I fell sound asleep!”

“If the camel had not jumped a little at that moment, I would not have known you'd left my company.” Habib brushed sand from the rags covering her head. “Will you walk for a while?”

Jani looked at the saddle and laughed again. “Lucky I landed where I did, in a heap of sand. Yes, I'll walk with you.”

Habib took her hand and, his eyes smiling, said, “It is common to relax profoundly at this stage of the journey, of your journey to freedom. You could have landed on rocks and merely bounced. You must not let your guard down though. You must stay alert. Come along, it is time to hurry and catch up to the group.”

They moved on, falling into place in the long parade of camels and donkeys and Bedouins. Into the night they trekked, following an ancient trail, guided by the icy bright stars, on and on. Jani grew amazed at her own energy. She thought how she would probably be stiff and sore tomorrow. Yet there was no doubt she was now awake and striding along like Habib. What affection she had for this man, this haji. In her whole life, she had never met a truly brave man. She had doubted such men even existed and here one was rescuing her. Her life was in his hands.

A donkey brayed, reminding her that Zhara was somewhere near the front. Jani hoped her daughter was doing as well as she, that Tahireh was watching over her, urging her on, keeping her focused. Out of all this, perhaps her Princess daughter would be transformed. Perhaps this real danger, these real heroes, would give the spoiled child the shock of reality she had always needed. The troop was coming to a heavily graveled path between cliffs. She felt Habib's gentle, rough-skinned hand slip out of hers. He took the camel rope with both hands to urge the beast along.

“A stream bed millennia ago,” he explained, “sometimes there are sharp stones and the beasts balk.”

She didn't care. She knew she wouldn't stumble. “How far?” she asked.

“Until we reach the Land Cruiser at the oasis.”

“Is that what awaits us?”

He nodded, “If we proceed as we are, I would say just after dawn.”

“And then?”

“To the American air base in Kuwait,” said Habib. “By tomorrow night you will be a lieutenant's wife on her way to Switzerland.”

“Amazing,” whispered the woman covered in rags. “Amazing.”

The blackness outside was absolute. Only ice-bright stars and a pale, timid new moon gave any light and it seemed circumspect and selfish. Bonnie's glance at the bedside clock told her she had napped for almost an hour and a half and in that time, the sun had slipped behind the world and night had returned. Five p.m. and her stomach was insisting it be fed breakfast. Really insisting.

She put on one of the pair of new wool slacks she'd bought in San Francisco, the brown pair and a soft yellow turtleneck pullover and a knitted vest. Time to search out the kitchen, she thought and wondered if she should wake Trisha. She opened Trish's door a crack. No sign of her. Knowing her appetite, her stomach had probably already awakened her and sent her in search of food.

Down the big stairs, along the wide corridors, and suddenly delicious smells pointed Bonnie's nose in the right direction. In a giant dining room, she found Trisha standing next to a long banquet table, looking forlorn and lost.

“Hey, Mom.” Her eyes moved to a big door that, by best guess, led to a kitchen. “I got this far. I don't know if we're supposed to knock, or shout or just go in there.”

“My extensive experience with servants says we just go in,” said Bonnie.

“Mom, the only servant you ever had in your life was a Mexican cleaning woman who made you help her move the furniture so she could vacuum.” Trisha leaned toward the big door.

Bonnie shrugged, “Yes. Well. Come on, I'm starving.” Bonnie opened the big door. The wonderful odors of dinner flooded out and Trisha groaned. Bonnie stepped in, followed closely by her daughter who hovered like a basketball guard. The kitchen was huge. The left side of the room was dominated by a fireplace obviously designed for cooking for large crowds. A small cow could have been spitted in there and there would be room left for the soup pot. Modernity was in evidence though with the lovely giant gas chef stove and oven taking up the center of the room. Around it, from a metal strip attached to the high ceiling, hung pots and pans and numerous utensils. On the stove were several pots, bubbling. The two women eased past the refrigerators and walk-in freezer toward the long prep table. Behind it was a nook table with bench seats. Standing at the prep table, lining up plates, was a sturdy woman, aproned, her white-blonde hair braided onto her head in two rings covered by a net.