Buzz: A Thriller (6 page)

“Bonjour, Vincent, how’s it going?”

“Good, very good. Sorry we haven’t been in touch before, but we got a bit delayed in Goa. Had some trouble with the authorities, if you get my meaning . . .”

“Mmm . . .”

HP blew on the spliff to try to get it to burn better.

“Listen, Tommy, we’re thinking of heading out into the desert tomorrow evening. Do a bit of rally driving, have a barbecue, smoke a hookah with the Bedouins. D’you want to come?”

He took a deep drag.

“Yeah!”

“Great, we’ll pick you up around five. We’ve got plenty of room in the cars, so you’re welcome to bring someone if you want to.
À tout à l’heure!
”

HP hung up and grinned up at the ceiling.

A mysterious woman, nocturnal adventures in the desert.

Secrets waiting to be uncovered . . .

For the first time in ages he almost felt alive again.

Game on!

Pillars of Society forum

Posted: 7 November, 15:09

By:
MayBey

Sometimes you just have to make the best of things . . .

This post has
26 comments

THE BIG VEHICLE
lurched over the crown of the sand dune, hanging in the air for a moment before it began to slide sideways down the slope. Powdery sand flew up over the windows and for a moment the inside of the car was almost completely dark. Then the 4x4 swung in the other direction, the sand was shaken off, and the view cleared. The maneuver made all the passengers except HP burst out in roller-coaster whoops.

Twenty minutes of dune rallying and he already felt like throwing up.

Hash and beer really weren’t a very good warm-up combo for a desert safari. Hell, he felt rough!

To make everything even worse, Vincent had squeezed him into the little seat right at the back, next to the bags,
where both visibility and the lurching were at their worst. The Frenchman had put himself next to Anna A, who naturally spoke perfect French. The pair of them, plus the other Frenchman in the car, had chattered like polecats on acid almost the whole way out here, leaving HP feeling seriously excluded.

But he had at least managed to pick up a bit of it.

Evidently Miss Argos wasn’t a Miss at all, but a Mrs., seeing as Vincent and the other guy started calling her Madame.

He guessed divorced rather than widowed, especially considering her bitchy attitude.

And Madame certainly seemed to have plenty of money, to judge from her overblown suite in the hotel with its view of the gulf, and her presumably absurdly expensive clothes. The hot little safari outfit she showed up in on the dot of five o’clock had been fairly remarkable.

Vincent had immediately switched on the charm, full force. He kissed her hand and whipped out his flashy gold lighter the moment she held her cigarette in his direction.

All the smarming left HP feeling annoyed even before he had been stuffed into the luggage compartment, and things weren’t made any better by the fact that Madame Argos appeared to be ignoring him.

The car in front of them dived into another valley and a few seconds later theirs followed it. HP’s stomach turned another somersault and suddenly he felt a familiar sensation creep through his body.

“Bag,” he groaned, and the other passengers grinned as they passed him the crumpled plastic bag they had already taken bets on.

One thousand dirhams,
HP had time to think before filling the bag with the contents of his stomach.

Damned expensive puke!

When his stomach finished cramping a few minutes later and he stumbled back toward the car, shamefaced and splattered with vomit, Anna Argos’s mocking laughter told him that his vomit had cost him considerably more than the bet.

“Let’s head straight for the Bedouin camp—no more hard driving, okay?”

The driver glanced at HP’s chalk-white face in the rearview mirror and merely nodded in reply. All the windows were open, the air-con was on full, but it was still impossible to escape the acrid smell emanating from his beard and clothes.

Anna leaned over and whispered something in Vincent’s ear. HP could see her lips almost touching the lobe of the Frenchman’s ear, and then they both burst into another peel of conspiratorial laughter.

No prizes for guessing who they were making fun of . . .

He made up his mind to ignore them and looked out of the side window instead. The sun was slowly turning into a red ball on the horizon, and the shadows of the sand dunes were getting longer and longer. Far in the distance some dark birds were circling slowly. Around and around, above the same point in the desert sand.

Their movement was peculiarly restful—almost hypnotic—and for a short while it made him forget about the lurching motion of the car.

♦  ♦  ♦

He didn’t really know what he’d expected from the Bedouin camp. Maybe a few canvas tents and some scabby camels with BO? A decent dose of shabby, everyday desert life, just enough
to keep the tourists happy? He should have known better. This was the land of excess, after all.

The camp was in a small hollow, about a dozen pavilions all facing into a circle, surrounded by a tall, closely woven fence made of damask or some strawlike material, presumably meant to protect against sandstorms. A number of telegraph poles with floodlights attached to them stuck up from the fence, and strings of colored lamps and streamers hung between these. At the front of the compound the fence was replaced by a tall wall with two watchtowers and an open gate.

The whole thing had been made to look medieval, but to judge by the color and condition of the buildings the camp must have been a fairly recent construction.

They parked the cars outside the wall and as they walked through the gate Arabic pop music began to blare out at them. In the open area at the center of the camp there was a large wooden floor covered with Arabic rugs, and on these stood a number of low tables with cushions to sit on, with space for something like a hundred guests. The buildings he had seen as they were approaching turned out to be missing their fourth wall, and were open where they faced the center of the camp. They contained even more seating areas, as well as a kitchen, a souvenir shop, and a pavilion with water pipes.

To put it mildly, the whole thing seemed rather absurd in the middle of the desert, almost like a mirage.

“
Salaam Aleikum
, welcome, welcome, my friends!” a fat little man in Bedouin dress exclaimed as he jogged over to meet them.

“You’re early, dinner won’t be for another hour or so, but you can spend the time buying souvenirs, riding quad bikes, sand surfing, riding camels, or smoking shisha. If none of that
appeals, then of course the bar is open for those of you who aren’t Muslim.”

The man grinned and paused long enough for the laughter to die down.

“And if you’d like to freshen up, the bathrooms are over there.”

He gestured toward a barracklike building at the edge of the camp, then gave HP a pointed look.

“The belly-dancing show starts at ten o’clock. I look forward to seeing you again and I hope you enjoy your stay with us!”

Even though HP just felt like slumping down on the cushions with a pipe of weed, he reluctantly decided to heed the man’s advice and clean himself up.

As luck would have it, the toilet happened to have a hose with a showerhead attached, and, after plenty of acrobatic maneuvering and a great deal of hand wash, he managed to tidy himself up fairly reasonably.

He ditched his shirt in the nearest trash can. It may have been tailor-made from Thai silk, but he was happy to sacrifice it if it meant he could regain a few crumbs of self-respect. In the souvenir shop he picked up a pink tourist T-shirt with a psychedelic Arabic pattern on it, then abdicated all responsibility and allowed the salesman to complete the look by winding a towel around his head.

When all this was done he went and sat on the cushions by one of the low tables, ordered a beer, and waited for the others to finish playing outside in the sandbox.

Vincent and Anna didn’t return until it was getting dark. They were walking close together, their bodies bumping and nudging together as they chatted confidentially in French.

He really shouldn’t care. It wasn’t like he was in love with her or anything—definitely not. But there were still some rules. Anna was his companion; he was the one who’d brought her along.

He could hardly avoid the looks of the others in the group. But his options were strictly limited. He was stuck out here in the desert, and, even if the stinging feeling of humiliation was turning more and more into a white-hot fury, there wasn’t much he could do about it. Vincent was roughly the same height as him, but he was considerably more sinewy, and he definitely looked like he could take care of himself if he had to. Besides, the Frenchman had backup from his entire posse, so inviting him to take part in a bit of Fight Club wasn’t really a good idea.

Anyway, he himself was much more of a lover than a fighter . . .

No, all that remained was to pretend that he didn’t care, try to get stoned and/or drunk as quickly as possible, and then get a ride on the first camel caravan out of here.

He decided to devote all his energy to these tasks.

♦  ♦  ♦

The belly-dancing show did little to improve his evening. Once the scantily clad dancer had snaked about for a while, she invited the audience to join in, and soon the dance floor was filled with close to seventy tourists. He would rather have stayed in the corner with Miss Mary Jane, but instead he was dragged up by one of the French girls who was far too attractive to turn down.

Even though he was drunk, he felt unbelievably stupid. With a towel on his head, a tourist T-shirt, and a fake smile, dancing the white man’s overbite in a fake camp in a fake country.
He probably looked even more ridiculous than he felt, if that was actually possible.

Anna and Vincent were dry-humping each other a couple of meters away. His thigh was stuck between hers, and she had her hands twined around the back of his neck as their hips rolled in time to the Arabic pop music.

The attractive French girl—whom he was obviously too drunk, too high, and too ridiculous-looking to stand any chance with—danced off with her friends, so he made up his mind to weave back to the table and lubricate his self-pity with yet another beer.

The table was empty, they all seemed to be up on the dance floor, but in among the glasses and plates he caught sight of something gold.

Vincent’s blingy cigarette lighter.

Sweet!

He looked around, pretended to reach for a can of beer, then quickly snapped up the treasure. It felt cool and heavy in his hand, considerably more solid than his own trusty old Zippo.

It had to be solid gold, and just as surely the careless little frog-eater was bound to miss his golden trinket.

Maybe it was even an heirloom from his rich grandfather, something like that?

With a grin he slipped the lighter into his trouser pocket before standing up and heading off toward the toilet block.

Payback is a bitch, mothafucker!

♦  ♦  ♦

The journey home was painless and they landed at Bromma just before four o’clock.

They were met by another security team who took over responsibility for the minister for international development, and shortly after that a minibus arrived to pick up her group. Ludvig Runeberg was sitting in the passenger seat in the front.

“Good to see you all back in one piece,” he said. “Get your things in quickly, then we’ll get back to headquarters for you to hand in your equipment and have a debriefing. Doctor Anderberg is waiting . . .”

♦  ♦  ♦

There was an opening in the fence at the back of the camp and HP stood for a moment at the bottom of the concrete steps leading to the toilets, gazing curiously out into the darkness.

It was actually a bit unnerving, making the comparison . . .

To one side of him he had the illuminated camp, with its flashing lights, music, food, drink, and excess. On the other side—only a few meters away—darkness sprawled away from him. Mile after mile of sand and desert.

How long had they driven to get here?

It was hard to tell, the driver hadn’t exactly taken the direct route, but he guessed at least two hours. How many hours would that be on foot? Six, eight? If you went in the right direction, of course. In fifty-degree heat with snakes and scorpions as your only company, it would be pretty easy to get it wrong. He wondered what it would feel like to be abandoned out there.

He couldn’t help taking a few tentative steps out into the darkness.

The camp was in a slight hollow, but the light from all the lamps was enough for him to make out the top of the dune some way in front of him. He could see a lone shadow up
there that he took to be a telegraph pole, and after a couple of seconds’ hesitation he set off toward it.

As he got closer he discovered that there was a bird sitting on top of the pole—presumably one of the black ones he had glimpsed earlier that day. The bird was sitting completely still, and didn’t seem the least bit bothered by his presence. It looked more like a big, skinny crow, but unlike its European cousins the bird’s powerful beak was gently hooked—almost like a scimitar.

As HP approached, the bird jerked its head and looked straight at him.

There was something about the look in those peppercorn eyes that made him feel uneasy, and he stopped just a meter or so from his target.

The bird went on staring at him in silence, and for some reason HP couldn’t tear his eyes from it. He was holding his breath.

Suddenly the coarse beak opened a centimeter or so, and for a moment HP almost imagined that the bird was trying to tell him something.

He could feel the hairs on his arms stand up.

This was totally fucking . . .

“Ghourab Al-Bain!”

HP jumped.

It was Emir, their driver, who had appeared right behind him.