Florence of Arabia (2 page)

Another expensive German car drove up, this one bearing Shazzik, looking even more grim than usual, and his two
mu
kfelleen.
The CIA guards and Trooper Gilletts noted the diplomatic license plate but did not holster their weapons.

Shazzik emerged from the car and. in his accustomed peremptory manner—Hamooji retainers are not renowned for their courtesy to non
-
royals— announced that the vehicle contained a member of the household and asserted his rights of extraction.

This was too much for Trooper Gilletts. As a Marine Corps reservist, he had spent time in Wasabia during one of America's periodic interventionist spasms in the region. As a result, he could not stand Wasabis (a common enough sentiment among foreign visitors). Six months at the Prince Wadum Air Base had left Gilletts, a reasonable man of no particular bias, hating even the name "Wasabi."

He dispensed with the usual "sir," with w
hich he addressed even the most
wretched of his highway detainees, thrust out his impressive marine reservist pectorals at the chamberlain while tightening h
is palm around the grip of his G
lock nine-millimeter, and counter
-
asserted jurisdiction on behalf of the sovereign commonwealth of Virginia. Ston
ewall Jackson at First Bull Run,
just down the road from here, had been no less imm
ovable than Trooper Harmon G. Gillet
ts.

The CIA guards, meanwhile, had pressed buttons summoning backup in the form of an armored vehicle capable (should any gale situation deteriorate seriously) of launching missiles; also of passing impressive amounts of electrical current through the bodies of the undesirable. A heli
copter with snipers was also put
into play. Why take chances? Why screw around?

Amid this bruit of riot vehicle, rotor blades, drawn guns, m
ale barking and bantam outthrusts
of chests, Nazrah's hallucinations ended. She stirred inside her bulbous polystyrene cocoon. The
air bags deflated sufficiently
to allow her wriggle room. She peered with horror at the standoff taking place outside her car windows and did what anyone would in such circumstances. She reached for her cell phone.

FLORENCE F
ARFALETT
I
HAD been in the U.S. Foreign Service long enough to know that when a phone rings after midnight it is A) never a wrong number and B) n
ever a call you want to get. But
being a deputy to the deputy assistant secretary of state
for Near Eastern Affairs (DASNEA),
she C) had to take the call.

"Farfaletti," she said with as much professional crisp as she could muster in the middle of a ruined REM cycle. Even though her last name had been spoken aloud for thirty-two years, it still sounded like too many syllables. But having changed her first name, she felt she couldn't change her surname. It would crush her grandfather, who remained defiantly proud of his service in Mussolini's army in Ethiopia in the 1930s. Perhaps after he died. He was in his nineties now. Or if she remarried. Meanwhile, she was stuck with the patronymic embarrassment of vowels.

"Flor-ents!"

Florence struggled against the glue of sleep. She recognized the Wasabian difficulty with soft C's. The voice was young, urgent, scared, familiar.

"Nazrah?
'"

"It's me, Florents! It’
s Nazrah!"

Florence flicked on the light, grimaced at the clock. What was
this
about?

She knew Nazrah H
a
mooj. They had met back in Kaffa,
the Wasabi capital, when Florence lived there. Nazrah was the daug
hter of a lesser sheik of the Az
ami tribe, quite lovely, intelligent, self-educated—the only education a Wasabi woman could acquire, since they were barred from schooling above age fifteen. Nazrah was irreverent about the other wives, whom she referred to with delighted sarcasm as "my
dear
sisters." During her dismal time in Kaff
a. Florence heard the gossip: Prince Bawad had married the much younger Nazrah to annoy
his snobbish second wife. Bisma,
who fell
that
Nazrah was socially several rungs too low down the ladder.

Florence and Nazrah had reconnected socia
lly in Washington, at an embassy reception, one of the f
ew occasions when Wasabi wives were on public display. They had managed to get together for a half-dozen lunches in French restaurants, where Nazrah ordered expensive wines
in view of the frantic Khalil
. Florence liked Nazrah. She laughed easily, and she was deliriously indiscreet. Nazrah knew of Florence's own experience with Wasabi princes and confided in her. Florence dutifully filled out the requisite State Department report afte
r each encounter. Out of decency
and respect for her friend, she left out certain details, such as those concerning Pri
nce Bawad's amatory practices, I
f Nazrah had confided anything of strategic value or necessity to the United
State
s. Florence would, of course, as an officer of the government, have vouchsafed it to the relevant authority. So why was Nazrah calling at this hour?

"Flor-ents. You must help me—I need asylum! Now. please!"

Florence fell her chest g
o light. Asvlum. Within the Stat
e Department, this was known as "the A-word." A nightmare ter
m in a bureaucracy consecrated t
o stasis and inertia. "I want asylum" sent shudders down a thousand rubber spines. It summoned hellish visions of paperwork, cables, meetings, embarrassment, denial, restatement and—
invariably
—clarification. "I want asylum" ended in tears, approved or den
ied. Denied, it
usually ended up on the evening news, a nation's shame, the anchorman ask
ing, in tones sepulchral, disap
pointed and trochaic.
"How
could
something
like
this
have
happened
in the
United
States
of
America?''

Florence was now bolt, wide, awake. The wife of the ambassador of the country that supplied America with the majority of its impo
rted fossil fuel was asking her,
a midlevel Foreign Service officer, for asylum. Homeland security alert levels come in six color codes ranging from green to red. Florence's own alert levels consisted of j
ust three: Cool. Oh Shit and H
oly Shit
.

Her crisis training kicked in. She heard a voice inside her head. It said.
Stall.
This was instantly drowned out by a second voice saying.
Help.
The second voice was real and coining through the phone. It was speaking Wasabi.

Florence found herself saying. "Tell them you're injured. Insist they tak
e you to a hospital. Fairfax H
ospital. Insist. Nazrah—do you understand?"

She rose and dressed and. even though burning, put on her pearl earrings.
Always wear your earrings,
her mother had told her from an early age.

OUTSIDE THE E
MERGENCY ROOM entrance, she recognized Shazzik and the two
mukfell
een
For the first t
ime in her life, she wished she were wearing a veil. During her months in Wasabia. she'd been required to and never got used to it.

Shazzik was furious, making demands of—she guessed—several CIA security officers. What worried her more was the amount of Virginia state trooper-age outside. Seven cruisers. Someone was bound to call the media, and once that happened, the options narrowed, few situations, really, are improved by the arrival of news trucks.

Two armed hospital security guards
stood athwart the doors to the E
R. Florence pulled her scarf over her head as a makeshift veil, lowered her head so as to look demure, and approached.

"I'm here to see Nazrah Hamooj. I am her family." She made herself seem and sound foreign. With her dark hair and Mediterranean complexi
on, she looked credibly Middle E
astern.

'Name?"

Neither "Florence" nor Tarfaletli" sounding terribly
Wasabian. Florence said. "Melath." It meant "asylum" in Wasabi,
a fact that would in all likelihood be lost on a Virginia hospital security guard.

Word was sent in. It came back: Let her in.

"She's all r
ight. H
er CAT scan and MRI were clean."

The doctor was young, not quite as good-looking as th
e ones in television dramas but,
from the way he regarded
Florence,
an
appreciator
of
beauty.
Florence had grasped, as soon as boys began to bay outside her wind
ows, that beauty
was, in addition to being a gift, a tool, like
a
Swiss
Army
knife.

"Could you do another? Just in case?"

"She is your.. ."

"Sister."

"Well, we've established from a medical point of view that your sister is all right. Were you aware that she was drink
ing?" "Dear, dear." "She's lucky
to be alive."

"Can
you
just keep her here?
Under observation?"
"This isn't the Betty F
ord Center." "A few
hours
is all I'm asking." "The insurance company—"

Florence
took the doctor
by
the arm
and tugged him to a corner. H
e didn't resist. Men tend to yield to
pretty
women dragging them oil
into corners. She dropped the W
asabi accent.

"I
am asking you on
behalf of
the
United States government"—she fl
ashed him her State Department ID—"to keep that woman here in this hospital for a few hours.
Surely
there are some more tests you can give her?"

"What's going on?"

"Do you know what an honor killing is?" "This is a hospital, in case you hadn't—"

"Where she comes from, it's what happens to a woman who dishonors her husband or relative. No trial, no jury, no a
ppeal, no Supreme Court, no ACIU,
just death. By stoning or decapitation. You with me?"

"Who is she?"

"She's the wife of the Wasabi ambassador. One of his
wives,
anyway. She tried to run a
way. If
you
release
her into their custody before I can figure something out,
it's
probably
a death sentence."

"Jesus,
lady."

"Sorry to lay
that on
you." Florence
smiled at the doctor.

"How long am I supposed to keep her?"

"Thank you. Just—a few hours. That would really be great. There's a tall man outside. Middle Eastern, very unpleasant-looking, thin with a pencil mustache, high forehead and goatee. Tell him you need to do more tests, and she's in isolation."

"Oh, man."

"You're really, really great to do this. I won't forget it." Florence nudged him toward the swinging doors, then located Nazrah and drew the curtain around her bed.

Nazrah had held it together until now, but upon seeing Florence, she burst. The Great Desert in the interior of Wasabia had not seen such moisture in an entire year. She had, in the manner of women of the region, applied copious mascara, which now ran sootily down her tawny checks. Florence listened and nodded and handed her a succession of tissues. Nazrah explained. It hadn't been planned. She was sorry to have involved Florence. She'd intended to drive to the train station and take the Acela Express to New York City and then ... whatever the next step was. Then she'd taken the right turn. Then the police car. Then the CIA front gale seemed like ... Then the crash. And the only person she could think to call was Florence. She was so sorry.

Florence fought the temptation to say something hopeful, there being little reason to hope. At some point she realized she was holding Nazrah's hand.

Eventually. Nazrah's tear ducts gave up from exhaustion. Calm descended on her. She looked up at the hospital ceiling and said, "What will they do with me?"

The curtain parted with a fierce zip to reveal Prince Bawad and his retinue.
He
looks like Othello,
Florence thought.
And
here's Shazzik in the role of I
ago.

Acco
mpanying them, she recognized St
ate's chief securi
ty officer and, oh hell, Duckett
. And McFall, CIA's chief for Near East.