Florence of Arabia (21 page)

Would they do that... to her? Florence put the phone down and backed away from it while it continued to chirrup.

"Ah!" She started.

"Sorry, Florence." She had backed into her ass
istant. "Are you all right?" 'Yes. f
ine."

"We can't find Fatima."

FATIMA SHAM,
THE ANNOUNCER,
hadn't shown up for work. They'd called her apartment, her cell phone, her boyfriend, her mother. She'd disappeared.

Florence called Laila.

"I'll call Colonel Boutros,"
Laila
said. "When was she last
seen?" "Last night, when she lef
t the studio."

"All righ
t, I'll get on it. Meanwhile, G
azzy's pumped up like the Michelin Man. He gave the French ambassador what-for
over funding the moolahs. V
alma
r looked very pale leaving. Gazzy hasn't fell th
is empowered since he exiled his mother. I hope we're not creating a Frankenstein."

While the authorities
searched for Fatima. Florence tried to concentrate on directing TV
Matar's coverage of events. There was a lot to cover.

M
aliq had reentered the fray. H
e had called for his fo
llowers to assemble at
the racetrack for "prayer." The emir had denied him a permit for the assembly. The mullahs were now denouncing him for "selling out Islam to the i
nfidels." Gazzv had responded by
throwing a few of them in jail and impounding their Mercedeses. He issued a statement pointing out that by law, public assembly in Matar must be granted by the emir. It went back to the third emir (1627-41), who scholars now think suffered from agoraphobia, a rare condition in deserts, but nonetheless.

The French were suavely denying, with dismissive waxes of the hand, fun-neling money secretly to Matar's moolahs. They were also denying the very existence of an Onzieme Bureau. Meanwhile, the Onzieme's agents were busy planting stories throughout the Arab media suggesting that the Bin I laz family was now a wholly owned subsidiary of the United States government.

Princess H
amzin. looking hollow-eyed, had moved with her burly male entourage from Paris to London, where s
he was widely photographed at H
arrods and
other deluxe emporia. American E
xpress was reaping a windfall from the shopping spree. The Wasabis were still furiously demanding an apology from TV
Matar for its "odious mischief-making."

In other news coming out of the Middle Last: Palestinian schools were now offering online correspondence courses in suicide bombing; in Israel. American archaeologists had discovered a first-century scroll underneath the Old City that purported to be a certificate of marriage between a Nazarene carpenter named Yeshua and a former prostitute named Mariah, from
t
he town of Magdala. This caused a great sensation for months, until carbon-dating and an investigation traced the document to the publicity department of a New York City publishing house.

THREE
DAYS
AFTER
Fatima's disappearance, a package was d
elivered to the front desk of TV
Matar
. After it was determined not to contain a bomb, the package turned out to co
ntain a videotape. It showed Fat
ima buried in sand up to her neck, being stoned to death with small rocks. The tape was twenty minutes long. Everyone who watched it wept.

Florence brought the tape to Laila. She could not bring herself to view it again, so she left the room while I.aila viewed it.

She waited outside on the terrace, looking out over the Gulf in the moonlight, her skin misted by salty droplets from the fountain that
spouted out the royal crest. L
aila emerged, pale and shaken. Neither woman spoke. The two of them stood by the balustrade overlooking the gardens, listening to the waves lap the shore and the onshore breeze rustle the fronds of the date palms.

CHAPTER
TWENTY

I
t's a miserable business." said the emir. "I'm not saying it isn't, but we have
no proof."

"Proof." Florence said angrily. "Who else could it have been?"

"What are you Irving to do? Start a war?
It's horrid and regretful, and I will get
to the bottom of this matter. But you will, under no circumstances, broadcast this videotape. That would only play into the hands of whoever did this."

"Emir." Florence said, "this woman was a citizen of your country. She lived under your protection. Are your people now fair game, to be hunted like gazelle at the pleasure of poaching Wasabi raiders?"

"Of course not
. And I'm not sure 1 like your t
one, madame."

"Forgive me. I forgot that I was addressing the New Saladin."

"Your situation here is complicated enough without adding insolence,
Laila
,
perhaps it would be best if you showed our guest out."

"Gazzir." L
aila said, "you can't just let this pass. It may have been an act of retaliation, but it was also a test of your resolve."

"What would you have me do?"

"At least show the world what they did to this woman." "But we don't know
who
did it."

"Then
just
show it," Florence said, "and let the world draw its own conclusion."

"It
is
a war you
want. Madame CIA."
the emir said. "I'm not going t
o give you one. You came here to make mayhem, and now y
ou have it. You don't have the s
tomach for it? You should have stayed home. You're lucky it wasn't you on that tape."

"What a thing to say, Gazzir," Laila said.

"No." Florence said. "H
e's right. It should have been me."

"I'm not going to start a jihad just to satisfy y
our cravings for martyrdom. Now, I have a very f
ull schedule. You may both retire."

Laila walked with Florence to the car. She whispered in Florence's ear, out of hearing of her bodyguard, "Coffee tomorrow, ten o'clock."

Florence’s new Government
"bodyguard" did not follow her into the control-room bathroom. The next morning at nine o'clock, Florence look the
abaay
a
that she kept in a drawer in her office. She went into the bathroom and up the escape hatch, out onto the roof, down a fire escape and walked the three blocks to the single-car garage that h
oused what Bobby called the "saf
e car." Theoretically.

She held her breath, starling the ignition. The car
didn
't explode. Twenty minutes later, she was at the mall outsi
de Starbucks, where, under the f
icus, a familiar figure in white awaited, holding two grande non
-
fat lattes.

"It's impossible t
o drink through this damned mouth mesh." Laila said.

"Use your straw."

"Yesterday after we left him,
he took a telephone call from— Oh God, now
I'm
the spy. You're not
still working for them, are you,
Florence? You have to tell me." "No. It's just us now."

"All right. H
e
got
a call from King
Tallulah. I listened in on the whole thing."

"How?"

"I had the system fixed so that I can. I'm not an idle snoop, but when you h
ave a young son to look out for, as they say, know
ledge is power." "What did the emir and the king discuss?"

"The Pan-Arab summit in Bahrain. Tallulah said how much he was looking forward to seeing him there,
e
ver
so excited about it.
What
a great honor for
Matar
. Et cetera. I
wanted
to scream."

"Did they discuss Fatim
a?"

"It was dealt with
in the way they have. 'Such an unfortunate business.' 'Yes, indeed unfortunate.' You see, the score had been evened. So there was no point in pressing it. No honor to be gained. Let the feasting commence. I had a vision of them under a tent together, chins glistening with sheep fat and buttered rice. It was awful. Firenze. I loved him once. Even with his harem. But after listening yesterday ... no. I cannot give my love to such a man."

They sat in silence. Flore
nce said, "They're trying to get
him out of the country. The Pan-Arab meeting. That's when it will happen.
That
's when they'll make their move."

"Yes."

"Would he listen to you?"

"At this point? H
e might think it's a cabal you and I cooked up lo cheat him of assuming the mantle of the New Saladin." "So, Laila, how shall we proceed?" "I need to get my son out before anything else." "Do you want help?"

"Best not. But I'll need a day or two. My sister is in England. I've kept bank accounts. Against a rainy day. It doesn't rain much in the
desert, but when it does, the fl
oods can kill."

"Forty-eight hours, then."

"Firenz
e. I know you said you'd see it through with me. That was all very gallant of you, but... What I'm trying to say, darling, and not being very articula
te with, is that it might be bet
ter if you left
Matar
now."

"Not yet, I
have to do this first. Then I'll leave with
vou. Anyway"— Florence smiled—"I
can't watch it all on a television screen at the Frankfurt
airport. I've gotten loo used t
o being in the control room."

"Oh dear," Laila said. "What will become of us?"

"That's what Nazrah said that night in the Fairfax Hospital."

They stood and walked toward the elevators.

"I'd kiss you goodbye," Laila said, "but we mustn't scandalize all the nice bargain hunters at the mall."

Three days later
TV
Matar
's viewers were surp
rised by th
e new face that greeted them from the six o'clock anchor desk. It was that of an attractive woman in her late thirties, with dark hair. She might have passed for an Arab, but her name was Italian-sounding.

"The person who regularly gives the news on this program." Florence began, "is Falima Sham. Fatima disappeared following a broadcast in which she reported that the Wasabi royal family had sentenced one of its own princesses to be stoned to death for the crime of petitioning the king to stop the persecution of women.

"An extensive search by the authorities was undertaken to find Ms. Sham. The investigation produced no result.

"Then, four days ago, a videotape was anonymously delivered to TV
Matar. Y
ou are about to see that videotape. Be warned: It depicts Ms. Sham being killed. If you have no stomach or desire to witness a young woman being slowly stoned to death, then you should not watch this. If there are children present, you should send them from the room.

"It is being shown on my initiative, and mine only, for one reason: to honor a brave woman who dared to speak out against a terrible injustice, and who for that was herself savagely murdered. The term 'martyr' h
as been debased and corrupted. Y
ou are
about to witness an actual martyrdom
."

Florence had instructed the staff to switch off the telephones and to bar all the doors to the control room. She also specified that the power source be switched to the emergency generators, so the broadcast would continue if the outside power was shut oil".

The tape ran for its full twenty minutes. Though they had seen it before, the staff again wept. Florence had to struggle to keep her own composure. She had dispensed with makeup so her eyes would not become a caricature of muddy mascara.

It t
ook a few moments after the tape ended before she was able to continue. "It is not known precisely who did this deed. However, this method of execution is regularly employed in Wasabia.

"F
atima Sham was twenty-six years old. She is survived by her family, by her friends, by her co
lleagues and by millions of sist
ers throughout the Arab world.
Etemen dan mouwt
'ha
yekoon ai
ndee manaa"

In minutes there was a pounding on the steel doors to the control room. The staff's blood was up. They armed themselves with lire extinguishers, axes, steel pipes, electrical tubing. Watching them, Florence felt mixed sensations of pride and futility.