Gorgeous East (44 page)

Solas twisted his mouth into a kind of smile. Threats like these he’d heard all his life, in the favelas of Rio, in the Legion, in the places between. He was calculating now how many he could kill with the gun, how many with his hands, and with the razor blade he kept always concealed in a small pocket inside of his shorts. After that it was
sauve-qui-peut
.

“Your cousin is not dead,” Pinard said in the same reasonable tone. “A little roughed up, his clothes probably ruined. For this, my friends apologize. What if I offer you twenty thousand dirhams for the ruined clothes?”

The bargaining went on for nearly a half hour. The Legionnaires pooled everything they had in their pockets and promised to pay more to a boy who would show up the next day at the hotel. It was extortion and it made them sick, because, being Legionnaires, they would rather fight than pay. From nearby, from some hidden recess in the crumbling walls of the souk, as the big, gaudy bills were counted out, came the mocking hoot of an owl.

6.

T
he emir of the Saharouis sat playing a Nintendo Game Boy in the middle of a beautiful Zemmour carpet in an opulent tent pitched in an open area at the epicenter of the souk. The tent was spread with more beautiful carpets and hung with chandeliers of lacy, filigree silver. The emir, alone among his people, was permitted to live in a tent, a reminder of the glory days before the Moroccans and their Berm, before the Spanish and the French and the Portuguese, before the Foreign Legion came to Africa, before even the Arab invasions of the seventh century: a time of peace and freedom when the Saharouis had wandered their desert uninhibited, sailing across the dunes which were like the ocean on magnificently caparisoned camels, each man his own sheik.

The emir, a thin, spindly teenager, looked twelve, but was probably fifteen or sixteen. He wore a pastel pink polo shirt, spotless white trousers, and a crocodile-skin Hermès belt; his narrow brown feet were bare, the healthy toenails buffed and glistening. A pair of heavy gold hoop earrings hung from his long delicate lobes. He seemed utterly engrossed in his Game Boy and oblivious to the charms of his harem, which consisted of three plump, languid women, veiled but dressed in flimsy robes that exposed a good portion of their ample anatomies.

“I could have you killed for sneaking into my souk!” he said without taking his eyes off the tiny screen. He spoke in a clipped, nasal British-accented English—a product of Harrow, the exclusive boarding school in England, where he spent half the year playing polo and hobnobbing with royals.

Pinard, Szbeszdogy, and Solas lay prostrate before him, face to carpet, asses in the air, shoes off, like supplicants before an Oriental potentate, which in fact they were.

“Give me one bloody reason I shouldn’t have you flogged and thrown into a pit full of vipers,” the emir said, thumbs busy working the game.

“Mercy, Star of the East,” Pinard replied in English. “We have come to ask your help.”

“First you need to obtain my bloody permission to come and ask my help. Got that?”

“But how could we obtain your bloody permission, excellent sir?” Szbeszdogy spoke up. “Because here you are, hidden in your marvelous souk, and you do not go out.”

The emir snapped his Game Boy shut. His face, though young and still softened by baby fat, was already hardened by the unchecked exercise of hereditary power.

“There are ways,” he said coldly. “You have to know the right people, make inquiries, find a sponsor, that sort of thing. Rather like getting into a Mayfair club.”

“Might we not now obtain your permission?”

“I don’t suppose you brought any game chip software?” The emir tapped his Game Boy. “That would be a much appreciated bit of baksheesh.”

“Unfortunately not, excellency,” Szbeszdogy said.

“Bollocks!” the emir exclaimed. “I’m getting damned tired of Baby Kill Zone, let me tell you. I’ve breached all the levels, all the babies are dead, absolutely splattered. And Mossad Versus Jihad is downright boring. The damned Jews keep winning no matter what I do—and don’t tell me Jewish domination of the electronic games industry has nothing to do with that outcome!”

Szbeszdogy and Pinard exchanged a confused glance.

“Listen, if you promise to send me some new games, and I mean a box full of them, I will overlook the fact that you were caught sneaking around my souk.”

“Of course,” Pinard said. They were suddenly speaking French. “When we return to France. As many as you like.”

The emir spit in his hand and wiped it on his pants, Saharoui shorthand for done deal.

“
Alors, qu’est-ce que tu veux?
” He yawned. “Be quick. I’m busy.”

“A Frenchwoman entered the souk about an hour ago,” Pinard said. “We would like to speak to her.”

“She is quite safe,” the emir said, frowning. “We Saharouis aren’t bloody white slavers, you know. She came here of her own free will and is free to go any time she likes and right now she wants to stay and she doesn’t want to see anybody. Is that all?”

“If we could speak with her for a moment,” Pinard persisted. “We are all here in your souk for the same purpose. A bit of coordination might save everyone a lot of trouble.”

The emir scratched at a few wispy follicles of hair on his chin. For him, at least, the beard of the prophet was a long way off.

“You’re talking about the Marabouts, I suppose.”

“Yes,” Pinard admitted. “About the men being held captive by them. We are here to help negotiate their return to France.”

“What makes you think I have any dealings with those bloody fanatics?” The emir’s voice rose to an outraged squeak. “That’s damned impertinence!”

“You are the emir of the Saharouis,” Pinard said soothingly. “Could anything occur in your country without you knowing that this thing has occurred? In the souk, in the desert, everywhere, your eyes are like the eyes of God.”

“You have a very good point,” the emir said, accepting this ripe piece of flattery with obvious pleasure. Then, he clapped his hands and one of the plump harem women heaved herself up and disappeared behind a curtain at the back of the tent. She returned a few minutes later with bowls of honeyed dates and glasses of sweet tea on a shiny brass tray that she set down on the carpet. The men drank the tea and ate the honeyed dates, which looked like shrivelled camel
crottes
, but which tasted much better than they looked—sweet and gritty, but gritty in a pleasant way.

“Excellent source of fiber,” the emir said, his mouth full of the sticky dark fruit. “Watch out for the pits . . .” He opened his mouth, exposing on his tongue a moist black object, which he then spit onto the Zemmour carpet for one of the harem women to scoop up. “Now, on to business—”

But another one of the harem women interrupted, reaching up to wipe at the emir’s mouth with a damp cloth, a maternal gesture the haughty teen found intensely annoying

“Excuse me, gentlemen,” he said. “As civilized men, you’ll agree business matters are unsuitable for female ears.” Then he unleashed a stream of harsh-sounding invective at the woman in his own language and she stalked off angrily, ornate
babouches
flopping.

A tactical error, Pinard thought grimly. The kid was now alone with the hard-bitten Legionnaires of Mission: SCORPIO.

“Tell me something,” the emir said, leaning forward. “Who are you exactly?”

“We are French businessmen,” Pinard said.

“I’m young, but I’m not an idiot. Why don’t you tell me the truth?”

“But we are businessmen,” Pinard said. “Our business is to find the two men I mentioned. Will you help us?”

“That depends how much you’re willing to pay for information,” the emir said, a crafty gleam in his eye. Then he wagged a finger. “Think carefully. Do not insult me.”

Though the air in the tent was stifling, the emir didn’t sweat. Pinard glanced over at Solas. The Brazilian also looked cool as an eel, impervious to the heat. It was a question of metabolism; of natural selection and the influence of weather on body type.

Pinard, himself dripping with sweat, drew his men together, as if for a financial consultation.

“I should tell you right now, we’re not authorized to pay anything, not one fucking sou,” he whispered. “So this one’s going to be all bluff, like playing American poker.”

“More like Russian roulette,” Szbeszdogy said.

“It is the Legion way.” Pinard shrugged. Then, to Solas: “Is the safety off on the Walther?”

The Brazilian nodded.

“All right, ready?”

Szbeszdogy hesitated. At moments like this, in the lull before the fighting, a curious cacophony filled his ears. It was the sound of all the notes from all the songs he’d never written jangling together before they fell off, one by one, into the great uncreated void.

“Stefan?”

“Yes,” the Hungarian said. “Why not?”

Pinard turned back to the emir. “Thirty-five thousand,” he said, pulling the figure out of the air.

“I hope to Allah—peace be upon him—you mean pounds sterling!” the emir said, genuinely insulted by the offer.

“American dollars,” Pinard said, just to confuse the issue.

“You’re joking with me. I can spend that kind of money in a fortnight in London, just on gin and whores.”

Pinard was beginning to hate this arrogant little teenager.

“In any case, the Frenchwoman has offered me five times that amount. And something else, something without price.”

“What’s that?” Pinard felt his ears burning suddenly.

“Her exquisite body,” the emir said, smiling broadly. “For me to use as I please.”

The tent got very small all at once, and Pinard felt a kind of hot pressure in his guts. Without thinking, he lunged across the carpet and caught one of the teenage emir’s golden earrings and pulled down hard. The earring came off with a wet, ripping sound and the emir cried out in pain, but the sound of his voice was almost immediately stifled by Pinard’s hands around his throat. Pinard squeezed hard and kept squeezing; the emir’s eyes bulged, his tongue came lolling out, his face went purple.

“Stop!” It was Szbeszdogy’s voice. “If you kill him, we’ll never get out of this warren alive!”

Pinard let go, his hands trembling. The emir fell back, half strangled but still breathing.

“Give me the Walther,” Pinard growled.

The Brazilian drew the gun, but did not immediately hand it over. Instead, he held it level with Pinard’s heart. Their eyes met.

“Quite right,” Pinard said calmly. “This is your chance, Solas. Kill me now and this officious little bastard will reward you with a fortune and you can spend the rest of your life here in the souk. Go ahead.”

The Brazilian hesitated for two terrible seconds. Then he grinned and tossed over the gun. “From one man of honor to another,” he said.

“Welcome to the fight,” Pinard said, and he pressed the Walther’s silenced end against the emir’s forehead. “Where is she?”

The emir rolled his eyes in fear. The whites were flecked with pink where a couple of blood vessels had burst.

7.

L
ouise de Noyer lay on a low Turkish couch in a blue-tiled room in the emir’s harem complex in her blue French underwear, attached by an iron collar and chain to a ring in the wall, as two more harem women, their clothes cast aside, applied perfumed pomade to her glossy blue-black hair. This exotic scene, reminiscent of Gérôme’s
Bain
, was interrupted violently when the door to the room slammed open and the three Legionnaires entered, dragging the young emir along with them.

The harem women screamed and went scrambling for their clothes. The corridor outside was already filled with the dark shapes of the emir’s myrmidons, and the harem complex—indeed, the entire souk—came alive with shouting and the urgent tromping of many feet.

“You’re going to ruin everything!” Louise shouted at Pinard from her place on the couch. “Let the emir go!”

“I let him go, they cut our throats!” Pinard said.

“You don’t understand! He’s going to help me find my husband!”

“I understand too well,” Pinard said. “Slut!”

The word came too quickly to his lips, but this wasn’t the place for a lover’s quarrel: Pinard shoved the Walther into the back of the emir’s head and swung him around by the scruff of his pink polo shirt until he faced the door. Two big-boned Mauritanian eunuchs blocked the threshold: These bulky, emasculated henchmen carried the traditional symbol of their vocation—a heavy, curved scimitar, straight out of
The Arabian Nights
.

“Tell your dogs to piss off,” Pinard growled.

The emir spoke in rapid Hassaniya, fear rattling his voice. The eunuchs—purchased in a slave market in Nouakchott the old-fashioned way, with a rawhide pouch full of silver coins and a couple of goats—backed off down the corridor.

“Let’s get out of here,” Pinard said. “Now!”

Solas seized Lousie de Noyer’s chain and yanked hard and the chain came out of the wall in a shower of plaster and tile.

“Pardon me, madame,” Solas said. “But you’re coming with us!”

“No!” Louise pulled back against the chain. “I won’t!”

“How you want me to handle this,
mon capitaine
?” Solas said.

“With prejudice, Legionnaire!”

“I don’t want to smash your pretty face,” Solas said grimly. “But if I have to, I’m going to enjoy it!”

Louise gasped in disbelief. “Liar!” she shouted at Pinard. “You’re not a bank robber at all! The Legion sent you!”

“The French Foreign Legion?” The emir went pale.

“You’ve heard of us,” Pinard said.

“You have no right to be here!” the emir cried, outraged. “This is a clear violation of national sovereignty!”

“It’s not a question of national sovereignty at all,” Szbeszdogy countered. “Western Sahara is a non-self-governing territory.”

“I protest in the strongest terms! I shall inform MINURSO of this violation—”

Pinard, losing patience, backhanded the kid hard across the mouth. “Shut up or I’ll crush your Game Boy!” he growled. “
Petit con!
”

“Brute!” Louise shouted. “Leave him alone!”