The Abrupt Physics of Dying (16 page)

No Shortage of Bastards

It was almost dusk when he reached the hotel. It was one of the last old Yemeni establishments left in the city. Not far from the Bab Al Yemen gate – where only yesterday, according to one of the truck drivers he had met on the road from Ta’izz, a thief’s hand had been amputated and hung from the stone arch – the four-storey
whitewashed
funduq
stood serene within its ten-acre walled garden, an oasis. The gate guard hinged the steel panel door aside and Clay steered Abdulkader’s Land Cruiser into the compound. The tyres crunched and popped along the winding gravel drive. King palms towered overhead, ancient. Birds darted among the woody acacias. He parked in front of the main entrance and turned off the engine.

The hotel seemed to have been sculpted rather than built, the alabaster mortar smoothed and layered on by hand over soft mud, artisanal. There was not a corner or edge to be seen. Inside, the lobby was cool, the blue tile-work floor like a glacial pond under a carved roof of ice. A spiral stairway, the steps hewn and polished from the same compound, swirled away to the upper parts of the palace. A portrait of Crown Prince Muhammad al-Badr, the last Imam of Yemen, hung from the near wall. Defiance shone from the canvas.

‘You’re late.’ She stood at the bottom of the stairway in a
floor-length
robe, black with embroidered edges, flowers red and yellow. Her hair was swept back under a diaphanous black headscarf. His pulse took a jump.

‘Beautiful,’ he said.

She smiled.

‘You live here?’

‘I know the owners, a very old Yemen family.’

He looked down at his dust-covered trousers and boots. ‘Sorry it took me so long,’ he said. ‘You’d think there was a war on.’

‘Soon there might be.’ She stepped towards him and offered her hand. It was soft and cool, like a child’s. ‘Come,’ she said, pulling him towards the stairs. ‘I booked you a room. How long can you stay?’

‘Just tonight. I can’t risk getting stuck here if war does break out.’

Rania frowned. ‘I wanted to show you Sana’a.’

‘Maybe next time.’

‘If there is a next time.’ She smiled. Pale enamel flashed between glossed lips.

He washed and changed and met her on the third-floor balcony that overlooked the gardens. Beyond the ataxia of Sana’a’s rooftops, barren olivine and iron oxide cliffs hulked in the late afternoon heat. A waiter brought tea and departed. They were alone.

‘I was followed,’ he said, unscrewing the cap of his hip flask. ‘I think I lost him at the checkpoint near Ibb.’

‘You are a popular man right now, it seems.’

He fortified his tea, offered her some.

‘No, thank you,’ she said. ‘I don’t drink.’

Of course she didn’t. He slipped the flask back into his pocket. ‘Look Rania, I know it was sudden, but I need to talk to you. You said you wanted information. Well, I’ve seen something, witnessed something.’

She was alert now, her reporter’s antennae fully deployed.

He tried to describe it, stumbled. He reached into his pocket and placed an exposed roll of 35-millimetre film on the table. ‘It’s all there,’ he whispered. He hadn’t dared have the film developed.

She looked down at the yellow-and-black film canister but did not touch it. ‘The government has already blamed it on Al Shams.’

‘That’s bullshit. Have a look for yourself. The Army was there.’ He paused, considering what he would say next. ‘So was the security
guy from Petro-Tex. The men who did the shooting weren’t Yemenis, Rania. They
looked
like Yemenis, but they were speaking another language; it sounded like Turkish, but it wasn’t.’

‘Pashtun,’ she said.

Clay looked at her, a question.

‘Afghans.’

‘Here in Yemen?’

‘Al Qaeda. The government is inviting them in, offering them safe haven. In return, Al Qaeda moonlights doing Saleh’s dirty work.’

‘I thought the PSO were the presidential dirt-baggers.’

‘The PSO
runs
Al Qaeda in Yemen; Ansar Al-Sharia they call it.’

Clay leaned back and took a deep breath. ‘But then why is the PSO questioning me about Al Shams, while accusing him of being Ansar Al-Sharia? It doesn’t make sense.’

Rania looked over her shoulder and leaned in close. ‘When the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, Al Shams was one of thousands of Yemenis who answered the call of jihad. In the early eighties he became a
mujahideen
, fighting the godless Marxist infidel. Ten years ago he was badly wounded. After a long convalescence in a Pakistani hospital, he returned to Yemen and became the head of Ansar Al-Sharia. That’s what my sources tell me. But two years ago, he went rogue, and now the PSO wants him dead.’

Clay took a shallow breath, looked up at the newly risen crescent moon, its point plunged deep into the blackened ridge. He and Al Shams had been fighting the same enemy – the communists – at the same time, on different continents. ‘He’s threatening to kill my friend.’

‘Just as he killed another Petro-Tex employee last year.’

‘Champard.’ Jim’s warning echoed in his head.

‘Yes. A French national.’

‘I know. I was there.’

Rania gasped, breathed out between pursed lips. ‘You.’

‘They almost got me, too.’

‘I reported the story. It was very big news in France. Yemenis who
saw the explosion told me that there was another foreigner there, but no one I spoke to in Petro-Tex seemed to know anything about it. About you. You were, are, my missing witness.’

‘I was sent home on the next flight out, told to keep quiet.’

Rania bit down on her lower lip. ‘What happened that day, Clay?’

He told her.

‘Was it a car bomb, an RPG?’

He’d asked himself that question a thousand times. ‘I didn’t see or hear any kind of projectile. It wasn’t that.’ He knew the sound too well. ‘Thierry never turned the engine off, just kept it idling while I got out. So it couldn’t have been ignition-activated.’

‘Remote control detonation.’

She knew her stuff. ‘That’s my best guess,’ he said. ‘The bomb must have been planted in the vehicle before we left the office that day.’

‘And they waited until you were out and safely away.’

Clay’s heart stopped, restarted. He hadn’t ever considered this.

‘Why were you spared, Clay? Do you have any idea?’

‘Jesus. No. None.’ Not luck, after all. Determinism.

Rania sipped her tea, looked out over the city.

‘How did they know it was Al Shams?’ he said.

‘He claimed responsibility. And, ever since, Petro-Tex has been putting pressure on governments here and abroad to act against the terrorists.’ Rania sipped her tea, replaced the glass on the table, and smoothed down her robe.

‘Al Shams told me himself that he didn’t do it.’

Rania looked at him sidelong, surprise in her eyes. ‘Do you trust him, after what he has done?’

He didn’t know what to think. There was something about the man. Despite everything, there was honour in him, that was clear – a hopeless, outgunned, surrounded honour that resonated with Clay, defied his anger. He said nothing.

‘If I were you I would be very careful, Clay. Don’t mention what you have seen at Bawazir to anyone – not yet anyway – especially
not to your Petro-Tex colleagues. These are very dangerous people.’ She scooped up the film canister and put it into his hand. ‘And hold on to this.’

There was a rap on the shutters and the waiter appeared at the veranda doorway. Rania stood and walked over to where he stood. A brief conversation ensued. She closed the louvered door and returned to the divan. ‘I hope you’re hungry. I’ve asked them to bring up some food.’

He told her about Al Urush, about the boy Mohamed and his harp of spokes, of the lost sample and his suspicion of a link between the oilfield operations and the illnesses. He told her about Al Shams’ warnings, about his confrontation with Karila and Parnell’s threats, Abdulkader’s misfortune.

‘If I were you, I would be very wary of Vance Parnell,’ she said. ‘He has, how should I say, a
history
.’

Clay looked into her eyes, waited for her to continue.

‘Three years ago, he was dismissed from an American multinational’s Thai operations. He had been caught bribing high-level Thai government officials using money from a special corporate account. When the story hit the Thai press, the company made Parnell the scapegoat. A few months later he showed up in Jakarta, this time with one of the European oil and gas majors, divorced and in debt. Within weeks he was the victim of a car bombing, supposedly in retaliation for previous indiscretions. He survived, but was badly burned and spent months in hospital. He went back to work, but within a year was fired for assaulting a local employee. Apparently he took a baseball bat to one of the houseboys, almost killing him. After that, none of the big multinational oil companies would touch him. He arrived in Yemen shortly afterwards as GM for Petro-Tex. There is more, of course. Trouble follows this man like the plague.’

‘Or he follows it.’
That’s why we pay you
. Clay breathed deep.

She was quiet for a long time, looking out over the city as the sky atomised.

After a while she said: ‘How serious is the illness?’

‘Serious enough: dozens of children suffering the same symptoms. I’m told there have been miscarriages.’ He thought of the girl in the village, the despair in her eyes as she watched her baby burn.

‘What is causing it, Clay?’

‘The villagers say it’s something in the air, but the more I think about it the more I figure it’s the water. That would explain the kids getting sick and not the adults. With their lower body mass, and more frequent exposure, ingested toxins would have a greater and more immediate effect. But there is no obvious source, and higher salt content alone wouldn’t cause the symptoms we’re seeing.’

The increase in salinity could be natural, of course, a consequence of the drought that the region had been experiencing for over a decade. Others could be to blame: farmers over-pumping the shallow coastal aquifers for irrigation. There was no way to know for sure without extensive fieldwork – aquifer testing, sampling, lots more chemical analysis. Most of the time all you had were a few bits of scattered data, a coarse idea of the geology, and a gut feel. And at the moment, his guts were in turmoil. He leaned back into the cushions and combed his fingers through his hair.

‘You could ask them to let you test the air and the water,’ she said.

‘I tried. They’re not interested. They say they’re too far away to have any effect.’

‘In that case, they have no need to worry. The tests would come out negative.’

‘They are afraid, Rania. They don’t
want
to know.’

She leaned closer. He could smell the perfume in her hair. ‘And Al Shams?’

‘He wants me to find out what’s causing the illness.’ Clay looked up at the moon, clear now of the hills, angry Mars strobing retrograde in the twilight. ‘I have five more days to do it. If I don’t, he kills my friend. Does that sound like Al Qaeda to you?’

‘Kidnapping and murder? Actually yes, it does.’

‘I mean the motive, Rania. He just seems to want a fair shake for his people.’

She clenched her jaw and looked away. ‘You sympathise with him?’

‘I just want to get my friend out of there.’ He took a deep breath. ‘I’m going to the regulators, Rania. I’m going to ask the Environmental Affairs Ministry to look into it, officially.’

A cold front passed across her face. ‘If you do, you are putting yourself at grave risk. The PSO will know that you are agitating. They will accuse you of working for Al Shams. Besides, the ministries are all controlled by Saleh.’

He stared out at the darkening city. ‘My contact in the environment ministry is a good man. He’s corrupt, he’s venal, but underneath I know he cares. With the regulators involved, Petro-Tex will at least be forced to acknowledge the issue, and Al Shams will know that I’m trying. It might make the difference for Abdulkader.’

Rania bit her lip, said nothing.

‘Someone’s got to do something, Rania.’

She was quiet a long while, sat twirling a cord of her hair between slender fingers. ‘What proof do you have?’

‘Right now, not much. A few samples, nothing definitive.’

‘You know what will happen if Petro-Tex finds out you’re trying to implicate them, don’t you?’

‘I’ll never work in the oil industry again.’

‘Or worse.’

‘I’ve had enough of the bullshit, Rania.’

‘You could quit. Leave Yemen.’

‘I could. They’d just get some other bastard to take my place. Nothing would change.’

‘No shortage of bastards, then.’

‘Definitely not.’ Clay looked into her eyes, reached for her hands, took them in his. ‘Look, Rania, I’m not going to walk away from Abulkader. I have to find out what’s going on. The best chance I have is from inside Petro-Tex. I need your help.’

She looked away, across the rooftops.

‘There’s a story here, Rania. A good one.’

‘Without proof, there is nothing.’

‘What about the massacre? The photos?’