The General and the Elephant Clock of Al-Jazari (17 page)

Both Wylie and the public security officer looked skeptical at this, and Wylie murmured something to him in Arabic that had them both grinning. They moved off down the hall. John had asked Wylie to make arrangements for a buffer zone around their rooms.

“What can I offer you, sir?”

John thought a moment. “We need some food and drinks. Coffee, bottled water, some Cokes for the room. The boys will need clean clothes. What they were wearing in the prison will most likely need to be thrown away. Oh, clean towels for the doctor. I will ask him what else he needs. If your staff at the front desk will very carefully send calls to our room? I will need to speak to anyone from the embassy who calls, and I will need to speak to Minister Hamid Dilou immediately if he tries to get in contact with me. Also, if there is any contact from a representative of the Ministry of Justice other than that donkey prick Ali Bahktar, I will need to speak to that person at once. But on the phone, sir. I have asked my security men to not allow strangers on the floor, for the safety of my sons and daughter. If I need to speak to any of these representatives, I will come down to your beautiful lobby to do that.” The man looked mildly alarmed at this, and John smiled. “Thank you for the kind support of your staff in helping me bring my family to safety. General David Painter, who is sponsoring our trip here, will, I am sure, be generous in reimbursing you for any problems. Oh, wait. One more thing. We need some dry cleaning, my clothes unfortunately have some bloodstains.”

John looked at his watch. 0635. He needed to get some sleep. Tomorrow, no, today, he needed to be as sharp as he’d ever been in his life. At the moment his foggy brain felt like a dull weapon indeed.

The manager came into the room with him, took an armful of clothes out with him for cleaning. He promised John would have a clean suit by eight.

“Jen.” She came and stood in front of him. “They are bringing some food and drink. Make sure we distribute it between the three rooms. You and Sam are going to have the room next door. It has two beds, or so I understand. You two figure it out. I need to be in here with Eli and Daniel. The third room is for our Marine guards, and for the doctor and his father if they need to stay overnight. If you would please check everyone has what they need for a few hours. I need to lie down.”

“Did they hurt you? Do you want the doctor to look at you?”

John shook his head. “Just three hours sleep. Make sure I’m up by ten. If Gabriel calls, come get me but no one else for a couple hours, okay?”

“Who’s Gabriel?”

John blinked at her. Was there actually someone in the world who didn’t know the Horse-Lord? “He’s the love of my life.”

T
HE
soft chime of the alarm on his watch had John opening his eyes at nine thirty. He knew he wasn’t at home. The sheets smelled different, fresh, but not the lemon eco-detergent Kim used, and the light filtering into the room was not Albuquerque light. And Gabriel wasn’t by his side. Back in the saddle again, he thought, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. It didn’t really matter if you were on a cot in a dusty tent or in a five star resort. If it wasn’t home, it wasn’t home.

He pulled on his jeans, walked in bare feet out to the kitchenette of the suite and put on a pot of coffee. Jen was curled up on the couch, but he let her sleep. He stuck his head out of the door, waved Wylie over. “What’s the status?”

“Everything’s quiet. Mr. Mortimer sent me a text, said to stay put until I hear differently.”

“Thanks. I appreciate the backup.”

“General, the twitterverse is going mad. Have you seen it?”

John shook his head, and Wylie pulled out his phone. “This is on YouTube. They’ve got it up in English and Arabic.” John watched Ali Bahktar punch him in the stomach repeatedly, watched as he drooped between the arms of two grinning thugs. Fucking little shits. He could hear himself clearly, though, and the final
you are not Islam
came through nicely. John was pleased.

“Wylie, what did you say to the security service man this morning?”

“I told him when American babies were born with balls the size of an elephant’s, their mothers name them Hannibal. Arabic is the best language in the world for curses.”

“I agree. Get some coffee if you want some.”

He came back into the suite, poured a cup of coffee, and then nudged Jen in the foot. She stirred, sat up. “Where’s my aide?”

“He just lay down a few minutes ago. Can I help?”

“Yes. Get two thousand dollars out of the cash and give it to Wylie. And then get your father on the secure sat phone. Give me five minutes.”

He stuck his head back out the door and handed the coffee to Wylie. “Wylie, can you round up some of those security service guys? We need two people around the clock to watch the doctor’s house. His father is here. One sister is a blogger, one of those pro-democracy girls Jen has been helping. She’s out of the country now, on the run, but there may be other family who are going to be at risk because the doctor came to help us. Jen’s getting the money.”

“Yes, sir.”

He opened the door to the boys’ room. The light was muted, filtered by the curtains pulled tightly over the windows. Green and Forsyth were sleeping, IV bags duct-taped up high on the wall above both beds. The young doctor was sitting next to the bed in a chair, and when he saw John, he rose and joined him at the door. They stepped outside, and John closed the door softly. “Does he need a hospital?”

“Maybe,” the young man said. He had curly dark hair, tired eyes, and pale skin. “I will know more in three or four hours. We don’t have a portable X-ray machine, but I think the arm is infected, as well as broken. I cleaned out the abscess. We’ll keep it splinted in the meantime, but he is mainly suffering from sepsis and dehydration. The eye seems okay, no retinal damage.”

“Okay, we’ll give it a few more hours. If he takes a turn for the worse, I’ll make other arrangements for him.”

“Sir, he was assaulted.”

“I know he was assaulted, Doctor. He’s bruised from his head to…. Wait a minute. What do you mean?”

The young man stared at the carpet, color flooding his face. “He was assaulted,” he said again. He couldn’t make eye contact.

“What are his injuries exactly?”

“There is an anal tear and bruising. As far as I can tell on exam, no rupture of the rectum. But if the fever does not go down soon, I would infer there might be a rupture higher up, and he will need to be evaluated at a tertiary care center with a good surgeon and intensive care. We will know more in a few hours.”

“How about the other boy?”

“Some trauma to the kidneys, a possible boxer’s fracture to his right hand, and also dehydration. Both young men took significant traumatic blows to the head and may suffer from concussion. I gave Mr. Forsyth some pain medication, which is not usually indicated with a concussion but his boxer’s fracture was several days old, and he had been trying to help his friend. He reinjured it repeatedly.”

“What exactly do we need to do now?”

“Nothing. They are getting IV fluids and antibiotics and sleep. Now we wait.”

“I will sit with them for a few moments if you need to get something to eat or drink. I believe your father is still here as well if you would like to speak with him. I’m arranging for security services to watch your home, to head off retaliation by the Salafists.”

“Thank you, General Mitchel.”

“And I thank you, Doctor Shakir.”

John walked to the chair, sat down next to Green’s bed. Eli opened his eyes, looked up at him. “Did he tell you?”

“Yes.”

Eli Green had the same coffee with cream complexion as Gabriel, with tightly curled black hair and moss-green eyes. He had a nose that looked like it belonged on a coin.

“If I didn’t know better,” John said, “I would say you looked like a Roman.”

“Rome?” he said, light kindling in his green eyes. “You know what Cato the Elder used to say? He used to end every speech with the same words: Carthage Must Be Destroyed! I don’t know how to say it in Latin.”

“Carthaginem delendam esse!” John said.

Green closed his eyes, smiling. “‘Carthaginem delendam esse.’ How cool is that? Will you write it down for me? I probably won’t remember.”

“Sure. You have anyone you need to call? Family?”

Eli shook his head.

“I can have a plane here in a few hours, get you to a hospital in Tel Aviv, or I can get you to Germany or back home. What do you want to do?”

“They still have my passport?”

John nodded. “There are charges pending against you for blasphemy, according to the embassy.”

“I’m not going anywhere. It wasn’t blasphemy, and I won’t let those dickheads use me to try and inflame a jihad. What they’re trying to do, it’s not right. I won’t let them use me for propaganda.”

Jen stuck her head in the door, waved the phone. “I’ve got him on the phone. You want to talk to him now?”

John nodded, took the phone. “David?”

“Did you have to let that little shit punch you out in front of a hundred fucking cell phone cameras?”

“All part of my plan. I have Green and Forsyth with me at the hotel, the Regency. I’m trying to talk them into getting on a plane. Maybe Tel Aviv. It has the nearest tertiary care center.”

“You’ve got them? What the fuck happened? Are they hurt?”

Green was shaking his head, trying to get out of bed. “Wait a minute.” John handed the phone to Jen, sat down next to Green and eased him back to the pillow. He bent over so the boy could speak in his ear. “Please don’t tell him. I don’t want anyone to know. And tell him I’m not going anywhere.”

John nodded, took the phone back. “They both have some dehydration, a little sepsis, kidney contusion, I think Forsyth has a boxer’s fracture, and one of Green’s arms is broken, but we haven’t been able to cast it yet, too swollen. I’ve got a doctor on board.”

“I’ll send a plane. We’ll figure out papers later.”

“Wait, David. The embassy helped get them out,” John said, “but they can’t just give them new passports, not with charges pending. Things are complicated. Just slow down and let me handle this.”

David sounded weary, worried. “Jesus, let’s not fuck around. You always loved it complicated.”

John looked at Eli Green, at the tight mouth and the stubborn tilt to his chin. “They don’t want to go until the situation is better resolved. Jen is helping. You want to send somebody to watch her back, why did you send that idiot Fields? All he managed to do was whine and sit on his ass drinking beer at the hotel. He let her walk into a prison and try to get these boys out herself, David. What the fuck is wrong with that guy?”

“And you just stood up in a two-thousand-dollar Italian suit and shouted, ‘You are not Islam’ while a jihadist prick punched you out? I swear to God, you could start a war, John!”

“Ali Bahktar’s grandfather is Hamid Dilou. You know who he is?”

“Wasn’t he the smuggler who tried to cut your throat over a plate of Turkish delight?”

“No, that was the other grandfather. This grandfather is the Minister of Culture for Tunisia. And as soon as Tunisia wakes up and starts reacting to our democracy theater, Dilou is going to owe me. What I hope he can do for us is make sure the Ministry of Justice returns their passports and drops the charges of blasphemy and stomps hard on any retaliation from the Salafists. Then we go.”

“I hope you know what you’re doing.”

“We may need some more cash. Can I get Jen to call you? I’m going to make her my communications officer.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake.” He hung up, and John handed the phone to Jen.

“Your father says hello.”

J
OHN
walked into the living room and opened his computer. “Jen, what’s the time difference between here and Albuquerque?”

“They’re seven hours behind us.”

Okay, that made it just after one am. He should be safe.

“Sir, you might want to see this.” Jen worked the remote control and the voice from the TV, with a very posh British accent, was saying, over the footage of his confrontation with Ali Bahktar “… and this raw footage out of CNN, a retired American Army general, travelling to Tunisia on business, was assaulted publically in the lobby of one of Tunisia’s finest resorts. General John Mitchel was recently the subject of controversy when he appeared on the cover of
Out
magazine and gave an interview about being gay in the army. We don’t know if the attack was motivated by anti-American feeling or if this was a gay hate crime, or if this attack was more evidence of the rising violence by the ultra-conservative Salafist group that seems to be gaining a political foothold in post-revolution Tunisia. We’ll….”

“Oh, God.” John was remembering Kim’s comment about monitoring CNN for any flares in violence in sunny Tunisia. He needed to gather some more intel. It was dangerous to operate without adequate information. An unexpected piece of information cropping up at the wrong moment was like walking across the floor in your bare feet and stepping on a nasty bit of broken glass. John stuck his head back in Eli and Daniel’s room. “Do you want coffee or a Coke?”