The General and the Elephant Clock of Al-Jazari (26 page)

“What did they want to see at the Bardo?”

“The boy Hannibal thought there were some of the original pages of the book,
The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices
.”

“I wonder, Dr. Mitchel, if I might come by the hotel and speak to these boys myself? I would like to offer my apologies for the discourtesy and misunderstanding, and perhaps I can arrange for the boys to have a tour of the museum.”

John hesitated for a moment. “Director, I wondered if perhaps you might be the great uncle of the young man I encountered, Ali Bahktar.”

“He is not a scholar, like you and I. He has no love for learning and no respect for our history or traditions, and I have not seen him for many years. But, yes, he is of my wife’s family.”

“I would be very pleased to greet an old friend and respected scholar such as yourself.”

“Thank you, Dr. Mitchel. I heard from my old friend Dr. Omar al-Salim that his young son Abdullah might be coming?”

“He is visiting Carthage,” John agreed.

“So many blessings! Old friends and colleagues, scholars, sons, young warriors named Hannibal. This will be a day full of great joy for me.”

“And for me as well, Dr. Al-Aziz. May we offer you luncheon?”

“I have a meeting this morning, but I will come to you this afternoon if that will be convenient.”

“Of course, and I will look forward to greeting you. I hope I will not disappoint you with my poor scholarship!”

“Of course not. I read the article you wrote about the attack on the USS Maine with great interest.”

John hung up, folded the mind map. They had a winner!

K
IM
worked on a plan to build an elephant clock for hours, long after Sam and Jen gave it up and Daniel drifted off to take a nap. It was early afternoon before John interrupted him. He and Eli were the only people left at the table, the surface covered with drawings and papers and calculations and two laptop computers, one with weather and wind charts for Carthage and one showing beachfront condos for sale. “Thinking about moving?” John asked.

Kim shook his head. “The real estate guys usually have information on their websites about how to buy land. Like, how to legally buy land in another country. I was trying to figure out where we could put the elephant clock, because we can’t put it in Carthage, at the ruins. That’s a UNESCO site, and you can’t change anything.”

“Let’s take a break and get dressed. We’re having a visitor. Eli, the Director of the Bardo is coming to see you and Daniel. I get the feeling he wants to offer you an apology, and maybe offer you a tour of the museum.”

“Hey, cool!”

“The older men in Tunisia are fairly formal, so let’s dress for the occasion. You’re about my size. Do you want to wear a suit?”

Kim frowned at him. “Not the new suit, Uncle John. You wear that, and I’ll let Eli pick out one of the new shirts I brought with me.”

“Fine, whatever, but you boys take a break for now. Sometimes you can think your way into a corner, and you need to take a break to work the knots out.”

Kim started picking up the papers, closing down the laptops. “We’re very, very close, Hannibal. I can feel a tremor in the Force. The last time I felt it was in the presence of my old master.”

Eli looked up, grinning. “They say the Jedi are extinct, their fire gone out of the universe.”

“Sir, we have an emergency alert in detention block AA-23.” The boys were falling all over the couch, giggling. What the hell were they talking about? Well, he was used to feeling clueless around Kim.

John went back into the bedroom to get dressed, wondering if he was going to hear from Gabriel. He had been gone for more than four hours, close to five. He’d gone to the embassy first. But surely he should be back by now? He didn’t want to call, though. A distraction like a ringing phone could kill a delicate negotiation. He needed to do some serious thinking about Jennifer. How to keep her safe, and how to get her out of the country. He looked through the cards on the bedside table until he found the phone number for Youssef Shakir and dialed the number.

“Mr. Shakir? This is John Mitchel. I hope I’m not disturbing you?”

“No, of course not, General. How can I assist you?”

“Two things. I need to pay for the medications your son brought, for the IVs and equipment he used to treat the boys. Also, I was wondering if your daughter has had the opportunity to contact you? I would like to tell her friend that she is well and safe.”

Youssef paused for a moment. “My daughter is enjoying her tour of Spain very much and may travel to Italy next. There is an airbase at Aviano, and she is going to try and see her friends there.”

“Excellent. She will enjoy that, I think. She may also find that there are several small army posts in Italy if she needs assistance. I will get you the names and phone numbers for emergency contacts. I know that your son will refuse any payment for his medical care, but the medicines were expensive and difficult to find.”

“Yes, they were,” Youssef agreed. “He always mentioned to me that he hoped one day to have access to the many medical journals published in the United States. Here mail can be difficult from America.”

“I understand that medical journals are now available online, if a person has a Kindle?”

“That is what I understand as well, General Mitchel.”

“I will speak to you again soon, if I may.”

“It is always a pleasure.”

John pulled his Kindle out from the suitcase. He only had a few titles on it. He was trying, but had not become adjusted to reading on the e-reader. He dug around until he found the plug, then turned it on. He opened his Amazon account and downloaded a year’s worth of
JAMA
and the
New England Journal of Medicine
; then he downloaded the entire files of something called
Audio-Digest Family Practice
, which was supposed to be for continuing education. He would have to ask Youssef if the young doctor had an area of interest or specialization.

For a brief moment he let himself remember when Gabriel had downloaded a copy of the show
Spartacus
from Amazon. Really, those people made it very easy to spend money! One click and there you were, back in the arena. No wonder Amazon seemed to be taking over the world. Now he’d met Daniel and Eli, he had a very good idea who wanted to put some flowers down for Andy Whitfield, the young actor playing Spartacus who’d died of cancer. Daniel’s pretty young wife was a dead ringer for the actress playing the gladiator’s wife. But John had decided the prudent thing to do would be to let Spartacus rest.

He wrapped the Kindle and power cord in a couple of paper towels for cushioning, went downstairs to find a box and have it sent over to Dr. Shakir. Jackson was roaming the halls, humming a tune under his breath. “All quiet on the Western Front, General Mitchel.”

“Thanks, Jackson.”

“Um, sir? Where are you going and for how long?”

“Down to the front desk, and five minutes.”

“Wylie said we needed to watch your back because you were a shit magnet and the Horse-Lord is still out of the building.”

John stared at him for a moment. “If I’m not back in five minutes, call me on my cell. If you hear me say ‘Death Star,’ then you can call out the Marines.”

“Sir, I am the Marines.”

The USMC, John thought, when the elevator started moving down, had a very subtle line in irony.

The front desk was deserted. John wondered if the staff had given up, or if Mr. Aziz had simply sent everyone home until the Americans had left his beautiful hotel? He waited a minute for someone to show, but, mindful of Jackson upstairs staring at his watch, he knocked on the wooden counter, then rang the bell. He heard a woman then, what sounded like a muffled sob, and he came around the corner of the desk, pushed open the door into the back room. Two waiters, three maids, and the front desk clerk were sitting together in the corner while Ali Bahktar’s men surrounded them, wearing old American camo and holding small arms, some pointed at their own feet. Bahktar was striding back and forth, his eyes wild. “I’ve been waiting for you, General Mitchel.”

T
HE
boy loved to listen to himself talk, John thought. What with the arms flying around, the white robe flapping around his heels, that thin beard, he looked like a cartoon jihadist. He was saying something about John humiliating him as a child, but now he was the master.

The boys upstairs, Kim and Eli, they were quoting lines from the movie! That’s why he couldn’t stop thinking about Star Wars. And here was Ali, acting for the tiniest audience: frightened clerks and thugs with guns. “If you want to be a person who has something to say, Ali, you need to work on your scholarship. An Imam studies many years, he reads and learns and thinks. He is wise because he has studied, so that when he does have something to say, people will listen. You want to take the easy way out, no one will take what you have to say seriously.” Why was he bothering? Ali Bahktar was a dim bulb at his brightest.

“Shut up! You do not speak to me. I am the one speaking here! I am the master now!”

“Only the Master of Evil, Darth.”

A room full of confused eyes looked back at him. He raised his hands. “We are leaving very soon,” he assured the staff. “Where is Mr. Aziz? Has he been taken somewhere else, or did he go home for some rest?”

“He went home.” The desk clerk reached up and wiped under her eyes. Her makeup was smeared with tears, and Ali started another rant about whores and makeup, pointing his finger in her face and screaming at her.

“Fucking hell. That is enough.” John reached out, grabbed his arm and pulled down, then let it go, and Ali swung wildly, a flat-handed blow aimed at John’s head. John ducked, grabbed the wrist and twisted it up behind Ali’s back. Now Ali was immobilized and his body was between John and the bad guys, and John still had one hand free. Gabriel had taught him this trick. “Out, all of you,” he said, pulling Ali backward. John twisted his arm a little tighter when the desk clerk put her face in her hands and cried. “Somebody call Mr. Aziz and the police.” When the cell phone in his pocket rang, he reached for it and hit the button with his thumb. “Death Star.”

Jackson must have radioed Wylie, because he and Daniel came at a run from the fitness center, Jackson pounding down the stairs and covering the beautiful lobby and patio, the deserted blue jewel of a pool. The Salafists walked backward out of the hotel, covering him, and John walked Ali Bahktar down the white marble steps. He had Wylie and Jackson at his back with weapons, and Daniel at his back with a plaster cast, ready for a little payback. Ali had three men. Their guns looked poorly maintained, but even rusty pieces of crap could maim. John was thinking as fast as he could how to get these dickheads off the hotel grounds before somebody got hurt.

A taxi pulled up to the front of the hotel, behind the Salafists, and John could see the driver’s horrified face behind the glass. Gabriel pushed open the back door, came out and went straight for the nearest man. He lashed out with his foot, tripped him, and kicked his gun away when he fell. The next man got a roundhouse punch to the chin, dropped like a sack of wet sand. Gabriel reached for number three with both hands, but the man backed away, his hands raised. “I swear, John, I can’t leave you alone for five minutes!”

“The Marines were here. And the Rangers,” he said, looking at Daniel. “And I haven’t just fallen off the army turnip truck, my friend. I can take care of myself.”

Gabriel reached up, took Ali Bahktar by the throat, and started to squeeze. “Gabriel, no.” John let go of Bahktar’s arm, and he flailed in Gabriel’s grip, his face shading dark. Gabriel spun him around, pushed him into the arms of the last man standing.

“If I see you again, I am going to put you into the ground, my friend.” Bahktar was coughing, his hands at his throat, and Gabriel spread his arms, just like he had done when Ali had been a child and tried to cut John’s throat. He stood there, his big chest open to the enemy, arms wide, the biggest “fuck you” imaginable, until Bahktar turned and ran.

“Are you wearing a vest?” John demanded. Wylie and Daniel were grinning at each other, Jackson standing with his weapon pointing down, his mouth open. “Did you leave Abdullah somewhere?”

Gabriel shook his head, bent over the open door of the taxi. “Hey, kiddo. Come on out.”

John stared at the driver, who had his cell phone up and pointed at Gabriel. “Would somebody please pay this guy? For crying out loud, what I wouldn’t give for a peaceful life.” Then he remembered that he’d had a peaceful life, and he’d nearly gone mad with boredom. Gabriel was giving him a smart-assed grin now. “Alright, enough. Everybody inside. We need to get cleaned up. We’ve got company on the way.”

In the elevator to the fourth floor, the men carefully studied the ceilings or the walls except for Gabriel. “The general looks like he’s doing some calculations! Ease up, partner. The elevator isn’t where we’re supposed to fight.” And he pulled two passports out of his pocket, fanned them out like a couple of aces in a hand of poker.