The Pirate (29 page)

“But, look at you, you’re in rags. You look as if you hadn’t had a bath in months.”

“I’m all right, Mother,” Leila said stubbornly.

“Where did you come from? I thought you were still in school.”

“We hitched our way home,” Leila answered.

“What for? All you had to do was telephone. We would have bought you a ticket.”

“If I had wanted a ticket, I would have called. I wanted to do it this way.”

For the first time, Maryam noticed Hamid, standing outside the threshold. She looked at him, then at her daughter.

“This is my friend Hamid,” Leila said. “He’s Syrian.”

Hamid took a step forward. He touched his finger to his forehead. “Tasharrafna.”

“Hasalli sharaf,” she replied automatically. She did not add the other customary words of welcome.

“I met Hamid on the road,” Leila said. “He’s on his way home to Damascus.”

Maryam said nothing.

“He was very nice to me,” Leila said. “If it weren’t for him, I might have had some trouble.”

Maryam turned back to the Syrian. “Enter,” she said. “And make yourself welcome in our house.”

He bowed again. “Thank you, madame, but I have some friends I can stay with.”

She did not demur. He seemed too coarse and common. But then so did most Syrians.

“I am glad you are home,” he said to Leila. “Now I must be going.”

Leila held out her hand to him. “You will get in touch with me before you leave Beirut?”

He nodded, and they shook hands. Despite their formality, Maryam sensed the familiarity between them. “I will call you,” he said.

But that had been almost a month ago and still he had not left Beirut. What he was doing, she did not know. But she did know that he and Leila met almost every day at the Phoenicia Hotel. She had been told that by friends who had seen them sitting in the coffee shop drinking Coca-Colas.

***

She parked the car in the street and went into the coffee shop through the outside entrance. She did not like to walk through the ornate lobby with its crowds of packaged American and European tourists. He was sitting alone at his usual table in the corner near a window. The inevitable Coca-Cola with its slice of lemon was in front of him. He looked up as she sat down opposite him. Without a word, the waitress brought her a Coca-Cola.

He waited until the waitress had gone. “I’m leaving tomorrow,” he said.

She looked at him. His face was expressionless. “Home?” she asked.

“Might as well,” he said. “There’s nothing going on here and I had a letter from my cousin. I can get a sergeant’s job in the army with time and bonuses. They’re recruiting veterans with experience.”

“I don’t understand it,” she said. “I haven’t heard a word and it’s almost a month now.”

He shrugged.

“Maybe they think I was killed with all the others.”

“They know you’re here. I told them when I went in to collect my last pay.”

“Then why don’t they call me? I’m going crazy waiting around here. My mother never stops nagging me.”

“They have other things on their mind. There was a story going around that Al-Ikhwah wanted your father to handle their foreign investments.”

“I know. He turned them down. That happened before I left France.” She sipped her drink through the straw. “They’re crazy. My father won’t lift a finger to help anyone but himself.”

“They’re going back to him again. They seem to think he’s important.”

“I wish them luck. There’s only one way they’ll ever get him to help them. At the point of a gun.”

“What makes you say that?”

“I know my father. He still thinks that money will cure everything.”

“Anyway I’m leaving tomorrow. That army job is better than nothing.”

“Maybe I should go down and talk to them. I didn’t get all that training to sit here in my mother’s house.”

“Don’t do that,” he said quickly. “Your orders were to wait until you were contacted.”

She looked at him. “Do you have to go?”

“I have to do something. My money’s almost gone.”

“I have money.”

“No.”

She was silent for a moment, staring down at her drink, then she looked at up him. “I was hoping we would be sent on a mission together.”

“I’m not the type,” he said. “They would rather have students for missions. People pay less attention to them.”

“You’re not that old. You could still pass for a student,” she said quickly.

“Maybe,” he laughed. “In the dark.”

“If you go back in the Syrian army, they’ll never let you get out.”

“Maybe I won’t want to. The way we’re building up and the way Egypt is preparing, the chances are something is going to happen. And if there is a war, I can make officer.”

“Is that what you want?”

“No.”

“What do you want then?”

“Just to make a lot of money”—he smiled—“like your father.”

“Stop talking about him!” she snapped, suddenly angry. “That’s all I hear everywhere I go. My father this, my father that. Even my mother never stops talking about him.”

“Did you see the paper today?” he asked.

“No.”

“You should have. Maybe then you would know why they talk about your father.”

“What did he do?”

“He just closed the biggest oil tanker deal ever made with Japan. He bought ten ships and they’re building twenty more for him. All supertankers. It will be the largest Arab-owned shipping line in the world.”

“Allah be praised,” she said sarcastically. “How much richer does that make him?”

“At least he’s doing something. There’s no reason for the Greeks and all the others to monopolize the shipping from our ports.”

“How does that help the Palestinians?” she asked.

He was silent.

“I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “I didn’t mean to quarrel with you. I’m just getting edgy sitting around.”

“That’s all right.”

She looked at him. “Would you like me to go back to your room with you?”

“Okay,” he said, then he smiled. “But is it all right with you if we go to a movie first? The only pictures playing in Damascus are at least ten years old.”

***

Baydr felt the warm sake buzzing in his head as he put down his cup. Almost as soon as it touched the table, the geisha sitting on her knees just behind him filled the tiny cup. Baydr looked at it. He wasn’t used to drinking. A glass of champagne occasionally but no more. And though he had only had three of the tiny cups he felt them.

“Enough,” he said, starting to get up. He felt slightly dizzy as he rose. The geisha was there to help him as soon as he put out his hand. He smiled at her. “Sleep,” he said.

She looked at him blankly.

“Sleep,” he repeated. He placed the palms of his hands together and held them to the side of his face, closing his eyes.

“Hai! Hai! Sleep.”

He nodded.

Still holding one arm under his elbow, she reached out and slid back the screen separating the rooms. She led him into the bedroom and closed the panel behind her. The bed was very low to the floor and he almost fell backward as he sat down on it. He thought that was very funny and began to laugh. She laughed with him.

“I almost fell.”

“Hai, hai,” she said, reaching behind him and pulling open the sash that held his robe. Gently she slipped it from his shoulders and he rolled back onto the bed as she pulled it from him.

“Tired,” he mumbled into the pillow. He rolled onto his stomach, face down. As if from a great distance, he heard the gentle rustle of her kimono. He smelled the faint perfume of the talcum powder settling on his skin like a soft cloud.

Her hands felt like gentle feathers as they softly stroked his back, her fingers tracing his spine from his neck to his coccyx. A moment later, she began kneading his flesh with slightly warmed oil. He sighed in contentment.

Her hands went down his back, cupping and stroking his buttocks. Then he felt her slowly part them, and gently place a probing finger inside him. She found his prostate and massaged it in a circular motion.

Almost asleep, he felt himself growing hard and began to move to his side. Gently but firmly, she held him so that he could not move. Her other hand, moist with the warm oil, began to stroke his throbbing phallus.

He tried to move with her but couldn’t. Then he became aware that there was not one but two geishas in the room. The second woman came around the other side of the bed and knelt before him. Now there were four hands instead of two. There was no part of him that was not being touched, stroked, caressed all at the same time.

The pressure on his prostate and testicles, the increasing rapidity of the moving hand on his penis became too much. He felt himself begin to contract into a knot. The agony became almost unbearable. A groan escaped him. He opened his eyes.

The tiny Japanese woman still clad in her kimono smiled sweetly at him. Then she opened her mouth to gently encircle his glans. The explosion came and for a moment he felt close to death as the semen flooded forth like a gusher. Explosion followed explosion until he was completely drained and all that was left was a mildly pleasant emptiness.

He was still watching the tiny geisha as she rose to her feet and moved silently away. He felt other hands draw the soft sheets around him. He closed his eyes and fell into dreamless sleep.

When he awakened it seemed as if he had slept for only a few minutes. But it was broad daylight and Jabir was standing over his bed.

“I’m sorry to disturb you, master,” he said, “but this cable just arrived and Mr. Carriage said it was most important.”

He sat up slowly and took the yellow sheet. The message was simple and one that only he and the Prince could understand.

He was wide awake now. He knew that it had nothing to do with his son. A long time ago they had agreed on the meaning of this message.

War. War with Israel. The time to avenge themselves for the defeat of 1967 was close at hand. Or so they thought. A feeling of sadness came over him.

It was too soon. Much too soon. Perhaps they would win a minor victory at first, but the Israelis were too experienced for them. If the war ran more than a week it would mean another defeat for the Arabs.

Even the Prince agreed with him about that. But there was much to be done. If the world thought they were united perhaps more than a minor victory could be won. Not on the battlefield where men died, but in the banks and boardrooms where they lived.

ANOTHER PLACE
OCTOBER 1973

The dusty dung-colored Volkswagen, its paint pocked by years of desert sand and wind, coughed and sputtered to a stop a few yards short of the parking lot gate. The sentries watched curiously as the old man in equally dusty Bedouin robes climbed out and walked around behind the car. He raised the trunk lid, exposing the engine, and stared at it dolefully.

One of the sentries walked over. “What is the trouble, old man?”

“I wish I knew. Even a camel needs water sometimes. But this creature—I tell you there is something ungodly about a creature that never needs water. If it were a camel I would know what to do.”

The young soldier laughed. “What would you do if it were a camel?”

“I would give it some water. Then, if that didn’t work, I would kick it in the ass.”

“Why don’t you try that?” the soldier suggested.

“I already did. It doesn’t work. Nothing works.”

Leaving the old man staring at the engine, the soldier looked into the car. The interior was as decrepit as the exterior. The upholstery was in ribbons, and the gauges were encrusted with a layer of dust. The soldier reached in and wiped the dirt from the gas gauge, then he straightened up and turned to the old man. “You’re out of gas.”

“I don’t understand that. It never happened before.”

“It’s happened now,” the soldier said, with a faintly condescending sigh.

The old man shrugged. “Oh, well, I’m glad it was nothing serious. I was afraid the poor thing had died.” He started for the gate. “Push it over to the side,” he called back over his shoulder. “I’ll send someone out to fill the tank.”

“Wait a minute, old man!” The sentry ran in front of him. “You can’t go in there without a pass. That’s a top-level security area.”

“I have a pass,” the old man said, holding out his hand. The sun reflected from the plastic card like a mirror.

The soldier took the card, looked at it and snapped to rigid attention. “I beg your pardon, general,” he said, saluting.

Ben Ezra returned his salute. “It’s all right, soldier. At ease.”

The young man relaxed. “Do you know the way, sir?” he asked respectfully.

“I know the way,” Ben Ezra smiled. He held out his hand. “May I have the pass back?”

“Yes, sir,” the sentry said quickly. “And don’t worry about your car, sir. We’ll take care of it.”

The general smiled. “Thank you.” He turned and started off, his Bedouin robes flowing gently with his stride.

“Who was that?” the other sentry asked curiously.

The first soldier’s voice was hushed and respectful. “General Ben Ezra.”

“The Lion of the Desert?” There was a note of surprise in the other soldier’s voice. He turned to look after the old man. “I thought he was dead.”

“Well, he’s not,” the first soldier said. “Come on. Give me a hand with the general’s car.”

***

There were only five men seated around the table in the conference room. The three Americans who had attended the earlier meeting, Ben Ezra and General Eshnev.

“I’m sorry for the small turnout, gentlemen,” Eshnev apologized. “But all the others are at the front.”

“No need to apologize,” Weygrin said. “We understand.” He smiled. “Incidentally, congratulations. Your boys did a good job of boxing in the Egyptian Third Army.”

Eshnev nodded grimly. “You’re anticipating. We’re not that sure yet.”

“You’ve got them,” the American colonel said confidently.

“We still need help,” Eshnev said. “Lots of help. We paid too high a price letting them get the jump on us.”

“Whoever would have thought they would launch the attack on Yom Kippur?” Harris of the State Department asked, trying to be consoling.