Haven, p.15
Haven, page 15
It was lucky he took the two when he did. Avram had guessed that he'd try to get them out before Avram could bury the whole lot at sea. And so on the day before he was killed he had his workers stack hundreds of cement bags on top of the container and wet the whole thing down with sea water. Bandari thought it better not to tell Tarrant and certainly not to tell the Libyans. They would sneer at him, say his brother outsmarted him, and call him a fool for not renting a storage place of his own. But try to find such a place in all of Cairo where thieves don't break in the moment you leave or where soldiers with their hands out don't start sniffing around. They'll get their shipment, just a little bit wet although it might take a day or two of chipping at cement. But first, however, there's Aisha.
He might treat her decently when all is said and done unless she's been totally ruined. She might now be a beauty. She already has her mother's eyes and will soon have a body like Leyna's as well. Perhaps he won't find her a husband after all.
Perhaps with a little more meat on her bones she would make a fine wife for a president.
FIFTEEN
When Nadia Halaby learned that Cherokee was missing she was more
annoyed than alarmed. It was not the first time that a student had missed curfew.
Because they were teens and because none had cars there were only so many places they could go. The first place she'd look was usually the beach and that, after all, was where Cherokee had said she was going. A few hours at the beach often led to new friends who by evening were reluctant to part. So well after sunset they'd be sitting on their blankets and someone might be playing a guitar. They'd eat pizza brought over from Coligny Plaza and, when the sun went down, they would often sneak a dip in the Holiday Inn's heated pool.
Nadia found her bike right away. It was parked in a rack with a half dozen others. She knew it by its green canvas saddle bags on which Aisha had stitched the name "Cherokee Blye." Greatly relieved, she rehearsed in her mind the severe reprimand that the girl now called Cherokee had coming. Never mind that she'd never missed curfew before.
But the girl was nowhere in sight.
Nadia still, at this point, was not frightened for her. She would probably find Cherokee just a block or so away in Coligny Plaza itself. The plaza was a sort of open air mall with dozens of shops, bars, and restaurants and one movie theater, all catering largely to tourists and teens. Its centerpiece was a flood-lit lagoon with a large restaurant terrace abutting one side and tree shaded walkways lining the other. Teens went there to meet other teens at the places selling burgers or ice cream or pizza. Or they sat on the grass feeding popcorn to the ducks and geese that roamed freely and begged at the tables.
She wandered through Coligny for nearly an hour. Twice she called the Center on her cellular phone to suggest other places where the male guards might look. Two of them were already walking the beach for a mile in either direction. Nadia would stay a while longer, she said, at least until the movie at the Island Theater ended. Perhaps Cherokee was in there. More than one student had gone to a movie and had fallen asleep after a hard day of practice. Nadia, on second thought, chose not to wait. She got the manager to take her inside with a flashlight. Cherokee was not in there either.
First time or not, this was now unforgivable. She tried to control her rising concern lest concern give way to panic. What would she do if the girl has been taken? How could she live with herself if that happened? She knew that she should have kept a tight rein on Cherokee but that would have only caused the girl to ask why. She almost wished now that she'd told her the truth. That, no, she's not at all like the others. That her father had been murdered three weeks ago in Cairo and that her mother should have been here two days ago. That now more than ever she should not leave the grounds without an escort of at least one armed guard.
She had justified not telling her because Cherokee could never have kept it to herself. She'd made too many friends among the other boys and girls. They would know that something was terribly wrong. Cherokee would surely confide to at least one of them. In doing so she'd have told her real name. And why she was here. And why, by extension, those other six women were here. The ones who were assistant tennis instructors but who seemed to know little about tennis. Grown women who cleaned rooms but who looked and behaved as if they'd had servants themselves all their lives. Women who vanished at odd hours of the day as they looked for a quiet place to pray. But these had been secondary reasons for not telling her. She simply could not bear to break that sweet young girl's heart.
The chirp of her phone caused her stomach to flip. She clawed it from her purse and answered.
“Nadia, it's Jazz," said the female voice. "We know where she is. She's shook up but okay.”
“Well, where, for God's sake. And what happened?”
“She was leaving the beach. She had trouble unlocking her bike. Two kids in a pick-up gave her a ride but then they tried to get into her pants. One of them held her down on the floor and drove her way the hell off the island. The took her to some ratty old trailer, broke in, and then started to rip off her clothes. She kicked one in the nuts and ran into the woods. She hid there until they quit looking and left. She made it back to the road and walked to a farmhouse half naked. That's where she is now. The farmers, some old cracker and his wife, wanted to call the cops. I asked them not to do that; it would only shame her more.”
“Did you talk to her? How is she?”
“She was in this man's bathroom when he called. His name is Floyd Wiggins. Wiggins' wife was in there with her, trying to clean up her cuts and find her something to wear. She's hurting, Nadia. I could hear her crying in the background.”
“Is he going to bring her back here?”
“Wiggins says he would but she's afraid to get into another car. He says she asked him to tell you how sorry she is and please don't be mad at her but she asks if you'll drive out and get her.”
“What's the address? I'll leave now.”
“You still at Coligny? I can pick you up there and go with you.”
“No, you call him and tell him I'm coming, then bring all the others back in. How do I find this farmhouse?”
“Man gave me directions. You writing this down? It's way past Bluffton on Route 46 but you can be there in about thirty minutes.”
Nadia Halaby groped for a pen.
On the day when Pratt rented the fishing shack he scouted the Wiggins farm as well. The house had stood empty for almost a year with a real estate firm's sign in front. Floyd and Sarah Wiggins had moved up to Richmond to be near their only daughter and her children. They left the house sparsely but adequately furnished at the urging of the listing agent. A local charity was permitted to farm it in return for a promise to keep up the grounds. All Pratt would need do to make it seem occupied would be to remove the real estate sign. When the time came to use it he would simply break in and turn on a few lights and a radio.
He knew that his plan to lure the Algerian could go wrong in no end of ways. But if he could get her to come by herself, or even with one other person to drive her, he would have her the moment she knocked on the door. They would leave her car, with most of her in it, under a few tons of straw in the barn. Months might go by before anyone found it. A companion, if any, would also be left headless just in case there's a price on the companion. If it went wrong this time round then so be it. It was too sweetly simple not to give it a try. If she showed up in force or if she sent the police...an option that he very much doubted she'd take...he would take her the next day, or else the next week. But take her he would in the end. With the million she'd fetch he might even decide to settle down as a gentleman farmer himself.
The shack where he now held Bandari's niece was a bare quarter mile from the farm. Taking her had gone smoothly, a plan just as sweet, with the added advantage that she was not on her guard. It was simply a matter of jamming her bike lock and being on hand when she struggled to open it. Faisal tapped his horn and she turned to see a jitney that looked just like one from the center. That was all that was needed to make her come running. Far from suspicious, she had actually smiled upon seeing the face of the pleasant old Brit who'd been watching her play these past days.
She was inside the door and saying hello when she realized that a man she'd never seen before was driving. Her eyes had just focused on Faisal's scruffy beard, and the truth began to dawn on her that something was wrong, when he, Cyril Pratt, knocked her senseless with a sack filled with sand. He had hog-tied and gagged her. He only had to stun her once more when she woke near the bridge and had freed one leg and tried to kick out a window. The next thing she knew she was inside the shack handcuffed to the post of a bunk bed. She woke up to see that same pleasant old Brit setting up his camcorder and tripod.
He had plenty of footage of Aisha playing tennis. Her arms, head and legs all immodestly bare. He had footage of Aisha at the pool with her friends. Her suit was more modest then many of theirs but utterly lewd by the standards of the people who'd be viewing the tape. He had footage of her leaving the Van Der Meer jitney in the company of godless American children, one of whom, a boy, had walked off with his arm around her shoulder.
It would all make a very nice video indeed. On second thought he would edit out the boy because he also had a sequence in which Aisha was holding the hand of a girl. The sequence was brief, not more than two seconds, but freeze-framed he could use it to damning effect. It would serve as more proof that the Halaby bitch ran a place that turned good Muslim girls into lesbians.
But now it was time to tape the finale for which he would need a few props. He reached into his bag and pulled out a folder in which he had a number of 8 by 10 photographs. One was of Aisha at the age of six, dressed in her first little veil and abaya, a red one, a gift from her Uncle Gamal. The effect was not as sober as he would have liked - she looked like a girl having fun playing dress-up - but the photo would do to show how far she'd fallen. The next was of Aisha at about thirteen. In this one she was dressed in a cowboy hat and jeans and no trace of piety or virtue remained. She looked into the camera, her eyes bold and bright, with a grin that was nearly as wide as her face.
The third was of Gamal Bandari himself holding Aisha, then an infant, in his arms. Avram and Leyna stood at his side clearly wishing that they could be elsewhere. It was the standard sort of photo in which the head of the family shows off the latest addition. Bandari's expression was self-important as usual but the arch of his brow also managed to convey a sort of unspoken apology. The addition, after all, was only a female. "Next time," his expression seemed to be saying, "my brother will try to do better.”
Pratt could imagine what else he was thinking. "My Brother, after all, is not a man such as I. If Leyna were mine I would have made four strong sons in the time that my brother made only one daughter.”
Pratt pinned each of these photos to the side board of the upper bunk. He would pan them in close-up and then zoom slowly back to reveal the lower bunk where Aisha was lying in a fetal position. But she had turned away from the light he'd set up and her body was shaking with sobs. He needed her facing the camera. He needed her gathered up close to the headboard so that he could squeeze into the frame alongside her. And he needed the duct tape removed from her mouth.
Pratt checked through the lens and made some adjustments. He then pressed a button and left it to record automatically.
“Turn this way, young lady. Look, look, watch the birdie.”
That only made her press her face down more deeply. See? That's what you get when you try to be friendly. He stepped to the bunk and he seized her long braid. With his free hand he felt for one end of the duct tape and peeled it very slowly from her skin. She squealed and she kicked as he did so.
“Stop complaining," he told her, enjoying her pain. "You should see what nice color it brings to your cheeks.”
She tried to twist and bite his hand. He gave a few more yanks on her braid. Too much spirit, he realized, could send the wrong message. So he reached for his sand sock and aimed a measured blow at a spot just behind her right ear. The girl stiffened as if shot, then went limp. Still holding her hair, he reached over her body and turned it so it now faced the camera. He lowered himself to one knee alongside her and turned his own face to the lens and the microphone.
“I am the one called the Englishman," he said. "This is the lesbian, Aisha Bandari. She is the daughter of the adulteress, Leyna Bandari. Her father was a good man, Avram Bandari, but his slut of a wife had him murdered. The slut has now answered to God.”
At this the girl's eyes began blinking back to life as if the reference to her parents had cut through the fog. But the eyes were still dazed and unfocused. Pratt gripped her hair tighter and forced her to look at the camera.
“With sadness I tell you that this girl has been ruined. In this place where she thought she could hide from God, many boys have defiled her as well. But as God is compassionate, as God is all merciful, how can her uncle be less? You all know her uncle and all should respect him. He is the honorable Gamal Bandari. It is Gamal who has sent me to find this girl. It is Gamal who, God willing, will cleanse her of the sins that have polluted her soul.”
Pratt glanced at his watch. He was pleased with himself. The scene had been done in one take. It would be twenty minutes, at the very least, before the Halaby woman could possibly find that farmhouse. He and Faisal would be there to meet her. Mahfouz would stay here to watch over the girl.
Elizabeth was only a shadow now. Kessler watched as she made her way to the cabin, silent as the breeze that blew in from the swamp. At times he couldn't see her at all.
He had taken a position from which he could cover the front and left sides of the cabin. Elizabeth had already located the jitney. They had driven it into a juniper forest until its outline could barely be seen. But the white Toyota had been left out in front as if it would soon be needed. The two bearded men waited near it.
Of the two, one was definitely armed and on guard although his manner was less than alert. He sat leaning on the fender of the Englishman's Toyota, a cigarette glowing at his lips. Slung from his shoulder but carelessly worn was a small and clunky automatic weapon that looked like an old Czech Skorpion. Kessler had expected the trademark Kalashnikov that every Arab in the world seemed to own. The Skorpion was a decent enough weapon, he supposed, but no match for the Ingram with which he was covering them. With the Ingram's suppresser he could take out them both without Pratt even knowing he was now all alone.
The smaller of the two men did not seem to be armed. He was also by far the more nervous. He was pacing back and forth while biting his fist. More than nervous, he seemed almost anguished. Now he's pausing to speak to the man with the Skorpion and that man seems to tell him to relax. The smaller one, however, cannot. Abruptly he walked down the side of the cabin to a window where a dim light is showing. He stopped to look in. From the way he was crouching, the shades must be drawn and he's trying to peek underneath them. Now he's waving to the other, come look, come look, but the other tried to calm him with a settle-down gesture and tapped a finger to the watch he wore on his wrist. He seemed to be saying that there's not enough time.
Kessler heard a rustle of leaves to his right. The sound, he knew, was deliberately made. Elizabeth was announcing that she was about to materialize. He heard the beating of her heart before he saw her.
“She's there," she said huskily. "That piece of shit's with her. He's making a movie of his catch.”
Too much emotion, thought Kessler, frowning. This is always the danger with Elizabeth.
“What could you see of the layout?" he asked her.
“Two rooms." She took a deep breath before continuing. "Front room has an open kitchen on the left as you enter, a couch two chairs on the right. The door to the bedroom is in the middle. Go through it, you'll see a small bathroom on your left and the sleeping room straight ahead. That room has double bunk beds on each side with a table and chairs in between. Pratt's camera and tripod are set up on the table. The girl's in the lower left bunk. She's cuffed to the post. She's alive. I saw movement.”
“There's a back door?" he asked.
“Middle of the room, opens onto a deck. But be careful. The deck's badly rotted. And watch out for alligators at the edge of the swamp. I almost walked into a big one.”
Kessler grunted at the possible consequence of that encounter and then took a moment to visualize the interior. He gestured toward the two men who were now both in front. The two men were arguing in whispers.
“How thick are the walls?" he asked.
She knew what he meant. She shook her head. "Any bullets that miss will go straight through that cabin. All three must be out here and clear of the girl.”
“Or if all three are in," said Kessler.
She nodded. "As long as they're clear of the girl.”
They waited together in silence.
Pratt had gathered the photographs that he'd pinned to the bunk and replaced them with two others from his bag.
Both of these were of Nadia Halaby. Neither was recent. Her dress in the first was suitably Islamic at least to the extent of a head scarf. She stood at a lectern before a group of reporters. Pratt knew of the occasion at which it was taken. She was part of a committee that was formed to protest Algeria's Family Code Law. That would make this a 1984 photo. Under that Code, the women of Algeria lost the right to marry whom they want, to divorce, to retain custody of their children or to have any say in where they live. Bad for the women, thought Cyril Pratt, but quite good for him. Hundreds fled to France within weeks.
