Haven, p.16
Haven, page 16
He knew that five other panelists had appeared with Halaby. Four had been killed within a matter of weeks. He had nothing to do with those deaths. Two of the four were killed by their husbands and two, so they say, took their own lives in prison. The fifth was shot only recently after many years in hiding. Oddly, however, she was killed by chance in that the killers didn't know who she was. They simply saw a house with a satellite dish on its roof. A satellite dish meant Western TV and Western TV meant pollution. They broke in and they slaughtered every person who lived there, not even sparing the servants. They shot out all the TV sets as well.
The second photo of Nadia Halaby showed her in tennis attire. This one was actually a magazine clipping which he'd found in an old tennis program. There were several to choose from but this one was best. It showed her crouched and awaiting a serve, full face looking forward, directly into the camera that took it. He could see in his mind the scene it would make when he posed for the video record of her death. He would hold that photo aloft in one hand and her dripping head in the other. That tableau would make for a splendid credential.
His eyes fell on the backs of Aisha's long legs, firm and supple, not a blemish or a ripple on either of them. She wore short cut-off jeans pulled over a swim suit. A pity that he didn't have time for her now but at least he could finger the merchandise a bit. He reached under her waist and opened the snap of her jeans. She bucked but he managed to pull down the zipper. He placed one knee over both her calves and gripped the ragged hem of her cut-offs. He pulled them down over her tight little bum and then down over her knees. Holding her down with one hand on her neck, he reached for the zipper at the back of her swimsuit. He tugged it, by inches, gradually baring the muscles of her back. Smooth muscles. Young muscles. Pratt felt himself rising already.
“This is bad," croaked Mahfouz who had entered the shack. "This is not to be done to this girl.”
“Mahfouz...go away." Cyril Pratt didn't bother to turn.
“Faisal, did I tell you?" Mahfouz shouted toward the front of the cabin. "Faisal, come and see what he's doing.”
The so-called fighter came into the room. He glanced at the girl, then at Pratt with disgust. "Enough," he told Pratt. "There's no time for this anyway.”
“Look at him. Look there," said Mahfouz turning red. His finger took aim at Cyril Pratt's crotch. It had developed a conspicuous bulge.
“Get out," said the Englishman. "Get the fuck out.”
“I'll make you a bargain," Faisal said to Pratt. "You can play all you want with the Halaby woman." He picked up a sheet that had been kicked from the bed. He shook out its folds and he used it to cover the girl, head and all. But a mortified Pratt had seized Mahfouz by his shirt and threw him against the back door. He snatched at the knob and pulled open the door. He threw Mahfouz bodily onto the deck. The sodden boards split and collapsed from his weight.
“Enough," said Faisal. "Let's go to the farm house. Do you want a million dollars or don't you?”
Mahfouz heard these words as the door slammed shut but he no longer cared about the woman who taught tennis. His hand came to rest on a long splintered board still held by bent nails to the deck. He rolled to his knees and he pried it loose. He would use it to smash that foul Englishman's face if he once more put his hands on that girl.
As he thought this he felt someone helping him rise. A part of his brain said it must be Faisal. An arm had reached under his chin from behind and a hand took the board he was holding. But the arm was too tight and it choked off his breath. It made his face start to swell. His eyes could not see because a thousand little lights began jumping and spitting like the sparks from a fire. This was all that he saw before his eyes rolled back in his head. And yet his ears were still working. As if from a great distance he heard Faisal's voice.
“Mahfouz? Come back in now. We're leaving.”
But Mahfouz could not move. The jumping lights faded. He felt himself floating away.
Kessler lowered his man, now unconscious or dead and, kneeling, drew his Walther from the holster at his ankle. His body partly shielded by the one he'd just taken, he waited for the man who had called to him. The door was pulled open and the taller one stepped through. He saw the legs of the one and the head of the other. In the darkness it must have confused him. But now he saw the pistol that was aimed at his face. Kessler warned him with gestures to make no sound, to place both hands on the top of his head and move to one side of the doorway. The taller one considered his options and obeyed. Kessler would now have a clear shot at Pratt when he came out to see what was keeping these two.
But when Kessler swung his pistol toward the open door, the tall one made a stupid move. He dropped both his hands to the weapon that hung from his shoulder. The fingers of one hand sought the bolt of the Skorpion. This told Kessler that a round had not been chambered. He shook his head no but his advice was ignored. The man didn't call out, he didn't try for cover. Instead he chose this insalubrious moment to familiarize himself with his weapon. Kessler had no choice but to fire. The shot caught him cleanly through his open mouth. Kessler thought for an instant that he'd missed. He fired again. The second shot put out his eye.
The man was still falling when Kessler heard the girl squeal. He also heard sounds of feet moving quickly. He had swung his sights back onto the doorway waiting for Pratt to appear. But he heard Pratt say. "Jesus" and then back away. Pratt had seen Faisal's body or he saw blood and brain, some of which would have spewed through the door. Next came the roar of a pistol inside, so loud that the window pane rattled. Four shots in succession and four holes in the wall where the slugs from Pratt's gun splintered through it. If Kessler had been standing he would have been hit.
But he couldn't stay down, he could no longer wait because Pratt would surely take the girl as a shield. He jumped up and he dashed to the far side of the door where he had wanted to go in the first place. It's the side that would give him a clear view of the bed. Sure enough Pratt had reached it and had aimed a hard kick at its post. He was frantically trying to break it apart in order to free the girl's handcuffed arms. He had wisely concluded that this was no time for keys. The girl was now screaming from under a sheet and the bed post was yielding too slowly. He turned and he snapped two more shots at Kessler who he now could see crouching outside. Kessler rolled to the cover of the taller one's body and Pratt saw this as his chance. He dashed for the door firing wildly.
“Bad mistake," muttered Kessler as he lined up his sights on Pratt's head. But there suddenly came a metallic chatter and Pratt did a dance like a puppet. The front of his tennis shirt blew out from his waist and the spray from his insides traced an arc on the deck. He yelped and he flailed and he staggered to the door frame which he reached for and tried to hold on. Insanely, he looked out at Kessler, his eyes wide and questioning, as if Kessler might explain what had happened to him. Then he turned, looking first toward the bunk as if thinking it's somehow the girl who had done this. All he saw was her head still covered by the sheet, all he heard were her terrified screams. He did not see the shapeless black ghost floating toward him or the soft black boot coming up at his face.
Pratt was slammed through the doorway and onto the deck. Kessler had to leap out of his way. Back inside, the girl's screaming was nearing hysteria. For a moment Elizabeth paused in the doorway, looking back toward the half-collapsed bed. Kessler knew that she wanted to go to the girl and tell her that the danger was over. That's how you get killed, he wanted to shout, because Pratt was still gripping his pistol. As if she could hear him Elizabeth turned but Kessler had already pinned Pratt's hand with his heel. He looked up at the veil that showed only her eyes. He noticed for the first time that she wore her dark lenses. Those black eyes looked wild, they looked cruel, almost mad. Now they darted from Pratt to a place behind Kessler. The Ingram came up and she fired once more.
Kessler spun to follow her line of sight. He saw the man he had choked stagger backward before pitching forward on his face. This time she had aimed to kill quickly. The Ingram then vanished beneath her abaya and her curved Moroccan knife appeared in her hand. She glanced one more time back into the cabin before closing the door quietly behind her.
SIXTEEN
Nadia Halaby heard shots from her moving car. They seemed well ahead and off to her left but the sounds were so muffled it was hard to be sure. She reminded herself that she'd heard shots before while driving this road after sundown. The locals were known to hunt deer out of season and to shoot alligators for their tail meat and hides.
She eased off her gas pedal and listened again. She heard only night birds and the distant hum of trucks. Nothing else seemed out of the ordinary. The farm she was looking for, as near as she could tell, was as much as ten minutes away on back roads. The shots, she decided, could not have come from there. They could not have carried so far. And yet the hum of those trucks was coming from the Interstate, a road even farther away.
Nadia wished that she'd waited for Jasmine. She was foolish coming out here alone like this. There was always the chance that the call was a ruse; she had not, after all, actually spoken to Aisha. But caution is one thing, paranoia's another. Aisha will be out here and she will be frightened. Right now she'll be more frightened of the paddling she might get than she was of the two bums who grabbed her. And fourteen or not she just might get one for going to that beach by herself.
“Nice of you to show up," Kessler hissed at Elizabeth. "Did you stop to admire the decor?”
“He was too near the girl." She, too, kept her voice low. "I had to wait for my shot.”
“He was kicking that bed, not trying to climb in.”
“I needed to wait," she said stubbornly.
Elizabeth could probably write her name with that Ingram. The truth is she wanted Pratt down but alive and above all she wanted him conscious. Never mind that, meanwhile, Pratt was shooting at him.
Pratt was conscious all right but that's all one could say. He had raised himself into a reclining position, at this point not knowing or caring who shot him. All he wanted to know was how bad were his wounds. He made odd mewing sounds as he probed with his fingers. The sounds turned to whimpers as he found each new hole in a line from one hip to the other. But they need not be fatal and he probably knew that. He had likely seen men who were gut-shot before, men who lasted for hours, even days, in great pain but survived if they got to a surgeon on time.
Kessler picked up Pratt's pistol to move it out of his reach, then he knelt at the body of the second man she shot. The man's eyes stared at nothing and his throat had no pulse. At this he was doubly annoyed. He had only intended to put this one to sleep, this one who carried no weapon and who, for whatever reason, had tried to keep Pratt from raping that child. He would have preferred to have two men to question so he'd know much more quickly truth from the lies.
“You're Loomis?" gasped Pratt as he looked up at Kessler.
Kessler raised an eyebrow. It gave Pratt his answer. Whoever he was, his name was not Loomis.
“A doctor..." Pratt no longer seemed to care. "Get me to a doctor. I'm hurt.”
“You don't know what hurt is," came Elizabeth's voice, "but I'll teach you, you son of a bitch.”
The Englishman blinked at what he'd thought was a shadow. Only now did he remember that there had to have been two. Only now did he recall the similar shadow that had kicked him just after his belly exploded.
“Who's...that?" he asked, his eyes growing wide.
The shadow approached him and lowered itself. It seemed to melt into the deck. From where Kessler was standing she looked like a nun who kneels to say prayers at the bedside of the sick. But Pratt, he felt sure, made no such assumption because the thing in her hand was no rosary. What color there was drained out of Pratt's face as she drew her curved knife from it's scabbard.
“My name," she said coldly, "is Elizabeth Stride. And you're now going to die, Cyril Pratt.”
He raised one hand as if to cover his throat. He tried to push backward but his legs wouldn't function. The effort caused blood to seep out through his pants. More bleeding, thought Kessler, was not what he needed. Already he was down half a liter.
“Ah...excuse me," said Kessler, his hand touching her shoulder. "I think we should do this away from the cabin and I'd like a few minutes alone with him first.”
Her black eyes flashed up at him through the slit in her veil. Their message was "Martin...Butt out." But Kessler had indulged her enough for one evening. Abruptly he reached for Cyril Pratt's hat which had somehow remained on his head. He jammed the hat into Pratt's gaping mouth to keep him from screaming for the moment. Next he grabbed a fistful of hair with one hand and snatched up one ankle with the other. He lifted the thrashing man clear of the deck and half carried, half dragged him in the direction of the dock.
Elizabeth had abandoned her praying nun pose and was following after him, furious. Kessler set the Englishman down and moved quickly to block her approach. "What the hell are you doing?" was barely out of her mouth when he lifted her bodily over his shoulder and carried her away from both Pratt and the cabin. She punched at his back with the hilt of her knife. He had to trust that she wouldn't reverse it. He counted twenty paces to a stand of pines. To go further would be pushing his luck.
He set her down roughly and seized both her arms, alert for a possible knee to the groin. "There's a girl in that cabin scared out of her wits. She does not need to hear that man screaming.”
“That man as you call him was undressing her, Martin.”
“And for that he will pay but he'll talk to me first.”
“I'll just cut his dick off while you're having your chat. You don't know this man, Martin. You don't know what he's done.”
He shook her. "Elizabeth...think. Look around at this mess. We'll either come up with a way to contain it or the new life you've made here is finished.”
The mention of leaving, of running again was as good as a slap in the face. Her eyes, through her veil, drifted over the carnage. Sounds of squeaking and banging came up from the cabin where the girl was still trying to tear herself free. They could leave her, she supposed, tied up just as she is. They could finish off Pratt, call the school from their car, tell the Halaby woman where to find her. But meanwhile the girl might hurt herself badly. She's already half crazy after what she's been through.
The worst of it, however, is what will come later. When the school people see this they'll call the police and might well have done so already. By morning this place will swarm with reporters, by evening all the networks will carry the story. A young girl is kidnapped from Hilton Head Island where nothing like this ever happens. She's a Muslim, maybe a runaway princess. They'll make her one even if she isn't.
The three men who took her, one a known bounty hunter, are found shot to death by a mystery pair who came out of nowhere then vanished. The tennis school claims to know nothing about them and no one believes them of course. The two dead Muslims will be labeled as terrorists and that brings the FBI into the picture. This was just too delicious, Elizabeth realized. It was fodder for tabloids all over the world. The police, the reporters, would never stop looking. It will only be a matter of time, perhaps days, before someone's computer kicks out the names of every island resident with a past.
“You're right," she said, wilting. "I'll have to move on in the morning.”
“No," answered Kessler, "you can't do that either. The first thing they'll watch for is people who leave.”
“Martin, look around you. If you think we can contain this, you're dreaming.”
“We can give it one day. We can try.”
“What are you thinking? Get rid of the bodies? The girl in that cabin still knows they were shot.”
“The girl," he corrected her, "knows nothing of the sort.”
To begin with, he told her, Pratt had knocked the girl senseless. By the time she came to she was scared half to death and her head was under a sheet. It's true she heard shots and crashing and moans but she can't know that anyone's dead. Never mind the two bursts from the Ingram she heard because an Ingram sounds more like a sewing machine. Nor will she be able to say where she's been. Pratt would hardly have allowed her to memorize road signs and this shack must be one of hundreds just like it.
“Put yourself in the place of whoever sent Pratt. If these three simply vanish, what would you think?”
“What I'd think is they're worm food, Martin," she answered. "And I'd think that those people at the tennis school killed them.”
“But you'd also assume that at least one must have talked first. That leaves you with something to worry about.”
“That we...that whoever did this might hit back?”
Kessler nodded. "So the person who sent him is left with two choices. He can send more like these or he can call it a bad job and quit. This really could end here, Elizabeth.”
She took a deep breath. He could see her misgivings. But he also saw a glimmer of hope.
“Let me clean up the mess. You go see to the girl. Calm her down and take her back home.”
“If I take her home, Martin, she'll know what I look like.”
“In your veil and abaya? How can she?”
“I'm to drive her to Van Der Meer wearing this all the way? This is Hilton Head, Martin, not Yemen.”
“So dress down. Drive her home in your jumpsuit. Make a mattress of blankets for her in the trunk.”
“That's how you'd keep her calm? Say everything's fine, now curl up in my trunk and relax?”
“You might try a somewhat more delicate touch.”
“Then you go do it. I don't know about kids.”
“Do you want her to hear a German accent? You don't think that
might narrow us down just a little?”
“Well, then give me some words. What do I say to her?”
“You're stalling, Elizabeth. Get going.”
Nadia Halaby had found the farm. There was a light on inside but in only one room. She saw no cars in the driveway. She flashed her high beams and gave a tap on her horn. No curtain moved. No one came to the door. She opened her cell phone and tapped out the number of Jasmine's.
