Haven, p.18
Haven, page 18
Pratt's bag contained several video cassettes. She would see what was on them some other time. For now, however, she would take a quick look at the tape that was in the machine. Pratt's camcorder had an instant replay feature on a small external screen. She pressed Rewind and held it for several seconds. She released the button and pressed Play.
In the darkness the picture was as clear as a movie and the scene was of Pratt and the girl. Pratt gripping her hair, twisting her head, showing her off like a trophy. Yet she fought him every step of the way until Pratt brought that sap to the side of her head and the girl hung limp from his fist. A very brave girl, thought Elizabeth.
Aisha Bandari. Pratt had just said her name to the camera. Aisha Bandari...the lesbian daughter...of the adulteress and murderess Leyna Bandari...niece of the honorable Gamal Bandari. It's the uncle, she realized, who sent Pratt to bring her home. Father dead, according to this, and the mother apparently dead now as well. Uh-oh, thought Elizabeth. The girl doesn't know that. She said in the cabin that her mother would be coming to join her.
She played a bit more. Pratt's narration was in English but the idiom he used sounded Arabic. Elizabeth knew that to call one a lesbian can mean very little in that language. Conservative Arabs tend to use such terms loosely. The word whore, for example, can mean any Muslim woman who shows more of herself than her eyes and her hands. It can mean any Western woman at all. It's a language in which style has more meaning than substance, more suited for imagery than rational discourse. It's why Arabs negotiate with non-Arabs so poorly unless agreements are reached in a third neutral language. Murderess, however, usually means murderess unless of course the charge is a lie.
Now came the part that she'd heard herself when she followed those first two through the door. Now she could see what he couldn't see then. First Pratt climbing in on top of the girl, now pulling her pants down, now unzipping her suit. The smaller man shouting at Pratt. The other not as animated but objecting as well. Pratt throwing the first one out of the room, the second one covering the girl with a sheet. She knew all the rest because she'd seen it.
The tape counter said this was near the tape's end. She pressed Rewind again and let it run. She realized that this was no time to watch movies. There were spent shells to be gathered, trails left by dragged bodies to be swept and obscured, pools of blood to be covered with dirt. But she was curious to see whether she, herself, might possibly have been taped after all. Or Martin, perhaps. Or even that IRA crowd back at Reilley's.
The camcorder clicked to a stop. She pressed Play. The scene that came on was barely discernible. It was happening at night. A wide-angled shot of a large group of shadows approaching. But a floodlight blinked on. Men covered their eyes. She now saw that the men were all dressed in robes, all men except for one woman. The woman was garbed in a veil and abaya and her arms were bound at her sides. In the foreground Elizabeth saw piles of rocks. A chill ran up from the small of her back. She knew at that instant that she was watching a stoning.
Elizabeth moved the tape ahead. She watched at the jerky fast-forward speed as the men forced the woman into a pit and then packed rocks and dirt all around her. They withdrew but two more came to pile them still higher. The woman was moving her head left and right as if searching their faces or pleading with them. Now one man stepped into the pit and was speaking. Their sheik, perhaps. No, too young. Suddenly that one slapped her face hard. The veil was knocked loose. It flew to one side.
Elizabeth had to stop for a moment. She wiped silent tears that were welling in her eyes. She had almost decided to watch it no more when her own mind replayed the scene of the slap. It told her that the man who gave it seemed familiar. She pressed Play again and looked at the screen. The man turned toward the group and spread his arms wide. She did know that man. She'd just killed him. That was the one who had tried to stop Pratt. And a killing that she'd almost regretted.
The man taping this scene, undoubtedly Pratt, zoomed in on the face of the woman. It was no longer obscured by the veil. Once again a chill seized Elizabeth's spine. That woman had Aisha's big eyes.
Elizabeth pressed Scan to speed the tape forward. A man in a dark suit now entered the pit, a fat man who squatted before her with effort. Now the woman looked up, straight into his soul. Her eyes began flashing and so did her teeth. She wasn't afraid now. Her expression was one of contempt. Elizabeth's mind had barely formed this impression when the man brought a rock down hard against that face.
Elizabeth winced. That brave and beautiful face. It must have been shattered by the blow that she took but this woman...this Leyna...would not yield to it. She was speaking again, berating this man, berating the villagers who had gathered to kill her. The man cried out in fury or anguish...it sounded like both...and he raised the rock once again. He brought it down harder, with all his might, and while still in its arc Elizabeth knew that her skull was about to be crushed. Her thumb pressed the Pause button just as it made contact as if stopping the action might save the woman's life.
She stood for a moment, her eyes filling with tears, her face lit by the glow of the camcorder screen. The tableau before her was frozen in time yet it still seemed to flicker as if it were moving. She realized, slowly, that the lights she now saw could not be coming from Cyril Pratt's machine. She looked around her, then up, and a bit to the north. She saw strobes of red washing over the sky. She could not see their source but there must have been several. Police cars, she realized. And they seemed to be only a few roads away.
Kessler got his five minutes but only just barely. The subject at hand was just getting interesting when Pratt raised one hand in a gesture that said, "Just a moment." He seemed to be trying to bring up a belch. What came was not gas but a great spew of blood. Pratt stared at this new mess for two or three seconds. Disbelief, even now, was still clear on his face until his eyes lost their focus and rolled back in his head.
Kessler felt for his pulse. It was weak but racing as if desperately searching for enough blood to make pumping worth the effort. Pratt's skin was also growing cool to the touch. Kessler dug his thumb into sensitive flesh under the hinge of Pratt's jaw. Pratt did not react to the pain.
“We have to go. Kill him," came Elizabeth's voice. She materialized wearing only her jump suit, no veil. She held the girl's feathered hat in her hand and used it to gesture toward some lights in the sky. Kessler had already seen them.
“It's police, but they're not coming here," Kessler told her. "They're going to a farm a few minutes away where Pratt says he hoped to lure Nadia as well. He was going to...”
Elizabeth cut him off. "If they do come we're trapped. There's only that one road back out.”
“Then you go with the girl. I'll finish up here. If I see headlights coming, I still have the boat.”
“They killed that girl's mother. They stoned her to death.”
“Having falsely accused her. Pratt told me.”
“Is he dead?" She jabbed him with the toe of her boot. "Tell me he didn't die easily.”
“Elizabeth...trust me. Just go.”
Again, she knocked and called out before entering. "Cherokee...I'm back. But my face isn't covered.”
“Oh, come in. I won't look," the girl answered eagerly. She shut her eyes tight and turned her head to the wall as Elizabeth entered with Pratt's key in her hand. She moaned with relief when one wrist then another was finally freed from the handcuffs.
“Don't get up just yet," Elizabeth told her. She picked up the shell casings, Pratt's and her own, and spread still another blanket on the spray of blood and brains from the man Martin took with a head shot. She placed Pratt's luggage outside the back door where Martin would not overlook it. She added the very few personal effects that the two other men had brought with them.
“I said no blindfold so here's how we'll do this." She gathered the shorts and the tennis shoes next and added the hat she'd brought with her. "We'll walk to a car, you first, me behind you, my hand will be on your shoulder. You'll go where I steer you and you'll never look back at me. For most of the ride you'll sit on the floor with your arms folded over your head. Can you do that or will you be frightened?”
“Those men. You're sure that they're gone?”
“They won't be back.”
“I won't mind, I don't think, as long as you're with me. Can I go to the bathroom real quick?”
Elizabeth took her by the shoulders and helped her to stand. The girl suddenly lurched and appeared to be turning but she grabbed the top bunk and held on.
“I'm sorry. My legs. They're like jelly," she said.
“Close your eyes. I'll walk with you," said Elizabeth gently.
She guided the girl through the bathroom door and put the rest of her clothing in with her. From outside she heard sounds of the toilet in use and then sounds of the girl being sick. She gave her two extra minutes to wash what she could and to put on the rest of her clothes.
“I'm coming out now. It's okay, I'm covered," said the girl before opening the door. She emerged with a towel hooding her head, one end held up covering her face. She wore it in the manner that Muslims wear headscarfs. She kept her eyes shut, reaching out as if blind until she felt Elizabeth's touch.
“Keep them closed for a minute. Good girl," said Elizabeth who guided her toward the front of the shack and through to the gravel road outside.
“You can open them now, Aisha. We have to go through some woods. By the way, is it Aisha or Cherokee?”
“No one here calls me Aisha. Only Nadia and Jasmine know my real name is Aisha. My name here is Cherokee Blye.”
“Cherokee, then. How's your head? Any dizziness?”
“Not too bad but my left eye's all swollen and blurred.”
“That will clear. How's your stomach. Are you still feeling queasy?”
“A little, but don't worry. I don't think I'll get sick in your car.”
She had a concussion, Elizabeth realized, but the symptoms seemed mild and not dangerous. She kept her talking to keep her from thinking as much as to keep her from being afraid. The girl, she noticed, had no single accent but rather a hint of at least three or four.
“Where was your schooling?" Elizabeth asked her as they neared where Martin had hidden his Toyota.
“Switzerland, mostly. The American School. Then the past two years here at Hilton Head High.”
“I don't hear much Arabic left in your voice.”
“Oh, my Arabic's still pretty good." She answered as if to assure another Muslim that she had strayed too far from her heritage. "I read Arab poetry and stories all the time and a little of the Koran every day.”
Elizabeth grunted at this without meaning to. "Your nationality is...?”
“Egyptian, by birth." The girl rocked a hand. "But there's Lebanese, Greek, and some French in my family. I'm pretty much of a mutt.”
Elizabeth would have guessed Saudi. But the village where that woman was stoned, she knew, could have been in a half dozen countries
“Do I still have that much of an accent?" she asked. "Jasmine thinks I sound like a preppie.”
“You sound more American than I do." Elizabeth said that more as a reflection than as an attempt to mislead the girl. There wasn't much Texas left in her either. She knew it was ludicrous to be prattling about accents but this was a girl who needed to talk about anything except what she'd been through.
“Where did 'Cherokee' come from?" she asked.
“That was Nadia's idea. Lots of full-blooded Cherokees live in this state.”
“And the other kids think you're what? A chief's daughter?”
“Uh-huh. Jazz told them I was. Where's your car?”
“Ahead and to your right.”
“I see it.”
Elizabeth gave her a comforting squeeze.
She had many questions she wanted to ask such as what made Cherokee worth all this trouble, who were all the others and how many, and whether this safe house was a permanent thing as opposed to one that might now move on elsewhere. She hoped so. But Elizabeth asked none of these questions because Cherokee clearly thought she was one of them and should know the answers already. It's better, she decided, to leave it at that.
They had reached within fifty feet of the Toyota. Elizabeth still saw those lights in the sky. "Close your eyes for a minute, just until you get in," said Elizabeth.
“So I can't see the license plate, right? I won't look.”
Elizabeth squeezed her shoulder and smiled.
She liked this girl more than was good for her.
EIGHTEEN
The boat, Kessler realized, was not built for four men, let alone when cement blocks are added. Only fifty meters out and the railing was nearly awash. He steered the boat into a patch of dense grass taking care not to foul the propeller. He slipped the motor into idle and got down to business. He eased the taller one partly over the side. The block and the back of his head were submerged but the rest of him straddled the railing. Kessler reached for the Elizabeth's Moroccan knife.
He cut through the blanket at the taller one's throat and performed a bit of crude surgery. This produced much more blood that would attract hungry creatures but to do so was not Kessler's motive. The cuts were a kind that would confuse the authorities in the event that these bodies were found. This done, he eased the taller one over the side. The boat took water as he did so. He slid it back into gear and returned to the channel. Up ahead, where it branched, he chose another likely patch and repeated his work with the knife. He slid the second one in with less splashing this time.
Tying weights to their necks was the best he could do but it was not a well balanced arrangement. Their legs seemed likely to rise to the surface. He hoped, however, that the marsh grass would conceal them until the crabs and the alligators reduced them to bone.
This left only Pratt whose brain was quite dead but whose lungs still tried to suck air. The Englishman, he knew, would feel nothing if they sucked in water instead. Nor would he feel the knife as it probed for his tongue. Kessler would wait a few more minutes all the same.
He spent those few minutes going through a white sock in which he'd stuffed what he took from their pockets. Pratt's wallet was first; it was filled with little notes and with ID in three different names. Kessler kept it intact; he would study it later along with the notebook he'd twice seen Pratt using. That might be in the bag that Elizabeth had left by the door.
The one called Faisal had a Newark, New Jersey address and a temporary visa that was two years expired. He was mostly an extortionist, according to Pratt, who preyed on new Muslim immigrants. Pratt used him because he knew how to intimidate but mostly because he worked cheap. Kessler tossed Faisal's wallet over the side after first tearing all his papers to bits and strewing them over the water. The pockets of the one called Mahfouz held an emergency passport and visa. They were issued in Cairo just three days ago, arranged through the influence of the Egyptian, Bandari. Pratt thought even less highly of Mahfouz.
“Fucking useless," said the Englishman before his brain shut down. By then he was slurring his words. "Can't shoot, can't fight, can't read fucking Arabic, let alone English. Fucking twit. You know what he did at the beach?”
Pratt told how Mahfouz, with Faisal translating, had tried to buy sex from a blanket-full of teens...offering to pay with a five Egyptian pound note, worth about three dollars American and from which he expected to get change. This was the scene Kessler witnessed from a distance. He knew that to listen used up time he might not have but he was reluctant to slow Pratt's momentum.
“Were you going to take him back? Or were you leaving him here?”
“And I still want that Rolex, by the way.”
Amazing, thought Kessler. Here's a man only minutes before his last judgment and he wants to steal a dead man's gold watch. "I only ask because it's such a small boat and your rendezvous point is quite a distance away.”
Pratt glared at him. "You even know about the seaplane?”
A seaplane, in fact, had not occurred to Kessler. He saw in his mind the penciled spot on the map where the place of the rendezvous was marked. He had assumed that a larger boat would be waiting there.
“I know seaplanes don't fly to Egypt," he told Pratt.
“They fly to Grand Cayman. From there back to Cairo on Tarrant's private jet.”
“Why didn't the seaplane come here?" he asked.
“Too hard to find...too many cabins like this one. Hey, hold on. I never told Tarrant which cabin.”
Kessler cocked his head toward Mahfouz, suggesting that Mahfouz had been his informer. This caused Cyril Pratt to feel doubly betrayed; he nearly threw his bottle at the dead man's shroud until he realized that it wasn't yet empty. He took one more swallow and resumed his rant against Tarrant and also against these two who, Kessler now realized, had been destined to be left in this swamp from the start. The seaplane, it turned out, had only four seats. That's one for the pilot, two for Pratt and the girl, and one for this Loomis, a lieutenant of Tarrant's. No wonder the boat seemed unsuitably small. Only Pratt and the girl would be using it.
That aside, the deployment of the seaplane was the answer Kessler had hoped for. This Loomis and the pilot would not come looking for Pratt when he failed to show up at their rendezvous point because they wouldn't know where to start looking. They would not spot a motorboat hidden in the swamp. They would not see the glint of aluminum duct tape on legs and feet swaying with the current.
“Now Tarrant," said Kessler. "Bandari and Tarrant. What else are they up to and how do we get them to pay?”
Pratt had barely had time to warm up to this subject when he felt the belch that would kill him coming on.
Elizabeth drove very slowly for the first quarter mile, picking her way without headlights. Cherokee sat, her legs folded to her chest, in the well of the Toyota's front seat. Her body was twisted so that she could bury her face against the seat in a cradle she formed with her arms. She did not try to look out to see where they were, nor did she complain when the rough dirt road jarred her. But her knees began to tremble from the aftershock of her ordeal whenever there was too long a silence between them.
