Haven, p.19
Haven, page 19
“I know you're uncomfortable,” Elizabeth reached to touch her. "You'll be able to sit up very soon now.”
“I'm okay," said the girl, a shudder in her voice. "But could you just talk to me, please?”
“Let's talk about tennis. How long have you been playing?”
“Since I was five. My mom got me started.”
“In Cairo?”
A nod. "We had our own court. Nadia sent over an instructor from France.”
“You knew her since you were a child?”
“My mom did. They were friends. They go back to before my parents got married.”
Elizabeth's feelings were mixed hearing this. On the one hand at least Cherokee would have someone who's close to her. On the other, that made this a personal matter. Nadia will not leave this at getting the girl back. Elizabeth brought the subject back to tennis.
“So your goal, I take it, is to become a professional.”
“Uh-uh. Not really. I wouldn't mind giving it a shot, I guess. But my real goal is college, preferably Stanford, if I can stay in this country. I'd like to get good enough to play tennis for Stanford.”
“You will. What comes after Stanford?”
“A job that helps my people. And a family, I hope.”
“A family?" Elizabeth remembered that Pratt called her a lesbian.
“Sure. If I meet a good guy.”
“Um...a good Muslim? Or don't you much care?”
“I do care. I guess I can see myself loving a Christian. My mother stayed a Christian when she married my father. The guy wouldn't have to be of my faith but he'd certainly have to respect it. No... More than that. He would have to let me teach him all that's noble and fine about Islam. After that he could follow his conscience.”
“Didn't you...just see some parts...that aren't so noble and fine?”
“No, I didn't," she said firmly, "because that wasn't Islam. That had nothing to do with my Islam.”
Kessler hadn't known, when on the subject of Tarrant, that Pratt's lights would go out in about sixty seconds. Elizabeth said it. He's sometimes too patient. But Elizabeth's method, he reminded himself, would have stopped this man's heart a lot sooner.
What he got, all in fragments, amounted to this. Tarrant is Lawrence J. Tarrant. Lives in Washington...owns or controls several companies...wife comes from money but is said to be a frump...Tarrant wooed her for her family's connections...doesn't need them anymore because he's made his own money circumventing UN embargoes. Some arms smuggling here...some spare parts there. Tarrant's interest in the girl was purely in getting this over with. He has one big deal pending...for which he needs Bandari...and Bandari can't go forward until he has his own house in order. That, at least, is Bandari's excuse. He's also scared shitless, as the Englishman put it, because this is so much bigger than anything he's done with the Libyans before. They'll turn him into dog meat if he cocks this one up. So will Tarrant and his partners. They'll eat him alive.
“Who are these partners?”
“I never heard. I think they're bankers.”
“What Libyans, then? Let's have some names.”
“I don't know any names. Just two colonels.”
“Okay, then how big?" Kessler prodded. "What are his plans and how do we wreck them unless Tarrant makes us both rich?”
“Bigger than a fucking biblical plague. Worse than the Black Death. You'll see.”
“We're talking what? Bacteriological weapons?”
“Not bugs. Bugs die out. This keeps killing whole cities.”
This was when Cyril Pratt thought he felt a belch rising. These were the last words he said. Elizabeth came, Elizabeth went, and he finished wrapping Pratt in his blanket.
Now out in the swamp, with only Pratt left, Kessler felt for a pulse one more time. Still there. By a thread. Barely breathing at all. Close enough, he decided. Kessler cut him.
He eased Pratt's head with the concrete block attached over the side of the boat. The rest of him tumbled in after. Pratt was still leaving bubbles as he started the motor and turned the boat toward the shore. Once there he smashed a hole in the bottom and disconnected the fuel line. He turned the boat, its engine still sputtering, and sent it back out to the reeds. All that was left was a final inspection and then he would return to the island. Elizabeth can thank him for all his help and then ask, "So, Martin. How soon are you leaving?”
Kessler felt the weight of the Rolex in his pocket. He could, he supposed, ask Elizabeth to translate but it was already clear that the watch was Bandari's.It was foolish to keep it if he should be stopped. He threw it as far as he could.
“You want it so bad? Take it with you.”
As for Pratt's story, for all its detail, Kessler didn't know what to believe. A plot to kill tens of thousands and then keep on killing? What for? For a businessman this is a business? Why did Pratt take so long to get to the point? And why, above all, would someone like Tarrant let an insect like Pratt know the least little thing about his schemes? The answer is he certainly wouldn't. Pratt took so long because it took that long for a good enough story to pop into his head.
What then, Kessler asked himself, might Tarrant's game be other than frustrating UN embargoes? That in itself is a good way to get rich. He sells things to countries that can't get them legally and earns an indecent profit. Bandari seems to be merely his middle man for a deal being made with the Libyans. The Egyptians have been laundering Libyan money since long before the current sanctions were imposed.
Kessler knew about embargo-busting, of course. The former East Germany did that all the time. These days, he imagined, it's probably taught in business schools as a good way to triple one's profits. All it is...before the UN imposes an embargo...on Libya and Iran, for example...first there are weeks of debate. While they're debating it makes sense to stock up if it's you they're about to embargo. So your country, say Libya, makes a mad dash to order all the spare parts it thinks it will need. They'll pay up the nose to get everything delivered before the sanctions take effect. Before that, it's legal. The next day it isn't. And banks...not just Arab banks, Protestant banks...will earn millions just for moving money around, staying one step ahead of the UN officials who are chasing it trying to freeze assets.
The UN officials say, "What are you doing? Your government voted for this, where's your loyalty? Don't you realize we're trying to stop terrorism here?”
The bankers say, "Hey, don't wave me a flag. The world turns on money, not politics.”
And the bankers are right. Flags and borders, even governments, mean less every year. This country is more a collection of cultures than anything resembling a nation. Its economy is Wall Street, a casino economy. Why should anyone be surprised that all that matters is money.
As for Lawrence J. Tarrant and Gamal Bandari, they must be busting embargoes already in place. For that they could both go to prison but they won't. The worst that could happen is their deals would fall through and they're out all the bribes they must already have paid. Whatever they were up to, Kessler didn't much care. All Elizabeth would want is that they do it somewhere else because the only border she cares about is the bridge to Hilton Head Island. And she's right. One's borders are not the lines someone has drawn. One's borders are whatever one will fight to defend.
Elizabeth knew that she was less than open-minded when it came to the subject of Islam. "That wasn't Islam?" she was tempted to ask Cherokee. "There's a tape in my trunk that maybe you should see if you think your religion is so noble and fine.”
But she knew that she'd do no such thing. If anything here was noble and fine it's this little fourteen year old girl. She was tempted to say, "I'm Elizabeth Stride and you can take it from me...your religion doesn't deserve you.”
But she wouldn't say that either. What she'd do is keep her mind on the business at hand. She had seen only one police cruiser so far. It had passed her at high speed, ignoring the car she was driving. The long bridge to the island was directly ahead. She entered the first and the lowest of its spans taking care not to exceed the speed limit by much. As she neared the crest of the second span she tensed at the glow of more strobe lights in the sky. She knew that there must be a roadblock ahead.
There was. But it was set in the outbound lanes only. The police were stopping cars that were leaving the island but were paying no attention to those coming in. Relieved, Elizabeth drove on.
“Do you play tennis?" Cherokee asked. "Or can't I even know that?”
“Um...I play. Not great, but I enjoy it.”
“I don't believe you. I bet you're very good.”
“Cherokee, honey, you'd blow me off the court.”
“Not if you won't let me open my eyes.”
Elizabeth laughed and reached over to poke her. She still had her smile as she drove past the Hilton Head Welcome Center. They were now on the widest part of the island. The girl probably knew that she'd gone over the bridge because there were no other grades within miles. Even so, she decided, she would try to disorient her. She veered off toward Spanish Wells Plantation and made several more turns before rejoining the main road from that direction. Now the girl might think that's where she'd been held.
“You can sit up now," Elizabeth told her. "Just remember, keep both your eyes glued to your right.”
Cherokee groaned with relief as pulled herself up and straightened her legs. She pulled her hat further down on her forehead.
“Will I ever get to see you? Or know who you are?”
Elizabeth hesitated.
“I know, I know," said the girl with a sigh. "It's better for you if I don't.”
She said nothing more for several heartbeats.
“I've got to at least have a name," blurted Cherokee. "How about if I pick one myself?”
“You mean make one up? What good will that do?”
“Look...I won't forget you for the rest of my life but all you're going to be is a voice. I want to have a name that we both know is you even if it's only the two of us who know it.”
Elizabeth blinked at the logic but she saw no harm in it. "Um...okay. Do you have one in mind?”
“Yes I do. You're Martina.”
“Martina," she repeated. "As in Navratilova?”
Cherokee nodded. "You're strong...like she is. And you're kind...like she is. I thought about GiGi as in GiGi Fernandez because she's my idol and she's beautiful and I bet you are, too. But GiGi isn't an elegant name. You're more of a Martina.”
Elizabeth felt herself starting to blush.
The car was approaching Sea Pines Circle. The tennis school complex was off to the left but Elizabeth chose to go straight, wind around, and approach the complex from the rear. Anyone now out looking for Cherokee won't be looking in that direction. She went through the main gate of Sea Pines Plantation, waved through by the guards because she had Martin's pass on her visor. She drove well into Sea Pines before turning left at the riding stables and, to make doubly certain that she was not being followed, wound through several residential streets before making her way to the smaller gate house on North Sea Pines Drive. That gate, she knew, opened onto Cordillo Parkway and was less than a mile from the school.
“I'll get you very close," she said to the girl, "but I don't want anyone there to see me either. What I'll do is let you out about fifty yards short of it. I'll be watching you until you're inside. Go straight to either Nadia or Jasmine, no one else, no police, and tell them exactly what happened as you know it.”
“Do I have to say that man was undressing me?”
“No, but listen. Tell them I said they should make up a story. There was never any kidnapping, it's a false alarm, maybe you got rebellious and did something stupid. Kids do stupid things all the time.”
“Hmmph. Thanks a lot.”
“You can live with it. Do it. We want this to die down.”
“Well...I guess," she said doubtfully. "But you know Jasmine and some of the guards here. They'll want to go after those men.”
“Tell them I said...that they'd be wasting their time. Tell Nadia that I'll give her a call but only if I see that she's keeping this quiet.”
“That...sounds like Nadia won't know who you are.”
“No, she won't. Tell her not to waste time trying to figure that out either.”
“But she'll know that you're from the Society, won't she? She'll know that you're from the Nusaybah.”
“She'll...know I'm a friend," said Elizabeth.”
Cherokee heard the brief hesitation. She almost turned her head. "Martina?”
“I'll pull over here. Are you ready?”
“Martina...you are from the Nusaybah Society, aren't you? You and the man who was with you?”
“Who said it was a man?”
“Okay, then. That woman.”
“We're friends. And I'm your friend. That's all you have to know.”
The car crept to a stop. Cherokee didn't move. She reached one arm behind her and groped for Elizabeth's hand. She found it and squeezed it.
“Could I give you a hug?" she asked softly.
“Cherokee...go.”
“Couldn't I hold you? Just for a second? I promise I won't open my eyes.”
Elizabeth reached for her shoulders and turned her. They held each other for a full half minute. Elizabeth kissed her. She tasted tears. She realized that some were her own.
NINETEEN
Nadia Halaby had a story already, the one Jasmine had told the State Troopers. Like it or not she was stuck with it.
But her mind was reeling with thoughts of this woman who had rescued Aisha and brought her back home but had not allowed her face to be seen. Aisha felt sure that a man had been with her, not a woman as this...Martina had claimed. His footsteps were heavier than those of the woman; she thought she heard a man's voice say the words "Bad mistake" but he always stayed outside the cabin. Aisha said this reluctantly. She seemed to feel it was betraying a friendship. This Martina had her reasons if she lied.
As for the farmer, the caller, Floyd Wiggins, Nadia knew who he must really have been. Blond hair, British accent, two bearded Muslims assisting, even a video camera. It could only be the bounty hunter, Cyril Pratt. Even Jasmine now realized that the man who had called her had a drawl unlike any she'd heard in the South.
The story she was stuck with was the one Pratt concocted. A couple named Wiggins had taken the girl in after two drunken youths beat her up. Nadia drove to the Wiggins farm, no one was there, she didn't know what to make of it so she called the police. But then the couple named Wiggins dropped Cherokee off. No, Cherokee couldn't describe them very well. The poor girl was in shock and still is. Just an old man and woman, their car was blue, maybe green. Why this couple didn't wait there, why they can't be found now, Nadia had no idea. The two boys who grabbed Cherokee were both in their teens, they had brown hair or blond and they drove an old pick-up that might have been red and she thinks they said something about going to Atlanta.
“Cherokee, how good an actress are you?" asked Nadia as she spread an ointment on her wrists.
“When I talk to the police? I can do it, I think. But I can't stop my knees from shaking.”
“Shaking is good," said the black woman, Jazz. "If the questions get hard, you just get hysterical. We'll jump in and take it from there.”
Nadia bandaged both wrists with thin strips of gauze and covered the dressings with blue terry wrist bands. "This is simpler," she told Cherokee, "than trying to explain why two boys would have handcuffs and especially how the Wiggins' got them off you.”
“They're too clean; make them dirty," said Jazz.
Nadia reached for some soil from a plant and rubbed some into the bands. That done, she unbraided Cherokee's hair and arranged it with her fingers so that it covered much of her face. She felt sure that no newspaper would run her photo but at least two reporters were waiting downstairs. She would try to persuade them, as Cherokee suggested, that the worst those two boys had done was try to kiss her but one lost his temper when she jabbed him in the eye.
Jazz thought that scenario would play even better if Cherokee had the smell of beer on her breath. "There's no sin," she told her. "You don't have to swallow. Just one sip to rinse out your mouth.”
“Will it make me sick?" asked the girl with a grimace.
“Sick's even better. They say Indians can't drink. I'll get Roy to bring up a bottle.”
While Jazz made her phone call Nadia knelt at the chair and got back to the part that confused her the most. “This woman who rescued you," Nadia asked. "When she first walked in she was dressed in full niqab?”
Cherokee nodded. "A veil and abaya. Black gloves, soft black shoes. She had everything covered but her eyes. And when she sat on the bed I saw the hilt of a Jambiya sticking out.”
“A Jambiya?" asked Jazz who had completed her call.
“It's a knife," Nadia told her. And then to the girl, "But you say you don't think she'd ever heard of Nusaybah?”
“She...isn't even Muslim, I don't think.”
“And later you could have looked at her face but you didn't. Same thing with the man who was with her?”
“I never saw the man. I mostly heard sounds. And I heard what I think was a motorboat starting.”
“But you can't tell us anything about where this place is?”
Cherokee shook her head slowly and shrugged.
“You're holding something back," said Nadia. "What is it?”
“I...don't think she wants you to look for that cabin. She wants me to think it was out by Spanish Wells.”
“And we shouldn't look for those three men either," said Jasmine. "Why do you suppose she'd say that?”
“She said they won't be back. She said they can't hurt me.”
Jasmine and Nadia exchanged looks. The girl noticed.
“You're thinking she murdered them. She wouldn't have done that. All she did was scare them away.”
The man named Roy knocked and entered the room. "It's show time," he said, pointing over his shoulder. "Police and an ambulance want to see her downstairs." He produced a beer can from one of his pockets. Jazz took it and popped it and picked up a waste basket. The girl made a face but she sipped the beer gamely, nearly gagging before she spit it out.
