Oasis of Night (35 page)

Eventually my musings and the early hour got the best of me, and I fell asleep leaning against the car door. I dreamed I was on a boat, sailing on some unfamiliar body of water, alone. The boat was fitted with a sail, but there were no oars; I seemed to be drifting in a fathomless fog. I cupped my hands around my mouth and called out, but my voice went nowhere; the fog closed in around the boat, and I was smothering, I couldn't breathe—

“Aaltonen, you fool, not yet.” Mukbar and the Finn held me upright between them, and we were moving rapidly down a set of stone steps toward a narrow door set into the side of the hill. The horizon had begun to lighten, and the stars were beginning to go out. I longed viciously for Sam and wondered if I would ever see him or my Heartache Cafe again. “In you go, Mr. Stoyles, I am sure you will find it very comfortable.” They shoved me in, the heavy door was swung into position, and the bar dropped across it. I was in utter and absolute darkness, with not so much as a crack showing anywhere. I raised my hands above me and my palms hit solid rock a few inches above my head. This was bad. This was very, very bad. I had no way of knowing how large or small my prison was, and so I couldn't calculate how many cubic feet of air I would have the privilege of breathing before my supply ran out. The important thing, I knew, was to stay calm. Getting excited would increase my heart rate and respiration, hastening my death.

I felt for the floor and lowered myself down, sitting with my back against a rock wall. The air was warm but not uncomfortably so, and I guessed the thick stone insulated the place against the worst of the desert heat. I laid my head back and concentrated on calming myself by taking slow, even breaths. After a while, I began to drift off into that queer place between sleep and wakefulness. I dreamed I was lying in bed beside Sam, and the low rays of the morning sun had just begun to show over the horizon. The room was white, and the bed in which we lay was also white and crowned with a huge mosquito net made of some diaphanous stuff. Sam was naked except for a white silk sheet, and I leaned over him, watching his sleeping face and waiting for him to wake. His dreams swam across his features and fluttered his dark lashes, and his mouth was curved in a smile. He turned his face and, without opening his eyes said, “My beloved is mine and I am his, who is delighting among the lilies….”

Then we were standing at the bar in my Heartache Cafe, and Chris was mixing us a drink; no, that was wrong, Sam didn't drink, he was a Moslem, and I hadn't touched the stuff in ages. “It's all right,” Chris said, “there's only soda water in this one.” The sun was setting in a blaze of scarlet and gold, lighting up the windows of houses along the South Side. “You have to go now.” Chris came out from behind the bar and took me by the arm and walked me to the door of my cafe. “You aren't supposed to be here. You have to go.” And then I was standing on the bridge again in Philly, the freezing wind slicing through my clothes and cutting into my skin. The cold was cutting off my feet and hands, sawing through my legs at the ankles—

I woke with a start. I was sitting with my legs folded in front of me, my hands dangling in my lap. I couldn't be sure how much time had passed, and I might have been there for hours or for merely moments. That wasn't what woke me, however. I had registered something in my sleeping state, something different enough for my subconscious mind to remark upon it and thus draw my attention to… what? Dammit, what was it? I had to remember. I was lying with Sam, and he was quoting the Song of Solomon; then we were in the Heartache Cafe with Chris, watching the sun set. I was cold: my hands and feet were cold; the cold was cutting through my legs at the ankles.

I put my hands down and let them dangle for a moment and then I knew: a veritable torrent of cold air was streaming in from somewhere to the right, cooling my feet and hands. I got down on my belly and put my face into the stream and sure enough, it was real. Cold air in the desert usually means there's water somewhere nearby, an underground spring or aquifer. This could mean the difference between life and death, provided I could find the source. I dug my index finger into the earth to the last knuckle and found nothing but dry sand, but I wasn't giving up just yet. I followed the stream of air back farther, always keeping it in front of me, stopping now and then to dig into the soil but so far, I had found absolutely nothing.

After about an hour of this, I sat back to rest. Maybe there wasn't any water. Maybe the cool air was a trick, designed to make me wear myself out looking for a stream of water that didn't exist. Aaltonen had probably rigged it himself, as some kind of sick joke, and I couldn't help thinking that these were the kind of people Frankie had chosen to play ball with. He'd probably signed on figuring he could capitalize on the benefits without getting caught up in the nasty parts, but he'd figured wrong. Guys like Aaltonen and Octavian didn't play fair; they played dirtier than anybody, and they'd kill whoever happened to get in the way, including each other.

“All right,” I said aloud, “one more go.” I lay down on my belly, put my face into the stream of air, and started forward. I had gone maybe six or seven feet when my outstretched hand touched something—something cold and rubbery and faintly fleshy.

I didn't need light to tell me I was touching a human foot.

 

 

I
SAT
there in the dark for a long time, hunched over and trying not to breathe too fast and use up all the air. My mind was jabbering away a mile a minute, and I spent a helluva lot of energy just trying to make myself shut up. Whoever owned the foot was dead, because they sure as hell didn't move, even when I reached out, grabbed them by the ankle, and shook. I figured this was probably another one of Octavian's operatives, bumped off because they didn't behave like the big boss wanted. I couldn't think who this could be: Mukbar and Aaltonen seemed pretty tight, and as far as I knew, Octavian had no reason to kill Ibrahim Samir. One more Cairo policeman more or less meant nothing much to him or his cronies. It was Sam they were after.

I guess maybe I'm a lot dumber than I give myself credit for,
because the other possibility didn't occur to me until a long time afterward. I remembered the conversation Sam and I had in his office before Mukbar showed up in my hotel room to take me for a ride.
If Octavian's boys are still around, they're bound to know she's let the cat out of the bag. Don't you think they might come looking for her?
I reached farther up the leg and felt the unmistakable contours of a woman's hip, the indentation of her waist and then, finally, her long hair. There was no light for me to see, but I knew it could be no one else but Tareenah Halim. How they had gotten her out of jail was one thing—surely Octavian's boys had operatives on the inside, things being the way they were—but did they think Sam would let them get away with this? He was bound to come looking for his wife, and Sam was too much of a policeman to let a trail stand long enough to get cold.

I felt sick. Sam would come looking for his wife, and when he did, Mukbar and Aaltonen would be waiting for him. Yeah, there was still plenty of room in here for one more. They'd wall us up in here together and let us bide our time until the air ran out. They were a nice bunch, Octavian's guys, real loyal to one another.

There was a commotion outside, and then the sound of something scraping against the stone. The thin beam of a flashlight stabbed the darkness, and I instinctively covered my eyes. “Mr. Stoyles, how fortunate that you are still alive. We were worried you would not be able to receive your visitor.” Mukbar: I'd recognize that voice anywhere. “In you go, Captain Halim. Mr. Stoyles is waiting for you. I am sure the two of you have plenty to talk about.”

“Sam—” I reached for him, caught him as he fell. “Sam, I'm sorry. I don't know what happened but I wish to God I could have stopped it.”

The door was closed, and I heard the grating noise as the key was turned in the lock. We were plunged into absolute darkness. Sam felt for my hand and held on. “Well, if we wanted a quiet place where we could be alone, our wish has certainly been granted, don't you think?” His voice was calm and faintly amused; this was the Sam I knew.

“Sam, there's something you should know.” How in God's name could I tell him something like this? “We aren't alone in here.”

“Not alone.” There was a long pause, and when Sam spoke again, some of the vigor had gone out of his voice. “They have brought my—Tareenah is here, isn't she?”

I guided his hand to where the body lay supine against the wall. “Yeah, Sam. She's here.”

He was silent then, and for a long time afterward, we sat there in the dark, not saying anything. Maybe an hour passed before he spoke. “The first time I ever saw her was in a graduate seminar on Semitic languages. She sat to one side of the room, taking copious notes, writing very rapidly.”

“Sam, you don't have to….”

“I wondered what she could have been writing, that she wrote so quickly. I began to suspect what she was writing had nothing to do with the seminar.” He was smiling, I was sure of it. “When the professor invited the students to expound upon the material presented, Tareenah raised her hand. She recited a summary in perfect Aramaic.”

An invisible hand closed around my heart, squeezing painfully. “Octavian's boys did this to her, Sam. They probably snatched her from the police station.” I told him how I'd woken up to find Mukbar in my room. “Now that Octavian's dead, they're doing a little tidying up. I guess the three of us are just loose ends to them.”

“Yes. That is all we are, Jack: loose ends.” His voice broke, and I pulled him into my arms and held on to him while he cried, his body heaving with a grief I could not hope to reach or mediate.

I guess I must have fallen asleep, because the next thing I knew, there was a light in my face and somebody was shaking me by the arm.

“Lieutenant Stoyles.” Kevin MacBride leaned down and looked into my face. “It's all right. You're safe now. You're safe.”

I blinked at him. My head was aching and everything felt wrong, like the world had shifted on its axis. “What time is it? How long have I been here?” I watched two men lift a shrouded bundle up into the light: Tareenah Halim.

“It's morning.” MacBride's voice was very gentle. “One of our operatives advised us when Captain Halim was abducted from his office. We've been following you ever since.”

“How long—” I cleared my throat and tried again. “How long have we been here?”

MacBride glanced across at Sam. “You've been here for a day.”

 

 

H
ER
BODY
was conveyed through the streets of Cairo on a flower-strewn funerary bier, Sam on one side and his oldest son on the other. I kept a respectable pace behind, walking with Ibrahim Samir. The midday sun beat down cruelly on my uncovered head, and I was sweating ferociously. Sam was in full uniform, standing erect under the weight of his grief. He walked slowly, with measured steps, one hand on the bier, his gaze fixed straight ahead. I don't know what he was thinking—we hadn't had a chance to speak since Kevin MacBride's men had taken us out of that hole in the desert—but I was betting it had nothing to do with me. Watching him, standing straight and tall beside his wife's dead body, I felt like more of an outsider than ever. I didn't belong here. I would never belong here. I had come here to find Sam, and now that I had found him, that part of it was over. The best thing for me to do—the only thing for me to do—was to go home, back to Newfoundland, to Chris and my Heartache Cafe. I'd already spoken to MacBride about travel arrangements, and he'd gotten me a seat on a military transport heading for Newfoundland the day after tomorrow. All that was left was to pack my things and say my good-byes to Egypt.

The procession stopped at a pretty little cemetery not far from the Muski bazaar, and Sam and the other mourners moved to lift Tareenah's body from the bier. Islamic custom dictated that three balls of earth be placed under the corpse by the next of kin: one under the head, one under the chin, and one under the shoulder. Before Tareenah was buried Sam, Ibrahim Samir, and a man I knew only as Sam's cousin Iqbal, stood together and poured three handfuls of dirt into the open grave, reciting a verse from the Koran. Sam looked stricken and physically sick, and I saw Ibrahim Samir lay a hand on his shoulder as they moved to lower the corpse into the grave. There was no loud wailing, no rending of people's clothes—in fact, nobody uttered a sound—but it felt like something had been drained away, something that could never be regained.

My face felt hot and my eyes were burning, and I tried to hold myself together but I couldn't do it, and before I knew what was happening, I was crying, bending forward from the waist, my hands over my eyes. I thought about Judy's death, ages ago in Philadelphia, lying on a bloodied operating table with her legs in stirrups, staring at the ceiling. I thought about my father, killed when I was just a kid, crushed under a runaway locomotive at the navy yard in south Philly, and the guys who came to our house that afternoon to tell my mother. Yeah, I thought about Tareenah Halim, out there in the desert, dead and waiting to be buried, and I hated that I was being so goddamn selfish, and I hated that I couldn't stop crying, and I hated that she had to be dead. None of it made any sense, and what was the point of trying to make things better anyway, if it all just came to this, to dust and ashes?