Oasis of Night (36 page)

Someone's arm went around my shoulders, and I was crushed against a hard, lean body wearing a police uniform. Ibrahim Samir pressed his cheek to mine, and his face was wet with tears. “Your grief is most acceptable, Jack. It honors the deceased to weep for her. It honors us all.” He drew me toward the grave, where he bent and gathered up a handful of earth, which he pressed into my palm. “We finish the grave together, taking care as we work that we are ever mindful of our own mortality.” He knelt and drew me down beside him. “Come. We will work together, you and I.”

It took under an hour to fill the hole, to mound up the dirt and pat it smooth. The mourners were returning to Sam's house where his mother-in-law was waiting with the younger children; I understood various distant relatives and members of the community would arrive to offer their condolences. I started back toward the cemetery gate, my hands still grimy with grave dust, but once again Ibrahim Samir came to me. “Please accompany me to Captain Halim's house. You are most welcome.”

“I don't want to intrude.” I laid my hand on his shoulder. “Ibrahim, the best thing for me to do is to go back to the hotel. I'll be leaving for home in a day or so. I should probably start packing.”

His dark eyes were red-rimmed with fatigue and sorrow. Samir was Sam's friend as well as his subordinate; he loved Sam as much as I did. “Please. Captain Halim would want you to be there.”

I tried to demur but he was relentless. In the end, I agreed to share a cab with Samir. We sat together in the back seat, and he held my hand between both of his. I watched the Cairo landmarks slip by for what would probably be the last time. “I never did tell you about Pasha Nubar.” Samir's hand tightened on mine. “He was killed by a local who had been hired for that purpose, the son of a jeweler in the native quarter.”

“Who hired him? And why Pasha Nubar?”

“We are reasonably certain he was hired by the man who calls himself Mukbar—a career blackmailer we have had our eyes upon for some time. Pasha Nubar was killed because he was about to give you information.” He smiled. “You have probably already learned that information is a valuable commodity in Cairo.”

“You arrested him?”

“Yes. The same day I arrested you, as a matter of fact. Sadly, he did not survive.”

My skin prickled. “What do you mean, he didn't survive?”

Samir turned to look out the side window of the cab. “He killed himself in jail. He has been buried in the police cemetery.”

“His father didn't claim the body?”

“No. No one wanted him. It is usually the way.” Samir shrugged. “Mukbar and his associate, the Finn, are in custody. We expect a swift… resolution to the case.”

“Mm.” I knew what he meant. Mukbar and Errki Aaltonen would be kicking their heels at the end of a rope before too long. I didn't have it in me to care too much. As far as I was concerned, the world could rotate quite nicely without guys like Aaltonen and Mukbar. “So that's the end of it.”

Samir shrugged. “A little police work, a few piasters dropped into the right palms, and we found them. Mukbar was already known to us. He has rather an illustrious reputation as a blackmailer of some note.”

“Sam was right about one thing, Ibrahim.”

“Oh?”

I squeezed his hand gently. “You're a good cop.”

Sam's house was full of people, all of them strangers to me. His mother-in-law—an older version of Tareenah—came bustling toward Samir and me, offering the traditional greeting and herding us toward the food. I suppose you could say death is a hungry business or maybe it was my body's way of reaffirming that I was alive, because I was starving. I excused myself and went to the bathroom to wash up. I should have knocked because when I opened the door Sam was in there, sitting on the edge of the bath with his head in his hands. It didn't take too much imagination to figure out he'd been crying. He looked up, and I turned to go, mumbling an apology.

“Jack.” He stood up and straightened his uniform tunic, wiping his eyes on his sleeve. “I wanted to say—”

“Sam, you don't have to say anything.” There were so many things I wanted to tell him, and it was all pressing against the back of my throat like unshed tears. “I should tell you….” Goddammit, I wanted to rush to him and fold him in my arms and hold on to him until the pain stopped, until we could both breathe again—but I didn't have that right and I didn't know if I ever would.

He nodded. “You are leaving.”

“Yeah.” It was me saying the words, but I wasn't really hearing myself, and I didn't quite understand what was going on. My mind was full of a roaring pain that sounded like the sea does when a cold nor'easter is blowing full onshore.

“I suppose that is for the best.” He made no move to touch me. I couldn't blame him.

“Yeah, I suppose so.” I was going to bawl; I could feel it. “Sam, you once said—”

“Thank you.” He took my hand. “For everything.” The expression in his eyes, the sorrow he wore like a mask, these things told me what he could not say in words. It was over. Whatever we'd had, whatever we'd figured we were doing, was done. He didn't have to tell me; I already knew.

“I guess maybe we should… what I mean is, uh—” My throat closed, and I turned away. “Good-bye, Sam.” By the time I got to the front door, I couldn't see a goddamn thing.

 

 

I
SPENT
the next day packing up my stuff, what was left of it after the hotel room exploded, and getting my affairs in order. I sent a wire to Chris, advising him I'd be home. My flight didn't leave right away, so I lay down on the bed for a while and tried to nap, but all I could think about was the time Sam and I had made love in this room and held each other, and spent the night sleeping in each other's arms. I thought about going downstairs to the bar, but tried to put it off as long as I could. Crawling inside a bottle wouldn't solve a goddamn thing. This just hurt so much, a pain so deep I hardly knew what to do with it. I found myself wondering if maybe I'd have been better off if Sam and I had never met. Would that have made a difference? What if Sam, looking for directions, had walked into some other cafe that day on Water Street, or what if his map had shown exactly where he needed to be? Would I be happier? Would he?
Sam. I'm so glad. You know, I didn't think… I didn't think we'd ever get here. Like this.
But we had, and it was obviously over. I couldn't honestly expect Sam to be with me in the way I wanted, not after everything that had happened. Tareenah's betrayal and her death had taken something out of him, and he would never be the same. Maybe we could be together later on, once the pain had lessened and he could imagine himself living in the world again.

Yeah. Maybe that would happen.

The telephone by my bed rang, and I reached out automatically to pick it up. It was the desk clerk, advising me I had a visitor. I wasn't in the mood to see anybody, but a tiny part of my mind—the part that still held out hope, regardless—said it might be Sam, so I told them to send him up.

“Lieutenant Stoyles?” Kevin MacBride's tall form filled the doorway; the big Greek, Andros Scala, was just behind him. I invited them both in. “I wonder if you've given any further thought to our proposition.” MacBride looked tired, as though he hadn't been getting enough sleep lately. Scala looked the same as always: composed and steady, a human colossus with the saddest eyes I'd ever seen.

“Look, Captain, I'm leaving tomorrow morning, as you know. I'd prefer to put this whole thing behind me.”

“The news about Captain Halim's wife is tragic.” Scala inclined his head. “I offer my condolences.”

“Why?” Something in me snapped, something I'd been holding in check for a long time. “You said yourselves you didn't trust her, and now that it's all come out, why should you care? What's it to you?”

“Our sympathies are with Captain Halim.” MacBride nodded toward my suitcase, lying open on the floor. “And with you. I understand Captain Halim is your special friend. I'm truly sorry all this has happened.”

I sat down on the bed and lit a cigarette. “Yeah. War is hell.”

MacBride and Scala exchanged a look. Scala came to sit beside me. “You could be of immeasurable help to us when you return to your island.”

“I'm not in the market for whatever it is you're selling—heroism, martyrdom—you can keep it.” He had some nerve, asking me this. What the hell were they playing at? “I'm not interested.”

Scala nodded. “This is a particular pain you are feeling. Doubtless some would tell you it will fade in time. I do not believe such usual wisdom.”

MacBride pretended to gaze out the window, his hands in the pockets of his olive-drab trousers. There was something painful and set in his profile; he seemed to be keeping himself forcibly in check.

“Yeah?” I drew savagely on my cigarette. “You're the only one.”

Scala turned so he was looking directly at me. “Early in the war, before the Germans invaded and ravaged my country, I was a happy married man. I had a lovely wife, three beautiful young daughters, and the keeping of my father's olive plantation.”

MacBride made a tiny sound and turned away from the window.

“The day the Germans marched into my village, I was away, selling our oil in the city. They went up to where my house was on the side of the mountain, killed my parents and butchered their bodies, and hung them from the rafters of their home by the ankles. They raped and killed my three sisters and set fire to the bodies—”

Jesus Christ
.

“My wife, they also raped, and my three daughters, who were three, five and seven years old.”

MacBride sat at the table in my hotel room, as unmoving as a statue. His clenched hands lay on the tabletop, knuckles showing white against the skin. I didn't understand how Scala could speak of this and stay so calm, as if it had happened to someone else, someone he didn't even know.

“The Germans hung my children on the front of my house for me to see when I returned from the market that day.”

MacBride finally spoke. “When it got dark, Andros, his brother-in-law, and several men went down into the village to find the Germans who had done this.” He wasn't looking at Scala or at me; his gaze remained fixed on the table and on his own clenched fists. “It took thirty minutes to kill them all. When it was over, the restaurant where they had been eating and drinking was awash with their blood.”

My stomach contracted, and I thought I was going to be sick. “Look, I understand… and I'm sorry. But Captain Halim and I, we—”

“Captain Halim is your special friend… your very best friend in all the world, yes?” Scala's huge hand rested on my shoulder like the paw of a friendly bear.

He could see inside me, I thought, and he knew everything. There was no point hiding from a man like this. “I… Captain Halim and I… it isn't merely friendship, it's not like that. You wouldn't understand.”

MacBride moved to where we were. He slid an arm around Scala's broad shoulders and sat beside him. The two men looked at each other and something passed between them, something I'd have had to be blind not to see. “Yes,” MacBride said quietly, “I rather think we would.”

“You… two?”

“We trained together, early in the war,” Scala said.
“Sometimes there is great comfort in the most unexpected places.”

“I… would have never guessed. I mean… you don't seem—”

MacBride smiled faintly. “Would you? In a place like this?”

I shook my head. I couldn't think straight. “I can't give you an answer, not right now. Maybe in a few weeks, when I've had time to think…. I dunno.”

They shook my hand at the door. “Please,” MacBride said, “think about it. We need you. And your service would help Captain Halim as well.”

I couldn't give him an answer. The only thing in my mind was pain.

 

 

T
HE
PLANE
took a sharp, banking turn around the Southside Hills before turning north to Torbay Airport, and something deep inside me told me I was home. It's strange how a place grows on you, and before you know it, becomes the only real haven you've ever known. If I wasn't exactly glad to see St. John's, I was something pretty close to it.

I collected my bags and went through to the main door, hoping to flag down a taxi, but lo and behold, a familiar hand fell on my shoulder, and a voice I knew as well as my own said, “Welcome home, Jack.”

“Chris!” I couldn't help myself. I hauled him into my arms and held on. “What are you doing here?” He looked the same as always: tall, dark-haired, and handsome, with those killer dimples that had the power to melt even the hardest of hearts.