‘That we did. But someone could still be bouncing a laser microphone off a window to listen in.’ Noah pressed a button on the device, and its light turned green. It made a slow droning sound. Like a kitten purring lazily. ‘Righto. Now we’re good to go.’
Maya nodded. ‘Okay. Two months ago, the police received information on a possible threat. It was credible enough that they were prepared to offer you round-the-clock protection. Yet you turned them down. Three times, in fact. May I ask why?’
Abraham shrugged. ‘You must think me naive. But I wanted to stay open and accessible. It’s hypocritical for me to tell people to speak out against extremism when I choose to hide behind bodyguards.’
‘Despite the hostile vandalism?’
‘They were just juveniles playing pranks. The police arrested them in the end. I assumed that was the end of the matter.’
‘Still, you could have installed an alarm system in your home,’ Noah said. ‘Motion-sensor lights. CCTV cameras. They would have acted as deterrents.’
‘Yes, my wife pushed me to. And I did consider it. But New Zealand is the safest country in the world, is it not?’
‘Uh-huh. The Global Peace Index—we keep winning the number-one spot year after year. But even the safest society has criminals.’
‘Petty criminals, yes. But I just didn’t think that someone would actually break into my home and try to kill me. Not here. Not in this beautiful country.’
‘I’m sorry you had to go through all that,’ Maya said.
‘As am I.’
‘Has your opinion changed since last night? About your personal safety?’
Abraham rubbed his forehead. ‘It has. Believe me, it has. Even here, I have to accept that I’m not safe from fanatics.’
‘Sir, no one is ever safe from fanatics when a flashpoint is involved.’
‘A... what?’
‘A flashpoint. It’s a term used to refer to places that have the potential to provoke conflict and violence. For example, Taiwan or the Korean peninsula. But in close-protection, we recognise that things closer to home can be flashpoints as well.’
‘So that’s me, then. A walking and talking flashpoint.’
‘Not you, sir. Your book.’
‘Yes, my book...’ Abraham inhaled, frowning. ‘I will be going ahead with the tour. In fact, I’m bringing it forward. I have informed my publicist that we will be starting tomorrow.’
Maya and Noah looked at each other. An uncomfortable beat passed.
Noah shook his head. ‘Sir, with all due respect, don’t you think you should delay this decision? At least until things settle down a bit?’
‘Why should I? I have you to protect me.’
‘We can only provide you with layers of protection.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘You can never be totally safe.’
‘But you’re supposed to be the best.’
‘We are,’ Maya said. ‘But even the best has its limits. Take this hotel for example. We’ve checked every corner, every cabinet, every air duct. We’ve vetted all the staff. We’ve assigned good people to guard you twenty hours a day. Anyone not authorised to be here is kept out of the building. Those are your layers of protection. If one layer is penetrated, another is there to pick up the slack. But all it takes is one guy determined enough, crazy enough, to hijack an aircraft and crash it into this hotel, and it’s all over. All those layers will count for nothing.’
Noah nodded. ‘It’s a little far-fetched, yeah. But we have to consider every possibility. If someone truly wants to get to you, they will find a way. And if you’re out there in the open, you’re doubly exposed. Your enemies need to get lucky just once, and you could end up crippled or dead.’
‘I see.’ Abraham swallowed, shifting in his seat. ‘Yes, I understand your concerns, and I appreciate you telling me all this. But I have to push ahead. The country—the world—is watching me. Do you understand? Now is the time. Now is the best time.’
Maya looked over Abraham’s shoulder and eyed the bathroom door. It was ajar, trembling ever so slightly. Belinda was apparently listening in on their conversation. Maya wondered if she should say something. Perhaps invite Belinda to come out, to join in. But, no, being a protector was all about practising discretion. Never ever expose a principal to embarrassment. Not even in front of family. Still, Maya wanted to involve Belinda in their conversation. If only on an unofficial level.
Maya looked back to Abraham. ‘Sir, I admire your beliefs. I honestly do. I respect your resolve to carry out what you feel is just and right. But I have to ask, have you considered your wife in all this? How does she feel about you taking such a big risk?’
Abraham raised his eyebrows. ‘She wants us to go into hiding. Permanently. And, indeed, we could. We certainly have the money.’
‘It’s a realistic option, sir,’ Noah said. ‘One well worth considering.’
‘We’re not here to pressure you to make one decision or another,’ Maya said. ‘But your message is already out there. You’ve done enough.’
‘Hmm.’ Abraham touched his fingers together, forming a steeple. ‘Tell me, are you in the mood for a story?’
‘A story, sir?’ Noah asked.
‘A story from my childhood. Do you mind?’
‘Um…’ Noah looked at Maya, who nodded. ‘Not at all, I guess.
CHAPTER 15
Abraham leaned back against his chair, rubbing his fingertips. His eyes took on a wistful look. The look of someone trawling through a jigsaw of memories, one piece at a time. The moment stretched. The only thing splitting the silence was the purr of the white-noise generator and the tick-tock of the clock on the wall.
Maya waited.
Sure, she already knew the broad strokes of Abraham’s life. But reading information off a dossier wasn’t the same as hearing it direct from your principal. She had to admit, there were gaps in her knowledge that needed filling.
So much of Abraham’s life was like swirling vapour. A shifting mirage. Yes, she knew he had been born in a village way out in the frontier. Yes, she knew he had gotten his start in student activism at university. But the years in between? A blank. An enigma. And no amount of probing and needling by the press had ever swayed Abraham into baring his soul. Which was odd considering how outspoken he seemed to be when it came to politics and religion.
Why was he so guarded?
What was he afraid of?
Maya couldn’t pin it down. Yet she could sense a change sweeping over him. A restless desire to open up. To let down his defences. To allow her to peek into his heart of his hearts. Maybe, just maybe, everything had been leading up to this point. If so, she saw this as her chance to measure him. To get intimate with his struggles, his heartbreaks, his traumas.
How much would Abraham reveal?
Only he could decide.
So Maya waited.
A full minute passed.
Finally, Abraham spoke, ‘I was born under the shadow of the Hindu-Kush mountains. Into a land of extremes. During winter, it’s so cold that you can barely step away from your stove without coming down with frostbite. And during summer, it’s so hot that exposing yourself to the sun for mere minutes is enough to strike you down with heatstroke. The air is exceedingly dry, exceedingly cruel. It saps and dehydrates you without you knowing it. So, yes, the climate, the terrain, the locale—everything is harsh. Difficult to farm. Difficult to survive. That’s why communities out there are so small and so scattered. My own village has a population of only three hundred. So remote that it doesn’t even appear on any map.’
Maya noticed that Abraham spoke in the present tense. Describing things as they are, not as they were. The emotional link between him and his homeland was vivid. Almost as if he had never left.
Maya also picked up certain keywords—
cold, hot, dry
. They hinted to her that Abraham leaned more towards touch rather than sight or sound. Yes, he felt and tasted his memories more than he saw them or heard them. Reality for him was made out of sensations and feelings, most of it subjective and internal.
Abraham began to smile. It was a genuine smile. Not the sad veneer he had shown earlier. ‘In this place, my father was the village headman and a Muslim cleric—a
mullah
. Well respected. Everyone deferred to him. No, he wasn’t terribly educated. But he could do some basic reading and arithmetic, and he knew the
Qur’an
better than anyone. For this, he was accorded the title of
mullah
. However, to give you an idea of how dubious this title really is—well, most urban Muslims from the cities don’t consider
mullahs
to be true clerics at all. By and large, they dismiss them as half-baked heretics. This outlook is not entirely unfair.
Mullahs
are somewhat inferior compared to proper
imams
who study Islam on a tertiary and professional level. But when you happen to live in the wilderness, you cannot afford to be picky. You accept what you are given. Well, what’s that old saying you have here in the West? Let me think. Hmm, I remember now—in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. So, yes, that was my father. A
mullah
. A one-eyed man among the blind.’
Maya observed true respect there. She saw it in the way Abraham held his shoulders straighter and tighter when he spoke of his father. However, his respect came with a tragic awareness. Among the uneducated, his father may have been the master of his realm. But in the grand scheme of things, his father was a nobody.
Was there affection for his father?
Maybe.
Maybe not.
Maya couldn’t be sure.
Abraham’s smile faded as he twisted his lips. ‘Which brings me to my story. When I was about four years of age, an event occurred that was to change our lives forever. It happened in the spring, when the weather was at its most serene. A man and a woman stumbled into our village, bruised and bloodied. They were Westerners with nothing on them but the clothes on their backs and even those were ripped and torn. This caused much confusion and excitement in our community. Who were they? Where were they from? Why had they come to us in such a state? You have to understand, prior to this, many of us had never seen a living and breathing Westerner, let alone two.’
Maya noticed that Abraham was more animated now. Leaning forward. Moving his hands. Raising his voice. He seemed to be reliving the event. Identifying closely with his village. Using words like
us
and
we
.
Abraham shook his head. ‘The man and the woman were weak and delirious. They did not speak our language, and we did not speak theirs. So we couldn’t understand their ramblings. We didn’t know what nationality they were. No matter, we provided them with food and drink, treated their wounds and gave them new clothes. While they rested, my father called a meeting with the elders of our village. To decide what to do. We had no telephone or vehicles, so he suggested dispatching a rider into the closest city, which was a day-and-a-half away. The logical thing would be to seek help from a Western embassy. Any Western embassy. The elders agreed. So the best and strongest rider in our village saddled up on his horse, and we gathered to see him off. Unfortunately, that’s when
they
showed up...’
Abraham paused, his eyes dropping.
Maya could see he was troubled. Like a man balancing on a precipice. This wasn’t about happy or even neutral memories anymore. He was venturing into darker territory.
Noah cocked his head to one side. ‘They?’
Abraham sighed. ‘A mob from a neighbouring village downhill from us. They were armed with Kalashnikovs and old hunting rifles. And they were angry. Really angry. They asked—no, they demanded—that we hand the Western couple over to them.’
‘Why?’ Maya asked.
‘Apparently, they were criminals. The man and the woman had snuck into their village, and a herder had surprised them while they were stealing one of his goats. A scuffle broke out, and the man stabbed the herder in the neck with a knife, puncturing his carotid artery. The herder bled out and died. Then the couple fled before the mob could catch up with them.’
‘Pretty dramatic,’ Noah said.
‘Indeed. But my father found the story incredulous. It simply did not add up. Why would the Western couple need to steal a goat for? Goats were valuable only to those living on the frontier. My father expressed his doubts, but this only served to fuel the mob’s fury. Tribal tradition decreed that the matter be settled in blood—an eye for an eye. However, tribal tradition also decreed that because the couple had sought refuge in our village, they were our guests. For better or for worse, we were responsible for their protection. This being the case, my father refused to hand them over. The quarrel deteriorated into a standoff—their guns against ours. It was an incredibly tense moment. All it would have took was one nervous fool pulling his trigger, and it would have been a massacre. The leader of the mob stared my father down, imploring him to end this madness. My father returned the stare and told him the same. Fortunately, the odds were on our side. We outnumbered them. The mob had little choice but to back down. But before they departed, they revealed that the couple was British. To prove it, they tossed their passports on the ground. They also promised they would be back very soon with more men.’
Maya noticed that Abraham was wound up. Shifting back and forth in his seat. Face flushed. Pupils dilated. One foot twitching and jackhammering against the floor. Maya recognised them as classic signs of the fight-or-flight response.
Abraham continued, ‘Straight after, a debate erupted among several of the village elders. You have to understand, we have always had a thorny relationship with the British. For a century, they were the colonisers, and we were the colonised. Yes, they brought order and progress, but they also brought division and oppression. Some of the elders had actually fought against the British for independence. Their memories were bitter and burned strongly within them. They saw no reason for us to get into conflict with the neighbouring village over the British couple.’
‘And your father...?’ Maya asked.