Three Wrong Turns in the Desert

by Neil S. Plakcy

  11 – Mme. Habiba Abboud, B.A.

  When Aidan arrived at the address Mme. Abboud had given him, a few blocks from the Zitouna mosque, he was confused. Where was the school? The building in front of him was run-down, with stucco that hadn’t been painted since the French retreated forty years before. The blue paint on the ornamental grillwork had faded, and the stone stoop was cracked in half. The ground floor was occupied by a hair salon, and a narrow staircase at the far end.

  A small sign directed him up to the second floor, where “École International” had been painted on a wooden door in a flowing, Arabic-style script. He knocked, and a woman’s voice called out in French, “Entrez!”

  He opened the door to a single drab room, brightened by posters of American sights: the Grand Canyon, the Statue of Liberty and the Golden Gate Bridge.

  Mme. Abboud was a small, dumpy lady in an American-style business suit that looked like black silk. She sat behind a dented metal desk piled haphazardly with papers. “Ah, you must be Monsieur Greene,” she said to him in English. “I am Mme. Habiba Abboud, B.A. Welcome to my office.”

  They shook hands, and he sat across from her, in a spindly metal chair. “Your country is very beautiful,” he said.

  “Yes, it is. How long have you lived here?”

  “I arrived five days ago. I left the US right after our email correspondence.”

  She looked disturbed. “You came here to teach?”

  “Yes. I was looking for a job somewhere outside the US, and when you offered, I decided Tunisia was a good place.”

  “So you did not receive my further emails?”

  He shook his head.

  “I am afraid I have some bad news. As soon as I heard from you, I applied for the proper permits so that you can work in Tunisia. My request was denied.”

  Aidan was surprised. “What does that mean?”

  “Every time the United States commits some act against the Arab world, the Tunisian government retaliates against those, like myself, who hire Americans.” Her accent was somewhat British, overlaid with hints of French and Arabic. “Last week, your government censured the Saudis for something foolish. That resulted in a taboo on hiring foreign teachers, for the present.” She shrugged, but smiled. “These things, they come and go. It all depends on who is in charge.”

  “But what can I do?” Aidan asked.

  She straightened a pile of papers on her desk. “I can try again in one month,” she said. “Unfortunately, not before.”

  Aidan’s pulse raced. “But I gave up my home and flew all the way here.”

  “This is the way of the Arab world,” she said. “May I suggest that you do some sightseeing while you wait? The island of Djerba is lovely this time of year.”

  “I don’t have the luxury of vacationing. I need a job. Can I work without those permits? Just until you are able to receive them?” Back when Aidan had taught in Europe, there had always been ways around the rules. Surely the same had to be true in Tunisia.

  “Alas, no,” Mme. Abboud said. “I have a license, you see, and to employ someone without the proper papers – well, if it were discovered that would be the end of the École International.”

  She stood up. “I am so sorry for your predicament, Mr. Greene. But you know, I did email you several times to let you know about this problem.”

  Aidan felt powerless to argue. He had no way of knowing whether she had emailed him or not; his account was under Blake’s name, and Blake had shut off his access. He thanked Mme. Abboud and promised to be back in touch within a month.

  He trudged down the stairs to the dark vestibule, then stepped back into the glaring sunshine. He winced at the brightness, squinting his eyes shut, then stood there on the broken sidewalk, letting the world swirl around him. What could he do? Where could he go? Could he afford to wait around Tunis for a month or more until a job materialized at the École?

  Standing there, he felt the weight of the chain around his neck that held the eye charm that the goldsmith’s wife had given him the day before. Well, that was something he could do, he thought, opening his eyes. He’d go back to the souk and return the charm. He couldn’t give it to Liam, because he had no idea what had happened to the bodyguard. And he certainly wasn’t heading to El Jem himself.

  The sense of a mission, even a short-term one, gave him energy. He consulted his map of the city, and began walking toward the Bab El Bahr. Within a few blocks, he was sweating heavily, so he shucked his suit jacket, loosened his tie, and unbuttoned the first few buttons of his shirt.

  Even so, he was drenched by the time he reached the Souk des Orfevres, the goldsmith’s market. The souk bustled with tourists, with shopkeepers calling bargains out into the street. He ignored their entreaties and searched for the shop where he’d been given the amulet. It was shuttered, though all the others around it were open and busy. He went into the one next door and asked, in fractured French, for the elderly shop owner or his daughter-in-law. “Ils avaient parti,” the old man behind the counter said. “Hier soir.”

  They had left the night before. But for where? Were they fleeing the police as well? What had he gotten himself into?

  He noticed the shopkeeper picking up his cell phone, and decided to get out of the medina as quickly as possible. He must have bumped into a dozen men and women as he rushed back toward the Bab el Bahr, and when he couldn’t find it right away his fear began to take over. Finally he saw the arched gate, set in a stone wall, ahead of him. There were no police loitering there, so he strode forward, back into the modern city. He needed a shower, a bottle of cold water. And a plan.

  As he walked back to his apartment, he realized how bad his situation was. He had used the thousand dollars Blake had given him, as well as his savings, for the flight to Tunisia, and the rent on the apartment. He had a single credit card in his name, which he’d almost never used because Blake had paid for everything. So he had a ridiculously low limit on the card, barely enough to buy himself a plane ticket back to Philadelphia.

  And what would he do when he got back there? It was early August, and no schools started until September. He wouldn’t have a paycheck until the end of the month. How could he find a place to live, and support himself, until then? He’d have to find someone to stay with, then get on line and look for a few private ESL clients, students who needed a review before starting college in the fall, immigrants preparing for a citizenship exam.

  Going back to Philly would be difficult. But staying in Tunis was no easier. He didn’t know a soul in Tunis beyond Liam McCullough, and the bodyguard had disappeared, perhaps into police custody. Aidan thought he should get on the first flight back to the States. But what if the police knew his name, and had alerted the immigration authorities to be on the lookout for him?

  Making a decision required energy and determination, and he had none. It was all he could do to keep putting one foot in front of the other, and make his way back to his apartment—where the rent was paid only through the end of the week. Without a job, he’d be homeless in Tunisia.

  As he walked, the tears he’d hardly shed over Blake finally came, blurring his vision so that he didn’t see the hands that grabbed him as he neared his building.

  12 – Making Lemonade

  “You really ought to be more aware of your surroundings,” Liam said.

  Aidan didn’t realize how much he’d been worried about the bodyguard until he appeared there. That realization only loosed his tear ducts further. Liam put his arms around Aidan and hugged him. “It’s OK,” he said. “Everything’s going to be all right.”

  Aidan sniffled and wiped his nose with his sleeve. He was embarrassed that this macho man had seen him so vulnerable. “Can we go inside?” Liam asked.

  Aidan nodded. They didn’t speak again until they’d climbed the stairs to Aidan’s apartment. “You got away all right?” he asked Liam.

  The bodyguard shrugged. “It took me a while. You got out OK?”

  “Yup.” Aidan gave
the dog her water, and then reached around and unhooked the gold chain that held the eye amulet. “Here. This is what the woman at the souk gave me.”

  Liam took it and examined it, then looked at Aidan. “Tell me what she said.”

  Aidan repeated as best he could while Liam paced around the apartment. He wore the same clothes he’d worn to the medina the day before—his leather vest, cinched tight across his chest, khaki cargo shorts that ended mid-thigh, leather sandals. “She trusted you with that charm. So her husband will be expecting you in El Jem.”

  Liam turned back to Aidan, who could feel the dried tears on his cheeks. But he was too tired even to wash his face. He slumped into a chair at the kitchen table.

  “Are you OK?” Liam asked.

  Aidan blew his nose and said, “I’m fine.”

  “Aidan. You’re not. Tell me what’s the matter.” Liam pulled the other chair out, and swung it around, as he’d done at the bar, so he was straddling it, his leather vest once again hanging open and exposing that muscular chest.

  “Turns out I don’t have a job after all,” Aidan said. “The government denied me a work permit. The woman I went to see said she had emailed me to notify me, but I had already left Philadelphia by that point.” He looked away, embarrassed. “I was an idiot. I shouldn’t have rushed over here without working everything through.”

  “So what do you do now?” Liam pulled a tissue from his pocket, and wet the end of it with the tip of his tongue. Very carefully, he wiped the dried tears from Aidan’s cheeks.

  It was such a tender gesture, so unexpected from a big, tough guy like Liam, that it almost made Aidan cry again. But the time for crying had passed. He had to figure out how to get out of the mess he’d made.

  He tried to smile. “You know the saying, when life hands you lemons, make lemonade?” Liam nodded. “Well, I just happen to have a bunch of lemons in my refrigerator. You want a glass?”

  Liam smiled back. “That would be great. I’m going to make a call.”

  He stepped over to the French doors, and Aidan went into the kitchen. He draped his suit jacket over one of the chairs, and hung his tie over it. Then he looked in his wallet. He had about fifty bucks, in American dollars and Tunisian dinars. He was pretty sure he had enough available credit to buy a plane ticket back to the States, but that would wipe him out.

  He refused to ask Blake for a penny—not that he’d hand over anything. He ran through his list of friends—most of them as poor as he was, scraping by on part-time jobs. One was an actor who worked as a waiter, another a writer who did temp work. Most of his friends lived in studio apartments, or shared with roommates. He realized he didn’t know anyone he could impose on who had a spare room for guests.

  He pulled the lemons from the refrigerator. In turn, he rolled each one on the counter, loosening up the juice. He busied himself with bottled water, lemons and sugar until Liam came back from the French doors and said, “I need to tell you about how I get work.”

  “OK.” Aidan handed him a glass of the lemonade, and then followed him back into the living room. He sat down on the couch, and Liam sat across from him.

  “I know a guy who used to be high up in the Tunisian police,” Liam began. “Now, he works on his own, handling problems on a freelance basis. Occasionally he uses outside contractors, like me. If a visiting diplomat needs a bodyguard, for example. Sometimes I retrieve stolen property. Last year I rescued a woman and her two children who were being held captive.”

  Aidan clasped the glass of cold lemonade in his hands, feeling the chill rise through them.

  “My guy knows a lot of people who know a lot of people,” Liam continued. “Someone put him in touch with Carlucci, who worked for a private foundation in the US. Carlucci was coming to Tunisia to deliver some money to a Tuareg tribe, and he wanted a bodyguard.”

  “But he wouldn’t let you come to his hotel,” Aidan said. “His fatal mistake.”

  “He didn’t think there was any threat until he got out into the desert.”

  “But if Carlucci was your guy’s client, and Carlucci’s dead, then there’s no client any more, is there?”

  “Carlucci worked for The Counter-Terrorist Foundation. It’s a think tank on terrorism, funded by a billionaire whose son died in the attacks of September 11. A bunch of scholars who write papers and research counter-terrorism activities.”

  “Why are they interested in funding this tribe?” Aidan asked.

  Liam shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve heard a little about them—their agents infiltrated a terrorist cell and destroyed it, and they pass information on the CIA and the FBI.” He sipped his lemonade. “They say they’re also trying to shut down terrorists by making life better for the people who might be recruited. My contact has been in touch with them, and they want to hire me to deliver the money. It’s to help this tribe transition from nomadic to settled. Build them houses, a school.”

  “What makes them think the tribe wants that?” Aidan asked.

  “The tribal leader went to school in Tunis and he recognizes that his people need to transition to a settled lifestyle. But I don’t have his name, or the name of the tribe, and I don’t know where to go to find him. It’s a big desert.”

  He sighed. “I have to convince the goldsmith, the one who went to El Jem, to give me the directions, and I need you for that, because you were able to get his wife to trust you.”

  Aidan pushed his chair back from the table and crossed his arms. “No, Liam. I went back to that souk this morning. The shopkeeper and his daughter-in-law are gone. They ran off last night.”

  “All the more reason you should come with me to El Jem. They may be in trouble. And you’re a teacher, right? Don’t you want to see the kids from this tribe get an education? They need schools and computers to survive in the modern world. Think of how this money can help them.”

  Aidan hated when people made emotional appeals like that. They always made him think of those sappy TV commercials that made him cry. But he was determined not to let his emotions control him. “The shopkeeper next door said something about the police.”

  “I admit, I still don’t understand how the police are involved,” Liam said. “There were officers stationed outside my house when I went there on Saturday. But the safest way to stay off their radar is to head out into the desert for a while, until the heat is off.”

  “You have an answer for everything, don’t you?” Aidan asked.

  Liam leaned forward, causing Aidan to back away further. “The police are in this somehow—maybe just investigating Carlucci’s death. But they wouldn’t have known anything about the goldsmith.” He shook his head. “There’s something more going on here. Those men who attacked us in the souk weren’t cops.”

  “I don’t want to know,” Aidan said. “I’m getting on a plane back to the US. I don’t have a job here—I can’t even afford to stay in this apartment after Wednesday. I don’t have time to waste going out into the desert with you.”

  “What are you going to do when you get back to the States?”

  “Look for a job.”

  “In August? There’s no school in session.”

  “That’s true. But it will start in September.”

  “You can be back by then. It’ll only take us a couple of days to get out into the desert, pass on that bank account and the password, and get back to Tunis.”

  Liam reached over and took Aidan’s hand. “Please, Aidan? I need your help. And it’s not just that you look like Carlucci. You know how to handle yourself in a crunch—I saw that back at the souk. And you’re a good sounding board for me.” He smiled, the corners of his mouth making tiny dimples. “I’ve been a lone wolf for so long I forgot how great it feels to have someone else on my team.”

  “I don’t have any money,” Aidan said. “Travel, hotels, food. I can’t afford to spend a penny. I need to save everything I have to get back home, and get my life going again.”

  “Not to worry. Carlucci’s foundat
ion advanced me some cash when I agreed to be his bodyguard, and they’ve agreed to cover all expenses for delivering the information to the Tuareg tribe, as well as give me a hefty bonus, which I’ll split with you, fifty-fifty.”

  Liam named a figure which made Aidan’s mouth drop open. Who knew there was so much money in the bodyguard business? His half would be enough to get him a flight back to the States, give him the first and last months’ rent on a new place, even leave him some cash left over to carry him through until he got his first paycheck. It didn’t seem like he had much choice.

  “How would we get to El Jem?” he asked.

  “The train.” Liam released Aidan’s hand and sat back. “There’s a Roman coliseum there, and lots of tourists go to visit. We’d have good cover.”

  “What can I do with my stuff?” Aidan asked, looking around the apartment. “We’ll need to travel light.”

  “I can make a call,” Liam said, smiling.

  13 – Spicy

  Something changed in the air between Liam and Aidan after Aidan agreed to go to El Jem. For the first time, Aidan felt like he was a part of whatever it was Liam was doing. It wasn’t just that he looked like Carlucci, and was a convenient tool for Liam to use. He had convinced the goldsmith’s wife to trust him, and he had impressed Liam with his quick thinking at the souk, and with his ability to work under pressure.

  As Liam stepped over to the open French doors to make his call, Aidan felt like he was getting back to the person he’d been before he met Blake and settled down. Once more, he could think on his own, adjust to uncertainty. Even the thugs that had chased him through the medina didn’t bother him that much. He’d been clever enough to get away from the guy who held him, and then by slipping in with that group of American tourists he’d eluded his pursuers. It felt good to be that guy again, the one who’d been willing to experience the world first-hand.

  Liam snapped his phone closed and came over to him. “I have a great restaurant I’d like to show you,” he said.