by S. A. Beck
Certainly more peaceful than their dinner.
The Atlantis Guard were reluctant to join in the conversation, only answering questions in curt replies while ignoring any overtures of friendship from the Atlantis Allegiance. Mateo was openly rude.
They sat in a wide circle, the humans on one side, the Atlanteans on the other. All except for Jaxon, who sat between Otto and Vivian. In the dark it was difficult to read the Atlanteans’ expressions, but their attitude was clear enough.
Hostility and distrust. Even the most pleasant of the Atlanteans, Winston and Elaine, showed hostility and distrust.
Jaxon couldn’t help but feel a bit of the same. She kept looking at Grunt and Vivian, trying to see them as friends. Back at the Russian hideout, they had gunned down Brett. Of course he had been attacking her, trying to kill her. He had developed the strength and speed of an Atlantean and despite her own powers she had been losing that fight. Grunt and Vivian had saved her life.
And yet every time she looked at them all she could see was a pair of murderers.
Stop, she told herself. They did it to save you. They had no other choice.
What a dirty world those two live in. No matter how good your side is, no matter how honorable you try to be, innocent people always end up getting hurt. No wonder they quit the Special Forces.
Jaxon slumped her shoulders. Now she lived in that same world. Her boyfriend, Otto Heike, rubbed her shoulders, but he obviously felt some tension of his own. He and Yuhle kept giving each other uncomfortable glances. They’d been prisoners of the Russians together. What had happened between them?
After an hour of failed small talk, Jaxon decided it was time to get down to business.
“So first thing’s first. We need to avoid the cops tomorrow. Then we have to deal with Isadore. She was obviously sent by General Meade. Those twins who attacked Grunt with straight razors in Marrakech were probably from him as well. Now we just need to know why the Russians are mixed up in all this.”
Yuhle adjusted the wreckage of his eyeglasses. They were bound together with a mixture of duct tape and wire. One lens had a chip out of the side and a hairline crack down the middle.
“I think I can answer that,” Yuhle paused and glanced at the Atlanteans.
“We can trust them,” Jaxon said.
Grunt cocked his head. “I’m not sure we should—”
“We can trust them,” Jaxon snapped. Otto’s hand pulled away from her back. In a calmer voice she continued. “They saved my life, and saved Dr. Yamazaki’s life. They’re on our side and we need all the help we can get.”
Yuhle glanced at Yamazaki, who nodded. He took a deep breath and continued.
“When we were doing research in the manuscript museum, Dimitri and I discovered an old text talking about the healing water, recounting the same legend we heard before about it being the original water on Earth before the Flood. He’d seen one or two texts like this before, but this one was special. It gave the location.”
“I remember you telling me this,” Otto said. “It’s here in Mali, isn’t it?”
“Yes, by the ruins of an old caravanserai in the far north of the country. Part of the trading route through the desert to get to the wealthier nations like Morocco and Tunisia up north by the Mediterranean.”
“Do you remember the name?” Jaxon asked.
“Sebil Baraka.”
“That means ‘blessed fountain’ in Arabic,” Grunt said and nodded. “Sounds like the place.”
“So that’s what the Russians are looking for,” Jaxon said.
Yuhle adjusted his glasses. “Yes. Dimitri isn’t really a historian. Well he is, but not for purely academic reasons. It seems that while the United States government, or at least a rogue part of it, wants to control the Atlanteans, the Russians want to control this water.”
“Damn,” Grunt said. “It’s like the Cold War all over again.”
“Their genetic research is well behind ours,” Dr. Yamazaki said, “but they have some of the best chemists in the world. Assuming they know about Project Poseidon at all, they probably figure the best way get ahead of the United States is to locate some sources of that water in order to analyze and replicate it. We didn’t know a thing about that water in Project Poseidon, and I bet the Russians know we don’t know. So yes, this is a case of two superpowers fighting for supremacy, just like in the days of the Soviet Union.”
“With my people stuck in the middle,” Jaxon said and sighed.
“I’ve been doing some checking,” Vivian said. “There are a lot of Russian archaeological teams in Mali and Mauritania making surveys of the ancient sites. It’s a perfect cover for spying.”
“I guess those heavies we fought back in Timbuktu, the ones who came as reinforcements for Dimitri and Nadya, must have been some of those fake archaeologists,” Otto said. “I’m surprised these countries would let them in. Wouldn’t the government be suspicious of their motives?”
Vivian shrugged. “A bit of military aid and a few gold Rolexes for the generals go a long way here.”
“So what do we do?” Jaxon asked, looking to Grunt and Vivian. They were the soldiers of the group.
“We go after the Russians first,” Grunt said.
“But my people in Mauritania are stuck in a concentration camp in the desert!” Jaxon objected.
“What? What’s this?” Mateo demanded.
“You haven’t heard?” Jaxon said. “The Mauritanian government, probably prompted by the U.S., has rounded up all the Atlanteans.”
“We have to get them out,” Mateo said.
“I know, and we’ll get them out as soon as we can,” Grunt said. “But the Russians will be heading to that caravanserai immediately. It won’t take long for Dimitri to find out where it is. With all his background in Malian history he might know already. We can’t let them get the water. If they do, it’s all over.”
“It’s all over for my people if we don’t get them out of that camp,” Mateo said.
“They don’t want to kill them,” Dr. Yamazaki said. “They want to use them as test subjects.”
“Oh, that make it fine then,” Mateo sneered.
“No it doesn’t,” Yamazaki said. “But it does give us some time. We don’t have time when it comes to the Russians.”
Elaine put a hand on Mateo’s shoulder. “They’re right. Breaking them out of that camp will take some planning anyway. We have to go for this well first. The water will help us on our mission.”
“But we don’t know where this Sebil Baraka is!” Otto said.
“I know who might know,” Jaxon said. “Daouda Ndiaye, the griot back in Timbuktu. He’s like a walking encyclopedia.”
“Good plan,” Otto said. “We’ll sneak someone back there to ask him.”
“It has to be me,” Jaxon replied. “He won’t trust anyone but an Atlantean.”
But will they even trust me? She asked herself. They’re all blaming me for the police crackdown.
Otto shook his head. “Too dangerous.”
Jaxon frowned at him. “You’re not my keeper. Besides, I’ve been in danger ever since those government agents back in America took notice of me. Daouda doesn’t trust outsiders. Considering our history, who can blame him? It has to be me.”
Vivian put a hand on her shoulder. “I wish I didn’t agree with you, honey, but I don’t see any other way.”
“Let’s do it,” Jaxon said.
She sounded more confident than she felt. The last she had heard, Daouda had been hauled off to the police station for questioning. That had been a couple of days ago. Surely they had released him by now?
Then there was another problem. With the police on the lookout for her, how was she going to get into Timbuktu unseen?
The next morning, Vivian produced an answer to that.
She came up to Jaxon with a voluminous blue cloth over her arm.
“I brought this along in case we needed a disguise, honey.”
She held it up
. It looked like an upside-down cloth bag. At the closed end was a mesh screen.
“It’s a burka,” Jaxon said. She’d seen them on the news, but never in real life.
“It’s not used much around here. The conservative Muslim women wear niqabs. Those cover the face but leave a slit around the eyes open. Unfortunately, that means everyone will see your skin and eye color. So we have to go for the burka. Sadly, they’re not unknown in this part of the world. More and more men are embracing strict Islam and forcing their women to wear them.”
“I’m not anyone’s woman. No man owns me.”
“Lucky you.”
“I’m not wearing that. It’s like a flag for misogyny.”
Vivian made a face. “I agree, honey, but would you rather spend a night alone in the police station? You might learn a lot more about misogyny than you ever wanted to.”
Jaxon groaned. Vivian was right. When it came to tactical stuff she always was.
“Give me that damn thing.”
After five minutes wearing the burka, Jaxon wanted to faint. The Sahara was stifling enough in the middle of summer, but with a heavy cloth draped over you from the top of your head all the way down to your ankles, it felt like someone had turned up the temperature twenty more degrees. Sweat poured down her and she found herself breathing harder and faster just to suck enough air through that cloth mesh. That heated up the inside of the burka even more.
And she could barely see! The mesh made everything darker and indistinct, like wearing a pair of badly scratched sunglasses.
After she had walked around for a few minutes to try and accustom herself to it, she went back to the assembled group.
If Otto laughs, I’m going to slug him, she promised herself.
But Otto didn’t laugh. Instead he looked grim and a bit embarrassed.
“I hate this thing,” Jaxon declared.
“So do I,” Vivian said, “but it served me well in Pakistan.”
“Isn’t this just going to attract more attention to myself? I’ve never seen anyone wearing one of these around here.”
“They do in some of the more remote villages, thanks to foreign preachers coming in,” Grunt said. “The rich oil countries are spending a lot of money trying to convert the rest of the Muslim world into their strict brand of Islam.”
“Wonderful.”
Otto shook his head. “It’s … horrible. But it will get you through town and to the griot’s house without anyone recognizing you.”
“Great,” Jaxon said, letting out a great gust of air. “Now I just need to convince them to talk to me.”
With the help of Elaine’s drone, they avoided the police and approached Timbuktu along a little-used track through the desert.
Since they couldn’t risk driving into the city, they dropped Jaxon off at a village by the lone paved highway to wait for a bus. She sat under the ragged tarpaulin stretched between wooded stakes that served as the bus stop, trying not to faint from the heat. She kept looking around, worried that she stuck out.
She did. Men gave her sidelong glances and moved further away. The women either looked at her curiously or with expressions of open disdain. Thankfully none talked to her, otherwise she’d have had a tough time explaining why she was dressed like this and not able to speak Arabic.
In fact, no one spoke with her at all. It didn’t look like anyone wanted to.
She got on the bus, handing the driver exact change so she didn’t have to say anything, and sat near the back. The drive was a long one, with the bus stopping every kilometer or so to take on or let off an endless stream of passengers. The heat made her queasy and drowsy, and she felt like she would fall asleep if it weren’t for her nerves. She wasn’t sure she could pull this off.
At last the bus parked in Timbuktu central bus station, which was nothing more than an open square in front of the main mosque crowded with battered old buses. She stumbled off the bus, half unconscious. Now she knew why men made their female relations wear these things—it kept them inside the house. No one could go out and about and have a normal life wearing a burka. She couldn’t even see properly. The grand mosque with its towering sloped walls of brown adobe topped by tall minarets usually looked grand in the sun. Now it looked hazy and bland. The whole world looked hazy and bland through this thing.
Jaxon staggered more than walked to Daouda Ndiaye’s house. As far as she could see through the mesh cloth screen that covered her face, the police she passed barely looked at her. The burka had made her invisible.
But I don’t want to be invisible, Jaxon thought. At least not in normal life.
But when do I get a normal life again?
She tried to think back to when her life was normal and couldn’t. She’d always been an outcast, an unwanted ward of the state. At least she had a place now. She had fellow Atlanteans and her friends in the Atlantis Allegiance to rely on. But why did that have to come at the price of risking her life?
Quit whining and do the mission. Grunt had said that to Otto once. It sounded like good advice. She wished doing this mission didn’t have to be so hot, though.
And smelly. She was getting funky inside this thing.
At last she made it to the griot’s home, passing along a street that she knew was mostly made up of Atlantean homes. That street was deserted. Where usually children played and adults sold their wares from open market stalls, now she saw only closed doors and shuttered windows.
She pounded on Daouda’s door. After a long pause, with Jaxon roasting in the sun, there came a suspicious voice in Arabic. It sounded like Hawa, the griot’s daughter. She was a teacher and could speak English.
“Hawa, it’s me!”
There was another long pause. Jaxon thought she heard whispered conversation on the other side of the door.
Suddenly the door burst open. Hawa did a double take when she saw the burka, glanced both ways along the street, and yanked her inside. Being Atlantean, she did it with enough force to take Jaxon off her feet.
“Ow!”
The door slammed shut behind her.
“What are you doing here?” Hawa demanded.
Jaxon pulled the burka off her. It stuck to her sweaty body and she had to struggle for a moment.
“And why are you wearing that thing?” Hawa went on. “Now the police are going to think we are aligned with the Islamists.”
“No police saw me come here.”
“There are always eyes that see.”
Jaxon stood there panting. Her shirt was stuck to her body, soaked in sweat. Hawa’s frown softened.
“Come to the sitting room. I’ll get you some water.”
Jaxon slumped on the cushioned floor. After a minute, Hawa return with a glass and a large pitcher of water. She let Jaxon drain two full glasses before she asked,
“Why did you come here? You are endangering all of us.”
“I’m sorry. We didn’t want to mess things up for you. I just need to know one thing and I will go.”
“What?”
“Dimitri is a spy for the Russian government. He’s been looking for sources of the original water, and he’s found one at an old caravan rest stop called Sebil Baraka. He’s a historian and he’ll know where that is. I need to find out too so we can stop him. If he takes the water for the Russians, who knows what bad purposes they’ll use it for.”
“Power,” came Daouda Ndiaye’s deep voice. “That is what they all want.”
The old griot limped into the sitting room. The side of his face was swollen and he favored one leg. Hawa rushed to help him and eased him down onto the cushions. Jaxon stared, her stomach turning.
“The police beat you up!”
“Asking me questions I could not answer,” Daouda said as Hawa set more cushions around him. “And wouldn’t even if I could.”
“I can’t believe it. They’ll pay for this!”
Daouda raised a calming hand. “There is no point getting angry at the ignorant. There are too many and it will g
ive you heart trouble. Now what were you saying about Dimitri? I never did trust that man.”
Jaxon explained all that had transpired since she had last seen him, leaving nothing out. She sobbed as she told of Brett appearing, and how he had been used as a guinea pig by a rogue faction of the U.S. government.
Daouda and Hawa listened in grim silence. When Jaxon finished, they sat thinking for a minute. Jaxon took the opportunity to drink another glass of water. At last the griot spoke.
“I have never heard of Sebil Baraka, but I know where I can look it up. Hawa, get me box number 23 please.”
Jaxon smiled. The griot had a room full of boxes containing old manuscripts. While many families had given up their treasured heirlooms to the manuscript museum, some scholars such as Daouda had kept them. They had, however, accepted the museum’s gift of acid-free sealable boxes they could use to better preserve their treasures.
Hawa returned with a heavy box about twice the size of a shoe box. She set it beside her father, who opened it and rifled through its contents. At last he brought out a yellowed manuscript. The binding had long since disappeared and worms had eaten holes through a couple of pages. Before the museum had been set up, Jaxon had been told, the local people didn’t know anything about preserving manuscripts and often kept them in bad conditions, such as inside folders of modern bleached paper that leached acid onto the fragile pages.
Daouda slowly flipped through the pages, carefully setting each one aside as he finished with it. Every now and then he stopped his eyebrows going up with surprise, or he made a little satisfied hum to himself when he read something especially interesting.
Jaxon watched with increasing impatience. With the cops looking for her and her friends in danger outside of town, watching someone do research was just about the most agonizing thing imaginable. She could never be a scholar.
At last he finished.
“Ah yes, here it is. Sebil Baraka, the next caravanserai north of Teroudant.”