The Moonlit Earth

by Christopher Rice

  “He told you that?”

  “The night of the bombing.”

  “He was talking? I thought you said he was unconscious.”

  “Before. When we were riding the elevator up to his room.” The impulse for tears was alive within her, but she didn’t have the energy or the body fluids necessary to produce them. Her silence earned Majed’s full attention. He looked at her over one shoulder. When she still didn’t answer, he turned to face her, the lantern’s glow illuminating the whites of his eyes.

  “You did not answer my question,” he said gently.

  “I have a father,” she answered. “I just don’t like him.” His small grunt told her she had answered the wrong question. “Cameron likes to believe that we’re the product of events, of our past. And I’ve never really bought into that. Would I have liked a better father? Sure. Am I who I am today because he left? I don’t believe that. I can’t believe that.”

  “What do you believe?”

  “I believe we are who we are when we’re born. Life gives us opportunities to change, but most people don’t take them.”

  “Have you?”

  “Have I what, Majed?”

  “Taken any of life’s opportunities to change?”

  “I’m trying,” she said. “Right now. I’m trying. But I feel like I’ve been living on a moonlit earth. I’ve only been seeing shades and shadows and soft edges. Now I see cracks and angles … and blood.”

  It felt like he was studying her more intently than he had since they had first met. “And you see me as a murderer.”

  “No. I don’t.”

  “Fine. Then you see me as having no honor. You believe I threw those drugs down the laundry chute to protect my job.”

  “Yes. And that makes you human.”

  “Ah, yes. Human. So broad, so inclusive.”

  “For the right price, we look away from certain things. I know I have.”

  Majed was still staring into the lantern as if it were a camp-fire when Megan saw the three brief flashes of light on the misty horizon. “There’s someone …” Majed got to his feet with her. Two brief flashes, then three longer flashes followed. Rather than order her to run for cover, Majed raised the lantern and flashed it two quick times in response.

  An engine’s whine cut above the steady rush of ocean sounds. After a few minutes, she made out the outline of a boat, a bigger boat than the Zodiac, but not big enough to be their final destination; the black hull looked solid, but the deck was open.

  “Is that our ride?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “So we’re going to him?”

  Majed didn’t answer. The boat slowed as it approached the jagged shoreline. One dark figure was behind the wheel; another lifted one leg up onto the edge of the boat and was waiting until they were close enough to the rocks for him to jump. He made the leap, surveyed the Zodiac for a few seconds, then started for them.

  He was dressed like the man who had tried to kill her. She took a few steps back as he approached, and even caught herself reaching out for Majed’s hand. But he wasn’t hooded. It was just a stocking cap, and underneath it his full lips peeked out from the thick stubble that coated his rounded jaw.

  For a little while there was just the sound of the ocean waves, then Majed said a few words in Arabic. In response, the man turned, unholstered his gun and fired four shots into the Zodiac. Megan’s hands flew to her ears, but Majed was frozen in place, watching as the man pushed the Zodiac off its rocky perch and into the swells.

  Without looking back, the man gestured for them to follow him onto the larger boat. “Get the blankets,” Majed said quietly.

  Megan turned and started collecting them off the ground. When she gathered up the blanket Majed had spread across the ground, she uncovered the gun that had killed Lucas. Apparently that had been Majed’s plan, because he was already crouched down next to her, his back to the new arrivals, blocking their view of this exchange. As he got to his feet, he tucked the gun into the waistband of his jeans as if it were merely a cell phone.

  “Is that the man who was supposed to kill you?” Megan whispered.

  “Yes.”

  “He doesn’t look happy to see you.”

  “This is not a happy time for any of us, Megan Reynolds.”

  With that, he started for the boat, and she followed him, carrying the large pile of unfolded blankets in both arms, like a sunbather who had been surprised by rain.

  18

  After twenty minutes on the water, Megan saw their destination. It had to be at least 150 feet long. Dark blue steel wrapped the entire lower deck and the front half of the main deck, giving the yacht a substantial, armored appearance even as it rose and fell on ocean swells large enough to be the backflow from some giant sea beast. The ovular windows in the pelican-beak-shaped nose were black; either the lights were off inside, or heavy shades had been drawn. The upper two decks had the outdoor banquette sofas of a vessel intended for the tropics. But no one had come out to enjoy the frigid, fog-thick wind. The vessel was a glamorous ghost ship, abandoned by the pleasures of the sea.

  The glowering, silent captain, who wore the same stocking cap and black rain slicker as the man who had refused to kill Majed, reduced power, and suddenly they were drifting toward the yacht’s stern, where two matching staircases came right down to the water on either side of giant gold letters that spelled out the boat’s name in Arabic and English: Moon of Riyadh.

  When Majed stepped forward to lead the way, his would-be assassin grabbed him by one shoulder and held him back. For a while, they all stared at one another. In another context, it would have been comic. But their combined silence was the result of fear. And only after several minutes of standing mute in the cold wind, the small boat beneath them rising and falling sharply in the swells, did Megan realize they were waiting for her to go first. Were they just being polite? She doubted it.

  “Is he here?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” Majed answered.

  “Ask your friend.”

  Majed’s supervisor said, “Not here. No.” His accent was thick, but he seemed offended by her assumption that he didn’t speak English.

  “Where is he?” Megan asked.

  “Safe.”

  “Safe isn’t a place. I asked where he—”

  “To talk to Aabid you come here, yes?” Megan just stared at him. Aabid. So that was his name. The man was still holding Majed back by one shoulder, as if he thought Majed might spring forward to block a spray of bullets intended for Megan. “Then you go. You talk to Aabid.”

  Was there shame in Majed’s fixed expression? Perhaps not. After all, he hadn’t been specific with his promise. A meeting with the so-called Prince—that’s what he had offered her. And then, she would get to see her brother. No mention of a yacht, no mention of how long such a meeting would take.

  The metal rail was ice cold but she gripped it with each step. At the top was an open deck with a large square of sofas and chairs, the waterproof cushions glistening with sea spray. The decks continued down both sides of the main deck, but straight ahead, a sliding glass door was open onto an amber-lit cabin, the first of several that seemed to run the entire length of the deck.

  From behind her came the whine of machinery she couldn’t see; they were stowing the boat that had brought them here. Is that why they had urged her forward? They didn’t want her to witness this process. Why? So you won’t know how to get away.

  Thank God she had established that Cameron was not on board. Otherwise she might have rushed into the cabin with her arms open, only to be brought to her knees by whatever unwelcoming reality was waiting for her.

  Inside, heavy gold velvet draperies framed every window without blocking the views, but her first impression had been correct; blackout shades were drawn over each window. In the first cabin a glass étagère held a bottle of almost every brand of expensive liquor she had ever heard of and a carved wooden elephant, about the size of a house ca
t, sat on top of the mirrored counter, trunk raised at her in welcome.

  The next room was a massive sitting area, beyond that a dining room with a black lacquer table that could seat ten people in high-backed chairs upholstered in gold fabric. She was surrounded by various objets d’art, some of them hung on the walls, others affixed to glass shelves and spotlit pedestals: ornate gold headdresses iced with mirrored jewels, colorful masks of feline monsters with white fangs bared amid profusions of burgundy and gold, and several different carvings of a familiar bird-faced deity. What was the name? Garuda. Cameron had brought her a tiny statue of one after he had first started working the Bangkok flight.

  The place was a treasure chest of Southeast Asian artifacts, and while she was no expert on the region, most of the objects around her appeared to be from Thailand. She had been expecting a certain level of opulence, but not this explicit adoration of a non-Islamic culture. If there was any trace onboard of the Kingdom Aabid Al-Farhan had sailed from, she couldn’t find it during a visual sweep of her surroundings. For a few minutes, she couldn’t find him either, then she heard paper tearing.

  He was sitting on one of the sofas in the next room, beneath a flat-screen television broadcasting muted helicopter footage of the cable-car station where her life had been saved. Before him on the marble coffee table was a mess of thick glossy fashion magazines, most of them in various states of disarray. An untouched pile was stacked neatly on the sofa cushion next to him. She watched, silently, as he flipped through a copy of British Vogue, found what he was looking for, and tore a page clean from the spine with one, delicate hand. He brought it to his nose and took a deep whiff; the smell didn’t seem to please or repel him. No surprise. If he had inhaled each one of the perfume samples he had stacked on the table, his nose would have gone numb by now.

  For a while, he was as oblivious to her presence as he was to the news footage of her cousin’s body-bagged corpse being rushed into the back of an ambulance. The smell of liquor was intense, so intense she at first wondered if it was his cologne, or her own body’s reaction to prolonged exposure to the ocean air. But there was a rocks glass full of dark fluid on the coffee table in front of him, and an empty bottle of bourbon stood in the nearby window frame; had he meant to hide it and just forgotten about it? His overall appearance didn’t suggest that he was as drunk as he smelled. His shoulder-length raven hair glistened with some kind of essential oil. His skin was baby-smooth, unblemished, only a slight blush visible on his cheeks.

  When she cleared her throat, his head snapped on his neck as if a gun had gone off. The magazine he had been poised to operate on slid off his lap and slapped to the carpet. When he leaped to his feet, she took a step back. His robe was a lustrous shade of gold, but it puddled around his feet so badly she thought he might trip. He continued toward her with a look of genuine wonderment on his delicate features. He was a mere slip of a boy, and he was most certainly a boy, eighteen, maybe nineteen at the most.

  Oh, Christ, Cameron, she thought. Please let this one be platonic. You couldn’t have. Not with this child.

  With barely a foot of space between them, he stopped suddenly, clasped his hands together as if he were about to pray, and brought them to his full, pink lips. Was he restraining himself from touching her? Stunned, she watched tears form in his huge brown eyes. It was as if he were emulating a woman twice his age and acting out a scene from a movie—she was the prodigal daughter; he, the long-suffering mother who had been waiting on pins and needles for her return.

  He suppressed a laugh that shook his tiny frame, then he said, “You have his mouth and his jaw.” He emphasized each body part by pointing to it with a long index finger. “But not his eyes. You two have different eyes, I see. His are like a cat’s. And yours are round. Like mine.”

  His clownish grin left her speechless. The words she had prepared were intended for a man her own age at least. Now she felt utterly adrift. Her brother was being held captive by a fragile, effeminate child and she didn’t have the slightest idea how this might affect her chances of negotiating his release.

  “You like perfume?” she asked.

  He smiled too broadly and stared down at the floor between them. The tears she had glimpsed a moment earlier were gone. “I have no idea how long we will be at sea. And I am very sensitive to smell, you see?” His English was as good as Majed’s, the same prim, British inflection coupled with an aversion to contractions. She reminded herself that Americans were not the only people on the planet capable of teaching English to foreigners.

  He was studying her closely now. Was the sudden tense set to his mouth a more authentic expression of his emotional state than his broad smiles and exaggerated hand gestures?

  “My name is Aabid,” he said. But there was wariness in his tone. Something in her expression frightened him. That made sense. How had Majed described the boy’s emotional state? Afraid of shadows and thoughts.

  “Yes,” she said. “Aabid Al-Farhan.”

  This slight display of knowledge on her part made him recoil a step. She wouldn’t have been surprised to see him tilt his head back and draw one open hand to his mouth like a silent movie star preparing for a silent scream. But footsteps on the deck outside startled them both. Majed took one step inside the sliding glass door, then went sentry still when he found himself in the glare of his diminutive employer.

  Aabid started to speak in Arabic, his words quick and angry-sounding. When Majed bowed his head, Megan took a step toward the little prince and raised one hand. “English, please.”

  “I was only thanking him,” Aabid answered. “For his sacrifice.”

  There hadn’t been a trace of gratitude in his voice, and when she looked to Majed for confirmation, he stared down at the floor with a hangdog expression.

  “For leaving, you mean? So you wouldn’t be connected to—” She gestured to the silent television, which was a mistake. Her own picture filled it, a professional headshot she had taken for the Siegel Foundation’s website. She could remember the cramped studio in the South of Market where it had been shot, the patchouli smell of the grizzled photographer—he had been offended when she told him she’d never been much of a Phish fan—and the ventilation-shaft view through the frosted window. Miles away, worlds away, maybe even a lifetime away at the rate she was going.

  But Aabid didn’t notice that Megan was now as much a person-of-interest as her brother. “Yes, exactly,” he said, with forced bravado. “My family owes him a great deal. This is what I was saying. But if it sounded like there was anger in my voice, it is only because now … In this moment, I am unclear on how to pay him back. But hopefully soon, yes? Soon we will come to a resolution of all of this?”

  “That’s why I’m here,” she said.

  It was Majed who broke the tense silence. “She would like to see her brother.”

  “Yes, yes. I know this.” He sounded distracted yet polite. But his eyes were cutting from Majed to her and back again with increasing urgency, as if he thought they were about to pounce on him at the same time from different angles. “He is safe … your brother. Quite safe.” A minute ago he was waxing poetic about Cameron’s facial features, but now he couldn’t bring himself to say his name.

  “That’s what I’ve been told,” Megan said, trying to control her voice. “But I would like to know where.”

  Aabid rolled his eyes and threw up his hands, as if she were being both dramatic and a nuisance, as if she asked him to pay off all of her debt over the next two weeks. Maybe Majed sensed the rage that was rising within her, because he straightened, and this change in his demeanor distracted her from her own anger, just for a second. But a second was all it took for her to get her composure back.

  “A drink?” Aabid asked.

  “No, thank you.”

  He crossed his arms over his chest and shook his head at her. “Silly, silly. You never turn down a gift. Who is it that has said this to you? To all of us.” When she didn’t answer, Aabid threw up his
hands again. “Your brother. And he tells us you are the one who taught it to him.” His focus was on Majed now. “You never refuse a gift. It is impolite, is it not? Has he not said this to you as well?”

  “He said it to me the night of the bombing,” Majed answered.

  Aabid’s brow furrowed at this reference to the event, but he maintained his composure, nodded some more, and gestured at Megan with an open palm. What did she have to say for herself?

  “Perhaps I should clarify,” Megan said. “You never reject a gift from someone who seems to have your best interests at heart.”

  “I welcome you aboard and you accuse me of bad things?” he asked. He looked to Majed for confirmation of this perceived slight. On another night, everyone in the room would have grunted their disapproval along with him, but tonight, Majed was silent. Wounded, Aabid turned his back to them and stumbled toward the sofa.

  “Enough,” Megan said before she could stop herself. “I have information on who’s behind all of this. And I’ll give it to you if you tell me where my brother is.”

  “No, no, no!” he cried, turning on her, one arm raised, his eyes ablaze. “That is not what I said! I said I would bring you to him once you told me what it is you thought I should know, and only if it was of use to me. That is what I agreed to and only that.”

  “Why should I trust you?”

  “This you cannot ask me! No! After the risk I take in bringing you here—”

  “Majed brought me here.” You were reading magazines, you little brat.

  “And your brother? I saved him in Hong Kong!”

  “You did nothing of the kind. You took him captive when he should have been in a hospital. And every day you have kept him with your men and their guns he looks more and more like a terrorist in the eyes of the world!”

  “How dare you speak to me like this! You cannot be expected to understand the pressure that this brings upon me and my family. Because of me, my family is now involved in this terrible business of your brother’s. I could have left him in Hong Kong, him and Majed. I could have told my captain to take me far out to sea. But I did not. If we are connected now in any way, it could destroy my family, and yet … and yet, I refused to abandon them, even though this has nothing to do with me.”