by David Archer
Meshac chuckled. “Forgive me, Mr. McConnell. So many Americans come here expecting us to be like something out of The Arabian Nights. I’ve learned to play the part, especially if I’m going to be begging.”
“You don’t need to be begging with me,” Noah said. “All I get to do is report back to the State Department. They’ll make any decisions on whether to increase the aid funding Ms. Mays receives.”
“Okay, is the pissing contest over yet?” Prudence asked. “You both established that you’re smart and tough, so now let’s get down to the real thing. Meshac, I need to take Mr. McConnell and his party and show them around. They need to get a really good look at the conditions here, because I’m trying to get some better construction materials sent in. Some of the buildings around here are starting to fall apart, and I want to show them just how bad it’s getting. I want McConnell to go back and tell State that they need to send concrete this way.”
Meshac grinned. “As always, my dear Prudence, you are welcome anywhere in the camp. If anyone troubles you or tries to interfere, simply send them to me.”
She smiled. “Meshac, you old desert dog. If you keep being so nice to me, I’m going to start thinking you like me.”
“Well,” the old Berber said, “I always have room for another wife.”
CHAPTER FOUR
They left the administration building a few minutes later and got back into the cars. Prudence drove slowly, often having to wait for people, sheep, or chickens to get out of the way, but a few minutes later, they emerged onto a wide roadway. There were a few cars driving on it, but it was mostly foot traffic.
“You wanted to see the main road,” she said, “this is it. Just about everyone in the camp passes down this section of track at least once a day. See the buildings on either side? That’s where we distribute commodities, and the smaller building on the left is my outfit’s wellness clinic. Pretty much everybody needs something from one of these buildings at any given moment, so this area is always pretty crowded.”
Noah looked around at the concrete and sand brick structures that lined the roadway for three hundred yards in each direction. “I need a high spot that can look down over this area.”
She pointed. “See that?” ‘That’ turned out to be a water tower, basically a large wooden tub at the top of a steel scaffold. “Tanker trucks bring fifty thousand gallons of water down here a few times a month, and pump it into that tower. It’s barely fit for human consumption, although you have a hard time telling that to the children. It’s mostly used for cleaning, sanitation, that sort of thing. Some of it gets smuggled out for watering small gardens, even though it’s not supposed to be used for that purpose. Nobody ever climbs up there, so if you can put your toys up there somewhere, they probably won’t be noticed.”
“Yeah?” Marco said. “What about when one of them takes off somebody’s head?”
“You want to know the sad truth? Most of the people would just walk around the poor guy, until one of his friends finds him. There’s a lot of rivalry inside these camps, and it’s not uncommon for someone to get shot. It’s usually a simple matter of one-shot taking out somebody’s personal enemy, and then it’s over. Most of the refugees simply give thanks that they weren’t the target and go on about their business.”
“Well, that’s pretty sad,” Sarah said. “But how would we get it up there? That tower is up about what, a hundred feet? Anybody climbing up it would be noticed from just about anywhere in the settlement.”
“It would have to be at night,” Prudence said. “I can drive you back out here after dark, after your dinner.”
“That sounds like the best plan,” Noah said. “Let’s do it.”
“Okay,” Prudence said. “If we’re done here, we actually have time to visit Smara camp. It’s only about a half hour south of here, and we can make it back to Tindouf in time from there.”
“All right, let’s go.” Noah climbed out of the car and walked back to let Neil, Sarah, and the soldier know what was going on, then came back and buckled in again.
Prudence took her foot off the brake and drove slowly through the throng of foot traffic for a moment, then found a clear path out of the camp. As they left, she followed another faint track across the desert.
“What might surprise you,” Prudence said after a minute, “is that we are actually less than twenty miles from Tindouf. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but this sand is so soft and fine that it’s often like driving on snow. That’s what slows us down out here, not the distance.”
“Yes, I noticed,” Noah said. “Do these vehicles get stuck out here very often?”
“Nah,” she said. “One of the benefits of the fine sand is that, as long as you don’t stop, one of your wheels is going to grab something at some point. That’s the trick, just like when you’re driving in slushy snow, you just don’t stop.”
They reached the camp known as Al Smara and Noah was surprised to see that it was even less modernized than Boujdour. The previous camp had a few amenities, and he had even seen the occasional solar panel on top of one of the roofs.
Here, on the other hand, there was no water tower and he saw no solar panels. The roads, if the pathways between structures could be called such a thing, meandered like wild rivulets. There was no order to the layout of the community, and he couldn’t spot any kind of central business district.
“No electricity here?” he asked.
“Car batteries,” Prudence replied. “These people get pretty inventive. You’ll see an old car sitting on blocks, but the engine is purring like a new one. If you look closely, you’ll see that cables are hooked up to dozens of batteries at once. A bunch of people pool their money to buy a few gallons of gasoline, then pour it into that old car so they can charge up the batteries. If you went inside any of the homes, you’d see old taillights used as lamps, and old heater fans hooked up to draw a little cool air into the house. Not that there’s much cool air around to draw, but they try. Oh, they try. Oh, and then, of course, you’ll hear the radios. It’s cheaper to have an old car radio that runs off a half-dead car battery than it is to buy new double-As every few days.”
“And these people have lived like this for decades?” Sarah asked.
“Yep. More than two thirds of them have never known anything else, but if you asked them how they felt about it, they’d tell you it’s just temporary. As soon as the UN or somebody else can work out the details of a peace treaty with Morocco, they all plan to go home. Home, of course, being the Western Sahara.”
“I feel sorry for them,” Sarah replied. “To live your whole life in exile, that’s horrible.”
“Don’t tell them that,” Prudence warned. “These people are the most stubborn you’ll ever meet, because they simply don’t know how to give up. It’s not in their DNA, I guess. If you or I had to live under these conditions, it would probably drive us to depression. These folks, they still laugh and joke and expect it all to come to an end some day. And when that end comes, they say that’s when they’ll go home.”
“That’s amazing,” Sarah said. “Hey, listen, I don’t suppose there’s a restroom around here somewhere? I kinda need to go.”
Prudence burst out laughing. “Honey, the closest thing they have to a restroom here is a little square mud hut with a hole in the floor that’s about the size of a small pizza. You squat, do your business, and then dip some water out of the bowl beside you to clean yourself up. I’ve learned to hold it, but if you really need to go…”
“Never mind,” Sarah said. “It’s not that urgent.”
“Smara is, in some ways,” Prudence said, “kind of a seat of government for the Sahrawis. All of these camps are actually made up of small villages, and this one,” she pointed at a group of buildings and tents that seemed set off by itself a bit, “is 27th February village. February twenty-seventh is the day the Sahrawi Democratic Republic was founded. The SDR is a nation without its own land, which is probably why, even though these people ar
e Islamic, they get a surprising amount of support out of Israel. And just to put your mind at ease, these aren’t the jihadist types. In fact, you’ll hear the muezzin call at various times during the day, but most of these folks are too busy to stop for prayers. I’m not saying they aren’t faithful to their religion in their own ways, but sometimes survival takes precedence over tradition and custom.”
“I’ll ask you the same question I asked in the other camp,” Noah said. “Who would you expect to find here that might be involved in the assassination plot?”
“Tariq Doumaz,” Prudence said. “He is part of the Formation Council, and one of the most devious men I have ever known. If there is any kind of plot going on to turn Abimbola into a martyr, he will be in the thick of it.”
“Doumaz,” Noah said speculatively. “That’s not a name on my list. Think we can find the guy?”
“It’s possible. His wife pretty much runs this camp, along with a few other women.”
“Women run it?” Sarah asked. “I thought women didn’t hold positions of power in this part of the world.”
“That’s true in a lot of Islamic countries,” Prudence said, “but not in the camps. If you want my personal opinion, it’s because the men figured out that letting the women run things means they have more time to sit around and relax. Okay, I guess that’s an oversimplification. Let’s just say that the women run things, but they also answer to their husbands. If Tariq doesn’t like something his wife does, there’s a good chance she’ll reverse herself on it. That make any sense?”
Sarah rolled her eyes. “Makes perfect sense,” she said. “Sounds like the Baptist Church my family went to when I was little. Seemed like the women ran everything in the church, as long as the men were okay with whatever they decided to do.”
Prudence chuckled and nodded. “That’s a very good analogy,” she said. “And I know just the kind of church you’re talking about.”
“How about Farouk Harachi?” Noah asked. “He’s on my list, and is supposed to live in this camp. Do you know him?”
Prudence looked at him, her eyes wide. “Harachi?” she asked. “I know him, but I can’t believe he would be part of the assassination plot. He’s a loyalist, a lot of the Sahrawis are. By that, I mean that they have pledged loyalty to Tindouf province, and it’s understood that loyalty is now to the current government in West Algeria. If the secession succeeds, these people would be a lot more likely to defend Abimbola than be any part of the plot to martyr him. Any idea where that intel came from?”
Noah met her eyes with his own. “I had actually assumed it came from you,” he said. “According to what we were told, this is all CIA intelligence.”
She nodded. “Okay, I’m catching on. I’m the station chief for Tindouf town, but there is another small CIA station in Dakhla camp. The station chief there is a Sahrawi, himself, Rashid Aruj. He was recruited not long after the refugees started coming into Algeria, back in the nineteen seventies. Of course, he was a young man, back then.”
“Any reason to believe his intelligence might be tainted?” Noah asked. “Would he have a grudge against Harachi that might make him single the guy out?”
Prudence sucked on her cheek for a moment. “I wouldn’t think so,” she said at last. “Rashid’s intelligence has always been damn reliable, so I’d have to say it would be better to take his opinion than mine, at least on this. Harachi could be involved, if they managed to convince him that is the best thing for the secession movement. I’m just surprised, that’s all.”
“Okay. Where would we look for Doumaz?”
Prudence pulled the car up in front of a mudbrick building. “This is where we’ll find Dalia, his wife. She’d be surprised and suspicious if American diplomats asked for him, so let me do the talking.”
They all got out of both cars and followed her inside the building. The structure had only one room, and the entire back wall was missing. They walked through it and into a tent that was attached and extended another fifty feet.
Several women were sitting together near the center of the tent, and the rest of the space was taken up with what appeared to be bags of grain and boxes of canned goods. One of the women looked up and smiled when she saw Prudence.
“Welcome,” she said. She glanced at Noah and the others, then turned her attention back to Prudence.
“Thank you, Dalia,” Prudence replied. “This is Mr. McConnell, who was sent to open diplomatic negotiations with the new government. He wanted to learn more about the humanitarian aid we provide the camps, so I’m taking him on a tour. He’s hoping to get some increases to our funding when he goes home.”
Dalia smiled at Noah. “May you be successful,” she said. “We are all grateful for the assistance that your country and others provide. This is inhospitable country, and it is difficult for us to survive on our own.”
Noah inclined his head in a respectful bow. “I hope that we can do more to help in the future,” he said. “Seeing the conditions your people live under has given me a great appreciation for your strength and stamina.”
Dalia burst out laughing. “You mean our stubbornness? We are a very hardheaded people, but it serves us well under the circumstances. Forgive my humor, sometimes it strikes me at precisely the wrong moment.”
Noah gave her a smile. “There’s nothing to forgive,” he said. “I’m not sure I would be able to maintain a sense of humor under these conditions, but I’m certainly glad that you can.”
“Dahlia,” Prudence said, “would you know where I might find your husband? Why we’re here, I wanted to talk to him about an idea that I had.”
Dalia rolled her eyes. “Of course,” she said. “He and Shakir are in his market stall. He got another load of camel skins yesterday, and they are selling well. The Norwegians are buying all the camel skin bags and clothing we can make, and it is helping some of our people, letting them learn to be more self-sufficient.”
“Oh, that’s wonderful,” Prudence said. “Is he still in the same place?”
“Yes, right where he’s been for the last fifteen years. If you go to see him, please tell him to remember to bring meat home with him.”
Prudence smiled. “No problem, I’ll be glad to.” She collected Noah and his team by eye, and they filed out of the building and into the cars.
The market was not far away, and it took only a couple of minutes to get there. Most of the delay was caused by foot traffic, but that seemed to be a common factor in the refugee camps. When they arrived, Prudence climbed out once again, followed by everyone from both cars.
The market was similar to an old world bazaar, with stalls set up in a haphazard grid work. It took her only a moment to find the one she was looking for, where two men were surrounded by a dozen women speaking rapidly in French.
“Looks like we’ll have to wait a minute,” she said softly to Noah. “Sales are definitely brisk, aren’t they?”
“Very much so,” Noah said. “Incidentally, I noticed that most of the people we’ve spoken to in the camps seem to speak English quite well. Why is that?”
“Schools,” Prudence said. “Most of the schools in the camps teach both Spanish and English. French and Arabic are so common that everyone learns them, but with Spain so close, it seemed logical for the people here to learn Spanish. As for English, a lot of their teachers have actually been to school in the U.K. As far as they’re concerned, English is pretty much the universal language outside of Africa. As you can see, they had quite an effect on the refugees.”
Slowly, the haggling women walked away, some of them burdened with several obviously heavy camel hides. One of the men turned and noticed Prudence standing there, and gave her a smile. As soon as he finished with the customer he was talking to, he immediately turned and beckoned her closer.
“Hello, Prudence,” he said. “Are you looking for a camel hide?”
Prudence laughed. “No, not today,” she said. “I wanted to ask you about the tractors. Are they holding up for you?�
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The man smiled. “As long as we have fuel,” he said. “I plan to buy more tomorrow.”
“Good. Tariq Doumaz, I’d like you to meet James McConnell. Jim is here to talk with the president about diplomatic relations, and he wanted to see the camps. What would you think about using the tractors for moving water containers? I think I can get a few old trailers and hook them together, so that we can put water tanks on them. If the tractors could pull several of them at a time, it would make it a lot easier to distribute water around the camp.”
Doumaz seemed to think about her question for a moment. “It would depend on how large the tanks are,” he said, “but I’m sure each of them could pull three or four. If we could bring them to the tankers when they come, then set them back out in the villages—that would certainly be better than having to walk so far with jugs of water.”
“I thought so, too. Okay, let me see what I can do. Oh, I saw Dalia a few minutes ago, and she wanted me to remind you to bring home meat. Are you having a special dinner tonight?”
“Hah! Every dinner with my beautiful wife is special. But thank you for reminding me, I probably would have forgotten.” He shook his head. “And then I would never hear the end of it.”
“You’re welcome, and I’ll see you again soon,” Prudence said. Noah bowed briefly to the man, and then they all went back to the cars.
“It’s almost 4,” she said. “By the time we get across the desert again, it’ll be getting close to six. We probably should start back towards Tindouf.”
“I agree,” Noah said. “The only problem I see, here, is that there’s no place to put a smart gun. If Doumaz is a legitimate target, I may have to come back and hunt him down.”
“Too bad,” Prudence said. “He’s actually a likable old cuss. That doesn’t mean he wouldn’t cut your throat for a dollar, if he got the chance, though. I can show you where he sleeps, if necessary. A gunshot would probably bring his neighbors running, I’m afraid. Things are different here than in Boujdour; there aren’t as many shootings, here.”