It was not until four o’clock that I finally met the star himself. The party had broken up by then, the politicians politely ushered out, their vows of undying loyalty met with discreet smiles. Boston was in a back bedroom with his wife and a pair of aides.
“Sayyid,” he said, and shook my hand. In person he seemed smaller, older, his hybrid face, with stage makeup, beginning to peel.
“Dr. Boston,” I said.
He laughed freely. “Sayyid, my friend. You’ll ruin my street fucking credibility.”
“I want to tell the story as I see it,” I said.
“Then you’ll have to tell me what you see,” he said, and turned briefly to an aide, who had a laptop computer. Boston dictated in a low, staccato voice, not losing his place in our conversation, simply loosing a burst of thought. “Let us be frank. Before I showed an interest you were willing to sell the ship for scrap iron. This is not an era for supertankers. Your property is dead tech, smokestack-era garbage. Reconsider my offer.” The secretary pounded keys. Boston looked at me again, returning the searchlight of his attention.
“You want to buy a supertanker?” I said.
“I wanted an aircraft carrier,” he said, smiling. “They’re all in mothballs, but the Feds frown on selling nuke powerplants to private citizens.”
“We will make the tanker into a floating stadium,” Plisetskaya put in. She sat slumped in a padded chair, wearing satin lounge pajamas. A half-filled ashtray on the chair’s arm reeked of strong tobacco.
“Ever been inside a tanker?” Boston said. “Huge. Great acoustics.” He sat suddenly on the sprawling bed and pulled off his snakeskin boots. “So, Sayyid. Tell me this story of yours.”
“You graduated magna cum laude from Rutgers with a doctorate in political science,” I said. “In five years.”
“That doesn’t count,” Boston said, yawning behind his hand. “That was before rock and roll beat my brains out.”
“You ran for state office in Massachusetts,” I said. “You lost a close race. Two years later you were touring with your first band—Swamp Fox. You were an immediate success. You became involved in political fund-raising, recruiting your friends in the music industry. You started your own recording label, your own studios. You helped organize rock concerts in Russia, where you met your wife-to-be. Your romance was front-page news on both continents. Record sales soared.”
“You left out the first time I got shot at,” Boston said. “That’s more interesting; Val and I are old hat by now.”
He paused, then burst out at the second secretary. “I urge you once again not to go public. You will find yourself vulnerable to a buyout. I’ve told you that Evans is an agent of Marubeni. If he brings your precious plant down around your ears, don’t come crying to me.”
“February 1998,” I said. “An anti-communist zealot fired on your bus.”
“You’re a big fan, Sayyid.”
“Why are you afraid of multinationals?” I said. “That was the American preference, wasn’t it? Global trade, global economics?”
“We screwed up,” Boston said. “Things got out of hand.”
“Out of American hands, you mean?”
“We used our companies as tools for development,” Boston said, with the patience of a man instructing a child. “But then our lovely friends in South America refused to pay their debts. And our staunch allies in Europe and Japan signed the Geneva Economic Agreement and decided to crash the dollar. And our friends in the Arab countries decided not to be countries anymore, but one almighty Caliphate, and, just for good measure, they pulled all their oil money out of our banks and put it into Islamic ones. How could we compete? Islamic banks are holy banks, and our banks pay interest, which is a sin, I understand.” He fluffed curls from his neck, his eyes glittering. “And all that time, we were already in hock to our fucking ears to pay for being the world’s policeman.”
“So the world betrayed your country,” I said. “Why?”
He shook his head. “Isn’t it obvious? Who needs St. George when the dragon is dead? Some Afghani fanatics scraped together enough plutonium for a Big One, and they blew the dragon’s fucking head off. And the rest of the body is still convulsing, ten years later. We bled ourselves white competing against Russia, which was stupid, but we’d won. With two giants, the world trembles. One giant, and the midgets can drag it down. They took us out, that’s all. They own us.”
“It sounds very simple,” I said.
He showed annoyance for the first time. “Valya says you’ve read our newspapers. I’m not telling you anything new. Should I lie about it? Look at the figures, for Christ’s sake. The EEC and the Japanese use their companies for money pumps, they’re sucking us dry, deliberately. You don’t look stupid, Sayyid. You know very well what’s happening to us, anyone in the Third World knows.”
“You mentioned Christ,” I said. “Do you believe in Him?”
Boston rocked back on his elbows and grinned. “Do you?”
“Of course. He is one of our Prophets. We call Him Isa.”
Boston looked cautious. “I never stand between a man and his God.” He paused. “We have a lot of respect for the Arabs, truly. What they’ve accomplished. Breaking free from the world economic system, returning to authentic local tradition … You see the parallels.”
“Yes,” I said. I smiled sleepily, and covered my mouth as I yawned. “Jet lag. Your pardon, please. These are only questions my editors would want me to ask. If I were not an admirer, a fan as you say, I would not have this assignment.”
He smiled and looked at his wife. Plisetskaya lit another cigarette and leaned back, looking skeptical. Boston grinned. “So the sparring’s over, Charlie?”
“I have every record you’ve made,” I said. “This is not a job for hatchets.” I paused, weighing my words. “I still believe that our Caliph is a great man. I support the Islamic Resurgence. I am Muslim. But I think, like many others, that we have gone a bit too far in closing every window to the West. Rock and roll is a Third World music at heart. Don’t you agree?”
“Sure,” said Boston, closing his eyes. “Do you know the first words spoken in independent Zimbabwe? Right after they ran up the flag.”
“No.”
He spoke out blindly, savoring the words. “Ladies and gentlemen. Bob Marley. And the Wailers.”
“You admire Bob Marley.”
“Comes with the territory,” Boston said, flipping a coil of hair.
“He had a black mother, a white father. And you?”
“Oh, both my parents were shameless mongrels like myself,” Boston said. “I’m a second-generation nothing-in-particular. An American.” He sat up, knotting his hands, looking tired. “You going to stay with the tour a while, Charlie?” He spoke to a secretary. “Get me a kleenex.” The woman rose.
“Till Philadelphia,” I said. “Like Marjory Cale.”
Plisetskaya blew smoke, frowning. “You spoke to that woman?”
“Of course. About the concert.”
“What did the bitch say?” Boston asked lazily. His aide handed him tissues and cold cream. Boston dabbed the kleenex and smeared makeup from his face.
“She asked me what I thought. I said it was too loud,” I said.
Plisetskaya laughed once, sharply. I smiled. “It was quite amusing. She said that you were in good form. She said that I should not be so tight-arsed.”
“ ‘Tight-arsed’?” Boston said, raising his brows. Fine wrinkles had appeared beneath the greasepaint. “She said that?”
“She said we Muslims were afraid of modern life. Of new experience. Of course I told her that this wasn’t true. Then she gave me this.” I reached into one of the pockets of my vest and pulled out a flat packet of aluminum foil.
“Marjory Cale gave you cocaine?” Boston asked.
“Wyoming Flake,” I said. “She said she has friends who grow it in the Rocky Mountains.” I opened the packet, exposing a little mound of white powder. “I saw her use some. I th
ink it will help my jet lag.” I pulled my chair closer to the bedside phone-table. I shook the packet out, with much care, on the shining mahogany surface. The tiny crystals glittered. It was finely chopped.
I opened my wallet and removed a crisp thousand-dollar bill. The actor-president smiled benignly. “Would this be appropriate?”
“Tom does not do drugs,” Plisetskaya said, too quickly.
“Ever do coke before?” Boston asked. He threw a wadded tissue to the floor.
“I hope I’m not offending you,” I said. “This is Miami, isn’t it? This is America.” I began rolling the bill, clumsily.
“We are not impressed,” Plisetskaya said sternly. She ground out her cigarette. “You are being a rube, Charlie. A hick from the NICs.”
“There is a lot of it,” I said, allowing doubt to creep into my voice. I reached into my pocket, then divided the pile in half with the sharp edge of a developed slide. I arranged the lines neatly. They were several centimeters long.
I sat back in the chair. “You think it’s a bad idea? I admit, this is new to me.” I paused. “I have drunk wine several times, although the Koran forbids it.”
One of the secretaries laughed. “Sorry,” she said. “He drinks wine. That’s cute.”
I sat and watched temptation dig into Boston. Plisetskaya shook her head.
“Cale’s cocaine,” Boston mused. “Man.”
We watched the lines together for several seconds, he and I. “I did not mean to be trouble,” I said. “I can throw it away.”
“Never mind Val,” Boston said. “Russians chainsmoke.” He slid across the bed.
I bent quickly and sniffed. I leaned back, touching my nose. The cocaine quickly numbed it. I handed the paper tube to Boston. It was done in a moment. We sat back, our eyes watering.
“Oh,” I said, drug seeping through tissue. “Oh, this is excellent.”
“It’s good toot,” Boston agreed. “Looks like you get an extended interview.”
We talked through the rest of the night, he and I.
My story is almost over. From where I sit to write this, I can hear the sound of Boston’s music, pouring from the crude speakers of a tape pirate in the bazaar. There is no doubt in my mind that Boston is a great man.
I accompanied the tour to Philadelphia. I spoke to Boston several times during the tour, though never again with the first fine rapport of the drug. We parted as friends, and I spoke well of him in my article for Al-Ahram. I did not hide what he was, I did not hide his threat. But I did not malign him. We see things differently. But he is a man, a child of God like all of us.
His music even saw brief popularity in Cairo, after the article. Children listen to it, and then turn to other things, as children will. They like the sound, they dance, but the words mean nothing to them. The thoughts, the feelings, are alien.
This is the dar-al-harb, the land of peace. We have peeled the hands of the West from our throat, we draw breath again, under God’s sky. Our Caliph is a good man, and I am proud to serve him. He reigns, he does not rule. Learned men debate in the Majlis, not squabbling like politicians, but seeking truth in dignity. We have the world’s respect.
We have earned it, for we paid the martyr’s price. We Muslims are one in five in all the world, and as long as ignorance of God persists, there will always be the struggle, the jihad. It is a proud thing to be one of the Caliph’s Mujihadeen. It is not that we value our lives lightly. But that we value God more.
Some call us backward, reactionary. I laughed at this when I carried the powder. It had the subtlest of poisons: a living virus. It is a tiny thing, bred in secret laboratories, and in itself it does no harm. But it spreads throughout the body, and it bleeds out a chemical, a faint but potent trace that carries the rot of cancer.
The West can do much with cancer these days, and a wealthy man like Boston can buy much treatment. They may cure the first attack, or the second. But within five years he will surely be dead.
People will mourn his loss. Perhaps they will put his image on a postage stamp, as they did for Bob Marley. Marley, who also died of systemic cancer; whether by the hand of God or man, only Allah knows.
I have taken the life of a great man; in trapping him I took my own life as well, but that means nothing. I am no one. I am not even Sayyid Qutb, the Martyr and theorist of Resurgence, though I took that great man’s name as cover. I meant only respect, and believe I have not shamed his memory.
I do not plan to wait for the disease. The struggle continues in the Muslim lands of what was once the Soviet Union. There the Believers ride in Holy Jihad, freeing their ancient lands from the talons of Marxist atheism. Secretly, we send them carbines, rockets, mortars, and nameless men. I shall be one of them; when I meet death, my grave will be nameless also. But nothing is nameless to God.
God is Great; men are mortal, and err. If I have done wrong, let the Judge of Men decide. Before His Will, as always, I submit.
HOLLYWOOD
KREMLIN
The ZIL-135 was vital to national security. Therefore, it was built only in Russia. It looked it, too.
The ZIL was a Red Army battlefield truck, with eight monster rubber-lugged wheels and a ten-ton canvas-topped flatbed. This particular ZIL, which had a busted suspension and four burned-out gears, sat in darkness beside a makeshift airstrip. The place stank of kerosene, diesel, tarmac, and the smoke of guttering runway flares. All of it wrapped in the cricket-shrieking night of rural Azerbaijan.
Azerbaijan was a southern Soviet province, with 8 million citizens and thirty-three thousand square miles. Azerbaijan bordered on all kinds of trouble: Iran, Turkey, the highly polluted Caspian Sea, and 3.5 million angry Soviet Armenians.
From within the ZIL’s cramped little khaki-colored cab came the crisp beeping of a digital watch.
The driver yanked back the shoddy sleeve of his secondhand Red Army jacket and pressed a watch stud. A dial light glowed, showing thirty seconds from midnight. The driver grinned and mashed more little buttons with his blunt, precise fingers. The watch emitted a twittering Japanese folk tune.
The driver, hanging on to the ZIL’s no-power, gut-busting steering wheel, leaned far out the open door and squinted at the horizon. A phantom silhouette slid across the southern stars—a plane without running lights, painted black for night flight.
The driver gulped from a Stolichnaya bottle and lit a Marlboro.
The flare of his Cricket lighter briefly threw his blurred yellow reflection against the ZIL’s windshield. He was unshaven, pumpkin-faced, bristle-headed. His eyes were slitted, yet somehow malignantly radiant with preternatural survival instincts. The driver’s name was Leggy Starlitz. The locals, who knew no better, called him “Lekhi Starlits.”
Starlitz kicked the cab’s rusty door open and climbed down the ZIL’s iron rungs.
The black plane hit tarmac, bounced drunkenly down the potholed strip, and taxied up. It was a twin-engine Soviet military turboprop, an Ilyushin-14.
Starlitz beckoned at the spyplane with a pair of orange semaphore paddles. He waved it along brusquely. He was not a big fan of the Ilyushin-14.
The IL-14 was already obsolete in the high-tech Soviet Air Force. So the aging planes had been consigned to the puppet Air Force of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan: the DRAAF. This plane had a big Afghan logo clumsily painted over its Soviet red star. The DRAAF logo was a smaller, fatter, maroon-colored star, ringed in an inviting target circle of red, green and black. It looked a lot like a Texaco sign.
Still, the IL-14 was the best spyplane that the DRAAF had to offer. It had fine range and speed; it could fly smuggling runs under the Iranian radar, all the way from Kabul to Soviet Azerbaijan.
Starlitz much preferred the DRAAF’s antique “Badger” medium bombers. Badgers had good range and superb cargo capacity. You could haul anything in a Badger. Trucks, refugees, chemical feedstocks … the works.
It was too bad that the Badger was such a hog to fly. The smugglers had given th
e Badger up. For months they’d been embezzling tons of aviation kerosene from the Afghan Air Force fuel dumps. The thievery was becoming too obvious, even for the utterly corrupt Afghan military.
Starlitz guided the creeping, storm-colored plane into the makeshift airstrip’s hangar. The hangar was a tin-roofed livestock barn, built to the colossal proportions of a Soviet collective farm. The morale of the collectivized peasants had been lousy, though, and all the cattle had starved to death during the Brezhnev era. Now the barn was free for new restructured uses: something with a lot more initiative, a lot more up-to-date.
The plane’s engines died, their eighteen cylinders coughing into echoing silence. Starlitz heaved concrete parking blocks under the nosewheels. He propped a paint-stained wooden ladder against the cockpit.
The aircraft’s bulletproof canopy creaked up and open. A pilot in an earflapped leather helmet leaned out on one elbow, an oxygen mask dangling from his neck.
“How’s it going, ace?” Starlitz said in his foully accented dog-Russian.
“Where are the disembarkation stairs?” demanded the pilot. He was Captain Pulat R. Khoklov, a Soviet “adviser” to the DRAAF.
“Huh?” Starlitz said.
Khoklov frowned. “You know very well, Comrade Starlits. The device that rolls here on wheels, with the proper sturdy metal steps, for my descending.”
“Oh. That,” Starlitz said. “I dunno, man. I guess somebody sold it.”
“Where is the rest of your ground crew?” said Captain Khoklov. The handsome young pilot’s eyelids were reddened and his tapered fingertips were corpse-pale from Dexedrine. It had been a long flight. The IL-14 was a two-man plane, but Khoklov flew it alone.
Khoklov and his pals didn’t trust the DRAAF’s native pilots. In 1985 the Afghans had mutinied and torched twenty of their best MiG fighters on the ground at Shindand Air Base. Since that incident, most DRAAF missions had been flown by Russian pilots, “unofficially.” Pakistani border violations, civilian bombings, a little gas work … the sort of mission where DRAAF cover came in handy.
Globalhead Page 24