The Crisis

by David Poyer

  “You see clearly. But let me ask this. What is the reason the foreigners give the world, for being in your country?”

  Ghedi frowns. “To prevent starvation. It’s a lie, but—”

  “Of course it’s a lie. They are like the Jews, they do nothing for pity. But let me ask this. How can they stay if they can no longer distribute that food?”

  Ghedi halts. “I don’t understand.”

  “Those who give the aid—who distribute it. What happens if you attack them?”

  He catches his breath. “Then what will our people eat? Will you feed them?”

  “You don’t have to depend on the charity of infidels. Ponder this: To a land truly devoted to God, rain must come.”

  A boy pelts up. He gasps, “Respected General, the honored Hasheer Ali Wasami is here.”

  “Let’s go back to the tent,” Ghedi says, and they turn back along the footpath, along the rusty wire lined for a hundred yards with its silent, watching audience. And although he doesn’t say it aloud, he wonders:

  When did his lieutenant become “the honored”?

  . . .

  HASHEER looks fresh. He comes forward with arms spread and Ghedi embraces him tightly even though the pressure reignites the flames of Jahannam in his neck. This young fighter has finally admitted he owed loyalty elsewhere before he came to swear fealty to Ghedi. Perhaps this conversion is even how he feels, but can he ever be trusted again? They hug each other and then Ghedi seats him at his left hand, the Arab at his right, and Juulheed, who’s come in too, across from them so all may feel honored but the guest most of all. “You have not met our new friend, one who comes to advise us from a country of high mountains.”

  The courtesies accomplished, Hasheer puts his palms on the worn carpet. Ghedi says, “You met with this former major of police?”

  “General Abdullahi Assad compliments you on your victory at Uri’yah. He regrets having to fight you at the Tarkash oasis, but is displeased at your activities north of Malaishu. He says the Governing Council will resume power once the foreigners leave, whatever the result of the election.”

  “Who will then be president?”

  “I believe it is in his mind he will be.”

  “You explained the Waleeli do the will of God?”

  “He smiles at this. Assad calls himself Muslim, but he is not a man of God.”

  “No one but God is perfect,” Yousef offers. “Still, he’s not a creature of the Crusaders.”

  Hasheer nods. “He gets Western food to distribute to his clients. But he has hidden weapons from the old army, and is backed by the Indian merchants.”

  “He accepts gold from the idolators?” Yousef mutters.

  Ghedi claps, as if making a bargain in a souk. “What did he say when you put our proposal to him?”

  “First, there must be a line drawn. Your power to the south, his to the north. The clan lords who remain have lost all respect. It is now only the Waleeli, the Council, and the secularist traitors.”

  “Perhaps the traitors will be destroyed. Where to draw this line? The Durmani River?”

  “Not acceptable. Don’t forget, he says, much of the north is the Empty Quarter, which has no water.” Hasheer unfolds a map. They lean over it as he explains various proposals. “Each of the lines ends outside the city. There, no line is possible. You hold some neighborhoods and he others. Yet others are stubbornly obeying the Americans.”

  “Juulheed?” Ghedi asks his elder adviser. Then changes his mind and turns to the Arab. “But first, what is your advice, O my brother? As one who sees from afar.”

  Yousef frowns, knitting amber prayer beads into his fingers. “This poor servant has not yet heard that Assad Abdullahi will fight.”

  “This was not openly promised. But I believe, speaking with his second in command—”

  “Tell us of this second in command,” says Juulheed, and Ghedi nods. It’s wise to know who’s next in line.

  “His name is Olowe, a terrible man with the hideous pale face of a Euro pe an laid over that of an African. He was a sergeant in the army, much feared. He has killed many who were once set over him, but seems loyal to Assad.”

  “Is he a man of faith?” asks Yousef.

  “He did not join me in prayer.”

  Ghedi sits unmoving as flies crawl over his face, though they seem to annoy the Arab. Does it matter where a line runs on a map? So long as the Waleeli flag is not openly flown, a village can be God’s no matter where it lies. He murmurs, “I feel inclined to agree to the southernmost line.”

  “That’s very far south,” Juulheed says, blinking. “We lose fourteen villages.”

  “Ghost villages, abandoned. Who owns them isn’t important. I will agree to this division. But only if his men join in the jihad.” He watches Hasheer as he says this, but the boy betrays no flinch or blink he can detect. “Will they?”

  “I believe he’ll agree to this. Yes, my elder brother, I believe he will.”

  How long has Hasheer been working for the northern warlord? Reporting on the inner circles of the Waleeli? No doubt Hasheer, and through him Assad, believe they’re using the Pruner for their own ends.

  As he’s using them. Because what’s left unsaid, though he’s sure all four are pondering it, is what happens once the Americans leave. Ashaara may be divided, but it can’t stay that way. Either he, the secularists, or Assad must rule. Ghedi holds more villages, but this will not determine who finally wins this deadly game. The key will be the magaada—Ashaara City. Whoever holds it will control the import of aid; whoever occupies the capital will be believable as a government. Whoever can eject the Crusaders and intimidate the other factions will rule.

  Aloud he says, “Thank you, my brother. Take this agreement to the general, as my most trusted emissary.” Hasheer puts his hand in Ghedi’s, and they sit smiling at each other.

  When he’s gone Zeynaab comes in with fresh cups and a steaming pot. She leans, murmuring there’s no more coffee, only tea. She’s going into the city to buy more. Men arrive here day or night, from across the country and even from Eritrea and Sudan. There must be hospitality. He nods. Yousef glances at her, then drops his eyes. “Yes?” Ghedi says.

  “This unworthy one did not congratulate you on taking a wife.”

  “I have no wife. I have a sister.”

  “I see. Well, about this relationship we offer. It’s good sometimes to trust, and bargain. But it’s also necessary to be hard in the face of evil.”

  “You don’t believe I can be hard?”

  “What we hear is good. But that’s why I’m here. The Western media trick the faithful into seeing dusk as dawn. How can we know what we hear is true, unless we ask?”

  Ghedi ponders, then looks to Juulheed. “You said you had someone to bring to me.”

  “Those working in the city captured him. They would have dealt with him there, but realized who he was, and brought him to me.”

  Ghedi takes a sip of the hot tea but it goes down wrong, and his throat blazes like hot metal poured into his mouth. It’s all he can do not to groan aloud. He wipes sweat from his face. They’re watching him.

  “Bring him in,” he says.

  HIS sergeant of guards pushes a limping boy in. “Name,” Ghedi demands, although he knows it.

  Yes, it’s Nabil. He recognizes his younger brother, from the dark eyes to the dragging foot. But his brother doesn’t recognize him. Why should he? It’s been years. They’re neither what they were. The boy’s been eating well, that’s obvious. He’s dressed in bits and pieces of American uniform. He even wears tan American boots.

  “What is the charge against this Ashaaran?” he asks Juulheed.

  Who hesitates, unsure what he’s being called on to do. “The guard who captured him will report.”

  A bearded young man in a headwrap steps forward. “This one was taken aiding the infidels. Translating, and acting as guide.”

  “But this is only a lad,” Yousef puts in.

  The bo
y flinches and looks up, staring from one to the other.

  NABIL stares at the man who sits. His face is savage. Hairy, swollen an angry red-purple. But the voice hasn’t changed, and by his voice he knows. “Brother!”

  “You were once my brother, yes,” Ghedi says, and his tone stops the boy halfway across the tent. “But my brother would never help the infidel. Is this true? You guide those who invaded our country?”

  “The marines aren’t infidels.”

  The men chuckle. “Not infidels? How can you say this foolish thing?”

  “They’re warriors. They feed the people. That’s why I helped them.” He takes a breath and his face works, desperate to convince. “I saw the port, the rice. Floods of it! So much you can’t believe!”

  “Truly, this is only a child,” Yousef murmurs. “He can be set on the right path. Your brother? Truly?”

  Juulheed’s gaze swings from whoever speaks to whoever speaks next. “But also truly, he helped the invaders.”

  Nabil trembles. His gaze returns to his brother’s. “You won’t let them hurt me, Ghedi,” he mutters.

  Ghedi’s hand trembles too as he massages his neck. The heat streams into his head, clouding his thoughts like steam from a boiling kettle. The rule’s his own, ruthlessly applied in the villages he controls. All who help the enemy military must die. But this is Nabil. A face distorted with tears wavers through the boiling mirage of pain.

  “Is Zeynaab here? Have you seen Zeynaab?”

  Thank God she’s left; he can decide without a woman’s softness. Though she has less in her than any other he’s ever met. “This is your defense? That they bring in foreign grain, to buy the souls of the faithful?” he manages to get out. How could his own brother defy his word! Turn against him! He takes a deep breath. The words are irrevocable once pronounced. The agony’s a sheet of lightning in his head.

  When he opens his eyes they’re all staring. Has he pronounced them? Apparently he has.

  “In what manner?” Juulheed finally manages.

  “Beheading,” Ghedi says. He doesn’t look at his brother.

  The agony comes again. When it clears he’s outside, in the sun and wind, and a crowd’s gathered. The guards hold Nabil, but their grips seem tentative. They keep looking to him, as if for a counterorder. He finds this strange, that at times he’s not himself, then is again. His head and neck feel enormous, taut, as if about to burst his skin. The knot of poison in his jaw’s killing him.

  The pain comes again and without his knowing it the thing’s occurred. A corpse writhes on the ground. Dust is already blowing over it. As he watches, the blood soaks into the earth and the wind blows more dust and it’s gone. He takes a stride and kicks sand over the thing’s back. “What’s it to you?” he shouts. “Don’t complain. You’re not hurt. You’re not hurt!”

  Behind him a woman screams. When he turns, it’s Zeynaab. She’s uncovered her face. She hurls herself onto the corpse.

  Beside him Yousef sways, hand to his chest. “Was he truly your brother?”

  Ghedi stares at the foreign boots. “This is how we deal with those who aid the Crusaders.”

  When Yousef looks up from the body respect shines in his eyes. And something like terror.

  Ghedi sees the same amazement in the faces of the guards who surround and protect him every day. Of the men and women behind them, forming a witnessing circle. A whisper goes from mouth to mouth.

  “What did you say?” he mumbles.

  The Arab speaks, looking away from the sobbing woman. “Nothing, my brother. You have done justice here, nothing more. Behold how the Pruner deals with those who aid the Crusaders, even those of his very flesh. God is great indeed!” He turns, lifting up his hands, and a chorus echoes him, but not as loud as the gusting, whirling wind.

  “Now, as God is the guarantor of every good thing, let us discuss among ourselves how we will achieve the victory of Islam.”

  26

  Camp Rowley

  WATCH your step,” her aide said. “I told you not to wear heels.”

  The heat and the dust made her throat close and her eyes water. She’d been to the Mideast many times. But as Blair Titus came down the C-9’s ramp it all began to swim. Too little sleep, too much travel. She reached for what she thought was a railing. Too late, she realized it was only a flimsy stand holding up a plastic dust barrier. It toppled, and down she went.

  When they lifted her from the concrete, Margaret on one arm and a trooper from the back of the plane on the other, blood trickled down her shin. “I’m all right, let go,” she said, shaking them off, furious. What if this had been some foreign capital instead of a military base? Maybe her aide, annoying as she was, was right. Heels weren’t worth the trouble.

  On the other hand, heels and a slit skirt, a button unbuttoned on a blouse, had paid off before.

  When she tried her footing her knee held and she hadn’t broken a heel. The sky was so bright she couldn’t meet its gaze. The wind chapped her lips and dried her tongue. Margaret picked up Blair’s briefcase and carried it along with her own. Twenty yards away a general and a colonel held a salute. She limped to them and made her handshake double firm.

  “Ms. Titus? Cornelius Ahearn.”

  “Of course, General. Good to see you again.” The colonel’s name was Pride, apparently an eyeman for General Leache. She shook his hand too, introduced Colonel Margaret Shingler, USMC. Then looked around. “Did my husband make it?”

  “Commander Lenson’s out of cell range, but we got word to him and he’ll be here in a couple hours.” Ahearn bent to examine her knee. “I’m eager to get you briefed in. But let’s see to this first.”

  They steered her into a noisy terminal, through plastic sheeting and steel construction scaffolding into an infirmary. A corpsman cleaned her knee, stanched the bleeding, taped on a dressing. “A bad scrape, but you don’t need stitches,” he said, handing her a tube of antibiotic and an extra dressing. Limping slightly, she followed the general into the JOC.

  “I understand you’re to be congratulated.”

  “It’s not official. But thanks.” She’d thought Force Management would step into the slot. And you could never count Policy out. There were the armed services secretaries and the CEOs of major defense corporations too. She actually wasn’t sure how the secretary had decided the job was hers. It would be a challenge. Weatherfield was known for burning out subordinates, because he himself did so little actual work. Then he’d turn on them when they did something he didn’t like. It might be a no-win situation, but not one you walked away from. For one thing, she’d be the first woman in the slot.

  “We had a tour planned,” Ahearn said with that courtly smile. “But if your injury precludes—”

  “It’s not an injury. Just a scrape. I’ll change shoes, though—I can see Jimmy Choos aren’t the best thing for a combat zone.”

  His smile froze. Too late she remembered this wasn’t yet an actual combat zone. Or, at any rate, hovered between a permissive environment and one that might become dangerous very swiftly. She muttered an aside to Shingler, who winked, squeezed her arm, and disappeared. “What I meant is—the tour, yes, most definitely. I’m interested in transport, and of course, your relationship with the provisional government. Will we be able to meet with Dr. Dobleh?”

  “All set up, later today, in town. But first let’s show you our little operation here.”

  HE took her through the JTF complex and mess hall, waved at prefab billeting and contractor-furnished cubic behind the terminal. She asked about power and water and the runway extension, about base security and what percentage of his construction went to Ashaaran contractors. He offered a drive along the perimeter but she said she’d rather see how things were going in the field. Soon they were climbing into an SH-60 and having earphones and a throat mike fitted. Then the escort ships lifted off and their own turbines chorused in heavensong and she was accelerating toward the angels.

  Despite the glare through the Pers
pex the abrupt cold was a relief. So was Margaret’s absence. She had to decide whether to keep her or return her to the Corps. She had nothing against her aide’s sexual preference, but it would’ve been simpler without the woman having fallen for her.

  Oh well. From two thousand feet she admired the city sprawled in a checkerboard of dun-colored fields. Coastal plain, but drier and more blasted-looking than any she’d ever seen. Ahearn pointed out the waterless writhe of the Durmani River, and beyond it, the blue marble of the Red Sea. Lateen sails, and a gray hull that must be one of Dan’s PCs. He hadn’t been on hand to meet her. But she hadn’t given him or Ahearn much warning.

  Weatherfield had asked her to look into Ashaara. “Can we do any good there?” had been the way he’d put it. “That’s always bad, the first dead GIs. Those who don’t say Vietnam say Somalia.”

  And she’d said, “The president wanted to make a difference in East Africa. He’s got to support us when the tab comes due.”

  Weatherfield had looked incensed, as if she’d reminded him of something he was supposed to do and hadn’t. As the first African-American secretary of defense, maybe it had to do with Africa. Or maybe not. But all he’d said was, “Find out if they can get the job done with what they’ve got. It’s either that or pull out. And let me know before you talk to anyone else about it.”

  “That’s the port, below,” Ahearn’s disembodied voice in her earphones. The pilot banked, aiming her gaze straight down on a teacup of muddy brown sea tucked under the battlements of an ancient-looking citadel. Cranes reached toward her. A black-hulled ship lay alongside, pallets rising from cavernous holds.

  The general was reeling off statistics: offload rates, tonnage deliveries, the bottlenecks they’d reamed out one by one. “The shipping channel, off to our right. Your husband buoyed the shoals for us. He’s been a big help.” As she murmured a response the horizon scrolled up and precessed clockwise. Please God, not to hurl. “At your three o’clock, the road to Nakar. That dust cloud’s the Thunder Run going out. I’ve had to cut the number since the ambush at the roundabout, and added light armor escort and air cover. That decreased wastage from bandit attacks, but hurt daily tonnage. Net’s about the same, but the bad news is, we still have refugees streaming in.”