The Mahboob Chaudri Mystery

by Josh Pachter

  Behind the state-of-the-art security, the office itself had been decorated to reflect the informal nature of its occupant. A massive mahogany desk and plush swivel chair dominated the room, two sofas at right angles around a low brass filigreed coffee table formed a pleasant conversation nook in one corner and a well-stocked wet bar stood invitingly in another, there was soft brown carpeting underfoot and an attractive arrangement of paintings on the walls.

  Mahboob Chaudri sipped gratefully at the cold club soda he had been offered and studied the paintings with feigned interest. Most of them were oils by the emirate’s own Abdullah al-Muharraqi, scenes of Arab life in warm reds and oranges, old men hunkered down in the suq with their worry beads, fishermen mending their nets by the sea, women in black abbas heating up their tambourines before a wedding performance. Under other circumstances, Chaudri’s interest would have been genuine. But today he was far too busy eavesdropping on the argument from which he had turned his back in deferential politeness to concentrate on the primitive beauty of the artwork.

  “Dammit, Mr. Ambassador,” Senator Harding was saying, “I take your point, sir—but there’s no way in hell you’re gonna be able to hush this thing up. The local media already know exackly what’s goin’ on, and—what with Saddam still makin’ noise up there in Eye-Rack—you got your wire-service reporters based right here in Bahrain, you got your Time and Newsweek boys roamin’ around lookin’ for stories to file, you got—”

  “I know all that, Bill.” Like his office, Ambassador Northfield seemed relaxed and comfortable in the midst of chaos. He was a tall bear of a man, with steel-gray hair and a full salt-and-pepper beard and a strong handshake—but he was a tame bear, a teddy bear, not a grizzly. “All I’m saying is I think we need to stay in the background on this thing until we—”

  “In the background,” the Senator exploded. “But that’s just exackly my point, Ambassador! Those damn journalists are on the scene, they are a fact of life, and before one hell of a lot more time elapses you’re gonna have them bangin’ on your door here yellin’ for answers. And you and I, sir, are gonna wind up representin’ the United States of America in a major media event before a global audience, so I say we damn well better have some answers, and we better have ‘em right damn quick!”

  Chaudri wondered if it had been with the idea of representing his country in mind that the Senator had insisted on a brief stop at the BAPCO compound in Awali before proceeding to the embassy. He had been gone for less than five minutes, but when he’d returned to the government limousine his gaudy golfing costume had vanished, replaced by the impeccable attire of the statesman.

  The Ambassador smiled tightly. “A major media event, Bill? A global audience? I see what you’re driving at, but I can’t help thinking you’re exaggerating the importance of what’s going on here. I mean, it’s only been a—”

  “—couple of hours,” the Senator finished the bear’s sentence in exasperation. “And after all, Bill, we don’t even know who these people are, just yet.” He tossed down the rest of his scotch and water and marched to the bar to fix himself a refill. “Now, you lookie here, Ambassador, I know all that. And I know that, with the good Lord’s blessin’, we may well get our folks out of there before anybody winds up gettin’ hurt. And I know I may be just a ignorant ol’ country boy and talkin’ out of turn, but I’d like to remind you of a couple of things here, Ambassador. I’d like to remind you of that little incident back in Tehran in 1979, for instance. You may remember it, because it lasted 444 days and got a lot of attention on the news. I’d also like to remind you of TWA Flight 847 over there in Beirut a couple years later; that one only lasted 17 days, but it got a fair piece of play in the media, too. Now, while you and I sit here havin’ this cozy discussion over drinks, we got—”

  “While you and I are having this discussion, Bill,” the Ambassador said firmly, “we have four American citizens held hostage about a mile from this spot, and we’re not doing a single thing to help them in their time of need.”

  He leaned forward and pressed a button on his intercom, and a woman’s voice immediately said, “Yes, sir?”

  “Carol,” Ambassador Northfield instructed, “get me the State Department, would you, please? Priority One.”

  Senator Harding turned to his waiting aide. “Jerry,” he said angrily. It was the first time Mahboob Chaudri had heard the young man’s name. “Jerry, you go find yourself a secure phone and get me the White House. Mack, if you can get him; otherwise, I’ll settle for the Veep. You know who I really want to talk to, but I reckon he’s out joggin’ or eatin’ a Big Mac or some damn thing.”

  * * * *

  From their vantage point atop the four-story apartment building a quarter of a mile to the south, Mahboob Chaudri and Senator Harding had an unobstructed view of the Suq-al-Khamis Mosque. Its twin minarets gleamed in the twilight, though a closer inspection would have revealed that the towers had been patchily whitewashed and the wooden balconies three-quarters of the way up the height of each spire were in poor repair.

  Behind the concrete wall which ringed the compound, the mosque itself was a barren ruin—roofless, floorless, without walls. Of the once-proud temple erected almost 13 centuries in the past by the Umayyad Caliph Umar bin Abdul Aziz, nothing remained but a scattering of stone columns and crumbling archways, baked by the harsh Middle Eastern sun and scoured colorless by a thousand thousand sandstorms.

  “AK-47 assault rifles,” Chaudri frowned, passing his binoculars to the Senator. “Kalashnikovs, Russian-made.”

  An armed guard stood on each of the weathered balconies, framed by the narrow arches leading to the interior of the minarets. Both men wore long white thobes, their heads covered with the traditional ghutra and thin black agal. It was impossible to be sure of their nationalities, but from their set expressions and their weapons Chaudri was convinced they were Iranians.

  “Mean-lookin’ sons a bitches,” the Senator snapped, handing the field glasses on to his aide. “Them and their guns. Where you reckon they’re holdin’ the hostages, Officer?”

  Chaudri considered the question. “Inside the minarets,” he said at last. “It is the only possibility. They are being held on the stone steps within the minarets, trapped between the pair of guards we can see on the balconies above and another pair at the base of the towers, hidden from us behind the wall.”

  Chaudri accepted the return of the binoculars and raised them again to his eyes. A dozen official vehicles were stationed at 20-yard intervals around the compound; a hundred officers in the olive-green of the Public Security Force were in position behind the buses and sedans and Land Rovers, some unarmed, others with their useless weapons held loosely, waiting.

  And, as the Senator had predicted, a score of reporters milled about with their notepads and their tape recorders and their cameras. They, too, were waiting, waiting for something to happen, for tragedy or resolution, for any scrap of news or human interest with which to still the constant hunger of their editors and readers and viewers, their audience.

  Among the assembled policemen, there were sharpshooters present who could easily take out the Arabs on the balconies of the Suq-al-Khamis Mosque’s twin spires. Even from this distance, Chaudri could read the frustration on their faces. For, if the guards above were wounded or killed, then their brothers below would surely retaliate—and it was the four American hostages who would suffer.

  No, the Public Security marksmen must wait impatiently for the situation to develop, and Mahboob Chaudri knew and shared their emotion. He, too, had used a telephone at the American embassy, not an hour before. He had phoned the Police Fort at al-Qalah and practically begged for reassignment to the team now surrounding the mosque. But his superiors had ordered him to remain with Senator Harding, and the Senator’s own superiors in Washington had ordered him to stay clear of the scene, to leave any negotiations with the Sword of God to the Bahrainis and any cont
act with the press to Ambassador Northfield.

  “Why the hell don’t your people get in there and do somethin’?” the Senator demanded. “You just set around and wait for somethin’ to happen—well, by God, when somethin’ does happen, you may just find out it ain’t the somethin’ you was hopin’ for!”

  “And what would you suggest we should be doing, sir?” the Pakistani asked quietly.

  Senator Harding glared at him. “Don’t you patronize me, son. And, hell, I don’t know what to do. That’s why my damn gummint’s got me benched here on the sidelines. Ain’t you got somebody you can send in there to make nice with ‘em, like Jesse Jackson sweet-talked them grunts out of Kosovo last year? Or, if this bunch’s too far gone to cut a deal with, you just send your local SWAT team in and pull a Rambo—that’s what I’d do if I’s in charge. I’ll tell you this much for free: you better do somethin’, ‘fore them bastards in the white nighties decide to commence usin’ them peashooters they’re totin’.”

  Mahboob Chaudri understood very little of the Senator’s English. He understood the feelings which boiled beneath the words, though. He understood that Senator Harding, too, was frustrated by his inability to bring a stop to this terrorist madness, to find a way to resheathe the Sword of God before innocent blood was spilled.

  Chaudri understood and shared the American’s sense of impotence—and wondered if the angry words were only words, or if a man of true courage stood behind them.

  As the police and press stood around and did nothing, he made up his mind to find out.

  “Senator, sir,” he said softly, “I am thinking that perhaps it is time for you and I to talk.”

  * * * *

  The heavy iron gates had been barred and chained by the terrorists. It was well after sunset, and the moon hung obscured behind heavy clouds—but Public Security floodlights bathed the gateway and the twin minarets towering above it in a harsh illumination which gave the mosque the artificial appearance of a disused film set.

  The two armed guards stood motionless on their perches, as they had stood for hours. Saifoullah had issued no further demands, had not even asked for food or water to be delivered for themselves or their hostages. It was as if the scene was frozen not only in the glare of the spotlights but in time as well, as if the Sword of God awaited some word from absent leaders—some ineffable sign from its vengeful deity—before proceeding with the next step of its plan.

  Behind the compound, all was dark. Mahboob Chaudri and the Senator slipped soundlessly between two government vehicles parked far enough apart to allow them to make their way to the wall surrounding the Suq-al-Khamis Mosque unobserved. They crouched there for a moment to catch their breath, backs pressed against the rapidly cooling roughness of the concrete, hearts pounding with the rush of adrenaline, listening intently to the viscous silence which enveloped them. Far away, a nightbird laughed raucously at the folly of their mission.

  “You know what happens if we screw this up, don’t you?” the Senator whispered fiercely.

  Chaudri’s nod went unnoticed in the blackness. “Indeed I do,” he answered, his voice barely audible. “You and I are probably being injured, sir, quite possibly being dead—and most certainly being unemployed and disgraced. And the hostages? Our actions may be serving to further endanger their safety, rather than restoring it. Shall we be giving up and going back now, Senator?”

  Harding tasted his lower lip. “Hell, no,” he decided. “Not if you really think there’s a chance we can keep this mess from turnin’ into tie-a-yellow-ribbon-‘round-the-old-oak-tree.”

  “I do think so, Senator. It is a dim chance, at best, but it is better to act and pray for success, I am thinking, than to do nothing and wait helplessly for failure.”

  “Them’s my sentiments exackly, son. Lead on.”

  The two dark figures straightened and began to work their way westward in single file, the Pakistani in the lead, each of them tracing the course of their progress along the wall with the tips of his fingers. It was difficult to walk quietly on the loose pebbles which rolled beneath their feet; they took slow and cautious steps to compensate, pausing often to listen for movement around them. When the moon peeked out briefly from behind its blanket of clouds, they stopped completely, and waited without speaking until it once more hid its face from sight.

  At last Mahboob Chaudri dropped back a step and put his lips close to the Senator’s ear. “We are nearing the opening in the wall,” he breathed.

  And, at that moment, a shape appeared from the shadows before them, and the clouds parted as if on cue to let the moon show them a long white thobe and a pair of burning black eyes and a Kalashnikov assault rifle held at the ready.

  “You have reached the opening in the wall,” the Arab said coldly, in English, “and you are prisoners of the Sword of God.”

  O pehan yeh geya, thought Mahboob Chaudri bitterly.

  “Holy Kee-rist,” the Senator sighed.

  They raised their hands above their heads.

  * * * *

  The terrorist turned away from him, the back of his thobe shimmering like the eyes of a cat in the night. His hands gripped the barrel of the AK-47 tightly, and he swung the rifle high over his shoulder and smashed the butt end down at the head of the figure who lay in the sand at his feet. He battered his unconscious victim again and again, and with every slashing stroke of the rifle butt he screamed, “Saifoullah! Saifoullah! Saifoullah!” When he lowered the thin metal golfing stick at last, the dead man’s head was small and round and drenched with orange blood, its features shattered beyond recognition. The Arab looked around at last, and the face framed by the checkered ghutra and black agal was the face of Senator William Harding.

  Mahboob Chaudri shuddered at the bloodlust in the Senator’s eyes and awakened. It was morning, and somewhere a lone rooster was celebrating the dawn.

  Chaudri squirmed around on the stone step where he had slept, trying not to disturb Dr. Apostolou two steps above him or Nurse Hewitt two steps below, but it was impossible for him to find a comfortable position. His muscles were cramped and sore from the long hours of sitting, his bottom was numb from the chill of the stone, his throat was cottony with thirst, his stomach rumbled.

  “Merea rabba,” he muttered, then cursed himself for speaking aloud when the young nurse stirred restlessly and a pained whimper escaped her. He held his breath and kept still, and was gratified to see her settle back into an uneasy slumber.

  Allah, let them sleep, he prayed. Every moment they were sleeping was one less moment they would have to deal with the horror of their situation—unless, of course, they went on dealing with it, as he had, in their dreams.

  Had the Arabs who were guarding the minarets been able to sleep? Had they taken turns standing watch, or had they forced themselves to remain alert throughout the night? Chaudri did not know. There was much, he found, that he did not know. What was happening in the other spire, where the other pair of terrorists was holding Senator Harding and Nurses Graham and Gaylor? What was going on outside the compound? Were negotiations to effect their release under way? Were demands being made, being met or rejected? Were his comrades on the Public Security Force aware that there were now six hostages within the wall surrounding the Suq-al-Khamis Mosque? And, with the Senator a captive, would the Americans finally involve themselves, or would they continue to leave the situation in the hands of the Bahrainis?

  Chaudri did not know the answers to any of these questions, and it was the not-knowing which worried him more than anything else.

  When he looked up from his thoughts, the doctor was awake. He was a large-boned man with the look of a boxer gone to seed, his forehead receding into what had once been a full head of thick brown hair. He regarded Chaudri through narrowed eyes, his thin lips pressed together tightly.

  “What do we do now, mahsool?” he said. His voice was hoarse from disuse. They had spoken
together the night before, when Chaudri was first brought into the minaret, and the American’s story had been quickly told.

  Dr. Apostolou had suggested an afternoon expedition to the Suq-al-Khamis ruins to his colleagues at the American Mission Hospital. Three of the nurses on his shift had agreed to accompany him. The foursome had explored the compound for perhaps half an hour, but the day was hot and there was little to see, and they were on their way back to the doctor’s car when the four Saifoullah Arabs had burst through the iron gates. There had been much shouting and waving of weaponry, and eventually he and Nurse Hewitt had been deposited halfway up the minaret steps with guards stationed above and below them. The doctor was not sure what had become of the other two women, but there had been no gunfire, and he hoped they were safe within the second tower. It had all happened around three the previous afternoon; it was now almost seven in the morning, and they had been given neither food nor water in all that time. After the initial encounter, they had seen only one of their captors and him only once, when Chaudri had been brought in to join them.

  “What do we do now?” Dr. Apostolou asked, and the sound awakened Nurse Hewitt, who stretched luxuriously and opened her eyes and shrank back in on herself as she remembered where she was, and why.

  “I do not know,” said Chaudri, watching helplessly as the pretty young Western woman’s shoulders shook with the effort to hold back tears. She seemed about the same age as Shazia, his own dear wife, and—though her complexion was pale and tinged a delicate pink by the sun, where his wife’s was a rich and beautiful brown—she had Shazia’s jet-black hair and bottomless wide black eyes. His heart went out to her, and to the doctor, and to the other women he had not yet seen. “We must wait and pray,” he said, but the words seemed hollow and empty in the narrow confines of the minaret.

  “I’m not frightened,” Nurse Hewitt insisted. “If they were going to—to hurt us, they’d have done it by now, wouldn’t they?” She folded her thin arms across her chest and hugged herself. “I just wish they’d settle whatever it is they have to settle and let us out of here. If I don’t get a hot shower and a decent meal sometime soon, I’m going to scream.”