Girls of Yellow

by Orest Stelmach

  When Zaman’s eyes landed on him, they widened. “Ali,” he said.

  “Captain Zaman.”

  “Are you lost?”

  “No.”

  “Then what are you doing here?”

  “My job.”

  “Your job? What job?” Zaman stepped forward and put his palm on Ali’s forehead. “Do you have a fever?”

  If he’d imagined the scene earlier, Ali would have fantasized about taking Zaman’s hand from his head and glaring at him, standing up to him like a real man. But now, in the heat of battle, he couldn’t even look his superior in the eye. Authority needed to be respected. If there was one thing Islam had taught him it was to submit to the higher power. And yet, a heretofore unknown force propelled Ali to form fresh words and soldier on.

  “No,” Ali said, ‘I don’t have a fever. I’ve decided to do this murder right and I want to talk to the witness before you execute him.”

  “I thought we had an understanding when I assigned you this case that you were going to handle it like all the others. Was I wrong?”

  Ali’s face flushed. “That was … that was before I heard there was a witness and I … I felt a duty to interview him before you killed him.”

  Zaman laughed. “Wait. Did you just say you felt a duty?”

  Ali looked away, unable to hold Zaman’s eyes.

  “Now, listen here, you imbecile. Your duty is to follow my orders, not any sudden pangs of sympathy for a dhimmi because she happens to be a girl. And watch your mouth when you speak to me. I’m not killing this scum terrorist. He was found guilty in a court of law. A judge handed down the sentence. I’m just here to make sure the sentence is executed properly.”

  “Right,” Ali said, surprised to hear sarcasm rolling off his own lips. “I’m going to interview the witness now, Captain, and I would recommend you not get in my way.” Ali summoned his courage and looked Zaman in the eyes. “Or there’re going to be consequences.”

  Ali had one and only one political connection but it was a powerful one. Zaman reported to Ali’s father-in-law—the army general on the Caliph’s personal staff. Ali had never used the General’s name on the job before because he was always trying like hell to be accountable, even though everyone knew he’d never have earned his stripes on his own merit. But Ali wasn’t concerned about appearances today.

  Zaman appraised Ali with a measure of surprise—if not newfound respect—and tempered his voice. “I’ll have to report your insubordination during my weekly briefing. But until that report makes its way through the system, have at the terrorist, Dhimmi Lover.” Zaman raised his arm for Ali to pass to see the witness.

  Ali stepped up to the emaciated man lying on his stomach.

  “Roll him onto his back,” Ali said.

  Two of the executioners grabbed the prisoner by the shoulders and the legs and turned him over.

  Ali was immediately taken aback. The dhimmi cut a different figure up close and chest up. A thin but noticeable slab of muscle covered his pectoral region, and a row of abdominal muscles defined his midsection. His thighs and calves looked like ropes of steel. Even his sunken jaw appeared the product of labor and diet as opposed to age or oppression. Up close, the dhimmi looked wiry, not emaciated.

  But the man’s build wasn’t the reason Ali found himself questioning his assumption that Zaman had planted evidence to frame him. The dhimmi wore two tattoos. Both of them were faded from stretch marks on the skin suggesting they’d been acquired decades ago. They appeared on the sides of his left and right shoulders. The tattoo on the left shoulder featured a circular dome of a Christian church. The tattoo on the right shoulder consisted of two men riding a single horse.

  Ali recognized the tattoos from a course on religious body art that was part of mandatory continuing education for all Eurabian police offers. The dome of the Christian church was called The Dome of the Rock, and the church was the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, also known as the Church of the Resurrection in Jerusalem. The men riding the horse represented the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and the Temple of Solomon.

  The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and the Temple of Solomon were a Christian military organization formed in the twelfth century and endorsed by the Roman Catholic Church and the Pope himself. They were created to fight the Islamic heroes who had conquered the Holy Lands. In fact, Muslim scholars understood that the organization was a copy of the Shia Islamic sect of Assassins. The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and the Temple of Solomon eventually came to be known by an abbreviated name. They came to be known as the Knights Templar.

  The Knights Templar had comprised the most skilled fighting units during the Crusades against Muslims that had lasted close to four hundred years. Blessed by a Pope who wanted to unite a Catholic Church to expand his political power, the Crusades became a four hundred-year war perpetuated by greed and hatred. A French king eventually destroyed the Knights Templar to free himself from the debts he owed them, by having them arrested and tortured into signing false confessions of heresy. This resulted in many of the Knights being burned at the stake.

  Christians, Ali thought. What filthy, savage, and murderous dogs.

  Zaman walked over to Ali and handed him a computer tablet.

  “He’s sanctioned to kill by the Pope of Rome,” Zaman said, “from the Vatican-in-Exile in the country formerly known as Uruguay. He was a cop in Vienna before Eurabia annexed the country formerly known as Austria, then suspected in a bombing in Amsterdam before he was convicted of blowing up a government building in Paris. A class of twenty-seven children from an Islamic school for high-achievers was touring the city legislature building that day. They all died in the blast. Three months later he was one of three prisoners to escape from Paris’ Le Sante prison the day before his execution.”

  Ali studied the tablet. All the information appeared in the database before him. If Zaman’s accounts were true, it would explain why the judges had facilitated such a quick execution. The man had escaped once before and justice was overdue. The question was whether the information in the database was true or if Zaman had made it all up.

  Ali handed the tablet back to his boss and dropped to one knee.

  The dhimmi witness’ eyes were closed. His lips were moving but the sound coming from his mouth was barely audible. He looked focused, not happy or sad, eager or fearful—merely intense.

  Ali leaned forward and lowered his ear. He’d learned rudimentary English and German in school and his language skills had only improved with the growth of Eurabia. When he got close enough to feel the dhimmi witness’ breath on his ear, Ali discerned English words. They poured forth with the unmistakable rhythm and cadence of prayer.

  “… the hurts we absorb from one another, forgive us.

  In times of temptation and test, strengthen us.

  From trials too great to endure, spare us.

  From the grip of all that is evil, free us.

  For you reign in the glory of the power that is love, now and forever—”

  The dhimmi witness’s eyes popped open. When he saw Ali’s face, the calm that had enveloped him vanished. Sweat gathered on his upper lip. He looked like he was trying to swallow but couldn’t. Still he didn’t ask for water. Instead he focused on Ali.

  “Are you a cleric?” the dhimmi witness said.

  “No. I’m a cop.”

  “Then I forgive you.”

  “For what?”

  “All the crimes of your people.”

  An urge to strangle the arrogant Christian scum gripped Ali so ferociously he forgot his objective, until the tattoos caught his attention and reminded him why he was there.

  “Speak to me of the last crime you saw,” Ali said.

  “Why should I waste my breath?”

  “Justice.”

  “For Christians?”

  “For the girl.”

  “By whose hand?” the dhimmi witness said.

  “Mine.”

  “No cop has such power in this lan
d.”

  “No land has such power over a real cop,” Ali said.

  “And you are a real cop?”

  “That remains to be seen. What did you see?”

  The dhimmi witness looked up into the clouds. His voice crackled with emotion. “Man came in. Dressed in robes. Head covered. Only a slit for eyes. He was carrying a young girl. A dead girl wrapped in a wool blanket.”

  “What color were his eyes?”

  “Don’t know. Too dark.”

  “Height, weight?”

  “Average.”

  “Did he say anything?”

  Ali heard Zaman’s voice over his shoulder. He knew he had to hurry.

  “Give me something,” Ali said. “Give me anything that might help me find him.”

  The dhimmi witness took a breath. “He knew the priest by name.”

  “What?” Ali couldn’t believe what he’d just heard. “He knew the priest?”

  “I don’t know if he knew the priest. I said he knew the priest’s name. ”

  Even that was a revelation because priest names were kept secret for their own protection.

  “How do you know he knew the priest’s name?” Ali said. “What did he say? What did he say?”

  “There was a tin in the blanket beside the deal girl’s body. There were five gold dinars in it. He said, ‘Give this to Father Peter. For his troubles.’”

  Ali heard Zaman’s footsteps behind him.

  “What language did he speak?” Ali said. “What did his voice sound like?”

  “He spoke perfect Arabic,” the dhimmi witness said. “Like all the filthy Arabs in this place.”

  Zaman cast a shadow over Ali.

  “Enough already,” Zaman said. “The people want justice. It’s time for this terrorist to suffer the way the families of those he killed have suffered.”

  The dhimmi witness began praying in earnest.

  “My soul is protected by the armour of faith,

  my body is protected by the armour of steel.

  I fear neither demons nor men …”

  Ali turned and started to talk away.

  Zaman blocked his path. “What did he say?”

  “He said he forgives me.”

  “For what?”

  “For being a Muslim,” Ali said.

  “Terrorist scum. What else did he say?”

  “He said his body is protected by the armour of steel.”

  “Oh, really?” Zaman chuckled. “We’ll see about that, won’t we?”

  Ali hurried past Zaman to avoid more questions and get away from the spectacle before it started.

  Within a few minutes the dhimmi witness would be rolled onto his back. One of the executioners would lubricate his anus, while a second would take the red-hot steel rod and insert it into the dhimmi witness’ rectum. The third executioner would then drive the rod through the convicted terrorist’s body with his hammer. The executioner who would wield the hammer was such an expert in the Khazouk that he would make sure the rod avoided the heart and all other vital organs. The rod would emerge either through the shoulder, or, on an exceptional day, out of the dhimmi witness’ mouth. The burning steel would cauterize the wound and minimize the bleeding in its wake, thus prolonging the dhimmi witness’ life for as long as two days.

  Once the process was complete, the three executioners would lift the rod and hammer it into the exposed gravel in the promenade beneath the place where the Christian Archangel Gabriel’s monument had once stood, leaving the dhimmi witness to suffer a slow and grueling death while facing the residents of Eurabia in Heroes’ Square.

  The Khazouk had been a favorite form of execution during the rule of the Ottoman Empire, whose leaders thought its brutality would deter spies and insurgents. Ali suspected the reason the Khazouk was back in vogue had little to do with spies and insurgents this time, and everything to do with fear. The Caliphs of Eurabia and the men who helped them govern wanted to leave no doubt in people’s minds just how cruel their leaders could be if anyone dared question them.

  Ali didn’t dwell on the issue, though. Such matters were beyond his calling. He was just a cop—or a General’s son-in-law pretending to be one—and the witness who’d spoken with the killer had offered an unlikely clue. The killer was an Arabian who knew the priest’s identity, which suggested the priest might know the murderer himself. The lead was so valuable that Ali was certain he would think of nothing else all day.

  But as he hurried to his car and the crowd roared behind him, Ali knew right away he’d lied to himself just as surely as a hot flash had passed deep through his bowels.

  There had been no body armour to save the Christian terrorist today.

  CHAPTER 4

  Only one name on Qattan’s list of female slaves mattered to Elise. The doctor’s records revealed that the man who’d acquired the girl in question was a prominent banker by the name of Faraz.

  Elise found his townhouse in the early afternoon, tucked on a quiet side street near the cliffs of Buda. Surrounded by the Danube and valleys, Buda had served as a natural fortress for the ruling elite for centuries. Under Hungarian rule, members of the working class of Pest had aspired to live among Buda’s upper class. Buda is a life vision, they had said. Younger residents of Buda had often teased their friends in Pest to carry their passports and come visit them, as though the former were rock stars living in a separate country.

  Thus, it was no surprise that most of the current residents of Buda appeared to be Arabians, and only the workers who tended to the restaurants, operated the funicular, cleaned homes and provided other menial services looked like native Hungarians. The few dhimmis who still lived in Buda now wore their passports for all to see just like their counterparts from Pest. The ubiquitous yellow belt worn by the dhimmi was no life vision. In Buda, as in Pest, it was reality.

  Buda was home to a restaurant named after the artist Jean Miro. Located diagonally across the street from the banker’s home, it served as a sanctuary from which Elise could observe comings and goings with some discretion. She ordered a tall bottle of still water, drank slowly, and pretended to work on her computer. Every time the door to the banker’s apartment opened she held her breath, but no children emerged. Instead, the banker’s three wives took turns leaving their home. One of them left without an escort while a driver took the other two to their destinations. That arrangement suggested that the first wife was the eldest and the only one over the age of forty-five.

  The two wives who were driven to their destinations returned in the late afternoon with three and four children in their cars respectively. Once again Elise’s heart fluttered, but none of the kids could have been the little sister she’d never known, sold to an Arabian couple as a slave at birth. Five of the children were boys and two were girls. The ages weren’t a match for Elise’s sister. The younger children were toddlers. The others were older teenagers.

  Elise had been in the hospital room with her mother, watched as the nurse lifted the baby from her arms and told her not to worry, that her little girl would be fed, cared for, and cherished as a valuable servant for the rest of her life. Islamic law forbid the abuse of slaves and the Caliphate took it seriously. The nurse had made no promise that the girl would be educated, however, and Elise realized her emotions had gotten the better of her. The thought of one of the banker’s wives shepherding a slave back and forth to school with their children probably was wishful thinking.

  Her sister was fourteen years old by now, capable of having been trained to do all sorts of menial work. Elise guessed that she’d been working in the house all day. Qattan’s records indicated that her Arabian name was Safa, but her true given name was Valerie.

  To Elise, she would always be Valerie. Valerie the brave.

  The banker didn’t keep banker’s hours, which was to be expected because the business of banking was more complex under Sharia. The collection of interest on money loaned was considered immoral and was strictly forbidden. Instead of issuing a mortgag
e, a bank bought property and resold it the buyer at a profit. Instead of giving a business loan, a bank entered into a joint venture with the company that paid down the bank’s investment with profit. As a result of these laws, the Sharia banker was more of an entrepreneur. On this given day, this banker worked accordingly.

  He didn’t get home until eight forty-five.

  This left Elise with an unpleasant decision. She could knock on the door but the late hour would cast her arrival as suspicious. Alternatively, she could wait until the next morning and arrive at an equally early hour before the banker left for work. This might also raise suspicions. The third option, attempting to achieve her objective with only the wives at home, had been a non-starter. The wives’ reactions to Elise’s assertions, threats, and demands might be completely irrational if they were as attached to Valerie as Elise was to the idea of her existence.

  Elise opted for the speedy solution. She was a spy in enemy territory who could be discovered at any moment. Also, the banker was home but she couldn’t be certain he didn’t have an early appointment.

  Thus, at nine o’clock she rang the doorbell. Elise had dressed in a niqab instead of a burqa, which kept her mouth covered but revealed her eyes, thus reducing the risk that the banker would insist she remove her entire veil during their interview. One of the wives who had been driven by an escort opened the door with a frown. She had a plain round face with unremarkable features except for the one the banker’s oldest wife could never attain again. This wife had the taut and supple skin of a younger woman.

  Elise flashed her badge and requested to speak to the man of the house. The banker came to the door still dressed in a charcoal suit with padded shoulders that compensated for his pear-shaped lines. Patches of hair covered the side of his shining head and his eyes were pinched with anger.

  “What is the meaning of this?” he said.

  “That depends on you, Mr. Faraz,” Elise said.

  He took one look at Elise and her badge and sneered.

  “The religious police. A bunch of former criminals who memorized the Quran to reduce their jail sentences and got the only jobs they could when they were released—tormenting good citizens for stupid transgressions. An old woman removes her burqa because she’s suffocating under the sun and you beat her. You should be ashamed of yourselves. What are you doing at my home?”