by Perrin Briar
The shadows moved behind Anne.
It was Broad Nose, emerging from the water. In his attempt to be silent, he’d neglected the sound the water made as it spilled from his soaked clothes onto the quay.
Anne turned, form perfect, and let off another round, this one catching the man in the left shoulder, spinning him around like a top. He hit the quay.
Anne turned her gun on the man with the broken nose.
“Please,” the man said. “Don’t.”
“The others will complain if I don’t treat you equally,” Anne said. “They’ll claim favouritism.”
Before the man could respond, Anne unloaded into him, taking him through the foot. He hit the quay, clutching at the hole in his shoe.
“Now,” Anne said to them all. “You’re all going to walk, hop or crawl your way off this quay, and you’re going to be gone within the next three minutes, or you’re going to get another bullet. Am I making myself clear? Well? What are you waiting for? Move like the slugs you are.”
The man behind Anne clutched his shoulder and walked across the quay, keeping his eyes as far from Anne as he could. He bent down to help up the man with a hole in his foot. Large Head hissed through his teeth with each step, sticking his bottom out to reduce the burning sensation.
“My hero,” Jordan said, smiling up at Anne.
He felt something small and hard in his mouth. He spat it out. It was a tooth. He felt along his gums to identify the gap.
“I told you not to come out, didn’t I?” Anne said. “There are bad people around.”
“Lucky for me you’re worse than all of them put together,” Jordan said.
“Can you get up?” Anne said.
“I think so,” Jordan said.
Anne bent down to help Jordan to his feet. Jordan’s head felt sensitive in the cool night air.
“You’re lucky not to have anything broken,” Anne said.
“Do you know, I was just thinking how lucky I was,” Jordan said, flinching when he tried to smile.
Anne helped him down the steps and into the cabin. She locked the door behind them. Jessie, unbelievably, was still asleep.
“How are we going to fish now?” Anne said.
“I thought I’d turn my hand to male modelling instead,” Jordan said.
“You could do well as the ‘before’ model,” Anne said. “You’ll have to make do with a wet towel to bring the swelling down. I’ll clean your face and then sew you back up.”
She wet a towel and pressed it to Jordan’s face. Jordan flinched.
“What do you suppose they were after?” Anne said.
“Our ship, by the sound of it,” Jordan said. “Though they weren’t drunk.”
“How do you know?” Anne said.
“Because their beer cans were still full,” Jordan said. “They were baiting us.”
“Maybe they saw us pull into the dock?” Anne said.
“Maybe,” Jordan said. “Maybe this is something they do often. I’ll bet you made them think twice about attempting anything like this again though.”
“I always wanted to educate people,” Anne said.
7.
Jordan’s eyes opened with hesitancy, flinching from the sunlight that streamed through the porthole windows. His heart pounded in his ears, his vision partially blocked in his left eye. Every part of his face hurt. He moved to a mirror. He looked like a munchkin with swollen cheeks and purple eyes.
“Oh my God…” Jessie said. “What happened to you?”
“I met some very nice men last night,” Jordan said.
“I hope they at least bought you a drink first,” Jessie said.
“They threw one,” Jordan said. “Does that count?”
Anne came down the stairs.
“We’re all packed up and ready to go,” she said. “Those men, or someone like them, will be back. We’d best not be here when they do.”
“What are we going to do now?” Jessie said.
“We’ll head out to sea,” Anne said. “We’ll get as far away from here as we can. Then we’ll come up with a plan. We’ll head around the coast of Africa if we have to. It’ll take time but it can’t be worse than trying to survive out here. It’s too dangerous.”
Anne gave Jordan and Jessie a hopeful smile.
“We’ll be all right,” she said.
“I’ll cast us off,” Jordan said.
“I’ll do it,” Jessie said.
“I could do with the fresh air,” Jordan said.
He went up the stairs and hopped over the side. He crossed to the cleat attached to the quay and began untying the rope. His swollen face got a few startled glances from passers-by.
“Wow,” a voice said. “Nice shiner you’ve got there.”
Jordan turned to find Ori walking down the quay toward him. He carried a small box, his scarf firmly wrapped around his face.
“What happened?” he said. “You walked into a door?”
“Yes,” Jordan said. “It was one of those revolving ones.”
“That’ll explain it,” Ori said.
He handed Jordan the box.
“It’s not much,” he said, “but it might help you toward the canal fee.”
Jordan opened it to find five tins of cat food.
“Thanks,” he said. “Are you sure you can spare it?”
“I called in a few favours,” Ori said.
“Any developments with your project?” Jordan said.
“Actually, that’s what I came here to talk to you about,” Ori said. “I felt a bit bad about you not being able to get out of here.”
“I’m afraid we don’t have that inclination any longer,” Jordan said. “We’ve had enough and are going away. Far away.”
He handed the box back to Ori, who ignored it.
“You can’t give up just like that,” Ori said. “Especially when I come with the perfect opportunity.”
“What opportunity?” Jordan said.
Ori moved in close, checking over his shoulders.
“I’m going to kidnap the king,” he said.
“You don’t know how to quit, do you?” Jordan said. “You failed last time. What makes you think you’re going to be successful this time?”
“It’s precisely because I failed last time that I’ll be successful this time,” Ori said. “I know how to get at the king.”
“Good for you,” Jordan said. “I wish you all the best.”
“You’re not even going to listen to me?” Ori said. “It might be the biggest opportunity you’re going to get to earn the fee.”
“I told you, we’re not going through the canal,” Jordan said. “And we can’t afford to spend months waiting around.”
“That’s the best part,” Ori said. “My plan won’t take months. You can have it all by tonight.”
Jordan gave Ori a flat stare.
“Tonight?” he said. “If you’d said two weeks, I might have believed you.”
“Two weeks is too late,” Ori said. “It has to be soon. Sooner the better.”
“You’re not joking?” Jordan said.
“Not in the slightest,” Ori said. “Save yourselves months of travelling and listen to me for five minutes, that’s all I ask.”
Jordan pursed his lips.
“Five minutes?” he said.
“Four and a half if I don’t breathe,” Ori said. “What do you have to lose?”
Jordan considered the offer and began to retie the mooring line.
“Five minutes,” he said.
He led Ori down the stairs and into the main cabin.
“We’ve got a visitor,” Jordan said.
Ori entered, hugged Jessie and Anne, and took a seat.
“I hear you’re going on a trip,” he said. “I haven’t got long, so please pay attention. I checked in with friends and family yesterday, and they updated me on the activities of the king. They told me he hasn’t stepped foot out of his house since the night I got into his bedroom. This is signif
icant because it means he has initiated his ‘assassination protocol’.”
“I thought you didn’t try to assassinate him?” Anne said.
“I didn’t,” Ori said. “But he doesn’t know that. Help me get to the king and you’ll earn enough for your passage through the canal and plenty more besides.”
“What’s your plan?” Jessie said.
“The king’s ‘assassination protocol’ involves him going into lockdown in the basement of his mansion,” Ori said. “But there’s a way we can get to him, bypassing all his security.”
“How?” Jordan said.
“Secret passageways,” Ori said. “There are entrances all over the city. Help me do this and you can get help me free the entire city of Port Fouad.”
“We want to free ourselves,” Jordan said. “Not Port Fouad.”
“Help me, and you’ll do both,” Ori said.
“I’m not sure we should be getting involved in a foreign city’s problems,” Anne said.
“You haven’t seen Port Fouad’s problems,” Ori said, getting to his feet. “Come with me. I’ll show you how great King Faisal treats his poorest citizens. Then you can say you can’t get involved.”
8.
Ori led them out into the bustling harbour. Market stalls lined the roads, and their owners got up in their faces, offering withered produce and damaged goods. Police officers patrolled the busy streets, easily identified by their orange and green uniforms. Children without shoes ran through the empty sharp tin cans like snow drifts.
“The people don’t seem so bad,” Anne said. “We’ve seen worse.”
“These are the wealthy of Port Fouad,” Ori said. “For the poor we have to go a little farther.”
They came to a hovel of a house squeezed between two large buildings. Ori knocked and then pushed the door open. The room was small and cramped with miscellaneous items piled on top of each other.
On the bed, interwoven with the soiled sheets, a mother crouched over the body of a child, mumbling words of a foreign language into his body. She looked up and spoke in Arabic, pushing against him with the palms of her hands. Ori pulled her off him, and they hugged.
The child’s ribs poked through his bare skin and his chest heaved with small panting breaths. This was distressing enough, but it was the sense of loss in the mother’s eyes and the pain in her voice that tugged most at the heartstrings. Tears came to Jessie and Anne’s eyes.
The mother made eating motions with her hands.
“I’m sorry,” Anne said. “We don’t have any food on us. If we did, we’d give it to you.”
The lack of food and water had deepened the wrinkles around the mother’s eyes and mouth, and made the boy’s skin wrinkly like a grape left out in the sun.
Anne’s heart broke. She thought about all the times she had complained about not having enough to eat when there were people such as these in the world.
“Who is she?” Anne said.
“An unfortunate,” Ori said. “One of many in this city. They’re left here to die, swept under the rug. No one cares. Everyone has their own problems to deal with. And it could all be overcome with just a little more food. But the king is greedy, and wants the people hungry and weak like this. Tell me, does a man who inflicts this kind of pain on his subjects deserve to be king?”
Anne couldn’t take her eyes off the mother.
“We will help you,” Anne said.
“Anne…” Jordan said. “We should think about this. We shouldn’t make emotional decisions.”
“We can’t let this go on,” Anne said. “Not this evil. We must do something, if we can.”
“I agree,” Jessie said, wiping her eyes with a sleeve. “We have weapons and training. That’s something these poor people don’t have.”
“Jordan?” Ori said. “We’ll need you too if we’re going to do this.”
Jordan looked at the bag of bones of the small child. In truth, he couldn’t tell if he was alive or dead. His chest had stopped moving and he stared blankly up at the ceiling. What he did know was if this was Anne and Jessie, he would do anything to help them.
Jordan nodded his head.
“Thank you, my friend,” Ori said. “Thank you all from the bottom of my heart.”
“When do we do it?” Anne said.
“Tonight,” Ori said. “We do it tonight.”
9.
“Why the rush?” Jordan said.
“The king is an extremely cautious fellow,” Ori said. “He has contingency plans even for his contingency plans. When he’s attacked – as my friends and I did a few days ago – he retreated into the basement of his mansion. For one week the king’s plan is to sleep in a hidden chamber while his guards and the police purge anyone they consider even a minor threat to the king. Faisal will move from one chamber to the next until he feels it is safe to emerge. He believes he is safe there.”
“But he’s not?” Jordan said.
“Indeed he’s not,” Ori said with a grin.
They were sat at a table outside a restaurant. It no longer made sense to pay for food with food, so the restaurants had come up with a novel solution to the problem. Customers brought their own ingredients and the chefs would create a meal using their superior knowledge of cooking. For this service they kept a portion of whatever they cooked. Jordan, Anne and Jessie had handed over three tins of baked beans, tinned tuna, a small bag of rice, and curry powder. Ori had managed to rustle up half a loaf of bread. They enjoyed a spicy curry with garlic toast – as close to naans as the chef could manage.
“What do you know that the king doesn’t?” Jordan said.
“While staking out his mansion for our first plan we discovered the original building blueprints,” Ori said. “The house was built by a very cautious merchant from Italy. He insisted on a basement, where there was only one way in or out. In times of trouble his men could more easily defend themselves.
“Then, during the Second World War a rich Italian merchant took possession of the house. Afraid of being caught by the British, who at that time held Egypt and had their Mediterranean fleet headquarters in Alexandria, he had a series of tunnels built from the basement in case of attack. These tunnels wormed their way across the city, with multiple exits. Only the merchant and the architect knew of all the exits, and so, being a wary man, the merchant had the architect killed, and a large sum given to his family. As far as we know, the designs we found may well be the only ones in existence.”
“Does the king know of these secret entrances?” Jordan said.
“Unfortunately, yes,” Ori said. “He keeps a contingent of guards outside their entrances within the city at all times. We’ll enter the basement via one of these entrances, confront the king and get him to tell us where he keeps the key for the food vaults. We’ll retrieve it, and then open the vaults for everyone to go in and take whatever they want.”
“How do we convince him to tell us where the key is?” Jordan said.
“First we’ll ask, and then we’ll have to get more creative,” Ori said. “But don’t worry, the king is not a brave man.”
“Do you know where these food vaults are?” Jordan said.
“Everyone knows where they are,” Ori said. “But no one can get near them. They were imported from Swiss banks soon after the outbreak. They are unopenable without the key. If we’re going to make a move we need to do it soon. The king won’t be afraid for long. He will return to his chambers upstairs and we will have missed the window.”
“You know where the secret entrances are?” Jordan said.
“No,” Ori said. “We have to follow the guards. They change every four hours, when their shift ends. They will lead us to them.”
“I have a question,” Jessie said. “Why us? Why not use someone you already know in the city?”
“You saved my life,” Ori said, resting his hand on Jessie’s shoulder. “This is the least I can do for you. Help me, and you will earn enough to pass through the Suez Canal and eat l
ike kings for months afterwards. The only people here brave enough are now dead, hung by the king for their ‘assassination’ attempt. These people, my people, have been beaten and downtrodden. They’ll never rise up by themselves. Out-of-towners are the only people that will take action.”
“This venture is very risky,” Jordan said. “I’ll do it, but Anne and Jessie will stay on the boat.”
“The hell we will!” Anne said. “We’re a team. We stick together!”
“Yeah!” Jessie said.
“I’m sorry to say that if we’re going to be successful we’re going to need all of us,” Ori said.
Jordan sighed and shook his head. There was no changing their minds when they got an idea lodged in their brains.
“Fine,” Jordan said. “But we need a Plan S.”
“Plan S?” Ori said.
“Plan for if the shit hits the fan,” Jessie said.
“Which door in the mansion is least well-protected?” Jordan said.
“The southeast entrance,” Ori said. “What’s known as the Moon Door. It’s the same door we used to enter the house in our kidnap attempt. Maybe they’ve increased security since then, I don’t know.”
Jordan looked up at the sky.
“We’ve got an hour before it turns dark,” he said. “We’d better keep an eye on the guards, follow them and see where they go.”
“But we won’t know which ones will head where until we follow them?” Anne said.
“Right,” Jordan said.
“Good times,” Anne said.
“Where’s the king’s mansion?” Jordan said to Ori.
“That’s the reason I chose this restaurant,” Ori said. “It’s right in front of us.”
10.
Across the plaza was a large ornate building. The last of the sun’s rays closed over it, turning it an earthy orange colour. The front doors, wide like a church’s, were covered on both sides by halberd-bearing guards. The head of the house guard, recognisable by the white sash he wore over his standard uniform, inspected the other guards.