by Sarah Black
“Then let’s wait for Sam. He’s my aide on this op and will have operational decision making in my absence.”
“Operational decision making? Do I know what that means? Is that army-speak?”
John smiled down at her grumpy face. “I think you know what it means and have been around lots of army-speak in your life. But just to clarify, that means if I’m not around, you take your orders from him.”
“I don’t take orders from anyone in my father’s company.”
John thought about what Fields had said, something about Jen waiting to tell him what she had done. “Unless you being in Tunisia had nothing whatsoever to do with two Americans being dragged off to prison, then I might suggest you check the attitude and consider the benefits of teamwork.”
She huffed a little, crossed her arms over the chest of the baggy dress, but she was still until Sam finished checking them in and led the way upstairs to their suite.
Sam put the computers on the large desk, unpacked them and plugged them in, and when that was done, he turned to Jen and gave her an awkward hug. She had sat down in one of the chairs in the suite and watched him, her eyes narrowed. John suspected she was thinking up what she would say to him, the first time he assumed operational command over her.
The suite had two bedrooms, each with a bathroom, and the living room between them was bigger than his living room at home. And like his living room at home, he was sorry to see, the room was furnished with a white leather couch curved into a U and an ottoman shaped like a leather polka dot. Oh, not white, cream. Where the hell were all the brown sofas?
He put his ditty bag on the bathroom sink and hung up the suit bag, but he didn’t unpack any further. They needed to be ready to move out quickly, if need be, and he did not want to settle in. He went back into the living room, looked at Sam and Jen. Both of them had their arms crossed now and were looking off in opposite directions. “Okay,” he said. “What happened?”
“Amira Shakir is a pro-democracy blogger,” Jen said, sitting up. “She’s been reporting on what’s happening in Tunisia since the revolution, and she has been critical of the efforts to form a new government and the rising power of the Salafists. There is a feeling that they are going to try and impose stricter traditional Islamic guidelines for behavior and dress on the women here, and they don’t want that, not after having years of freedom to get educated and work. She was being harassed online, and then the threats became dangerous and personal. I smuggled her out of the country, over the border into Algeria, and pointed her toward Europe with money and papers. The Salafists found out who had helped her, I don’t know how. My name is still associated with my father’s business, though I am not a part of it. When those Rangers came into Carthage to go sightseeing, they got picked up.”
“Are you sure this is part of it, what you’re doing with the women?”
“No, I’m not sure. That guy from the Ministry, Ali Bahktar, he picked me up for questioning and asked me about her. How long she had been working for my father’s company. How much was she paid to spy on the government and spread Western lies? When had the CIA recruited her? I think he would have put me in jail but he was afraid to. Then less than a week later, these guys are in Carthage and they get picked up. Everybody heard about it, because it happened down at the site, you know, the UNESCO site. I got the feeling what he did, throwing them in jail, had not exactly been sanctioned by the Ministry of Justice, and if he took me in, too, he couldn’t keep it under the radar.”
“Where did he question you? In his office?”
Jen shook her head. “The first time at the Ministry, and then at the prison. I went down there to demand their release. He bragged about where he had them taken.” She hesitated. “9 Avril Prison. It’s a shit hole, one of the worst. It’s where they used to throw the political prisoners, the Islamic clergy under the old regime. And the thing is, I gave her my papers. My passport and ID so she could cross the border safely. I haven’t been to the embassy yet. I wanted her to get as far as she could. So I’m sort of stuck here. I might be in trouble if anyone demands to see my passport.”
“Agreed. And now you’re on Ali Bahktar’s radar,” John said.
“He’s a fuckhead of the first order,” Jen said. “But he’s dangerous.”
“Absolutely right.”
“I thought maybe I could get some information that would be useful. I knew my father would send someone. But Bahktar wouldn’t tell me anything when I demanded an explanation, just sneered and gave me some Salafist prop about women.”
“You went down to that prison without any identification? Without your passport? Jen, what were you thinking? You could have disappeared, and nobody would have been able to find you. I mean, what the fuck?” It was the first time Sam had spoken.
Jen looked furious. “Yes, I did, and thank you for pointing out that mistake, Sam. But I didn’t know what else to do, and I was afraid for them! Bahktar, he said they beat the guys up, and two days had passed and nothing happened, and I had to do something! I didn’t know when you were coming, General, or who he was going to send, but I couldn’t just let it go. Why did you wait so long to come? It’s been days.”
Sam turned to John. “Sir, she’s not safe out on the streets now.”
“Agreed,” John said. He watched Jen gathering herself up, ready to argue. “I’m tired, and I don’t want to argue. What’s the local time, Jen?”
They had set their watches on the plane, but John wanted to head off any drama. He had the feeling this pair of kids, with their big hearts and misplaced bravery, had the rest of their long lives to act out their particular theater and he was very sure he didn’t want to be in the audience. What was with the kids these days, they didn’t know what a closed door was for? Kim had to climb into Abdullah’s lap right at the kitchen table? He and Gabriel had spent their lives waiting for a small room and a closed door to have any sort of private conversation, and John thought now the discipline of having to wait to speak was probably a good one.
“Okay, we need food; I also want you to gather up a care package for the boys. Maybe I can leave some things with them when we go into the prison to try and see them. Some bottles of water, some small packages of sealed food, and the little first aid supplies. We might not need a care package but I want to have one ready just in case.”
“Yes, sir.”
John turned back to the computers. “Jennifer, can you get the Wi-Fi access code and get us online please, these two laptops and my tablet. I’ll be back in a moment.”
John took the elevator back down to the lobby, found Fields drinking a beer and staring moodily out over the pool. The white sandy beach and the ocean beyond were turning the smudgy purple of dusk. “Fields.”
“Sir? You want a beer?”
“Yeah, thanks. Whatever you’re having is good.”
They waited a moment, and a waiter brought him a beer, tried to unfold a white linen napkin in his lap. The beer was icy cold in his throat. It wasn’t tequila but it was pretty damn good.
“Fields, so what’s happening in Carthage?”
“I feel like a damn babysitter!” He lifted the beer to his mouth, and John thought he was probably trying to shut himself up before he said something that got him in trouble. “Himself told me to watch the girl but not to let her know or interfere. Sir, that’s like watching a tornado that’s heading right toward you, and all you can do is run like hell when it gets close. She made me the second day. I let her know pretty damn fast I didn’t want to get in the middle of whatever fit she was throwing to try and punish her father but she just blew me off.”
“You think what she’s doing here for Amnesty International is trying to punish her father?”
“She’s not with Amnesty International anymore. They moved on a couple of months ago. No, she’s decided to protect the pro-democracy movement, specifically the female bloggers. They are being targeted, no question about that, but I’m not sure she isn’t making things worse by calling
attention to herself and them. The girl has not learned when to shut up!”
“Wait, how many female pro-democracy bloggers are running around Tunisia?”
“Hundreds,” Fields said, his face gloomy. He studied his beer bottle but it was empty.
John smiled at the picture in his mind of hundreds of female pro-democracy bloggers, holding back the tides of repression. “Does it seem to you she’s actually having an effect?”
Fields shrugged. “I’m not sure. When these women are identified by the media, when they give interviews, for instance, they may get more day-to-day hate mail or get hassled on the streets, but they seem safer for having been publically identified. Once they’ve been interviewed by the BBC, for instance, I think the Ministry is hesitant to make them disappear. Not that safety matters to any of them. They just want to get their message out into the world.”
“One more question. Our driver, where did you find him?”
“She brought him. He drove her here. He’s the father of one of these girls. I don’t know which one.”
“Okay.”
“Now you’re here, I’m going to ask Himself if I can get back to work.”
John gave him a look. “Really? When you have a view of the Mediterranean from a five star luxury hotel and all the beer you can drink?”
“I’d rather go sit in the desert with a bunch of roughnecks who haven’t had a proper shower in a month than tail around behind that girl.”
“Before you flee from a young woman who weighs less than a hundred pounds, and correct me if I’m wrong, Fields, you were asked to watch over a girl who was engaged in protecting other women from torture and death at the risk of her own safety, women who were trying to bring about a democratic change to this country against terrible odds, am I missing anything…?”
Fields stared at the white marble beneath his feet, didn’t say anything.
“Can I just clarify? You watched her get picked up by a group of Salafists for questioning? You let her walk into 9 Avril Prison, alone, to demand that Forsyth and Green be released? Have you seen Forsyth and Green? Have you ascertained their physical condition? What are they being charged with?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
John stood up and set the beer bottle down. “Enjoy the roughnecks, Fields.”
Chapter 11
“WHAT a dickhead.” John leaned over the table, pulled up his e-mail. “Sam, is the food coming?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Here it is.” He opened the reply to the e-mail he’d sent to Greg Mortimer, the regional security officer at the embassy. Hey, John. Long time. Yeah, I heard about your two guys. You want to go see them when you get in tonight, give me a call. I’ve got a couple of young Marines who can go with. The head of the prison is a man named Ben Mberek. He’s got a price and it is green American money. I understand he dreams of a boat in Miami for his retirement years. We can talk in person about other issues, about young men you might have known.
John smiled down at the computer. He picked up the phone, dialed the number Mortimer had given him. “Hey, Greg. John Mitchel here.”
“General! How was the trip?”
“Very good. We’re at the Regency in Carthage.” A couple of waiters pushed open the door, started setting plates on the table. Sam stood between them and the general in a move John recognized. Gabriel used to do that when strangers were in the room. “What do you think, a little hello to the night staff?”
“Might be a surprising way to proceed.”
John stepped into one of the bedrooms. “I will be sure and bring gifts to those who have given hospitality to my young nephews.”
“Good idea. I’ll see you in an hour. I’ll bring a vehicle that will do the job. How many of your crew you bringing?”
John looked at Sam. “Just myself. I’m leaving my aide behind to mind the fort.”
“Good. See you then.”
Jen came out of the second bedroom. She had washed her face and combed her hair back into another ponytail. Now she looked about twelve years old. “Are we going somewhere?”
Sam moved to her, his back to the wait staff who were putting the food on the table. “Not with strangers in the room, okay?”
She waved a hand and frowned at him. “They’re fine.”
“That’s not your call! I need to keep him safe, so keep your mouth shut when there are strangers in the room.”
She glared at him until John moved to them, put a hand on each of their shoulders. “I’m not going to listen to every conversation deteriorate into a pissing contest of this sort. Find a way to get along. Let’s proceed with these two assumptions: I know what I’m doing, and I do not need to discuss it with you before I proceed. Sam, you back my play the best you can. I will not always have the time to explain. If you aren’t sure, just stay quiet. Jen, I have one goal only, and that is to get these young Americans home. We can address any other issues you are working on when that job is done, agreed? I want to hear about what you’re doing in Tunisia. I admire the work you’re trying to do here.”
Jen looked blank for a moment. “You do? Really?”
“Of course.”
Her face was pale with worry, ginger freckles standing out in stark relief. “So what’s your plan?”
“Food,” John said. “The smell of saffron and rice is driving me mad.”
She laughed, pulled Sam over to the table by the sleeve. “Oh, go ahead and eat, both of you. I can tell your mouth’s watering from across the room.”
They sat down together, and one of the waiters dished up the rice and chicken dish while another poured water into stemmed glasses. John closed his eyes for a moment, letting himself feel the fatigue, and then he put it away. That bed would feel so good when he finally crawled between the sheets.
He waited to eat until the staff had bowed their way to the door. “Information,” he said, “is a critical weapon for the warrior-philosopher. Let us be careful about giving our weapons away. Sam, when we are finished eating, make sure all the serving dishes are placed outside the room, and then you check under the edges of tables and such for listening devices. Let’s do that whenever we have guests in the room, even the cleaning staff. A simple precaution, but don’t forget the possibility there’s something we have not found, okay?”
Jen was looking cranky again, shoveling the food into her mouth. John held up a hand. “I know that in a perfect world these types of precautions would not be necessary, Jennifer. I will leave it to you to move us toward that perfect world. For now, I wonder if you can tell me anything about the museums in Carthage?”
“The museums?” Jen’s face was blank. Sam didn’t bother to speak, just shook his head.
“Children, you do know Carthage is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the Bardo is one of the most famous museums in the world?”
Eyes were glazing. He sighed. If he was sitting at the dining room table with Kim and Billy, and he had asked them about Carthage, they would have both looked up, eyes bright, and Kim would have begged him to tell everything he knew. He would have looked things up on his tiny phone, shown the table a mosaic or a sculpture. Billy would have pulled a book from the bookshelf, and they would have discussed ancient trade routes and the shapes of olive oil lamps. Jen turned to Sam. “So did you volunteer, or did he make you come?”
Retired General David Painter was a pain in the ass. John thought about Christmas morning twenty years in the future, Painter turning down the volume on his hearing aids so he wouldn’t have to listen to these two bicker. John felt reasonably cheered.
HE PUSHED away from the table, went into his bedroom and pulled the new suit from the bag.
It was the color of a gun, John thought, and he was pretty sure Kim had not thought of that analogy. John was going to use it, though, because every small tactical advantage could open a new avenue toward a successful resolution. He would have to remember to tell Kim he was right about the new clothes and haircut. The shirt and tie were also gunmetal gray, so
he was monochromatic, and even to his own eye he looked faintly lethal. He was going to wear his Suede Hipster Chukkas because they were comfortable and he may end the night needing to run, even though Billy had given him specific instructions on wearing the Derbys with the new suit. John opened the door, called Sam over. “How much cash do we have?”
“Twenty thousand, plus the credit card.”
“Put ten thousand in an envelope. Don’t seal it.”
“Sir, I should go with you.”
John shook his head. “I’ve got backup from the embassy. Your job if I don’t get back is this: You pull up the list I have titled Serious Emergency. You call or e-mail those people the information you have. And then you get Jen to her father’s people in Algeria or back home if the embassy can issue another passport. I’ll leave those decisions to you. You’ll figure it out. I’m going with Greg Mortimer. He’s the regional security officer for the embassy. If I don’t come back by morning, try to find him so you know what’s going on.” John hesitated. “Whatever you tell Gabriel, try not to alarm him, okay?”
Sam had his wooden face on. “Yes, sir.”
John slipped the thick envelope of cash into the inside pocket of his suit coat, then he put his phone and passport and military ID in his pocket. He left the rest of his wallet on the dresser. Jen opened the door to Greg Mortimer when he knocked. He looked a few years older than John remembered, but he supposed they all did. The man had brown hair down over his ears, a longer style than he’d worn before, and he was wearing a nondescript beige linen suit. “Hey, John,” he said, shaking hands. “I’ve got a couple of boys along to ride shotgun. You speak Arabic, right?”
John nodded, introduced Sam and Jen. Jen was starting to look worried. “Is this a good idea? Isn’t it better to wait till morning?”
John shook his head, followed Mortimer out the door. “Some work was meant to be done in the dark. I’ll be back soon.”