The General and the Elephant Clock of Al-Jazari

by Sarah Black

  John stared at him for a moment. “If I’m not back in five minutes, call me on my cell. If you hear me say ‘Death Star,’ then you can call out the Marines.”

  “Sir, I am the Marines.”

  The USMC, John thought, when the elevator started moving down, had a very subtle line in irony.

  The front desk was deserted. John wondered if the staff had given up, or if Mr. Aziz had simply sent everyone home until the Americans had left his beautiful hotel? He waited a minute for someone to show, but, mindful of Jackson upstairs staring at his watch, he knocked on the wooden counter, then rang the bell. He heard a woman then, what sounded like a muffled sob, and he came around the corner of the desk, pushed open the door into the back room. Two waiters, three maids, and the front desk clerk were sitting together in the corner while Ali Bahktar’s men surrounded them, wearing old American camo and holding small arms, some pointed at their own feet. Bahktar was striding back and forth, his eyes wild. “I’ve been waiting for you, General Mitchel.”

  Chapter 20

  THE boy loved to listen to himself talk, John thought. What with the arms flying around, the white robe flapping around his heels, that thin beard, he looked like a cartoon jihadist. He was saying something about John humiliating him as a child, but now he was the master.

  The boys upstairs, Kim and Eli, they were quoting lines from the movie! That’s why he couldn’t stop thinking about Star Wars. And here was Ali, acting for the tiniest audience: frightened clerks and thugs with guns. “If you want to be a person who has something to say, Ali, you need to work on your scholarship. An Imam studies many years, he reads and learns and thinks. He is wise because he has studied, so that when he does have something to say, people will listen. You want to take the easy way out, no one will take what you have to say seriously.” Why was he bothering? Ali Bahktar was a dim bulb at his brightest.

  “Shut up! You do not speak to me. I am the one speaking here! I am the master now!”

  “Only the Master of Evil, Darth.”

  A room full of confused eyes looked back at him. He raised his hands. “We are leaving very soon,” he assured the staff. “Where is Mr. Aziz? Has he been taken somewhere else, or did he go home for some rest?”

  “He went home.” The desk clerk reached up and wiped under her eyes. Her makeup was smeared with tears, and Ali started another rant about whores and makeup, pointing his finger in her face and screaming at her.

  “Fucking hell. That is enough.” John reached out, grabbed his arm and pulled down, then let it go, and Ali swung wildly, a flat-handed blow aimed at John’s head. John ducked, grabbed the wrist and twisted it up behind Ali’s back. Now Ali was immobilized and his body was between John and the bad guys, and John still had one hand free. Gabriel had taught him this trick. “Out, all of you,” he said, pulling Ali backward. John twisted his arm a little tighter when the desk clerk put her face in her hands and cried. “Somebody call Mr. Aziz and the police.” When the cell phone in his pocket rang, he reached for it and hit the button with his thumb. “Death Star.”

  Jackson must have radioed Wylie, because he and Daniel came at a run from the fitness center, Jackson pounding down the stairs and covering the beautiful lobby and patio, the deserted blue jewel of a pool. The Salafists walked backward out of the hotel, covering him, and John walked Ali Bahktar down the white marble steps. He had Wylie and Jackson at his back with weapons, and Daniel at his back with a plaster cast, ready for a little payback. Ali had three men. Their guns looked poorly maintained, but even rusty pieces of crap could maim. John was thinking as fast as he could how to get these dickheads off the hotel grounds before somebody got hurt.

  A taxi pulled up to the front of the hotel, behind the Salafists, and John could see the driver’s horrified face behind the glass. Gabriel pushed open the back door, came out and went straight for the nearest man. He lashed out with his foot, tripped him, and kicked his gun away when he fell. The next man got a roundhouse punch to the chin, dropped like a sack of wet sand. Gabriel reached for number three with both hands, but the man backed away, his hands raised. “I swear, John, I can’t leave you alone for five minutes!”

  “The Marines were here. And the Rangers,” he said, looking at Daniel. “And I haven’t just fallen off the army turnip truck, my friend. I can take care of myself.”

  Gabriel reached up, took Ali Bahktar by the throat, and started to squeeze. “Gabriel, no.” John let go of Bahktar’s arm, and he flailed in Gabriel’s grip, his face shading dark. Gabriel spun him around, pushed him into the arms of the last man standing.

  “If I see you again, I am going to put you into the ground, my friend.” Bahktar was coughing, his hands at his throat, and Gabriel spread his arms, just like he had done when Ali had been a child and tried to cut John’s throat. He stood there, his big chest open to the enemy, arms wide, the biggest “fuck you” imaginable, until Bahktar turned and ran.

  “Are you wearing a vest?” John demanded. Wylie and Daniel were grinning at each other, Jackson standing with his weapon pointing down, his mouth open. “Did you leave Abdullah somewhere?”

  Gabriel shook his head, bent over the open door of the taxi. “Hey, kiddo. Come on out.”

  John stared at the driver, who had his cell phone up and pointed at Gabriel. “Would somebody please pay this guy? For crying out loud, what I wouldn’t give for a peaceful life.” Then he remembered that he’d had a peaceful life, and he’d nearly gone mad with boredom. Gabriel was giving him a smart-assed grin now. “Alright, enough. Everybody inside. We need to get cleaned up. We’ve got company on the way.”

  In the elevator to the fourth floor, the men carefully studied the ceilings or the walls except for Gabriel. “The general looks like he’s doing some calculations! Ease up, partner. The elevator isn’t where we’re supposed to fight.” And he pulled two passports out of his pocket, fanned them out like a couple of aces in a hand of poker.

  John smiled at him, reached an arm around his waist. “Look at that!”

  Back upstairs, he pulled Gabriel through to their bedroom. “Jackson, Wylie, would you handle the police when they come, please?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Gabriel closed the bedroom door after them. “You had things well in hand when I arrived, five minutes late as usual.”

  “The entire time he was talking, all I could think about was Star Wars. I swear I’m getting senile. So what happened?”

  “Madeline went with me, and we saw the Assistant Minister of Justice for Tunis. He has not dropped the charges, but he returned the passports and said that Ali Bahktar no longer has authority to arrest or detain. This is the absolute best we can hope for, John. I think we need to get out of the country before something else happens.”

  “Painter gave me forty-eight hours, but I don’t think we need that long. The kids are busy figuring out that there is no way we can build the elephant clock. We’ve got the Director of the Bardo, an old man I met about thirty years ago, coming to see Daniel and Eli. Maybe this is all we need to do.”

  Gabriel reached out for him. “I don’t like it when you look at me and I can see you’re pissed off. I’ve seen you pissed off lots of times, but I have very rarely been the target of those eyes.”

  “We don’t have time to fight right now.” John settled his head on Gabriel’s chest, smelled his skin, let his breathing rock them both. “I’ll just add it to the list.”

  “Tell me you love me, then.”

  “I love you.” John reached up and kissed him, tasted his warm, sweet mouth. “I love you, Gabriel.”

  “And I love you.” Gabriel put his hand on John’s face, stared down into his eyes. “It feels like sinking into water, sometimes, cool and deep and quiet. That’s what it feels like to me when I look into your eyes.”

  “You don’t feel like you’re drowning, do you?”

  “I can swim.” Gabriel leaned over for one more kiss. “It’s what I love the most in the world, looking down into your eyes, feeling the
cool water close over my head.” He sighed, pulled John against his chest, big arms wrapped around him. “Abdullah does not like this democracy theater. He’s looked like he’s felt sick since we got off the plane. This morning I left him outside in the coffee shop since Madeline was with me, and she speaks Arabic.”

  “He didn’t mind Kim’s project, and that had some risk, but maybe that’s because he also believes in holding a mirror up to society’s face. Isn’t that what the boys said they were trying to do? This is something different. And even though he was born in Kuwait, Abdullah is American as apple pie. He’s nervous with the constant threat of violence. Well, we all should be. Maybe I need to find him something important to do that he can do well. Like play the cello.” John was thinking about the shattered faces of the hotel staff when he’d walked Ali Bahktar out of the lobby.

  There was a knock on the door, then Jen stuck her head inside. “The Director is here. He’s on his way up in the elevator. They just called from reception.”

  “Tell Wylie to go easy,” John said. “We don’t need anybody getting frisked on our doorstep, and I think the boys might have an excess of adrenalin to work off.”

  John looked down at himself. Shit, he was still in his jeans. “Gabriel, go do the host thing while I change, okay?”

  Gabriel reached for John’s shirt, flicked a few buttons open, then tugged him over by the waistband of his jeans. “I can undress you faster than you can undress yourself.”

  “Out!” John was laughing when Gabriel went out the door.

  John got himself into suit and tie in record time. The Director was a very old man, with a cane and a long white beard, sharp dark eyes under heavy, greying eyebrows. He was formally dressed in a dark suit and tie, and he greeted Gabriel with a handshake. He had a young woman with him, holding a portfolio. Wylie opened the portfolio, looked inside, then patted it down.

  John moved forward, greeted him in Arabic, then he introduced Eli and Daniel. He didn’t remember the old man, but they’d all changed so much in thirty years. Kim was holding his camera, one of the big professional models, and the Director seemed charmed by his Arabic greeting and pretty smile. “Eli, Daniel, why don’t you sit down with the Director? Sir, have you met Abdullah al-Salim? I know you will recognize him. The first time I saw him, I thought his father was standing before me.”

  The old man greeted Abdullah with cries of delight and three kisses, the traditional Arabic way. Abdullah held a hand out to Kim. “Kim is General Mitchel’s nephew. He’s my best friend.”

  Kim was kissed now, then they all sat down on the couch. John counted. Five men, with plenty of room, just like Kim had said, and the U shape meant people on either end could see each other to talk. Even better, he could, if he wanted to, perch on the leather polka dot ottoman like a frog sitting on a lily pad. God, he hated that couch. Kim looked at him, gave him a weak smile. Kim was reading his mind again.

  Gabriel took Sam and Wylie, and they moved over to the table and pulled up chairs. Kim held up his camera. “Director, I thought I would take a picture of you with these men. It will be a good memory for them when they are back home, to remember your kindness.”

  Abdullah translated, and the Director gave Kim a hesitant nod. Then the old man turned to Eli and Daniel, offered them each a hand. Abdullah translated his words. “I have come to tell you of the admiration of the Tunisian people for your courage. It gives great heart to the people when we see your love for Carthage. I also brought something for you to see. I found this in the archives.” The young woman with him handed over the portfolio, then retreated to stand with Jen. Jen reached out to her, and John could hear the quiet murmur of their voices in the background.

  The Director pulled out a plastic sleeve. Inside was a brown manuscript page, painted in colors still vibrant and beautiful more than eight hundred years after they had first been painted. The old man put the page down on the ottoman, and the boys leaned forward to look at it. It was an original page from The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices and showed Al-Jazari’s wondrous elephant clock. Eli caught his breath, reached out and touched the edge of the parchment through the plastic. “This is really… it’s the real….” He sounded like he was having trouble catching his breath.

  Kim stood up and moved around the other side of the couch and lifted the camera. Eli looked up at the Director, and something in his battered face must have touched the old man. His eyes were tender, and he reached out, put his hand on Eli’s cheek. Then he reached out with his other hand, held Daniel’s. “My sons, will you come and see the Bardo? The museum will be open tomorrow for the children. It’s the day we have a festival for them. I would like you to come, to see something of our history and our culture.”

  Eli looked down at the page again. “The kids, they’ll go crazy over this! Can you believe it? Is this wild, or what? Do you see it?”

  He looked up at John, his green eyes like jewels, his black hair sticking up in the front in little tufts. John nodded at him, smiling. “I do see it. Is it as good as you thought it would be?”

  “Better,” Eli said. “Can we go, General? To the Bardo?”

  John looked at Gabriel, then back to Eli. “Yes, I think we can. We’ll be safe in a group.” Daniel stood up, let John take his place next to the old man. “Thank you for your kindness. Are you sure it will not be too much trouble? I understood you were closed for renovations.”

  The Director shook his head. “Once a year we have a children’s day. We had planned to have the parts of the museum not under construction open tomorrow. It is like a festival, very important to me. I believe there will be camels and balloons and too many sweets, and my staff will have video projectors set up because the children like to watch movies. In your honor I will add a stage for the elephant clock, a video so the children can see. Like this young man,” he put his hand on Eli’s shoulder, “love of scholarship starts when a child is very young. I believe you will be safe. Let us open our heart to you, show you the true face of Tunisia. The true face of Islam.”

  Eli leaned forward. “What is the true face of Islam?”

  The old man put his hand on Eli’s cheek again. “Just like with your people, my son, the true face of Islam is love.”

  Kim put his camera down on the table, went to the leather ottoman, and sat down. “Uncle John, we didn’t get a chance to tell you what we figured out. Me and Eli, we came up with an idea. I mean a real idea that could work. We were going to do it with the classes in Jen’s blogger network. You know, the teachers. But if the director says okay, we can do it at the festival tomorrow. That would be just….” He shook his head. “That would be iced.”

  “You actually figured out how to build the elephant clock?” Oh, hell. John couldn’t believe it.

  Kim shook his head. “Something better,” he said, and he explained the idea.

  John exchanged a look with the director, then translated it into Arabic. He appreciated the look of confusion on the director’s face and was sure it mirrored his own. “Eli, I don’t understand. How does this make anything right? Isn’t that what you wanted to do, make things right?”

  “Me and Kim were talking,” he said. “See, it’s like, what they did to me, that showed who they were, not who I am. This is going to show who I am, and I’m going to make the skies over Carthage so beautiful…. Just for this one day, something beautiful, instead of something ugly. It doesn’t have to be permanent to exist in memory, right?” He hesitated. “I can’t explain it, really. I want to choose the words written across my face when I look in the mirror. These are my words.” Eli looked at him, then at the old man. “But we don’t tell anyone it was us. That’s the best part. We keep it quiet, like a secret gift. That’s the right way to do it, isn’t it?”

  “That’s the way of Islam,” the director said. He looked up at John and smiled. “This young scholar, he needs to come to the Bardo to study, I think.”

  “Maybe one day he will.”

  John took Kim
by the wrist, pulled him gently into his bedroom and closed the door. “I am very proud of you, Kim. Have I told you that today?”

  Chapter 21

  JOHN found Gabriel out in the hall telling stories to Wylie and Jackson. “I need you, Gabriel.” He followed John into their bedroom. “Get Painter on the phone. See if we can charter a plane to get us to Sicily, NAS Sigonella, or maybe he has enough pull he can get permission for a Navy plane to make an emergency landing at the airport in Tunis. That would be easiest.”

  Gabriel picked up his phone, started pulling up numbers. “Why Sigonella?”

  “Jennifer doesn’t have a passport. She gave her ID to a young woman blogger who was being targeted by the Salafists. She’ll be safe on a military base until we get her papers organized. Oh, that reminds me.” He stuck his head back out the bedroom door. “Sam, find my Kindle.”

  “Where did you leave it?”

  “Downstairs at the front desk.”

  That got him a glum look. Sam was feeling a little bummed out that he’d missed the attempted breach of the hotel.

  Gabriel was talking to Painter on the sat phone. “1300 tomorrow, sir. No. No, I’m not sure. The situation is fluid. No promises, but we should all be there at 1300 or close. We need to go to a US military base, and Italy is closest. It doesn’t have to be Sigonella, but Aviano is a longer flight. No. Well, then, Rota or La Maddalena. We can’t come straight back to the States because Jen doesn’t have a passport, and we don’t have time to get her new papers. They wouldn’t let her on a commercial flight. General Mitchel says she’s coming with us.” He listened for a minute, rubbing his forehead. “Sir, it’s complicated. I’m sure she’ll explain herself. No, nothing to do with Amnesty International. No. No, sir, I don’t believe General Mitchel has ever smoked dope and neither have I.” He listened for a moment more, then pulled the phone away from his ear and stared at it. “No, I don’t.”