Submission

by Harrison Young

  Would Maloof be able to see anything in her face as she approached him when they met behind the Jebel? She doubted it. She’d played sphinx for a decade. And she planned to shoot him immediately. Still, it was smart to be ready, so she took a last look at herself, wondered what Maloof had seen that made him take the risk of asking her to do all the things he had, and hoped he’d see nothing different in the last ten seconds of his life.

  Allison had killed a man naked once. She was naked, that is. In Italy. It was the only way to get past his bodyguards. She’d picked the lock of his hotel suite, walked past the goons and into the empty bedroom. By the time they were out of their chairs, she had off her blouse. They made noises in Italian and she took off her bra. That made them nervous. Perhaps there were some instructions they had missed. They retreated into the living room. A curt nod and they closed the door. She lay down on the bed with the silenced pistol beside her. Twenty minutes later the industrialist in question arrived. Lots of Italian in the living room, leading to the conclusion that either God or a supplier had sent her, the favour being in either case entirely deserved. She waited until he closed the door before she shot him. Then she’d dressed, opened the door and killed the guards, gone for a walk and hidden the pistol where she’d been told, disposed of the wig, caught a plane to Helsinki, had a sauna, spent the night alone, and flown home in the morning. It was the sort of thing that only worked if it worked. Soon she would go to the Jebel and test her luck again.

  The innocuous sign in a shop window that signalled a meet wasn’t there. Allison found she was unreasonably worried. Waiting for Maloof to call had been part of her life for many years, so she should not have been bothered, really, but she was, even though it had only been ten hours since the auction. The treachery she planned seemed to put an enormous weight upon her. As Maloof’s instrument, she had been ready to outface the world. Now she was on her own, and the fact she was going after happiness made it harder. Catastrophe rang in her ears, like a shriek of car tyres you know will end in a crash. Going out of her front door this morning, she had noticed Tommy’s airline guide and almost stopped to look up the flights to Paris. Maloof could make her disappear forever, get her a faked death certificate, give her a new identity. She’d willed herself to think about Philip.

  For an instant, stumbling through the souk, the conviction seized her that she was deluded: the pact she had made with Maloof could never be broken; she and Philip turned each other on, but that was all. She pushed the thoughts aside. This must be courage, she said to herself. She had never been afraid before, actually.

  There were Europeans in the crowd, which had grown quickly, and at a corner where the pedestrians had jammed up, she heard one of them say, “When are they expected to invade?” Not for a couple of weeks, she said to herself, only half paying attention. “Sometime today, according to the BBC,” said the other. Allison came out of her reverie.

  It was easy to learn what was going on. Mubarek had left the country on the dawn flight. This automatically made Ibrahim the king. Suleiman had made a radio broadcast in Arabic, claiming the throne. He had also given a telephone interview in English, to the effect that if everyone stayed indoors – Arabs and expatriates alike – his troops would not harm them. He invited Ibrahim’s army to surrender, but no one expected that to happen.

  Meanwhile, the Hilton and the Regency were out of rooms. There wasn’t any panic, you understand. People just preferred the safety of numbers to staying in the more isolated housing compounds. The mood in the Hilton’s lobby was almost festive, with stragglers from the prom, still in costume, scattered through the crowd. There was a handwritten sign to the effect that sandwiches would be available in the grand ballroom at noon. Allison hurried to the parking lot. She had to get back to the house. Philip would be trying to reach her.

  There was an envelope taped to her front door, a note inside: “Come to the Old Fort.” No signature, but she knew Philip’s handwriting. She would have liked a “Love, Philip,” but he was probably being careful for Tommy’s sake. He would have called, and not reached her, and driven to her house, and then into the desert. It wouldn’t have been that far out of his way. He’d probably be angry, though.

  Allison changed quickly into chino pants, a long-sleeved shirt, a scarf and running shoes. She’d have to get rid of the chador, but there was no time right now. Philip would be an hour or more ahead of her, and with his jeep he could go cross-country.

  Ten miles into the desert, Allison began to feel very low. She really would have liked it if he’d signed, “love.” And she needed an explanation for not being home. It was all very well telling herself he didn’t care about her past, but it would be smart to make sure he never had to ask about it, to make sure he never had to ask questions of any sort. No glib explanations came to mind. Her capacity for deception seemed to have dried up.

  The thing was, she was going to have to seal her past up inside her. Because her past was completely unacceptable. And keeping it sealed up, without even a Maloof to know, was different from lying, which she used to be very good at, which was a kind of sport, really. Her past would stay there inside her like a lump of ice, and she would turn out never to be able to enjoy sex again. She would get old and sour, and watch the disappointment growing in Philip’s eyes. And that would be only the first phase of her punishment. Once God had her full attention, he would drain the colour from her life. The thought was so bleak she almost had to stop the car, but she forced herself to drive on. This is what courage is, she told herself again.

  Philip, she knew, liked the desert. Allison did not. Not when it was flat like this, at least. And empty. It gave her a sense of worthlessness. Hail, Mary, full of grace...Allison stopped herself. She shouldn’t say that. She didn’t believe those words. She wasn’t entitled to those words. After what she’d done with her life, it was sacrilegious to say them. She didn’t want to offend God any further. The prospect of a life without pleasure had taken over her mind. If God is merciful, she said to herself, He will send an angry seraph to strike me dead.

  39

  Philip stood at the highest point on the ruins of the Old Fort, watching Ibrahim move around the hill, speaking to each of his soldiers. Everything was ready.

  Interesting question: why did he feel lonely in his house but not in the desert? They were equally uninhabited. Philip supposed it was the scale of the desert.

  Philip decided he needed a new theory of Arthur. He had constructed a whole existence for the man that had involved his being a bastard because he was suffering. Actually, he wasn’t a bastard. There were sadists at the firm, but Arthur wasn’t one of them. He simply expected the best of everyone, and his best was hard.

  Ibrahim was getting closer. There were things they hadn’t said to each other yet. The thing about the mortars was, they couldn’t fire them until it seemed like it was too late. And there would be that awful period while the rounds were in the air, as if they had ascended into heaven, during which time more and more Zaathi would be pouring into the places where the rounds were meant to come down. Philip hoped Ibrahim could control his troops.

  Perhaps Arthur Allison wasn’t lonely at all. The law was licenced madness, but it too had grandeur. What you had to do, clearly, was put yourself in the right relationship to the universe, so that you felt right about it, or it felt right about you. Arthur seemed to have been able to accomplish that. And seemed interested in the question of whether Philip could do so as well.

  Philip had lain awake in Allison’s bed until the poor girl fell asleep. Then he’d gone and woken Ian.

  “You remember that blonde you stripped when she was lying on the counter in your kitchen?”

  “Daisy.”

  “What was it Sheik Fawzi drew on her thigh?”

  “Have you seen it somewhere else?”

  “Maybe.”

  So Ian had told him.

  After he’d left Ian, Philip had sat in his jeep and tried to cry, but tears wouldn’t come. Allison
didn’t want her secrets anymore. She’d tried to give them to him. What was awful was that she probably thought he had figured it all out, and was going to overlook the matter.

  Philip didn’t know how to cry, evidently. It was a skill one acquired as a boy and couldn’t unlearn, not crying. It was a useful skill when one felt bad and wanted to conceal it, which if your childhood is a series of new towns and new schools you may want to. Or if your crying got on your father’s nerves when you missed your mother. Or if your small self had discovered that crying made your mother get strange. But it seemed to be addictive.

  It was not clear to Philip why he needed to be the beneficiary of so much insight, when what he had to do was clear. His mother had told him to be brave, and so he was. As if to spite her. There was aggression in his stoicism. He now had a glimpse of that truth. If he lived long enough, perhaps he’d understand more. Maturity turned out to be a poison one took in tiny doses, day by day. If you could withstand enough of it, you became Arthur.

  Philip would have to ask Arthur eventually – just to square accounts – why he hadn’t told him why he’d sent Philip to Alidar.

  You weren’t ready to know, Philip.

  What if I hadn’t figured it out?

  Then you wouldn’t have.

  It occurred to Philip that God was a little like that. He provided general instructions about conduct, but he expected you to work your destiny out.

  Ibrahim joined him. They looked out over the desert. “Do not worry, my friend,” said the prince. “You have done everything you can.” Long pause. “As have I.”

  Ibrahim jumped down, and Philip followed him.

  “I distrusted Fawzi, so I let him befriend me,” he continued. “He took me to Paris and introduced me to ‘Dr. Maloof.’ I pretended not to guess who this Zaathi was. He displayed himself. His character and intentions were clear. I asked for advisers for my army. My father gave me you. You have done well, Cooper. I do think we will triumph. But you can imagine my frustration. Every day, my father did nothing – or nothing except what he did with the beautiful Mrs. Sullivan – and the Zaathi grew stronger.

  “So I send you the photograph of Fawzi, which I was able to take because I pretended so successfully not to know who the Zaathi was, and you obligingly eliminate our wayward prime minister. The Zaathi worries that his conspiracy has been discovered. Should he delay or advance his timetable? I arrest the beautiful Mrs. Sullivan for the murder of Fawzi – a plausible theory, she was his secretary, she is left-handed – and my father must rescue her. They fly away and I am king. This makes the Zaathi overconfident and he invades. So now we fight on our own timetable, on our chosen terrain. God is great. The pretender will be ashes.”

  In this torrent of information, Philip heard only that Cassandra had gone away.

  “It is too bad that he is a pretender,” said Ibrahim. “He has nobility about him. I learned that when I was in Paris. He takes life by the throat – as my father, I fear, does not. Were I not who I am, we might have become friends. But as I was destined to be king, I had to pretend to be dumb and let him despise me.”

  40

  Ibrahim’s soldiers were at the Old Fort. Philip would be there too, and he’d told her to come because that would be the safest place.

  She saw the flag from half a mile away. She was waved through the first checkpoint. They’d evidently been told to expect her. That cheered her up. She parked her car where the corporal told her to, left the keys, and went up the path to the top of the hill. Being as fit as she was, the path gave her no trouble, though it was steep in places, and you had to climb over a couple of rocks. She enjoyed the sense it gave her of being in good condition, of being in control. The terrors of the desert didn’t seem able to follow her up the hill.

  Philip was sitting on a rock, facing away from her and toward the city. His gear was neatly stacked beside the rock. She walked up behind him and put her hands on his shoulders.

  “Hello, Allison,” he said.

  “You left without saying goodbye,” she said.

  “There’s a lot going on.”

  She began to massage his shoulders.

  “They’ll come from that direction,” he said.

  “Where that dust is rising?”

  “Precisely.”

  “What’s making that dust, by the way? Is that Suleiman’s army?”

  “No, that’s Abdulrahman and Fatima and two extra jeeps full of soldiers.”

  “How do you know that?” she asked.

  “They’re bait.”

  “Perhaps you should show me round,” she said.

  They walked the “military crest” of the hill, a concept he explained as they went. There were soldiers all along it, with good “sight lines,” a concept he also explained. She let him lecture her because it was so nice having him talk to her. It didn’t matter what he talked about.

  “You can see the dust from Suleiman’s army now,” he said. “Will they catch up to Abdulrahman?”

  “No, but it will be close.”

  “That’s part of the plan?” she said.

  “Correct.” Philip explained that Abdulrahman’s party would come up a path much like the one she had climbed on the other side. There were four or five such paths.

  “These are the mortars,” said Philip.

  “Also part of the plan?” she said.

  Philip explained about the mortars. Allison wished he’d kiss her, just the once, but she could see he was pretty absorbed. Many of the soldiers seemed to know him, and he spoke a few words of Arabic to them as they continued their inspection.

  “How patiently they wait,” she said.

  “My corporals are good,” he said.

  She’d been thinking of the mortar shells, actually, stacked and ready.

  A lieutenant offered Philip a pair of binoculars and he inspected the clouds of dust. “This could start soon,” he said.

  “Will we all be killed?” she said. “If we’re going to be killed, you’d better kiss me.” He didn’t.

  “We need to talk,” he said, and led her back to where he’d been sitting when she arrived. She felt like a small child being taken to the principal’s office. They sat down next to each other.

  “I know what your tattoo means,” he said.

  Allison relaxed. It was all over.

  “So we have a problem,” he said.

  “Can I redeem myself if I take out Maloof?” she said. “I do want to do that, you know.” She knew it was a stupid question.

  “Redeem half a dozen kills?” he said.

  Allison paused. It was fifteen, actually.

  “Prison?” she said.

  “You wouldn’t like prison.”

  “I could get another tattoo,” she said. She was desperate to make Philip smile.

  “It’s not really an option.”

  “Meaning there will be no trial?” she said.

  No answer.

  “I will need your help with this, sweetheart,” she said. “I am superstitious. Suicides go to hell, they say. Murderers can qualify for work-release after a few million years.”

  “I didn’t know you were a Catholic.”

  “My real name is Androvik. Mary Alice Androvik. My grandparents came from Prague.” They were both quiet for a while. “You said there’s going to be a battle pretty soon,” she said finally.

  “I expect it to start in the next half hour.”

  “I guess a girl could get killed in a battle,” she said.

  “People do.” Pause. “Do you have any family?”

  “Tommy.”

  “Have you made a will?”

  “I’d rather leave my money to you,” she said.

  “I’d have to turn it in. And then things would have to come out that Tommy doesn’t need to know.”

  “He doesn’t deserve that,” she said.

  “No.” Pause. “So what do you want to be, Mary Alice, a hero or a casualty?”

  “I’ve never been anything but a casualty,
” she said.

  “Well, take this anyway,” he said. He reached into his canvas bag and pulled out a rifle with a telescopic sight.

  “Is it loaded?” she said.

  He tossed her two bullets, one after another. “You might get a shot. Go down that path over there, about two hundred and fifty paces. You’ll find a good spot if you climb the rocks to the right of the path, where it first opens out. You will be forward of Ibrahim’s troops, but they won’t be able to see you, as long as you stay low once you climb the rocks.”

  “You’re sure that’s the best place?”

  “Yes.” Pause. “Use both bullets. I’ll wait for the second one.” He reached behind him and handed her a small tripod. “Take this too,” he said. “It’ll steady your aim. None of us is perfect.”

  “You were close, Lieutenant Cooper.”

  Allison found the path, and the rocks, and the place Philip had described. She set up the tripod, attached the rifle, and lay down behind it. Ten minutes passed. Religious memories tugged at Allison’s consciousness, but she refused to entertain them until she was done. She couldn’t afford to get sentimental.

  And then, like summer rain, comprehension drenched her. She was a girl of seventeen, in Maloof’s living room, being invited to undress; she was in Libya, holding the muzzle of a pistol to a doomed woman’s chest, watching goosebumps rise at the touch of the cold metal; she was naked in a Milan hotel, bored in a Liverpool hotel, prone in the lonely desert, waiting to play God. She had gone badly astray. Power is a drug. Sex is holy fire.

  She had understood none of that. Her mother had not taught her, and Allison herself, though she had a talent for obedience, was deficient in natural virtue. When the patient seraphim waiting on the hill arrived to collect her, she would have to start all over. She would have to atone. She would have to take instruction. She hoped that was possible.

  But first she had to deal with Maloof.

  41

  Philip gave Abdulrahman a hand and helped him up. He judged that Suleiman had about four thousand troops. The force ratio, worse than five to one, would normally have been sufficient to give the attackers victory, but Ibrahim’s soldiers were well trained and their opponents probably weren’t – or not for what they were about to encounter.