Standing beside him on their red sandstone pedestal, Philip could feel Abdulrahman’s anxiety.
They were still out of range of the Zaathi rifles. What Allison was attempting could only be achieved by someone of singular ability. If bullets started to come their way, he and Abdulrahman would hear their crackle as they broke the sound barrier going past, and could hop down and find cover. Only providence would make them lethal. Philip decided against explaining all this to the Minister of Planning. No man likes to have his fear pointed out.
What Allison was attempting – killing Maloof – was primarily a matter of timing. Would instinct enable her to squeeze the trigger when the man wouldn’t move for the seconds it took the bullet to arrive?
The answer was probably “yes.” He had watched her shoot rats. She had the knack, which Philip also had, of funnelling herself through the rifle sights and becoming one with her target. She would only need one bullet.
He could see roughly where she was – not her, but the spot. It was a natural hollow, the nearest place to the hill where attacking troops would find cover. He might have looked for her with the binoculars, but he didn’t.
What Allison was also attempting, he knew, was to get a ticket into heaven. By her lights, that required contrition. The mortar shells would be in the air for fifteen or twenty seconds. That was longer than you got as a sniper, often, to do what you were there for. But if your guardian angel was asleep, as hers appeared to have been, it might not be enough. That was the point of the second bullet, really. To give her Catholic soul time to prepare. He would wait for the sound of the second shot.
Perhaps it was time to admit his cowardice where feelings were concerned. He had joined a firm where he could count on failing. And he made every significant encounter with the opposite sex a form of combat.
Sergeant Webster had told the Third Platoon about watching a man remove a bullet from his own leg, and then cauterise the wound with the spoon from his mess kit, which he heated over a fire: Him was a medic, so he knew what to do, but his concentration was wonderful.
It was time for Philip to concentrate on the last few months. You see, he’d figured that Allison was the Lady Assassin, really, from the day he tried to teach her to shoot. After she killed a rat with her first shot, he had watched her breathing, watched the pulse in her temple, watched her catch the moment between heartbeats when life pauses, and known what she was. He had put the thought aside because it was absurd – she was too wholesome and American – but really because there was something happening between them that he didn’t want to interrupt.
Stop. Concentrate. Her being wholesome and American was irrelevant. For the purposes of the person who turned out to be Suleiman it was perfect, which Philip knew very well at the time. He had put the thought aside, but not away. It was a useful thought to have around. The only way he could risk affection was to know whatever happened between them would be erased. He hadn’t really been surprised by her tattoo. He had counted on something like that.
Philip wondered whether this was an indictable failure. Unfortunately not. Allison had missed Sally Valentine, and one might even suppose that their relationship had been a contributing factor. She was trying to escape from her life. She’d probably been planning to erase Maloof, and would have done so already if Mubarek hadn’t got onto an airplane and induced the man to launch his invasion before he was ready. Philip deserved no credit for any of that, but it was a fact. Intelligent discipline, Philip, is not a search for crimes of which to accuse oneself.
Thought crimes. Cassandra’s phrase. And what were Arthur’s? Cassandra didn’t like him much – wouldn’t talk about him, even – so perhaps she knew. She could read minds. Then again, perhaps what bothered her about him was that he was even more cleareyed than she was. Cassandra definitely liked to be in control of a situation, which would have made them instinctive rivals.
The real thought crimes consisted of self-deception. Of that, you could only find Arthur not guilty. He took full responsibility for what he did, and what he was.
Allison was in the nearby wilderness trying to do the same, getting ready to die.
So what about Philip, standing on a hilltop, out of rifle range? What about Philip full stop, as Cassandra would say?
There was a famous lawyer at another firm in New York, wise and Jewish, who even Arthur respected, and once after a meeting – it was about a dispute that involved more embarrassment than money – a young associate had asked Arthur, “What makes him so good?” It was a question so innocent that Arthur answered it: “He always knows from what distance to deal with a matter.” Philip had always had trouble with precisely that.
Suleiman’s army had come to a halt. Messengers were running back and forth, conveying orders to adjust the formation. A large flag had been unfurled. The prospect of battle was making Philip happy – calm and happy the way it felt if someone put a blanket over you when you were on the edge of sleep, but maybe a little cold, or feeling guilty about taking a nap at all. A girl had done that for him once, or maybe it had been his mother.
Time to go home, sir.
Hello again, Sergeant Hatfield.
You’re planning to get yourself killed today, aren’t you, sir?
Could happen.
Forget about the girl, sir.
Do you know her, Sergeant Hatfield?
My part of America is full of girls like that, sir. They go to bars that play country music. They fuck soldiers. Mrs. Baxter’s just got a little more class – and got misled in an extraspectacular way. I tell you, sir, when I was twenty-one, twenty-two or so, I used to walk into a place around nine at night, and I could tell just from one look at their faces which ones were wearing boots and could dance and would fall for me so hard it would raise dust, and I’d say to myself, you’re a hunter, Lester, and they’re game. And I always scored. Which wasn’t fair, really. But I am not worried about the girl, sir. She is her own problem. I’m thinking about you. You are a hunter, too, sir, but what I always noticed was, you put yourself at the edge. Most of the individuals who chose the line of work you and I were in were pretty cautious. Just being in Laos in the first place kinda satisfied our need to be heroes, so after we got off the helicopter we stayed real professional about what we were there for. But you sir, and especially after you got your first medal, it was like you couldn’t get enough danger. You remember, sir.
I do now, Sergeant Hatfield.
So why do you want to go get yourself killed on such a pleasant day? The ambush you and Colonel Ibrahim have planned is going to work out real well. Those idiot Zaathi are going to bunch up right where you know they will. Just let the mortars do their job.
What does that have to do with Allison?
Sir, you’re itching to run down that hill and get shot or blown up. I can tell. The girl will be your excuse. You’re going to tell yourself that you have to save her, am I right, sir? With respect, she said she wanted to be a casualty, and where she is right now that will happen without any help from you. So you just stay up here with Mr. Abdulrahman and explain the battle to him, and let the Almighty take care of what happens down in that hollow.
But I was in love with her.
Come on, sir. That can’t be right. You’re all set up to be her executioner.
Sergeant Hatfield, thank you for your advice, but you’re just going to have to take my word for it.
Well, then, sir, get her the hell out of there. And don’t tell me you don’t know how to do it. You just have to get her back on the path you sent her down and around the first corner.
You do know her history, don’t you?
Yes.
She can’t just get away with it.
Why the hell not, sir? I wouldn’t want to tell a judge about some of the things we did. I mean, in retrospect, sir, that program you and I were part of wasn’t exactly the high point of the Republic.
Philip didn’t have a good answer for that.
Look at it this way, sir, maybe yo
u two deserve each other – and you can take that comment any way you like.
Philip wished Sergeant Hatfield would go away. He scanned the Zaathi ranks with the binoculars the stupid lieutenant had lent him. After a minute he spotted Maloof. The man was receiving reports from the mercenaries he’d hired, and trying to look like he was some kind of experienced field commander, the asshole. She should take him now, Philip said to himself. She did. The sound of the shot came two seconds later.
Philip wanted very badly not to be Allison’s executioner. He also wanted to think about why he needed to be anyone’s executioner. And why, although certifiably brave, he always did his killing from positions of concealment, like a child hiding in the cabinet under the sink. And whether it wasn’t the sense of intimacy with the target, rather than the killing itself, that made assassination seductive. And why, if he was always going to turn Allison in, he had first allowed her to believe she was saved. But she didn’t give him time for any of that. She spent the second bullet immediately.
42
I had not thought of Argyllshire as a place to retire, but if that is what Mubarek wants, so be it. And if he wishes me to study Islam, I will. And if ten years’ abstinence makes a man so warm and humourous a lover as this, they should all be hermits.
We have purchased an immense estate. I say “we,” for he has put it in my name. As a result, I own several towns, which makes me giddy when I think about it. “But why would you want land without people?” he says.
It is late summer, which he assures me, on the authority of Mrs. Campbell, is the nicest time of year in the Highlands. But I know he looks forward to winter with the eagerness of an explorer, for he has never seen snow.
Fatima is pregnant. This makes everyone happy. The father-to-be didn’t get to be prime minister, interestingly. Or not yet. Ibrahim insisted on Mahmoud Faloom taking the post. I do not know this person, but Mubarek thinks his son has been clever. The Falooms are great merchants. He is not a relation to any of the viscountesses, which to me is a recommendation.
Fatima says – she writes me every week now that she cannot do so much – that her brother asked Faloom to be prime minister as a gesture of thanks to the Buhara community for remaining indoors when the Zaathi forces entered the harbour. She says everyone expected them to “rise,” and they didn’t, and this is their reward. Frankly, I’m not sure what a bunch of merchants would have done except get in the way, and they would only have hurt themselves if they’d started fires, since they own most of the real estate, but I am glad to see that Fatima refuses to entertain the idea, even with me, that her husband was not ready for the job. She also hints that Ibrahim doesn’t mind having occasion to see Faloom’s little sister, who is evidently a beauty. I read Fatima’s letters to Mubarek, and he says everything I say is right. It is nice to have a man agree with one, but this is less than totally enlightening.
Mubarek is funny about his title. The locals want to know how to address him. He likes to go into town on errands, and there are in any event a lot of tradesmen and the keepers and the manager of the estate to deal with. I have told him he cannot describe himself as “dowager monarch,” and he insists he should not be addressed as “Majesty” because “there can only be one, and my son is now king.”
The fact that U.S. troops never entered Alidar seems to make him feel that our queen retains some vague authority, and as in addition he has been granted right of abode in Britain, I believe he intends to write to her and ask what to do. It is rather like an undiscovered mountain writing to the Royal Geographical Society and asking to be named.
The locals think he is wonderful. They cannot get over the fact that he speaks with a Scottish accent. In addition, the work we are doing on the estate provides a lot of jobs, a commodity in short supply in Scotland. He is also a minor tourist attraction. People stop for petrol and postcards in our largest town – happily no more than a dozen cars a day – hoping to catch sight of him. Or of his Nubian servant, Isa. Or if all else fails, I fear, of me. I got pointed out last week in the chemist’s. The locals have no idea what to make of Isa, who wears his robe into town and looks like one of the three wise men, but I expect I know what they think of me.
It turns out Mubarek is an excellent shot, which also increases his prestige. It does not surprise me that he is good at anything, but I had not realised there was game in Alidar. He points out that I never actually went into the desert, so how would I know? Never went to the desert. How absentminded of me. Perhaps I should go back. “I would rather you didn’t,” he says. “You may go if you like. Fatima would like it. But if it is up to me, I would like you to be here, every day, for the rest of my life.”
Ibrahim has sent his father all his maps, and has also commissioned aerial photographs of much of the country. Mubarek has built a sand-table model in his new map room on which to replay the Battle of Alidar. He is proud of his son, more so I think than of his daughter. I had not realised that.
It was quite a shot the American girl made, about three hundred yards. Mubarek showed me how far that is one day up on the hill. He is flirting with the idea of teaching me to shoot a rifle. In the end, I don’t think he will, but he is enjoying the novelty of his situation, and that would add to it. He has me get down on the ground and look through the telescopic sight, with of course no bullet in the gun, and squeeze the trigger without moving any other muscle. This I can do. The head keeper says it is a very different matter if there is a stag in view, but I don’t know. I wouldn’t mind if Mubarek let me try.
She had a telescopic sight too, and also, they think, a little tripod, which she erected on the inside slope of the hollow she was in, so that only the top of her head and the rifle would have been visible, even if they’d been looking in her direction, and known what they were looking for. Mubarek showed the head keeper on his sand table, and he called it a very good stalk.
Suleiman’s death enraged the Zaathi, and for about an hour there was quite a battle. Enough of Ibrahim’s soldiers were killed for the survivors, most importantly including Ibrahim himself, to be accounted heroes, but high ground and Philip’s mortars made for disproportionate casualties on the other side. With their paymaster out of the picture, the mercenaries Suleiman had hired began to ponder other career opportunities, and by late afternoon there was a truce that was actually a surrender.
What particularly pleases Mubarek is that his son had trained his soldiers well enough that they did not simply slaughter the Zaathi forces once they laid down their arms.
We sit in the living room and look out at the loch. He likes to watch the rain, which is a good thing because there is more of it here than anywhere else in Britain, in consequence of which there is what can only be described as a rhododendron forest on the property.
“None of our forces knew that Suleiman was dead,” he says, “until it was over.”
“Fatima says her brother was very brave.”
“I’m sure he was. It is his nature.”
“I think she also means that Abdulrahman is a little jealous.”
“I’m sure he is. But leading soldiers was never what God had in mind for Abdulrahman.”
It is from Abdulrahman that we know as much as we do of what actually happened.
They were simply waiting. Ibrahim had arrayed his forces just below the ruins – silly of me never to have gone out to see them – and the Zaathi seemed to be getting ready. It apparently occurred to Philip that it would be sensible to involve Abdulrahman, since the crews might get excited during mortar fire, and it would be good to have someone able to speak to them in Arabic and calm them down. Ibrahim and his company commanders could also communicate with the mortar crews, but Philip and Abdulrahman had the best view. Philip had Abdulrahman practise giving commands, but they didn’t fire. The Zaathi had to come into range first.
“It is very sad about Mrs. Baxter,” says Mubarek. It is raining hard now. We are sitting on an immense couch with goosedown cushions, sitting cross-legged like small
children sharing confidences. The room has two pianos in it. The previous occupants played. They must have liked to play when it was raining like this, for the room is full of ghostly music.
“But it is a blessing that she did what she did. It is convenient that Suleiman was killed.” Mubarek continues to stare out of the window, and it occurs to me that he is about to add a little piece to the story.
I wait to see whether he wishes me to ask a question.
“Why is that?” I say finally.
“His claim to the throne of Alidar was better than mine.”
“The story was true?”
“Yes. I was an impostor.”
Perhaps that is why he is writing to the Queen for a title.
“I thought ‘Maloof’ might be Suleiman, you know, from my son’s description of him. That is why I went to Fawzi’s office that day.”
“What did you think when you saw him?”
“I thought he looked like my father.”
I think about that for a while. “So telling Fawzi to bring me to lunch was an excuse?”
“It started out that way.”
“I’m glad you were the one who got to be king.”
“So am I, Cassandra.” He is looking at me now, rather than the rain.
“Did Ibrahim know the story was true?”
“It never became necessary to tell him.”
“Did anyone?”
“Fawzi. He knew for years. It was his favourite secret. I told him when we were in our late twenties, soon after my father died. Fawzi was the only approximation of a friend I had – the smartest, most irreverent boy in Alidar, from one of the old Alidi families but with an Iranian grandmother – and then he’d been to Egypt! There was nothing else to impress him with. I regretted my indiscretion soon enough. But so long as I was king, he had to keep silent. It never became necessary to kill him.”
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