Irresistible

by Andrew J. Peters

  A voice cried out: “Callisthenes Panagopoulos?”

  Cal felt as though he’d been stricken to stone. He glimpsed a court officer looking around the room. Timid glances fell on Cal. He was the only Greek in the prisoner’s pen; that was for sure.

  He stood and answered the officer.

  “Wish me luck,” Cal told Hakim.

  The young Arab gazed at him in solidarity, and the whole room watched Cal as he met the court officer and followed him into the courthouse.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  KING ABDULLAH BIN Salib Al-Moghadam sat on his throne with his hands on its upholstered arm rests, trying to ignore the blight and sting of the hangnail on his left ring finger. He had told his miserable manicurist Jafar to be careful with his instruments. He had foreseen this inevitable misfortune. Jafar had always been too jumpy to do a proper job.

  One could say a sentencing of beheading had been a bit extreme, but managing a kingdom was a tiresome occupation. A certain, authoritarian moodiness was de rigueur. Besides, the nervous lackey was just the kind of man whose weak character could be exploited by political upstarts, bullying him into sharing compromising information. Abdullah had met the man’s wife and sons. They were a far more handsome and capable family than the imbecile deserved. Abdullah doubted anyone would miss Jafar’s head.

  Out in his courthouse, his Minister of Justice, Abdullah’s son Ghalib, was conferring with his Commander of the Navy, Abdullah’s son Karif. The king had lost track of the day’s docket, but he had no doubt there would be the usual tedium of listening to the pleas of an endless succession of deviants and political agitators. He would have left such tasks to Ghalib if his second-born son could be trusted to handle any responsibility without sending the kingdom into chaos and destruction. Ghalib, a full-grown man, was known to lose his way traveling back from a visit to the courthouse bathroom, and he still slept with stuffed animals. Twenty-nine sons, without a brain among them. His third-born son, Karif, was a dipsomaniac. He had probably drunk his entire shipment of Samosan wine already. Youssef, his fourth-born son and his Minister of Economics, was a loafer who spent all his time betting on losing bulls at the camel races. The flaws continued all the way to little Rashad, born just last spring, who had the narrow-set eyes of a simpleton.

  It was a curse to father such a sorry lot of ne’er-do-wells. Only his first-born, Bassam, had possessed the hardiness and intelligence of a leader, but Bassam had reviled him ever since he was a little boy. Now, Bassam had abandoned him completely, living abroad, renouncing the family name, no doubt wallowing in his juvenile sense of moral superiority with some ridiculous entourage of European friends who were delighted to show off their worldliness by hanging around an exotic Arab expatriate.

  If Abdullah kept thinking about it, he would be headed to a dismal place. He looked to his sons impatiently. He could save some time and declare death sentences for all of the men awaiting trial. He could return to the palace and salvage part of the day, catching up on his favorite Persian soap operas. Ghalib stepped to the foot of the dais, and the courthouse bailiff brought another prisoner into the hall.

  Ghalib called the room to order. “All hail His Majesty King Abdullah bin Salib Al-Moghadam, Commander of the Faithful, Emir of Emirs, Sovereign and Most Holy Lord of the Sultanate of Maritime Kindah. Praise his wisdom and his justice as the court hears the case of—” He looked down at his clipboard. “—Callisthenes Panagopoulos, detained by His Majesty’s Royal Navy for the crimes of—” He glanced again at his notes. “—trespassing, theft, and public drunkenness.”

  The dozen or so ministers and clerks in the hall knelt on the floor respectfully. Abdullah gave the call for them to take their seats. He looked upon the young prisoner who remained kneeling with a bowed head before his dais. A Greek? This was a prickly matter. His sop-headed son Karif had stirred up an international incident? No one particularly cared for the Greeks, with their whiny little dependency, some two millennia past its heyday, but they had leeched onto a powerful Euro-American alliance.

  Karif stood beside the prisoner and addressed his father. “Your Majesty, we discovered this man hidden in the cargo hold of the Abbas Barundi after we made port in Samos. He claims to be an American who took flight from kidnappers, though he bears no identification, nor personal belongings for that matter.”

  Abdullah stared at the golden-haired prisoner. The young man lifted his head timidly. Abdullah’s breath halted. What vision was this before his eyes? A ghost from his past? That face, as clear and bright as the full moon. That vigorous, boyish mop of hair. He was the reincarnation of Abdullah’s most cherished friend from boarding school, Basil Cuttingsworth, who had a touch of Greek ancestry, Abdullah recalled as the blessed memory returned to him.

  Words nearly escaped his lips—Basil, my beloved.

  They had met in third form at Winchester College. Basil was the son of a British parliamentarian. They were inseparable all that year—study partners, cricket teammates, running off for private confidences to secluded spots on the pastoral grounds. In fourth form, they arranged to room together.

  Basil had been Abdullah’s earth and heaven. Physically, the boy was perfection. Abdullah had shyly glanced at him at dressing and showering times, envying the lithe and rangy contours of his body, his easy masculinity. Beyond that fascination, Basil was a kind and faithful friend, and he was unmatched in popularity both for his athleticism and his generous, comradely nature. One blissful, wintry night, while they shared a blanket, warming themselves before the fireplace in the fourth form residence hall after all the other boys had gone to bed, they confessed their love for one another and sealed their vow in a tender kiss.

  The king’s cheeks burned, remembering. No one had ever loved him so, nor had he ever loved anyone so completely. Their beautiful affair lasted another year. They visited each other’s families between terms. Basil was to be his lifetime companion. Then cruelly, horribly, Abdullah’s father intervened. His father had detected the unmanly nature of their attachment. He removed Abdullah from Winchester College and sent him off to a school in New Zealand. Abdullah was forbidden from seeing Basil again. Letters were intercepted. His father threatened to expose him as a deviant if he tried to make contact with Basil.

  By Sharia law, men were put to death for such behavior. It was the 1970s in Great Britain, with its grotesquerie of sexual liberation, but it remained the Middle Ages in Maritime Kindah. Not that Abdullah ever considered himself a homosexual. What he had with Basil was too right and pure for such an ugly label, just as it was above accusation of sin.

  Abdullah had thought he would die from their separation. He tried to kill himself while away in New Zealand, and only managed to dislocate his shoulder, throwing himself from a horse. Time healed that injury and hardened Abdullah’s heart to iron. He managed to continue through his lonely college years, a hemisphere away from his beloved, never knowing if Basil yearned for him equally, hated him for leaving, had forgotten him or, worse yet, found another special friend.

  Years later, graduated from college and law school, Abdullah had his freedom to travel to London and learned Basil had been killed in an automobile accident while a student at University College. His life had ended at the tender age of twenty. Abdullah’s heart was broken a second time. He and Basil would never be reunited. If he hadn’t been taken away from Basil, he might have been able to stop him on the fateful night when he had boarded a car with a drunken friend. The world offered no sympathy for his heartbreak. To speak of it would have destroyed his career and brought scandal to the House of Al-Moghadam. Abdullah had no choice but to bury his memory of Basil and accept what was expected of him as his father’s heir—arranged marriages, siring children, surrounded by people who flattered him for their self-serving uses, an island of solitude.

  Yet now, by Allah’s grace, the exquisite replica of the man he had loved knelt before him in his courthouse. To look upon him, Abdullah felt young again, a fourth form student reunited wit
h his best mate, with a lifetime of joys ahead of them.

  He was not a fool. He knew it could not be Basil, reanimated from the grave, miraculously preserved from nearly three decades ago. But how was a man to reckon the resemblance, to understand the unlikelihood of the circumstances without superstition? That this young Greek, who shone as handsome and virtuous as his beloved, had been brought to face his judgment after smuggling aboard one of his navy’s ships? It could not have happened without a purpose, without the intercession of fate. Abdullah shifted in his seat, aware that his ministers and clerks awaited his bearing on the prisoner.

  He cleared his throat. “The King shall allow this man to speak.” His son Karif stooped down and translated to the prisoner.

  The young man looked up. “Thank you, Your Majesty. This has all been a big mistake. I’ve never even rolled through a stop sign, let alone trespassed on a military vessel before. Not that I don’t understand what I did was wrong. I mean, I really should have asked someone before helping myself to the wine. That’s totally not like me. I swear. I’d call character witnesses to my defense, but everyone’s back in Hydra.”

  Abdullah gazed at him in delight. The voice of a stoned, American teenager, but a smile so charming it would calve ice from a glacier. He was Abdullah’s second chance at love. Where he had failed dear Basil, he would redeem himself with this young man. He could start by getting him out of his dingy prisoner gear and into proper clothes. Good god, his mouth was watering just imagining the stripping. He waved over his son Ghalib for a whispered exchange.

  “Mr. Panagopoulos shall be brought to the palace. A diplomatic guest. Call ahead and have my valet make preparations for his arrival. We’ll need the best suite cleared out. The one that looks out on the cricket field.”

  Ghalib’s voice rose up petulantly. “That’s my room.”

  “Right. Find somewhere to go for the next few days. Take your brothers with you. You’ll offend our guest.”

  Abdullah glanced at Callisthenes with a grin and a helpless shrug. Such a bother to put him through this tiresome formality. Was it possible his mother had held onto one of his old Winchester uniforms? The young man would fill out a kit of cricket whites divinely. If Abdullah couldn’t find them in the house, he would have them ordered for next-day delivery.

  “What would His Majesty like to say about his judgment for the court record?” Ghalib pressed.

  “The prisoner is released,” Abdullah spoke out to the court. To his son: “Send for my driver. We’ll go on recess for the rest of the day.”

  “Shall we notify the American embassy?”

  Abdullah fretted. What a horrible notion. Yet one that could be delayed. “I’ll see to it myself. Now have Mr. Panagopoulos taken around the back. My bodyguard will convey him to the palace in your limousine.”

  “Where will I go?”

  “I don’t care. Stop breathing on me. What did you have for breakfast? You’re suffocating me with garlic and chickpeas.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  THE NEW ARAB Democracy League reached the maritime border of Abbas Barundi late in the day on their fifth day at sea. Brendan had been ushered back aboard the pirate long-liner, which delivered him to Bassam at his remote Aegean byway station. He was relieved to see Captain Wes being brought to land in a stretcher. It looked like he’d been bandaged, and though he was pale and feeble, the captain’s eyes were open, signaling he had life in him. Wes and Ahmed would stay back to be kept as prisoners. Brendan prayed Bassam would be true to his word about releasing the men after they’d accomplished their revolt.

  The long-liner carried some three dozen men along with Bassam’s missile launcher. It had been a crowded and sluggish journey. Bassam had carefully navigated a route through the Mediterranean, the Suez Canal, and across the Red Sea to the Arabian Sea. They needed to evade detection by military vessels, and they also needed to time their rendezvous with five other rebel ships making their way from Turkey, Egypt, and Pakistan—or so Brendan had overheard. He’d fallen into a peaceable camaraderie with a group of Kindahnese insurgents who spoke English and had been educated abroad. Like Bassam, they’d all forsaken their families to fight for democracy in their homeland. Listening to their stories of political persecution, Brendan had grown to respect their cause.

  He kept to himself, however, his only objective was to find Cal once they reached the shores of Abbas Barundi. With each passing day, he worried ever more he would be too late. Cal was being held prisoner. Thoughts of him being lashed for punishment, or worse, had Brendan in an island of turmoil. He had no way to speed their course and no way to contact anyone for help. He wondered if by some miracle, Captain Wes’s distress call near Samos had somehow led to American intelligence tracking him. Despite Bassam laughing at that possibility, Brendan held onto the hope. He knew his grandfather would move mountains to find him and Cal. Grandad had a reputation for making victory out of losses to reclaim his ego, both in and out of the office.

  From the deck of the long-liner, Brendan looked across the murky sea at the distant lights of the Kindahnese capital. Like the wealthy, coastal metropolises of the Persian Gulf he’d seen in photos, Abbas Burundi was a surreal outcropping of skyscrapers amid a desert landscape. It had to contain many thousands of people.

  The rebels’ plan was thus: Their boat would take up a position to shell the naval base and the nearby airfield while motorboats from their craft and the other vessels ferried soldiers to the shores of the coastal city at two strategic points. One team of ground troops would secure the naval base. The other would lock down the city’s municipal district with help from civilian rebels who would be activated to arms at the sound of the first missile strike. According to Bassam’s comrades, the city’s defenses were not especially sophisticated or extensive. Abbas Barundi had not seen combat since the 18th century, when they fought off an armada from the Ottoman Empire. The country’s navy was a token force in the region’s peacekeeping alliance led by the Americans and the British. Still, Bassam had to be precise with his strikes. If they didn’t quickly take out their targets, the naval base could launch missiles from its silos and send out maritime patrol bombers from the airfields.

  They motored closer toward the city. Brendan startled as the deck enlivened with cheers. The missile launcher was being raised from the ship’s cargo hold. Meanwhile, a pair of dinghies was lowered to the water. Brendan breathed in deep, trying to control his rapidly palpitating heart. He turned to the sound of footsteps approaching him.

  Bassam had come out from the cabin with a pair of guerrillas who were handing out rifles. The Arab Che Guevara gazed at Brendan with his unflappable grin. “The time has come, Mr. Thackeray-Prentiss. Are you ready to storm the naval base in the name of the people’s revolution?”

  Brendan looked at him grimly. “You promised not to strike the detention center.”

  “Naturally. Beyond your interest in freeing Mr. Panagopoulos, the navy’s detainees could be useful allies to our cause. Our targets are around the perimeter of the base and the airfield control tower. Your team will find, at the most, two dozen sailors holding the base. Once you secure the base, you will be free to release any prisoners from detention. You will find the lockup barracks in the center of the armory, near its administrative headquarters.”

  Brendan snorted in a breath through his nose. He was already perspiring from his brow and armpits. The clothes he wore felt like a bizarre costume—brown camouflage fatigues, combat boots, and a hard hat.

  One of the lieutenants handed him a service rifle. He’d only ever used a firearm once, back in boarding school when his house prefect had taken him and his friends to a firing range on a weekend excursion. Brendan had been a terrible aim with a hunting rifle. The semiautomatic weapon in his hands was much more powerful, with a rotating bolt for machine gun–style fusillade. He’d been coached a little in how to use it. The thought of firing on anonymous strangers sickened him. Dodging enemy fire was equally terrifying to imagine.


  Bassam turned to the deck and hailed a call to arms. Men raised their rifles in the air and cried back to him. Brendan shuffled over to the side of the ship where the ground force was climbing down into the dinghies.

  THE MISSILE STRIKE began when Brendan’s dinghy was about halfway to the harbor of the naval base. A terrifying screech sailed overhead, and then a thunderous blast erupted, lighting up the base for a breath. The dozen men around Brendan cheered while he held onto his helmet, which felt like it could blow off from the rocketing and explosion of missiles. Kazi, the steersman at the outboard motor in the back, revved up the engine, and the boat clapped over the waves toward the boatyard.

  This was fucking insanity. More missiles screeched overhead and exploded on the coastline of the peninsular station. A navy alarm blared on, and from the streets of the high-rise city center farther away, sirens lit up. Police vehicles were scrambling toward the strike zone. Brendan was headed into a fiery storm of scud missiles and who knew how many men with guns. Those men would be willing to lay down their lives to protect the base. He didn’t want to die in an errant missile explosion, or riddled with bullets. His mission to rescue Cal steadied him while the boat cruised inevitably forward and into a smog of dust and smoke from the shelling.

  Kazi slowed the outboard motor, carefully navigating the vessel through the smog and to the far end of a minor jetty in the boatyard. The lead man of their team, Benny, radioed back to Bassam. Hopefully, that meant he’d hold off with his missiles while they fought through the perimeter of the base.

  Men secured the boat to the jetty, and they climbed off one by one, goading each other forward, hyped up on adrenalin like Navy Seals. Brendan attached himself to a university student named Ibrahim who he’d become friendly with during their journey. They’d talked about the pub scene in London’s Camden Town, where Brendan had spent some time in a semester abroad, and they both had an affinity for British punk. Now, keeping up with the kid signified something much more urgent since he looked far more comfortable than Brendan holding a rifle.