Traitor's Gate

by Charlie Newton

  Girl to boy.

  Saba shivered and drove that away, brought the rapist Englishmen’s faces to hers. They had been young, too. And brutal, and had shamed her for life, taken her family, her joy, her desire . . .

  The shivering stopped. No, they hadn’t taken her desire; it was intact, just different. She had enjoyed watching the English soldiers die; it was her communion, her present, what she had to offer. Saba glanced at Eddie Owen and resolved to ply the forgotten questions. Had her father lived longer, he would have explained how alliances worked at the higher levels. She would be far better prepared and wondered if this American understood the battle plan, how all this was being organized by unseen men with unspoken ambitions. A small shudder interrupted her thoughts. The shudder vibrated down her side of the plane. The plane dipped left, dished, then righted. She heard the engines steady, then a jolt and the plane bucked. Eddie Owen stirred, his hand clutching for balance. Saba checked the wing, then the cabin, the passengers all frozen as if listening to a noise in the night.

  The stewardess walked the cabin, a gentle hand touching each aisle seat. She offered a smile and occasional wink. “Turbulence. Sometimes the air above water is like a bumpy road. Nothing at all to be worried about.”

  Saba checked her window. The plane seemed no closer to the water or the Iran coastline. She felt disgust instead of comfort. The coastline was part of England’s Empire. Iran was England. Why had neighboring Iraq been granted independence by the French; Saudi Arabia and Transjordan by the British; but not Palestine, Iran, and Bahrain? Syria, Lebanon, and so many others? Who were the Europeans to decide who went free and who remained a slave? The plane lurched hard right, throwing her shoulder into the window. Yelps echoed behind her. The plane shuddered, dished, then dived left. She pitched forward, belted in at the waist. The plane leveled but the engines coughed, then high revved on her side and steadied.

  Eddie Owen said, “What the—”

  They dipped, then swung hard right again and back. Burning oil? Saba turned, watching Eddie Owen turning to look behind them in the cabin. He said, “Uh-oh, there’s smoke back there.”

  Saba checked the engines. No smoke, both propellers turning. A sharp jolt threw her and Eddie into their seat belts again.

  “Damn.” Eddie reached for her. “You okay?”

  “Yes. You said smoke?’

  He undid his seat belt and stood to look. The plane bounced and buckled his knees. “No one’s out of their seats.”

  The loudspeaker announced the pilot. “We are experiencing a minor difficulty in the rear of the aircraft and, although minor, we think it best to land. Please keep your seat belts fastened and remain in your seats.”

  Their stewardess appeared with a small fire extinguisher and a frazzled expression. She asked Eddie Owen to sit, said not to worry, that they were making an emergency landing on the coast in Bushehr, Iran.

  Saba almost bit through her lip. Bushehr, Iran. The British Political Residency: seat of all British power in the Middle East. Bushehr was a massive navy base and antiguerrilla training facility. She had fought the special men who trained there on three occasions, dangerous men who had killed many partisans and rebels in the mountains. A number of these antiguerrilla fighters had come close to killing her, and although she had wounded them badly, they had escaped, backed by reinforcements from England’s regular army. Bushehr would be where those she had wounded had recuperated while others trained for the hunt.

  The plane bucked. Saba realized she was rigid in her seat, Eddie Owen staring. She relaxed and sat back, steadying her breaths. The coastline was closer, the mountains of Iran adding color and shape. There would be no way out of Bushehr if she were recognized, if the mixture of marl paste and kohl makeup covering her tattoo was exposed.

  The flat blue water speckled to white, the waves running west to east—

  “It’ll be okay.”

  Eddie Owen’s voice surprised her, as did her panic. She had been confined before and escaped. This metal tube was no different. They could not know her on the plane, could they? Only on the ground, only after an inspection that revealed the wings—The engine drone changed pitch. Saba turned. The inside propeller on her wing was still. The plane yawed right and lower and began to vibrate. She gripped her armrest, noticed her hand, and retracted it under her robe.

  The loudspeaker said prepare for an emergency landing, heads between your knees.

  Saba looked at Eddie Owen, most of the blood gone from his face, an Englishman’s lying smile forced over his mouth. Through the shudder raking the plane, he forced out, “Hey, you’re a princess, right? Arabian Nights. I read the book. She didn’t die on an airplane.”

  Saba softened behind the veil; she had read the book also. The smile fell into a frown. There was no bounty on that princess, no torture cell waiting with its leather restraints and hairy soldiers. Saba palmed the Enfield pistol under her robe. She would die proud if this plane did not kill her, take the highest-ranking British officer with her. Saba closed her eyes and said good-bye to the three stars in the sky she would not see again. The de Havilland hit the runway like a bomb. A collective yell muffled the impact. The plane bounced, slammed again, and seemed to warp on its frame. G-forces ripped wing passengers from their seats. The plane slid almost off the runway. Screams echoed from the tail section. Tire screeches drowned their panic and engine roar rattled the fuselage. A window shattered.

  And then the plane slowed. The G-forces eased, the plane running straight and higher on its tires. The metal body relaxed and passed that sensation to the passengers. Hands began to release death grips on their armrests, first in silence and tentative, then clapping, then yelling.

  Saba took a breath, thought of boys riding horses. Scared of not going fast enough, scared of going too fast, jubilant that they could posture their courage now, puff out their chests and demand respect for their brave endeavor.

  “Man, that was fun.”

  She glanced at Eddie Owen, her hand on her pistol, muscles rigid in her jaw. Bushehr awaited. Her time in this life was short. Was there something she wanted America to know?

  “You okay . . . Calah?”

  Honest concern filled Eddie Owen’s eyes as his fear faded. What was not present was the false pride she hated, the superiority. The plane stopped. Saba turned to her window and two men in overalls pushing a stairway toward the plane. Behind them were eleven armed English soldiers and four men in suits. The loudspeaker explained that all passengers must deplane; arrangements would be made for overnight accommodations, then transport to Abadan two hundred miles north, then Baghdad.

  “Guess we have the night off.” Eddie Owen laughed with split lips. “Could I, ah, interest you in dinner, coffee, or something?”

  Saba was intent on dying well, on killing as many of England’s soldiers as possible, before killing herself and avoiding the finish England enforced for guerrilla fighters. A hand touched on her arm. She scorched him with her eyes. Eddie Owen flinched, bending into the aisle as his right hand blocked the punch she hadn’t thrown.

  He spoke softly, maintaining the distance. “Hey, just dinner. I meant no disrespect if that’s what I did.”

  “You are gracious. Thank you. That will not be possible.”

  The older of her escorts snaked through the full aisle to their row. He spoke Arabic, almost a whisper, asking for instructions. Saba glanced at Eddie Owen and his seat.

  “Oh. Sure, no problem,” he said, and stepped into the aisle.

  Saba concentrated on her escort’s questions but noticed Eddie Owen smiling back toward her over his shoulder as the crowd jostled him down the aisle. She wasn’t smiling. Saba and her men carried Transjordan passports. Although they were still considered British subjects, there would be scrutiny for two reasons: She was a Bedouin woman traveling anywhere, and the bombing in Bahrain four days prior. Saba whispered that surviving this encounter would be accidental. They would pass through the English together; the men would not speak. If sh
e fired or stabbed, they would do the same. She touched near the man’s hand and reminded him what the English did to prisoners, what they had done to his family in Ramallah, then rose with him into the emptying aisle.

  CHAPTER 10

  March, 1938

  Bushehr’s tarmac radiated heat under Saba’s shoes. Armed red uniforms were everywhere. The plane’s passengers were being funneled into a “welcoming line” that for her would lead to gun muzzles and bayonets. Saba forced a soldier’s calm. The passengers in front of her wore suits with the coats draped over their arms. Behind her the group was the same and included six Arabs in traditional dress, their robes all white, hers all black. All were “wogs” to the English, no better than vermin. Outside a door to the terminal, an English soldier with a clipboard separated the passengers based on eye contact or a short question, Saba could not tell which. Eddie Owen went left. Erich Schroeder went right. A tall, rigid man was pointed right.

  He barked, “Nein!”

  The man with him complained in English. “Herr Strobel is with me.” The accent was like Eddie Owen’s.

  “A formality, sir. Please move left. Herr Strobel will be with you on the moment.”

  “But—”

  “Left, sir. Immigration. Germans to the right, Americans to the left.” The officer smiled above his clipboard, his eyes hard and humorless. He confronted Saba and said, “Passport.”

  Jameel stepped forward with three booklets, all fakes, then stepped back. The English expected respectful distance from Arabs. The officer studied each fake, then said, “Right,” and handed the passports back, eyes moving to the next passenger. Those forced into the “Right” line were escorted inside by armed guards front and back. The concrete hallway was short, no doors. It emptied into a cavernous, arched hall and men working on airplanes. Jumbled echoes mixed with gasoline fumes. Three doors were punched into the hall’s longest wall, each doorway bracketed by two armed British soldiers standing at attention. A long table separated the passengers from the doors. Seated behind the table were two British sergeants, also armed, and backed by more soldiers. The sergeants beckoned the crowd forward.

  “Form two lines.” One sergeant pointed them into line, his tone curt and military. “Please.”

  Blood pumped in Saba’s neck. She picked the Englishmen who would die with her. Ten against three. Saba and her men could win the opening salvo, at least one, maybe two of her unit surviving to reload. If only she could get—

  “Passport.”

  Saba’s men shuffled to her side. Jameel produced the documents. The sergeant frowned at three people fanned instead of an orderly line. “You are . . . ?” He was staring at her.

  “Calah al-Habra.”

  “You are Jordanian?”

  “Bedouin.”

  He flipped her passport front to back. “You are Jordanian?”

  “Bedouin.”

  The sergeant next to him glanced at her, then back to his business with a German national.

  “Where did you learn English?”

  “Amman. A tutor of the Emir.”

  “The Emir.” The sergeant nodded and frowned as a schoolmaster would. “What was your business in Arabia?”

  “A private matter.”

  His eyes rose from her documents. “A private matter? I’m afraid that won’t do. Were you in Bahrain?”

  Saba slipped her finger inside the trigger guard. Her back muscles tightened and both ears began to ring.

  “I will be forced to detain you”—the sergeant’s eyes went narrow—“and your associates if you do not answer my question.”

  Saba inhaled, quieted herself for this final act, and answered. “The English lack respect for the desert and its people. You will do what you will do.”

  Both standing soldiers fixed on her. Their sergeant inspected her more carefully, then said, “Wait over there,” and pointed to a bench against the wall. “Next.”

  She had trouble hearing. Decide. Close is better; the bench against the wall would be a firing squad. Shoot him now. Better to die here with their blood on our clothes.

  “Over there.” The sergeant barked as if she were his servant or wife. “Others are in the queue.”

  The ringing in her ears built to a roar. Shoot him and die here—

  Eddie Owen appeared in one of the three guarded doors. A British officer had a hand on his shoulder, smiling as both turned toward her. She hesitated. Eddie Owen walked toward her, the officer pulling him back, explaining something . . .

  “Miss al-Habra,” was shouted in her face. “Move aside to the bench. Now.”

  Saba’s pistol slid to leave her robe. Eddie Owen loped past the sergeant ordering her to the bench. A soldier heel-turned toward Eddie. The shooting triangles were changing too quickly. Eddie Owen stopped at her chest, blocking her line of fire. “You okay, princess?” The seated sergeant glared from behind Eddie.

  Blood and adrenaline reddened Saba’s face; the shiver she trapped in her shoulders. “The English are forceful when they have servants in the house . . . the pride of small men.”

  “See here, Mr. Owen, you must not interfere with the Crown—”

  Eddie touched the tunic of the officer who had followed him from the doorway. “Calah’s a friend of mine. These are her escorts. If not for her, Lieutenant”—Eddie touched the bandages on his face—“I wouldn’t be going to work for you guys. Young lady saved me from the Arabian nurses.”

  “You know this woman, these men?”

  “Absolutely. The al-Habra family are friends of my employer. My guides when I visit Petra and the Dead Sea.” Eddie smiled and patted the air near her shoulder.

  The lieutenant seemed genuinely concerned. “I see. Could you wait a moment?”

  “Sure.”

  The lieutenant walked to the table and the sergeant glaring their way. Eddie turned into Saba’s eyes and those of her men. “That ought to be worth dinner or at least coffee, don’t you think?”

  Saba prepared to kill the next soldier who approached her. “If the benevolent British allow it.”

  “If? You’re kidding, right?”

  CHAPTER 11

  March, 1938

  Eddie made himself look as pretty as he knew how, given his current condition. “You’re not much of a fan, huh? The Brits, I mean?”

  The Arab princess said, “And would you be? If they had crushed the rebellion that birthed America?”

  Eddie took a wild guess on what she wanted to hear. “Probably not.”

  They were on a hillside cliff, a mile north of Bushehr and its tan, geometric buildings. Her two escorts sat the edge of the rock buttress, out of hearing distance but sharply silhouetted in the moonlight. The Persian Gulf glistened below, the air better without the burned diesel and vented gasoline; the terrain was better, too, absent the bustle of a city originally designed for camel traffic.

  Eddie offered her wine provided by the British. She declined and ate dates with one hand, spitting the pits quietly behind her. She was like a ghost wrapped in black, wrapped in a starry night and a little boy’s imagination.

  “What does a princess do?”

  She shrugged, or he thought she did.

  “Really. What do you do? Is it like in the book?”

  “For the emir’s children, maybe yes, but for us, no.”

  “You’re not a princess?”

  “No. A teacher of the emir’s students. The daughter of a teacher.”

  Eddie nodded. Finally she’d told him something. “Teachers in Transjordan have bodyguards?”

  She took a while to answer. “This one does.”

  Eddie smiled. She said, “Do you work for the English in Haifa?”

  “Yeah. Well, no. Actually, I work for an American oil company that’s loaning me to that refinery; I’m supposed to fix a temperature problem they’ll encounter because of an original design mistake. Kind of complicated, but . . . It’s not really complicated. It’s boring. Nothing like the Arabian Nights. Tell me about the desert.�
��

  “The American wishes to know the desert?” She waved her hand behind her. “Then you must go. The desert will teach you or it will kill you.”

  A pistol flashed into her man’s hand, the arm rigid. He was already standing when Eddie flinched. She extended her hand flat to the ground and he sat, covering the weapon as if nothing had happened.

  “Jesus. Your boys are serious.”

  She stared.

  “You must be some teacher.”

  He thought the moonlight caught a glint in her eyes. It had, and both stayed with him when she spit a date pit just past her shoulder. He imagined an ingénue’s smile on her lips.

  “Is America cold? Valley Forge and the Delaware. Is it cold most of the time?”

  “You know about George Washington?” Eddie snuck a glance past his shoulder.

  “Patrick Henry. Bunker Hill, Ticonderoga, Concord. Burgoyne surrenders at Saratoga.”

  “Wow. They . . . You teach American history over here?”

  She shook her head.

  “Then why—”

  “England no longer rules America. Here, England continues to rule, my people subject to today’s treatment, or worse, had not an important American rescued us in our homeland.”

  Eddie could taste the bitterness even though she wasn’t emphasizing it. He glanced again at her bodyguards paying no overt attention, but able to react at her smallest hand motion. Eddie thought about the airport and the soldiers there if they had put their hands on this woman. Would not have been pretty.

  “How long have the Brits been here?”

  “All my life. And before the British, the Turks and the Germans.”

  “You said ‘homeland.’ You’re from Transjordan, right? Not Iran.” He patted the ground, meaning here, then wished he hadn’t. The bodyguard didn’t flinch.