The Command

by David Poyer

  “I had him ready to sign twice.”

  “What happened?”

  “You. Both times.”

  “Uh-huh. Well, you’re on your own, then. I’m going back to the Da-hab.” That was the name of the apartment building where they both lived, where most of the Americans who didn’t live in the bachelor quarters on base lived. It was outside the base, in Juffair, a new quarter being built on reclaimed land.

  “You go on. I’m going to keep on a little longer.”

  He shrugged and went on down the corridor, rolling with that elephant-like gait he had, the combination of a seaman’s walk and the lurch of a too-heavy old man whose joints were starting to give him trouble. Looking after him, she felt compassion. Still mixed, though, with her annoyance at his interference, at his jokes, his cigars, his sour looks when she wore hijab, his bad breath when he leaned close and explained in intimate and patronizing detail something she already knew.

  When she went back in to Childers, he was standing by the window. Looking at the barbed wire outside.

  “Brother Jaleel.” She stepped up next to him. His eyes shifted away. “I’m worried you’re going to really hurt yourself here. And not just you. Those grenades could end up getting thrown at your shipmates. Or some innocent tourist family. I know what you think, we’re all one big family, it doesn’t matter where we’re from or what color we are. That’s the way it’s supposed to be, but not all Muslims think that way. There’s enough C-4 and grenades missing from your inventory to kill a lot of people.”

  She waited, then went on when he didn’t respond. “I don’t know what these people told you. Maybe they said they were going to use it somewhere else. But where could they take it from here? We need to know who has it. You’re the only one who can tell us.”

  She figured this for her last shot, she’d done everything she could think of, but he still sat unresponding. So she said, even quieter, “I know you must not feel good about how this is turning out. Do you know what tauba means?”

  “No.” He barely moved his lips.

  “Tauba is sincere repentance. Do you want to know what I think? If you are really seeking God?” He shook his head, not looking at her.

  “Brother Jaleel, al-Islam’s not about stealing or lying. None of that has any place in our lives. I think you need to make sincere repentance and ask forgiveness for what you’ve done. You fell into error. But God has given you a great favor: a second chance, to do the right thing this time. Don’t deny His blessing.” She nodded to the paper. “That’s the right thing. I didn’t have an easy time getting them to give us that. If you won’t help us, then it’s a court-martial and prison.”

  He kept looking out the window. Not saying anything. And she’d pretty well accepted she’d lost, was turning away, when he grunted, “An honorable.”

  “What?”

  “I put in six good years. I ought to get an honorable discharge.”

  She smiled. “Thank you, Brother Jaleel. I’ll see what I can do.”

  THE chief opened the locker and pulled out a wadded set of oil-smeared coveralls. Underneath them was a rusty toolbox. Aisha slid it out into the light. It was locked.

  This presented a problem. Her search specified lockers, but not locked toolboxes. She couldn’t open it without going back and getting another warrant. She shared her problem with the chief. Who said that was a bullshit rule, and he had a pry bar back in the shop.

  It was nestled under the lift-out upper tray, wrapped in a rag. The olive-drab tangerine-sized sphere of an M67 fragmentation grenade.

  Aisha straightened slowly from unwrapping it, suddenly tense, realizing she should have had the explosive ordnance disposal guys in on this search. Bob would have thought of that. But Bob wasn’t here. Probably hunched over a martini recovering from his stressful day. Pete Garfield, the other agent, was coming in, though. But all this Shawki would have had to do was wire the lid to pull the pin when she opened it, and he’d have gotten both her and the chief in charge of the fuel pier.

  But then, a lot had happened in the couple of hours since she’d left the armory. From a dead stop the case, as cases often did, had assumed velocity. When that happened there were a few golden hours where you were the only one who knew what was going on. You could take people by surprise. Then it turned from nine-to-five into twenty-four-seven. She had to keep pushing, before word got out and everyone on the other side clammed up or went underground. If she could get her hands on the guns and grenades and explosives, she could close the case. And maybe save some people from getting killed.

  Childers, or Jaleel, had finally come out with it. Though not before seeing a lawyer. The office sent Palzkill over, the lieutenant she’d run into on the pier. He confirmed the revised letter of agreement would do everything Aisha said it would. Childers was free and clear, he’d get an honorable discharge and be exempt from prosecution.

  Then, and only then, he’d started talking. As soon as he did, she’d called Pete in to help her.

  Jaleel said he’d stolen the grenades and explosive at the urging of a Bahraini named Shawki. Shawki worked on base, in the fuel facility. Why did Shawki want this stuff, she’d asked him. Childers said he didn’t know. He just wanted grenades and explosive and had asked him to help him get them. (This she didn’t believe, but as long as he was naming names, she wasn’t going to quiz him about his motivation.) He’d taken the pistols to make money on the side, there were always guys on base or the ships who’d pay for a Beretta. He gave her the names of those he’d sold the others to, and told her where to look, in a rented locker at the base swimming pool, for the one he’d kept himself.

  She’d called over immediately to Base Security and the fuel pier to have Shawki held, but they reported back he wasn’t there. Shawki al-Dhoura had gone night shift the week before and was probably home in bed.

  So she’d come right over and now, looking at the grenade, she told the chief, “I’ll need to tag this as evidence. You’re my witness. Is there anywhere else here he could have hidden things? Shawki?”

  “This is the only locker that’s personally his. I guess he could’ve hidden stuff anyplace, though. Want us to look around?”

  “Let’s hold off on that until I can make some calls. And another thing. Don’t tell anybody I was here, or what I found. There might be others here who are in on what’s going on. We’re going to try to pick him up before he realizes he’s under suspicion.”

  “What is going on?” the chief wanted to know.

  “I can’t tell you that. The investigation’s in progress. Later. First we’ve got to find this Shawki. I’m going to send over an explosives team and I want you to let them do a search.”

  The chief said he would, but if there was a bomb, they had too damn much fuel around not to tell him about it. She agreed they’d keep him informed and looked at the box again. Remembering the grenade, how easily the man who left it there could have killed her.

  She took a deep breath, and asked the chief where they could find Shawki on his off hours.

  SHE pulled the Chevy over just past the National Museum, just before the causeway. Looking for Major Yousif. In the passenger seat, a semi-snockered Diehl was blowing lint out of the barrel of his .357. Unhol-stering your weapon was a violation of NCIS policy, but she wasn’t about to call an agent with twenty-two years of service on it. Garfield was in the backseat, also armed. She and Pete were wearing the new issue Kevlar vests. Diehl couldn’t get into his; it was still in the trunk.

  “There he is,” Garfield said.

  Yousif asked them to leave the Chevy, and climb into the back of an anonymous-looking light green panel truck. The address the chief had given them for Shawki al-Dhoura was in Muharraq, the island the airport was built on.

  It had taken a couple of hours to pull this together. She couldn’t just drive out and slap the cuffs on al-Dhoura. The Bahrainis had to make the arrest. No American held any police powers off base. She wasn’t clear on the mechanics of a search warr
ant here, or if they needed one under Bahraini law. But Yousif had pulled it together pretty quickly. What was important now was getting their hands on this Shawki before he got wind his friend had dropped the dime on him.

  “I’d like to go in first, alone,” she told Yousif. Who elevated his eyebrows, looking back at the squad of armed assault cops on the benches in the back of the truck.

  “You?”

  “Me.”

  “Alone?”

  “They don’t know me. They won’t suspect a woman. And I’ll be armed. Block the back, like you planned. In case he bails out. I’ll leave my cell phone on, under my coat. You can hear everything and be ready to come in.”

  “Bob?” Yousif inclined his head to the senior agent. “You like that?”

  Diehl looked sour, and she was glad she hadn’t said anything about him taking out his gun in the car. Because what she was proposing was out of line, too. But they had to find those explosives.

  “She broke the case. It’s hers, far’s I’m concerned.”

  The Bahraini smiled. “All right,” he said.

  …

  A short woman in a housedress answered the door, the corner of a scarf drawn across her face. She peeped through the crack as Aisha asked, in Arabic, if Mr. al-Dhouri was home.

  “Who are you? What do you want?”

  “I work on the base. I have some papers we need to have him sign, for his benefits.”

  “What kind of papers?” But the door opened a little more.

  “Insurance papers. In case he’s hurt. Are you his wife?”

  “Oh. Yes. May I see them?” The door opened a little more, then all the way. Aisha stepped into a small front room.

  “I’m sorry, these are for him. Is he here?”

  “No, he’s not here. He’s probably out at the boathouse.”

  “The boathouse,” Aisha repeated. “What boathouse? You mean, back on the base?”

  “No—I don’t know. I don’t know where it is. That’s all he calls it. He’s doing some work there, after his regular job.”

  “All right.” She felt like fishing. “Is Mohammed with him?”

  “Who? I don’t know. The only one of those people I know is Salman.”

  “Salman,” she repeated, more for the cell phone than for the tired-looking woman before her. It was a common name.

  She was turning to leave when the woman said, “Wait. I have the number there.”

  She tried not to sound eager. “At the boathouse?”

  “Do you want me to try and call him?”

  “Let’s try. I’ve tried to get up with him on the base, but he’s never there.”

  “He works nights now, that’s why,” the woman said. She took a phone off the wall. Punched in the numbers, then handed Aisha the handset.

  THERE was an art, Diehl had told her, to phone calls. The most important thing was not to act too smart. There was, for example, a way to find out who else was in the room you were calling, along with the one actually on the line, which was often useful to know. So she started with, “Hello, who’s this?” “Hello?”

  “Hello, can you hear me? Who’s this?”

  “This is the Qari. Who’s this?”

  “The Qari? Which Qari?”

  “The Qari bin Jun’ad. Who else? Who did you think you were calling, woman?”

  “I was calling the other one. Is he there?”

  The voice grew irritated. “What other one? Who do you want? What do you want?”

  She guessed that was enough. “Is Shawki there? Tell him his wife needs him at home.”

  But another voice broke in, one she recognized. The woman was on another extension, in the house. She screamed, “Shawki? Shawki? Tell him not to come home. The police are here. They’re looking for him!”

  Cursing, Aisha slammed the phone down, ran into the next room. Two of the Bahrainis had come in the back door. As she entered the kitchen they were wrestling the woman to the floor. The phone swung on its cord. Whoever was on the other end could hear them shouting at her. She bent, and clapped it to her ear. Hoping to find out what they wanted, at least. That might tell them what splinter group they belonged to. Accents. Background noises. Anything, because by the time they could trace the number and get out there, they’d be gone.

  The line was already dead.

  Diehl came in behind the police. He asked if she was all right. She didn’t answer.

  She nursed her black mood as the SIS led the handcuffed and screaming woman off, as the police ransacked the house. Wanting to chew them out for charging in while she was on the line with the very people they wanted. But knowing she couldn’t. Till presently Yousif came over and without a word laid a plastic-covered slab the size and shape of a block of cream cheese on the breakfast counter. One end had been sliced open. Inside was a whitish substance.

  “What is it?”

  “What we’re looking for.”

  “Where?”

  “In the pantry.”

  She picked it up tentatively. Heavier than cheese, but not that much heavier. She pressed her fingers into it. They made dents on the Mylar-covered surface. A demolition block. Probably enough to destroy the house they stood in.

  “There’s a lot more than this missing,” Diehl said, dropping it into his pocket.

  “Not here,” Yousif said. He looked around the house, now littered and torn apart. The police were ripping up the carpet, to show bare plywood flooring.

  She called that number back several times that afternoon and evening, but no one ever answered.

  22

  TAKE in lines one through six.”

  “Fo’c’sle, midships, fantail report, all lines taken in.”

  “Rudder amidships … All engines back one-third.”

  Dan surveyed the receding jetty from the wing. Horn’s repairs were complete, and she had to vacate her berth for another paying customer. The wind had shifted to the north. The sky was turning a menacing saffron. A shamal, one of the infrequent summer sandstorms, was predicted. Yet still they had no orders, and he had no idea when he’d be called on the carpet. They were shifting to a mooring out in the harbor. They’d have to run liberty boats. But all sections had had a couple of days ashore. The first flush had worn off, and most of their disposable income had gone as well.

  He’d left Blair at the Regency, saying he’d call when he knew what was going on, and when he could get ashore again.

  The first day they’d stayed close to the hotel: investigated the gold souk, visited the Grand Mosque, shopped. They’d bought a rug, bargaining with a gimlet-eyed old Yemeni in Shwarma Alley. Blair had found crystal and rhodium jewelry sold by an Egyptian couple who spoke better English than they did. He bought her a tie-dyed abaya that looked terrific with her blond hair. On the second day they rented a car and drove out of the city to see the Tree of Life and the wildlife park, then to swim at Jazayer Beach.

  The Tree was a disappointment—just a dry old mesquite surrounded by miles of nothingness—but he was impressed with the island. It was clean, livable, and the Bahrainis they met seemed to have nothing against foreigners. He told Blair he could see retiring here. She told him it wouldn’t be as pleasant for a woman. At which point it became an argument, but Blair didn’t hold grudges the way his ex-wife did. They knew they didn’t have long. That made every kiss stolen in their rooms or in the car sweeter.

  “Engines stop. Left full rudder.”

  “Navigator reports: nearest hazard to navigation bears two-two-zero, two hundred yards, shoal water. Navigator recommends continuing right to course zero-niner-zero; two hundred yards to the mooring buoy.”

  Horace Camill had the deck, Bart Danenhower the conn. The repair officer was doing well. Dan expected they’d be convening an OOD board for him in the not too distant future. Most all his wardroom was turning out well. He was less pleased with his chiefs. That jury was still out. On him, and on having women aboard. Well, Blair had said they were bickering upstairs on that issue, too.


  Recalling his attention to what was going on, because it could be tricky, he sat up in his chair. There was the mooring buoy, a steel cylinder yawing in the blue-green chop. They were approaching it cross-wind, which was the hard way, but he didn’t have room to jog south and make an upwind approach. The buoy party was in the boat, life jackets and hard hats, running parallel to them and a little ahead, a hundred yards to port. The deck division stood ready with grapnels and shackles and pry bars. They’d unshackled the chain and flaked the heavy links out ready to go overboard. Dan thought about letting Danenhower do the approach. But considering how little maneuvering room they had, decided to take it himself. When they had the boat under the bow, and were lowering the buoy line and the messenger to the crew, he swung down from his chair.

  “Captain has the conn,” voices chorused. He went out on the wing and looked aft. The huge gas tankers looked too damn close. The end of the crowded jetty was no farther away. Directly ahead was the shipyard, and between it and them the steady procession of fishing craft nodding their way in to shelter. The whole sky was brown now with an ominous shadow, like a dropping cloak. He clicked his portable radio to the boat frequency. “Faith, Horn.”

  They rogered. He said, “We’re going to have to do something like a flying moor. So move fast on this. Get going at five knots and I’ll follow you.”

  They rogered, and he called the engine order into the pilothouse. Looking aft, he saw the stern was swinging; the wind grabbing the bow and forcing it to starboard. He used both engines and the rudder to twist back and nudged ahead, following the boat, to which he was now secured by a thread of wire rope and a two-inch messenger. This would depend on how fast the guys worked. If they didn’t make it, he’d have to back off and try again. Above all, he didn’t want anyone to get hurt.

  He brought the ship to a halt fifty feet from the buoy. As it began to drift past, two men scrambled up on its heaving steel, boosted by the others in the RHIB. They had the wire line shackled in seconds and dropped back into the inflatable as the buoy spun and tilted, dragged sideways as the destroyer leaned on the wire. He kept jockeying the engines, keeping her bow in position as the line handlers on the forecastle hauled around on the messenger and paid out the anchor chain that would serve as the permanent pendant. The boat party caught the descending chain and made it fast, tripped the wire, and they were moored. A whistle blew. The underway flag came down. The jack and ensign fluttered up into the growing wind.