She walked over to the boarded window and peeked through a tiny crack between the boards. She could see nothing except the darkness of the night. She went back to the table and sat down in the vacant chair. A moment later, she, too, was staring into the glowing lamp.
She lost all track of time. She didn’t know whether it was a half-hour, an hour or two hours later when the cabin door was abruptly thrown open. She, like the others, stared at the two soldiers in the doorway in surprise.
One of the soldiers pointed to her. “You,” he said harshly in Arabic. “You come with us.”
“Me?” she asked, stunned. It was the first time this had happened. Even the daily tape recordings were made in the cabin. She would be handed a small clipping from the Herald Tribune carrying the date and a headline and nothing else. She would read it into the microphone and then add a few words about herself and the children. Then the microphone and recorder would be taken away. She could only guess that the tapes were being used to assure Baydr that they were alive and well.
“Yes, you!” he repeated.
The others looked at her fearfully. “Don’t worry,” she said quickly. “Maybe the information we have been waiting for has come. I’ll be back soon and tell you all about it.”
She rose from the chair and went out the door. The soldiers fell in beside her and silently walked her to the command cabin. They opened the door for her and, after closing it behind her, remained outside.
She stood, her eyes blinking at the unaccustomed brightness of the light. There were no little oil lamps here. Somewhere behind the building a generator hummed. Electricity. In the background a radio was playing Arab music.
Leila and Ramadan were sitting at a table with a third man she did not recognize until he rose and turned to greet her. “Madame Al Fay.” He bowed.
She stared at him. “Mr. Yasfir!”
He smiled. “I see you remember my name. I am honored.”
She didn’t answer.
“I trust that you are comfortable,” he said smoothly. “I regret that we cannot reciprocate the lavishness of your hospitality, but we do the best we can.”
“Mr. Yasfir,” she said coldly. “Why don’t you just skip the bullshit and get to the point!”
Yasfir’s eyes hardened. “I had almost forgotten you were American.” He reached behind him and picked up a sheet of paper from the desk. “You will read that statement into a tape recorder.”
“And if I refuse?”
“It would be most unfortunate. You see, the message you are to read into the tape recorder is our last effort to save your life and the lives of your children.”
She looked from him to Leila. Leila’s face was devoid of expression. A Coca-Cola bottle stood half-empty on the table before her. She turned back to Yasfir. “I’ll do it.”
“Over here.” He led her to the far corner of the room, where the tape recorder had been set up on a table between two chairs. He picked up the mike and gave it to her. “Speak slowly and distinctly,” he said. “It is important that every word on this tape be understood.” He pressed the start button. “Now.”
She looked down at the paper and began to read it aloud.
“Baydr, this message is being read by me because it is a final warning and they want me as well as you to know it. It has just been learned that every shipment made under their agreement with you has been confiscated in the United States. It is believed that you are responsible for those losses and you are hereby assessed $10,000,000 additional to be paid into the account agreed upon not later than the Monday following the receipt of this tape. Your failure to do so and any further confiscation of shipments will constitute a breach of the agreement and will result in an immediate application of the extreme penalty. Only you can now prevent the execution of your family.” She paused and stared at him in horror.
He gestured her to read on.
“It has also been learned that you have applied to your prince and various other Arab sources for assistance. We trust that you are convinced by now that the Arab world is with us. And we advise you to cease wasting your time searching for help you will not get.”
He snatched the microphone from her hand and spoke into it. “This is our final message. There will be no further warnings. Only action.” He pressed the stop button.
“You can’t mean that,” she said.
He smiled at her. “Of course not,” he replied. “But your husband is a very difficult man as you must know. He must be convinced of our threat.” He got to his feet. “You must be exhausted,” he said. “May I offer you a drink?”
She sat numbly without answering. Suddenly it had all become too much for her to understand. It was more than just a kidnapping; there were political implications that had not occurred to her before. It seemed to her that there was no way in God’s creation that Baydr could live up to all the demands being made upon him.
She was going to die. She knew that now. And in a strange way it no longer mattered. Even if she lived there would be nothing in life. She herself had destroyed any chance she might have had for Baydr’s love.
Then a chill ran through her. The children. They had done nothing to bring this upon themselves. They should not be made to pay for the sins of their parents.
She got to her feet. “I think I will have that drink now,” she said. “Do you have any wine by chance?”
“Yes.” He turned. “Leila, bring the bottle of wine.”
Leila stared at him, then slowly got to her feet. Reluctantly she went into the next room and came back with the wine. She placed it on the table and began to return to her seat.
“Two glasses, Leila,” he said.
She walked to a cupboard and came back with two ordinary tumblers. She placed them beside the wine and sat down. “We have no opener,” she said.
“It doesn’t matter,” Yasfir said. He picked up the bottle and crossed to a washbasin in the corner of the room. Sharply he rapped the corked neck of the bottle against the porcelain. The neck broke cleanly away. He had been so expert that only a few drops of the wine had been lost. He came back, smiling, and filled the two glasses. Picking them up, he turned to Jordana and held one toward her.
She stared in fascination at the redness of the wine in the glass. She didn’t move. The color reminded her of blood. Her blood. Her children’s blood.
“Take it,” he said harshly.
His voice broke through the paralysis that had gripped her. “No!” she suddenly screamed, striking the glass from his hand. “No!”
The glass flew against his chest, staining his suit and shirt with the red wine. He looked down at himself, then back at her, a violent anger leaping into his eyes. “Bitch!” he cried, hitting her in the face.
She fell to the floor. Strange that she felt no pain, only a dull shock. The room seemed to be reeling about her. Then she saw his face bending over her and his hand. She closed her eyes as the pain began to explode in her face, first on one cheek, then the other. In the distance she thought she heard the sound of Leila’s laughter.
Then the explosions ended and she felt hands tearing at her clothing. She heard the ripping of the cloth as he pulled at the front of her dress. She opened her eyes. Suddenly the room had filled with soldiers.
Yasfir stood over her, his face flushed with exertion; next to him was Leila, a strange kind of joy in her eyes. Slowly she turned her head. The two soldiers who had brought her here were looking down at her, and next to them were the two guards who had been outside the cabin, behind them there were other soldiers she had never seen before. But all the faces seemed the same, all were wearing the same fiercely sensuous expression. Only Ramadan had not moved. He remained in his chair, an expression of disdain on his face.
Suddenly she became aware of her nakedness. She moved her hands, trying to cover herself from their searching eyes.
Leila laughed again. “The slut hides what she once was so proud to display.” She dropped to one knee and grabbed Jordana’s wrists, forci
ng them away from her body, spread-eagling her on the floor. She looked up at the soldiers. “Who will be the first man to avail himself of my father’s whore?”
“Your father’s wife!” Jordana screamed, struggling against Leila’s grip. “We were married according to the Koran in the eyes of Allah!”
There was a sudden silence in the room, a subtle change had come over the soldiers. Awkwardly, uncomfortably, they looked at each other, then slowly, they began to shuffle to the door.
“Are you cowards?” Leila screamed at them. “Afraid to match your manhood against this whore?”
The soldiers did not look back. One by one, they filed from the cabin. Only Yasfir remained, looking down at them. Then he, too, turned away and went back to the table and sat down. He lifted the glass of wine to his lips with trembling fingers and drained it in a single swallow.
Abruptly, Leila let go of her wrists and rose to her feet. She glanced at the two men seated at the table, then went to the far corner of the room. She sank into the chair next to the tape recorder and sat silently, not looking at them.
For the first time Ramadan moved. He knelt beside Jordana and slipped a supporting arm under her shoulders. Gently, he raised her to her feet.
Vainly, she tried to cover herself with her torn dress. He guided her toward the door and took a soldier’s coat that was hanging on the wall and wrapped it around her. He opened the door and called to the soldiers outside. “Escort Madame Al Fay back to her cabin.”
“Thank you,” she whispered.
He didn’t answer.
“There is no hope for us?” she asked.
Though he did not speak, a subtle change in the expression of his eyes gave her the answer.
She looked up into his face. “I don’t care what you do with me. But my children. Please don’t let them die.”
“I am nothing but a soldier who must obey the orders he is given,” he said, not without sympathy. “But I will do what I can.”
She looked into his eyes, then nodded and turned away. She felt weak and stumbled slightly. One of the soldiers put an arm under her elbow to support her. Oddly enough, she felt her strength returning as she walked toward their cabin.
There was some hope. Maybe not much. But some.
CHAPTER 15
Hamid lowered his night glasses. From his position in the trees just outside the camp he had been able to determine which cabin held the women. The men had to be in the cabin next to them. Carefully, soundlessly, he slipped down the trunk of the tree.
Ben Ezra looked at him. “Well?”
“I have located the cabins which contain the prisoners. They are in the center of the camp. We must pass all the other cabins to reach them. The first cabin holds the men; the second, the women. Each cabin has two guards stationed in front and two behind. The command cabin is the large one just beyond the entrance. At the moment, there are three jeeps parked in front of it.”
“How many men do you estimate they have?”
Hamid calculated swiftly. Twelve machine guns mounted on the walls, two men to a gun always on duty. If each man covered for twelve hours that alone would account for forty-eight men. Eight guards for the prisoners’ cabin. Plus the others he had seen. “Ninety, one hundred maybe.”
Ben Ezra nodded thoughtfully. He had at the most eighteen men he could use in the assault. He had to leave two men behind to secure the airstrip which they had taken less than one hour ago. There had been seven Brotherhood soldiers there. Now they were all dead. The Yemenis had requested permission to take the airstrip and he had given it. Too late he had remembered that the Yemenis might take no prisoners.
He had wanted Baydr and Carriage to remain at the airstrip but Baydr insisted on coming with him so he’d had to assign two of his volunteers, men that he could sorely spare. He looked at his watch. It was ten o’clock. At four o’clock in the morning, the larger helicopter that Baydr had secured would be waiting for them at the airstrip. Dr. Al Fay with a complete medical team would be on it. Everything had to be timed to the split second so that they would reach the airstrip before a pursuit force could be mounted.
The attack had to begin at two o’clock. They had to be on their way down to the airstrip not later than three. One hour was barely enough time to allow for the journey on foot, especially when they didn’t know the condition of the eight captives. He hoped they would be strong enough to make it without help. If any of them had to be carried, he might not have the men to spare.
He checked his watch again. Four hours to zero. He looked at Hamid. “Do you think you can get inside and plant the plastiques?”
“I can try.”
“The first things I want knocked out are those four giant searchlights. Then the jeeps.”
Hamid nodded.
“I want all the timers set for two hundred hours.”
“It will be done,” Hamid answered.
“Will you need help?”
“I could use one man,” Hamid said politely.
Ben Ezra turned and looked back at the soldiers. They were professionals, all of them highly trained. There was really none that he could spare; he had work for each of them. His eyes fell on Jabir. The man was not young but he had an air of quiet competence. He caught his eye and gestured to him.
“Hamid needs one man to help with the plastiques,” Ben Ezra said. “Will you volunteer?”
Jabir glanced back at Baydr. “I will be honored, if you will guard my master in my absence.”
Ben Ezra nodded. “I will guard him as my own.” Later the thought of what he had said would come back to him. He was his own.
He called the Israeli corporal in charge of that group. “Set the rocket launchers and aim them at the walls below the machine guns. After that the target will be the command cabin.”
The Israeli saluted and went away.
He motioned to the Yemeni captain. “I have selected your soldiers to lead the assault. At the first detonation of the plastiques, you will pick off as many of the men on the machine guns as you can. Then, without waiting for results, you will follow me through the gate and deploy your men around the soldiers’ cabins while we seek out the captives.”
The captain saluted. “We are grateful for the honor you have given us. We shall fulfill our duty unto death.”
Ben Ezra returned the salute. “I thank you, captain.”
He turned and looked back at the walls of the camp. They gleamed ghostly white in the faint moonlight. He turned back. Already the men were scattering, taking up their positions, preparing for the attack. He walked slowly back to Baydr and Carriage and sank down on his haunches beside them.
“How is it going?” Baydr asked.
Ben Ezra looked at his son. How strange, he thought. There is so much we might have been to one another. And yet, the ways of the Lord were beyond human understanding. After so many years to be brought together in an alien world, to reach across the borders of hatred, to answer in each other a common need.
The old man seemed lost in thought. “How is it going?” Baydr repeated.
Ben Ezra’s eyes cleared. He nodded his head slowly. “It goes,” he said. “From this moment on we are in the hands of God.”
“What time do we attack?”
“At two hundred hours.” His voice grew stern. “And I don’t want you to get in our way. You are not a soldier and I don’t want you getting yourself killed. You wait out here until I send for you.”
“It’s my family in there,” Baydr said.
“You will do them no good if you are dead.”
Baydr leaned back against the tree trunk. The general was a remarkable old man. In two nights of long and arduous march over the worst terrain Baydr had ever seen, the general had moved as agilely and rapidly as any of them. Not once had Baydr seen him weary. What was it the Israelis called him? The Lion of the Desert? It was a name truly given.
***
Ben Ezra turned to the Israeli corporal. “Fifteen minutes to zero hour. Pass the word
.”
The soldier immediately ran off. The general looked worried. “Hamid and Jabir had not yet returned.”
Baydr got to his feet. He looked toward the camp. All was quiet.
There was a rustle from the trees to one side. A moment later, Hamid and Jabir appeared.
“What took you so long?” the general asked angrily.
“We had to work around the guards,” Hamid said. “They’re crawling around the place like flies. I think my estimate may have been low. There are maybe a hundred and fifty men in there.”
“It changes nothing,” Ben Ezra said. “You stay close to me when we go in. As soon as the rockets are gone, the Israelis are coming in to help us with the captives.”
“Yes, sir.” Hamid looked around. Baydr was out of earshot. “I saw his daughter. She was in the command cabin. There were two men with her. I recognize one of them as Ali Yasfir. I didn’t know the other.”
Ben Ezra made a face. Like it or not she was his grandchild. “Pass the word not to harm the girl if possible,” he said.
“Yes, sir.” Hamid ran off and disappeared among the trees.
Ten minutes to zero. Ben Ezra reached under his jellaba and unfastened his sword belt. Swiftly he buckled it outside his flowing robe. Reaching across his waist, he drew the scimitar from its scabbard. The gracefully curved steel glinted in the light from the moon. Ben Ezra felt himself grow young once more. The sword without which he had never gone into battle was at his side. All was right with the world.
***
Leila took a fresh bottle of Coca-Cola and brought it back to the table. “When are you going back?” she asked Ali Yasfir.
“In the morning.”
“I wish I were going with you. I’m going crazy up here. There’s nothing to do.”
“The only girl with one hundred and forty men and you’re bored?”
“You know what I mean,” Leila said angrily.
“Soon it will be over. Then you can come back to Beirut.”
“What happens to them when it’s over?”
He shrugged his shoulders.
“Do we have to? Even if my father gives us everything we’ve asked for?”
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