Way of Escape

by Ann Fillmore

  “But why?” Commander Yusef pounded a meaty fist on the desk. “Is she arranging to take more women from our country?” His black eyes seethed with possessive anger. “Our women!”

  “There was no way to follow her in Jerusalem, sir, it was late evening just before curfew and the Israeli soldiers were patrolling the area heavily,” the troubled lieutenant answered. “All we had was the Boston operative’s assurance that she arrived back in Boston yesterday and immediately caught the train to New York. Our staff at the UN says she is in her office this morning.”

  “Why can’t we get someone into Haifa to watch EW?” muttered Commander Yusef. “Damn! It would make things much easier for us!”

  Unable to respond, the lieutenant grimaced.

  “You may go,” Yusef barked, “and bring me any update on Monday’s movements.”

  “Yes, sir.” The lieutenant slid out of the office, relieved to be gone from the hard old man’s presence.

  The reddish gold light of the late afternoon shadowed Commander Yusef’s sun-dried face making the wrinkles and creases look like saber cuts. He knew his men regarded him as a brutal old warrior. So be it. Discipline was more important than any other quality in his command. The rule of order, the rule of the Koran, the rule of male authority, his authority had to be maintained. Coming to a decision he was reluctant to make, he picked up the telephone. “Faruq,” he growled at his personal aide on the other end, “get me Tidewater.”

  “Yessir,” the meek man in the outer office responded and immediately punched the code for Virginia, USA and obtaining a satellite connect, put in Agent Marion Tidewater’s private number.

  The secretaries were busily fussing with coffeepots and plates of doughnuts as the unlikely looking Tidewater came along the hallway. Unlikely because, with his closely trimmed black beard and moustache, balding head, chunky nose and stout body, he would have appeared more likely to be wearing a yarmulke and heading into a synagogue for a bet midrash. His ancestry, though, was not member of the tribe; his ancestry was linked to one of the multitude of the original Youngs of Utah. That is, his guiding light was Moroni, not Moses. There was a strong likelihood that this had helped him acquire one of the top positions in the Agency, one that specially dealt with Arab intelligence as the requirements for clean living plus the attitude toward women were quite similar and acknowledged by the powers-that-be higher up.

  Standing with one foot out of Tidewater’s office, phone to ear, his newly assigned personal assistant and computer geek, Russ Snow, waved frantically at him to hurry. Tidewater picked up his pace, smiled only briefly at his secretary as she put a cup of coffee in his hand. The dancing Snow, covering the mouthpiece, held out the phone as his boss entered the office.

  “Yusef,” whispered the young man, pointing at the phone.

  “Ahhh,” said Tidewater, seating himself. Then with a cold smile, he said into the phone, “Commander, good morning, or rather afternoon to you.” He listened for several minutes and, pursing his thin, grayish-pale pink lips, responded, “No, I don’t think they’re after Saudi women this time. Monday deals mostly with our women, with American women. Remember how she and the baron got the senator’s wife out, got her into Costa Rica as a butterfly collector before we could even send an agent to the Miami airport? Monday’s sneaky as a coyote.”

  He listened for a moment before saying, “Uh, coyotes are varmints, sorta like wild dogs. We got ‘em all over the West. They kill sheep. Really sneaky critters.” He listened again. “Right. I thank you very much for letting me know. And I especially thank you for that update on the Hermelin’s death. He was a real pain in the butt.” With deliberateness almost of intention, Tidewater said sympathetically into the phone, “Too bad we can’t get rid of the whole Emigrant Women outfit.”

  He paused, listened. “Right. I’ll see what my sources come up with. Yeah, I’d like to know more about the hit, like who did it. I’ll send him a thank you card.” Tidewater laughed. “Okay, Commander Yusef, talk at ya later.”

  Snow, who had been making himself unobtrusive next to the filing cabinet, turned around. “What’s Emigrant Women? And who’s this baron person?”

  Marion Tidewater twiddled his pencil and regarded the tall, dark-haired young man with envy. Tidewater was short and he had never had much hair and he certainly was losing his youth. Time did that to a man. To women too, the thought of his wife and twenty-five years of marriage flashed through his mind. And Snow? Although deeply tanned, Russell Snow was most probably one of the Arizona Snows, once looked at askance by the Mormon Church as renegades because of their avowed determination to maintain polygamous marriages. About ten years ago, negotiations about the situation, and the polygamous men’s agreement to at least be quiet about the marriages, allowed the church to take them back in good standing. Still it wasn’t wise to give away too much information to an underling…just tell him what he could already read in the reports.

  “Baron Carl-Joran Hermelin.” Tidewater pronounced each name as close to how he imagined a Swede would say it, thus making them sound like something off the Muppet show. “He’s one of those do-gooders who wrecks everybody else’s way of life. Close as we can tell, about five years ago he lost his wife to cancer. Instead of just getting married again, he set out to help…to help women,” Tidewater related in an almost puzzled tone. “Guess he thought of himself as some sort of Schweitzer or Wallenberg or something. Anyway, he has, or had, a vast fortune, even a castle in Sweden. Maybe it was Legesse who talked him into helping. Dr. Halima Legesse is the brains of Emigrant Women. She’s a black doctor, a gyn-ob who was exiled from Ethiopia ‘cause of her stand against the government’s war over there. She settled in Haifa, Israel, and started giving aid to women on the run. Emigrant Women or EW. It’s a society, an organization for taking women out of a country’s borders illegally. At first it was sorta like a battered women’s shelter. Now it’s a damned international underground railroad. They pull families apart, take a woman right away from her husband. Just like that.” Tidewater snapped his fingers and shook his head in disbelief. “What gall to take a wife right out of the family!”

  “Maybe if the woman’s really in danger…?” Snow offered tentatively.

  “She should get the hell out and call the police, let them handle it,” said Tidewater with certainty.

  “I’ve heard sometimes it can be pretty bad,” the young man said, thinking of what his sister’s friend on the reservation had gone through. “Some men go nutso.”

  “Guess there are a few crazy fellows out there,” Tidewater looked over his desk for his phone list, “but overall if a woman’s a good wife, a man’s gonna be happy.” He picked up a couple files. No list.

  Snow decided not to pursue his side of the question. Obviously his new boss wasn’t hearing what Snow wanted to get across and Snow had learned well from his elders. Listen well. Listen until the man wants to talk no more. So Russ Snow asked in a helpful manner, “What are you searching for? It may be something I put in a drawer.”

  “My phone list.”

  “Top drawer on the right.”

  Marion Tidewater pulled open the drawer, “Ahhh.” He flipped to S and found Sadiq-Fath, Quddus Sadiq-Fath, the darughih of the Iranian secret police. Sadiq-Fath had once translated darughih as high constable, which was a leftover from the British rule of years ago. Of course, the weasely, vicious man was also a graduate of the Agency’s best training schools and by providential circumstance, in the same graduating class as Tidewater. Perhaps Quddus was a friend, if that relationship could be said to exist among these ruthless men. Such is the way of international security forces. Tidewater waved the open book at Snow. “Get me this guy. It’s past work hours in Iran but he can be found. He’ll talk to me.”

  Snow took the proffered address book and nodded. “Will do, sir.” As he stepped from the room, the briefest of speculations went through his head about why his boss was hotly against an organization that helped women emigrate, how such an organ
ization could be considered subversive. It was merely an intellectual kind of questioning though. Russ would know when he had a need to know or when he decided he needed to know he’d set some forces moving through his Internet connections.

  He punched up a satellite link to Tehran, Iran, and didn’t even look in his boss’s book. Russ had been hired because of his expertise with computers and as far as he was concerned, any idiot could find any of the phone numbers or e-mail addresses to contact the darughih of Iran without the use of paper.

  With long, loping strides, Carl-Joran jogged downhill, cutting across the tightly curved road back and forth, past the little markets busy on this Monday afternoon. He stopped, puffing lightly, at his favorite hole-in-the-wall cafe and was quickly served Turkish coffee and a huge plate of bagels with assorted fillings. This coffee was the real stuff, as an American might say. The cup was not more than two inches across and it truly would keep one of the small sugar spoons upright if stuck into the grounds at the bottom. The rich taste was due to the raw honey-sugar that had been brewed into the blend. Carl-Joran stood against the high table with all the other customers getting their after-lunch caffeine fix, and sipped slowly, savoring the tiny helping. He felt the crinch across his forehead as the caffeine went to his brain.

  A horn, deep and sonorous, booppped outside, and turning, Carl-Joran saw the familiar cream-white Mercedes-Benz. Taqi had found him. He grabbed up the last bagel, stuffed it with vinegar soaked cucumbers, wrapped a paper towel napkin around it, and dashed to the car. Pulling open the back door, he bent way down to crawl in, one long leg at a time.

  “Good day, Baron,” a richly masculine voice said from within.

  Carl-Joran, his bagel dripping vinegar, squeezed onto the seat. “How are you, Haji Mansur?”

  The solid, powerfully centered man taking up the rest of back seat was the baron’s age, though his full beard and curly hair already had gray streaks. His long abba, a soft black wool full-length robe, was pulled around him for warmth and on his head was a low, hat-like dark red turban, with checked scarf about his neck. This was the proper, conservative clothing for a haji; that is, a Muslim holy man of the Sunni tradition who had made the pilgrimage to Mecca.

  Carl-Joran breathed in the smell of the man, much like a horse lover or a farmer relishes the enveloping odors of a familiar environment. Habib Mansur always filled his space with the gentle aroma of sandalwood. The sable brown eyes held the quality of an old wolf, wise, unyielding, and fearless. Such a man would have looked not the least out of place riding beside the Prophet, sword in hand, galloping across the plains of Arabia centuries ago.

  “I am in fine health this day,” he exclaimed, slapping his knee. “We will have a good meeting.”

  “Yes, undoubtedly,” agreed Carl-Joran and how could he not agree? Habib had been personally responsible for the rescue of a half-dozen women from the harems of the Saudi and Kuwaiti sheikhs. His being along today meant they were ready to go into one of those countries again. And why would a conservative Sunni rescue women from the very practices his religion embraced?

  Carl-Joran knew of the sister Habib had lost to a violent husband years ago. Despite his influence, Habib had been unable to break the codes which kept the girl of sixteen in the clutches of the older man until she died in childbirth of…officially the diagnosis had been miscarriage. But Halima had told Carl-Joran it was massive internal bleeding from being beaten so badly. And the reason for that final beating?

  Halima had looked away when she related to Carl-Joran that the doctor, after an ultrasound ordered by the husband to determine the sex of the child at six months, had told the husband, not the girl, that she was carrying a girl child. In a rage, the husband had decided to force her to abort. How ironic that the modern technical device should give the husband the power to kill for such an ancient reason, Halima had murmured.

  As the big Mercedes whirred down the steep hill, Carl-Joran leaned forward. “Taqi, you okay this morning?”

  “Very good, Baron,” responded the little Palestinian. He didn’t turn around as they were approaching the thoroughfare at the bottom of the hill where they would turn to go to the harbor. Traffic was heavy along here and Taqi concentrated on changing lanes so they could scoot in behind a lorry that was also heading toward the docks. It took only moments to reach the big brick building that housed the EW’s headquarters. On the outside, this building looked exactly like other warehouses along the water. No sign announced it.

  As Taqi opened the car door for the haji, a thin Indian man with a neatly trimmed pitch-black beard and a glowing blue silk turban pedaled madly up on a bicycle. He shoved the conveyance into a parking slot, attached a lock, stood, and looked around as Haji Mansur and the tall Swede came toward him.

  “It is so good to see you both,” the Sikh beamed nervously as he bowed.

  Mansur bowed in response, “And to have you here, Mr. Prakash.”

  “Siddhu, what’s happening, my man?” Carl-Joran clapped the frailer man on the shoulder.

  Siddhu Singh Prakash stumbled forward and grinned mightily, “The meeting happens, Baron.”

  They filed in. It was not a warehouse inside. An office-like room took up the front space. Across the office wall was a large, beautifully painted sign that read in big green letters: SOCIETY FOR EMIGRANT WOMEN and under the English in other colors: SOCIETÉ POUR LES EMIGRES FEMININE, ASOCIACION PARA LOS MUJERES EMIGRANTE, SOCIETET PA KVINNOR UTVANDRARE and so on in numerous languages including Hebrew.

  Devi Hamberg, the EW’s secretary, her curly black hair disheveled and her eyes sparkling, clothed in the Israeli teens’ common outfit—khaki pants and white blouse—greeted them as she retrieved a sheaf of papers from the humming printer.

  She motioned with her head toward the wide double doors leading to a long hallway and said, “Dr. Legesse is pacing the floor. You better not keep her waiting much longer!”

  Siddhu paused at Devi’s desk long enough to pick up a large notebook and the printout. He scurried to catch up to the other men as they hurried along the hallway.

  They passed rooms, designed like hotel suites, for women needing shelter, walked past the actual medical clinic, and near the far end, rounded the hallway, glancing into the big windows of the childcare room from which the noises of little people playing filtered through.

  The men pushed open another double door and entered a vast room, warm with purple-red Persian carpeting and soft yellow-tan walls. There were a TV and VCR in one corner, an overhead projector and screen at the front, and a large map across the back wall. The entire center of the room was taken by a stunning black-and-white, long curved table made of metal and plastic with matching chairs padded with tan-gold pillows. At the top of the table’s curve stood the majestic Dr. Halima Legesse.

  “It is time,” she said gruffly. In front of her was Carl-Joran’s laptop computer.

  Siddhu hustled up to her and bowed, “We are so sorry to be late, Doctor.” He put down the notebook and paper and sat across from a very handsome, delicately boned, older woman with dark brown hair tied back in a bun. She had on a tailored, white-cotton pants suit. Carl-Joran smiled, almost flirting, as, recognizing Dr. Rachel Bar-Fischer, he held out his hand to her.

  “How do you do?” she asked.

  “I’m fine, Dr. Fischer. And how is the drug business?”

  She laughed. “Our anti-drug unit is coming along.”

  Haji Mansur shook hands with her next, saying, “It is a shame such a thing has become needed in Israel.”

  “We can only be thankful we have so few cases and most of them immigrants,” she replied, and then added, “Your chief invited me to observe your meeting today.”

  “Ah-hem!” Dr. Legesse pointed. “If you men will be seated, we do business.”

  The men promptly sat.

  “You go first, Siddhu, so we can know the present state of our finances,” Dr. Legesse also sat and nodded at the Sikh.

  For the next fifteen minutes, Siddhu Si
ngh Prakash expostulated on accounts and transfer of funds and the amounts needed for the projects on hand. When he stopped to take a breath, Dr. Legesse said, “Let’s you and me finish the accounts after we discuss cases. We have to find out what more will be needed.” She turned to Haji Mansur, “Habib, tell us about the princess.”

  The black abba-cape made a shhh-shhh as he leaned forward and pulled a small notebook from an inside pocket. Opening the back of it, he translated from his beautiful Arabic script into English. “Princess Zhara i-Shibl is eighteen and unmarried,” began Habib Mansur, “which is two or three years past the age when most girls are married in conservative Arab families. She is the daughter of Sheikh Rassid i-Shibl’s first wife and thus her marriage is considered to be very important for political reasons. Her father had years ago arranged a match for her with the powerful ruler of a neighboring tribe, Sheikh Sultan Mustafa Bayigani. It probably won’t be a tremendous surprise to you all that Bayigani is sixty-five years old and has nine wives already. Zhara objects and has objected since she was twelve. She has been brave enough to say out loud that she doesn’t want to go through with this marriage. The only way she has avoided the marriage to date was staying at a private school in Paris for the last five years. We know she even has a French boyfriend. Her father has found out. Last week, he had her brought back to Saudi under court order. If Zhara again refuses the arranged marriage, he will have no choice but to let the court execute her as an adulterer.”

  Carl-Joran nodded. It was not an uncommon story. Several years ago, just such a princess, sixteen-years-old, was snatched right from her school dormitory in England by Saudi operatives, brought home, and stoned to death for disobeying the judgment of the Saudi court that she be married to the family’s choice. Her boyfriend, another Arab boy she’d met in London, was later caught and kidnapped out of England, brought back to Saudi Arabia and executed by public beheading in the village square on charges of adultery.