Way of Escape

by Ann Fillmore

  Carl-Joran turned to Habib and asked, “How did we hear about Princess Zhara?”

  He answered, “Through the girl’s headmistress in the Paris school who called the Torture Treatment Centre. Zhara tried to hide in the woman’s house, almost got the poor woman killed.”

  Dr. Legesse spoke up, “I’ve set up refuge for her in Switzerland at the Bergenstock School, you remember, Professor Freda Englich? The woman who took our escapee from Guatemala? She is ready to receive our princess as soon as we can get her out and she can protect her in that mountain retreat.”

  “Where in Saudi is she?” asked Carl-Joran, a gleam in his eye.

  “Up in the north, at her father’s compound,” Habib Mansur replied. “It is not far from the Kuwaiti border.”

  Dr. Legesse pointed a long, bony finger at Carl-Joran, “Don’t even think about going in there, Baron. Habib will be meeting Tahireh Ibrahim and they have a plan well laid out.”

  Carl-Joran squirmed. “Tahireh worked on the last rescue in Kuwait only a couple months ago. She’s cutting it awful close, you know. She’s a Baha’i, they’ll be watching her because of that anyway.”

  “Tahireh will remain all covered in black, with even her face mask on while we are in Lebanon,” Habib said lightly, “and you know the Arab men can’t tell one woman from another. They simply don’t look at women in black robes.”

  “Haji…” Carl-Joran began to protest.

  Halima Legesse insisted, “It is done, Baron. Do not try to involve yourself. They will be taking the princess to the American air base in Kuwait and she’ll be flying out as an airman’s wife. Tahireh has much experience doing this.”

  Haji Habib patted his tall friend on the arm and added, “Zhara will be meeting Professor Englich right at the airplane in Geneva and going directly to the school.”

  “If our sworn enemy Quddus Sadiq-Fath finds out,” Carl-Joran warned, “Tahireh won’t live long. Nor you either, my dear Haji.”

  “We will be careful,” Habib, in a very kind way, needled his friend. “After all, we have done this before, my dear baron. Besides, we are not in Iran, we will be in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.”

  The Indian accountant spoke up, “Baron. We must have transfer of funds to the Saudi bank where Habib can have access tomorrow. He will need several thousand dollars for bribes. Getting a princess out will cost a lot.”

  “No problem. The living estate grant should have taken effect by now,” said Carl-Joran, “and all the monies in that one Swiss account will have been turned over to the EW’s account.”

  “Good,” Siddhu said, relaxing a bit, “because our own accounts, as I have been very careful to enumerate, are quite low.”

  “Speaking of Kuwait,” Halima Legesse said, “Lori Dubbayaway in Thailand sent us e-mail yesterday.”

  “Another servant girl in horrible circumstances, I bet you,” interjected Habib, shaking his head.

  “Yes,” Dr. Legesse nodded. “Mr. Sanjay Pandharpurkar, the father of a fifteen-year-old girl named Milind, is terrified for her safety. Same story almost exactly as what happened to our own Taqi’s daughter. Milind came with a shipload of teenagers from Thailand and Indonesia to work for the rich Arabs. She ended up as a kitchen helper in the Syrian embassy in Kuwait. At a big party, the son of a Saudi diplomat tried to rape her and she stabbed him with a butcher knife. Cut him pretty badly. She’s due to be executed next week. The father is begging Lori for help. Lori says Carin Smoland in Sweden has a place for her if we can get her to Stockholm, and I’ve gotten confirmation by e-mail from Carin that all’s ready there.”

  Carl-Joran shook his head and said harshly, “Are you going to have Tahireh rescue little Milind too?”

  “No,” Dr. Legesse shot back at him, “she couldn’t do it anyway. The girl’s in prison.”

  “So how…?” Carl-Joran began.

  Habib Mansur broke in, “I have a contact in Kuwait. A good man who can do the job with enough bribery money. Shamsi has already been to the girl’s holding cell and used some of his own money to pay off some guards.”

  “That’s great,” said Carl-Joran and stretched out his long legs, “we can get him more money. That’s the least of our problems.”

  “Then,” said Dr. Legesse, “I will have Devi send all concerned word to that effect. If your Mr. Shamsi…”

  “Mr. Shamsi Granfa,” interjected Habib.

  “Right, if Granfa can carry this out without our personnel being needed, so much the better.” Halima looked around at Carl-Joran, raised her black eyebrows.

  “Ready for my tale now?” he inquired, reaching for his laptop.

  “Yes.” Halima glowered at him, “Although I am very angry at you for going out of Haifa.”

  “I know, I know,” Carl-Joran motioned her to calm down. “I was absolutely safe.” He turned on his little screen and peered at it intently, struggling to decipher what, last night, had been perfectly intelligible to him. “Now, here we go, I think. I met Barbara Monday at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. She has a woman in the US ready to come out, a Polly…”

  “Valentine,” Dr. Legesse blurted, “that is the code name.”

  “Valentine it is, then,” said Carl-Joran. “Anyway, the woman is already in the Los Angeles shelter system and will be moved discreetly to the airport holding area and will be arriving in Miami in a couple days. She’ll have to be disguised and shipped out of the US from there. She’s the wife of a famous basketball hero and if we don’t move fast, she’ll become the accidentally-dead-in-a-car-or-boat-wreck wife.”

  Dr. Bar-Fischer shook her head, “And I thought my drug unit was full of pain and suffering.”

  “It goes on and on,” said Dr. Legesse. “Is Monday ready for her?”

  Hermelin nodded. “She’s all prepared on her end. You have to contact Judge Moabi in Uganda.”

  “No problem,” Halima Legesse agreed. “Give me the particulars on paper and I’ll have Devi e-mail her. In return, Kandella has…” Halima picked up a computer printout and read, “‘from Judge Kandella Moabi—I have a woman and two daughters living in Somalia. Fumilayo Makwaia, daughters Jo and Esie, who are asking for refuge so the daughters will not have to be circumcised. Can we put them at EW for a while?’“ Halima looked at Siddhu, “Do we have space?”

  Siddhu thought a moment, “If they can arrive here next weekend we can keep them for a week. After that they will have to be moved.”

  “Okay,” said Halima, satisfied, “I’ll tell Kandella.” She sighed and held up a telephone message note. “Oh, my, I do wish he would get a computer and get online. This phone call is from our dear friend and helper Lama Kazi Padma in northern India.”

  “Another sati?” asked Siddhu Singh Prakash, referring to the Hindu custom of wives being expected to sit on the pyre of their deceased husband and burn with him.

  Halima Legesse shook her head, her ringlets quivered. “No, Lama Padma has been asked by a woman’s group to stop a murder. It is common knowledge in the village where they work that a young wife Shai Nanek will be killed by the old man’s sons from the first marriage the moment that he dies. They want the inheritance.”

  “How much is the inheritance?” Carl-Joran interrupted. “Four pigs and a flock of chickens?”

  “No, a bit more than that,” Halima gave her heckler a crooked smile. “The old man owns a fairly substantial restaurant business near the lakes.”

  “Ahhh, then she is in danger,” Habib spoke up. “In India that is a fortune.”

  Halima nodded. “The Lama has also sent the same message on to his brother-in-law, Vaughn Eames in London, who has worked with us many times. We’re hoping he can do something. And that’s it for today, my people! Except you, Siddhu—you and I have to confer.”

  He nodded in agreement.

  Dr. Bar-Fischer sighed. “Well, you know I will help if I am able. We can always put someone in our drug unit at the hospital. Perhaps those women from Africa? It would be a good place to hide a mother and daughters.”<
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  “Thank you, Rachel,” said Halima. “We’ll keep you in mind. Okay, Baron Hermelin, when Siddhu and I are finished, you and he must arrange the money we need and then all will be underway. Habib can go to Saudi Arabia and Barbara Monday can get the Valentine case out and the women can be flown in from Africa and so on.” She sighed with a relieved note of finality.

  “Right away, Halima, boss-lady!” Carl-Joran said in his inimitable American-Swedish accent, and jokingly to Siddhu, “Aren’t you glad you don’t have a name like Monday.”

  “It is better than Friday,” Siddhu commented with his Indian accent, “because everyone would say, Thank goodness it is Friday!”

  The group laughed as if humor would help ease the load each had just taken on, the burden of life and death, the seriousness of their missions.

  “Who chose the name Valentine,” asked Habib Mansur, standing, “for Monday’s lady?”

  “Probably Monday chose it,” said Carl-Joran, getting to his feet.

  “So it is Monday’s Valentine!” Siddhu giggled. “We must go out this Monday and send money to Monday for her Valentine.”

  Everyone laughed and the Swede responded, “We’ll do that, Siddhu. I’ll meet you at the Swiss bank after I have a haircut.” Carl-Joran waved at the two women, “See you soon.”

  “You stay out of trouble, Baron!” Halima insisted loudly.

  “Of course!” he responded lightly.

  “Goodbye,” said Habib and bowed formally to the women.

  “Good luck,” said both women simultaneously and they watched the two men exit and listened to their footsteps go down the hall. “I wish,” said Rachel Bar-Fischer, “I could have found a man like the baron when I was younger.”

  “Wouldn’t any woman!” whispered Halima Legesse rising to her full height.

  Siddhu Singh Prakash spread out his printouts and prepared to brief Halima on the further intricacies of their present funding status.

  Darughih Quddus Sadiq-Fath slid one hairy leg off the plush sleeping mat and was about to push the satin cover aside when a timid knock came at the big door. That should be dinner arriving. He leaned back and patted the slender leg of the boy on the bed next to him. “Put on a robe and set our table.”

  “Yes, master,” said the beautiful lad, hopping from the other side of the bed and wrapped a kaftan, as flowing and white as the sand outside, around himself.

  A more confident knock came, the door opened a crack and a gravely old voice announced, “Sadiq-Fath, sir, you have a phone call.”

  That would be his second in command, Ali Fur Muhit. The boy, poised near the knee-high, expensively carved serving table, glanced inquiringly at the man. With a firm signal, Sadiq-Fath waved the boy out of the room. The boy hurried into the bath area and closed the door behind him. Sadiq-Fath pulled a silk shirt over his head and a half robe around his waist.

  He said to the door, “Come in.”

  Two people entered, the servant girl with dinner and Muhit, the crusty warrior who’d been Sadiq-Fath’s assistant for so many years he was a virtual institution. Ali’s eyes were clouded. Cataracts. Years of being out on the desert, one war after another, fighting his commander’s battles. There would come a day when he’d have to go in for surgery and Sadiq-Fath knew the man would have to be ordered to go.

  Muhit had a cell phone in his hand. “Call coming in from Tidewater in Virginia. He’s got news about EW.”

  Sadiq-Fath’s whole face screwed up. “I’ll take it.” He reached out his hand.

  Ali Muhit said in rough English into the phone, “Mr. Snow, you have Mr. Tidewater on the phone, yes?” He then handed it to his commander. “One minute, sir.”

  The servant girl, a pretty one from the Philippines, was standing patiently by the serving table, tray in hand. Sadiq-Fath motioned her to put it down and leave. She did. Ali Muhit bent over and lifted the lids of the plates letting the wonderful aromas of cumin, nutmeg, and saffron escape.

  “Help yourself,” said Sadiq-Fath, sitting again on the edge of the bed as he put the phone to his ear. Ali immediately dug into the big bowls of steaming food. The phone clicked on the other end and there was the familiar voice.

  “Hello? Is this Quddus?”

  “Yes, Marion. And how is Mr. Tidewater tonight?” Sadiq-Fath’s English was not only American, but with a Los Angeles accent that demonstrated his years spent at California State University in San Jose as a student of criminology.

  “Hey there old buddy! It’s darned near lunch time here,” came Marion Tidewater’s voice enthusiastically. “How ya doing?”

  “I’m fine, Marion. How’s it going with you?” Sadiq-Fath had a smile drawn tightly across his teeth. He had let this man consider him a friend since their Agency training together. He was useful. It cost Quddus a lot in tolerance. He would much rather have dispensed with the overbearing, crass, ugly little American.

  “I’m just fine, but I wanted to share some hot news with you. Get your input.”

  “My assistant says it is about Emigrant Women. You know I am always interested in that organization.” Quddus moved to the table, unable to resist the food that Ali was consuming.

  “Well, first,” came Tidewater’s words, “we gotta discuss Barbara Monday.”

  “Monday!” Quddus growled, and then winked at Ali as he lowered himself to a cross-legged sitting position across from him, “That American whore. I will have her in jail one fine day, my private jail…”

  “She went to Jerusalem.”

  “Hmmm.” The Persian commander made his tone more neutral, and the food, which had halted halfway to his mouth, continued.

  Tidewater said, “She met with someone from EW, what else? But since our good ol’ buddy Hermelin’s taken care of, who would she have contacted?”

  Quddus swallowed the excellent dahl and hummus along with a piece of pita and pursed his lips, “Maybe their accountant, that Sikh Prakash.”

  “Nah, the Indian wouldn’t leave Haifa, I was considering Halima Legesse herself.”

  “Dr. Legesse does not do errands.” This was said with a touch of respect, and then Quddus Sadiq-Fath sighed dramatically, “I had hoped once the baron was…eliminated, we would not have to worry so much about these people.”

  “Yes, and by the way,” Tidewater slyly inquired, “you got any, uh, information on how the baron met his end?”

  “Ahhh,” laughed Sadiq-Fath, his powerful jaw muscles loosening from their continual clenching for a brief second, “he had a little accident in his limousine in Cairo a couple weeks ago. Something about a grenade launcher that blew up a large part of the street. Lots of casualties, I am told.”

  “Well, well,” Tidewater responded, “those things happen, don’t they?”

  “They certainly do. One of those radical Muslim sects which cause so much trouble in Egypt claimed responsibility,” Sadiq-Fath added.

  “Yeah, I bet.” Tidewater said.

  “So,” the Persian commander folded his legs under the table and leaned an elbow onto it, “let’s talk about Barbara Monday.”

  “Yes, she’s up to something.”

  “Hmmm, didn’t expect her to go to Israel like that,” said Sadiq-Fath tantalizingly. “We knew Smoland in Stockholm was working with Dubbayaway in Thailand on a case relating to Arab interests. We think it has to do with a Sanjay Pandharpurkar whose daughter is being held in Kuwait for knifing a young Saudi fellow.”

  “Didn’t know about Smoland ‘cause we don’t have much interest in Sweden,” said Tidewater.

  “In consequence you would not know,” gloated Sadiq-Fath, “about what has happened with Baron Hermelin’s estate?”

  “No, should I?” Tidewater responded, curious.

  “It has been given, in its entirety, to a woman, a widow named Mrs. Bonnie Ixey. It is a big surprise to everyone.” Sadiq-Fath paused, relishing both the shocked grunt on the other end of the phone and the excellent food. He ate a few bites of the saffron rice dish. “We have an agent on this Mrs.
Ixey already. She’s in California, has a couple of grown daughters.”

  “How did that happen? Awarding the estate to her, that is.” Tidewater’s incredulous voice came over the line a bit staticky. The satellite was moving along in its orbit and the transmission hadn’t yet shifted to another uplink.

  “One of our agents in Sweden got a copy of the government’s records. Bonnie and the baron were married back when she was in college. Ever so briefly, before Hermelin disappeared again and the couple never bothered to divorce. She is and has been for all these years, his official wife.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned.” Marion Tidewater’s chair could be heard squeaking.

  “She will have to go to Sweden to the castle to do business and deal with the baron’s son, Sture.”

  “Bet the boy is madder ‘an hell.”

  “I imagine he is furious. No one knew, maybe even they had considered it invalid, the baron and this Ixey woman. But,” the Persian commander laughed cruelly, “How will EW operate without the estate’s money? Sooner or later, the organization must contact Mrs. Ixey and persuade her to join its efforts or go broke. I thought,” Sadiq-Fath said with intense cunning, “if the old woman can be eliminated, the estate will be in total chaos and this nuisance, this EW, will disappear!”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Tidewater said with only the briefest of hesitation, quickly realizing he’d just agreed to some poor woman’s assassination. “We’ll put an operative on at this end and keep their movements posted here.”

  “No need,” said Quddus Sadiq-Fath, knowing full well Tidewater would assign an operative anyway as soon as they’d hung up, “as I said, we have it covered. Oh, and you might like to know, our Los Angeles agent has heard a rumor through the police there, that your Barbara Monday is helping an American woman escape. I assume they’ll be using the EW’s pipeline. We don’t know who this person is except she is the wife of someone famous, perhaps a movie star. That is probably why Monday flew to Tel Aviv, to avoid the paparazzi.”

  “One of our women! In that damned underground railway EW runs!” Tidewater exclaimed, “No way, not again.”