Way of Escape

by Ann Fillmore

  Tahireh put her fingers in front of her mouth, signaling to be quiet and cautious. With extreme diligence, she searched around the large suite of rooms, examining under tables, tapping lights. She could see no obvious microphones, but that meant nothing. She went up to the princess and helped her get the fancy clothes off. “Here,” Tahireh found the makeup hidden in the pockets of the scruffy pants. “Every inch of exposed skin must be dark and look dirty. Did you get something with mud in it like we told you?”

  “Yes, there are several potted plants. I made their soil from mud,” the princess pointed to them over by the window.

  Tahireh went to the one whose soil looked the muddiest and smashed the plant onto the floor. She motioned to the princess. It took only moments to cut off most of the girl’s long hair and rub the dirt into what was left.

  Suddenly the inside door to the suite opened and Tahireh jumped up, pulling her small knife from its scabbard. But it was Jani, the mother, who, upon seeing her daughter now garbed like a boy and as dirty as any other nomad urchin, sucked in her breath and cried, “Oh, oh! What if you are caught! Oh, my precious child.”

  “You must come with us,” said Zhara, who turned accusingly to Tahireh, “she must. Father will have her killed. He will. As soon as he finds out I am gone my mother will have a fatal accident.” Zhara grabbed Tahireh’s hands and pleading, kneeled before her. “Please, please!”

  Tahireh threw back her head. “We have no more clothing. Only so much makeup. And could she…” Tahireh glared at Jani, “can you run alongside the donkeys? Or will you have to ride on a camel?” Tahireh looked directly at the mother who had collapsed onto the bed in sobs.

  “Mama!” Zhara shifted her attention to her. “Mama!”

  “I could not run very far. I have not been able to be so rebellious as to exercise like my daughter. I am in no condition to be a donkey boy.” The woman whimpered.

  “Then we’ll put you on a camel. We will. I won’t have my mother murdered!” Zhara’s voice was rising.

  “Shhhh,” said Jani. “You go. You live. Emil is waiting for you. I will be okay.”

  “We both know you will be dead in a month,” the princess insisted and shook her head at Tahireh, who could only shrug in agreement.

  “Your daughter is right.” Tahireh knelt down near the princess and finished rubbing dirt into the girl’s now bare feet, then into the old, torn tennis shoes before they were put on the little feet. “Do you have any money? Any coins, any jewelry stashed away that you can use to pay the nomads? We simply don’t have anything more we can pay them.”

  Jani was shaking her head. “The vizier cleaned my rooms of anything valuable two days ago. I am sure he suspects we will try to leave. Did he clean your suite, Zhara?”

  “Yes.” She sighed, “But I have something hidden. It…it was to be a present for Emil. No matter. It will be enough for the tribesmen and it cannot be traced.” Zhara went to another, very large potted plant and ripped the entire tree out. From deep inside the dirt, she extracted a leather pouch and handed it to Tahireh who carefully unwrapped it. About four inches across, it was a magnificent American Indian silver belt buckle and it surely was worth more than enough to bribe the Bedouin chief.

  “Where…?” Tahireh started to ask.

  “In Berlin, before I came home. There are very fine Native American shops there. It was to be an anniversary present for Emil but, well, the school was raided and there I was.”

  “How did you get to keep it?” her mother asked.

  “It was on a belt that was on a crummy pair of jeans in my suitcase. I guess the vizier didn’t know what it was, so he left it in the suitcase. I thought I’d better hide it.”

  A buzzer sounded twice, three times and Jani jumped. “Fifteen minutes to dinner.”

  “You must go to dinner,” said Tahireh, “you must say your daughter is being stubborn and rebellious and that…”

  “Tell them I’m on my period,” Zhara laughed, “that’ll shock them silent.”

  “Zhara!” Jani did smile though.

  “Then come right back here to her rooms.” Tahireh grabbed the princess by a shoulder. “Can you take my place with the donkey boys that are leaving right now?”

  “Yes, I can.” The princess did not hesitate and she smiled, “You have a plan for my mother?”

  Tahireh nodded. “As soon as you are outside, find the Haji Mansur. He will be with the Bedouins closest to the fountain. Tell him he will have a wife on the way back. Give him the belt buckle so he can pay the chief. Okay?”

  “How do I get the buckle out? The guards often search the boys.” Zhara was beginning to think like the rebel she was.

  “Do you have tape?” Tahireh asked.

  Jani jumped up, “There, on her desk.”

  “You better go to dinner, Mama,” said Zhara, pulling down her pants. Tahireh immediately taped the buckle into the girl’s groin. “Owww!” she winced.

  “Wait until you rip it off. That will be painful!” said Tahireh and pulled Zhara’s grubby trousers up over the tape. To Jani, she said urgently, “Go! And come back as soon as you can. I don’t relish staying in this room very long. While you’re gone, I’ll do my best to make a costume for you. Go, hurry.”

  The woman sucked in her breath, and trembling with anxiety, pulled her veil completely around her face and dashed out.

  “Okay, Princess. Your new name is Kahman Ferook. Here is an ID card.” Tahireh pulled out a battered little piece of cardboard. It was a costly imitation of the Saudi equivalent of an identi-card. “Remember that you cannot read, so you only know what the haji of your tribe has told you about it. Don’t elaborate if you’re stopped and questioned, don’t say any more than you need to and keep your grammar poor. Okay? Ready?”

  “Yes.”

  They went to the door. Tahireh made her slouch and gave her a heavy slap to both cheeks, turning her face a beet red. “There, that will make you look sunburned under the dirt. Whatever you do, don’t mouth off to the guards like the other boys sometimes do. Don’t run. You can hurry, but don’t be obvious. Blend in and get out.”

  “I will.” Zhara rubbed the back of her now ugly fingernails deeper into the grimy pants. “I’m ready. I can do this.” She slipped away down the hallway.

  Tahireh, trying very hard to maintain the cool, unperturbed demeanor of the model she was, stepped back into the princess’s suite and quickly opened one wardrobe after another. There were many. She chose the oldest robes and the worst T-shirts, some old scarves and long black socks. All of these she rubbed in the dirt of the tipped-over potted plants. Shoes would be a problem. She hoped Zhara would have some old tennis shoes that could be ripped and muddied.

  Meanwhile, Zhara slouched past two sets of guards who glanced at her just enough to see that she was headed from the baths with the other boys who had been deloused, and that she was sticking to the path. As she went out the gate, she had a very frightening moment when one ugly guard patted her down. Luckily these old clothes were thick enough to cover her small breasts. She was waved on. She trotted clumsily after the urchins.

  Although it seemed to take forever to run the distance around the outside of the compound, it was probably no more than five minutes before she was asking for the haji. A sunburned old Bedouin camel driver pointed to the man in the black abba who sat tending a little campfire of dried dung and roasting his own pot of food. She approached the venerable man and shyly said, “I am Kahman.”

  “Good,” he said, “and where is my donkey boy?”

  She shook her head. “Still in my room. He said to tell you that you will have a wife going home with you.”

  “Ahhh, I will?” the haji nodded with just a hint of surprise in his soft smile. “How will we pay for this wife?”

  “I have something.” Zhara looked around, saw a tent nearby. “Can I go in there?”

  “Of course. And when you come back, you must join the boys over there and eat with them.”

  She hurr
ied into the tent. The “boy” who’d rescued her was right. It hurt far worse coming off.

  Jani i-Shibl ate very little. She simply could not overcome her nervousness. The other women had no such anxiety. They had so much to gossip about no one even asked about Zhara. A casual glance from one of the matrons was all Jani noticed of any merit and as soon as was proper, she slipped away. When she reentered her daughter’s rooms, the tall boy, who had jumped into a wardrobe as she entered, came out. He held up a bundle of Zhara’s old clothes, now ripped and dirty.

  “I was able to find some well-used sandals in here, can you fit in them?” asked the boy, holding up a pair of Zhara’s. “We can cut them if you can’t.”

  It took not more than half an hour for Jani to change from a rich Arab woman to a Bedouin hag. Even her teeth got colored. Her posture slumped, she practiced limping. Her entire body and face were covered with rags. Finally she nodded. “I’m ready.”

  “Yes,” agreed Tahireh. “You will be my mother, you will drag me out past the guards. My name is Hussein Amir, you can be Mariah Amir. Let’s go. I don’t have a card for you. I have one for me, so say you lost yours if the guards stop you. I think if you act it up well enough, that you’re angry enough at me for running away from you and hiding here in the compound, you won’t be bothered.”

  “Don’t worry, I know what it is to be angry with a stubborn child,” she laughed ruefully.

  Lights were coming on throughout the compound making the shadows deeper than the darkness filling the bitterly cold sky. Jani really did take Tahireh’s arm and really did drag her along, fussing at her in vulgar camp language. A guard at the servants’ gate motioned the hag-woman to stop and she bravely cussed him out, cussed all men in general and her son and husband especially. The guard, snorting in derision, let the old woman through.

  Tahireh took the lead, filing between the nomads’ small campfires. Zhara, sitting with the donkey boys, jumped to her feet, then pretended she’d made a mistake and sat back down.

  “Here is your wife, Habib,” muttered Tahireh, as they arrived at the haji’s little area. “Meet Mariah Amir.”

  “Delighted,” said Habib, “I hope you know how to cook over a campfire and pitch a tent, wife.”

  “Not since I went camping with the Girl Guides as a child,” said Jani, “in the wilds of Wales! I’ll do my best though.”

  “And how are you, Tahireh, my dear?” asked Habib with great concern. Jani looked up at the boy in stunned surprise. She had not suspected for one moment that this urchin was a young woman.

  “I’m fine,” responded Tahireh in her own voice. “It’s time to be a donkey boy again. I’d best go. Happy camel ride!” she said to Jani and walked away.

  “Do you want to meet our camel?” Habib asked with a grin.

  “Must I, at this moment?”

  “No, you will have ample time to be acquainted with the big fellow,” laughed Habib and poured them both a cup of campfire chai that steamed in the gusts of sand-filled wind. “And it would be wise if we started to pack him right away. Our group will be leaving in an hour or so. The chief accepted the silver buckle.” Habib laughed sharply, “In fact, he knew its exact value. So much for international trade. Your daughter found a bargain, it is quite valuable. Anyway, we will be heading into the desert quickly now.”

  “We, Zhara and I, won’t be missed until morning when we don’t show up for breakfast.” Jani eyed the tent with wishful eyes. Her soft skin was crinkling already under the brutal desert wind.

  “Perhaps, I hope so, and if so, that is good. We will have plenty of time to become one with the sand dunes. Enjoy your hot tea while you can.” Habib glanced around and motioned to the chief standing near the camel herd. The ferocious looking man walked up and down the ranks of his tribe, cursing them, pushing some of them and they, in turn, urged the boys to pack the beasts and line up the donkeys.

  Inside the compound, Vizier Radi had just gotten around to taking the matron’s daily report on the women. He stroked his pointy beard and thought about the fact that the princess had not come to dinner. Was that important? Or merely her usual ploy to upset the status quo? He debated stopping by her rooms. It would be a wise thing to do. At that very moment, the falconer knocked on the office door and announced that his majesty wanted to see how the new owl from Belize would perform. Could the vizier come to the courtyard?

  Radi decided that watching a beautiful yellow owl fly would be much more enjoyable than facing down a rebellious girl.

  Russ came into the office late. It was not intended, but a multi-car pileup on the icy interchange kept traffic blocked for almost an hour. Most of the secretaries hardly glanced at him. One though, an older woman who sat near the back of the room, waved at him. He had noticed the imitation dreamcatcher on her wall some time ago. One of those Native American wannabes, he sighed. That’s all he needed was a woman who wanted to run with the wolves but couldn’t or wouldn’t lose enough weight to walk to the corner grocer. It just never made sense to Russ. If you knew that by changing some particular behavior you could improve who you were, why would you not do it? Yet, so few made any attempt to do that one thing.

  The inner offices were buzzing. Lily held up a sheaf of interoffice memos for him and then leaned over her intercom and said, “Agent Tidewater, Mr. Snow is here.”

  “Where have you been?” the ugly man’s throaty voice preceded his appearance. He stormed out of his office.

  “Caught on an overpass, sir, with a lot of other vehicles…”

  Shaking his head in frustration, Tidewater pointed to Russ’s cubbyhole, “Get in there and get us more information. Los Angeles office just called me. They picked up a police report on a missing or kidnapped woman. The husband’s a famous guy and he’s sure a shelter in Malibu has his wife. The private investigator he had tailing her was taken out the other night, just like Claybourne was. And the ISF tail.”

  “Yessir,” Russ was very aware that there was no longer any of the proffered camaraderie from his boss, no sign of mentorship, Russ had become merely an employee. “Is there anything further? I mean, how does that missing woman tie into EW or the Ixeys?”

  “Nothing on the Ixeys except they’re locked away in the Hermelin castle in Norrkoping, Sweden and the agents are freezing their behinds.” Tidewater pointed to the messages in Russ’s hand. “Look through those. Everything the LA office has dug up is there: a tall black woman being put on a plane from LA to Miami the day after the PI got conked, that Barbara Monday paid for the woman’s ticket and got the airline to fly the woman under Monday’s name.”

  “And we know that Monday cancelled her ticket from New York to Miami,” Russ couldn’t help but say. “Right, I’ll go do some digging.”

  As he entered his cubbyhole, he groaned. This would take some very fancy footwork. He would have to give Tidewater enough information for it to appear that he was fulfilling his job requirements, yet keep the important stuff safe.

  “Search,” he said to his sleeping computer. “Search air line reservations.” By noon, Russ had discovered that although Monday had cancelled her flight to Miami, there existed a flight reservation by the EW from Miami to Stockholm late tonight. While this search was going on, he picked up an instant message that the Agency office in Miami had tracked the black woman’s arrival and that she, under the name Monday, had been met by several women. It was the Miami agent’s contention that these women had probably been connected to a local shelter, which one he hadn’t any idea. There were quite a few shelters in the Miami area alone, not to mention in nearby towns.

  So Russ thought and thought. His mind worked furiously. What could he tell Tidewater? He had to tell him what the Miami agent had reported. The reservation to Stockholm? Would the black woman be leaving on that flight? To Sweden? Russ suddenly grinned. No, he told himself. Emigrant Women would not ship a black woman to Stockholm, Sweden. From all indications, the personnel at EW were very, very cunning. If he were they, with their connections,
to make sure a tall woman, six feet tall he’d read, was safe from her husband, Russ would have her shipped to Africa. He said aloud, “Search airline reservations to Africa on today’s flights for single female passengers.”

  It took only moments before the computer came up with a half-dozen matches. One to South Africa this morning, four to Nairobi as part of a tour group and one to Kampala nonstop via Cairo and who made the original reservations? Yep, it was as he guessed. Siddhu Singh Prakash. The accountant for EW. Smart. Not that many people, even in the Agency would recognize that that name was a man’s name, an Indian man’s name, being used for a single woman.

  Okay.

  After several minutes of serious consideration, Russ decided what to do and what to tell his boss. Within an hour, he and Tidewater were on a plane to Miami.

  CHAPTER 10: MAN’S DEATH

  A courier, female, in bike togs and helmet, stood by the ticket counter and as the tall black woman in African robes swept up, the helmeted girl asked, “Valentine?”

  “Yes.” Polly Marie accepted the envelope without a blink and tipped the messenger very well. It was a good exchange. She had now officially become a Ugandan woman, with a Jamaican mother, flying home from Jamaica to be with her dying father. Just like that. The new Eauso Valentine presented her passport and ticket at the counter. Behind her, Sherralyn, dressed in a wildly Jamaican style wrapdress looked like the personal assistant she was supposed to be, pushed a suitcase onto the scale.

  “Thank you,” Eauso Valentine haughtily said. “I see you when I return.”

  “Yes’m,” responded Sherralyn, playing the part beautifully. She backed away past the waiting passengers and smiling quirkily, glanced toward the potted palms.

  Carl-Joran smiled back. So far there was no sign of agents. He slid along the walkway and stood by the entry to the big lounge. Valentine, putting her papers into her large shoulder bag, strode past him. He fell in behind her at a discreet distance. One by one everyone passed through the guard stations with the x-rays and metal detectors. Almost there, thought Carl-Joran, almost done and then he could get on the airplane home, he would be in Sweden, be with Bonnie.