by Aaron French
“My hero! My hero!”
She flung her arms around Simon so that he could feel the sharp points of her firm breasts pressing hard against him. Her bare belly moved against his shirt. Without thinking, he wrapped his arms around the exposed part of her back. They might’ve stayed like that forever if Nasrudin hadn’t pulled them apart.
“Quick, quick. The brigands are being coming after us!”
Simon turned. The bandits had regained their camels and were coming towards them, holding their heads and groaning. The leader waved his arms. “You are not telling us about dust devil,” he shouted. “You are owing us.”
“Quick, quick, into the jeep!” Nasrudin commanded. “He has been banging his head and is not knowing what he is saying.”
“Yes, my darling.” Mir’yam pressed her breast against Simon’s arm. “They are mad. We must escape from them.”
They piled into the 4WD and Simon gunned the engine. They reached the highway and the brigand was left far behind.
Simon stopped just outside of Jaisalmer. “I can drop you here. You’re safe now.”
Mir’yam pouted. “But I will never be safe without my hero.”
“Yes, yes.” Nasrudin nodded. “I am not always there to be looking after my precious jewel.”
“You... you think I can?” Simon trembled, waiting for the answer.
Nasrudin closed his twinkling eyes and murmured a prayer. “But was not Mama Lakshmi saying this would happen?”
“She did?”
“Yes, yes, my son. She was being shymbolic...”
“Symbolic?”
“Yes, and shymbolic.” In his excitement, Nasrudin’s lisp returned. “You are the one to be rubbing my precious jewel clean and to be keeping her pure.”
“Yes.” Mir’yam glanced shyly at him with an innocent expression. “You are the one to rub me and to keep me pure.”
“Whew!” Simon felt his temperature rising. “Well, I’ll try.”
Nasrudin cocked his head. “We must be going. The brigands are better now and coming after us.”
Simon yawned. “It’s six hours to Jodhpur and I don’t think I’m safe to drive.”
“Never you minding.” Nasrudin shushed Simon out of the driving seat. “You two sit in the back, I will be driving. I am being a Sufi monk. I am never being tired.” As Simon happily climbed over the seat to be with Mir’yam, Nasrudin popped two white pills into his mouth. He started the vehicle with a jerk.
“Hey!” Simon bounced deliciously against Mir’yam. “You know how to drive?”
“Yes, yes! I am learning from website.”
With amazing speed, Nasrudin improved his driving ability. Feeling safe, Simon and Mir’yam slept, their bodies lolling against each other. Early in the morning, they arrived at Jodhpur.
Simon took Mir’yam’s hand. “Will you marry me?” he asked.
Her large dark eyes misted over. “Oh, yes.”
“Can we marry here in Jodhpur?”
Nasrudin waggled his head. “Marrying, yes, is good. But here in India is taking long time.”
“Will you come to Australia with me?”
Mir’yam nodded but Nasrudin said, “To leave my desert home? Oh, no, no, no!”
“Then you’ll trust me to look after your daughter?”
The Sufi closed his eyes. “Trust? Yes. But maybe it is being better if I come for one week. One week away from my beloved hot sands is not breaking my heart.”
Simon suddenly saw a problem and rubbed his chin. “Do you have passports?”
“Oh, passports? Yes.” Nasrudin drew two new books from his pocket. “My sitar was telling me.”
“Oh, that’s convenient.” For some reason, Simon again heard the chief brigand shouting, “You are owing us.” But Mir’yam stroked his neck and he forgot the aural illusion. “Let’s return the jeep,” he said, “then get a taxi to the airport.”
With Nasrudin as guide, a taxi appeared as if by magic and there were even vacancies on the flight back to Brisbane. It was a weekday afternoon when they entered Simon’s house and he immediately rang the registry office.
“Yep,” he said, “no problem getting married. It’ll just take more than a week to organise, though.”
Nasrudin placed his palms together. “As Sufi Guru, Shaolin subsection, I am giving you spiritual marriage now.”
“Oh, Father!” Mir’yam kissed Nasrudin. She then kissed Simon, surprising – and delighting – him with the amount of tongue in the kiss.
Nasrudin continued. “There is a desert in this land. Maybe I will be staying.”
“That would be great,” Simon said a little doubtfully.
He returned to his research, finding it a little dull though, after his recent adventure. On his fourth day, however, he pulled an old book from the shelf and he discovered a second note secreted in its spine. He unfolded it with excitement. The map and the writing were in exactly the same hand as his first find! With bated breath, he quickly translated the message. The result was astounding. There was a treasure hidden in his garden. In his very own garden!
Simon collected Mir’yam from college and showed her the map. She turned it this way and that.
“Oh yes, there will be a treasure,” she said, “and you can retire from that dusty research if you want.”
“Oh?” Simon held her. “But how can you be so sure?”
“Do you not see?” Mir’yam waved the map. “This writing is from the hand of Sufi Guru Mulla Nasrudin, Shaolin sub-branch.”
“Oh, that cheeky old bugger!” Realisation hit Simon. “No wonder he was waiting for me. He organised everything!”
About the author: Barry Rosenberg was born in London in 1943 but moved to Canberra, Australia in 1970 after completing a Ph.D. in Artificial Intelligence. Towards the end of 1974, he left research to: teach tai chi and yoga; work in the Australian Public Service; and most recently become a craftsman. Since 1997, he has been living on the Sunshine Coast, Qld, with his artist wife, Judith. He has published academic papers, poetry and had plays performed. Most recently, he has been writing speculative fiction.
Suitcase Nuke
Sean Monaghan
Staring across Schema Menovanni’s shoulder, Gerry looked through the narrow window at the snowy Pyrenees. He glimpsed one of the eagles, wings spread, head fixed then darting as it sought prey.
“Are you listening to me, Brother Mitchell?” the Schema said.
Gerry turned to Menovanni’s face, wondering how it had become so very lined. He’d never seen the old man change his expression from neutral. His outward elderly calm perhaps belied a vexed youth. As the oldest monk in Sopphoreo, no one knew his history. “I am listening, Schema,” Gerry said.
“Good. So you will be... flexible, with regards to the delegation?”
Gerry bowed his head a little, looking at the surface of the Schema’s desk. Though broad, the only things on the scored but polished oak were a pen and a sheet of paper with the day’s meetings listed. Even by Sopphoreo’s standards Menovanni kept a very uncluttered space.
“Brother?”
“Yes, Schema. I believe I can be flexible, though I trust I’ll not be called on to...” Gerry trailed off, glanced around the spartan brick room. They were near the top of the main tower here, with a view up into the fractured mountains. The room faced away from the main monastery.
Menovanni leaned back in his chair.
Gerry’s gaze shifted to the old monk. Menovanni steepled his fingers, then closed his eyes. They sat for several moments in silence, then Menovanni said, “Go on.”
“Well, to compromise my vows.”
The corners of Menovanni’s mouth moved up a fraction. “No one would be called upon to do anything that would contravene the tenets of the order.”
Gerry smiled. “Good.”
“However, these are trying times, and we would ask all of our monks to utilize their skills to the upmost. Our visitors will be made to feel welcome. Santiago will ensure the wine is the
finest. Francois will be baking the best bread.”
“And I,” Gerry said, “will continue to harvest the grapes.”
Menovanni coughed. “Of course. And to continue to coach in the gym.”
“And to coach. That has always been clear.” Gerry moved to stand up, but Menovanni waved him back to the seat.
“You must understand,” Menovanni said.
“I understand. There is much at stake. Our order is under threat. The Eastern orders would take control of the valley and-”
“Of the whole peninsula,” Menovanni said. “They have been steadily taking control moving west from the Urals for the last decade. Sometimes subtly, sometimes not. It is important that we not let them usurp control here. From our little valley, it is a short step to Barcelona, Madrid and Lisbon.”
“They are barely in France at all,” Gerry said. “Two, perhaps three small monasteries in Germany. Nothing in Italy, they-”
“Exactly. They have tried everything, but if they take Iberia, then,” Menovanni held up his open hand and slowly clutched it to a fist, “they could squeeze the rest of Europe to dust.”
Gerry sighed. “I will do what I can.”
Menovanni stood. “You will do whatever you must. I am counting on you to be as...” he glanced over his shoulder into the mountains, “to be as vigilant as those birds you so eagerly watch.”
Gerry nodded, smiling to himself. “Thank you for your time, Schema.”
Menovanni sat watching Gerry for a moment. He blinked, then said, “I realize that you are thinking of leaving the order.”
Gerry said nothing, but he wondered how Menovanni could know. He hadn’t said anything about his dissatisfactions to anyone.
“Go with God.” Menovanni sat, picked up the pen and scratched a line off the schedule.
***
Christian followed the other Eastern monks through the monastery gates. His feet ached, but he reflected that his task was essential. This visit was the opportunity they’d been waiting on for so many years.
He was last through the gate, and he saw the burly local monks eyeing him. One of them turned and ducked through a door. Ah, well, Christian thought, he had always known that it would not be easy.
***
Gerry knelt by the bed in his room, chin on his interlinked fingers, elbows on the chair. He ran through his calming exercises.
I am a whole and complete person, he thought. Peace and well-being run through me. I am a whole and complete person.
He allowed his mind to repeat the phrases a dozen times in the background as he also dwelt on Menovanni’s words and their implications.
Gerry had been at the monastery for three years, and that, he thought, ought to have been long enough to leave everything behind. Even if he did still work out in the gym each day. And coach the others who wanted the conditioning. Even if he did meditate on the run sometimes, jogging up into the mountains for hours, exploring the aeries and trails, discovering crevices and hidden cairns, returning after dark. Even if he did sometimes, because of that, miss evening prayers. It should all be left far behind. Wasn’t that why he’d chosen Sopphoreo? Because they were so remote, asked so few questions of the past. Of all the orders he’d looked at this was the closest to letting people be who they were at that very moment, without condemning them for their history.
I am a whole and complete person, he thought.
Someone knocked on his open door.
Gerry raised his left hand up by his ear, ran through the mantra again, then again, then stood and turned. “Brother Meuras,” he said, nodding to the energetic boy. “Sam, come in.”
“The delegation is here,” Sam said. “The chapel guards sent me to fetch you.”
“Of course.”
***
Christian sat in the room, knowing that they had placed a guard outside the door. They had brought him a pitcher of water and a small dish of antipasto. He left both untouched. They knew something was up, separating him from the main delegation this way. While the others were taken to see the senior monks, to discuss terms and progress, he was stuck here under guard.
At least they had left him with his luggage. Suspicious, but not too smart. If they had a decent security detail here then he would have been strip-searched and the guard would have been posted inside, not outside, the door. And the suitcase would have been confiscated.
***
Gerry washed up in his corner bowl while Sam waited. The cold well water was a little acrid and tangy.
“They said to hurry,” Sam said.
“Who?”
“The chapel guards.”
Gerry smiled. “Always so impatient, aren’t they? How many in the delegation?”
“Um, twelve, I think. Ten are with the council; one is taking tea with Schema Menovanni. The other is being held in the chapel antechamber.”
“Held?”
“He’s a spy.”
Gerry wiped his face with the thin little towel. “How do they know this?” His mind began racing. Why would the Easterns bring a spy? Wasn’t their whole purpose simply to take over? Wouldn’t they already have enough information to know what they needed?
“They said-”
Gerry held up his hand. “I get it.” Not a spy from the Easterns, but from somewhere else, using the Eastern delegation to get through the gates. “What’s his name?”
“Chen Jsu.”
“Sounds ordinary enough.”
“Looked the same to me.”
Gerry raised an eyebrow at the young monk. Still, something had made them pull the spy aside. Perhaps his dress, his haircut. His name, or something wrong with his passport - too new, or too many stamps suggesting forgery. “Did you see him?”
“No. Though I did hear something odd,” Sam said.
“Odd?”
“Well, the whole delegation just had travelling satchels, but he was carrying a suitcase...” Sam trailed off as Gerry rushed past him.
***
Christian stood and paced the room. He knew he’d been busted. Perhaps if a more senior monk had come in the first few minutes to re-check his credentials then he might have been reassured. But now, it was clear that they’d known right away. It had been easy enough to fool the Chinese; they were so keen to expand their power base through Europe that they were careless. His simple letter from Xiao Ri in Xinjin had got him onto the train with the delegation. But here in Sopphoreo, they’d held him a moment at the door, ushered the rest through to the main rooms, then brought him to this windowless room with a single door and smelling of old wheat. Difficult to improvise in this kind of situation.
***
Gerry blazed down the tower and out through the cloisters. Why would someone infiltrate the Chinese like that? Unless it was part of their whole plan to make it seem like someone was infiltrating, so that they could wipe Sopphoreo and gain a beachhead to the peninsula. Get some Eastern Russian to take the blame, then use that to begin investigations and topple the already unsteady orders throughout Russia.
He sprinted towards the main entrance, stopped by the antechamber, glancing out through the gates. Tourists milled around. One of the local farmers hauling up a cart full of hay lifted his hand to wave. Gerry returned the greeting, but kept on at full sprint, bursting into the empty antechamber. Light glowed through the high windows and a pigeon fluttered on the sill.
Spinning around, Gerry darted back to the foyer. Not the antechamber. They’d taken him somewhere else. Surely not to the old dungeons.
***
Christian silently worked the lock with his bootlace aglets. From the pattern of shadows and light coming through the thin gap at the base of the heavy door, he knew that there was a single guard, knew that the exit to the little annex they’d secreted him in was ten meters to the left. He’d seen the layout, but knew that tourist cars were parked two hundred meters down the road. He’d seen some Oldsmobiles and Caddies. Both easy to steal. He only needed to be four miles away at the time of detonation t
o be clear.
The lock slipped open. He called the guard.
***
Gerry slowed at the main receiving room. There was a guard on the door, Rafael, one of the monks he trained with regularly. A burly man with questionable ethics, allowed to remain at the monastery certainly because of times like these.
“The spy?” Gerry said.
Rafael pointed along the corridor. “Granaries.”
“Guarded?” He kept moving.
“Santiago.”
Gerry stopped, turned. “Just Santiago?”
“Yeah,” Rafael frowned. “That a problem?”
“Probably.” He started running again. He heard Rafael coming after him.
***
Christian flung his bootlace out, caught the end as it whipped around the young monk’s neck. Before the monk could even react, Christian had him almost garrotted. He dropped the body to the ground silently, then dragged it back into the cell. Quickly he ran to the end of the annex and up a flight of stairs to ground level, then scanned around the grounds. This was perfect. He had a good line out to the main entrance, and the annex was central enough, and shallow enough, that the entire monastery would be vaporized.
He returned to the cell, flipped open the suitcase and waited for the timer to boot up.
***
Gerry came to the granary entrance and slowed. He took a couple of steps down. It was dim inside, just the light from Santiago’s lantern.