"Horses!" cried out Mrs. Pollifax.
In the light of the lanterns the men's faces were fierce yet compassionate, wondering, eyes narrowed.
Awad's lantern combed the earth. "Two," he said.
His lantern moved farther, and he plucked a dropping of dung from the ground. "See? Horses." He let it fall, his lantern closer to the ground, his shrewd eyes seeing details lost to Mrs. Pollifax. 'Two horses came from the east," he said, "both carrying one rider, the weight is same." He moved with his lantern again, the others watching and waiting. "Here, they rode away back east, but see? The prints of this horse are much heavier, carrying a load."
"Carrying Farrell," she whispered, nodding, and then she said aloud, despairingly, "But why Farrell?"
"Wait," said Awad sharply. "Bring more light, here is a patch of sand." And then, turning to Mrs. Pollifax, "Come see! Do you know this footprint—half a footprint—made as the man mounted his horse?"
She looked at it blankly, and then at Awad, he said, "This half print is known to me—and to you. It is made by the shoe of the man who stood at the door of my house last night and who stole Youseff's battery."
Bewildered, Mrs. Pollifax said, "But that cannot be! We thought—we were so sure it was the men in the red car who—" She stopped as they looked at her uncomprehendingly. How, she wondered, could she possibly explain that the men following them in the red sedan had been following her, not Farrell, and that she and Farrell had assumed it was those men who had visited the house in the night to disable both taxi and truck.
If should have been me, she thought. Why didn't they take me? There was an answer lurking in the back of her mind, but too fleeting to capture now in these moments of shock, when she felt only a desperate worry. "Where would they have taken him?" she asked Awad. "Can we go after them? They can't have gone far, please can we follow?"
He said bluntly, "Not until sunrise, we need light. Good light," and he added sternly, "This is grave insult, a matter of honor to Sheikh Ibn Jidoor. In his own camp!"
A small hand slid into Mrs. Pollifax's comfortingly; she had not noticed that Hanan was here. "Do not worry," Hanan whispered. "We will find him."
Mrs. Pollifax appreciated her confidence, but sunrise was seven hours away, and who could know what might happen to Farrell or how far away he would be by then?
Muttering puzzled, angry words, with a number of calls upon Allah, the men stalked back to the camp, led by Awad. Mrs. Pollifax walked more slowly, hoping she need not speak to anyone again until sunrise. Hanan walked with her, and Mrs. Pollifax realized that if she wanted sleep now—and to her surprise it was ten o'clock by her watch—she would have to join and meet the women in the muharram behind the curtained half of the tent, she dreaded this but Hanan, as if she understood, entered and spoke in Arabic to the women, who made clucking sounds of sympathy, brought Mrs. Pollifax blankets, and gave her kind glances.
She lay down, aware that Hanan lay across from her under her own blanket, the sound of voices on the other side of the curtain gradually faded. . . , her mind was in turmoil, worried and afraid for Farrell, but it had been a long day and after a nightmarish half hour she drifted into an uneasy sleep.
She was awakened by a hand gripping her arm, she heard Hanan whisper, "It's me. ... Do not make a sound. Come!"
To ask for an explanation threatened to wake up the sleeping forms around her; cautiously Mrs. Pollifax untangled herself from her blanket and crept outside after Hanan. In silence Hanan drew her away from the tents and, still whispering, said, "We can go now. Qasim will help us."
"Qasim?" echoed Mrs. Pollifax. "Go now?"
"Qasim has thought of a place where they may have taken Mr. Farrell."
Not quite awake yet, Mrs. Pollifax stammered, "But—w-w-where?"
She could see better now in the darkness; Hanan was considering this. "I think fifteen or twenty kilometers from here."
"But how will you find the tracks in the dark?"
Hanan smiled. "If one knows a place Mr. Farrell could be found, a person need not look for tracks, only follow the stars." She added almost scornfully, "Awad is too cautious."
Thoroughly awake now, Mrs. Pollifax regarded her with fascination. "And you and Qasim have decided this?"
"Oh yes," Hanan said confidently. "He has saddled three camels for us and is waiting not far away."
"Camels!"
Hanan nodded. "Yes, to steal Awad's truck would wake up everyone. One must agree, it is a very noisy truck."
"Hanan," said Mrs. Pollifax, half laughing, "you are incredible."
"But a person must try" said Hanan. "We have a saying 'Seize a thief before he seizes you,' and Mr. Farrell has been stolen."
A dog barked and was stilled. Hanan led her away from the camp and toward the hill where Qasim was waiting in such a dark robe that he was no more than a shadow, the three camels beside him stirred restlessly.
"Masai khair, " Hanan said to him in a low voice.
"Winta dkhair," he said gravely, and then, "Let's go!"
CHAPTER 16
The night was cold, there was only a crescent moon that shed no light, but the stars glittered coldly in the sky like cut diamonds, there was no wind but Mrs. Pollifax shivered, whether from a chill or suspense she didn't know; she had begun to repeat to herself all that Farrell had belatedly told her about "others" possibly wanting Dib Assen's manuscript, there was the Iraqi agent who had been killed at the castle, of course. Now, in her mind, she arranged and rearranged the added events whose impact she had resisted: the man who had joined Farrell in the hotel dining room to speak of Arab literature and whom Farrell was sure he'd seen during the sandstorm, waiting outside the restaurant. ... It was no longer Mr. Nayef who mattered; he was relegated now to the status of a mere irritation, because all the time . . .
But still she couldn't quite grasp the reality of this. It was true that she'd accompanied Farrell to Jordan for an expected rendezvous with the friend of the late Dib Assen, but her attention had lately become so occupied by the dusty red sedan following them, and the attack on her at Petra, that to shift attention to Farrell's mysterious "others" short-circuited her concentration. Farrell had neither seen nor met Ibrahim, he didn't have the manuscript in his possession, yet he was gone, mysteriously vanished, dragged off into the night, when surely it ought to have been Emily Pollifax instead.
She shivered, they had been steadily plodding along in a silence broken only by the creak of saddle leather or the cough of a camel, with the camp far behind them now, Qasim called over his shoulder, "I think we head north of the Qasr and ride back to it through the Wadi Ghaduf. To not be seen or heard."
Behind her Hanan called back to him, "But the stones, Qasim! The stones in the Wadi Ghaduf are so sharp they cut the feet of the camels, you know that."
"Yes and I have brought thick wool to pad their feet," he told her. "You must help me with this, both of you, or it will take too long."
"But where are we going?" pleaded Mrs. Pollifax.
He pulled back his camel to ride beside her. "To the ruins of an old castle, there are many in the north of Jordan, but this is the only one in this part of the desert."
"Not the half-buried fort!" she exclaimed.
He vigorously shook his head. "That is very far, and only Awad knows it. This one the Omayyads began to build nearly thirteen hundred years ago but never finished. It's called the Qasr at Tuba. Nobody goes there now. Except bedu maybe."
"And bats," added Hanan.
"But no others."
"And you think—?" asked Mrs. Pollifax.
Qasim turned in his saddle to look at her, he said fiercely, "It is the law of the bedu that even an enemy is safe in a bedu camp. For someone to steal a guest from the sheikh is a terrible insult. If they plan to ask much ransom—"
Ransom! Mrs. Pollifax could only hope it might be that simple.
"—they would not carry him across the border into Saudi Arabia, which is very near, because there is only empty desert
, we think, Hanan and I, they would need a very clever place to hide. Not a tent, where no tent has been seen before—that would be noticed— but maybe the forgotten ruins of the Qasr at Tuba, which has stood there forever, that would be clever— for a little while—and there is still a roof, we will see, na 'am?"
Thinking about this Mrs. Pollifax said, "But whoever did this would have to know the desert very well."
Qasim said flatly, "He would not—could not—be bedu."
"No," agreed Mrs. Pollifax softly.
Hanan, behind them, said, "Stop—listen!"
Mrs. Pollifax did not know how to stop a camel, but Qasim reached over and accomplished this for her, they waited, listening.
"A plane," Hanan said.
Qasim nodded. In the clear desert night air they could hear the faint drone of a plane in the distance and see its lights until it disappeared, turning north.
"I do not understand," said Hanan. "Two in one day?"
"At least they didn't see us," pointed out Mrs. Pollifax.
"No."
They resumed their steady pace, side by side now, the sky overhead was like a rich blue tapestry knit with stars, a description that Mrs. Pollifax felt was very apt for a sky that had seen ancient kings, soldiers, nomads, explorers, and adventurers pass below it, with the plane gone the silence enfolded them again like a blanket, the desert was changed at night, she realized, there was no detail, only the earth and sky between which they rode, very tiny in the scale of things, and very mortal. "Is it much farther?" she asked.
Hanan had turned in her saddle to look behind them.
"What is it? Did you drop something?"
Hanan shook her head. "It was nothing," she said, but Qasim gave her a curious glance. To Mrs. Pollifax he said, "We turn north now to the Wadi Ghaduf, which is not far. If it was sunrise the castle could be seen from here, but we must not go straight to it, the wadi has steep walls to hide us." Again Hanan had turned to look behind them, and Qasim added sharply, "What is it, Hanan?"
Hanan said uneasily, "Nothing, really."
"You think someone is behind us?"
"I don't know, Qasim, it's just a feeling, a strange feeling in my 'alb—my heart," she added politely for Mrs. Pollifax.
"We will go faster," said Qasim, nodding. "We need the wadi."
The faster pace jolted Mrs. Pollifax enough to keep her alert, but she was growing tired, having had no sleep this night except for the few minutes before Hanan had awakened her, she wondered what was happening to Farrell now..., she wondered if they would have to return empty-handed to the camp before the night ended.... In the meantime she felt welded to her camel and increasingly uncomfortable, the rhythmic swaying of her camel inducing drowsiness, she yawned a few times.
Abruptly Qasim stopped. "We are here. Deer balak! Be careful!" He dismounted and led Mrs. Pollifax’s camel down a steep incline into what felt like a pit; it was instead a dried-up streambed, quite deep and wide, its walls furred with grass.
Once all three camels were in the wadi, Qasim unstrapped his saddlebag, he brought out squares of cloth and shreds of rope, and Mrs. Pollifax was at last able to contribute something: her small pocket flashlight. Shielding the light they wrapped the feet of each camel, but only after Qasim had bound their jaws with strips of cloth so they wouldn't howl in protest, belch noisily, or bray, they mounted again, slowly moving uphill, so that Mrs. Pollifax slid back and forth in the saddle as they rode toward the plateau ahead.
Suddenly Qasim halted, and they nearly ran into him. "Intabeh—look!" he said, pointing. "Kneek!"
A massive shape loomed ahead of them at the peak of the incline, solid and substantial and darker than the night sky. Its great roof was arched, its walls full of empty shapes through which she could see the stars, but the light shining from one of its cavities was not a star, it was the yellow light of a lantern shining inside.
People were there.
Bedouins camping for the night, wondered Mrs. Pollifax, or Farrell? and then, "Now what?"
"We tie the camels here," Qasim said calmly.
Hanan whispered, "We must go to the dark west end, farthest from the light." And to Mrs. Pollifax, "That big arched roof was made to be a great hall for mansef, feasts."
Qasim had couched the animals, threading the ropes from their nose rings around the largest stones he could find to secure them, after this they crept closer, with Qasim in the lead; the wadi widened and came to an end, leaving them suddenly exposed. Furtively they made their way across the level ground to the dark end of the building. Through gaps in the broken wall they entered a ghostly room with no roof, its floor cluttered with fallen bricks and stone, there were no sounds, no voices, only the flutter of a bat's wings above them, and then silence again. Qasim pointed to an arched doorway, still intact, and they picked their way across the shards to peer beyond it.
They were looking into the great arch-roofed banquet hall, open to the desert at one end, but the hall was not empty: it was occupied by a large shape, which even in the darkness gleamed silver. Tracing the outline of it with her eyes Mrs. Pollifax drew in her breath sharply; beside her, she heard both Hanan and Qasim gasp.
"The helicopter!" breathed Hanan.
Mrs. Pollifax felt distinctly chilled by this, realizing that if Farrell was here this was certainly a well-organized abduction, the helicopter would have had no trouble landing on the level ground of the plateau outside, and was small enough to have been taxied inside, out of sight, without damage to its blades.
"Farrell has to be here," she whispered. For what other purpose would a private helicopter have been flown here, certainly not for a meeting of corporate executives in the middle of a desert, he had to be here, and they had to get him out.
"Let's look," she said.
"Look?" repeated Qasim.
"At what?" asked Hanan.
She did not take time to explain, she had once, in a desperate situation in Turkey, herded friends into just such a helicopter, and without the slightest knowledge of how to make it fly she had managed to get it off the ground. Not far enough off the ground, but it had flown them out of danger until it ran out of gas and landed them in a city's busy marketplace, scattering people like chickens.
She said only, "It could be useful."
If there had been a hatch door, it had been removed, she climbed into the cockpit, sat down in the pilot's seat, and turned on her pocket flashlight.
"Bismallah! For what do you search?" whispered a startled Qasim, peering inside and watching the tiny circle of light examine the interior.
"Levers," she said. "There should be two."
Her light moved down, illuminating a lever that jutted up from the floor, and she smiled; moving the light, she discovered the lever that extended out from behind the seat and nodded, remembering. Climbing out to join an astonished Hanan and Qasim, she remained doubtful— one could not, after all, risk moving the up lever by mistake and hitting the roof—but there was possibility here, she knew the importance of possibility, because once, living without it, and before she met Carstairs, she had almost stepped off the roof of her apartment building when tending her geraniums.
"You know how to fly this?" whispered Qasim, as she climbed down to join them.
She said vaguely, "One could, I suppose, it's not locked, the key's there. . . . But enough! What now?"
Qasim led them around the helicopter toward the opposite wall of the banquet hall; they climbed over more shards, crossed a narrow roofless corridor open to the stars, and now they could see a flicker of light ahead, emanating from what had once been a proper doorway until falling rocks had tumbled across it, reducing it to half an entrance.
But they had found the Lantern Room.
'There is that window, too," whispered Hanan. "The window we saw from the wadi, showing light, we could look through that."
Mrs. Pollifax shook her head. "They might see us, windows can be dangerous. Let's listen first, listen for voices and see how many there are."
A voice was suddenly heard raised in anger, followed by a sharp crack! Mrs. Pollifax knew that sound—she still wore the scars of it across her back—and she was sickened by it, as she realized what they were doing to Farrell to make him speak.
He spoke now, he shouted, "I don't have it, ‘ tell you!"
A new voice murmured something, and Mrs. Pollifax held up two fingers. "Two men."
Qasim tugged at her arm. "We must talk," he whispered.
They retreated to the banquet hall where they could talk in low voices, without whispering.
Hanan said solemnly, "They are hurting Mr. Farrell, aren't they?"
"Yes," said Mrs. Pollifax.
"Do they have guns?"
"Little cousin," said Qasim, "such men always have guns, we must think now. Two men, Mrs. Pollifax?"
"I think so, yes," she said. "One man with a whip, one to give orders, but there could be more."
Hanan said impatiently, "If we could only make them come out. If we could make noises they would come out, wouldn't they?"
Qasim said, "What noise could bring them out, Hanan, a scream, a shout, and what then? I do not know why they do this to Mr. Farrell, but men who have helicopters are clever and rich."
"Helicopter," mused Mrs. Pollifax, and she lifted her gaze to the machine looming above them. "The noise of the helicopter could certainly bring out someone" she said. "And I think they would come through that door, which is only half blocked, because it's nearest the plane."
Hanan said eagerly, "And I could stand on a pile of rocks by that door, and as they come out I could hit them over the head! Oh please see if you can do it, Mrs. Pollifax!"
"You think you could start the engine?" asked Qasim.
"Let me try," she told him. "Help me up into the cockpit, Qasim, and Hanan—collect your rocks."
She climbed again into the helicopter and turned on her pocket flashlight. Taking care to avoid touching a lever by mistake, she turned the only key that she saw, and then began pressing what movable protuberances she could find: this was promising because the engine stirred, sputtered, and then roared. Unfortunately the blades began turning overhead, too, but since she was helpless to stop their whirring she climbed out to learn what this accomplished.
Mrs. Pollifax Innocent Tourist Page 12