“Mischa, you can’t continue raging around.”
“They won’t listen!” Mischa gripped the back of a chair so tightly the wood creaked.
“They have listened,” Sara said patiently. “In fact, for the Guardian Council, they’ve been remarkably patient.”
“Huh!”
“Mischa, I’ve read and reread everything we have on the djinn. There simply is no other way to break a djinni’s binding. They have to be liberated by a human’s free wish.”
“I know.” Mischa clenched her teeth on the words she wanted to shout. She knew her cousin was worried about her. Her presence here in Mischa’s rooms and not the library was proof of Sara’s concern. But repeating the details of Solomon’s original binding didn’t help. “But I don’t see why I can’t ask a human to free Rafe.” She had a hundred favors she could call in.
To Sara’s credit, she didn’t sigh. They had been over this ground. “The Guardian Council ruled that it would be unwarrantable interference in human affairs—”
“What about Rafe?” Mischa interrupted. “What about centuries of torture?”
“No one’s disputing it’s unfair. And everyone is sorry. By your own account, Rafe has behaved heroically. We’d all like to see him freed and the two of you reunited.”
“So why can’t I do something?” Mischa beat her fists against her thighs. “I feel helpless. He tricked me, you know? He gave me freedom to return to guarding. And now I’m here, I can’t care about anything except freeing him.”
“I’m sorry.” Sara gathered her in for a sympathetic hug.
Momentarily, Mischa resisted, then allowed the comfort. “What do I do, Sara? I miss him.”
Her cousin stayed silent, all out of easy answers.
Mischa sniffed and drew back. “I’ll wait for Rafe. When another human finds his djinni bottle, at least he’ll be paroled. It’s awful. His only freedom is serving bastards.” She shuddered, trying to control her strong emotions. “Meantime, I’ll keep an eye on Umar Haya.”
“Who?” Sara hadn’t followed the natural progression of Mischa’s thoughts.
“Umar Haya,” Mischa repeated viciously. “The man who used Rafe, hid his bottle and tried to get Ilias Aboud killed—is still trying, for all I know.” She resented bitterly the promise that had separated her from Rafe and from duty.
“Ilias Aboud is alive. I checked. Andrew is guarding him.”
“At least the Guardian Council is taking no chances,” Mischa responded grudgingly. More than once Andrew had been reprimanded for his proactive defense. Enemies of his charges frequently encountered tests of their free will that resulted in early death and damnation. “Maybe Haya will get what’s coming to him.”
“He escaped the missile launcher explosion.” Sara reluctantly punctured Mischa’s vengeful hopes. “It mysteriously exploded one afternoon. Possibly from the heat, but I suspect…” she paused and shrugged, “…demon protection.”
“Like protects like.” But Mischa’s eyes narrowed. Like could also be brought to fight itself.
Sara read her mind. “Forget it. Rafe freed you to be you, a guardian. If you twist your soul in vengeance, you’ll destroy the person he loves. You have to be a guardian and wait for him.”
Mischa bowed her head, agreeing but hurting. Anger was an easy outlet for her emotions. Without it, she had to face the haunting loneliness of Rafe’s absence. The guardian duty that had filled her life now felt empty.
“I’ll try,” she said.
“Good. And we’ll all look for a way to free Rafe.”
Mischa lost weight as she went about her work. She accepted duty assignments that required constant vigilance and ruthless action. Lovers could count on her sympathy, but greedy hate-mongers and self-appointed wise men were ruthlessly tested.
She checked once on Ilias and Salwa, not to protect him, but just to see their love and be assured of his continued safety. The Middle East peace process was a mess again, but Ilias continued with his work.
He flew to New York, speaking at the United Nations before stopping at the Pentagon. In addition to his public roles, he helped with translation and cultural interpretation. He influenced the powerbrokers.
He arrived home in Istanbul tired, depressed and determined.
“I’ll be home a week,” he told Salwa. “Then I have to join a strike force. They don’t know the desert.”
“Nor do you,” said his wife. But her bustle around the kitchen, preparing his favorite foods, showed her love.
“I know the people. I know their code of honor.”
“Honor?” Salwa was scathing. “Terrorists, filling people’s heads with hate.”
“Most people are good. Some are misguided. I have to help the strike force, stop them from making the situation worse. We don’t need a reason for more misunderstanding and hate.”
“Eat” was all Salwa said. She placed a loving hand on Ilias’s shoulder. “I worry about you.”
Mischa vanished in a stream of light. She hid in her rooms in heaven, crying hot, heavy tears. She wanted what Salwa had with Ilias: the right to care for her beloved, to touch him and comfort him, to share his life.
“Oh God, God. How could you give me love and then leave me aching?”
She dreamed of Rafe. Sometimes she’d wake smiling. Other times, her own moans and strangled screams woke her. She’d see Rafe tied to a high pillar, vultures descending to tear his flesh.
Then she’d have to leave her rooms and go the guardians’ exercise yard to exhaust herself. As a consequence, she grew in strength and power. But when she passed a mirror, she saw her face hollow with suffering.
“You’ll want to hear this.” Sara interrupted the early morning exercise session, stepping into the ring with blithe disregard for convention.
“Sara!” Mischa nearly dislocated her knee pulling her kick. “I was in the zone. I could have hurt you. The ground rules are for your own safety—”
“It’s about Rafe.”
Mischa stopped rubbing her knee. She straightened.
“Remember when Umar Haya shot the missile launcher?”
“And it didn’t explode,” Mischa said. “I remember.”
“The missile didn’t hit anything, either, but satellites recorded it. The human authorities tracked it back and they’ve been studying Haya’s compound ever since.”
“Good.” Mischa picked up her sword belt, buckled it on and sheathed the Sword of Good and Evil. “About time someone knew about that devil.”
“They’re bombing his compound, today,” said Sara. “I think Andrew had a hand in stirring their interest.”
“Good for Andrew.” Mischa had a new appreciation of direct action.
“Hmm. The thing is…” Sara hesitated. “I don’t want to raise false hopes, but it’s possible the bombing might free Rafe.”
“What?”
“It’s only a possibility.”
“Sara, I’ll shake you in a minute.”
“Well, humans are bombing the compound, and their purpose is to break Haya’s power. If Rafe is counted as part of Haya’s power, then a direct strike on his djinni bottle might free him.”
Mischa wanted to believe it. “But Haya’s used his three strikes.”
“He is still the person who knows what the bottle is, and where it is. He has the power to choose the person who next controls it. That’s power.” Sara rubbed her cheek nervously. “I hope.”
“Maybe it will be enough.”
The cousins stared at each other.
“It’s a chance,” said Sara firmly.
“And that’s more than I had before.”
Sara gripped Mischa’s arm. “Just don’t nudge the bombs. Any non-human interference could destroy the chance of freeing Rafe. I shouldn’t have told you till it was over.”
“I needed to know.”
“That’s what I thought when I read the news text.” Sara sighed. “But you’re impulsive.”
“I’ve learned control,” Mischa said grimly.<
br />
She dived to earth.
A plane was dropping bombs on Haya’s terrorist compound. Concrete walls fell to dust. A couple of bodies lay in the ruins.
Mischa grimaced at the violence and pain. Andrew stood beside her on the air.
“They brought it on themselves by choosing to hate,” he said. “Other children have survived violence without choosing to perpetuate it. Haya has given his whole life to hate. He’s nurtured it and drawn power from it. Ilias’s capacity to understand and forgive infuriates Haya because it underlines what he has lost—humanity. Even now, a moment’s regret and repentance could save him. One moment of caring for someone else.”
“Hate will steal that chance from him,” Mischa said. “Haya is blind in his own hell. I just don’t get it. How can anyone choose to hate?” Hate poisoned the hater just as surely as it destroyed his world.
“Haya held his younger sister as she died. She’d been violated by a Western mercenary. Beaten.”
“Oh God.”
Below them bombs pounded into the earth and into the bloody flesh of the dying. Bones shattered.
The two guardian angels could pity the pain of the people below, but both had seen the suffering of innocents caused by terrorists. It balanced their pity and sharpened it.
Andrew waved aside a cloud of dust that obscured their vision. “Haya built the compound into the base of the hill. He’s in there, where the bombs won’t reach him.”
“Leaving his men to die.”
“Most made it in there with him.”
“What about Rafe’s bottle?” Mischa had made a point of finding Haya’s hiding place for it: a niche in his filthy office in the compound. But in the dust and violence, she couldn’t see it.
“Haya took it with him.”
“Damn.”
“Tucked it in his shirt like a baby. I wonder who he intends to give it to.” Andrew leaned on his unsheathed sword. “It must be tricky being an evil bastard. I mean, who can he trust? Whoever he gives the bottle to could use it against him.”
“You think he’ll just hang onto it?”
“He’s paranoid enough.”
“Great, and if he hides it before he dies, Rafe mightn’t even be freed for three wishes for centuries.” She rubbed at her eyes, pretending they smarted from the dust rather than tears.
Andrew frowned sympathetically. “Go back to heaven.”
She shook her head stubbornly.
“It would be best if you went. Ilias Aboud is coming.”
“Ilias, here?”
“Yeah. The authorities are sending in a strike force after the bombing. Ilias is attached as translator.”
“But he’s not a soldier.”
“He’s a warrior in his own way,” Andrew said. “Like us, he does what he has to. And I don’t want you here, tempted to break your vow if something goes wrong.”
“I promise you’re the only one guarding here,” said Mischa. “But I’m not leaving. I can’t. Someone might take Rafe’s bottle from Haya.”
“Mischa, be sensible. Rafe will find you as soon as he can, if he’s freed to complete a wish. There’s no point in you staying here.”
“I’m staying.”
Andrew flung up his hands and walked away.
The bombing stopped and a helicopter landed. Troops poured out, along with chubby Ilias. The helicopter lifted away. Mischa drifted down to watch.
Chapter Eight
Ilias kept his eyes closed as the landscape swooped past. He always felt sick on these flights, whether from the vibration of the helicopter or from knowledge of what was to come. At the compound there would be dead bodies. Probably more people would die, either the poorly trained self-styled terrorists or the army men riding with him. Perhaps he himself would die.
Death had been close to him many times. Well, that was true for all men. A car accident, heart disease, faulty electrical wiring. A man could drown swimming on a summer holiday. The time of death was God’s will. All an honest man could do was his duty.
Ilias smiled. Salwa said he defined his duty too widely. That was her love speaking. She shared his commitment to peace, but she worried about him.
The helicopter hovered and Ilias opened his eyes at the change in movement. Around him, men checked their weapons a final time. He caught the captain’s eye and nodded. He was fine, ready. They would have to flush the terrorists out of their hill tunnels. Tear gas first, in the hope that the desert men lacked masks. If that didn’t work, they would blast the tunnels. Before that happened, he’d have to translate and shout the offer to accept their surrender.
He hoped they weren’t of the death-before-dishonor brigade.
“Go, go, go.” The helicopter landed and the men poured out.
Ilias left the helicopter last, allowing the soldiers to fan out and secure the compound. He jumped awkwardly but corrected his stumble and ducked behind a concrete wall that was still standing despite the bombardment.
The helicopter lifted, stirring the dust and debris with final violence. It was a sitting duck on the ground. The pilot would wait a safe distance for a radio call to return.
“Come on.” A lieutenant grabbed Ilias’s elbow and hurried him forward.
They skirted a dead body. The blood had already soaked into the thirsty earth. More death waited if the terrorists refused to surrender.
The entrance to the tunnels had been savagely exposed by the destruction of the compound. The gash in the hillside showed pale earth and stripped rock. The torn vegetation had slid down in a storm of dust, pulverized.
Ilias gathered his breath and shouted the terms of surrender. He told the hiding men in the rat tunnels that there was no escape. They should follow his instructions. The soldiers around him were seasoned professionals. They would shoot first, under no illusions as to their enemy’s trustworthiness.
“Do this, and you will be safe,” Ilias concluded.
Silence mocked him.
“Three minutes,” said the captain.
Ilias nodded and repeated the time limit to the men in the tunnels. He watched the entrance, aware of the captain checking his watch.
At two and a half minutes, Ilias heard a soft scuffling from the tunnel. A man emerged, both hands gripping a stick with a white shirt tied to it. He was stripped to his underwear, no explosives strapped to his body.
He stared, wide-eyed and wild at the masked soldiers. “Surrender.”
A shot rang out from the tunnel and the man fell forward, dead.
The tension among the soldiers tightened to a killing pitch. The captain signaled to one, who swung his weapon up. Tear gas shot into the tunnel.
Curses and coughs echoed, then men stumbled out with their eyes streaming and their lungs fighting for air.
“Lie on the ground! Lie down,” Ilias shouted. If they didn’t, if they continued stumbling forward, the soldiers would shoot. “Lie down.” He dragged his mask back on, grateful for the protection.
The soldiers weren’t cruel, but terrorists had killed before in these situations, using people’s pity against them.
The captain’s hand went down, and the lieutenant fired.
The terrorists slammed to the ground, their arms above their heads. Only one man took the time to cushion his fall, dropping first to his knees. He was older than the rest, skinny and with a matted beard.
Ilias translated the captain’s orders. “No one move.”
Two of the soldiers ran forward to pat down the coughing prisoners. Ilias went with them. Tears and snot ran down the men’s faces, and their breathing rasped. He reached the skinny man. He was mouthing curses even as he struggled to breathe.
Ilias watched for sudden movements, following the training on locating knives, guns and explosives. Men who hated kept death around them. He paused at a hard bulge at the man’s waist.
Black eyes glared at him, seeming to pierce through the gas mask Ilias wore. The man coughed a curse and grabbed for Ilias.
A soldier swung the but
t of his gun, and the man collapsed unconscious.
Ilias nodded his thanks. No longer needing caution, he found the cause of the bulge and the man’s defiance. A bottle, the glass green with age. Ilias slipped it into a pocket. Broken glass was a weapon. He continued extracting a pistol and knife. He moved on. None of the other men gave any resistance.
The captain slipped off his mask. “Have them drag their comrade away from here. I’ll question them away from the gas.”
Ilias passed on the order. He was astonished at the rough way two men grabbed their fallen fellow. He would have more bruises than just the one on his head when he woke.
“Careful,” Ilias said.
One of the prisoners spat. “Not for him. Umar killed Ali. He shot him in the back. Said terrorists don’t surrender, but he’s here, isn’t he?”
“What did he say?” the captain demanded.
“The old man’s the one who shot the first man in the back,” Ilias translated.
“Ah. Is he their commander?”
Ilias asked the prisoners, then grimaced. “He was.” He didn’t need to translate the men’s anger. The dead man, Ali, must have been popular.
“Him, him, and him.” The captain pointed quickly, first to the unconscious man and then two others.
The lieutenant called up the helicopter. The chosen men were loaded and removed for serious questioning. The others were herded down to the shade of a few spindly trees. There was a village half a mile away, but the captain wouldn’t risk his men on an unknown welcome. They all stayed in the barren landscape while Ilias took up his translating and interpreting post.
He was exhausted and it was long after dark before he and the captain were sure of what they had already suspected: this rough bunch weren’t terrorists. They had followed one man’s hatred, but their own attitudes were less vicious, more the minor feelings of disgruntlement. They were men without property or purpose.
The local village didn’t want them.
“Can’t blame them,” the captain said.
With soldiers still stationed at the compound, sorting through its devastation and the hill tunnels, the ragtag militia was without arms.
“Drive them off,” said the village elder. “Bullies and cowards.” He spat his disgust. “Without guns they’ll not trouble us.”
The Price of Freedom Page 6