A World I Never Made (26 page)

Two of the fourteen suicide bombers had survived. One was badly injured and said to be hospitalized under police guard. The detonator of the second survivor’s bomb pack had failed and he had crashed his car into a pillar at the Farah, apparently hoping the impact would arm the bomb. At least two bombers had attacked each site, either on foot or by car, and it was the second bomber who did the damage, very extensive, at the Farah. The lobby, where he set off his bomb, was completely gutted and fully aflame, and the first five floors above it were bombed out, their furniture, accoutrements, and occupants now either strewn about the street or among the burning debris of what used to be the lobby. Megan’s room had been on the third floor, above the lobby.

Around midnight, the second surviving bomber’s picture was flashed on the screen. He was Moroccan, in his early twenties, with a scraggly beard and a shaved head, his eyes dull and unfocused. Megan recognized him immediately as Sirhan al-Majid, the young man with the toothache who had come barging into Abdullah’s shop and who she later saw talking with Mohammed in the rear courtyard. That conversation, she now recalled, she had both photographed and taped. She stubbed out what she promised herself would be her last cigarette—she forgot for long stretches that she was pregnant—and left the remainder of the pack on the lobby coffee table. In her room, she found the Mohammed/toothache-man and the Lahani/Mohammed tapes and put them in her bag. Outside, she walked in the opposite direction from all the police and firefighting activity until she was able to hail a cab, which she took to the Carrières Thomas market. Thick clouds covered the moon, and when she exited the cab, she was plunged into near-total darkness. She made her way as swiftly as she could through the souk’s maze of streets, praying she would not make a wrong turn in the dark. She knew that Abdullah slept most nights on a cot in the rear room of his shop. When she arrived at his door, she knocked hard, anxious to talk to him, anxious to be out of sight of the robbers and rapists who were said to roam the entire Sidi Moumim slum at night.

Abdullah peered at her through the bead curtain and then swiftly let her in. Except for one candle on the counter, the shop was dark. She could hear a television’s peculiarly insistent noise coming from the back room.

“You have seen his picture?” Abdullah asked.

“Yes.”

“You should not have come here. It is not safe:”

“I need a favor.”

“Of course:”

“It may put you in danger.”

Megan knew that she was not herself and that she looked it. She thought she had actually recognized her bombed-out room at the Farah on television earlier. This image, coupled with the highly suspect coincidence of her being asked to leave that morning and the constantly surprising thought of her pregnancy, had, together, finally unnerved her. She had decided to have the baby, but if what she was thinking was true, then what would she do? She did not know. Abdullah took both of her hands in his and drew her into the back room. “Sit,” he said, pointing to a stuffed chair next to the cot. Megan sat while the pharmacist poured her mint tea from the clay pot he always kept on a warm electric burner. She could see the Coptic cross tattooed on his wrist as he extended his arm to pour the tea. He turned off the television and sat on the edge of the cot.“Drink,” he said, and Megan did, finding the ubiquitous thick sweet tea delicious for once.

“What is it?” Abdullah asked when Megan finished.

“I have two tapes that I would like you to listen to and translate for me:”

“Arabic?”

“Yes.”

“Child’s play.”

Abdullah watched as Megan fumbled in her bag for the tapes and the tiny recorder/player on which they could be heard.

“I thought you had come to talk about our friend with the toothache;” he said.

“No.”

“He will be tortured and killed:”

“Yes. That sounds about right to me,” Megan said.“Here it is.” She had found what she was looking for and inserted the first tape into the machine. She pushed the play button and turned the volume up, pointing the small device in Abdullah’s direction. He listened intently as it spit out guttural Arab for about ten minutes.

“It is al-Majid and his two friends, and one other man,” said Abdullah. “The fourth is older. Who is he?”

“His name is Mohammed,” Megan replied.“I don’t know his last name.”

“Do you know this man?”

“Yes. He works for the man I have been dating, Abdel al-Lahani.”

“What does Lahani do?”

“He is a Saudi businessman:”

“How did you come to tape this?” Abdullah asked, tapping the tape player with his finger.

“They were in the courtyard behind the shop. You were out. I recognized Mohammed. If you recall, I wanted to interview al-Majid. I just turned the recorder on:”

“It is a marvelous recorder:”

“Yes. Very expensive. What are they saying?”

“Your Mohammed has recruited the boys as suicide bombers. He is telling them that the day is soon coming when they will be in paradise. He is assigning them targets. Our boy Sirhan is to have the Farah Hotel, made foul, says Mohammed, by the stench of Jews.”The Falcon; he says, ‘is aloft and has reached his hunting weight, and you are his wings, his sinews, his talons:”’

“The Falcon:”

“Yes, the Falcon:”

“Does he say who the Falcon is?”

“No.”

“How about this one?” Megan asked, slipping the cassette from the recorder and replacing it with the one from the previous night. Again Abdullah listened intently, his eyes closed, his ten fingers forming a temple of his hands in front of him.

“It is our friend Mohammed,” he said when the tape ended, “and another man.”

“Lahani:”

“I see,” Abdullah replied, “the Saudi businessman.”

“Yes. Go on:”

“Mohammed says that all is in readiness, that the day’s final
salat
will be one of gratitude to Allah for the success of their mission:” Abdullah stopped to look at Megan.

“What?” she said, meeting his gaze.

“Mohammed is to follow you, to bring you to Lahani when he gives the order. Lahani’s friends in the Interior Ministry will see to it that you do not leave the country. Your passport has been flagged. You are carrying his child, and you will be made to bear it, and then you will be discarded, killed. The child will be raised to be a great leader of the
jihad,
a half-American spilling American blood. A fitting heir to the Falcon of Andalus.”

Megan reached into her bag for her cigarettes, but they weren’t there. She threw the bag on the cot and sat back in her chair, bringing her hands to cover her face.

“Megan ... ,” said Abdullah.

“I”m not crying,” she said.“I’m thinking:”

“Megan, child. There is a remedy. I can make it for you tonight:”

“Kill the baby? What about your own salvation?”

“This man is evil. I will do whatever penance is necessary.”

“No, Abdullah, I will have this child. But I do need you to make me something:”

“Of course. What?”

“As soon as possible. Tonight:”

“What is it you want?”

“A poison. I will kill Lahani and then I’ll run. I’ll go south into the Sahara. No one will ask me for a passport there:”

“Megan, my dear Megan,” said Abdullah, “I would gladly help you kill Lahani, but it is too dangerous. If something goes wrong, you will be killed. He will find another American woman to breed with. I can get you a passport and drive you to Tangier, where you can get on the ferry to Spain. Once in Europe, you can use your own passport. We can leave within the hour. You must save yourself and your baby.”

“No,” Megan replied.“He thinks that I love him, that I have acquiesced to his control over me. I will go to him as a lover, a supplicant. He will not be suspicious, and I will kill him.”

“Megan, please. I am an old man. I cannot protect you:”

“You don’t have to protect me. Just make me the poison:”

Abdullah was silent. Megan did not change the expression on her face or look away. “I will kill him with a kitchen knife;” she said, “if you won’t help me. I will find a way.”

Abdullah shook his head and rose to pour them both tea.“I suppose we have crossed paths for a reason,” he said, his back to Megan.

“I suppose,” she answered.

“When do you plan on doing this?” The pharmacist had turned to face her, and now handed her a cup.

“Today, daybreak:”

“Come back here when it is done. You would not last long in the desert. I will have your passport. But you must do as I say: wear a djellaba, and cut and dye your hair. I have henna here that you can use. Then I will drive you to Tangier. You must do it this way.”

Megan nodded.“I will,” she said.

“Good. Now try to sleep. It is two hours until dawn, and what I am making will take some thinking, and some time:”

While Megan slept and Abdullah worked, Abdel al-Lahani and his trusted lieutenant, Mohammed Abdul-Rafi, known as the Silent One among his family and friends, sat in the near-dark of Lahani’s living room on the same handsome English-made chairs that they had sat on the night before. A teapot and two finely made china teacups were on the inlaid table between them. They had prayed together just before midnight, and Mohammed had been right, it had been a prayer of thanksgiving. In another hour they would pray again, and then Mohammed would leave for Saudi Arabia. The fires around the city had died out—the fires they had set—but the glow of the successful fanatic remained in their eyes. They had spilled blood like this before, and each time the surge of omnipotence that had filled their hearts had taken days to subside. They thought it was Allah’s approval, what they felt, and that as a result they could not be harmed or make a mistake. They were themselves gods while this surge lasted. For this reason, the fact that Sirhan al-Majid had been captured did not bother them. Al-Majid had only met Mohammed once, and knew neither his real name nor anything else about him. The two mujahideen who had done the real recruiting, both Moroccans trained in Afghanistan before the Taliban were ousted, had blown themselves up in the attacks. In any event, Mohammed would soon be home, where he would have the full protection of the royal family.

It was Megan Nolan that they were worried about. It appeared that she had deliberately hidden herself from them, and that, if Lalla was to be believed, she had been spying on them. Lalla had also told her husband that she had seen a small tape recorder in Megan’s bag. With Lahani’s consent, Lalla had kept such tabs on all of his women over the years, especially the Western women he favored so much, as there was no telling what they would say or do or carry in their bags.

“Why this child, emir?” Mohammed said.“There have been others:”

Lahani looked at his longtime aide-de-camp and raised his eyebrows. Only Mohammed could get away with asking him a question like this. It was, he admitted to himself, a question worth asking. Why this child and not another? If not for the child, Megan could be found and killed immediately. She did not speak Arabic, and it was highly doubtful that she had learned anything, either deliberately or inadvertently, about his covert life, his true business. Yet why take a chance? She was intelligent, and perhaps guessed or had somehow confirmed that he was the one who had forced her to leave the Farah before it was bombed. Both Mohammed and Lalla, whose experience of Americans was one of unfailing naïvité and stupidity, had been highly suspicious of Megan from the beginning. So why hesitate? Because he had been suspicious, too. Not of her motives; she could never hurt him. But of her core, which was, he believed—despite her quite good attempts to fool him with displays of Western femininity and softness—inaccessible, cold, and unsympathetic, much like his own. There would never be another one to breed a son with quite like Megan Nolan. And of course there was the wonderful irony. The coup de grace. A
half-American son raised as a Wahabi killer of Americans.
He could not pass up such an opportunity. Megan would have to be found and, if necessary, made a prisoner until the child was born. There was no need, however, to articulate any of this to Mohammed.

“I have decided,” he said.

“Yes, emir.”

“Your flight is at eleven?”