The Fire Ship (17 page)

The Street of Pearl was the oldest and narrowest of all; the deepest in the whole market and the closest to its heart. It twisted from its opening at the corner of the Street of Silver down to a gate only slightly smaller than the gate into the Soukh itself. On the pavement sat tubercular-looking men of indeterminate age with hollow cheeks and great bony chests; displayed before them were scraps of silk piled high with the fruits of their difficult, dangerous labor. These were the pearl fishers. In the stalls and little shops there were more pearls, varying in size, shape, color, setting. There was mother-of-pearl, shell of all kinds, coral of every description. And in the window of the greatest of the shops, a display to take the breath away. Seed pearls drifted like dunes of white sand on saharas of black silk. Cultured pearls clustered in piles like tiny tennis balls. Natural
pearls, round, translucently white, from the size of a pinhead to the size of Richard’s thumbnail, scattered on beds of black velvet. The huge misshapen pearls they gathered from the sea beds here, twisted into fantastic shapes: drops, vortices, clenched fists; bigger than the others by far. Then, resting on white silk, pink pearls from the Orient. And, placed reverently upon white velvet at the pinnacle of the display, legendary black pearls, from the South Seas and beyond.

A glance was enough to fix it forever in his memory, then he was following Salah, dazzled, down toward that massive door. In the right wing of the great portal there was a smaller entry. Here Salah knocked, and here they were admitted. If Richard had been dazzled before, now he was stunned. They had stepped out of a busy, noisy, smelly street, into a haven of absolute peace. As the tiny door closed behind them, the bustle of the street became muted and a tinkle of falling water replaced it. The hot odor of thronging humanity was alike excluded and in its place a zephyr laden with the scent of flowers. The courtyard must have measured seventy feet on each side. It was paved and colonnaded with marble. At its center stood an oasis in miniature. Above on every side the building rose, story after story, each level having balconies to overlook this quiet, fragrant place. The tall sides of the building were further augmented by towers that Richard could just make out as silhouettes against the star-bright sky. Their domed tops scooped in the high, cool air and funneled it down here.

“Up,” said Salah and they crossed to a stairway and climbed.

The room they entered a few moments later was dimly lit and silent. Empty, except for a frail old figure seated in a tall wooden chair. From the way he moved his head toward them as they entered, Richard suspected
at once that he was blind. Proximity confirmed his guess. The old man’s eyes were as white as the pearls in the street below.

“
Salaam eleikum,
” Salah greeted the old man with something akin to reverence. And received a nod in return.

The two of them stood, hesitating for a moment, until the old man said, “Please be seated, gentlemen.” With a hiss of surprise, Richard snatched out his machine pistol and whirled. This had to be a trap. A micron behind him, Salah mirrored his action. The old man had spoken in English.

Now he chuckled with delight. “No, no. Put your weapons away, please. You have not been betrayed. That is, you will have been by now of course, but not by me. It was a simple trick. A trick, no more.”

They began to relax. The old man continued to speak calmly and quietly. “I have been expecting you of course, Salah. I am not surprised that you have brought your English friend to me. This is, after all, my area of expertise. No one knows the truth of what is going on, so you have come to me for a story.”

As they sat, cross-legged at his feet, Richard asked, “How did you know I was English?”

“European. That was easy enough. Your walk, your shoes, the odor of your body. Your nationality and identity beyond that, Captain Mariner, simple intelligence. Intelligence of both kinds: my informants told me you were here soon after you arrived—and why. So when Salah comes through my door accompanied by a tall man of European extraction with a sailor’s walk, who else could it be? But this is childishness. And arises, I admit, from a liking for the tales of your Sherlock Holmes in my youth.”

The blind eyes smiled again. The voice continued, frail but clearly audible, sibilant, like sand sliding on silk. “And, expecting you, as I was, I have found a story that I hope will be of interest to you. Though I myself, of course, cannot vouch for its relevance or truth.”

Richard glanced over at Salah. The Palestinian was listening, apparently rapt. Richard began to do the same.

“Some thirty years ago in the city of Dahran, a rich young man fathered twin girls. These were the earliest days of the European “swinging sixties,” when London seemed to beckon the rich and the young of all the world. And so the rich young man took his one wife and his two daughters and he went. In London he became seduced by Western ways and at last he sent his girls to an English school, where they were educated after the English fashion. The girls were very close, as is often the way with twins, and the schooling made them closer than ever. In fact they did not separate at all until they went to university, which is, I believe, the natural end of such schooling. One studied to become a doctor, the other to become a journalist, or so I have been told.”

Richard was growing restless. He would be damned if he could see the relevance of this, but he trusted Salah, and Salah was still hanging on the blind man’s every wheezing whisper.

“And then an accident occurred. The car in which they were driving was run off the road by a drunkard and the wife was killed. The man was lucky to survive. Increasingly sickened by life in London and sure that he owed his own survival only to the direct intervention of Allah, blessings be upon Him, he returned to the bosom of his family in Dahran. Once there, he realized the enormity of his mistake. For the women in Dahran had not been infected by Westernism. They behaved
modestly and correctly. How different were his own girls. How soiled had they become. How far had they been seduced from the true way.

“At once he commanded that they return. But one was a doctor now, and married against his wishes. The other was a reporter of some kind. They both made excuses and refused. Duty and obedience were things he had paid a fortune to have educated out of them.

“So he resorted to a stratagem. He announced that he was dying and begged them to come home so that he could divide his fortune between them. The reporter came at once. The doctor, in the middle of a divorce, did not. As soon as she arrived in her father’s house, the reporter was locked away. Her life as a Western woman was over, she was told. All outside contacts were broken. She was given an abbah and a chador and she became like the other women. Slowly she acquiesced. It was difficult for her, no doubt, but she adapted. Tried to please her father. Worked to become as he wished her to be. And eventually he trusted her enough to let her entertain some acquaintances, for she was lonely, and the father was not a cruel man, merely a misguided one. These were acquaintances that he had selected for her, of course. But then, his indulgence of the girl betrayed him yet again. He found an Englishman whose friendship he thought would make her happy. This man was not a young man, but he was newly turned to the way of Islam. A man of great potential with business contacts all over the Gulf, from Syria and Iran to the Emirates. A seafarer. A captain. A merchant of some consequence and standing.”

“Forgive me,” interrupted Richard, courteously, “but did you say an Englishman?”

“I did. But like yourself, perhaps, looking less English than he really was. Looking more than he was in
every other respect, however. For behind the foolish father’s back, he seduced the girl away, stole her from her father’s house, and they vanished into the night. It is said they went to Benghazi or Trabulus. And not as lovers, but as revolutionaries. She, they say, was afire to release all women from what she saw as the thrall of men. And he, too, had his own
jihad.
They vanished and they trained. I know nothing precise beyond these things. But within a year a new group had sprung up. The Dawn of Freedom, they called themselves. Thirteen in number. Owing no direct allegiance. Admitting to no known paymaster. Following no dogma. And remarkable in this: that they were led by an Englishman and a woman.”

Richard sat silently, arranging his thoughts. The story’s relevance remained elusive. Its credibility was suspect, in his mind at least. Oh, the English papers were always full of stories about Islamic fathers taking back their sons and daughters after their mixed marriages had failed. And he remembered reading of at least one terrorist who had turned out to be English. He had no doubt that the International Maritime Bureau could furnish him with more cases if he asked. But both situations merging like that. Was it possible?

He was still deep in thought when Salah heaved himself erect and began to make their farewells. Somewhere an electronic watch alarm went off and the old man smiled. “You set it as you left the carpet-sellers. For three-quarters of an hour, I hope. You still have to leave the Soukh.”

“I was hoping to rely on your hospitality,” said Salah quietly. “I would assume the gates are closed to us now.”

“I assume you are correct as always. And yes, you may rely on my hospitality. It has yet to be violated, even by the importunities of this execrable century.”
He turned his head toward Richard. “All true courtesy died many years ago. Everything now is rush and demand. Nothing is duty or correctness. Truly, this is a terrible time to be alive.”

A man appeared in the shadows at the back of the room, ready to conduct them out through some hidden way. Richard paused, wondering how best to frame his thanks. The old man, sensing his stillness and divining the reason for it, raised a hand. “Come back and thank me later,” he whispered, his voice like snake on tile. “You may ask for me anywhere in the Soukh. Ask for…” He paused, perhaps for dramatic effect, and smiled his secretive smile. “Ask for Sinbad.”

“What was that all about?” asked Richard in the back of an old Lincoln Continental, working out its final years as a taxi. It was completely indistinguishable from the rest of the traffic, multilighted, bright chromed, high finned, and bald tired, blasting its way across Manama.

“He is the most reliable source I have,” answered the Palestinian. “And he has yet to let me down. The one thing I didn’t tell you about the terrorists abroad
Prometheus.
I heard most of them speak. Yelling orders. Having discussions. I listened outside the doors of the gym. I couldn’t see their faces, or the color of their eyes or skin. But of two things I am certain.” He turned to Richard and lowered his voice dramatically.

“One of them was a woman…”

“And one of them was English…” whispered Richard.

Richard climbed out of the taxi immediately outside Angus’s apartment block and walked across the narrow strip of pavement toward the door. As he pressed the button on the entry phone, a figure stepped out of the shadows in front of him and he found himself face to face with Captain Suleiman. “Shall we go in?” asked the policeman, sliding a passkey into the security lock.

“Certainly.”

Even this late—it was well past ten—the heat outside was such that the air-conditioning shocked Richard. But he showed nothing except polite interest in his questioner.

“You have been to the Soukh?” asked Suleiman as the door closed behind them. Richard glanced back. The taxi was still outside, surrounded by policemen. How wise they had been to split up before he returned.

“The Soukh? Indeed I have!”

“Alone?”

“No. An old friend acted as a guide.”

“Salah Malik?”

“That’s right.”

Suleiman paused for an instant, weighing things up. “What was your business there?” he asked eventually.

“We were trying to find news of my father-in-law. And my tanker
Prometheus.
Or who’s holding them.”

“You did not go to a shop on the Street of the Carpet Makers?”

“We did.”

“And bought there?”

“Two bags made out of carpet and, I believe, two Heckler and Koch MP-5 machine pistols. I didn’t do the buying myself and I didn’t inspect the guns too closely, so I can’t be absolutely certain about that.”

“I see. You realize that the unlicensed sale of firearms is forbidden in Bahrain?”

“Of course. Though I should emphasize that I was not myself involved in the purchase. In fact I had no idea there were any guns in the shop.” On that slightly pompous, mentally rehearsed note, Richard paused at the lifts. “Are we going to continue this in the common parts? Or would you prefer to use Mr. El Kebir’s flat?”

“The flat. They are not back from dinner yet.”

Richard made no comment on the fact that Suleiman had Angus and Robin under surveillance. Nor on the fact that he had a key that fitted Angus’s door. Instead he switched on the lights, crossed to the bar, poured two fruit juices, and offered one to the captain. Then they sat.

“Yes, Captain?”

“After the carpet seller’s where did you go?”

“The Street of Gold. I’m afraid I can’t be more specific. There was an alleyway. In the house we ended up in, everyone seemed to speak Farsi. I’m afraid I didn’t understand much.”

Suleiman nodded. So he already knew about that, too, thought Richard. They had made the right decision then. “I’m going to tell him everything,” he had told Salah. “There are no secrets in the Soukh.”

“ ‘There are no secrets in the Soukh.’ It could almost
be a saying of Omar Kayyam,” Salah had said. “And so true.”

“And then, Captain Mariner?” Suleiman called him back to the present.

“The Street of Pearl. There’s a big place at the end. We talked to a blind man there. Liked Sherlock Holmes. Called himself Sinbad. Not much more I can tell you than that, I’m afraid.”

“It is something, Captain Mariner. I had no idea that…ah…Sinbad, as you call him, had such tastes.” He paused. “And then?”

“We left. Salah said something about running out of time.”

“Just so. And the guns?”

“Salah has them. He is taking himself and them off the island, I believe.”

“
Alouette
is being watched.”

“Of course she is.”

“Not much of an adventure for such a night.”

“Really, Captain, I don’t know. I didn’t go for adventure, but for information. And all I got was two bags I don’t like, two guns I don’t want, and a story about twins and English Muslims I don’t understand. Do you have anything more?”

“Nothing. But if Sinbad told you the story, it will be relevant. More so than anything I could tell you.”

A silence fell and the two men, apparently casually, took the measure of each other. That final, weary admission that the blind storyteller had been of more use than the police softened Richard and he let the mask slip a little.

“What I have done tonight, with Salah. Is it highly illegal? Will our activities embarrass you?”

“Not unduly so. The fact that Malik has been here,
perhaps a little. It is like a joke. He comes and goes as he pleases—a man with contacts like that, it is hardly surprising. Today it is I who am the laughingstock. Tomorrow it will be another.” He paused. Sipped. Watched Richard.

“The buying of the guns is another matter. Now I could make that unpleasant for you if I chose to. You were right, by the way. They were MP-5s. Either you looked more closely than you admitted, or you know guns.”

Richard refused to be drawn on that point. “I knew they could be a problem as soon as I saw them,” he admitted. “If you chose to make them so.”

“But I do not.”

“Why?” asked Richard at once, alert to the philosophy of the East whose poor—utterly inadequate—translation was, “I’ll scratch your back…” The ubiquitous quid pro quo that ruled some people here.

“Because, as you say, you did not buy them. And if I chase the man who did, I shall be pursuing a chimera, a ghost. And if I prosecute the man who did not, everyone will know, and…”

“You will be even more of a laughingstock?”

“Perhaps.”

“So, what do you propose to do?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“For the time being.”

“I see. And what might we have to do in order to make you take action against us?”

“You wish me to take action against you?”

“Of course not. And I’m not being facetious, Captain. I really do not want to break your laws and upset your professional conscience.”

“I believe you, Captain Mariner. That is why we are
having this conversation, and having it here. I see you—and please correct me if I am wrong in this—I see you and your wife as being law-abiding citizens, caught up in a situation where you feel you must take action.”

“Yes.”

“Because if you do not, then no one else will.”

“Yes.”

“Even if that action contravenes the law.”

“It’s more complex than that.”

“Even if you find yourselves associating with people who are outside the law.”

It was not a question. Richard did not answer it. He had nothing to say on the point.

“Even if you have to put lives at risk. Starting with your own lives.”

Richard remained silent a little while longer, watching Suleiman. “Do you know the saying,” he asked at last, “ ‘Needs must, when the devil drives’?”

Now it was the policeman’s turn to be silent. Then he tossed back the rest of the drink. “So what you are telling me is this. You and your wife are caught in a situation over which you have no control. But you are people of action, let us say, and so you try to take control. And you call upon anyone you know who can help you in this. It is understandable.”

“Given that we know the right kinds of people: murderers, terrorists…” Richard tried to keep the irony from his voice. With limited success.

“Yes. I was, perhaps a little heavy-handed yesterday.” Suleiman did not sound unduly contrite.

“Your concern is understandable, Captain. But I have no intention of doing anything on Bahrain that would cause you or the Bahraini government any embarrassment.”

“I think I believe that, Captain. And, of course, the real object of your actions is to punish the people who have already embarrassed the government. And myself. By taking Sir William from our airport. That is why I am content to remain a laughingstock. In the short term.” He put his empty glass down with a decided click on Angus’s coffee table and stood. “In the
very
short term.”

The other two came in at 11:30, Robin running to Richard at once, laughing with relief at seeing him safe and well. Angus left them in each other’s arms and went upstairs. In this apartment he had two spare bedrooms as well as his own. In one of them Richard and Robin were camping. In the other he had set up the radio equipment so that they could stay in contact with
Katapult.
They hadn’t set up a proper routine yet, but Angus, in charge of communications, reckoned that Martyr, Chris, Sam, and Doc would just have dropped anchor. If they were all asleep, he would probably get no reply, but if they were up and about, Richard would want to know before he went to bed. Well, he’d see. He glanced at his watch as he sat down. 23:45. Give it fifteen minutes. No reply by midnight and he’d turn in himself. He turned to
Katapult
’s frequency and pressed
TRANSMIT
.

“
Katapult, Katapult
this is base. Are you receiving me? Over…”

Robin’s kiss of welcome had changed into something else entirely and after the blunt danger of the Soukh followed by the knifepoint negotiation with Captain Suleiman, Richard was more than ready to respond.

Just as Robin’s body had felt full of fat and ugliness to her as she had walked beside her friend in the airport, now it felt full of heat and yearning. The extra curves
her imagination kept adding to her still-slim frame were no longer those of sagging, stretched ugliness: now she saw her body in her mind as being full of vibrant voluptuousness, like the bodies of Indian maidens carved into the erotic friezes of pagan temples. The thought inspired her almost to a frenzy of passion. Every square inch of her skin glowed. Her right hand found the hair on the back of his neck and curled it around her fingers, raising her need almost beyond controlling. Her breath was coming in gasps as though she had been running. Her cheeks burned, her head swirled. The rest of the world withdrew very far away indeed. All that seemed important—immediate—was in her head and in her arms. She had never felt quite so full of desire before. It was glorious.

Richard swept her up off her feet and carried her across the room, her face still pressed against his; her lips still burning against his own, slightly swollen and silky with desire. He fumbled with the door handle, impatient to be out. Her hand slipped down his neck to massage his tense shoulder beneath the crisp cotton of his djellabah. She had been eating fresh pomegranates and with every gasp she filled the air with their perfume. When he found the handle, he paused and risked another kiss, pressing his lips down onto her waiting mouth. The tips of their tongues touched with a sensation like an electric shock. The door opened outward and he stepped through it, pressing her to him closer still to keep her shoulders clear of the frame.

That action crushed her breast against his chest and even through the layers of cotton and silk, it was as though their hot skin touched.

He strode across the hall and paused at the foot of the stairs, glancing up to make sure they were clear. Whereupon she twisted lithely, fluidly against him and pressed
her mouth to his neck below the lobe of his ear. The tip of her tongue traced languorous lines in the fine hair there working upward—as he mounted the first steps—to the lobe itself where her gentle teeth took over.

By the time he reached the landing above, he was gasping with breath every bit as short as hers—winded, like her, with desire. Her tongue lazily followed the folds of the outer ear, pausing in its erotic exploration only to whisper the secret endearments that had become a most potent part of their lovemaking during the last ten years. Her golden curls filled his face as she moved her lips against him, full of the warm incense of her perfume. Glancing quickly at the spare room where Angus’s voice monotonously repeated
Katapult
’s call sign, he crossed to their bedroom door. It was open.

Pressing her against him again, reveling in the feeling of her firmness, he carried her into the bedroom and released his hold on her legs. Her grip on his neck did not slacken—it intensified and he took her gently but firmly under the arms with broad, strong hands, holding her head level with his as that fragrant cloud of hair was replaced again by the burning beauty of her face. Her eyes were closed, her mind at once far withdrawn and utterly immediate. Her lips were hot and silken, her tongue wantonly probing. The heels of his hands pressed round her ribs into the resilient firmness of her breasts and, with every lithe muscle in her long, strong body at full stretch, she slid down the front of him, out of that fetal position he had held her in, to a full trembling pressure down his entire length. He felt—as she made him feel—every curve of side and hip and thigh as though they had been naked, oiled. And when she was there, her feet still inches from the warm Bokhara carpet, her arms still tight around his neck, her honey-slick lips sucking at his, she moved against
him again, with every liquid fullness and hollow of breast and stomach and belly. And as she did so, deep in her throat, she began to purr, like a great golden kitten.

One gold-strapped evening sandal fell to the floor.

And,

“Richard,” called Angus, his voice tense with alarm. “Richard, it’s Martyr, speaking from
Katapult.
There’s something terribly wrong…”

They spread the chart on the bedroom floor and crouched over it, planning with desperate speed while Angus relayed ideas and suggestions feverishly back and forth, stunned by the massiveness of the blow.

“They’re here.” Robin’s finger marked the spot deftly as Angus rattled off the figures. Richard was already calculating. “Four hundred and ten miles as the crow flies. Over five hundred by sea. Fifty hours flat out in
Alouette.
Out of the question. We need a plane.”

“Or a chopper,” said Robin.

“Or both.”

“Not tonight,” said Angus. “I can scare you up whatever you need in the morning, but not tonight.”

“Right, ask them if they can hang on until the morning.” Angus spoke into the radio.

“Martyr says he can do more than that. Once Doc’s quiet, he and Chris can sail
Katapult
out of there.”

“Right. That’s good. We’d have had to board her at sea in any case. Can they get round Hormuz and into the Gulf?”

Angus spoke into the radio.

“He says they got her out. Back should be easier.”

“Right. Then it’s just a case of time and rendezvous point.”

“I can get you in the air by nine. In whatever you want going wherever you want.”