The Pirate (7 page)

Baydr turned to him. “Yes?”

“There will be war before the winter comes.” The Lebanese spoke in Arabic for the first time. “When it is over we will be in control of the Middle East. Israel will no longer exist because we will force the world to its knees. The old order is changing—a new force is coming from the people. If you join us now, you will be with the victors.”

Baydr didn’t answer.

“The sands of the desert will turn red with the blood of our enemies,” Yasfir added.

“And our own,” Baydr answered. “And when it is over, nothing will be changed. A few hundred yards here, a few hundred there. We are merely pawns in the hands of greater powers. Russia and America cannot afford to let either side win.”

“They will have to listen to us,” Yasfir said. “We control their oil supply. If we turn it off they will come to their knees.”

“Only to a point,” Baydr said. “Then they will force us to our own knees.”

There was a knock at the door. Baydr unlocked and opened it. “Please escort Mr. Yasfir back to the party,” Baydr said to Carriage. He turned back to the Lebanese. “If there is anything you should require to make your visit more pleasurable, we are at your disposal.”

Yasfir stared at him. The bitterness of his disappointment rose like gall in his throat. But he forced himself to smile. Things would change quickly once Baydr discovered they had his daughter with them. “Khatrak,” he said. “With your permission?”

“Go with peace,” Baydr said formally in Arabic. He closed the door behind them and crossed to the table and picked up the portfolio. He looked at it for a moment, then dropped it into a wastebasket.

It had merely been a ploy to involve him. They had never intended to go through with the portfolio. He knew that now. He also knew that they would not give up. They would not rest until they dragged the world down to their own level. Or, failing that, destroyed it.

Suddenly weary, he went back to his desk, sat down and closed his eyes. He saw the gentle, earnest eyes of his father looking into him, almost to his very soul. The scene was one from childhood. He had been ten years old at the most.

The children had been playing at war and he had been beating his playmate with a wooden scimitar, shouting at the top of his lungs, “Die, infidel, die! In the name of the Prophet, die!”

He felt the scimitar snatched from his hands and turned in surprise to see his father. His playmate was sniffling and crying. “Why did you stop me?” he asked angrily. “Ahmad was pretending to be a Jew.”

His father knelt so that their faces were on the same level. “You were blaspheming,” he said gently. “You were taking the name of the Prophet to justify your own actions.”

“I was not,” he retorted. “I was defending the Prophet.”

His father shook his head. “You forget, my son, that the Prophet you try to defend by an expression of violence is also known as the Messenger of Peace.”

That had been thirty years ago and now other yesterdays crowded and fought their way into his memory.

CHAPTER 6

The airstrip shimmered in the heat of the noonday sun as the twin-engine DC-3 circled the field at the edge of the desert in preparation for its landing. Baydr looked down from the window at the field as he heard the landing gear lock into place. At the far end of the airstrip, there were several large black Cadillac limousines waiting; beyond them, resting in the shade of a cluster of palm trees, were some camels and their drivers. The grinding sound of the flaps signaled that the plane was on its final approach.

Baydr turned back to the cabin. The stewardess was already in her seat, with her seatbelt fastened. Opposite him, Jabir, too, was strapped in. He fastened his own belt as the plane dropped smoothly toward the desert.

The sand was rushing below his window and it seemed as if the pilot were about to land on the desert floor. Then the concrete landing strip raced beneath him and a shudder ran through the plane as the wheels touched down. A moment later, the pilot hit the brakes and Baydr felt himself thrust against the seatbelt. Abruptly, the pressure ceased and the plane rolled gently toward the end of the airstrip. The noise of the motors lessened in the cabin and the stewardess rose from her seat and came down the cabin toward him.

A blond American, she had the same impersonal, professional smile that stewardesses seemed to cultivate no matter what airline they worked for. The fact that this was his father’s private plane seemed to make no difference in her attitude. “I trust you enjoyed the flight, Mr. Al Fay.”

He nodded. “It was fine, thank you.”

“We made good time,” she said. “Only eighty-seven minutes from Beirut.”

“Very good time,” he said.

The plane came to a stop. Through the windows he could see the limousines begin to move in closer. A number of men dressed in semi-uniforms emerged from the first car. Each carried a submachine gun, and they ran to take up their assigned places around the plane. The doors of the second limousine remained shut. Baydr could not see into it because of the heavily shaded brown sunglasses. The landing ladder rolled toward the plane, pushed across the airstrip by four workmen.

Baydr pulled the buckle and got to his feet. He started toward the door. Jabir held out a restraining arm. “If the master would be kind enough to wait for a moment.”

Baydr nodded and let the servant advance toward the door in front of him. The copilot had come from the flight cabin and was standing with the stewardess at the exit. They made no move to open it. Jabir opened his jacket and from under his sleeve withdrew a heavy Luger automatic. He pulled back on the safety and held the gun at the ready.

A knock came at the door. One, two, three. The copilot raised his hand. He looked at Jabir.

“One, two,” the servant said. “They should answer with one, two, three, four. Anything else and we leave.”

The pilot nodded. His fist rapped on the door. One, two.

The reply was instant and correct. The pilot pulled the latch on the door and it swung open. Two guards with guns were already at the top of the landing ramp and two more were at the foot of the stairs.

Baydr started for the door but again Jabir held out his hand. “With your permission, master.”

He stepped out onto the ramp and exchanged a quick word in Arabic with one of the guards, then turned back to Baydr and nodded.

The intense heat of the desert hit the young man even before he reached the doorway. Baydr stepped out into the sun, blinking his eyes in the white light. He started down the ramp just as the door of the second limousine opened and his father emerged.

His father stepped out in front of his guards and slowly walked to meet Baydr. He wore the soft traditional robes of the desert sheik, and his head and neck were protected from the hot rays of the sun by his ghutra. Baydr moved quickly to his father and took the outstretched hand and pressed it to his lips in the traditional gesture of respect.

Samir reached out and raised his son’s head. For a long moment, his eyes searched the young man’s face, then he leaned forward, to embrace him and kiss him on each cheek. “Marhab. Welcome home, my son.”

“Ya halabik. I am happy to be home, my father.” Baydr straightened up. He was a head taller than his father.

Samir looked up at him. “You have grown, my son,” he said proudly. “You have become a man.”

Baydr smiled. “It is nineteen fifty-one, Father. One does not remain a boy forever.”

Samir nodded. “We are proud of you, my son. We are proud of your achievements in the American schools, proud of the honors you have brought to us, proud that you have been accepted in the great University of Harvard in Boston, Cambridge, Massachusetts.”

“I only seek to bring honor and pleasure to my parents,” Baydr said. He looked toward the car. “How are my mother and sisters?”

Samir smiled. “They are well. You will see them soon enough. Your mother awaits you eagerly at home and tonight your sisters and their husbands will come and join us for dinner.”

If Baydr felt disappointment at their not being at the airfield to greet him, he knew better than to show it. This was not the United States, where he had been living the past five years. Arab women did not appear in public, at least not the respectable women. “I look forward to seeing them,” he said.

His father took his arm. “Come, get into the car. We will be cool in there. It is the latest model and air-conditioned against this unbearable heat.”

“Thank you, Father.” Baydr waited politely until his father got into the car before he entered.

A guard with a submachine gun ran quickly to the car and closed the door behind them, then got into the front seat beside the driver. Other guards piled into the limousine in front of them. As the cars began to move away, Baydr saw the drivers beating the pack camels toward the plane to collect the luggage and supplies. The car left the airfield and turned onto a concrete road that led to the mountains a few miles distant. An armored Land Rover with a mounted machine gun fell into the lane behind them.

Baydr looked at his father. “The war has been over this many years—I thought guards would no longer be necessary.”

“There are still many bandits in the mountains,” his father said.

“Bandits?”

“Yes,” his father said. “Those who slip across our borders to steal, rape and kill. There are some who think they are Israeli guerrillas.”

“But Israel has no borders near here,” Baydr said.

“True,” the older man replied. “But they could be agents in their employ. We cannot afford to relax our vigilance.”

“Have you ever been bothered by these bandits?” Baydr asked.

“No. We have been fortunate. But we have heard of others who have.” Samir smiled. “But let us talk of other more pleasant matters. Have you heard that your eldest sister is expecting a child in a matter of weeks?”

The automobiles began to climb into the mountains. After a few minutes Baydr saw the first hint of green on the sides of the road. Cacti gave way to scrub pine, then to flowers, bougainvillea and green grass. His father reached over and pressed the button to let down the windows. The fresh scented air flowed into the car, replacing the stale, cooled air of the machine.

His father took a deep breath. “There are many inventions of man but they cannot duplicate the scent of mountain air.”

Baydr nodded. They were climbing rapidly to the crest of the mountain. Their home was on the far side overlooking the sea. He wondered if it was as he remembered it.

The house came into view as they turned at the top of the hill and started down. Baydr, looking from his window, saw the white roofs of the house below him. It was larger than he remembered. More buildings had been added. A large swimming pool had been built at the far end of the property, looking out toward the sea. There was something else he had never seen before. A high wall had been erected all around the complex, and stationed on top of the wall at approximately fifty-yard intervals were small booths, each manned by a guard with a machine gun.

The house itself was hidden by trees. Baydr turned back to his father. “Are all the homes like this?”

His father nodded. “Some have even more guards. The Prince has more than one hundred men at his summer estate.”

Baydr didn’t comment. Something had to be wrong if men had to make prisoners of themselves in order to feel safe. The car turned off the road onto the driveway leading to the house. A moment later, they passed the trees that concealed it from the road and came to the giant iron gates in the wall. Slowly the gates, powered by silent electrical motors, began to swing open. Without stopping, the automobiles rolled through. A quarter-mile farther, they stopped in front of the huge white house. A servant ran to the doors of the car. His father got our first. Baydr followed.

His eyes looked up the giant marble steps that led to the door. It was open. A woman, unveiled but wearing a headcloth and a long, white tob appeared in the doorway.

“Mother!” he cried, running up the steps and taking her in his arms.

Nabila looked up at her son, tears in the corners of her eyes. “Forgive me, my son,” she whispered. “But I could no longer wait to see you.”

***

Since it was not a formal occasion and only members of the family were present, they all ate together. On formal occasions the men dined alone, and the women ate afterward or not at all.

Baydr looked down the table at his sisters. Fatima, three years older than he, her face round and body heavy with child, was beaming as she sat proudly next to her husband. “It will be a boy,” she said. “There have been nothing but boys in Salah’s family and they all say that I look just like his mother did when she was carrying him.”

Her father laughed. “Old wives’ tales. Not very scientific but until we do find a way that is more exact, I’m willing to go along with it.”

“I will give you your first grandson,” Fatima said pointedly, looking at her sister Nawal, whose first child had been a girl.

Nawal said nothing. Her husband, Omar, a doctor who worked in his father-in-law’s hospital, was also silent.

“Boy or girl,” Baydr said, “it will be the will of Allah.”

To that they could all agree. Samir rose to his feet. “The Westerners have a custom,” he said. “The men retire to another room to enjoy a cigar. I find that very pleasant.”

His father led the way to his study. Baydr and his brothers-in-law followed. A servant opened and closed the door behind them. Samir opened a box of cigars on his desk. He took a cigar and sniffed it with satisfaction. “Cuban cigars. They were sent to me from London.”

He held out the box. Salah and Omar each took one but Baydr shook his head. He took a package of American cigarettes from his pocket. “I’ll stick to these.”

Samir smiled. “Even your language is more American than Arabic.”

“Not to the Americans,” Baydr said. He lit his cigarette and waited while the others lit their cigars.

“What do you think of them?” Samir asked curiously.

“In what way?” Baydr asked.

“They are mostly Jews,” Salah said.

Baydr turned to him. “That is not true. In proportion to the whole population there are very few Jews.”