A Fire in the Sun (21 page)

Not long after, the four villains happened by. They saw Audran sitting in the shade of the ruined automobile and laughed. "It won't drive an inch!" mocked Jawarski. "What are you warming the engine for?"

Audran glanced up. "I have my reasons, "he said, and he smiled as if he had a wonderful secret.

"What reasons?" demanded Abu Adil. "Has the summer sun at last broiled your brains?"

Audran stood and stretched. "I guess I can tell you," he said lightly. "After all, I owe my good fortune to you."

"Good fortune?" asked Hajjar suspiciously.

"Come," said Audran. "Look." He led the four vil-

lains to the back of the car where the battery cap had been left open. "Piss in the battery," he said.

"You 've surely gone crazy," said Jawarski.

"Then I will do it myself," said Audran, and he did, relieving himself into the wreck's battery. "Now we must wait a moment. There! Did you hear that?"

"I heard nothing," said Hassan.

"Listen," said Audran. And there came a gentle chink! chink! sound from beneath the car. "Take a look," he commanded.

Reda Abu Adil got down on hands and knees, ignoring the dust and the indignity, and peered under the car. "May his faith be cursed!" he cried. "Gold!" He stretched out on the ground and reached under the car; when he straightened up again, he held a handful of gold coins. He showed them to his companions in amazement.

"Listen, "said Audran. And they all heard the chink! chink! of more gold coins falling to the ground.

"He pisses yellow into the car," murmured Hassan, "and yellow gold falls from it."

"May Allah let you prosper if you let me have my car back!" cried Lieutenant Hajjar.

"I'm afraid not," said Audran.

"Take your goddamn cream-colored Westphalian sedan and we'll call it a fair trade," said Jawarski.

"I'm afraid not," said Audran.

"We'll each give you a hundred kiam as well," said Abu Adil.

"I'm afraid not," said Audran.

They begged and begged, and Audran refused. Finally they offered to give him back his sedan plus five hundred kiam from each of them, and he accepted. "But come back in an hour, "he said. "That's still my piss in the battery. "And they agreed. Then Audran and Saied went off and divided their profit.

I yawned as I popped Wise Counselor out. I'd enjoyed the vision, except for seeing Hassan the Shiite, who was dead and who could stay dead for all I cared. I thought about what the little story might mean. It might mean that my unconscious mind was hard at work coming up with clever ways to outsmart my enemies. I was glad to learn this. I already knew that I wasn't going to get anywhere by force. I didn't have any. I felt subtly different after that session with Wise Counselor: more determined, maybe, but also wonderfully clear and free. I had a grim set to my jaw now and the    | sense that no one at all could impose restrictions on me.     j I'd been changed by Shaknahyi's death, kicked up to a    I higher energy level. I felt as if I were living in pure oxy-    ! gen, bright and clean and dangerously explosive.

"Yaa Sidi," said Kmuzu softly.

"What is it?"

"The master of the house is ill today and wishes you to attend to a small business matter."

I yawned again. "Yeah, you right. What kind of business?"

"I do not know."

This liberated feeling let me forget about what Fried-lander Bey might think of my clothes. That just wasn't important anymore. Papa had me under his thumb and maybe I couldn't do anything about it, but I wasn't going to be passive any longer. I intended to let him know that; but when I saw him, he looked so ill that I filed it away for later.

He lay propped up in bed with a small mountain of pillows around him and behind his back. A tray table straddled his legs, and it was stacked high with file folders, reports, multicolored memory plates, and a tiny microcomputer. He held a cup of hot aromatic tea in one hand and one of Umm Saad's stuffed dates in the other. Umm Saad must have thought she could bribe Papa with them, or that he would forget his last words to her. To be honest, Friedlander Bey's problem with Umm Saad seemed almost trivial to me now, but I did not mention her.

"I pray for your well-being," I said.

Papa raised his eyes toward me and grimaced. "It is nothing, my nephew. I feel dizzy and sick to my stomach."

I leaned forward and kissed Papa's cheek, and he muttered something I could not hear clearly.

I waited for him to explain the business matter he wanted me to take care of. "Youssef tells me there is a large, angry woman in the waiting room downstairs," he said, a frown pulling down his mouth. "Her name is Tema Akwete. She's trying to be patient because she's come a long distance to beg a favor."

"What kind of favor?" I asked.

Papa shrugged. "She represents the new government of the Songhay Republic."

"Never heard of it."

"Last month the country was called the Glorified Segu Kingdom. Before that it was the Magistracy of Timbuktu, and before that Mali, and before that it was part of French West Africa."

"And the Akwete woman is an emissary from the new regime?"

Friedlander Bey nodded. He started to say something, but his eyes closed and his head fell back against the pillows. He passed a hand across his forehead. "Forgive me, my nephew," he said, "I'm not feeling well."

"Then don't concern yourself about the woman. What is her problem?"

"Her problem is that the Segu king was very upset to find out he'd lost his job. Before he fled the palace he sacked the royal treasury, of course—that goes without saying. His gang also destroyed all the vital computer records in the capital. The Songhay Republic opened up shop without the slightest idea of how many people they rule or even where the country's boundaries are. There is no fair basis for taxation, no lists of government employees or descriptions of their duties, and no accurate information concerning the armed forces. Songhay faces immediate catastrophe."

I understood. "So they sent someone here. They want you to restore order."

"Without tax revenue, the new government cannot pay its employees or continue normal services. It's likely that Songhay will soon be paralyzed by general strikes. The army may desert, and then the country will be at the mercy of neighboring nations, if they are any better organized."

"Why is the woman angry with you, then?"

Papa spread his hands. "Songhay's problems are not my concern," he said. "I explained to you that Reda Abu Adil and I divided the Muslim world. This country is in his jurisdiction. I have nothing to do with the Sub-Saharan states."

"Akwete should have gone to Abu Adil in the first place."

"Exactly. Youssef gave that message to her, but she screamed and struck the poor man. She thinks we're trying to extort a higher payment from her and her government." Papa set down his teacup and searched through the disordered piles of papers on his blankets, selecting a thick envelope and passing it to me with a trembling hand. "This is the background material and the contract she offered me. Tell her to take it to Abu Adil."

I took a deep breath and let it out. It didn't sound like dealing with Akwete was going to be much fun. "I'll talk to her," I said.

Papa nodded absently. He'd disposed of one minor annoyance, and he was already turning his attention to something else. After a while I murmured a few words and left the room. He didn't even notice that I'd gone. Kmuzu was waiting for me in the corridor leading from Papa's private apartment. I told him what Fried-lander Bey and I had talked about. "I'm gonna see this woman," I said, "and then you and I are gonna take a ride out to Abu Adil's house."

"Yes, yaa Sidi, but it may be best if I waited for you in the car. Reda Abu Adil no doubt thinks me a traitor."

"Uh huh. Because you were hired as a bodyguard for his wife and now you look out for me?"

"Because he arranged for me to be a spy in the house of Friedlander Bey, and I no longer consider myself to be in his employ."

I had known from the beginning that Kmuzu was a spy. I'd just thought he was Papa's spy, not Abu Adil's. "You're not reporting everything back to him?"

"Back to whom, yaa Sidi?"

"Back to Abu Adil."

Kmuzu gave me a brief, earnest smile. "I assure you that I am not. I am, of course, reporting to the master of the house."

"Well, that's all right, then." We'd gone downstairs, and I stopped outside one of the waiting rooms. The two Stones That Speak stood on either side of the door. They glared menacingly at Kmuzu. Kmuzu glared back. I ignored all of them and went inside. The black woman jumped to her feet as soon as I'd set foot across the threshold. "I demand an explanation!" she cried. "I warn you, as a lawful ambassador of the government of the Songhay Republic—"

I shut her up with a sharp look. "Madame Akwete," I said, "the message you received earlier was quite accurate. You've truly come to the wrong place. However, I can expedite this matter for you. I'll convey the information and the contract in this envelope to Shaykh Reda Abu Adil, who participated in establishing the Segu Kingdom. He'll be able to help you in the same way."

"And what payment will you expect as a middleman?" Akwete asked sourly.

"None whatsoever. It is a gesture of friendship from our house to a new Islamic republic."

"Our country is still young. We mistrust such friendship."

"That is your privilege," I said, shrugging. "No doubt the Segu king felt the same way." I turned and left the waiting room.

Kmuzu and I walked briskly along the hall toward the great wooden front doors. I could hear Akwete's shoes echoing behind us on the tiled floor. "Wait," she called. I thought I heard a hint of apology in her voice.

I stopped and faced her. "Yes, madame?" I said.

"This shaykh . . . can he do as you say? Or is this some elaborate swindle?"

I gave her a cold smile. "I don't see that you or your country are in any position to doubt. Your situation is hopeless now, and Abu Adil can't make it any worse. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain."

"We are not rich," said Akwete. "Not after the way King Olujimi bled our people and squandered our meager wealth. We have little gold—"

Kmuzu raised a hand. It was very unusual for him to interrupt. "Shaykh Reda is less interested in your gold than in power," he said.

"Power?" asked Akwete. "What kind of power does he want?"

"He will study your situation," said Kmuzu, "and then he will reserve certain information for himself."

I thought I saw the black woman falter. "I insist on going with you to see this man. It is my right."

Kmuzu and I looked at each other. We both knew how naive she was to think she had any rights at all in this situation. "All right," I said, "but you'll let me speak to Abu Adil first."

She looked suspicious. "Why is that?"

"Because I say so." I went outside with Kmuzu, where I waited in the warm sunlight while he went for the car. Madame Akwete followed me a moment later. She looked furious, but she said nothing more.

In the backseat of the sedan, I opened my briefcase and took Saied's tough-guy moddy from the rack and chipped it in. It filled me with the confident illusion that nobody could get in my way from now on, not Abu Adil, Hajjar, Kmuzu, or Friedlander Bey.

Akwete sat as far from me as she could, her hands clasped tightly in her lap, her head turned away from me. I wasn't concerned with her opinion of me. I looked at Shaknahyi's brown vinyl-covered notebook again. On the first page he had written Phoenix File in large letters. Beneath that there were several entries:

Ishaq Abdul-Hadi Bouhatta—Elwau Chami (Heart,

lungs)

Andreja Svobik—Fatima Hamdan (Stomach, bowel,

liver)

Abbas Karami—Nabil Abu Khalifeh (Kidneys, liver)

Blanca Mataro—

Shaknahyi had been sure that the four names on the left were somehow connected; but in Hajjar's words, they were only "open files." Under the names, Shaknahyi had written three Arabic letters: Alif, Lam, Mim, corresponding to the Roman letters A, L, M.

What could they mean? Were they an acronym? I could probably find a hundred organizations whose initials were A.L.M. The A and L might form the definite article, and the M might be the first letter in a name: someone called al-Mansour or al-Maghrebi. Or were the letters Shaknahyi's shorthand, an abbreviation referring to a German (almani) or a diamond (almas) or something else? I wondered if I could ever discover what the three letters meant, without Shaknahyi to explain his code.

I slipped an audio chip into the car's holosystem, then put the notebook and Tema Akwete's envelope in the briefcase and locked it. While Umm Khalthoum, The Lady of the twentieth century, sang her laments, I pretended she was mourning Jirji Shaknahyi, crying for Indihar and their children. Akwete still stared out her window, ignoring me. Meanwhile, Kmuzu steered the car through the narrow, twisting streets of Hamidiyya, the slums that guarded the approach to Reda Abu Adil's man-

sion.

After a ride of nearly half an hour, we turned into the estate. Kmuzu remained in the car, pretending to doze. Akwete and I got out and went up the ceramic-tiled path to the house. When Shaknahyi and I had been here before, I'd been impressed by the luxurious gardens and the beautiful house. I noticed none of that today. I rapped on the carved wooden door and a servant answered my summons immediately, giving me an insolent look but saying nothing.

"We have business with Shaykh Reda," I said, pushing by him. "I come from Friedlander Bey."

Thanks to Saied's moddy, my manner was rude and brusque, but the servant didn't seem to be upset. He shut the door after Tema Akwete and hurried ahead of me, going down a high-ceilinged corridor, expecting us to follow. We followed. He stopped before a closed door at the end of a long, cool passage. The fragrance of roses was in the air, the smell I'd come to identify with Abu Adil's mansion. The servant hadn't said another word. He paused to give me another insolent look, then walked away.

"You wait here," I said, turning to Akwete.

She started to argue, then thought better of it. "I don't like this at all," she said.