Blood Rules (7 page)

Grandpa had been telling her a story about Babar the elephant king. At nine she was really too old for Babar, but she did love him so! And even more his queen, Celeste, because that name reminded her of Grandmother Celestine; Leila felt she would never, never outgrow those stories. Grandpa had the book on his lap, she could see it now across the years, oh, so clearly. Beside him, on a cane table, the bowl of strawberries mixed with raspberries, still wet from their shower at the hands of Azizza. Leila was frolicsome that day; the math test had made her top of the class; she let everybody know.

Grandpa had pretended to be incredulous. If only he’d taken her word for it, not teased her…. She’d half-realized he was joking; then, as he carried the jest too far her confidence had slipped; she turned first indignant, then sulky, then cheeky by turns, until at last she had floated indoors aboard a fit of the giggles, intending to collect her workbook from her bedroom. Her proof.

But she’d gone no farther than the hall when the doorbell sounded once, twice. Not aggressively, not suggestive of tragedy, no; two rings, merely. Visitors! “I’ll answer it,” she had cried, happy that there were visitors, happy to be of service, of use. She forgot the rule of the household: Only Azizza may answer the door. Looking back, she could remember voices raised in protest, and here came the first of the mysterious blanks: in her brain, she
knew
that the voices were warning her not to answer the door, it was only the words that escaped her memory, she had never been able to recapture the words.

She flung open the door to see him there, her lover, her need. He was wearing a cream shirt open at the neck, and the triangle of visible chest was fiery red with sunburn; he wore cheap blue serge trousers and black lace-up shoes. Yes. Did you ever forget your first time? Any detail?

He wore a jacket. Strange, for such a hot day. A dark blue jacket that did not match the trousers underneath, and in one of the pockets something heavy made a bulge. Ah, no: be precise. The right-hand jacket pocket was the one dragged out of shape.

Only the face was another blank: void, a black oval.

He knelt down and said, “Hello, little girl.” He spoke in French, a language she adored, though his accent sounded rough. A workman. “Is your grandfather around?” he said.

“Oh, yes. Go through.” She pointed. “Down there, in the garden.”

And having dispatched him on his way, Leila was wafted by a magic carpet woven from pride and laughter and a self-important conceit up the stairs to her bedroom, where she would find the red exercise book with a panel picked out in black on the front cover, space for her name, school, and form. She was pulling it out of her satchel when she heard two bangs, very close together. She felt nothing. Well, surprise, maybe. Because her room was at the back of the house, three steps took her to a window giving onto the garden. Grandpa’s head had fallen into the berries, that was her first thought: all red, covered in scarlet berry juice, how funny! And she had laughed. She remembered that well, because she had not laughed again for over a year.

The screaming began. Azizza, hands held to her face. Halib, racing from nowhere, skidding to a halt, making of himself a statue in stone. No sign of her beloved, the one she needed, craved above all others—the man in blue with the bulging pocket; fickle, cruel, he had abandoned her.

Her heart thumped. Something was wrong. She knew exactly what was wrong.

She crept down. Her father, Feisal, had appeared. He was bending over Grandpa, who still lay half in and half out of his chair. Leila could see the bowl of berries on the table by his side. Untouched. By now her heart was racing like a little motor. Her head felt full, as though it would burst with the density of knowledge lurking there.

Feisal looked up, looked across Grandpa at Halib. He said, “Who let him in?” His voice was as she had never heard it before: appalled as if by some blasphemy that could not be forgiven.

Halib said nothing. He put an arm around Leila’s

shoulders. She was trembling. He pulled her close, letting her feel his solidarity, one and indivisible; just for a

second, but a lifetime of solidarity he promised her. Then

he was leading her inside, up to her bedroom. They sat

down together on the bed, holding hands, and he continued

to hug her to him. After a bit he began to rock her to and

fro, silently, gently, while she quivered like a child in the

last reaches of a mortal fever, and slowly, slowly, the light

of Lebanon went out

The light was changing again. In Bahrain, noon had brought suffocating wet heat and hazy horizons. The sea was transparent; dhows floated on nothing. Diamonds flashed in the windows of the buildings on the other side of the parking lot. Leila at last looked at her watch. Twelve-fifteen. Time to pack and go.

The car, a white Mercedes 500 SEL, was already on the forecourt as she left the hotel. She waited until they were traveling along the Corniche before reaching into her handbag and passing the driver her pistol. Her mind was not on the journey to Al Muharraq and the airport, however; she drifted, as always, in the amniotic fluid of memory, its prisoner and its child.

She had not seen Robbie for two years. Or Colin.

White-walled houses slid past on her left. Expatriate homes, for people like Colin Raleigh, who every Friday would get drunk in the bar of the Intercontinental, or the Ramada, or the Delmon. Houses with video machines, in a country boasting two cinemas, both of which showed only Arab-language films. Houses with empty bedrooms kept clean and aired, for when the children came out at the start of the school holidays.

He would be fourteen now. Manly, in his own mind, but still her boy. Everything was for him. She had not a thought in her body for anyone but Robbie, unless it was Halib, and him only sometimes. She loved Halib because he was her brother and he had saved her from destruction more than once, but Robbie she had fashioned from inside herself and he was hers.

She had been scheming to get him back ever since New York, but Halib restrained her. Halib would not authorize a kidnap in England, because he believed that Robbie was well guarded there. We must wait for a chance to lure him out of the country, he’d told her. So she had waited. Then six months ago Halib negotiated a contract with Iran for the release of some prisoners being held in Iraq. A political hijack, that was what the Iranians wanted, and Halib had agreed to provide one. Leila would carry it out. She had no scruples about that. She was good at her job and she liked working for her brother, because she could trust him not to let her down afterward, when the assignment was over. A lot of employers used terrorists and then disposed of them; not dear Halib. Not the beloved brother who had allowed her to target the plane on which her own son would be traveling, as a means of getting him back.

What would Robbie be wearing? she wondered. How would he have changed? Would he recognize her? Yes. He would know her, when their moment came. And soon she would discover all that had happened to him, over these past two empty, wasted years. She would hold him close, and they would talk, sharing secrets. “I love you,” she would say. “I love you more than I’ve ever loved anyone, more than my own life. More than my soul—Allah forgive me!—more than my hope of paradise. My son, my son…. ”

She did not pause to consider how he might reply. Instead, her mind restlessly darted to the new flight crew, in whose professional hands she intended to place her own life and that of her son. She should pray for them.

The car glided to a halt beside the passenger terminal and a host of porters rushed forward. As Leila stepped onto the pavement she steeled herself to obey the will of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful, who would not deprive her of her child after such a desert of time spent without him. The flight crew would be wonderful. They would be perfect:
elect.

Silently she repeated the
basmallah
to herself as she followed her suitcase inside: Allah, al rahman, al rahim.

Give me back my son.

R
OBBIE
examined his companion’s tray with interest. “That looks good. Better than mine, anyway.”

“I’m diabetic, that’s why. I think it’s every bit as pukey as yours.”

Robbie, in the window seat, had found himself sitting next to a pale, freckled boy of about his own age called Tim Campbell. Tim’s father worked for a bank in Kuala Lumpur and he was on his way out to join his folks for the holidays. At first the boys had played Dungeons and Dragons. Then came lunch, and the discovery that Tim was diabetic.

“You mean, you have to give yourself injections?”

“Yes.”

“What would happen if you forgot?”

“I’d go into a coma and die. Don’t even think about it; I should have stocked up before I left, and forgot. God, this stuff’s revolting! What
is
it?”

“Broccoli, I think.” Robbie jabbed two fingers toward some green substance lying on the side of Tim’s flameproof tray and said,
“By all the powers of fire, be thou burned, be scorched, be charred—disruption!”

The boys stared at the green stuff. “Those fire spells never work,” Robbie observed gloomily. “I fancy a beer. You?”

Tim shook his head. “No, I mustn’t.”

“Bad luck. Hey, miss … why do they never look your way when you want them?”

“Because they’re busy chatting up rich studs, that’s why.” Tim pushed his specs back up his nose. “I do this trip twice a year. You have to be dying before they serve you. Mind you, that girl doesn’t look so bad.”

“She’s stunning. Hey, your turn as Dungeon Master; I want to be a Cleric, this time.
Miss!
Yoo-hoo!”

Van Tonder had a window seat at the back of club class, on the starboard side. As Captain Thorneycroft pushed through the curtain that divided club from first, the South African was in full flood, abusing a flight attendant. Seeing Thorneycroft he stopped, glared, then turned back to the girl.

“You’re a lucky young woman,” he said witheringly. “I have the organ grinder now.
Thank
you.”

“What seems to be the trouble?” Thorneycroft addressed his question to the girl, not the passenger.

“This gentleman, Mr. Van Tonder, was allocated the wrong seat in London and—”

“And,
Captain, when we land I shall be making a formal complaint concerning this airline’s attitude to safety. Do you know what I found underneath my seat?” He paused for maximum effect, before holding up a half-burned cigarette. “This! Alight, let me
say
. Alight!”

Thorneycroft’s face gave nothing away, but inside he was cursing. The audience, that was his real problem. Van Tonder’s immediate neighbor had his head buried in a newspaper, and the rest of the cabin was silent as a communal grave. Complaints about amenities were one thing. Safety was another.

“Excuse me, but you are mistaken.”

Thorneycroft diverted his gaze a fraction to discover that the passenger sitting by the window directly in front of Van Tonder had turned around; evidently it was he who had spoken, for now he went on. “I’d gone aft to check on my son, and as I came back this gentleman was in the act of picking up the cigarette. It was as you see it. Not alight.”

“How dare you interfere?” spluttered Van Tonder. He half rose in his seat. “Are you accusing me of being a liar?”

“I’m saying that you are mistaken.” Colin glanced up at the captain. “My name is Colin Raleigh, I witnessed the incident, and I’d be more than happy to give you my address in case this goes further. I’d just like to add, Captain, that your crew have dealt impeccably with this quite intolerable person, and they deserve medals. God knows, so do the rest of us.”

Thorneycroft smiled and nodded his thanks. “Right,” he said, turning back to the South African. “I’m sorry about the cigarette end you found, but we don’t have total control over the cleaning contractors. If you want to persist in your allegation that it was alight, by all means do so. But there’ll have to be an inquiry, and my company, it seems, has a witness on its side.”

“You have no right—”

“Under international law, Mr. Van Tonder, I have the right to order you to be handcuffed to the floor for the duration of this flight, and if you continue to antagonize the other passengers that is what I shall do.”

In the silence that followed, Colin became aware of engine noise for the first time and wondered how he could have failed to notice it earlier.

Thorneycroft winked at Colin and nodded renewed thanks before returning to the cockpit. His intervention seemed to have silenced Van Tonder, at least for the moment, for when Colin rose to visit the toilet he saw the South African fast asleep, a frown crumpling his face. His spectacles had slipped from his nose and were lying in his lap. He was snoring, offensive to his neighbors even in repose; but Colin, looking down at him, felt a sudden stab of irrational sympathy. Something had made Van Tonder the way he was: not the kind of something the man would have chosen for himself.

The rest of the flight to Bahrain passed uneventfully. Afternoon sunlight cast shadows across a hilly, maroon-colored landscape, which stretched as far as the eye could see. Then the engine pitch changed, Colin’s ears told him of the pressure change as they descended, and he could make out distant gas flares over the sands, where Arabs in truth had money to burn. He watched, fascinated, until the sight of those scattered torches from the rigs eventually inspired him to think of his son. Robbie was fourteen now. Soon there would be girls. In love as in life, Robbie must navigate the desert between flares, somehow avoiding the Leila Hanifs of this world on the way.

At first the thought amused him; after awhile it became unsettling and he went aft to find out how the object of his musings was getting on.

“There you are.” The flight attendant gave Robbie a plastic cup and a miniature bottle of Johnny Walker. “Are you really eighteen?”

“Cross my heart and hope to die.”

When Tim Campbell choked out a smothered laugh Robbie dug him in the ribs. “You must excuse my friend, he’s not accustomed to the high life. Joke, geddit?”

The girl smiled. He
might
have been eighteen….

“Are you going all the way?” she asked.

“I will if you will.”

More suppressed grunting from Tim Campbell, but Robbie’s gaze was disturbingly direct.

“To Manila, silly!” Eighteen—twenty-eight, more like!

“K.L.,” Robbie said. “Then on to Australia. Dad’s teaching there. I’m going to meet my great-grandmother. She’s, like, grossly antique. Seventy-something.” He began to count off on his fingers. “There’s Celestine, that’s my great-grandmother; then there’s her son, Feisal, he’s fifty-six; then—” he colored; his fingering faltered for a second—"then there’s my mum, she’s thirty-six; then me. I forget how old everyone is exactly, but I know if you add all of us together it comes to a hundred and eighty-two.”

“Are your mum and dad traveling with you?”

Robbie’s cheeks boasted two high points of color that pulsated in time with his heart. “No,” he said to the seat in front of him. “Dad’s traveling business class; Mum, she’s, they’re … they’re divorced.”

“Mine too,” the flight attendant said after a pause. “It’s rotten at first, isn’t it.”

Robbie nodded.

“How long ago did they split?”

“Two years.”

“Same as mine.”

He looked up at her, and now there was nothing cheeky about his expression. “How was it for you?” he asked, in a small voice, and it never even crossed the girl’s mind that this could be more of the sexual tease he’d tried earlier.

She made a face. “Not so bad, really. At least we got some peace in the house. You?”

Robbie lowered his gaze. How to answer that question rationally? Tell her about the day he’d slit up the sofa cushions with a carving knife? No. The tears? She’d know about all that. Anger, then; should he tell her how much it enraged him that his mother had buggered off without a word?

“It was okay,” he said firmly. “You get used to it pretty quick, actually.”

He cast around for some witty remark with which to smother the hissing tangle of emotions inside him. He composed his face and looked up at her, wanting her to know he thought her pretty, but instead his eyes first crossed, then locked onto those of his father, standing a few yards away up the aisle with an unreadable expression on his face.

“Oh-oh,” he muttered. Then, “Is the captain of this plane called Spock?” “No.”

Robbie heaved a sigh. “Then am I in deep shit.”

Long before Colin reached Robbie’s seat he realized that he had no reason to worry and yet he ought to be worried to death.

A flight attendant stood in the aisle; something about her posture let Colin know that she’d been there a long time and was happy to stay. This puzzled him. Then, as he approached and the angle of his vision expanded, just for a moment he saw the boy through her eyes. In that second, before paternal mechanisms of self-preservation swung into play, what he saw was a stocky adolescent well past puberty, looking far older than his fourteen years, with all his equipment in full working order. Your son will go away soon, he seemed to hear a voice say. He’ll find your ideas stale and you boring and he’ll have better things to do. Like her, for example.

In the final instant before they became aware of him he saw the plastic tumbler on the tray and knew that orange juice wasn’t that color. Robbie had persuaded the girl to give him a scotch.

Because he envied his son at that moment, and suffered the pain of knowing all he had lost, Colin would inevitably have said the wrong thing. So it was as well that the landing announcement came over the intercom just seconds after Robbie raised his eyes to catch sight of his father and blush. Colin raised a hand, smiled, and beat a retreat before the unsettling mixture of pain and pride inside him could show on his face.

He regained his seat just in time for final approach to Bahrain. Looking out, he caught a glimpse of ubiquitous whiteness ribboned by black roads, drifts of sand partly obscuring their tarmac. Then the plane was floating over the airport perimeter, for a breathless moment they seemed to hover, the back wheels touched down, and they had landed.

Leila Hanif did not go to the Dilmun lounge, although her first class ticket entitled her to do so. Instead she took the stairs to the coffeeshop on the terminal’s mezzanine floor, whence she could look down on the crowded concourse milling with shoppers in search of duty-free bargains. She rested against the rail and kept her eyes fixed on gate number five.

She was, she thought, inured to tension. But when the TriStar nosed in to dock and came to a shuddering halt her heart shuddered with it, filling her with wonder. He was there, mere feet away from her. Robbie. Her son.

Leila wore a striking deep-purple ensemble: long skirt, jacket buttoned almost to the neck, and a silk scarf of like hue wrapped around her face in a compelling version of Islamic “lawful dress.” Not only did this protect her from the importunate lusts of men, it provided a wholly effective disguise, so when passengers began to stream through the gate she did not withdraw.

Robbie was almost the last to come through the gate. He took a green transit card, smiling at the girl who gave it to him, and were it not for that smile Leila would have failed to recognize him, he’d changed so much. Forcing each breath into her lungs became a battle. Her mouth was dry; her tongue seemed to have swollen to twice its normal size.

He was so grown up—that was her first conscious thought. Already half a man; and she had not been able to imprint herself upon that man, how terrifying! How mortifying….

Colin had not left the plane, it seemed. He trusted

Robbie alone. Leila’s lips formed the faintest of smiles. If

only he knew….

She came to herself to find that she had unconsciously begun to descend the stairway to the concourse, and froze. For the first time that day she knew a moment of uncertainty. What did she think she was doing? But then she continued down, rationalizing it as a sensible thing to do, much less likely to attract attention than turning back. Especially since Fouad had noticed her.

A young Arab wearing a smart gray suit, red tie, and matching handkerchief leaned against the transit desk, alternately trying to catch the eye of the harassed agent and surveying the concourse. His face did not change by so much as a millimeter, but Leila knew Fouad had registered her on the stairs, that probably he’d detected her hesitation as well. Essential not to worry him. Fouad was Halib’s favorite, but Leila had never seen him tested to the limit.

Selim also would be around somewhere. Selim was the most invisible human being Leila had ever met, if “met” was the right word to describe contact with someone of such small signature. No one could ever give a half-good description of Selim. He’d once murdered an ambassador in a way that inspired even Leila’s awe.

That day he’d been standing a little back from the fringe of the crowd, holding a child on his shoulders as if to give the lad a better view. Policemen, seeing the child, assuming that Selim was his father, actually helped him move to the front. When the ambassador’s cavalcade was only a few feet away, Selim had dropped the child, drawn his revolver, and put four shells into the target’s heart. Everybody was too busy trying to comfort the screaming little boy to recall the face of the man who’d abandoned him. No one, not even the police who had forced a passage for the doting father, could remember a single thing about Selim, then or later.

The other three hijackers under Leila’s command were already aboard, having joined the plane in London. They had orders not to disembark while in transit.

She had reached the foot of the curving stairway. Deliberately turning in the opposite direction to the one Robbie had taken—a simple action requiring more of an effort of will than she’d expected—Leila made for the ladies’ room. It was time to swallow the first of the amphetamines that would keep her going for however long it took. Also, there would be few opportunities to urinate after takeoff.

Raful, knowing it would not be clever of him to disembark at a Gulf airport, waited for the cleaners to finish before stretching his legs. He sauntered back into economy, exchanging nods and smiles with certain passengers, chatting to them as if they were strangers who happened to find themselves on the same flight. Not all of these passengers were strangers, however. Raful was glad to note that Dannie Neeman had managed to grab seat 24H, halfway down the main economy cabin. They’d agreed beforehand that it would give the best advantage, the cleanest field of “fire"—although none of the Israeli team were armed in the conventional sense. Seat 24H meant pole position, as far as Raful was concerned, and Dannie, a favorite since New York days, was the man to occupy it.