Tongues of Fire Page 31

  In one motion Hurgas jerked free of his hand and swept the point of the spear under his jaw. Hurgas’s body shook; Krebs felt the iron tip of the spear quiver on his neck. For a moment he thought that Hurgas would kill him. Then Hurgas spun around and walked toward the plane.

  “Hey. What’s going on?” Fairweather said.

  “Nothing. He’s coming with us.”

  “To Cairo?”

  “We’re not going to Cairo. Not right away. We’re going to Khartoum.”

  “Have you forgotten? The airport’s closed.”

  “We’ll see,” Krebs said, moving toward the plane.

  Fairweather ran after him. “But why? You said our job was to find Gillian Wells.” Fairweather glanced at the jeep and looked quickly away. “We found her,” he said quietly. “What else can we do?”

  “Find the man who killed her. The one everybody thinks is the Mahdi. Everybody but him.” He gestured at the dark man waiting by the plane.

  Fairweather looked at the dark man. Then he looked at Krebs. “You’re crazy. You’re going to get us killed too.”

  Krebs laughed. “Don’t be so dramatic. We’re not going to do anything. We’re just going to find him, that’s all. Then we’ll go back to Cairo and report. Besides, don’t we need to refuel?”

  “But the airport’s closed.”

  “Stop saying that.”

  “And we don’t really need fuel. We have enough to get back to Aswân.”

  “Let’s not argue, Fairweather. We’re going to Khartoum.”

  They flew to Khartoum. Hurgas sat in the cabin, clinging to the arms of his seat and not once looking out the window. He would not wear the seat belt. The smell of his stale sweat, which Krebs had not noticed before, filled the plane. The air conditioning made the cabin too cold for him; his skin took on a grayish tinge. He was out of place: Krebs knew he would be no trouble from then on.

  When they were near Khartoum, Fairweather called the airport tower for permission to land. There was no response. As they flew over the airport they saw several big passenger planes parked by the terminal, but no one was getting in or out. There were no other planes in the sky, and no people on the ground. “I don’t like this,” Fairweather said.

  “Land.”

  Fairweather brought the plane down on the main runway and taxied to the terminal. “Stay here,” Krebs said. He opened the door, climbed down to the tarmac, and went into the terminal.

  It was empty. No soldiers at customs or immigration, no porters, no ticket sellers, no passengers. The flies had taken over. He walked past the ticket counters to the front of the terminal and looked out. A few taxis sat in the sun, but no one was in them. He listened for sounds of traffic and heard none.

  He walked back. As he passed the duty-free shop something caught his eye. He peered through the glass and saw an old black man inside, wearing sandals made from rubber tires, torn khaki shorts, and three cameras around his neck. Under one arm he held two large radios; with his free hand he was trying to pull a portable television out of a packing case. Krebs tried the door. It was open.

  The old man turned. “I’m very sorry,” he said in English. “We’re closed.”

  “You speak English.”

  “Of course I speak English. I’m a Christian.” With a grunt he wrenched the television free and staggered toward the door.

  “Wait a minute,” Krebs said. “Where is everybody?”

  “All gone.”

  “Where?”

  The old man looked surprised. “Why, to Port Sudan. They’ve all gone to Port Sudan with the Mahdi.”

  “Why?”

  The old man stopped. “If you don’t mind me saying so, you’re not keeping a very close eye on current affairs, are you?”

  “I’m a stranger here.”

  “Ah, I see. Welcome.” The old man smiled. “They’ve gone to Port Sudan because Mecca is on the other side. The Mahdi is going to Mecca.” The old man moved past him and out the door.

  “Why aren’t you with him?”

  “I’m a Christian,” the old man said without looking back. “I told you that already.” He shook his head. “I told him that already,” he muttered as he struggled along the empty hall.

  Krebs went outside. He found a fuel truck. They filled the tanks and took off. They flew northeast; the sun was directly behind. Ahead of them the shadow of the little plane ran along the ground.

  Fairweather glanced at him. “I guess I wasn’t very professional back there.”

  “I understand.”

  “It was Gillian.”

  “I know.”

  “It must have been even worse for you,” Fairweather said. “After all, you knew her. I’d never seen her before.”

  Krebs said nothing. He looked behind him. Gray and anxious, Hurgas sat clutching the armrests of his seat. His spear lay in the aisle. Krebs leaned back. “I think I’ll catch a little sleep.”

  “Fine,” Fairweather said. “Don’t worry about me. This is getting kind of exciting. History is happening and we’re right here.”

  “Our job is to keep it from happening.”

  “Surely the Saudis will take care of that,” Fairweather said. “There’s no way he can cross the Red Sea with all those people. All they have to do to stop him is send their fleet out.”

  “If they do that they’re finished. The crews will mutiny, every one of them.”

  After a pause Fairweather said, “Rehv was smart, wasn’t he?”

  “Why do you say ‘was’?”

  “Because there’s been no sign of him for years. Not since you saw him.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything,” Krebs said. “He’s down there all right.” He closed his eyes.

  The crackle of the radio woke him. He looked up. The sea shone in the distance. Fairweather flicked a switch on the instrument panel.

  “Cairo Base to ATG-Eleven,” said a voice on the radio. The words were almost lost in the crackling. “Cairo Base to ATG-Eleven.”

  Fairweather reached for the microphone. “ATG-Eleven to Cairo Base. Is that you, Freddy?”

  “Yes. Is Krebs still with you?”

  “Yes,” Fairweather said, sounding puzzled. “Do you want to talk to him?”

  “No. Now listen carefully. You are to return immediately. Got that? Return immediately.”

  “We’re just on our way to Port Sudan right now, Freddy. Do you mean return after that or before?”

  The voice grew louder; so did the crackling. “Immediately.”

  Fairweather turned to Krebs. “It looks like we’re going back to Cairo.”

  “No we’re not. Don’t change course.”

  Something in his tone made Fairweather shrink back. He held the microphone close to his mouth, watching Krebs out of the corner of his eye. “Freddy? I think you’d better talk to Mr. Krebs. He’s in charge here.”

  Crackles answered. Then came a voice that Krebs knew well. “Fairweather, this is Colonel Birdwell. Get this straight. Krebs is no longer working for us. He is disobeying orders. He is a renegade. An outlaw. Fly that plane back here now. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, sir.” Fairweather looked at Krebs. “I guess we should do what they say.”

  Krebs drew the gun from under his jacket. “If you do, I’ll shoot you.”

  Fairweather stared at the gun. “Is it true, what he said?”

  “Shut off the radio.”

  “He’s got a gun,” Fairweather said quickly into the microphone. “He says he’ll shoot me.”

  “Don’t be an idiot, Fairweather.” Birdwell’s voice rose to a shout. “He needs you to fly the plane.”

  “I didn’t say I’d kill you,” Krebs said. “Just shoot you.” He pointed the gun at Fairweather’s knee. “Right here.”

  Fairweather brought the microphone to his mouth. Krebs grabbed it. The plane veered in a sudden sharp circle. Krebs heard a noise in the cabin. He glanced around and saw Hurgas staggering up the aisle, his spear in his hands. Only for a moment did he take
his eyes off Fairweather, but Fairweather was very fast. A moment was all he needed to tear the fire extinguisher off the wall and spray it in Krebs’s face.

  Krebs pulled the trigger.

  The nose of the plane dipped. Krebs and Fairweather were held in place by ther seat belts, but the fire extinguisher was not. Through a stinging blur Krebs saw it fly across the cockpit and crash out the windscreen. Hurgas yelled. Then he shot by after it, flailing his arms and legs for something to grip. There was nothing.

  The plane dove toward the earth. Cold wind shrieked through the cockpit. Fairweather fought with the controls. The plane turned nose over tail, again and again, spinning like a Roman candle. “Oh, God,” Fairweather said softly. Suddenly it stopped spinning, shuddered, and leveled out. Krebs looked down and saw a chicken running across a dirt yard.

  Fairweather was very pale. “Are you okay?” Krebs said. Fairweather did not answer. Krebs looked at his knee. It was fine. He knew the bullet had missed: He had fired wildly, and Fairweather had not cried out.

  Then he saw the other leg.

  There was a big hole in the inside of Fairweather’s thigh. Quickly Krebs ripped off his belt and wrapped it tightly above the wound. He pulled back the shredded white cloth and examined it more closely. He saw that it looked uglier than it was. The flesh was badly torn and slightly burned from the discharge, but there wasn’t much blood, not around the wound, or on Fairweather’s white pants or on the seat. That was lucky: He knew there was a big artery somewhere in the thigh.

  “It’s not too bad. You’ll be okay.”

  Fairweather shook his head. “We’re losing altitude,” he said very softly. “I can’t hold her up.”

  Krebs peered down and saw a flat empty plain that bordered on the sea. “Just put her down here. You can do it. You’re a hell of a pilot, Fairweather.”

  Fairweather’s hands were as white as bone on the wheel. He banked over the sea and came in low. The plane touched the ground, bounced into the air, touched the ground again, and rolled gradually to a stop. “You’re a hell of a pilot, Fairweather,” Krebs said.

  Fairweather did not answer. Krebs put his hand lightly on Fairweather’s shoulder. “I wasn’t really going to shoot you, you know. The gun went off by accident.”

  Fairweather ignored him. Krebs bent forward and examined the wound again. It had almost stopped bleeding. “We’re very close to town,” Krebs said. “I’ll go get help.” He unbuckled his seat belt and stood up. As he turned to the door he saw that the cabin was red. The shrieking wind had blown Fairweather’s blood through the cockpit and into the cabin. It was splashed all over the walls.

  Fairweather slumped forward. The seat belt caught him and held him tight.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  The setting sun burned a fiery path across the sea. It was the path that everyone wanted to follow. Down the narrow streets of Port Sudan they pressed, squeezing forward in dense heaving throngs to the waterfront. There, shouting and shoving, they fought for places in anything that floated: dhows, lateen-rigged sloops, ferries, yachts, and tenders that would take them out to the big ships waiting in deep water. They filled the boats and ships; empty ones came in their place. They too were filled. Still the streets were packed with relentless multitudes ramming down to the sea.

  From the roof of a warehouse near the harbor Krebs could see everything. For hours he had watched the crowds, the ships, the convoys stretching across the water. He saw the warships too: destroyers, cruisers, aircraft carriers. There were far too many for the Saudi fleet alone; other Muslim countries had sent their fleets, he realized. Had they been ordered not to interfere, or had the crews mutinied? It didn’t matter. None of them fired a shot. Instead they sent their tenders in to shore and joined the convoys. Everywhere he looked were ships: black hyphens on the glare of the sea.

  As the sun went down he walked across the roof and peered over the edge. People surged through the street below. Some of them wore the white robes of pilgrims, some wore Western clothing; some held babies in their arms, some held rifles. No one looked up at him. He climbed down the steel ladder that was bolted to the side of the building and waited just above their heads for an opening. None came. At last he let go of the ladder and dropped among them. Someone shouted. A shoulder dug into his back. Then he was swept away, hugging the long-nosed gun against his ribs.

  The mob bore him down to the waterfront and pushed him toward the end of a long pier. Around him he heard cries and splashes as people fell in the water. A small car ferry was casting off. As it began to drift away Krebs elbowed someone aside, leaped across a few feet of water, and landed in human flesh. A fist struck him. He struck back. He rolled onto his hands and knees and crawled along the deck until he found a small space by a rusty winch in the stern.

  With his back against the winch, Krebs watched the western sky. Very quickly it went from navy blue to purple to black. He knew he must be tired, but he did not feel it. He closed his eyes. They would not stay closed. Stars came out. He looked at them. He remembered the names of a few constellations, but he couldn’t make the stars fit the patterns that went with any of the names. He grew tired of the stars and gazed beyond them, into blackness.

  Around him people tried to stretch out and go to sleep. Soon he too would sleep. He would sleep all he wanted. But first there was Isaac Rehv. It did not worry him that he had seen no sign yet of Rehv or his son. The Mahdi was going to speak from the Sacred Mosque in Mecca. That meant Rehv would be there too: for his moment of victory.

  Isaac Rehv stood in the bow of the little fishing boat. All around him the lights of ships winked in the night. Looking over the side he saw the hull of the little fishing boat slicing through the black water, and the red phosphorescence that frothed through the cut.

  A warm wind fluttered the thin cloth of the pilgrim’s robe he wore. It carried the smell of spices—cloves and cinnamon. Was that the smell of Arabia? He peered at the eastern sky, looking for the dawn, but it was too soon.

  Beneath his feet old engines throbbed slowly and steadily. He wanted them to work harder. He wanted the little fishing boat to fly across the water. He wanted to see his son.

  To hold him in his arms, to kiss him, to be near him. That was all he could do about the past. But now he wanted a future too. There was still time for the future they had missed: back at Lac du Loup or somewhere in America where they could forget about war and nations and death. No one would be looking for them after all these years. They could live in peace.

  That was it. He wanted to live. It was time to forget about Israel. That meant forgetting Naomi, Lena, and his mother too. He would do it. He would try. He had suffered enough. The sacrifice was over.

  Behind him on the deck everyone was asleep. He knew it was the same on the other boats on the sea that night. They all loved the Mahdi. Hundreds of thousands of people were doing what he had planned so long ago. Millions more were believing what he had wanted them to believe. The Red Sea had parted for him.

  The dream was coming true. But it meant nothing to him. His dream belonged to death. He wanted to live. The ships, the people, the Mahdi—these he had created, and he could destroy. Then he would take his boy back somewhere safe, where he could live the life he had not had, the normal life that everyone had a right to.

  The thought excited him, and made him dizzy. He was weak. Life in the cubicle had made him weak. He lay down on the deck and rested. He was weak and tired. He closed his eyes. No. Don’t sleep. He opened them. It was too dark to see.

  He heard a voice: “Hurry up with that blanket.”

  Someone answered: “I’m coming.” There was a pause.

  Then the first voice: “Oh, God. Look at his back.”

  He looked up. It was too dark to see whoever it was. “I’m all right,” he said. “Just resting.” He took a deep breath and felt better.

  Dawn came at last, a slice of gold in the eastern sky. Rehv rose and looked over the prow of the fishing boat. He saw Arabia; it was a
n easy swim away. On the shore waited crowds of people. Everywhere boats were gliding in to land.

  A helicopter flew by, very low. A cameraman leaned out of the open doorway and started filming. CBS it said on the side of the cabin.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Inside the Sacred Mosque at Mecca there was no room to move. Wedged tightly between hot bodies, Krebs stood in the huge uncovered square in the center of the mosque. It was enclosed on all sides by two tiers of galleries, packed just as densely with people: men, women, children; white, yellow, brown, black. More were squeezed on the wide roofs over the galleries. Human heat rose in the air and shimmered in the morning light.

  Not far in front of him he could see the Kaaba, the holy shrine of Islam: a cube as tall as a village church, draped with gold-embroidered black cloth. In one corner was sealed the Black Stone. Black-and-gold carpeted portable stairs had been rolled to one side of the Kaaba. Krebs was not as close to it as he wanted to be, but he did not try to push forward. If he attracted attention he might have to talk: in forbidden territory for a non-Muslim. He would have to do what he could from where he was. He kept his mouth shut and did what everyone else was doing: He waited and watched the small golden doors at the base of the Kaaba. It was quiet.

  The sun rose higher in the sky, drawing moisture from countless pores and bathing the crowd in communal sweat. Krebs barely felt the heat. At first he had worried about how far he was from the Kaaba, and about his eyesight, which had never been as good after that night in Kordofan. But then he had suddenly realized how clearly he was seeing everything: the faded patterns etched on the black cloth, the red eye of a bird flying overhead, a mole on the edge of someone’s earlobe. Not since childhood had he seen so sharply. He had stopped worrying.

  Now he was calm. He watched the golden doors and waited. He was waiting for the two other non-Muslims he knew were in the mosque: the Mahdi and Isaac Rehv. He was very patient. He had waited a long time. A few more hours made no difference.

  The doors opened. A tall broad man in a white robe and a white turban walked out. Krebs looked closely at his face. It was a brown face, much darker than Isaac Rehv’s, but he could see something of Rehv around the mouth, the bridge of the nose, and especially in the eyes.