Читать книгу Thieves of the Black Sea - Joe O'Neill - Страница 17

Tariq awoke to the sounds of clinking glass and the smell of salt water. Shards of green, red, and blue glass moved rhythmically over him—a mobile gently swaying back and forth, blown by the wind from an open porthole just over his bed. The room creaked. It seemed to breathe, inhaling and exhaling, to the ebb and flow of the sea. Soft cotton sheets covered his bare skin. Slowly stretching his body and then his toes, Tariq tried to register his new surroundings.

Around his bare neck was the medallion of a black panther worn by his best friend, Aji, and on a table next to him sat the diary of Alexander the Great, nestled in its protective bag. Lying next to the diary was a sheathed knife that Tariq always kept strapped to his right calf.

For a few moments, Tariq was disoriented. He couldn’t shake the images of being stranded on the balloon basket for days without food or water after Melbourne Jack died.

Then it came to him, the urgency of his mentor’s parting words: “You must return Alexander the Great’s diary to my circus in India. You must find Foster Crowe.”

Flashing images filled his head—of falling into the sea, watching the surface fall away, and then a boy and shark. A boy and a shark?

Where was he? He had to find some answers.

He suddenly remembered Fez and Aseem and felt panic creep in. He had to find their whereabouts and if they had survived.

As Tariq began to lift himself out of bed, he saw the doorknob slowly turn and then the door opened. It was an old woman. She smiled broadly and started talking in a foreign dialect. She sat on the side of Tariq’s cot, gently kissing him on each cheek and making the figure of the cross with her right index finger on his forehead. She brought her wrinkled hands down to his cheeks. As she held Tariq’s face in her hands, she looked into his eyes. Tariq saw pure joy in her expression.

He tried to get out of bed, but she motioned for him to stay.

Retreating to the hallway, the woman returned with a large glass and a beautiful ceramic pitcher painted with intricate designs in vibrant colors.

She handed Tariq a glass of water, and when he had emptied it, she poured again and again, until Tariq had consumed four entire glassfuls and the pitcher was empty.

Tariq’s entire body felt like one big bruise. His head was wobbly and felt full of cobwebs. He thought of nothing else but Fez and Aseem, and he had an urgent desire to discover if they were still alive or if they had perished in the sea along with Melbourne Jack. His chest felt tight as panic returned, worrying about his friends and their safety.

His pants were hanging beside him on a wooden peg, only now they had been cleaned and smelled of soap and lemon. He put them on, dressing under the sheet. When he stood up from the bed, he instantly fell to one knee. His equilibrium was thrown off from being at sea for so long, and his lightheadedness from dehydration only added to his lack of coordination.

The old woman came to him and urged him to lie back down. He shook his head and forced himself to stand up, and then stumbled to a wall, holding onto it for balance. He pointed out the door, hoping the old woman understood that he meant to find his friends.

Understanding Tariq’s gesture, she held him by the arm and guided him as they wobbled and staggered out of the bedroom like two drunken sailors.

Down a narrow and cramped hallway, they continued until they came to some stairs. The hallway smelled damp, and the weathered and warped floorboards creaked beneath his feet. It was difficult to balance as the boat rocked to and fro with every wave. The old woman motioned for him to climb up the stairs, which he did slowly, then he smiled and thanked her with a kind look and a small bow. He was still woozy and weak, but was able to slowly make his way up the stairs with the help of a handrail.

At the top of the stairs, Tariq reached for the hatch, pushed it open and emerged to find himself on the deck of a large sailboat. Sunlight blinded him, and he stood still for a few seconds to allow his eyes to adjust.

“Tariq!” Aseem yelled and ran to him and hugged him.

Tariq smiled haggardly, still tired and dizzy, but managed to hug him back. Aseem’s strength seemed to have completely returned to him and even the sun sores on his face were largely healed.

“You’re looking good, my friend. A bit skinnier, but aren’t we all?” Aseem said with a laugh.

“It is so good to see you, Aseem,” Tariq said, and he meant it. The last time he’d seen Aseem, he had been clinging to life—near death from dehydration. To see him healthy and alive brought Tariq a deep kind of relief.

The two boys stared at one another for a few moments, each grateful for the life of the other, not knowing exactly what to say. Finally, Tariq spoke.

“Fez? Is he okay?”

“Look!” Aseem said and pointed upward to the main mast of the boat.

On the mast, forty feet in the air, Fez dangled, pulling in a slack line. A sailor beneath him was giving him instructions, laughing as Fez pulled until, finally, it was snug.

“Tariq!” Fez yelled down from his perch on the mast.

Quickly he and the sailor made their way down until Fez was able to jump onto the deck of the boat.

Once he landed, he sprinted to Tariq and hugged him.

“Wow Fez, you were up really high!” Tariq said with a smile.

“We thought you would sleep forever!” Fez replied.

“I feel like I could have. I’m still confused as to exactly what happened,” Tariq said and began studying his surroundings more carefully.

The boat was long, over eighty feet, with three masts. Laundry hung from every available railing and line. The floorboards were warped and scratched from salt. Green paint flaked and peeled from the cabin walls and roof. Many of the lines were aged and looked to be on the verge of shredding. Black mold spread in the corners of the floorboards where moisture had collected. Crewmembers, their shirtless torsos bronzed and rugged, shouted and waved to Tariq and he waved back. An old man with gray stubble on his cheeks, his body skinny and tan, came over and smiled and shook Tariq’s hand. He was missing his two front teeth, and there was a huge scar down his neck.

Raggedy sails attached to each mast held steady in an eight-knot wind.

“Where are we?” Tariq asked.

“We were rescued by Captain Scopas and his clan. They call themselves sea gypsies and travel around the Mediterranean. They are the nicest people, and we owe them our lives!” Fez replied.

“How long have I been asleep?”

“Five days! Aseem and I woke up two days ago and have been exploring the boat.”

Tariq looked over the side and saw a dorsal fin next to the boat. The fin skipped up and under the water and reminded Tariq of a dog running next to a wagon. Sailboats of all different sizes and shapes surrounded theirs, all sailing close together. Most were in equally poor condition as their boat.

“Was I dreaming, or was I rescued by a boy and a shark?”

Aseem and Fez looked at each other and started laughing.

“You weren’t dreaming. There is a boy named Panos and he rides a shark! Apparently, he rescued the shark when it was just a baby, and he and the shark became best friends. The shark’s name is Lako, and he’s kind of a scout for the fleet—that’s how they found us! Lako came upon us, and when he was circling the basket, he was trying to help us! Amazing isn’t it?” Fez explained. He was obviously very excited.

“So, he wasn’t trying to eat us?” Tariq asked.

“No, he knew we were in trouble but didn’t know what to do. He stayed with us until the fleet was close enough and he could return with Panos to help us.”

“I thought I was dead. I thought I saw Aji,” Tariq explained, still half believing that the boy he saw was real and not a dreamlike image of his old friend, Aji.

His mind was still confused.

The old woman then appeared with a tray of fresh fruit and more pitchers of water. She opened a large tin of aloe vera, which she applied to their faces and lesions. Immediately their skin felt cooler.

The boys eagerly shoved pieces of orange and watermelon in their mouths and gulped glass after glass of fresh water.

“So, you must be Tariq,” came a bold voice from behind them.

They turned as a big man appeared in front of them—the same man who had been on the mast with Fez. He was large, but not fat—all bone and muscle. His face carried the look of a boxer, while the gleam in his eye gave a hint of a rogue and a gypsy. His posture and voice suggested that he was a man of some authority on the boat. A soft black beard covered his square jaw. His right ear was deformed and resembled a gnarly mushroom.

“You speak Arabic?” Tariq asked.

“Yes, of course I speak Arabic. I also speak Greek, English, Turkish, Spanish, French, and a smattering of Russian. It sounds like you’ve all had quite an adventure! Another ten minutes and I don’t think we could have saved you.”

Tariq approached the man and extended his hand. The man smiled and shook it with massive hands. Tariq thought the man might break his fingers, his grip was so tight.

“Thank you for saving me and my friends. May I ask your name?”

The man laughed.

“Ah, I always appreciate a boy with good manners. I am Captain Scopas and this is my boat—the Osprey! As your friends may have explained to you, this is my clan and we live on the sea, traveling by boat from port to port. That is my mother, Helen, who took care of you. You met my boy Panos and his shark, Lako. Quite a story, eh?”

“I’ve never heard of a boy swimming with a shark before,” Tariq answered, who was mesmerized by the man’s deformed ear.

“In the Greek Islands, where I am from, it’s not so uncommon. Many of the village boys would swim with sharks. Ah, the world is a wonderful place, is it not?”

Captain Scopas laughed and hugged Tariq. Tariq felt like a mouse being squeezed by a python.

He let go and noticed Tariq staring at his ear.

“You’re wondering about my ear, eh? I was wrestling with a Russian and this happened—he popped my entire ear and blood went everywhere. This Russian was so afraid of blood he fainted on the spot and I won the match. Ha! That will show those damn Russians, who think they wrestle better than anyone.”

Tariq was embarrassed for staring.

“I’m sorry, it’s just…,” he tried to explain

“No need to explain. Tonight, we will prepare a feast in your honor. I must attend to my duties, but, please, enjoy yourselves. We dock at Constantinople in four days’ time if this wind holds up.”

“Constantinople?” Tariq asked, suddenly remembering his dream where Melbourne Jack told him to find a panther in Constantinople.

“Ah, you’re wondering why a proud Greek such as myself would set foot in Constantinople with the dreaded Turks? Well, I have some unpleasant business to attend to, my friend, that’s all I can tell you.”

Captain Scopas suddenly turned very serious and then disappeared below deck.

“What did he mean by ‘the dreaded Turks’?” Aseem asked.

Fez and Tariq shrugged their shoulders.

Tariq couldn’t help but feel as if he were in a dream. He recalled the voice of Melbourne Jack in his head, telling him to find a panther in Constantinople—and now a sea captain was telling him that’s exactly where they were headed.

He took another drink of water and ate some more orange slices.

Inez couldn’t move or talk. Her hands had been tied behind her back and her feet were bound together in front of her. A dirty cloth had been stuffed into her mouth.

Her head felt like a sack of cement.

Two burly and dour German men stood in front of her smoking cigarettes, studying a map, and occasionally giving her an angry glare.

Inez’s long red hair was caked with blood and dirt. Just fifteen years old, she’d recently gone through a growth spurt, and her gangly legs and arms ached as the rope dug into her skin. Her brown eyes, wide with terror, studied the men as they glanced at her. She breathed heavily, almost hyperventilating. For the first time in her life, she felt helpless.

Once, she had gone rabbit hunting with her father and they had laid a steel trap with turnips and carrots. Half a day went by, and when they returned, they found a hare in the trap, the steel teeth gripping its left leg. The terrified hare had tried to scramble and break free from the trap’s teeth, but the steel pressed deep into its skin and wouldn’t release. The animal screamed in fright as they edged closer to it.

Inez remembered what it felt like to grab the hare by the scruff of its neck, and how it looked at her with such fear. As if it knew it was headed for certain death.

Inez felt like that hare—trapped and horrified, and completely at the mercy of her captors.

The last thing she remembered, before waking up with her hands and feet bound, was spying on these same men from up on a hilltop. Then everything had gone black. One of the men must have snuck up behind her and knocked her unconscious.

The men clearly weren’t happy, as they kept arguing in German, scratching their heads, and pointing at Inez, until finally they put the map away. Two of the men picked her up—one at her armpits and the other at her feet—and threw her into the bed of a truck that was covered with a cloth canopy made from heavy cotton and held up by steel girders. She landed hard on the steel grate and it stung her back sharply. The truck reeked of oil and gasoline and the bed was a mess of rust and mud.

Looking up, Inez saw one of the men stare intently at her with such evil that she shuddered. He screamed something at her in German and waved his hands, motioning for her to move to the back of the bed. Complying, she scooted until her back felt the hard, cold steel.

Satisfied, he flicked his cigarette at her.

The truck’s engine roared to life and soon rumbled along the dirt road. A similar truck tailgated so closely behind, Inez could see the growth of the driver’s beard.

The two trucks drove away from the farmhouse and away from her school and the safety of her home and friends.

Inez had never felt so alone.

Rain slapped down on the tent roof like the pitter-patter of thousands of pairs of little feet.

The night was especially dark, as the sky was filled with thick, gray clouds. Strands of water fell from the sky to the dirt below, forming huge mud puddles on the battlefield, which was now a temporary encampment. The blood of thousands of fallen warriors created red streams that seeped into the earth.

Zijuan slept fitfully in her tent when the dreams came to her.

A boy swimming with a shark.

A faraway city.

An old book of some importance.

A black panther.

A sea captain with a beard.

Then the images changed, and she saw Melbourne Jack sitting above them, almost floating, smiling in an angelic haze.

She tossed in her sleep as more images filled her mind.

A city, gray with smoke, appeared, its buildings bombed and smashed, as if a tornado had ripped them apart. Soldiers fought and butchered one another. In the background, some kind of shadow watched over it all. Images of Fez, Aseem, and Tariq came into view. A red handprint dissolved like sand through an hourglass.

The sound of hundreds of thousands of people crying out shattered everything.

The images were so prolific and horrifying that she awoke with a start and sat up in her bed, completely confused by her surroundings. Her pulse raced and she felt her heart beating as if she’d just run a marathon. Beads of sweat dripped down the side of her face and her hair stuck to her neck.

Unable to shake the nightmare, Zijuan walked over to a basin and splashed cold water on her face.

She lit a lantern and laid a small rug down on a dry part of the dirt floor so that she was able to sit down cross-legged. She then removed a scroll and fifty sticks of equal length from a small chest. Breathing deeply, she began to throw the sticks across her tent. After making a series of throws, she interpreted the sticks’ positioning.

She was performing a variation of I Ching—an ancient form of fortune telling.

With each throw, she felt herself grow tense, each outcome more ominous than the previous one.

“Tariq…,” she muttered with her last throw.

She stared at the sticks in disbelief. Never had the readings been so foreboding, and never had she felt such fear. She was about to pick up the sticks when a voice came from outside her tent.

“Zijuan, are you awake? May we enter?” Sanaa asked.

“Yes, please come in,” she answered.

Malik and Sanaa entered the tent.

“Sit down,” Zijuan instructed.

Malik and Sanaa sat down on the rug. Outside, the rain started to pour down harder and Zijuan could hear thunder in the distance. The smell of smoke and charred flesh lingered in the tent. The smell had been thick in the afternoon, when they’d cremated hundreds of dead soldiers before the flesh could rot. The welcome rain had begun to wash the smell away.

Together in that small tent sat the three deadliest, and most respected, assassins in all of Morocco, and perhaps all of Arabia and Africa.

“We’re having nightmares.”

“Both of you?”

“Yes,” they replied at the exact same time.

“Tell me about them.”

“We see Tariq, Fez, and Aseem, but they are in a foreign city with some kind of captain. A large black cat. Then we see strange men, one Caucasian and the other Asian, and then a war of some kind and a red handprint. We can’t make sense of it,” Malik explained.

“How long have you been having these nightmares?”

“Since the boys disappeared into the clouds. The day of our victory over the Caid.”

Zijuan sighed.

“What is wrong?” Malik asked as they sat across from Zijuan.

“I have been having the exact same nightmares. I didn’t understand them until I performed an I Ching reading just before you came to my tent. I believe that Tariq and the boys are alive, but are far away. I believe they are, for the moment at least, in safe hands. They must engage on a quest of some kind and we must not interfere. This quest will be very dangerous and some—or all—of them may perish.”

“What are you talking about? I don’t understand. What quest?” Malik asked.

“I do not know,” said Zijuan.

“Can we help them?”

“No, it was clear to me that they must complete this quest on their own accord.”

“How is it possible we’ve all been having the exact same dreams?” Sanaa asked.

“Everything is connected, Sanaa. Our thoughts and our actions, both in the physical world and the spiritual one. Think of everything like a spider web, all woven together. Most people forget, or refuse, to believe in such an interconnected world. But I believe that the world is headed for a dark place, and what is happening now is breaking through our consciousness and enabling us to know the whereabouts of the boys.”

“And we can do nothing? Just sit back and hope they survive?” Sanaa asked.

“But they are so young,” Malik said worryingly.

Zijuan nodded.

“I will meditate for them each and every day to try to tip the scales in their favor. As I have answers, so will the both of you.”

Sanaa listened attentively. By nature, she was subdued and stoic, but the disappearance of the boys had been weighing on her.

“All I care about is that they are alive,” she whispered.

Zijuan stared at the husband and wife across from her. They were the two people she trusted more than anyone else in the world.

“I don’t know why we were all given the exact same dreams, but it’s not a coincidence. The Red Hand is reaching out to us—for what reason, I am not sure.”

Malik nodded his head as he listened.

“You’ve always had a gift for the metaphysical, Zijuan. We will listen to your premonitions. If we are told that we must not interfere, then so shall it be. Please know that Sanaa and I will do anything for those boys.”

“I know. And please, if you have any new dreams, please describe them to me immediately.”

Sanaa stared straight ahead. Her face was lean and angular, and her black hair was tied in a ponytail that hung to the small of her back. A dagger was omnipresent at her side, even at night, in the safety of Zijuan’s tent.

“I can’t help but think of Tariq when I first saw him being tortured and held prisoner in the Caid’s kasbah. Never once did he complain or cry or whine,” she said.

Malik took her hand.

“Or when I started training him with the other boys in the mountains, how eager they were to learn, and how brave.”

“Perhaps it is not an accident they were chosen for this quest? Perhaps all of their learning and perseverance has been to prepare them for the test and trials ahead?” Zijuan replied.

“Like training?” Sanaa asked.

“Exactly like training,” Zijuan agreed.

“That makes me feel a bit better,” Malik answered before sighing deeply and continuing.

“We will retire to our tent. Thank you, Zijuan.”

Sanaa and Malik stood up, bowed gently to Zijuan, and then exited the tent, back into the driving rain.

Zijuan stared at the scroll she had laid out in front of her. A weight seemed to hang from her shoulders as they slumped when she stared at the scroll.

She hadn’t told Malik and Sanaa everything. There was an evil force at work in the world. Zijuan had never felt such a malevolent and brutal presence in her thoughts. This evil presence had somehow been awakened and was plunging the world into a darker and more sinister time than any in history. She couldn’t shake the sick feeling in her bones. She’d never felt anything like this—such evil and such terror. The gruesome images and voices of all those suffering people lodged in her mind.

Even more troublesome was her realization that Tariq, Fez, and Aseem could be on a collision course with this darkness.