Читать книгу Deadline Yemen (The Elizabeth Darcy Series) - Peggy Hanson - Страница 20

CHAPTER 16

“…They must both have suffered a great deal under such a system of secrecy and concealment.”

“HIS sufferings,” replied Emma drily, “Do not seem to have done him much harm.”

Jane Austen, Emma

After lunch, I excused myself and took a taxi back to the Dar al-Hamd. Jet lag mixed with the too-bright sun made that thin mattress and mildly shaded room quite attractive. My cat friend greeted me eagerly and was pleased to find I’d brought her some chicken from Nello’s. I laid it out on a newspaper for her.

When I lay down, though, I found myself analyzing Halima’s voice from this morning. The call disturbed me in a way the earlier vague messages had not. Halima’s voice, yes—but so unlike her. Lacking the fresh, bright confidence I so enjoyed in my friend. Full of fear. Still, I could do nothing until Halima contacted me. By interfering, I could only make things worse.

When I awoke, the cat had disappeared and the sun lay lower to the mountain peaks. I yawned, stretched, and ordered tea.

Sipping the comforting beverage with Emma on my lap, socked feet resting on the low window sill, I scanned the scene below, intending to read.

Hellloooo. The same khaki-and-open-shirt clad British specimen I’d seen on the plane and at breakfast was striding through the overgrown back garden. I pulled my feet in, edged back from the window, and watched.

Mr. Khaki Pants walked briskly toward a little gate in the high mud brick wall. He stooped and went through, glancing back briefly. I was reminded of a tom cat patrolling its known territory. Strange. Why not go out the front of the hotel? Had I pulled back far enough to be out of sight?

Yemen isn’t a soft country. Certainly, nothing looked soft from the hotel window. Broken glass along the top of the mud walls provided a stark message to intruders. Mountain contours lay uncompromising on all sides of the city. The little patch of dry sorghum in the foreground added interest but not alleviation.

The sun began its quick equatorial descent. Harshness dissipated into delicate pink and gold, infusing the surrounding mountains and reflecting against the mud walls. I gulped crisp high-desert air, savoring its faint dust-manure-wood smoke smell. The cat appeared and sat on the window sill beside me, accepting me into her sphere of influence.

Snuggling a sweater around my shoulders while petting the cat, I dove back into Emma’s adventures, trying to distract myself from the nagging problem of Halima.

It didn’t work. I leaned my head back, covered my eyes, and remembered 1994.

It had been hard to sleep. We journalists were all on edge. Consumption of cigarettes and alcohol skyrocketed. It was strange, because the war had nothing to do with us. Bo took to slipping into my room, where we would cling together, more in fear than passion.

Well, sometimes more in fear.

I pulled myself from the reverie and turned again to the book.

Glancing up, I caught movement. Two loosely-turbaned men in skirt-like futhas skulked in evening shadows across the sorghum field toward the garden wall. The tall one had a distinctive scar across his cheek. I had seen him before, talking to the taxi driver this morning. His friend was short and dumpy.

The Brit came through the garden gate and spoke intently with the Arab men before striding back toward the hotel. This guy was no stranger to Yemen. Unlike most Western visitors, he obviously spoke Arabic well. What was he up to? And what could be so urgent?

With dusk came a repeat of the haunting reverberations of the call to prayer from mosques all over the city. The fourth call, the maghrib. Five all together, all day long. And here, all men went to the mosques in response to every single one, in contrast to the more secular states of Turkey, Egypt, Syria, and Iraq, where Friday noon prayer at the mosque is often considered adequate.

The tall, scar-faced man looked up from the garden. Had he seen me? Why weren’t those two guys at the mosque, like everyone else? Two Yemenis and a Brit. A strange meeting.

Before going down for dinner, I locked my door, but not my window.

“I’ll bring you something, okay?” I told my calico friend. She stretched full-length on the bed and rolled over, inviting me to scratch her ovoid tummy. “Uh, oh,” I said. “You’re going to have kittens, aren’t you? I’ll bring some extra, then.” Having gotten her message across, she blinked her green eyes at me and showed every sign of going back to sleep.