Читать книгу Deadline Yemen (The Elizabeth Darcy Series) - Peggy Hanson - Страница 31

CHAPTER 27

In Arabic some things are said or written twice, the second word there to ensure that the right choice of meaning is made for the first, and vice versa. A man is just and fair-minded, a woman brave and courteous, a judge has intuition, insight, discernment in the ways of men.

Eva Sallis, The City of Sea Lions

I headed for Nello’s café on al-Zubeiri Street, on the edge of the Old City. Stomach growling, I crumbled off the end of the loaf of hubz as I walked, chewing surreptitiously to not be rude in public.

The bread was wonderful, but I stopped nibbling. Nello’s place was near. There’s nothing like pasta to settle the soul.

As I entered the small front door of the Caffe d’Italia, I took a quick look over my shoulder. Scarface was behind me! Was he following me? This time I tried to meet his eyes. He looked right past me and walked on down the street, fitting in with every other futha-clad pedestrian.

I heaved a sigh of relief to find Nello wiping his hands on a spotless apron as he came from the kitchen. “Hello!” I shouted.

He didn’t say a word, but came around to give me a bear hug. Then he kissed my hand.

We both had tears in our eyes. “It’s a little late for lunch,” I said, when he gestured to one of the red and white checked tablecloths.

“It is never too late for lunch,” corrected Nello. “Not for Elizabeth. Not for an old friend.” His words were balm to my turbulent day. A Sprite can containing white wine appeared on the table. Bless the man! Nello poured it into a coffee cup for me. Then he told the cook to make zuppa ala paesana, made from the delicious little potatoes and green beans grown in fields around Sana’a.

As he returned to the kitchen to oversee the creation, I thought back to all the nights I had gathered with other reporters at Nello’s, whether the SCUD sirens went off or not. Nello acquired wine and Red Label Scotch from bootleggers who brought it across the Red Sea from the free port of Djibouti. The forbidden nectar was poured into soda bottles for respectability, though everyone, including the police, knew what they contained. I suspected Nello contributed plenty of Scotch to the police to ensure this oversight.

Obviously, today, murder had to be the first topic. Michael and I had eaten at Nello’s just yesterday! “I suppose you heard,” I began.

“Ah, yes. Petrovich. Dead. I know.” He looked at me keenly, probably trying to figure out how much this had upset me.

“I was sure you would.” I spoke hesitantly but met Nello’s eyes to show there were no secrets here. “I just met him on the plane coming here. What do you know about him? I gather he’d been to Yemen several times before.”

Nello held up one finger, and disappeared for a moment into the kitchen. When he came back, he had a basket of fresh-baked bread and a cruet of olive oil. We couldn’t delve into really juicy gossip without sustenance.

The hubz I’d bought lay like a guilty secret in its plastic bag. It had cooled, so Nello couldn’t smell it, at least. Like all wonderful breads that are meant to be consumed as soon as baked, hubz gets hard fast, so I’d eat Nello’s bread and carry the plastic bag back. I’d give some to Mrs. Weston, soaked in milk. Oh, yes, I needed to buy some cans of sardines on the way back. Expectant mothers need protein.

“Now. Tell me what you know about Michael Petrovich.” I looked stern.

Nello glanced at me. “I do not want to say something to hurt you.”

“No. No!” My lunch with Petrovich must have given Nello undue suspicions. “I don’t like to see people I have met being murdered, but believe me, Nello, I had no special feelings for that man. Tell me what you know.”

After a quick, shrewd look my way, Nello leaned forward.

“Michael Petrovich,” he said thoughtfully. “Businessman, he was. And more. Much more.”

“What do you mean?”

Nello tilted his head. “You know him only from plane? Nothing else?”

“I met him on the plane from Frankfurt.” Better not to say I had found him quite charming.

“Petrovich,” said Nello, “is bad guy. Arms supplier. Was.”

“What?” An arms supplier? “Are you sure, Nello?”

“He is watched by police and army and maybe has some friends there, too.”

“Who did he supply arms to?” I took a chunk of bread and dipped it into oil.

“Well. To people who pay money. Big money. Groups who need arms for bad purposes. You know.” His voice dropped to a whisper, though there were no other customers in the restaurant. “Like what used to be in Aden when Soviets were there.”

“You mean terrorism.” During the Soviet control of South Yemen, the country had been a training ground for terrorists of all stripes, Palestinian, Kurdish, Irish Republicans… “I thought most of that had been pushed out with reunification of the two Yemens and with the Soviet collapse,” I said.

Nello sipped at his own glass of red “juice.” “Well,” he said. “They were pushed out as far as Somalia across the Gulf of Aden and Sudan across the Red Sea. Not too far.”

Yes, we had seen evidence of that. The World Trade Center bombing in 1993. And reporters spoke among themselves and with experts about the shadowy character, Osama bin Laden, who lived somewhere on the other side of the Red Sea but had connections here in Yemen.

Oil dribbled off my bread and down my chin as I stared at Nello. I must have looked like an idiot. Naïve! Unable to see beyond a fellow’s charm. Blinded by a man lifting my carry-on into the overhead compartment. Michael’s death didn’t seem quite so horrible, though I still wouldn’t have wished it.

“Anyhow, go on…why on earth would the Yemeni government, or Interpol, for that matter, allow such activities? It couldn’t be in their interests to have people like Michael Petrovich supporting groups like that. And how did he get tied in?”

If Nello was right—and Nello was usually right—I began to see why Jason Roberts at the Embassy had so little to tell me about Michael Petrovich. If—and I still maintained a shred of skepticism—he was an illicit arms smuggler, he certainly wasn’t a citizen America could be proud of, and diplomats are trained to put the best face on things. Of course, diplomats must also lie through their teeth when protecting knowledge of undercover activities. Often, they don’t even know who is working in intelligence. Maybe Michael had been a double agent? I was grasping at straws.

“Yemen government do not approve, no. They wish to catch him. But he is clever. Many friends. The government has many people who like money, you know? Bribes. The government does not want to upset the apple carriage. And he works with French company for fertilizer. They do not want big ‘hullabaloo.’” Nello gestured to the waiter.

He arrived with my soup. The steaming bowl called to me with fantastic aromas of garlic and tomato. I dipped in a spoon and then a piece of bread. “So who would kill an American like Petrovich, then?”

Nello’s eyes narrowed. “Who wouldn’t? He is better dead than in jail. Less trouble.” He lowered his voice even more. “I think it good if you not look too much into this Petrovich, Elizabeth. Petrovich has friends. And Petrovich has enemies. You not here to do this story? Then do little as possible. Forget that man!”

I dropped the Petrovich topic. “Do you know where Halima al Shem is these days? I want to see her!” Even with Nello, I wouldn’t share information that might harm my friend.

Before volunteering an answer, Nello popped up and out to the kitchen.

Perhaps Nello wasn’t even aware of the large role he had played in my first trip to Yemen by introducing me to Halima. That had been late May of 1994, on a day the bombing was light and I’d enjoyed lunch at Nello’s, alone for a change.

After our first meeting, I’d stopped by the Friends of Yemen whenever possible, often combining it with a stop at Nello’s. Halima couldn’t go into a restaurant, for social reasons, but I could stop by her office. On those visits, we talked of many things—life in America and Yemen, the roles of men and women, personal hopes and fears. Halima’s feminine colleagues watched us converse with awe on their faces. And with pride. A Yemeni woman holding intellectual discussions with a foreigner! Imagine.

Nello came bustling back from the kitchen. “What did you say? Professor Halima?”

“Yes. I hoped to see her while I was here, but Friends of Yemen seems to be closed.”

“She has not been by to say hello for a while. I know nothing…” Nello looked puzzled.

I shrugged and chalked that subject up as a dead end.

But I still had a job to do, sending some broad reports back to Mac in Washington. “How would you say Yemen has changed since I was here? I mean, other than a war not being waged right now. Are there changes in daily life?”

“Now that, it is hard to answer,” said Nello. “More loud. More like what you call it, your American Gold Rush? But like when you were here before, foreigners stay together; Yemenis live their own lives.”

Did Nello know I owed my life to Halima? That episode, dark and frightening, had remained a secret from virtually everyone. It hadn’t been safe to tell. Certainly I would never tell anyone what a Yemeni woman had done in secret, in a place where secrets are all that the sequestered women have.