The Tower of Fear (17 page)

Hadribel stared at him, almost smirking. “You want to borrow some men? Or are you practicing for a speech to the Senate?”

“I need men.” He controlled his embarrassment and the anger that stalked behind it.

Hadribel looked at the old man. “Sir?”

“Right away, Khadifa. Time may be critical.”

“Yes sir.”

Hadribel waited for bel-Sidek at the door. After hesitating a moment, waiting for something more from the General, bel-Sidek went outside. In a moment he was laboring to keep pace with Hadribel.

The new khadifa of the Hahr pretended an epiphany, “Oh. I’m sorry. How is your leg?”

“It’s been troublesome lately. But I’ve had to do a lot more getting around than I’m used to.” Imply that he had done so because of his special relationship with the old man.

Hadribel forbore any expression of sympathy. “What’s going on? I take it the old man knows all about it.”

“He does.”

“Big secret, eh?”

“Yes. Isn’t everything?”

“You need me along on whatever this is?”

“That might not be wise. You’d figure it out. The old man thinks too many people know already. Meaning one more than him.”

Hadribel laughed. “He does have that way about him.” He went serious. “Honestly, how is he doing? Looked like he was having trouble tonight.”

“He isn’t getting any better. He won’t slow down and let himself get better,” bel-Sidek admitted. Then he lied, “On the other hand, he does seem to have stabilized.”

“I worry. And I’m sure others do, too. If something happens suddenly, his passion for secrecy will leave us all in the dark.”

“He claims he’s made arrangements. How good I couldn’t say. I live with him and don’t know what he’s doing most of the time.”

“What’s this big event he was talking about?”

“That’s one of the things I don’t know. He throws me out of the house when he even wants to
think
about it. You ask too many questions. That isn’t a habit he encourages.”

Hadribel accepted the rebuke sullenly. Bel-Sidek did not care. This was not a man whose good opinion concerned him. Politics. You had to get along with, mix with, people you wouldn’t speak to in a lifetime otherwise.

He waited in the street while Hadribel and his sons assembled the crew he wanted. It took them only fifteen minutes. The Shu organization was efficiently managed.

Bel-Sidek took the men away from the Shu before he explained that they were going to capture a Herodian agent who would be coming out of Government House before long. He did not identify the spy. He told them the man was not to be harmed if at all possible.

“He should leave the door on the east side. He’ll want to get out of sight quickly so he’ll head for one of the streets that begin right across the plaza.” He quizzed the men to make sure they knew the area. Most knew it as well as he did, which was all part of being a member of the movement. Knowledge was a weapon, too.

“You’ll spread out, then, and let him get off the plaza. Then you’ll herd him toward me. I’m sure you all know the drill. We’ve done it before. You don’t have to get close enough for him to see you. He just has to know you’re there and you’re moving toward him.”

Usually the tactic was employed when the Living did not want the hunters recognized afterward. This time bel-Sidek hoped to keep his quarry anonymous. Naszif would not survive long if he was recognized. These men did not concern themselves with the niceties of strategy or policy. For them traitor and dead were synonymous.

Hoping he was not too late, bel-Sidek dispersed his troops and began the wait.

On the harbor side the fog was drawing its mask over Qushmarrah. There on the east face of the hill the air was getting hazy, the haze catching a weird greenish tint from the just risen nail paring of a moon.

*   *   *

As he slipped out of Government House, Naszif, the son of bel-Abek, was in as fine a mood as ever he’d known. It had been a day of days; almost enough to counterbalance the misery of the day before. First, the promotion. Third in the Living in the Shu. And the rumor was, that was as good as being second because the khadifa of the Shu was reputed to be some pre-conquest lord who had gone into a coma years ago but was of such high family they dared not put him aside.

At last he had attained a position of power and influence—and, more important, of access. He would know what was going on inside the organization. He would know who was who. He would sit in on policy, planning, and strategy sessions.

Colonel Bruda and General Cado were as excited as he was. A long-ago investment had begun to pay dividends. They had doubled his good fortune immediately by promoting him to vice-colonel in the Herodian army. His being able to confirm the probability that Ortbal Sagdet had been khadifa of the Hahr had pleased General Cado, too.

He felt the forty gold double sudets that represented his promotion bonus. He smiled. He could now afford to get his family out of the Shu. But his mission prevented his doing so. Maybe a second household? Would his several masters accept that?

His mood darkened when he thought of Zouki. His family had been gutted …

He was too excited to pay proper attention to his surroundings, too thrilled to heed the old specter of guilt that had haunted him since that night at the Seven Towers. He did not feel the weight of fear that so often perched upon his shoulders. He missed completely the first couple of moves made by the men stalking him.

The scrape of a foot in the stillness, the flash of a garment in motion caught from the corner of his eye, and stark terror usurped his joy. It did not take a minute to understand what was happening. He had helped run Herodians when he was a ground-level man.

He fought the panic. Panic was the enemy’s ally. If he refused to let it control him he might find a way out. Up to a rooftop. Down into a basement. They could not cover everything. He tried to remember how some victims had gotten away back when he was on the other end.

Then he realized that they must know who they were running. They had been waiting for him. They knew he had gone inside. The promotion … A ploy to send him scurrying to Cado, to betray himself?

Then it would not matter if he evaded them. They would catch him at home. They might tell Reyha …

He did panic then.

He ran.

All he could think of was getting back to General Cado. The Herodians took care of their own.

The soldiers of the Living were good. There came a moment when he was standing in the street, uncertain which way to go. A block behind, four vague shapes walked his way. Three men waited in each mouth of a cross street. Nothing lay ahead but haze lighted greenly by the moon. He went the direction they wanted him to go. And as he started a man stepped into his path, a limping silhouette. A man he knew.

“You can stop running now, Naszif. You have nowhere to go. Come. Walk with me. Quietly. Unless you’d rather I let those others know who you are.”

“No! By Aram, don’t.” He giggled. How long since he had sworn by Aram and meant it? If secretly, he had adopted Herod, faceless god and all.

He was a vice-colonel, damn it. They would not murder him. They would ransom him. Trade him for somebody. He wished he had told Cado he thought the man Hadribel was going to take over in the Hahr instead of saving that for later. The Living would trade him and more to get a khadifa back.

“Come. Let’s walk.” The voice was harder now. “We’ll go to my house and talk.”

“Your father…”

“Is a harmless old man. He’s nearly blind, and his hearing is what you would expect of someone his age. And he’s dying. He’s much too preoccupied with that to care about you.”

Naszif glanced around.

“Yes. They’re out there. Come. They’re death. I’m life.”

Resignation swept over Naszif. Almost, he felt relieved. There were no pressures now. No need to pretend. Everything was in other hands.

*   *   *

“You’ll be watched. If you leave home, you’ll be followed. If you move toward Government House you’ll be killed. Good night.” Bel-Sidek closed the door, leaned against it. A long night, not over yet, and he was supposed to return to Meryel’s when it was done. “You heard, sir?”

“Every word. A vice-colonel in the Herodian army. The human animal never ceases to amaze me. We know traitors seldom act out of fear and less often out of greed. We seldom fathom what
does
motivate them.”

Bel-Sidek muttered, “He never took anything but the salaries due him as a Herodian officer.”

“A traitor for love. The triumph or defeat of Qushmarrah meant nothing to him when the struggle meant he had to be separated from his wife while she gave birth. He sold Qushmarrah for that. And that bastard Bruda really tried to get him here in time.” The old man chuckled. “Those slimy bastards always keep their word. Damn them.”

“He’s really a vice-colonel? That commission isn’t just a piece of paper they gave him?”

“It was real. Oh, if they pulled him out of here they wouldn’t turn him loose with a field command. He isn’t qualified. But something administrative, yes. A job like Bruda’s, in Tuhn or Agadar.”

“My hold on him is inadequate, then. I should have killed him.”

“He’ll remain controllable as long as he doesn’t get near Cado. And for as long as it takes him to find the nerve to tell his wife that he’s become a ranking Herodian officer. If his love is as strong as it seems, I suspect the depths of hers will reflect it and she’ll be up to accepting what he is.”

“Then I do have no choice.”

“He’s still vulnerable. Through his weakness. Love. You will tell him that we have his son and will hold him as a surety for his performance.”

Startled, bel-Sidek asked, “
Do
we have him?”

“No. But I’ll put that best man of mine on it and we will have him when the time comes. I’ll have you take a message to Muma’s in the morning. You can inform the man anytime afterward.”

“Yes sir. How are you, sir? Do you need me?”

“Told the woman you’d be back to discuss shipping schedules, did you? Go ahead. I’m tougher than you like to think, Khadifa. I’ll survive.”

8

Aaron watched Laella carefully throughout breakfast. He could see no sign that sleep had worked any miracles and given her the answer that had eluded him for six years. Mish watched them both in that way she did when she knew what had happened between them in the dark, looking for he knew not what, but causing knots in his guts. Arif ate somberly and delicately while Stafa flew around the house chattering nonsense as he pursued some imaginary adventure, deaf to parental admonition. Raheb was closed in upon herself, maybe feeling her age.

Laella said, “I’ve got to do some marketing today.” Thinking out loud.

Her mother said, “I’ll go with you. I need to get some things.”

Mish went into her pout immediately, for which Aaron was almost grateful.

Arif asked, “Can I go with you, Mom?”

“We’ll see how you behave this morning.”

Mish brightened some. She rose and started making Aaron a lunch.

Aaron said, “I won’t need that today, Mish. We’re only working half a day.”

She looked like she could not make up her mind if she should be delighted or distraught.

Aaron yawned, caught Stafa on the fly, hugged him as he squealed and wriggled, trying to get loose. He extended a hand, inviting Arif. Arif looked unhappy for a moment, quietly jealous of his brother’s facile way of getting attention. Then he plunged forward. Aaron let Stafa make good his escape—which amounted only to a furious dash in a circle which ended with a plunge onto his father’s back—and took Arif into his arms.

That started the whole ritual of, “Do you have to go to work today, Dad?” and “Stay home, Dad,” which finally ended with him bolting out the door.

He moved into the street feeling warm and content with his life and lot. Every man should be so loved and lucky.

Bemusedly, he reflected that he had not had a nightmare for two nights now.

“Aaron.”

He looked up. “Bel-Sidek. Good morning. How is your father doing?”

“He’s as busy as ever dying. He’ll outlive us all. On your way to work?”

“Yes.”

“Mind if I walk with you?”

“Of course not.”

They walked in silence awhile, Aaron slackening his pace so his companion would not work so hard descending the hill. He could not help glancing over occasionally. He had been acquainted with bel-Sidek for years, and knew the man survived by scrounging odd jobs around the waterfront, but they’d never spent any time together.

After a while, bel-Sidek sort of sighed and said, “I guess there isn’t any way to get at it but to go straight ahead.”

“What?”

“You seem to be a fairly trustworthy man, Aaron. So I’m going to take a chance on you. I belong to the Living.”

Aaron looked at him and frowned. “Everybody thinks that, anyway. Why are you telling me?”

“I am, in fact, a moderately important part of the command structure of the Living, Aaron. Mostly because I was a commander of a thousand at Dak-es-Souetta. Yesterday one of the men who fought for me there came to me for some advice. He doesn’t know I’m with the Living and he wouldn’t name names, but what he did say gave me enough to reason out the rest for myself.”

Aaron stopped. He looked at his neighbor blankly. Inside he was in a complete state of confusion, panic fighting with wonder fighting with relief. He did not know what
to
say or what to do. He could not think. Aram!

“What I want from you, Aaron, is for you to forget all about this. All about what happened at the Seven Towers. It’s been taken care of.”

“Hell, man, he had a wife and kid.” No way to stop it once it stuck its head out of his mouth. His tongue was a treacherous serpent. “You have to
think
before you go cutting throats. They didn’t have anybody else in the world. What the hell are they going to do now? Your kind never think about that when…”

People were pausing to look at him before they hurried away. Bel-Sidek looked like he was in shock. But recovering. “Be quiet, Aaron! What’s the matter with you?”