She zipped it open and brought out the Walther first, held it as she looked in the bag. "T-shirts," Dara said, "and girls' panties," bringing out a pair and going into the bag again.
Xavier didn't look at the panties, he was watching Jama, Jama going for the gun, had hold of it as Xavier stepped in to hit him with his big left hand balled up, threw it hard against Jama's clean-shaved face to turn him around stumbling, almost going down. Now he was running away from them, glancing around once, but not running as fast, Xavier judged, as he could.
Xavier said, "Gimme it," took the Walther from Dara, aimed at Jama sprinting up the rue de Marseille, fired three rounds at him, the gunshots loud in the street of buildings, and the Walther clicked empty.
A half block away Jama the college boy stopped and yelled something at them Xavier couldn't make out. He started to run off again, stopped and yelled something else and took off past the Djibouti Airlines office.
"Isn't flyin anyplace today," Xavier said, "is he? I missed some of what he was tellin us."
"He pointed at us and said, 'You two are next.' Like he has an agenda," Dara said, "for killing people. Why do bad guys take themselves so seriously?"
"'Cause they dumb."
"Jama's not dumb. Sometimes he sounds street, but I think he's putting it on."
"What else he say?"
"Before, when he walked past me, I said, 'James…?' I don't know why. Because he's American? I don't know. He hesitated then and we started talking, but pretty soon it got edgy and you showed up."
"James," Xavier said. "We know that much. He made Jama out of James when he went Arab. Have to figure what name Raisuli came from." He stepped out to the street where Dara was looking up at Harry and Idris in separate third-floor windows, shutters wide open.
Harry's voice came to them. "Did you get him?"
"I ran out of ammo," Xavier said. "I should've had one of your machine guns."
"Do you want to come up for a drink?"
"I think we gonna wait for the police," Xavier said. "Somebody must've called them."
"I did," Harry said. "The chief happens to be a friend of mine. They should be here shortly. They'll want to ask you about Jama," Harry said, "since you were shooting at him. That was Jama, wasn't it?"
Xavier looked at Dara.
"How'd he know that?" "HIS AMERICAN NEGRO ACCENT," Harry said.
They were in the Twins' apartment again.
"I could hear it clearly. That 'Yessuh boss' way they have. But he didn't call you boss, did he? I said to Idris-we went to the window-'Who is that guy?' Idris didn't hesitate, he said, 'Jama?' We both knew he would try to disguise himself. It's curious, when he speaks Arabic you don't hear the American Negro sound."
The police arrived. The police chief in a suit and tie, a big man, heavy, said, "Yes, I will have one of your cocktails." His aide in uniform stayed with him to listen to Miss Dara Barr's story and take notes. The police chief said, "So this is the one murdered five people a few days ago. Now has us believe he's the student of a university."
"There's a reward if he's taken alive," Harry said, "and I deliver him to the American embassy."
"I catch him," the police chief said, "I can deliver this one."
Harry said, "Yes, but I've already spoken to them about it. He's on their list."
"If I don't have to shoot him," the police chief said. "This is a desperate man we looking for."
Idris mixed cocktails, raising his eyes to Dara, and seemed to shake his head. Dara would have one drink, that's all, as Harry explained that Jama was not wanted dead or alive. "They made it clear he has to be taken alive if we expect to collect a reward, possibly in the neighborhood of a million dollars."
"You told me before," the police chief said, accepting the cocktail from Idris, "it would be something less than that."
"Dara Barr, in the meantime," Harry said, "has had meetings with the embassy's regional security officer. Ms. Schmidt has agreed to our delivering Jama into their custody."
The police chief of Djibouti said, "Yes, Miss Suzanne Schmidt? Yes, I know her well. I see her from time to time at the Racquet Club."
Dara said in her pleasant voice, "You play tennis?"
"Why?" the police chief said. "You think I'm too heavy?"
Xavier said, "Chief, you got the size to play anythin you want." Xavier got up from his chair and produced the Walther from the back of his waist.
"What you lookin at here is the murder weapon, the one Jama used on the five people." He held the pistol by the barrel offering it to the police chief, who took the grip in his hand. "It had my prints on it," Xavier said. "Now it has yours on top of mine. But me and you never killed anybody with it, have we?" ON THE WAY TO the Kempinski Dara said, "Poor Harry, he wanted to scream at the cop, 'He's mine. Keep your fucking hands off him.' While he's trying to maintain his Brit cool."
They were following the Avenue Admiral Bernard now in the dusk, the blanket of Djibouti's lights behind them.
"What we'd like to know," Xavier said, "is Jama gonna hang around or go on home, tired of this Arab shit."
"I don't know," Dara said, "he's been shooting anybody he wants for the past seven years. I think he's the kind keeps score. He told Idris he shot a man for selling cans of soda the man kept on shaved ice. You know why? They didn't have shaved ice in Mohammed's time. It was Qasim told him to do it. Jama said to him, 'There weren't any AKs around in Mohammed's time either.' Qasim told him the AKs were Allah's gift to them to cleanse the world of nonbelievers, and Jama said okay then. But I don't think he's going home, not just yet."
"How about us," Xavier said, "we goin or stayin?"
Dara said, "If I'd been shooting what's going on…"
At the hotel desk a phone message was waiting.
"From Billy," Dara said. "He wants us to call him tomorrow."
Xavier said, "One thing after another, huh?"
Dara said, "Let's stop in the bar and talk about it."
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
BILLY KEPT PEGASO TRAILING the gas ship by a mile, following its lights at night, the thousand-foot tanker making ten knots all day and through the night. The wind would stir up behind Pegaso and Billy would tack to hold the distance between them, Billy searching his memory for the time an LNG accident happened in the U.S. A major disaster. He believed it was in Cleveland.
Helene, with him in the cockpit, sat perched in a tall director's chair, so far this morning wearing shorts and a T-shirt. She was looking at an issue of Architectural Digest from two years ago that featured the pages of Billy Wynn's home on Galveston Island overlooking miles of gasworks. The spread opened with: "Billy Wynn, the whirlwind Texas entrepreneur with countless commercial irons in the fire-" Helene stopped.
"I thought you were an oil man."
"Basically," Billy said. "I keep my hand in for the family, bunch of old farts-God bless 'em-still living in the past. My decorator, Anne Bonfiglio, calls the house Texas Tudor. Has a bowling alley and two swimming pools, one inside." Billy said, "How come it took you so long to find the magazine?"
"I don't usually look at Architectural Digest unless I'm waiting like to get a Pap smear, at a doctor's office. I didn't have to find it, you've got at least thirty copies."
Billy said, "The most destructive LNG accident I think was at Cleveland in '44. Look it up for me, okay? Blow up an LNG tanker I imagine would be a terrorist's wet dream."
Helene opened her notebook and turned pages, looking at headings over transcripts and handwritten notes. MISSING SHIP LOCATED, only one page. HOW RANSOM IS DIVIDED, three pages.
Billy was watching the gas ship again, dead ahead, not more than a mile. A man on the fantail was looking at Billy through binoculars.
DETAINEE WENT FROM GITMO TO AL QAEDA, three pages.
Billy picked up his glasses and was eye to eye with the man on the fantail. "He's a Mohammedan," Billy said.