“You’re hurt,” I said, as we turned our headlights on and started north on the paved highway.
Pat nodded. “There’s a place not far from here, a safe place. I can call for help.”
“Yes,” I said, and then we were there, at the ruined Casbah.
Morning was coming, the day slowly unfurling itself across the valley, across the palm oases and the red cliffs, the great white prayer script that graced the opposite hillside. The roof we were on was ringed by tall ramparts, the wall notched out for defense or decoration or both. In the corner was the old stork’s nest, its twig-and-branch construction dense and solid.
“You have to go,” Pat said. “They’re coming.”
“Yes,” I agreed, but I didn’t move. I’d taken the burnoose off and torn it to put on the wound, but the makeshift bandage wasn’t working. Pat’s stomach was covered with blood.
“It’s okay,” he said. “I’ll be okay. Now stand up.”
For the first time I thought he might be right. I thought he was going to make it. I leaned down and kissed him, then forced myself to stand.
I woke in a sweat and threw my covers back. So I hadn’t killed him, I thought, staring up into the darkness, feeling the heat rise off my body. I hadn’t killed him, but he had died because of me, had died helping me. Murderer, I heard Werner say over and over as the dream receded and I drifted back to sleep. And then Charlie Phillips: That boy had it bad.
EIGHTEEN
“How does it happen?” I asked. Brian and I had left Ourzazate and were rattling up into the Atlas’s desert foothills in an ancient Land Rover.
“How does what happen?”
“This,” I said. “All of this. How did you become what you are? How did I?”
Brian downshifted and slowed, dodging two tourist vans that were stopped by the side of the road. “I’ve told you everything I know,” he said as we picked up speed again.
“Or everything you can.”
Out my window the road fell precipitously away, the crumbling hillside sweeping downward to a series of terraced dwellings, a village made of sticks and mud. Even here, on the bleak fringe of the Sahara, a handful of satellite dishes, like pale morning glories, perched among the settlement’s flat roofs. Makeshift power lines tapped the electric cable that ran along the highway.
“What do you think they watch?” I asked, pointing toward the receding village.
“Baywatch. Friends. MTV,” Brian hazarded.
“God, I hope not.”
“American culture at its best. The new imperialism.”
“You think it’s better than the old?”
Brian shrugged. “Who am I to judge? But whatever else is true, they love our blue jeans and our music. A couple of years ago I saw a kid wearing Nikes and a Michael Jordan jersey burning an American flag.”
“Where was that?” I asked, expecting no answer and getting none.
We drove on in silence for a few miles, dodging battered trucks and more tourist vans, the dinosaur traffic of the Moroccan road.
“Listen,” Brian said, finally. “I’m not lying. I’ve told you everything I know.”
“You mean everything they told you.” I watched his jaw flex once. “Did they tell you I have a kid?”
He shifted his hands on the wheel. His eyes didn’t move from the road ahead.
“I’ve got a kid somewhere,” I told him. “A little boy or a little girl. I don’t even know which. The doctor had to show me. She had to show me the scar. They didn’t tell you that, did they?”
Brian shook his head. “No,” he said. “They didn’t tell me.”
“Do you have a name?” I asked. “A last name?”
“Yes,” Brian said, but the acknowledgment was as far as he would go.
The engine whined into a lower gear, and we slowed to a crawl. The road was climbing hard now, and ahead of us an ancient public bus led a small caravan of slowed vehicles.
“I grew up in Pittsburgh,” Brian said, relaxing into his seat, giving in to the snail-like pace. “My dad’s an electrician, and my mom sells real estate. I’ve got an older sister who lives in Cleveland. Her husband’s a CPA. She’s a soccer mom.”
“And you wanted a life less ordinary?”
“I guess. I wanted to see the world at least. I joined the navy out of high school.”
“Is that how it works?”
“That’s how it worked for me. The agency came to me when I retired from the Special Forces.”
“And for others?”
“I don’t know exactly. Some come from the military. Some are just-” He paused, searching for the right words. “Some are just good at what they do.”
“I assume you’re not talking about cooking and sewing.”
Brian shook his head.
“I killed people, didn’t I? Was that one of my special talents?”
Again, Brian didn’t answer. I took his silence for a yes.
“You know about the sisters?” I asked. “About what happened at the abbey?”
“Yes.”
“Do you think it was Werner?”
“Who else?” He shrugged. “I’m sure he still has the connections to have tapped into the consular grapevine.”
Of course, I thought, watching Brian shift his hands on the wheel. He ducked out into the opposite lane and craned his head, looking for an opportunity to pass. Whoever had found me had done so through the consulate, through whatever efforts had been made to get me to the States. I was reminded of the pictures in Werner’s office, the grim record of slaughter, but still, something told me it wasn’t Werner who had killed the sisters. He didn’t seem like the kind of man to lie about such a thing, especially not to me, when his intentions had so obviously been not to release me, at least not alive.
No, I thought, someone else had murdered the sisters. Someone besides Werner had paved my way at customs. I was certain of it. Someone had put two and two together, the woman who’d been left for dead in that Burgundy field and an American trying to get home. The question, as Werner himself had pointed out, was who.
Brian found a clear moment, and we sped forward, overtaking the bus just before a blind curve.
“You don’t have any idea who I was working for?” I asked, as we slipped back onto the right side of the road.
Brian shook his head and punched the accelerator. “No.”
“But you believe it?” I asked. “You believe I’m a traitor?”
“Were,” he corrected me. “I believe you were.” The words were meant for me, a show of conviction, but it seemed to me it was himself he was trying to assure.
We came into Marrakech from the north, skirting the red walls of the medina and the stone-pocked cemetery outside the Bab el-Khemis, plunging down the Route Principale toward the Bab Larissa and the Avenue Mohammed V. We passed the Koutoubia Mosque, then turned onto the Rue Moulay Ismail, pulling to the curb in front of the Hotel Ali.
“Wait here,” I told Brian. Praying Ilham had kept my storage locker, I climbed out of the Land Rover and headed into the hotel’s lobby.
The proprietor was at the front desk, her hair neat as always, the blue eye shadow that colored her lids a perfect match to her djellaba, the robe a light azure shot through with gold threads. She smiled graciously when she saw me enter. “Mademoiselle!” she said, her smile fading to a scowl as I approached. “You have been ill?”
I nodded. I must have looked terrible. “I went to Ourzazate. I was too sick to travel back.”
“La pauvre!” she exclaimed, reaching out and taking my hand in hers. “I was so worried for you. Gone off without your things. I didn’t know what to tell your friend.”
“My friend?” I asked.
“Yes. She was here this morning. A friend from the States. She said you had gone on across the mountains, that you had sent her to get your things.”