For all his misgiving about being held a hostage, he could think of much worse treatment. Yet he felt a twinge of guilt when he thought of Jen, the grad student he had been living with this last month. He had been helping the poor woman sort through her confusion over the consequences of the mission. Now, here he was consorting with this Arab beauty in the night, in Syria, of all places, which is where he surmised this place to be.
Samirah never spoke, at least not with words that he could understand. Yet the language of her body was clear and obvious across all cultural barriers. She meant to give him pleasure, undoubtedly at the behest of the leaders of this group, and she played her role with a skill that left Paul exhausted when she was through, wanting only sleep and the last warm embrace of her body next to his. Perhaps they meant to kill me with kindness, he thought. It was said that you could catch more flies with honey than vinegar, but he had little doubt that the other leader, the one they called the Sami, might prefer harder methods. What did these people want from him? Why were they holding him here? When would he get a chance to contact his friends at home?
He watched while Samirah quietly set the little tray she had been holding down beside a pillowed cushion. She reached for the small brass pot, and Paul saw that her hand was shaking slightly as she poured a thick liqueur into the porcelain cup. It had a scent akin to kahlua, yet with something added—probably hashish, Paul guessed. Samirah poured, her hand unsteady, almost quavering, and Paul wondered if she was chilled. The lower rooms where he was quartered became very cold at night, and the sun had long since set.
He leaned up on one elbow to take the cup but, as he did so, he sensed something wrong with the woman at his side. The light from the oil lamp revealed a trace of wetness on her cheek, and Paul saw the glistening trail of a tear there. She was crying!
As if aware of his attention, Samirah turned her head to one side, but Paul could see that she was only pretending to tend to the pot of liqueur, averting her face from him.
“Samirah?” he said. “What’s wrong?” He knew she would not understand his question, but his tone of voice carried the meaning clear enough.
She turned to him. Eyes bright with tears, and a squall of pain darkening her softly contoured features. She seemed to be struggling with some emotion, her lower lip quivering as she fought for control. Then, in a sudden motion that surprised Paul she reached out with her slim brown arm and batted the porcelain cup away, spilling the sweet, dark liqueur on the flagstone floor. Before Paul could react to that, she lunged at him, her arms embracing him as she wept.
For the hundredth time in this strange encounter, Paul found himself inwardly wondering what was going on. It was clear that Samirah was deeply moved by something. Her arms tightened around him, pulling him close, and her lips sought the nook of his neck where she kissed him softly, tenderly, with an affection that seemed driven by the turmoil within her. It was as if she was trying to say goodbye, he thought. His heart leapt at a sudden sound. There was a dry scrape as the wooden door creaked open and he heard the whisk of metal being drawn from a leather scabbard. Someone else was entering the room, a shadow advancing on them with weapon in hand.
18
The shadow vaulted across the room, prompting Paul to tense up with sudden anxiety. He instinctively rolled to his side to shelter Samirah, who lay upon him, in harm’s way. A fearful revelation pulsed in his brain and made him realize that this was the end of the long hospitality he had enjoyed here. He extended his arm, to ward the intruder off but, to his great surprise and relief, he saw the face of Jabr Ali S’ad illuminated in the ruddy glow of the lantern.
Jabr rasped something in Arabic, and Paul felt Samirah’s soft body tense up. She moved at once, gathering herself and drawing her robes tight about her slim body. “Come, Do-Rahlan!” Jabr’s whisper carried the weight of great urgency. “You cannot stay here this night. We must move quickly!”
He spoke to Samirah again, somewhat harshly. Paul saw how he eyed the stain of the spilled liqueur. How could he berate the woman for that? Yet, Samirah was clearly shamed. Her head lowered, face streaked with tears. Paul had the distinct impression that he was missing something in the equation, but he sensed the danger and rising tension in the room. He started to move, reflexively, pulling his loose robes tight and tying them off with a woven sash. As he stood up he turned to see Samirah, hastening away through the opening in the wood lattice. Jabr’s dark eyes followed her, but with little warmth.
“What’s happening?” he asked, his eyes instinctively searching the darkness for signs of hidden danger.
“The Sami’s men are moving tonight. A severed head was planted in the courtyard moments ago. It is a sign of evil. There is no time to explain, but we must go—and with great haste. Follow me, Do-Rahlan. It will be dark, and you will not know the way. Here, hold fast to the sash of my robe, and stay close. Move as quietly as you can. Come!”
Jabr led the way to the far end of the room and through a low stone arch there. It was the same passage that they had taken the previous morning on the way up to the Kadi’s council chambers, and the same two dour guards were waiting silently in the shadows as they passed the gate. This time they bent right to another landing where the stairs fell in a steep descent. As before, one of the guards took the van, drawn sword in hand. Jabr and Paul followed after, and then the last guard trailed in their wake.
The winding stone stair seemed interminable. Along the way he was dogged by the feeling of urgency that seemed to infect Jabr and the two guards. Then an odd thing happened. About half way down, by Paul’s reckoning, he heard the shuffling of other footsteps behind them. He strained to see, but the lighting was very poor here, and he could not make out what the commotion was before the sour faced guard came up from behind to nudge him on. Jabr had noticed his hesitation, and pleaded with him to hurry on, clearly worried. Paul’s legs ached by the time they halted at the bottom. It was a small Donjon, sturdily built with heavy mortared bricks and a low arch formed from wedges of coarsely hewn stone. The atmosphere of the place had a musty, muggy feeling, and he could see the gleaming trails of water seeping through cracks in the walls, and greenish moss on the stonework.
“Hold on,” he said. “Where are you taking me?”
Jabr gave him a wide-eyed glance, his finger covering his mouth to indicate silence. “We must be very cautious now,” he whispered. “We must move you to a new location, a hidden chamber. I will explain later.”
That’s done it, Paul thought. There was some unresolved argument between the Sami and the Kadi, and now he was being moved. He began to realize, with a sinking feeling, that he was probably a hostage after all. The two sides were just quarreling over his fate. Perhaps the argument was over whether he should be kept alive as a propaganda tool, or killed outright, like many Westerners had been slain at the hands of Muslim radicals in recent years. The only hope he held was the notion that this group seemed to want him alive.
He hurried on, through the low arch and down a long circuitous underground route that eventually ended in a black iron gate. Jabr produced a key, and the gate grated open. “I regret that our accommodations will not be so comfortable now,” he said, gesturing for Paul to pass through.