Slim To None. Taylor Smith

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СКАЧАТЬ Suspicion and paranoia were all that had kept him alive thus far.

      He raised one massive hand. “Wait here.”

      He rapped lightly, then stepped into the sheikh’s quarters and shut the door behind him. After a brief rumble of voices, the door opened again and Bashir stepped out, giving Kenner a grudging flick of the wrist that signaled permission to enter.

      Inside, Salahuddin sat cross-legged on thick carpets, wearing a long white robe and crocheted skullcap, a wooden lap desk propped across his knees. He was working by the light of a brass oil lamp that hung by a chain from a pole set into the mosaic tiled floor. He gestured for Kenner to settle opposite him.

      Despite a long, wiry beard and bushy eyebrows, his face was deceptively benign, his eyes a gentle, doelike brown. Though he had no family outside of the men who followed him, he looked almost fatherly. On the occasions when Kenner had seen him issue an order condemning some poor sod to be flogged or shot, the sheikh’s expression left the impression that the ruling pained him more than the condemned man. Salahuddin was a political handler’s dream. A man with a face like that could be unstoppable, Kenner knew, having spent a lifetime supporting those whose ambitions meshed with the interests of his own masters.

      He had first met Salahuddin in Afghanistan, introduced by none other than Dick Stern, who was at the time working undercover, running anti-Soviet operations with the mujaheddin resistance. Salahuddin had showed up in the country for the first time in early 1989, just a few weeks before the Russians finally pulled out of Afghanistan. A young man of twenty-one who’d bought into the jihadist movement during a stint in prison, Salahuddin seemed disappointed to have missed out on the fun. Unschooled and largely illiterate, then as now, but intensely ambitious nonetheless, he went on from there to training camps in Syria and Yemen. Like Osama bin Laden, he was a follower of the strict Wahhabi strain of Islam, but there was little evidence that bin Laden had ever accepted Salahuddin as an equal or even a protégé in the struggle against the Zionists and western infidels—which played nicely into Kenner’s grand scheme of things. Salahuddin was a man desperate to be taken seriously.

      “Aasalaamu aleikum,” Salahuddin said, smiling benignly.

      Kenner settled cross-legged on the carpet and inclined his head briefly. “Wa-aleikum aassalaam.”

      “You cannot sleep?”

      “My duties prevent it. And you?”

      “Just so. I was just going to have some tea. Join me?”

      “Thank you.”

      Salahuddin took a brass pot from a tray at his side and poured out two cups of steaming tea that must have been brought in only moments before. Kenner winced as the sheikh dropped four lumps of sugar into each cup, turning the strong black stuff into syrup that Kenner found almost undrinkable. Many children in the town went without bread, but Salahuddin always had ample food and plenty of black market sugar for his sickly-sweet tea.

      “What is it that troubles you, Sheikh?” Kenner asked, glancing at the document spread out on the lap desk. It was a map of central Iraq, he noted.

      “The American and British forces are closing in,” Salahuddin said, passing a hand over the map. “Up until now, they have been concentrating on the major cities, but now that the larger centers are more or less secured, they are expanding their search for Saddam. I think the encounter with the American forces last week was only the first shot. I fear there will be others.”

      “They will not attack if they are sure of your cooperation.”

      “So you say. And yet, they shot my men.”

      “They could not have known they were your men, Sheikh. And the situation is confused at the moment. The Americans are still trying to sort out who to trust. That’s why you should let me speak to them for you.”

      “I think rather it is I who must decide if they can be trusted,” Salahuddin replied. “So far, I am not confident. And now, I hear, they have put a reward on my head because I brought the doctor in to care for the men they wounded.”

      Kenner sat back, confused for a moment until he realized what reward Salahuddin meant. “No, Sheikh, not on your head. The reward is for the safe return of the woman. And it is her family, not the American government that has sponsored it. Her father is a powerful and wealthy man. It may have been a mistake to take her.”

      “I did not know when I sent for a doctor that it would turn out to be an American woman. There had been an Iraqi doctor at the clinic before.”

      “Yes, sir, but he was a cousin of Saddam, as you know. He fled after Uday and Qusay were killed, fearing that the Americans would kill every Hussein they could get their hands on. The American girl arrived only a few days before your men took her.”

      “Nevertheless, I must have a doctor for my men and there is no other. Besides, if the Americans know that I hold a member of one of their wealthy families, they will think twice about sending their bombers and helicopter gun ships against me. And the jihadist forces, meanwhile, will know that Sheikh Salahuddin is a serious force to be reckoned with. They are scattered and disorganized. They need leadership. As more and more of them hear of our growing strength here, they will flock to our side.”

      Kenner sipped his tea and made a show of appearing to ponder the other man’s words. “P. T. Barnum,” he murmured.

      The sheikh frowned. “What?”

      “Barnum. He was an American showman of the nineteenth century. He believed that all publicity was good publicity.”

      Salahuddin raised his cup and nodded. “This Barnum was wise.”

      “My concern, Sheikh, is that you may not be safe as long as you hold her here. As I say, her father is an influential man. As long as she is in your command compound, someone may come looking for her. She is not worth the trouble.”

      Salahuddin sat silent for a bit, stroking his beard. “That may be,” he said finally, “but unless you can find another doctor for me, she must stay.”

      Kenner planted his hands on his knees, frowning. “I understand your concern for your men. It is a credit to your humanity and your leadership. However, keeping the infirmary here makes your forces a target and puts you yourself at unacceptable risk.”

      Salahuddin shrugged. “I will survive, inshallah. Or not. I do not fear martyrdom.”

      “I know that. I might suggest, however, that you not seek it before your time. You are of more use to your people and to Allah alive than dead.” He sighed. “At least let me move the infirmary and the doctor away from the center of operations, to the farm we commandeered outside of town. In that way, if the Americans do come looking for her, you and your fedayeen are not at risk of getting caught in the crossfire.”

      And, Kenner thought, the better I can control the situation, deciding whether and when it might suit my purposes to have Amy Fitzgerald show up dead rather than alive.

      The sheikh stroked his beard. “Perhaps,” he said. “Let me think on it.” Then he glanced out the window. “And now, my son, it is time to make wud’u and offer up our prayers. Guidance will come to those who believe.”

      Kenner bowed his head. “Inshallah.”

      CHAPTER

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