The Search for Yaser Abdel Said (Part 42)

CHAPTER 42:

HORATIO AT THE BRIDGE

Wheatley pulled away from St. Anthony. “Now look what you went and done!” she cried. “You got the mutt going!”

“It wasn’t my fault!” said St. Anthony. “You’re the one that kicked over the cage.”

“He’s going to wake the dead!” said Wheatley. “He’s going to ruin everything! Do you know how to stop him?”

“Oh, you can’t stop a guardian angel dog once they get started,” said St. Anthony.

“You can’t?” said Wheatley.

“No,” said St. Anthony. “They don’t stop howling until their mission is either completed or aborted.” He took some cotton from his pocket and stuffed it in his ears. He was taking no chances. The howl of a Christian guardian angel dog could cause deafness in children and the elderly.

Wheatley shut her eyes and clenched her teeth. It was the most ferocious howling she had ever heard! It was as if a thousand wolves had just heard of the death of Lon Chaney and were begging Dr. Frankenstein to restore him to life; as if a screaming gorgon were being serenaded by a chorus of banshees accompanied by Spike Jones and His City Slickers with King Kong ripping up streetcar tracks in the background.

The sound beat against the walls of the buildings that lined the street, set pottery to rattling, penetrated into the stable where Prince Chauncey was raising the sword of the Prophet high over the head of one Bernard Piffy.

‘What was that?” said the headman. He looked fearfully over his shoulder.

The Prince quavered, lowered the sword. He licked his lips, glanced nervously round the stable. The blow was yet to be delivered. Could he muster the courage to do the job? Maybe…

“You had better turn the dog over to me,” said St. Anthony. “He’s due for his 100-year checkup. That could be the reason he’s howling.” He smiled—and then lunged for the cage!

“Oh, no you don’t!” said Wheatley. She was quicker than the Saint and she got there first. She set the cage upright and stood in front of it.

“Give me the dog!” demanded St. Anthony.

“No!” said Wheatley. “I’ll turn the mutt loose before I’ll let you have him!”

“Gabriel won’t like this!” warned St. Anthony.

“I don’t care what Gabriel won’t like,” said Wheatley. And then something occurred to her and a rare smile crossed her colorless face.

“Hey! Wait a minute!” she said. “I know why the mutt is howling—it’s because Piffy’s in trouble! That’s it, isn’t it? The mutt is a guardian angel dog! Piffy’s in trouble! Yeah…and he’s got to be nearby or the mutt wouldn’t be howling!” She opened the cage door.

“Oh, my!” said St. Anthony.

Puppy dog shot from the cage like a silver bullet from a masked man’s gun. Down the street it went, Wheatley and St. Anthony in hot pursuit! It reached Duldul’s stable, slipped under the door and disappeared inside.

Wheatley stopped in front of the huge double-doors. “What do we do now?” she asked.

St. Anthony did not hesitate. He consecrated the stable door with Holy Water from his aspergillum and in the twinkling of an eye the heavy double-doors disappeared in a cloud of smoke! Was it a miracle? No, it was 22^nd Century science!

Wheatley was stunned. She shook her head. “Holy Crap!” she whispered. “That thing actually works!” She had had a close call! This St. Anthony dude was no guy to mess with!

But the scene that really took her breath away was the one that lay revealed as the smoke cloud in the stable dissipated—it was Islam unveiled, 1,400 years of hatred metastasized into a solitary fragment of time, the ten-year-old version of Bernard Piffy with his head on the chopping block and a buck-toothed Saudi Prince raising the sword of the Prophet high over the kid’s head—another Kuffar was about to be sent to his eternal doom!

But something had inserted itself into the Prince’s voluminous pantaloons and was ripping the garment to shreds and before the blade could descend, King Abdullah’s sixth nephew twice removed had thrown away the sword and had went into the Dance of the Seven Veils, whirling round and round as blood spurted in great gobs from his thighs and buttocks!

Duldul turned on Wheatley. “You!” he screeched. He drew a gun from inside his shirt, a nasty 9mm Sig Saur P250. But Miss Lash LaRue was quicker than a toad’s tongue on a lily pad covered with blood-flushed mosquitoes. The whip tore the gun and a thumb and a forefinger from Duldul’s hand!

St. Anthony leapt into the midst of the Mutaween flailing about with his aspergillum like Richard the Lion-Heart having a go at a Saracen horde. Leakage from the aspergillum’s perforated head set fire to one man’s shirt and caused another’s pants to burst into flame.

Several of the Mutaween took to their heels and puppy dog, having come out from what was left of Prince Chuancey’s pantaloons, chased after them, tearing the soles form their shoes as they ran. Such a screaming and pleading for mercy had never been heard!

The Prince sank to his knees. His advisers gathered round. “Get up! Get up!” they begged him. “We got to get out of here!”

Chauncey blinked. Like the inordinate fool he was, he retrieved the sword he had thrown away at the beginning of his mad dance. But before he could put it to use, his most trusted adviser, the loyal Tonoose, pried the blade from his hand

“Flee! Flee!” cried Tonoose “I will protect you!”

“Flee?” croaked Chauncey.

“Yes!” cried Tonoose. “Flee! I will protect you!”

Poor Tonoose! He had no choice. A Royal Advisor could not go back to Saudi Arabia should he fail to protect a prince of the realm. He would sacrifice himself to save Chauncey, that’s what he would do! He would be Horatio at the Bridge! He waved the sword over his head. “Come, my brave Mutaween!” he shouted. “To arms! To arms!

“‘I, with two more to help me, will hold the foe in play. Now who will stand on either hand, and keep the bridge with me?’”

“That’s pretty good poetry,” said Wheatley, “but aren’t you supposed to be quoting from the Qur’an?”

”Die Kuffar swine! Die!” screamed the Islamic Horatio!

“That’s more like it!” said Wheatley. “There’s nothing I like more than a good fight.”

Chauncey’s advisers rallied. They threw up their robes and drew their weapons, a veritable arsenal of bludgeons, knives, swords, shotguns and automatic pistols that would have terrified Ali Baba’s Forty Thieves.

“Oh, dear God!” cried St. Anthony. “I had hoped to avoid this!” He drew a second aspergillum from beneath his robe. It was larger than the first and emitted a strange pulsating light. “I hope the Lord will have mercy on you,” he said, “for I shall have none!” And he made the sign of the cross.

Wheatley flipped up the skirts of her burka and produced a 9mm Uzi. For a brief second she lost sight of Chauncey’s advisers but it scarcely mattered.

The Mutaween never had a chance. Accustomed to bullying women and terrorizing Christians, they were not prepared for the fog of war—the rat-tat-tat of Wheatley’s Uzi and the violence splashing from St. Anthony’s aspergillum. The headman went down, his head dissolving into a bloody stump and if Horatio made it across the bridge it was the bridge over the River Styx.

It was over in a matter of seconds and the floor was littered with their dead. Wheatley tucked the Uzi back in its pouch. She nudged Horatio with her foot. “What a stinking mess,” she said. “This is what I don’t like about these things.” She looked at St. Anthony. “If you’re not going to clean the place up, I suggest we burn it down.”

Puppy dog had raced over to Piffy and was licking the kid’s face.

The noise had brought the ten-year-old version of Bernard Piffy out of his lethargy. He sat up and pushed the dog away. He had been dimly aware of what had been going on while in his trance and realized he had escaped death by the narrowest of margins.

Oh, yeah, he had looked the grim reaper in the face and was still alive! He reached into his pocket for a chunk of the Black Transylvania garlic he always carried. He bit off a piece for himself and gave the rest to puppy dog.

St. Anthony sank to his knees beside the ten-year-old private detective. “I’ve come for the dog,” he announced.

“What?” said Piffy.

“I’ve come for the dog,” repeated St. Anthony.

Puppy dog hissed, nipped at St. Anthony and the guardian angel drew back.

Piffy scowled. What the hell was this? The only thing that had saved him from being decapitated was puppy dog and now this religious nut wanted the dog back? He thought this thing had been settled long ago. “You’re crazy!” he said. “You’ll get puppy dog when I’m damn well pleased to return him!”

“You don’t understand,” said St. Anthony.

Maybe Piffy didn’t understand but puppy dog did. The mutt let loose with a snarl that would have frightened Beelzebub. The mouth opened and the lips pealed back to reveal the extra set of teeth that lined the mutt’s lower jaw, teeth too small for a shark and too large for a piranha but perfect for tearing apart anything smaller than a wild boar or a Sumo wrestler.

St. Anthony rolled the handle of the aspergillum in his hand. “I have permission to kill the dog if you refuse to give him up,” he said.

Piffy blinked. This was preposterous! “The devil you say!” he said.

“No, the Lord says,” said St. Anthony. He drew back the aspergillum. He had just killed several men—taking a dog’s life, even the life of a guardian angel dog, would be nothing.

“I won’t let you!” cried Piffy.

“I am sorry,” said St. Anthony, “but the Lord’s will be done!”