The Search for Yaser Abdel Said (Part 49)

CHAPTER 49:

SO EXCITING!

SO DELIGHTING!

Maybe if he had been Sergeant York with a steel pot on his head and a Model 1917 Enfield Rifle in his hands he might have stood a chance or if he had been Audie Murphy in a burning Panzer tank armed with a machine gun he wouldn’t have cared how many Mujahideen stormed into the crowded little room but he was Bernard Piffy, a temporary ten-year-old boy disguised as a girl with a wig on his head and a crop top Bratz bra and nylon-lycra rosebud panties under his borrowed dress. The only reason he hadn’t been shot dead was because the Mujahideen had mistaken him for a girl.

“Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!” screamed Sheikh Rahman al-Kabibble, his Marquis de Sade eyes wild with fright.

“Drop the gun!” Nadjibullah shouted at the ten-year-old. “Drop the gun!”

That was the last thing Piffy wanted to do. He would need General Patton in the future and he had no intention of giving him up. “It isn’t loaded!’ he said, popping out the empty cylinder.

And indeed it wasn’t. In the few ticks of the clock between the gun hitting the floor and the Mujahideen rushing into the room, Piffy had retrieved the weapon, removed the bullets from the cylinder and had stuffed them into his crop top until his cup was running over.

Loading and unloading a gun in the twinkling of an eye was a trick he had learned during his first months as a private detective. With nothing to do but sit in his office waiting for clients, hoping people would mistake him for Mike Hammer, he had practiced loading and unloading a variety of weapons as quickly and as unobtrusively as possible. He could unload a jammed Schmeisser machine pistol quicker than David Copperfield could make Pappy Yokum disappear into a Dogpatch outhouse. It took a little longer to load one—but not much. A Colt Single Action pearl-handled .45 caliber 1873 Army Revolver was child’s play.

But Nadjibullah hadn’t been privy to the child’s wizardry. He thought the weapon was loaded. “Drop the gun!” he screeched.

Piffy winced. Maybe he had better do as ordered. Nadjibullah looked more like Osama bin Laden than he did Elton John. He could retrieve the weapon later—maybe. He laid the 1873 Army Revolver on the floor.

Nadjibullah picked up the gun. He checked it over carefully, turning it round and round in his hands. It was empty! How could that be? He had heard only one shot. There should be five more bullets in the cylinder. A gun of that size with only one bullet in it didn’t make sense. The Sheikh always kept it fully loaded.

“We were playing a game,” explained al-Kabibble. He had already made up his mind. No one—not Nadjibullah, not Osama bin Laden, not all the Mujahideen in Gaza, not al-Qaeda would deprive him of the girl of his dreams. He would protect her from the fires of hell—from Islam itself, if necessary…

Nadjibullah eyed the Sheikh suspiciously. The Holy Man was sitting on the floor in a room full of little girls with his legs exposed almost to the thighs, his arms twisted behind his back and partially concealed by the bulky djellaba he was wearing. It was a most indecorous position. He seemed to have been crying. But it was not Nadjibullah’s place to ask embarrassing questions—he was a mere Captain of the Guard and the Sheikh appeared none the worse for wear and tear.

“Give the gun back to the child,” ordered al-Kabibble.

Nadjibullah hesitated.

“It’s empty,” said the Sheikh. “Give it back.” He knew he was taking a chance. General Patton had been fully loaded when he had entered the room. Maybe little Fatima had emptied it. Sure, that’s what it was. Anyway what harm could an empty gun be in the hands of so delightful a little ten-year-old girl as Krista?

Nadjibullah muttered something under his breath before handing General Patton to Piffy. The gun would be loaded with bullets from the ten-year-olds crop top before Nadjibullah left the room!

Al-Kabibble had a few more words for the Captain. “I thought I told you to go to lunch,” he remonstrated. “I am disappointed in you, Nadjibullah. Were they out of Jihad Cola? If you do not do a better job of obeying orders I will put you on report and you will not be eligible for this year’s Yasser Arafat Steadfastness Award.” Whether the anger was real or feigned it was difficult to tell but he winked twice at Piffy and once at Fatima.

There was not much Nadjibullah could say. The Sheikh was in no jeopardy. If the Holy Man had been under duress he would have been freed the moment the Mujahideen had burst into the room. But the Sheikh gave not the slightest evidence of any problem. He appeared irritatingly normal.

“Go, go!” urged al-Kabibble.

Nadjibullah’s companions had already stowed their weapons. It was time to leave. The Captain looked at Piffy. There was something about the little bitch that disturbed him. She acted as if she was somebody important. He would have to keep an eye on her. He bowed to al-Kabibble and, followed by his brave Mujahideen, he left the room.

An enraptured Fatima stared at Piffy. “You are indeed the Christ Child!” she said breathlessly.

“Put your clothes on!” snapped Piffy. “We’ve got to get out of here!”

“Well, children,” said the Sheikh, “are you ready for a little ride in my limo? It’s an 18 passenger SUV. Have any of you ever ridden in an 18 passenger SUV? I’ll bet you haven’t.”

“Does it have running boards?” asked Piffy.

“Where are we going?” asked Aisha.

The Sheikh struggled awkwardly to his feet. “Anywhere you want, sweetie,” he said. “Now will someone please untie me?”

“Only if you promise not to try anything funny,” said Piffy

“Cross my heart and hope to die,” smiled the Sheikh. He was over his fright and was as excited as could be at the thought of becoming one of the Little Rascals. He was actually beginning to enjoy himself. Such repartee…such camaraderie…one did not find this at Al Azhar or the Sorbonne…or dare he say—in the Mosque?

Piffy stepped close to al-Kabibble; the General Patton huge in his tiny hand. He made sure he had the Sheikh’s close attention and then, suddenly, he flipped the gun end for end, popped the cylinder, removed the bullets, displayed then in the palm of his hand, returned them to the cylinder and flipped the gun end for end again. It was an amazing demonstration. If the Sheikh had looked away for a second he would have missed most of it.

Obviously Al-Kabibble was impressed. It took him longer to stuff just one bullet into the cylinder then it had taken the child to load and unload the entire chamber! How could this precocious little ten-year-old girl be so adept in the handling of such a dangerous weapon? A thrill coursed through his body. Had the act been performed to intimidate him—to frighten him? No matter. It hadn’t. It made him desire her all the more. Oh, he would get the best of her—he would master her in the boudoir, tame her spirits. But for now he would bide his time—be one of them.

In a matter of seconds, the precocious little flirt, showing the same manual dexterity she had displayed with General Patton, untied the Sheikh and he was free!

Free! Yes, he was free! It was amazing—Moulin Rouge Amazing! She was Spectacular! Spectacular! So exciting! So delighting! No words of the vernacular can describe this event. You’ll be dumb with wonderment. He felt giddy…giddy…would the wonderment never cease?

By now Fatima had dressed but Hanadi was still naked. Aisha gestured at the latter. “What do we do with her?” she said. She had asked that question before.

“We’ll have to take her with us,” said Piffy. “If we don’t, she sure as hell will talk” He wrapped the General Patton in a towel and stuffed it in a shopping bag. It wouldn’t do to carry it around in his hand.

He glanced at Hanadi. “Untie her legs and throw a burka over her,” he ordered.

Al-Kabibble was vigorously massaging his wrists. Yes, wonderment, wonderment! He looked at Hanadi. He wondered what he had ever seen in her. Of course, he had had only the one picture. “Yes” he nodded. “We will take her with us—by all means” His eyes were sparkling and a trickle of drool was coming from the corner of his mouth.

Piffy went to the door, peeked out into the corridor. It was deserted. He was beginning to feel invincible. He wasn’t Moses and they weren’t Israelites but he felt as close to the Bible as he had ever been. He was leading his people into a brave new world—yes, his people! It was a low-budget Exodus.

They slipped noiselessly down the corridor, the Sheikh and his four charges, or if one preferred to be correct, Bernard Piffy with Aisha, her friend and Bernie’s two captives. Maybe he was Moses.

The Madrassas was deserted. No one was about. Perhaps it was prayer time. If someone had seen them they would not have paid much attention. It was a Sheikh and a handful of little girls. It was as it should be. Perhaps Nadjibullah was treating everybody to Jihad Cola in the cafeteria. He was a good man but Bernard Piffy was better.

On this day the gods were watching over the little children

The Sheikh’s limo was parked in the courtyard in front of the administration building. It was an 18 passenger SUV, just as the Sheikh had promised. It sat there like a giant loach it’s ivory skin soaking up the sun like an Oasis in the middle of the Sahara.

A bored attendant lounging near the vehicle’s rear door snapped to attention as they approached. “Salaam alaikum,” he said with a bow and the door swung open and the ‘girls’ piled into the 18 Passenger SUV.

Piffy was impressed. He had never been in a limo before—covered wagons were more his natural habitat. He liked to call the driver Pardner or Tex, not Jeeves or Mahmoud. Giddy up and Turn west at the water hole made sense. Take the Expressway to the Media Center was confusing. He was a country boy.

He remembered a Muslim prayer he had learned at the London Madrassas—the one all good Muslims were supposed to utter before entering a vehicle. How did it go? Oh, yeah:

“O Allah, You are our Companion on the road and the One in Whose care we leave our family. O Allah, I seek refuge in You from the journey’s hardships, and the wicked sights in store and from finding our family and property in misfortune upon returning.”

Wicked sights? Misfortune? If that meant roadside bombs and execution squads then Islam hadn’t changed much in 1,400 years.

But he liked the limo. If he stuck around in his present form a few more years he could get to appreciate one of these things. He could see himself as a teenager. He would graduate from high school with honors, become Prom King, wear a tux and drink champagne from Aisha’s slipper. But that would be down the road a ways. Right now he was more Prom Queen than King but he was with Aisha and that was what mattered.

But he had better get a hold of himself He had to stop thinking like a ten-year-old. He was an adult—an adult in the body of a child.

He set the shopping bag with the 1873 Army Revolver wrapped in a towel on the floor. There wasn’t anything he didn’t like about the limo—the new smell, the posh upholstery, the myriad TVs, the bar with the sparkling rows of champagne glasses, the sun filtering in through the skylight. He expected Bill Maher to pop out of one of the TVs with a joint in one hand and Jerry Falwell’s scalp in the other. For Bernard Piffy this was as decadent as it got.

An excited Fatima bounced up and down on the cushions. Aisha looked bewildered.

“Now where to do you girls want to go first?” asked the Sheikh.

“How about the beach?” suggested Piffy. He would need a place away from the Madrassas to lay low for a while and to think things over—to plan his next move.

“Someone will have to tell the chauffeur,” said the Sheikh.

“I will,” said Piffy and he was out the door before al-Kabibble could protest.

He slipped along the side of the SUV toward the driver’s compartment. A man was talking to the chauffeur. The man was Duldul!

The ten-year-old stopped dead in his tracks! Good grief! What in the hell was the donkey-master doing here? He was supposed to be dead, wasn’t he? He had gone to his reward with the Mutaween rat-bags in the stable, hadn’t he? But here he was and except for the bandage on his right hand he appeared as hale and as hearty as he had the night he had stuffed little Bernie Piffy into an empty jar of cooking oil!

The chauffer was doing the talking. He had a low musical voice and the donkey master was nodding and glancing nervously over his shoulder.

Piffy flattened himself against the side if the SUV. He couldn’t hear what was being said but he had an eerie feeling that it had something to do with him. He edged cautiously toward the front of the vehicle.

He hadn’t taken more than a couple of steps when he caught sight of the chauffer. If Duldul had been a shock, he must have been a one on the Richter scale for driver was a ten!

The ten-year-olds mouth popped open and his knees buckled! The last time he had seen that shriveled-up old wreck with the leathery jowls and the rheumy eyes had been in the sub-basement beneath M17 headquarters in the prison annex

It was Bonds—Stockton Bonds!