The Search for Yaser Abdel Said (part 58)

CHAPTER 58:

“I WANT

MY PUPPY DOG!”

“Hello…M? This is Bonds—Stockton Bonds. I’m afraid the mission has been a failure. I am asking for permission to abort.”

“Abort?” said M. “Now don’t be hasty, Bonds”

Bonds was not being hasty. He had been crouching in a foot of water for more than an hour. He had managed to retrieve his cell phone but the lockbox with the flea was gone. So were Hamas, little Honey Rider, al-Kabibble and the others. He was alone with the remains of the limo and a curious little animal that looked like a cross between a packrat and a gerbil with a thyroid condition.

“Duldul’s dead,” he said. “I had to shoot him…him and Jaws. No…wait a minute it wasn’t Jaws. It was some other chap. He looked like Jaws…without the jaws. Or was it Oddjob? They’re all beginning to look alike. Anyway…Duldul’s dead and so is the other bloke and the flea is gone.”

“The flea is gone?” said M. “How could that be?”

“Well…” said Bonds. He shifted his weigh to his other foot. He would have to be careful what he said. “He was such a little itty-bitty guy. I lost track of him in the crossfire. A strange rodent-like animal ran off with the lockbox and the door was open so I think the flea escaped.”

“Escaped?” exclaimed M. “What am I going to tell Her Majesty?”

“Don’t tell her anything,” said Bonds. “I’ve got an idea. You used to belong to the Kennel Club, didn’t you? How about going down to the Kennel Club and picking out the largest St. Bernard dog you can find. Get the Royal Air Force to fix it up with a parachute.”

“A parachute?” said M.

“Well, you just can’t toss the mutt out of a plane,” said Bonds. “The RAF can make an air drop after dark …say, about ten o’clock. I’ll be waiting.”

“You want the RAF to drop you a Saint Bernard dog?” cried M. ” Have you gone mad?”

“I’m as sane as the day I was born,” said Bonds. “I can walk the mutt back and forth across the area where the flea disappeared. It will be like using a vacuum sweeper. If the little blighter is anywhere around I should be able to suck him right up. He should be pretty thirsty by now having been cooped up in that box all these days without anything to drink.”

“This is ridiculous!” exclaimed M.

“If the RAF doesn’t have a parachute to fit a St. Bernard maybe they can air drop a Mexican hairless in a hatbox,” said Bonds. “Should be easy to find a flea on a hairless dog.”

“A Mexican hairless?” said M.

“And don’t forget the keg of brandy that goes around the dog’s neck,” said Bonds. “It gets cold out here at night.” He paused. “What do you say? Willing to give it a shot?”

“Where in the Devil are you, Bonds?” demanded M.

“I’m in the bulrushes,” said Agent Six-and-seven-eights. “It’s a great hiding place—except for the ticks and the spiders. There’s one crawling up my leg right now…wait…that’s not a spider; it’s a scorpion!”

There came a long silence.

“Are you okay, Bonds?” asked M.

“I think so,” said Bonds. “My heart has stopped racing and I can still see out of one eye. I think my Snake Bite Kit has expired! Will I get hazardous duty pay for this?”

M sighed. “You’re not going to get hazardous pay, Bonds,” he said. “You were sent to Gaza to contact Duldul and see if this Bernard Piffy chap was involved in this flea business.”

“Well, that was a waste of time,” said Bonds. “Piffy was gone before I got here. I checked with the Abu Afaq Agency and they sent me to a monk named Tony who said Piffy was a small time dog thief who owed him three Hail Mary’s and a Novena.”

“A dog thief?” said M.

“That’s what the monk said,” said Bonds.

M was silent for a moment. When he spoke he spoke slowly. “Let’s see,” he said. “The man that broke into Lambeth Palace and stole the Archbishop’s personal papers, turned the toilet in his flat so that it faces in the direction of Mecca and shot up the Ahmad Madrassas is a dog thief that and owes some monk three Hail Mary’s and a Novena?”

“Yes. Weird isn’t it?” said Bonds.

“I’ll expect a full report,” said M.

“I’m going to wrap this thing up as soon as I can,” said Bonds. “I’ll have to say goodbye to Honey Rider before I leave. What a sweet little girl. She must be all of ten-years-old. Ten-years-old! Imagine that! And such an incorrigible little flirt! You’d love her. She’s a Maggie Thatcher in the making…”

He paused. There was a long silence.

“M?” said Bonds. “Are you still there?”

“How long has it been since you’ve had a vacation, Six-and-seven-eights?” asked M.

“Three months,” said Bonds

“How would you like to go to Kingston and search for the bones of Dr. No?” said M.

“Can I take Honey Rider?” asked Bonds.

M sighed. The older Agent Six-and-seven-eights got, the tougher he was to deal with. “You can expect the St. Bernard dog as soon as we get a fix on your location,” he said.

Honey Rider indeed!

There was no joy in Joe’s Bar and Grille and Gun Club that night. It was the day of the Fort Hood massacre—13 Americans dead, 31 wounded.

Joe…the Professor…Cowsnofsky…Ranch House…Salamander…there were more than a few wet eyes. The mood was so somber that when Blind Pew walked in at 8 o’clock he asked who died.

“America,” said Cowsnofsky.

To the boys who had hired Bernard Piffy to track down Yaser Abdel Said, the notorious Dallas cabdriver, who had murdered his daughters, Sarah and Amina Said, it was an old and frightening story—Hassan Akbar in Kuwait; Abdulhakim Muhammed in Little Rock; and now Nidal Malik Hasan at Fort Hood. And there had been Mohammad Reza Taheri-azar at Chapel Hill and Ramzi Yousef and Khaled Shaikh Mohammed at the first World Trade Center. Almost the entire clientele of Joe’s Bar and Grille and Gun Club were veterans. They were John Wayne American: Cump Sherman fearless.

“If it wasn’t religion, I don’t know what it was,” said Cowsnofsky.

“Don’t be hasty,” warned Dough Boy Brazil. “Don’t blame everything on religion.”

“Yeah,” said Ranch House. “The guy on MSNBC said we got plenty to be ashamed of ourselves and shouldn’t talk.”

“What have we got to be ashamed of?” challenged Fruit-fly Paznicky.

“Everything,” said Ranch House. “Slavery, racism, anti-Semitism, xenophobia, Islamophobia, interning the Japanese; ruining the environment, the gout; the Salem Witch Trials”

“Bill Clinton apologized for everyone of those when he was President,” said Cowsnofsy.

“Except for the Salem Witch trials,” said Salamander

“That’s because nobody asked him to,” said Joe.”

“And CAIR (Council of American-Islamic Relations) says—“ began Ranch House.

The Professor broke in. “CAIR?” he said. He turned on his laptop. “Let’s see what CAIR has to say. Ah, here it is…’No religious or political ideology could ever justify or excuse such wanton and indiscriminate violence.’”

“They always say that,” said Cowsnofsky. “The nut was screaming Allahu akbar for Christ’s sake! Tim McVeigh didn’t run away from the Murrah Building shouting, “Jesus saves!”

Crosshair scratched his head. “Hasan’s cousin said if he had killed only a couple of GIs it would have been okay, because it would have been normal…can you believe that?”

“He was being harassed because he was a Muslim,” said Wimpy.

“The Muslim Veterans Group says there’ve been no reports of harassment,” said Clydesdale.

The Professor opened his copy of the Qur’an. “Maybe this will throw some light on it,” he said.

“Qur’an 9:29 ‘Fight those who do not believe in Allah or the Last Day, who do not forbid that which has been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, or acknowledge the Religion of Truth (Islam), (even it they are) People of the Book (Christians and Jews), until they pay the Jizyah tribute tax in submission, feeling themselves subdued and brought low.’ (Another translation says: ‘pay the tax in acknowledgement of our superiority and their state of subjection.’)”

“Well, I couldn’t feel any lower or more subjected than I do right now,” said Mortimer.

“You’re paying the jizyah—that’s what you are doing,” said the Professor.

“Why do they do such things?” pondered J.D. “Nine-eleven…Little Rock…Fort Hood…and it’s not just here, it’s all over the world.”

The Professor laid his Qur’an on the bar. “It’s what’s in this book,” he said.

“Have you read it in the original Arabic?” asked Crosshair.

“As a matter of fact, I have,” said the Professor. “And I’ve come to the conclusion that inside every Muslim there’s a terrorist trying to get out. It’s Islam’s inner struggle—the one they’re always talking about but never bother to define.”

“I suppose you’ve got a quote for that too,” said Crosshair.

“Indeed, I have,” said the Professor:

“Tabari IX:69 ‘Killing disbelievers is a small matter to us.’”

“You ought to go on MSNBC,” said Crosshair. “You could debate that Olbermann guy.”

“Oh, good God, no!” said the Professor. “What do I know about Sarah Palin or Carrie Prejean?”

“Yeah,” laughed Joe, “almost as much as Olbermann knows about what’s going on in the world.”

“Or Chris Matthews,” said Ranch House.

“Oh, please,” said the Professor. “Don’t compare me to that Matthews guy. I’ve never had a thrill run up and down my leg listening to President Obama though I must admit I felt a tingle the other day when I reread a speech delivered by Millard Fillmore in 1854.”

That brought forth the usual comments on the Professor’s age and whether or not he had actually been there when Fillmore made his speech.

It was good—they were laughing again.

“Has anybody heard from Piffy?” asked Scaramouche.

“He’s in Gaza,” said Joe.

“In Gaza?” said Scaramouche. “What’s he doing in Gaza?”

“He got tired of London, I guess,” said Joe. “He packed his bags and went to Gaza. He took his dog with him—the one he’s always writing about. Snuck it through customs in a birdcage.”

“There’s something strange about that guy,” said Beardsley.

“Hey! Don’t you say anything about my friend Piffy!” warned Cowsnofsky. “That man is the best damn shot in the world. He drilled that bleepin’ Asian through those bars as if he were in a shooting gallery.”

“You still have to testify at that hearing in London?” asked Scaramouche.

“Only if the Obama administration says I have to,” said Cowsnofsky.

“When’s Henrietta getting back from Private-Eye School?” asked Gerbil Eater.

“Next week,” said Joe.

”Is he still determined to be Piffy’s partner?”

“I hope not,” said Joe. “I sincerely hope not…”

No one who could have seen Bernard Piffy at that particular moment could have wanted to be his partner, not Sisyphus, not Jean Val Jean, not the last poor soul in a Marquis de Sade masque—and hopefully not Henrietta. Piffy was sitting in the back of a Hamas ambulance, a middle-aged private eye crammed into the slim body of a ten-year-old boy masquerading as a preteen girl including Bratz bra and nylon-lycra rosebud panties, one eye blackened, compliments of Hanadi Hamza, a couple of bruised ribs, an angry gash on his forehead, and surrounded by as vicious a pack of religious psychopaths as Dante could have imagined and the Devil could have created.

And Mike Hammer thought he had it tough in I, the Jury! And Piffy’s luck was about to take a turn for the worse! Dr. Haribert Tarek Farid Hussein ul-Heim had arrived! Yes, Dr. Haribert ul-Heim, Islam’s version of Dr. Joseph Mengele!

The good doctor came roaring up on his motorcycle, his beard streaming in the wind, the pack on his back stuffed with experimental drugs. He was a cross between Carlos the Jackal and Rufus Ryker with a ten-day-hangover. He had a lean and hungry look. It was said he had been Peter Cushing’s model for Viktor Frankenstein. Just the sight of him would have terrified the average ten-year-old. If that wasn’t bad enough, he immediately produced the largest hypodermic needle Piffy had ever seen. The ten-year-old swallowed.

The Doctor seemed sad, tired; there were deep lines around his eyes. He studied the youthful face of his frightened patient. “Is this the last of them?” he asked.

“I guess so,” said the Hamas officer. “What have you been giving them?”

Ul-Heim sighed. “My own version of Sodium Pentothal,” he said. “I’m taking them to my lab for questioning. The local ulema wants to get to the bottom of this kidnapping and they’ve chosen me…as if I didn’t have enough on my mind.”

Piffy had heard stories about Dr. ul-Heim—none of them good. He would have preferred Dr. Frankenstein…or Dr. Phibes…or…or Dr. Moreau…or…or…

He pulled free of ul-Heim’s grasp but a Mujahideen grabbed him by the arm. He lashed out with his foot. But there were more Mujahideen than he had arms and legs. He put up as much of a fight as he could. He never felt the needle. It could have been a jackhammer, it could have been a bee sting; it could have been Mommy kissing a hurt to make it go away.

It was none of those things—it was a needle full of homemade Sodium Pentothal! He had to stay awake—he had to remain conscious at all costs—if he went under he was sure to say something that would get him killed…yeah, killed!

And he was going under…under…oh, damn…

“I want my puppy dog!” he wailed.