The Search for Yaser Abdel Said (Part 61)

CHAPTER 61:

“I KNOW WHAT!

KISS HIM!”

The interns half-dragged half-carried Bernard Piffy back to the mini-ward he shared with Aisha and Fatima and tossed the ten-year-old in the Bratz bra and the Shirley Temple smock across the nearest bed. He fell on his face and lay still.

Aisha and Fatima were stunned. They stood there speechless, eyes wide and mouths agape, witnesses to a Dachau moment, a slice of time from the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.

One of the interns smiled. “She’ll be okay in a few minutes,” he said.

She? Not having had a bird’s eye view of what had happened in ul-Heim’s examination room he could only guess at the sex of the child he had tossed across the bed. A boy, a girl, a combination of the two, it could have been anything—the ul-Heim Sanitarium was a strange place. He didn’t ask questions. He glanced round the room, nodded his head approvingly and, followed by his companion, left the mini-ward for stations in the corridor.

As soon as they had disappeared, Aisha rushed to the bed. “Bernie?” she whispered hoarsely.

Fatima was right behind her. “Is he alive?” she asked apprehensively.

“Yes,” said Aisha.

“Maybe we can give him artificial respiration,” Fatima said hopefully.

“I don’t know how!” said Aisha. “Do you?”

“No,” said Fatima.

They turned Piffy on his back. Aisha wet a cloth in the sink and wiped the ten-year-olds brow hoping it would revive him. There was no response. They wet his wrists and his ankles. They did everything but slap him on the butt. Nothing seemed to work. Aisha threw the cloth down on the bed in desperation. She wrung her hands; she was on the verge of tears.

“I know what!” squealed Fatima. “Kiss him!”

“What?” said Aisha.

“Kiss him—like in Sleeping Beauty,” Fatima said eagerly

“That would never work!” said Aisha. “Sleeping Beauty is only a story.”

“If you won’t try it, I will,” said Fatima.

“Don’t be silly,’ warned Aisha. “He’s a Kuffar. We could get in trouble for kissing a Kuffar.”

“We’re in trouble now,” persisted Fatima. “How could it get worse?”

“Muslim women do not kiss non-Muslim men,” said Aisha. “The Imams would have us stoned!”

“We’re only kids,” said Fatima. “They wouldn’t dare hurt us.”

Aisha knew better. They certainly would. Her father was a great example of that. She sniffled. “What are we going to do?” she wailed.

“Kiss him!” said Fatima. “If you wont, I will!”

Aisha began to cry. She looked at Piffy—the black eye, the cut on his forehead. She had wanted to kiss him the first time she had seen him in the restaurant in London when he sang the Mockingbird Song.

“Tra la la, tweedle dee, dee dee…”

“Oh, Bernie!” she sobbed.

“Do it!” urged Fatima. “Do it!”

Aisha leaned across the bed and kissed her Prince Charming on the lips.

And it was magic—magic! Kuffar magic maybe, but magic!

Piffy’s eyes popped open. The first thing he saw was a darling ear lobe and the first thing he felt was the pressure of Aisha’s lips against his! He murmured something under his breath—maybe it was zippity do da; maybe it was anchors aweigh my boys; or maybe it was “Glory! Glory! Hallelujah?” Yeah—it was the last one!

Aisha pulled away from her Prince Charming.

“No, don’t stop!” said Piffy “Please, don’t stop!”

The middle-aged brain in the ten-year-old body had taken over. He was too randy for his own good. The child would have said, “Ugh! Girl germs!” and that would have been it.

Aisha stepped back from the bed. She was amazed at what she had done. The tips of her fingers were pressed to her lips. “Allahu akbar!” she whispered. Tears were squeezing from her eyes.

By now Piffy realized where he was and what had happened to him in ul-Heims’s chamber of horrors. He sat up. “I got to get out of here!” he said. “They’re going to kill me!”

”Not my Krista, they’re not!” said Fatima.

The ten-year-old got up from the bed, straightened his clothes and went to the door. The interns were in the corridor—one at each end, their arms folded across their chests; they weren’t going anywhere and neither was Bernard Piffy.

Wheatley W. Wheatley took the scale drawings of the ul-Heim Medical Complex from her attaché case and placed them on the table. Then came the contour maps and the terrain navigator and the aerial photographs—enough to boggle the mind of the average Double-Naught Spy. But it was only the beginning. There was a seismological survey for the placement of concussion grenades, a minute-by-minute meteorological forecast for the next ten days, a dozen proposed entrance and exit strategies, a plastic adjustable overlap map and two Abu Afaq High Risk Life Insurance Policies.

Beauregard Zolo was impressed.

But Bonds—Stockton Bonds—was not. He eyed Wheatley suspiciously. She didn’t fit his image of what he was looking for in an assistant. She was more Sancho Panza than Mary Goodnight, more George Gabby Hayes than Dr. Holly Goodhead. In fact he had never seen anything quite like her before.

The black slouch hat and the whip made her look like a villain out of an old Hoot Gibson movie. And there was too much kaboose for the engine—not that there wasn’t plenty of engine. She was no Honey Rider—not even a ten-year-old Honey Rider. He could do without her and her silly little plans.

He was Bonds—Stockton Bonds. He glanced at his watch. “Could you hurry this up a bit?” he said. “I’ve got a date with Diabolica Tungsten in about thirty minutes. I’ll be late if I don’t leave pretty soon.”

Wheatley raised an eyebrow. “Diabolica Tungsten?” she said. “You?”

“In twenty-nine minutes and forty-five seconds,” said Bonds.

“In twenty-nine minutes and forty-five seconds?” repeated Wheatley. “What are you—a talking clock? This is 2011 not 1960. This Diabolica broad will eat you up and spit you out.”

“That’s what I am hoping for,” said Bonds.

“Look, kid,” said Wheatley, “she’s a black widow spider, she’s as poisonous as the asp that bit Cleopatra on the butt. Besides—she’s a half-century younger than you are. She’s sent more secret agents to their doom than Kim Philby and Mata Hari combined. You wont stand a chance. You better think this over.”

“I can take care of myself,” said Bonds. “Remember Rosa Klebb? Remember Fiona Volpe?”

“I can take care of myself! I can take care of myself!” mimicked Wheatley. “That’s what little Bernie Piffy said and where is he now?”

Bonds was no longer interested in little Bernie Piffy though he should have been. “Twenty-seven minutes,” he said.

Wheatley picked up the stack of entrance and exit strategies and went through them one by one. Bonds listened for a few minutes. The only difference between plans one, two, three and four, were the numbers. He had heard it all before. It was stock footage.

Beauregard Zolo however was impressed. “If we had had something like this when I was with AUNTIE we would have made those yokels at Mission Impossible look like amateurs,” he said.

Bonds cleared his throat. “Excuse me for interjecting,” he said, “but has anybody thought of hiding us in jars of cooking oil and sneaking us in through the cook shack?”

Wheatley frowned. “It’s been tried,” she said. “It requires a limber body and an adult mind. You seem to be missing one of the prerequisites and so far you haven’t demonstrated a good grasp of the other.”

Bonds consulted his watch. “Nineteen minutes,” he announced.

Wheatley scowled.

Beauregard Zolo smiled apologetically. “You will have to excuse Agent Six-and-seven-eights,” he said. “He hasn’t been the same since he had prostate surgery last year and got a get-well card from Betty White.”

“Betty White?” said Wheatley. “Whose Betty White?”

“It wasn’t prostate surgery,” protested Bonds. “It was a transurethral resection.”

“I think you had better let him go on his date,” said Zolo. ”He isn’t going to pay much attention while he’s got Ms Tungsten on his mind. I’ll clue him in when he gets back. He shouldn’t be gone long.” He looked at his watch. “An hour and ten minutes should do it. It doesn’t take long to drain the sap out of an old tree.”

“Thanks for the endorsement,” said Bonds. “But if you’re going to wait up for me I suggest you set your alarm clock for Four AM.”

Wheatley sighed. Abu Afaq must have been out of his mind accepting this assignment from the British Secret Service. She hoped he told N there would be no refunds. She took up Entrance Strategy Number Five as Agent Six-and-seven-eights slipped from the room.

But she couldn’t concentrate. Working with Bonds was like working with a ten-year-old. And then she remembered Piffy…and Duldul…and the cooking oil. Something was rotten in Gaza. This was the Big Leagues. It was no place for kids and old men. Diabolica Tungsten wouldn’t have made a date with Bonds—Stockton Bonds—for no reason at all. She was up to something…

She looked at Zolo. “Think you could hang on to the back of a motorcycle if it was going a hundred miles an hour?” she asked.

Imam al-Sayyid Khomeini had called an emergency meeting of the local ulema. The group had met less than a dozen times in three years and interest was low. Half the members were on business elsewhere. The meeting was held in the custodian’s office on the first floor of the ul-Heim Rehabilitation Center.

Ad hoc member Dr. Haribert ul-Heim studied the faces around the conference table. If he played his cards right there would be no ridiculous talk about sex reassignment surgery. He would tell them it was too complex and expensive an operation for his struggling medical enterprise. He would say he not well versed in the procedure and it would be expensive bringing in an expert.

He fiddled with his briefcase. He was getting old. The zest was gone from his life. He wished he weren’t there. The thought of sex reassignment surgery filled him with dread. He had had his fill of snipping and cutting—especially when it was against the will and best interests of the patient like this would be. But he would have to be careful what he said. He could not take too strong stand against anything the ulema might decide.

If they insisted upon sex reassignment surgery he would argue for a simple castration. It would be the right thing to do and the boy would thank him for it later—sure, like the many young girls he had circumcised in Sudan and Egypt had thanked him and the hundreds of Serbs he had experimented on in Bosnia.

He had been a monster and it was getting more and more difficult to look in the mirror each morning. If it wasn’t for little Desirada he might kill himself.

The ulemas were Shi’a Islam’s legal arm. Most of the Sharia Court judges came from the local ulemas like the one ul-Heim was now attending. A Sharia Court decision could be far-reaching and absolute. The Ayatollah Khomeini had been a member of the ulema.

Al-Sayyid was the presiding officer. He had been schooled in Alexandria and had memorized the Qur’an. Only seven members of the ulema were present plus three guests who had been elevated to temporary membership: Mohammed al-Shafti, a local self-styled maulvis; Hafez Hamza, a Hamas lieutenant and the older brother of Hanadi Hamza, and ul-Heim who was the eulema’s medical expert whenever his advice was needed

The Imam tapped his gavel on the conference table. “I guess we all know why we are here,” he said.

Al-Shafti looked up from his Qur’an. “Ah, yes,” he said. “And what is that?” He was always the last person to know what was going on.

“We are here to determine the fate of the boy-girl known as Krista,” said the Imam.

“The boy-girl?” said al-Shafti. He closed his Qur’an and drew his chair closer to the table. “The sex reassignment thing? It has been the talk at the mosque.” This would be interesting!

Ul-Heim winced. This was not the way he had hoped the meeting would start.

“I thought we had already decided this,” said one of the Mullahs.

“Yes,” said Hafez Hamza. “We have Hanadi’s testimony. There is nothing to preclude a penissectomy.”

Again ul-Heim winced. Where did the Mujahid get that word? A penissectomy? It was more frightening than sex reassignment surgery!

“The Qur’an has nothing to say about this type of surgery,” said the Imam. “It is something invented by the Kuffars and is too frightful to contemplate but could be useful as a punishment for un-Islamic behavior.”

“I believe we should wait for Diabolica’s input,” said ul-Heim. “She has extensive experience in such cases.” He was lying, of course—Diabolica had no such knowledge.

“Diabolica?” said the Imam.

“My new scrub nurse,” said ul-Heim.

A plan was already forming in the doctor’s mind. If he could talk the ulema into sending Diabolica to Europe to ‘look into’ the sex reassignment thing he could delay any proposed surgery for weeks and weeks on end and at the same time be rid of ‘his new scrub nurse.’ Yes, be rid of his new scrub nurse! He no longer knew what he had seen in her. She had become scary. It wasn’t that she had changed—he had.

Al-Shafti cleared his throat. “If sex reassignment surgery should be decided upon,” he asked, “wouldn’t it be necessary to call in Western specialists?”
.

“Perhaps,” said ul-Heim. “It’s a very difficult procedure.”

“But it could be performed right here—on these premises—if it should be so decided?” asked one of the Mullahs.

“It could,” said ul-Heim.

“Then what’s the problem?” asked the Imam.

Ul-Heim shrugged. “I am not as well versed in sex reassignment surgery as I might be,” he said. “I could take a whack at it but it might take some time for me to master the technique. I would have to consult with the experts. It’s a little more difficult than a simple circumcision or a castration. But if the ulema wants…” He paused, tapped his briefcase and chuckled. “It could be done.” He looked round the conference table. Maybe his reputation for butchery and his laissez faire attitude toward serious surgery would frighten them from making a terrible mistake.

“You need not worry,” said the Imam. “Islam has its own experts in the field of sex reassignment surgery. I have looked into it. We have Drs Muhammad, Muhammad and Muhammad of Cairo, Alexandria and Aleppo. They are among the best in the world.”

“I have heard of them,” said Hafez Hamza. “They are good!”

Ul-Heim frowned. “Am I to take it we have already decided on sex reassignment surgery?” he asked.

“Of course, not,” said the Imam, “only that we keep it in mind and consult with the experts in case we do decide to go in that direction.”

“It’s a good idea,” said one of the Mullahs.

“Then there is no objection if I contact Drs. Muhammad, Muhammad and Muhammad?” said the Imam.

There were none.

“Agreed,” said the Imam. “We shall await their response.” He looked round the table. “Is there any other business?”

There was none.

Ul-Heim frowned. He was about to say something but changed his mind. The Imam was a powerful man.

Al-Sayyid thumped his gavel on the desk. “This meeting is adjourned,” he said.

The good doctor stood up. “I hope it does not come to sex reassignment,” he said.

The Imam smiled. Dr. ul-Heim was getting soft. There would be a surgery of some kind if al-Sayyid Khomeini had anything to say about it.

As the members of the ulema filed from the conference room, Diabolica Tungsten was standing over the unconscious body of Bonds—Stockton Bonds.