The Search for Yaser Abdel Said (Part 63)

CHAPTER 63:

THE COUNCIL OF

SERAPHIMS

Groggy, still wobbly on his feet, the ten-year-old in the Bratz bra and the Shirley Temple smock managed to avoid the first slashing thrust of Diabolica’s knife but only by the slenderest of margins. The blade nicked his left shoulder, slit an inch gash in the sleeve of his Shirley Temple. He pawed at his bloody nose; then clenched his fists in front of his chest in the most childish display of self-defense seen since the day Alfalfa took a dive in his fight with Butch in the back room at Darla’s dance recital.

Ul-Heim’s evil scrub nurse couldn’t believe she had missed! Okay—so the brat was quick! She smiled grimly. Crouching forward and extending the knife in front of her, she stalked the Kuffar brat as if she were Fatso Judson looking for an opening to send Robert E. Lee Prewitt to his last reveille.

The ten-year-old backed away from the hellcat. Was he retreating? He sure as hell was! He would live to fight another day, that’s what he would do! He spat a gob of blood on the floor. Suddenly the backs of his legs came up against the bed! Good grief! Was he at the Little Big Horn already? Where were the rest of the troops? Where was Benteen? Where was Reno?

“Allahu akbar!” cried Diabolica. There was a maniacal gleam in her eye.

The words cut through Piffy like the sword of the Prophet through the heart of Jesus Christ! Allahu akbar? Suddenly the terror was gone!

Why in the hell was he retreating from this pathetic little wretch? He wiped a hand across his face. “I don’t have to take this crap!” he said. “I’m Bernard Piffy! I’m a Christian Soldier! I’m an Abolitionist! I’m a damn stinking Abolitonist! I don’t have to take this crap!”

Yes, he was Bernard Piffy—a Christian Soldier, an Abolitionist, a damn stinking Abolitionist, a damn stinking 21^st Century Abolitionist and he didn’t have to take this crap from anybody!

The middle-aged brain took control of the ten-year-old body! Suddenly he was William Lloyd Garrison and he was going to put this edition of The Liberator to press! He had won the Mayberry County Junior Taekwondo and Free Style Wresting Championship when he was nine-years-old hadn’t he? Sure—and every one of his opponents had been at least three years older and an hundred pounds heavier than he had been. He could handle a slave master like Diabolica Tungsten any time he wanted and without working up a sweat!

He spit in his hands and rubbed them together just like Grandpa Piffy had shown him.

Diabolica was thrown off guard. The brat appeared to have surrendered but why was he spitting in his hands? Was it some kind of a Kuffar ritual? She hesitated. What was he going to do next? She would find out.

The kid spun round and round and before Diabolica realized what he was up to or what he was capable of he had kicked the knife out of her hand with a movement that would have thrilled Busby Berkeley and set the Rockettes to applauding! She stared at the knife as it skittered across the floor. It was the beginning of the end. He slipped behind her and threw her to the floor and in less than the twinkling of an eye he pulled her left arm up behind her back, pushed her face into the floor and drew her right leg up and back until the heel of her foot was touching her derriere! He had put the Tae in Taekkwondo!

Somebody screamed! Fatima was jumping up and down! Aisha had her hands over her mouth! He could hear cheering. Cubs win! Cubs win!

There was a commotion in the corridor!

Piffy pressed the heel of Diabolica’s right foot tight against her butt—once, twice, three times. “Anybody want to say Uncle?” he asked.

Diabolica had plenty to say but it was doubtful if Uncle was mixed in with the words she used, most of which were in a language neither Piffy nor anyone else in the room could have understood or would have wanted to hear if they could have.

By then the interns were in the mini-ward. One of them grabbed Piffy and dragged him away from ul-Heim’s scrub nurse. The other helped Diabolica to her feet.

Order was quickly restored. The stunned Diabolica was escorted from the room and Piffy was told to prepare for another séance with Dr. ul-Heim in the examination room!

In a moment the interns had departed and the three ‘girls’ were left alone in the mini-ward. Piffy was not at all sure he was any better off than he had been. He would rather face Diabolica’s rage than the uncertainty of ul-Heim’s SP13.

Beauregard Zolo nudged Bonds—Stockton Bonds—with his cane. They had been crouching in the shadows of the ul-Heim Experimental Psychology Laboratory for fifteen minutes. The sun would soon be rising and Bonds was still trying to decipher the map on his BlackBerry. The expedition was dead in the water. If they stayed where they were any longer they were sure to be discovered…one of Osama bin Laden’s protégés might come along…maybe Ibrahim Hooper or Anjem Choudary…someone…

Zolo took a breath of air from his Mountain High Handheld Oxygen System and nudged Agent Six-and-seven-eights for the third time. “Do you know where we are?” he asked.

“No,” grumbled Bonds. He glared at the BlackBerry. “They ought to make these screens bigger…you don’t happen to have a magnifying glass in your backpack do you?”

“Press the expand button,” said Zolo.

“I did!” said Bonds. “All I get is a Parcheesi board!”

“A Parcheesi board? Are you sure?” said Zolo. “Wheatley programmed the entire ul-Heim file into that thing! You should be able to get something beside a Parcheesi board! You must be doing something wrong. Press the expand button!”

Bonds pressed what he thought was the expand button. “If I had been stuck with one of these damn things during the Cold War,” he grumbled, “I would never have caught Goldfinger and Dr. No, and Holly Goodhead would still be single and we’d all be speaking Russian!”

“Give me that thing!” said Zolo. He took the BlackBerry from Agent Six-and-seven-eights and turned it round and round in his hands. “Okay…how do you get it started?”

“Search me,” said Bonds. “I asked for a two way Dick Tracy wrist TV and this is what they gave me.”

Zolo sighed. He didn’t like this technical crap any more than Agent Six-and-seven-eights did. He preferred blondes, soft lights, slow music and guys named Dmitri with scars on their faces, silencers on their guns, sneaking along dark alleys hoping to take over Lapland if they could just kill that damn Man from AUNTIE.

Bonds snickered as Zolo fumbled with the BlackBerry.

It wasn’t long before the Man from AUNTIE gave up in disgust. He tapped the cell phone against the side of the building a couple of times and gave it back to Bonds. “Maybe if we catch this Bernard Piffy kid he can show us how to work this dang thing,” he said

“Yeah,” said Agent Six-and-seven-eights, “but first we got to get inside this mausoleum.”

“Why don’t we just walk in through the front door?” suggested Zolo. “They’ll think we’re visiting surgeons.”

“It could work,” said Bonds. “But you’ll have to ditch that oxygen tube you’re carrying—it’ll give us away.”

“It’s not an oxygen tube,” said Zolo. “It’s a Mountain High Handheld Oxygen System. There’s a difference. It’s like a third lung. It’s very popular among bush pilots. You ought to try it…you wouldn’t wheeze so much.”

“I don’t wheeze,” said Bonds. He eyed the tube and the attached facemask. He would be a sorry spectacle if he were reduced to carrying one of those things.

“If you will wait a minute,” said Zolo, “I’ll stow it in my backpack.”

Bonds fiddled with the BlackBerry. “Hey! How about this!” he exclaimed. “You can play pool on this thing! And there’s something called Bubble Poppers!”

So while Bonds played Bubble Poppers the Man from AUNTIE struggled with his backpack. It wasn’t easy. There were more straps on the backpack than his arthritic fingers could handle. It wasn’t long before he gave up. He stuffed the Mountain High oxygen system in the front pocket of his Man from AUNTIE blazer where it would be more accessible if he needed it, shifted his pack from one shoulder to the other, picked up his cane and poked Bonds in the butt.

“Let’s go,” he said. “We can’t stand here playing games all night.”

They started through the shrubbery toward the entrance of the ul-Heim Experimental Psychology Laboratory.

“Why don’t you ditch the pack?” said Bonds. “Wheatley said we should travel light.”

“I can’t,” said Zolo. “I’ve got Plutarch’s Lives in there—all four volumes.”

“What on earth for?” asked Agent Six-and-seven-eights.

“For something to read,” said Zolo.

Bonds shook his head. What on earth had possessed M to saddle him with this washed-up old yutz from AUNTIE? He would have preferred Honey Rider—even the little preteen version of Honey Rider.

The man in the brown robe stepped out of the shrubbery as soon as Bonds and Zolo had disappeared down the side of the building. He was slender, had a little potbelly and a rosy-cheeked face topped by a monk’s tonsure.

He shook his head sadly. Those poor pathetic wretches wouldn’t stand a chance against Dr. Haribert ul-Heim and his minions. He had never seen such a ridiculous pair of old fossils. And so boastful too! They were like Abbott and Costello; like Hope and Crosby. Yes, like Hope and Crosby. If they had brought a camera crew with them he would have been sure they were filming the Road to Gaza. Well, he wouldn’t have time to look out for them. Whatever happened to them would be their own fault

He fondled the handle of the aspergillum that dangled from a cord attached to his belt. He had his own business to attend to—guardian angel business!

He studied the bleak walls of the ul-Heim Experimental Psychology Laboratory. Now where would he find Bernard Piffy? He smoothed the fringe of hair at the side of his head. There were times he wished he weren’t St. Anthony—that he was Anthony of Padua; or just plain Anthony. There was much more to this guardian angel business than he had ever imagined!

And Henrietta had been praying to him again—praying to him to protect her Bernard Piffy. She was such a brave girl—so strong and masculine at times it frightened him. It could get her in trouble. He felt sorry for her! He worried about her. He worried so much he spoke to the angel Raphael.

“You are not her guardian angel,” said Raphael. “You are not anybody’s guardian angel.”

He had met with the Archangel Gabriel to discuss Bernard Piffy. The meeting had not gone well.

“You are not a guardian angel,” said Gabe. “You are the Patron Saint of Lost Items.”

“Yes, but—“ That was a far as he got.

“Just because some poor deluded girl prayed to you to protect Bernard Piffy from woes, tribulations and tempests does not make you his guardian angel,” said Gabe. “If it were that easy John Dillinger might be somebody’s guardian angel.”

“Yes, but—“

“Have you ever heard of the Corpus Juris Canonici?” asked Gabe.

St. Anthony had.

And there was the guardian angel dog that St. Anthony had ‘borrowed’ from St. Roch and had given to Piffy and then had ‘borrowed’ back. The Archangel Raphael had used the word ‘purloined.’ Gabriel had called it self-anointed theft.

But because this poor deluded girl—this Henrietta—believed St. Anthony was Bernard Piffy’s guardian angel, said Gabriel, then St. Anthony would have to be Mr. Piffy’s guardian angel until the Council of Seraphims could be convened to hear the case.

In the meantime, unless the poor deluded Henrietta began praying to another saint, Saint Anthony would be expected to protect Bernard Piffy from the temptations of Beelzebub and the assaults upon his body by the desperate followers of Mahomet. It was a tall order.

St. Anthony sighed. If he failed in this job as a guardian angel he could spend the rest of eternity looking for lost dentures and eyeglasses. Yes, lost dentures and eyeglasses! Worse, he could be assigned to the Dogpatch Retirement Home where he would spend hours every day searching through the outhouses behind the main building for lost corncob pipes!

And all this because he had accidentally listened to Henrietta’s prayers, thought being a guardian angel would add spice to his life and had helped himself to a guardian angel dog nobody wanted.

He wanted to cry. But on the bright side…

Wheatley W. Wheatley rolled over and reached for the telephone. Who in the hell could be calling at this ungodly hour? She picked up the phone.

It was Abu Afaq! Great! She would have preferred Keith Olbermann in a rit of jealous fage. She looked at the bedside clock. It was two AM in the morning! She listened quietly.

Abu Afaq was in a foul mood. He must have been feeling the breath of Salim Ibn Umayr on the back of his neck. He went on and on without pausing, the words tumbling against each other like bribes in the back room at City Hall. Obviously, something big was up. When he finished he asked her a question she couldn’t answer.

“Do you know what they intend to do to Bernard Piffy?” he asked.

Wheatley scowled. “Do I know what they intend to do to Bernard Piffy?” she asked. “Me? How the hell would I know? I’m not a fortuneteller! You should have called the Amazing Kreskin.”

Abu Afaq did not appreciate the humor and she listened quietly while he told her what they intended to do to Bernard Piffy.

“Oh,” she said. She hung up, reached for her one-hundred-percent Mujahideen-pizzle whip.

Sex reassignment surgery was scary…but what the heck, the kid didn’t have that much sex to be reassigned, at least not yet, but the adult Bernard Piffy must be half scared out of his wits.

There was going to be one hell of a hot time at the ul-Heim medical center tonight. She just hoped she wouldn’t be too late!