Hugh Laurie - The Gun Seller

I look at my watch.Ten forty-one.

They will come at dawn, I think to myself. The way attackers have done since attacking was first invented. Dawn. When we’re tired, hungry, bored, scared.

They will come at dawn, and they will come in from the east, with a low sun behind them.

Ateleven twenty, the consul had his first call.

WafiqHassan, Inspector of Police, introduced himself to Francisco, then said hello to Beamon. He had nothing specific to relate, except that he hoped everybody would act with good sense, and that this whole thing could be sorted out without any trouble. Francisco said afterwards that he spoke good English, and Beamon said he’d been to Hassan’s house for dinner two nights ago. The two of them had talked about how quietCasablanca was.

Ateleven forty, it was the press. Sorry to bother us, obviously, but did we have a statement to make? Francisco spelt his name, twice, and said we would be delivering a written statement to a representative of CNN, just as soon as they got here.

At five to twelve, the phone rang again. Beamon answered it and said he couldn’t talk just at the moment, would it be possible to call back tomorrow, or maybe the day after? Francisco took the receiver from him and listened for a moment, and then burst out laughing at the tourist fromNorth Carolina, who wanted to know whether the consulate could guarantee the drinking water in the Regency Hotel.

Even Beamon smiled at that.

Attwo fifteen, they sent us lunch. A stew of mutton and vegetables, with a vast pot of couscous. Benjamin collected it from the front steps, while Latifa nervously waved her Uzi back and forth in the doorway.

Cyrus found some paper plates somewhere, but no cutlery, so we sat and let the food cool, before scooping it up with our fingers.

It was very nice, considering.

Atten past three, we heard the trucks starting to move, and Francisco ran to the window.

The two of us watched as police drivers revved and ground gears, shunting backwards and forwards in ten-point turns. ‘Why are they moving?’ said Francisco, squinting through the binoculars.

I shrugged. ‘Traffic warden?’ He looked at me angrily.

‘Fuck, I don’t know,’ I said. ‘It’s something to do. Maybe they want to make some noise while they dig a tunnel. Nothing we can do about it.’

Francisco chewed his lip for a second, and then moved to the desk. He picked up the phone and dialled the lobby. Latifa must have answered.

‘Lat, stay ready,’ said Francisco. ‘You hear anything, see anything, call me.’

He slammed the phone down, a little too hard.

You were never as cool as you pretended, I thought.

Byfour o’clock the phone had started to get very busy, with Moroccans and Americans ringing at five minute intervals, and always demanding to speak to someone other than the person who’d answered.

Francisco decided it was time to switch us round, so he called Cyrus and Benjamin up to the first floor, and I went down to join Latifa.

She was standing in the middle of the hall, peering through the windows and hopping from foot to foot, throwing the baby Uzi from hand to hand.

‘What’s the matter?’ I said. ‘You want to take a piss?’

She looked at me and nodded, and I told her to go and do it, and not worry so much.

‘Sun’s going down,’ said Latifa, half a packet of cigarettes later.

I looked at my watch, then out through the rear windows, and sure enough, there was that falling sun, that rising night. ‘Yeah,’ I said.

Latifastarted adjusting her hair, using the reflection from the glass window at the reception desk.

‘I’m going outside,’ I said. She looked round, startled. ‘What? You crazy?’

‘I just want to take a look, that’s all.’

‘Look at what?’ said Latifa, and I could see she was furious with me, as if I really was deserting her for good. ‘Bernhard’s on the roof, he can see better than anybody. What you want to go outside for?’

I sucked at my teeth for a moment, and checked my watch again.

‘That tree’s bothering me,’ I said.

‘You want to look at a fucking tree?’ said Latifa. ‘Branches go over the wall. I just want to take a look.’

She came to my shoulder and peered out through the window. The sprinkler was still going.

‘Which tree?’

‘That one there,’ I said. ‘The monkey-puzzle tree.’ Ten minutes past five.

The sun about half-way through its descent.

Latifawas sitting at the foot of the main staircase, scuffing the marble floor with her boot and toying with the Uzi.

I looked at her and thought, obviously, of the sex we’d had together - but also of the laughs, and the frustrations, and the spaghetti. Latifa could be maddening at times. She was definitely fucked up and hopeless in just about every conceivable way. But she was also great.

‘It’s going to be okay.’ I said.

She lifted her head and looked back at me.

I wondered whether she was remembering the same things. ‘Who the fuck said it wasn’t?’ she said, and ran her fingers through her hair, dragging a slice of it down over her face to shut me out.

I laughed.

‘Ricky,’ shouted Cyrus, leaning over the banister from the first floor.

‘What?’ I said.

‘Up here. Cisco wants you.’

The hostages were spread out on the rug now, heads in laps, back against back. Discipline had relaxed enough for some of them to stretch their legs out over the edge of the rug. Three or four of them were singing ‘ SwanneeRiver’ in a quiet, half-hearted way.

‘What?’ I said.

Francisco gestured towards Beamon, who held out the phone to me. I frowned and waved it away, as if it was probably my wife and I’d be home in half-an-hour anyway. But Beamon kept holding out the receiver.

‘They know you’re an American,’ he said.

I shrugged a so what.

‘Talk to them, Ricky,’ said Francisco. ‘Why not?’

So I shrugged again, sulkily, Jesus, what a waste of time, and ambled up to the desk. Beamon glared up at me as I took the phone.

‘A goddamn American,’ he whispered.

‘Kiss my ass,’ I said, and put the receiver to my ear. ‘Yeah?’ There was a click, and a buzz, and another click.

‘Lang,’ said a voice. Here we go, I thought. ‘Yeah,’ said Ricky. ‘How you doing?’

It was the voice of Russell P Barnes, arsehole of this parish, and even through the fizzing interference, his voice was backslappingly confident.

‘The fuck do you want?’ said Ricky. ‘Wave, Thomas,’ said Barnes.

I signalled to Francisco for the binoculars, and he handed them across the desk to me. I moved to the window.

‘You want to look to your left,’ said Barnes. I didn’t, actually.

On the corner of the block, in a corral of jeeps and army trucks, stood a clutch of men. Some in uniform, some not.

I lifted the binoculars, and saw trees and houses leaping about in the magnified scale, and then Barnes shot across the lens. I went back, and steadied, and there he was, a phone at his ear, and binoculars at his eyes. He did actually wave.

I checked the rest of the group, but couldn’t see any striped grey trousers.

‘Just sayin ’ hello, Tom,’ said Barnes. ‘Sure,’ said Ricky.

The line crackled away as we waited for each other. I knew I could wait longer than him.

‘So, Tom,’ said Barnes, eventually, ‘when can we expect you out of there?’

I looked away from the binoculars, and glanced at Francisco, and at Beamon, and at the hostages. I looked at them, and thought of the others.

‘We ain’t comin ’ out,’ said Ricky, and Francisco nodded slowly. I looked through the binoculars and saw Barnes laugh. I didn’t hear it, because he held the receiver away from his face, but I saw him throw back his head and bare his teeth. Then he turned to the group of men round him and said something, and some of them laughed too.