Jack Du Brul - Charon's landing

From the huge Daulton serving platter that Rufti used as an appetizer plate, he selected a water cracker covered with goose liver pate, cramming it into his mouth so quickly that the second one he brought to his lips disappeared in the same couple of chews. He considered keeping the third cracker in his hand as he pointed at the Kurd still on his knees, but temptation got the best of him, and it too disappeared. He drained a fluted glass of de-alcoholed Brut, so eagerly recharging the delicate crystal that much of the pale faux champagne splashed onto the low settee next to the armchair that cradled his bulk.

When not in conferences with the Iranians and Iraqis, Rufti had spent much of the past several days preparing his speech for tomorrow’s opening ceremonies of the OPEC meeting. He’d carefully blended the right amounts of grief and admiration for Khalid Khuddari, outrage at the senseless attack that took his life, and weary acceptance at becoming the United Arab Emirates’ official representative at the meeting. While the plan for Khuddari’s assassination had been set for weeks, months really, he’d left the writing of his speech for the very end to give it just enough of an impromptu feel to lend credibility.

He felt his bowels give an oily slide when he thought how he’d explain to the Iranians and Iraqis why Khuddari was still alive. The assassination was supposed to trigger so many events that Rufti had a hard time keeping track, and now none of them would transpire. The Iraqis especially would seek retribution. They had put up the lion’s share of the money for training the Kurdish freedom fighters, much of which had ended up in Hasaan Rufti’s personal account, and they were going to want an explanation.

What was it the Iraqi representative had said? Twenty thousand men and eight thousand tanks would be transferred to their southern border upon the announcement of Khuddari’s death. Rufti gulped at his glass again while his smooth, porcine features hardened at the Kurd in front of him. I want to kill this goat fucker with my own hands, he thought.

Far off in the ten-room condominium suite, a telephone rang softly. A moment later, an aide knocked at the door. He held a black portable phone handset on a silver platter, offering it like a piece of dark confectionery.

“What?” Rufti snorted.

“It’s Tariq, Minister. He’s at the hospital where they took Khuddari.” Tariq was one of Rufti’s own people.

“Allah be praised.” Rufti snatched up the phone, shooting a meaningful look at his other men. “At least someone shows a little initiative.”

Into the handset his voice was sharp and authoritative, not petulant as it had been a moment before. “Tariq, tell me you have great news and the jackal has died from his wounds.”

“No, Minister. Khuddari’s still alive, but his condition is listed as critical. When I arrived, an orderly was still mopping his blood from the emergency room lobby.”

Rufti knew that Tariq was speaking to him over an unsecure cellular phone and admonished him for the use of names, then continued as if his own misgivings didn’t pertain to himself. “Listen to me. Stay there at the hospital, but do not approach Khuddari. I can’t have your presence linked to me. What’s security like there?”

“Lax, so far. I don’t believe they know who Khuddari is.”

Tariq put as much nerve into his voice as possible. “I can get to his room easily. What will one more bullet matter?”

“No. Just stay close. I need some time to think. I may send this Kurdish idiot to finish Khuddari once and for all.” Rufti snapped off the phone and pointed at the Kurd still kneeling. “Lock him up for now. I’m not finished with him yet.”

Rufti wished Abu Alam was with him. He would have stormed Khuddari’s room with his shotgun blazing and escaped long before the authorities realized what had happened. Rufti didn’t have the same confidence in his second lieutenant. Tariq was good but cautious. He lacked Alam’s psychotic fever. Yet Alam was needed in Alaska to guard against treachery from Kerikov and to oversee the kidnapping of Aggie Johnston, to make sure her father didn’t get any ideas about backing out of his part of their bargain.

Agony tore at Khalid Khuddari, etching his features so deeply that the pain lines would never fade, dulling his eyes so much that they would never be bright again. The pain. It started at his buttocks and traveled up his back, radiating from his spine along the thousands of nerves that branched away like tangled roots off a plant stem. The pain wrapped around his shoulders like a cloak, crushing him flat to the bed. But it especially centered on his head. His head ached with an unholy agony, as if his brain had swollen and pressed against his skull. His face felt as if it had been stung by an entire nest of desert wasps.

Khalid moaned and a voice said, “Aha!”

He heaved one eye open, fearing that his eyeball would roll out of his head. The owner of the voice was an Indian man, about fifty, with salt and pepper hair and an almost white mustache. His skin was the color of strong tea, and his eyes appeared unfocused behind a pair of wire frame glasses. He wore hospital greens. A stethoscope coiled around his throat like a dead snake.

“I am thinking,” the Indian doctor said in that peculiar blend of snobbish English arrogance and generations of inbred servitude, “that you are in a great deal of pain right now, but I am not knowing if you wish the use of morphine to ease it, most certainly. I am thinking that you are Muslim and your religious beliefs may not allow the use of such drugs, no?”

“Give me the shot,” Khalid managed to croak through gummed lips.

“Oh, most assuredly, I will give you the medication, sir.” The doctor got busy injecting morphine into the plasma bag dangling over Khalid’s bed.

Oh, God, Khalid thought. My life is in the hands of a cliche.

“You are a lucky man, most assuredly. But first, my name is Dr. Ragaswami. I was your emergency room physician. You came to me bleeding most heartedly, I assure you. But not once were you shot through. No, most certainly not shot through. Three bullets grazed your person, some leaving very long scars requiring many stitches, but none of them caused more than superficial harm. I also took nearly forty grams of concrete from you as well, fragments kicked up by the shots fired at you, I am guessing.” Ragaswami watched the heart monitor next to Khalid, satisfied that it was reporting a man on the mend.

“How long?” Khalid gasped.

“It is now ten in the evening,” Ragaswami said in his high-pitched voice, studying the face of a cheap digital watch. “You have been here for more than five hours. It is most amazing that you are even awake right now. You are a very strong man, most assuredly. A lesser man would be unconscious until tomorrow at the earliest.”

Ragaswami would have continued, most assuredly, had Khalid not cut him off. “I need to make a call.”

“Oh, yes, I was just going to come to that. Your identification was lost before you were brought here. We have no way of contacting your family.”

The morphine was starting to kick in. Khalid felt the flames licking at his back subside, the fires slowly extinguishing.

“I have no family here,” Khalid muttered thickly, “but I have a friend, Trevor James-Price. He’s having dinner tonight at Les Ambassadeurs.”

It took a few minutes for Ragaswami to tell a duty nurse to track down James-Price, during which time he examined the superficial wounds that peppered Khalid’s back, mumbling to himself and once exclaiming proudly about the tightness of the stitches he’d laid.

“I’m sorry, but the restaurant didn’t have a reservation for a James-Price,” a haggard nurse said, poking her head into the doorway of Khalid’s room.