CHAPTER THREE
D-126, San Antonio, Texas
Neither the sun nor the chickens were quite up by the time Wahab had almost finished his story. Traffic had picked up a bit though; so much Stauer could hear from the streets and the nearby intersection. Even then, the traffic was much lighter than it would have been even a few years prior.
"So they have your chief's son," Stauer shrugged. "So what?"
"Not just his son, Wes," Wahab corrected. "His only son and his heir. They've got him-my chief, I mean-by the balls. We just don't do these kinds of things back home. At least decent people don't. That someone has is frightening."
"And you've no idea where the boy is being held?"
Wahab shook his head, sadly. "We don't even know for a fact what continent he's on; Africa, Europe, even maybe still here. And none of the governments that are friendly to our faction have been able to find a trace. We asked for help. They all said the same thing: ‘Tell us where he is and we'll be glad to help you retrieve him.' Oh, yeah, that was a big help."
Stauer stood up from the leather couch on which he'd been seated and walked across the room to the bar. There he poured himself another drink and held the bottle up in query of Wahab's desire for another.
"No thanks, Wes," the black said, holding up one hand defensively. "I'm a bad enough Moslem already and another would be pushing the willingness of the Almighty to forgive. Besides, it's a little early, isn't it?"
Stauer shrugged off the question and returned the bottle to its place on the bar counter. He said, "I don't see where I could be a ‘big help' either. I mean, sure, if I knew where the boy was-this is what you were getting at, right?-I could probably assemble a team out of personal friends to get him back. But if I knew that it would be because you knew that. And if you knew that, any of a dozen countries with first class special operations forces would be willing to help. Maybe even for free." Provided one doesn't attach a monetary value to influence, anyway.
"Money wouldn't be . . . wouldn't have been a problem," Wahab assured his friend. "I mean, this is my chief's only son. Despite having four wives and a dozen concubines, all he throws are girls, except for this one. For that one, Adam, all he has to give . . . "
"All he has to give," Stauer answered, "is still apparently not enough to find the whereabouts of his son. Get that and you can retrieve the boy."
"Would you be willing to come to help organize the intelligence effort?" Wahab asked. "We'd make it worth your while."
Unheard and unseen by either, just behind a corner, Phillie listened attentively as she had since shortly after hearing the doorbell ring.
She felt sick to her stomach. Please, God, don't let him go. We've just really gotten comfortable together. I mean, this might really be a match good for both of us. I don't ask for much, God, but this one little thing . . .
"I don't need money," Stauer answered, shaking his head. "Haven't in years. And the amount I could really use would be beyond your chief's means, I suspect. I mean, maybe Mobutu could have funded my wildest dreams. But your guy? Nah."
Stauer laughed at the absurdity of his own "wildest dreams."
"You might be surprised," Wahab answered, chewing at the inside of a cheek. That was all he'd say on the subject, however. Whether that was because of a negotiating stance he'd been told to take, embarrassment at his clan's poverty, if they were truly poor, or even simple ignorance, Stauer didn't know and wouldn't guess.
"It's all academic, anyway, since I can't do a thing without knowing the boy's-Adam, you said his name was?-Adam's whereabouts. I can maybe give you the name of a really good intel guy or two . . . ummm, three, if that's any help."
***
Thank you, God, Phillie thought, turning green eyes ceilingward. Special prayers and candles. Promise. Also much fornication so I'll have something worthwhile to confess.
Phillie's theology was not necessarily sound, however sincerely held.
As quietly as she'd gotten out of bed and walked the hallway to eavesdrop still more so did she turn and slip off back to bed.
"Why me, anyway?" Stauer asked. "I'm nobody special."
"Exactly what I told my chief," Wahab agreed. "‘This American neocolonialist bastard is nothing special,' I said, ‘except that he seems to believe nothing is impossible and I have never seen anyone his equal for making the impossible possible.' My chief, of course, scoffed. Do but note, however, that he sent me here anyway."
"Not a total loss, that," Stauer said. "It's good to see you, and that's the truth. Will you be in town for a few days?"
"At least that," Wahab answered, "or my chief will not believe I truly tried."
"Where are you staying?"
"I've a reservation at the airport Marriott."
"Nonsense." Stauer was adamant. "You're staying here. Where's your bag, by the way?"
Wahab grinned despite his overall disappointment. "I seem to recall leaving it on the landing when some rude barbarian asshole stuck a pistol in my face."
When Wes laid himself down next to Phillie, after showing Wahab to his room, she sensed such a weight bearing down upon him that she didn't even think about offering sex. Instead she just asked, voice full of concern, "What's the matter, hon?"
He told her a truncated version of the story, not that she needed it, having already eavesdropped on virtually every word.
"And you're disappointed about having to turn down an old friend?"
"That, yes," he admitted. "But more than that, for just a brief moment I had the sense that my youth was in my hands, to spend again as I wish. I thought I sensed purpose again. But . . . no."
This was not precisely what Phillie wanted to hear, since she rather hoped to become a purpose for him, full and entire in herself. Still, she clucked sympathetically and sidled over to lay her head on his chest.
"Sleep," she said. "And you're not useless. And you're most emphatically not old, that you would need some fountain of youth. And if you don't believe me . . . " Her hand wandered down to where he had the means of proof that he was not yet so very old.
Gently he moved her hand aside. "Not tonight, Phillie, because tonight I feel old and useless."
He felt her head nodding on his chest and wrapped one arm around her. In moments they were both asleep.
The lack of sleep, the starvation, and the stress of U.S. Army Ranger School affected different people different ways. Many of these ways were lasting. Many of them were adverse. Stauer's souvenirs from the course included bad knees, a weak back, and the almost complete inability to either dream, except for nightmares, or to remember any dream that wasn't a nightmare if he happened to have one. And it had been nearly three decades since he'd attended ranger school.
It had cost him one girlfriend, in fact, years prior. His nightly, sweat-pouring, terrorized awakening, his suddenly sitting bolt upright and shouting out, "I wasn't sleeping, Sergeant," had been simply too unnerving.
Still, sometimes . . .
The magnets came in all shapes and sizes, large bars, small bars, discs, rods, and horseshoes. Rather, they came in all sizes relative to each other. Compared to his own tiny dream self they were huge and threatening, every one. Indeed, they didn't just threaten; they struck; they bounced; they sometimes crushed him between two of them.
Eventually, from chaos, a kind of order emerged, the magnets grouping themselves into little subgroups, all being held in place by invisible lines of force. At the center of the grouping was one particular magnet, the largest of all. It dwarfed Stauer's dream body, as it dwarfed one little magnet held tight. Somehow Stauer knew it was important to free that little one. He swam to it, though how he swam in atmosphere or vacuum he hadn't a clue. In dreams, one never asks.
He pulled and tugged; he set his dream feet against the major magnet and tried pushing off with his arms. Nothing worked. Dimly, Stauer began to realize that the little magnet was not merely held in thrall by the huge one, but that all the other sub groupings contributed their share to fixing it fast in place.
"They have to go," the dream self said, aloud.
Still swimming through the void, Stauer aimed for what looked like the smallest and weakest grouping of magnets. He built up speed as he neared it. Then somehow, as can happen only in a dream, his orientation changed to feet first, even as his speed picked up to an amazing rate.
He struck the magnet with his feet, causing it to spin off, out of control, until it was lost in the distance. Taking a glance at the captive, Stauer saw that it was looser in its orbit about the great one. He began to head for the next smallest group . . .
Wes sat bolt upright. In a whisper, rather than a shout, he said, "I wasn't sleeping, Sergeant."
"Huh? Wha'?"
With a broad smile painted across his face, Stauer gently nudged Phillie. "Honey, I think I've changed my mind about making love tonight. Afterwards, say if I give you a minimum thirty minutes of post coital cuddle time, would you mind making breakfast, no pork for my guest?"
"Cynical bastard," she muttered sleepily. She rolled over onto her back even so.
The first faint traces of light were filtering through the window of a spare bedroom holding a much sleep-deprived Wahab. He could have slept through that easily enough. What he couldn't sleep through was Stauer shaking him like a rat in a terrier's mouth. Wahab opened one baleful eye to see a boxer-shorted, broadly smiling Stauer shouting, "Get up, you black bastard. Get your lazy ass up. And don't tell me about jet lag. I don't care. My girlfriend's making breakfast and we've got some planning to do!"