"I'll escort you to the bus," Kimberly offered.
"Fine by me."
They walked through the cooling dusk. Sand blew in the air. Sand always blew in the Hamidi Arabian air. The sun was sinking, a breathtaking ball of smoldering fire.
And somewhere between the Pizza Sheikh and the dusty street corner where a khaki bus waited, Kimberly offered Carla Shaner her yellow silk scarf.
"Oh, no. I couldn't take that," Carla protested, laughing. But Kimberly refused to take no for an answer. She even insisted on tying it around Carla's neck for her.
"Over here," Kimberly said, gently pulling her into an alley. "There's more light over here."
Actually, Carla found, there was less light in the alley. That was where it got cloudy. Then fuzzy. Then dark. Very dark.
When Carla Shaner's uniform left the alley, she was no longer wearing it. She lay in the dark alley with her moist purplish tongue collecting windblown sand the way an ice cream cone collects jimmies.
The yellow scarf encircled her throat, tied in an intricate knot that the Royal Hamidi Police were later forced to cut with a knife in frustration.
Kimberly Baynes caught the last bus to the base. More than one serviceman's eyes bugged out at the sight of her generous, button-straining bust. She sat with her arms modestly folded over her chest. One hand covered her name tag.
The Star in the Center of the Flower of the East Military Base lay three miles north of the Hamidi Arabian capital city of Nehmad. For nearly a year it had been under a joint Hamidi Arabian/U.S. command. For all that time it had remained in a state of high alert.
In theory, this was a symbol of U.S./Arabian cooperation. In practice, it meant no one was in charge.
So every twelve hours, the command structure was rotated. The U.S. general would grumblingly vacate his office and Prince General Sulyman Bazzaz of the Royal Hamidi Armed Forces and his aides would take up residence. The official language of the base became Arabic and the guards were changed at the main gate.
Which, at sundown, meant that a quartet of Hamidi Arabian sergeants huddled in the guardshack playing backgammon and chewing sweet dates.
When they heard the approaching bus from the capital, one poked his blue-bereted head out and saw that it was the American bus. He waved it through without checking. He was not afraid of infiltrators or terrorists. Not with the mighty American Army there to protect him, praise Allah.
Thus did Kimberly Baynes penetrate the Star in the Center of the Flower of the East Military Base.
Hours later, she left in a wide Humvee-the jeep's wide-bodied descendent which she had commandeered from a swaggering Hamidi corporal by putting her ample chest under his nose and strangling him with a length of yellow silk used as a ligature as he contemplated her bursting buttons.
Kimberly was stopped at the gate as she drove up to it.
"What is your business?" the sergeant in charge of the gate asked her in his native tongue.
"I don't speak Arabic," Kimberly said patiently, bathing the sergeant in the sweet radiance of her American smile. And while the sergeant went into the guardshack to get the Sergeant in Charge of Speaking English, Kimberly gunned the Humvee and sent it running along the undulating dips and rises of the benighted Hamidi Arabian desert. No one followed.
She drove north. Toward the border and occupied Kuran.
And in the back of her racing mind, a small hollow voice said: Well done, my chosen vessel. Well done.
"Thank you."
But next time, remember to kill your victims more slowly. For it is not the dead that I truly love, but the dying.
Chapter 18
Maddas Hinsein, President of the Republic of Irait, field marshal of the Iraiti Armed Forces, and self-styled Scimitar of the Arabs, entered the simple conference room dressed in an olive-green general's uniform and black beret like a sullen bull moose walking upright.
His Revolting Command Council jumped to their feet, their arms stiffening at their sides, their eyes identical dark pools of fear.
"Sit," said President Hinsein, and his Revolting Command Council slammed their rumps into the hard wooden chairs with coccyx-threatening force.
Under his bristly mustache, President Hinsein smiled.
Under their identically brushy mustaches, his Revolutionary Command Council smiled, showing flashing white teeth and bringing fear wrinkles to their eyes.
After ascertaining there were no poisoned tacks on his chair, the President sat, saying, "Give me your status reports."
"The Americans are too afraid to attack, Precious Leader," said the defense minister, praying that the Americans would not bomb until after the meeting was over. He did not mind being bombed. He just did not want to be in the same room with Maddas Hinsein when the B-52's roared overhead. There were worse things than bombs.
"And the cowardly Hamidi Arabians?" he asked of his information minister. His voice was subdued. Grave without being worried.
The information minister smiled a sick little smile as he spoke.
"Cowering behind the trembling American defensive line," said the information minister, who knew full well that elite Hamidi Arabian forces were dug in at forward positions less than a mile below the Kuran-Hamidi Arabian neutral zone, along with units of French, British, Spanish, Greek, and Tahitian troops. It was rumored the Italians had taken a wrong turn in Egypt but would be on station no later than the turn of the century.
He dared not tell the President that this was no longer a case of the U.S. supporting the soft, weak Hamidis, but virtually the entire world now encircling their beleaguered country.
"Excellent," said the President. "It is time to gather intelligence for the day."
And each man felt his heart leap into his throat like a frisky salmon as the President of Irait reached for the dreaded black device and aimed around the table, clicking the button.
Even though it was only a TV remote-control unit, such was their fear of the Scimitar of the Arabs that they each flinched by turns. Maddas Hinsein smiled appreciatively at each flinch. He had been the palace torturer to the previous President, whom he tortured into abdicating.
When the remote unit triggered the big-screen TV at the far end of the room, under the twelfth-century fresco of the Arab hero Nebuchadnezzar riding a chariot, they turned their heads as one to behold the soul-freezing CNN logo, their only source of hard intelligence-and the one thing that could get them all hanged as traitors should the President choose to believe the wrong reports.
More than one hand stole under the table to manually choke off an imminent liquid accident.
A woman newscaster appeared on the screen. Though her words were in English, Arabic subtitles reflected her report.
"The United Nations joint command today reported that the array of forces now numbering units from virtually every standing army of the world, less Italy, are only three months away from hammering out a workable command structure."
"Lies," President Hinsein smiled. "Flimsy propaganda."
"Lies. Yes, lies. Transparent fabrications." The murmurs of agreement rippled around the long table. Laughter came easily.
"In Washington, Reverend Juniper Jackman, perennial presidential candidate and shadow senator to the District of Columbia, announced that he would go to Abominadad and attempt to win the release of BCN news anchor Don Cooder, now in his fourth day of captivity."
"Tender the Reverend Jackman an invitation to visit Abominadad," the President told his information minister.
"Yes, Precious Leader. Shall I have him detained?"
"No," muttered President Hinsein. "He is an ass-kisser. I do not arrest those who understand where to place their lips."
"Of course."
And every man in the room made a mental note of their President's pronouncement. If there was one good thing about Maddas Hinsein, it was that he spoke his mind exactly.