“Can I just take a moment to catch my breath?”
“Sorry, Mr. President.” Yosef and Corporal Omar placed a hand under each arm. President Aineuf did not ask him this time to unhand him.
“Forgive me, sir, but we must hurry.”
President Aineuf nodded as he held on to the arms of the Guardsmen carrying him.
Five minutes later they reached the top of the low crest and released President Aineuf.
The boat, below and behind them, swung back and forth to the motion of the outgoing tide. It pivoted as the waves burrowed its keel deeper in the soft sand. The smoke from the engine room appeared to be lessening. It surprised Yosef that it hadn’t blown up.
Fifty meters inland, surrounded by Guardsmen, an old Volvo two and a half-ton lorry waited on the coast road.
The rust on the hood and doors gave the once green cab an Army jungle camouflage look. Wooden railings encompassed a thirty-foot flatbed crammed with sheep, baaing their discontent, unable to move from being so tightly packed.
“Come on, Mr. President. It looks as if your presidential car has been traded in for a more useful vehicle.”
“Who are you?” Yosef asked the driver as they approached the truck. He reached out and pushed down the barrel of a gun that a Guardsman had trained on the driver.
The man had the dark skin and eyes of the Bedouin.
The stained tail of what could have been a white headdress trailed a couple of feet down the back of the large man, who was easily three inches taller than Yosef and many inches wider. The traditional aba hung from the driver’s shoulder to the ankle, swishing an inch above a pair of sun-cracked leather sandals. Farm stains, perspiration, and days of wear had turned the white Arab garb to a dingy, dirty yellow. The driver raised his chin, revealing a couple more hiding under it, to stare, eye to eye, at Aineuf.
“Mr. President, I am honored,” the man said in a deep bass voice that echoed like gigantic loudspeakers. He bowed his head.
“Allow me to introduce myself. I am Bashir Ibn Howadi Al Sannusi of the Sannusi tribe. It is an honor to be at your service.” He touched his head and brushed several of his chins and his chest as a gesture of servitude and respect.
“Thank you. Said Bashir. It is fortunate that we meet, even if it is because my soldiers stopped you.”
Sergeant Boutrous, standing beside Said Bashir, interrupted.
“No, sir. We didn’t stop him. He was waiting when we came up. He whistled to catch our attention. We thought it might be an ambush, but found only him and his sheep.”
“That is true. Your Excellency. I watched the lopsided battle along the beach.” He laughed, placing his hands over an ample, bouncing stomach.
“It was quite a sight. I have never witnessed such a David and Goliath. Of course, you lacked the stones and the slingshot that David possessed and thirty-millimeter shells do make a mean Goliath.”
“Thanks for stopping. Said Bashir. We need your truck,” said Yosef.
“Of course. Major.”
“Colonel,” Sergeant Boutrous corrected.
“Of course. Colonel,” Bashir continued unabashed.
“I knew when I saw you deserting the boat that you were in need of assistance. I am but a poor farmer, but even a poor farmer can figure out who must be on the beach when he sees soldiers surrounding a man in a suit. Even if that man lacks the Western tie that is considered essential for the apparel that he wears.”
“You don’t speak like a poor farmer,” said Aineuf. “You say you are of the Sannusi tribe? Would you be a descendent of Abdallah?”
“Abdallah bin Abid Al Sannusi,” Bashir finished for the president, spreading his arms wide.
“The exiled king of Libya who was disposed from his throne in the 1960s. Yes, Your Most Excellent Excellency, I am the first grandson of the first grandson of him who would be my great-great grandfather “Mr. President,” Yosef interrupted, “we have to go.” He turned to Bashir.
“Said Bashir, can you take us to the Tunisian border?”
“I could, but it would not be good going that way. I have spent the last twelve hours traveling from the east.
Every few miles are roadblocks. Three hours ago I passed four tanks heading east accompanied with truckload after truckload of ‘new Algerian’ soldiers. All of them heading to the border and most looking as scared as a boy who knows he is about to lose his virginity.”
“Colonel, it looks as if we are slowly being trapped,” Aineuf offered.
“Mr. President, we have to keep trying until—”
“Oh, no, you’re not trapped,” laughed Bashir.
“Help me with the tailgate and we shall let some of my babies loose to fend for themselves. That way we can get all of you into the truck.” He whistled and clapped his hands three times.
On the bed of the truck four men, previously hidden among the sheep, stood up. Each held an ancient Kalashnikov rifle, the stocks individually decorated in Arabic script and strips of hand-patterned tin as a sign of pride and ownership.
“My nephews,” said Bashir, grinning as he lilted his head and spread his thick hands. “There was always that chance that you weren’t who I thought you were — and on whom can anyone ever depend if not on their kinsmen?”
A minute later the wounded woman and her child, along with the remainder of Yosef’s force, were on the bed of the truck. The Guardsmen took defensive positions around the bed to give them compass coverage.
“Leave the tail section down,” Bashir said.
“But for heaven’s sake don’t let the remaining sheep fall out. They make such a mess when they hit the road and cry so pitifully when you scoop them up and throw them back on the truck.”
To move the wooden tail section out of the way a couple of Guardsmen slid it against a side railing. Then three of them sat down with their feet hanging off the back.
“Hold on if you’re going to sit there,” Bashir warned.
In reply to their questioning looks he added, “No shocks.
That, plus those, makes the truck bounce very rough.” He pointed to several potholes nearby.
As the Guardsmen slid further inside and away from the open tail, Bashir, Yosef, and President Aineuf walked to the cab.
“Come on, Mr. President,” said Bashir. He and Yosef helped the president into the front of the old vehicle.
Yosef crowded in afterward, placing the president in the middle. Bashir hoisted his heavy frame into the driver’s seat.
Their rescuer reached under the steering column and touched two wires together. The engine misfired. He tried again; the engine caught. Laughing, Bashir pulled the truck off the shoulder, back onto the road, and headed west.
“We are heading back toward Algiers,” said Yosef.
“We need to be heading east, my friend.”
“I have told you. Colonel, we would not travel ten kilometers before running into the new Algerian Army.”
“Well, we can’t go back to Algiers. The city has fallen,” Yosef said, almost apologetically.
“Oh, everyone knows that Algiers has fallen. The only fighting is around Oran near our western borders and they won’t last much longer.” Bashir punctuated his comments with quick laughter, shaking his head, as if the situation in Algeria struck him as ironic or comical. Yosef couldn’t tell which.
“How do you know the fighting is about to stop around Oran?” Yosef asked.
“Oh, man colonel, did not your little fight tell you? This morning the Air Force has come out in support of the new government.”
“And the Navy?”
Bashir shrugged his shoulders.
“I don’t know, but the Algerian Navy has never been a major player in our politics like our Army and our Air Force.” Using the tail of his headpiece he blew his nose and then wiped the sweat from his forehead before tossing it back over his shoulder.