By the time they returned to the CA, Pru’s leg was functional again, though still not completely steady. She limped slightly but the exercise of walking actually helped wash the numbness away
Isabella was limping, too, but from a sprained ankle. She had slipped while getting into position to stun the guards and twisted it. She had known it would soon put her out of action, so she had aimed her stunner at a rock and moved her ankle into the field to numb it. By the time the action was over, she had needed to ride the sled back to the ’mobiles with Pru, sitting next to Zahlman’s inert form.
Outside the portal, Said met them and took one of the ’mobiles with Zahlman and Isabella off to the hospital. Jazira insisted on going too, especially when Zahlman began to rouse from his stunning.
They all changed from fatigues and put on kilts, gathered things into their packs and returned to the safe house. The slug-throwers, remotes and other booty were left in the ’mobile for Said to recover.
Pru settled everyone for a thorough debrief, with beer, drinks and snacks for all. Solly appeared on the com.
“First, a ‘well done’ for all of you,” Pru began. “Give me your reports, and let’s start with Zaratta. For the record, Isabella’s getting a med pack on her foot and will be here soon. Jazz and Zahl will be here as soon as he’s steady.”
Zaratta said – and Pru felt her pride in a job well done – “We had no trouble getting into our position from last night. When we moved in to attack, Izzy slipped. You know about that. I took the crossfire position instead, and once we had them down, Izzy took care of her foot. We moved down toward the jail without problems, just a little slow going, and Izzy took the crossfire position as you directed, Pru. She and Jazz took the guard down. I threw a rock through the window, then the grenade. Actually, there wasn’t any glass or anything in the window at all. I think the rock hit someone; I just don’t know who. That’s about it.”
Isabella slipped into the room as Zaratta finished her report. Her foot and ankle were encased in a boot that gave her support and metered painkillers and restoratives to her injured muscles and tendons.
Pru looked to Mira, who began her report. Her emotions felt as calm as her words. “After we zapped the guard, we advanced to the latrine and Pru bombed that guy. She sent me to set up a crossfire position and crossed the street. She and I took out the guard, though we could have used a grenade. Pru put two grenades into the main building and moved in. I followed. There were about ten men in there, two remotes. I think that’s a total of five we found on the guards and in the main building. Someone came out of the back room and I think we both hit him. There was another guy in the back room; we heard him and hit him with a bomb. Pru caught some of the flash. That’s it.”
Alia was next. “Nothing really new from us. Took out the guards, got the remote, went to the main building. No way to get into it from the back, so Jazz took the jail guard and I covered. Easy.”
For Pru, Alia’s normal confidence had escalated to seriously smug.
Solly spoke from the com. “Very well done, all of you. I have some questions. Why did all of you bring along the guards’ slug-throwers?”
Alia snorted. “You don’t want them behind you, do you? I play it safe. I don’t trust these stunners, anyway.”
Pru said, “Sure made our jobs easier. I really like those grenades.”
“Wait till someone throws one back at you,” Alia countered.
Solly intervened. “I need more information on the com equipment. Did you get serial numbers and all that? Did you leave it in operating condition?”
They reported all the items of communications equipment they had found in the back room. Following on-the-spot instructions, they had used the slug-throwers to wreck the insides of the equipment. Even though it was highly integrated and miniaturized, it was possible to wreck it by sending a high-velocity bullet into the casings. “Brute force has its uses,” as Solly put it. They had quickly searched the other buildings, too, but found nothing of interest other than several old-style copies of the Koran. Still, Solly wanted details on everything they had seen or surmised.
Pru asked, when Solly had more or less run out of questions, “What’s the position of the OSG forces?”
“Well, that’s the problem. The local OSG people aren’t particularly concerned about these activities. They turn a blind eye, most of the time. In this case, with a kidnapping, they had to act, but I’m not happy with their attitude.
“One more thing. Did any of you get a good look at the man who came out of the back room?”
All of them had seen him, and Pru had asked Mira to take a snap of him with her camera. She had made sure that they had images of all the men at the main camp. She told Solly.
“Great. Send me copies immediately, please.”
There was a commotion at the door and Jazira and Zahlman came in. Zahlman looked somewhat the worse for wear, but he was walking and generally alert. He had bruises on his arms and chest.
After Pru and the others had greeted him with hugs and chatter, they sat him down.
“Let’s have it, Zahl. All of it.” Pru could feel the mixture of anxiety and relief in him, and Jazira’s joy and relief at his return.
Zahlman took a deep breath, and reached for a big mug of coffee. He drank deeply before he spoke, looking sideways at Jazira, and Pru could feel his love for her.
“It’s all her fault! She seduced me.” Jazira slugged his bicep, only half in jest.
“Well, this is how it was,” he went on. “After Jazz had been taking those Neo-Tantra courses for a while, I got the feeling that the stuff they were talking about out at the Wadi wasn’t really as important as I had thought. After all, Jazz practically runs the business, and well, what with one thing and another, I began to go out to the Wadi less often. When they took me, I hadn’t been there for about two weeks.”
Pru asked, “When they contacted you at the festival, was that the first time?”
“Well, they’d left messages for me on the com. No names or anything, no CID, just a notice of a meeting. I knew what they meant.”
It was difficult, though obviously not impossible, to send a com message without a CID attached.
“At the festival, two of them came up to me and said I had to come to a meeting the next night. I told them I didn’t think I could make it and gave them some excuse. They went away.
“Later in the evening, I went to go to the toilet. They met me and hit me on the head. Next thing I knew they had me tied up and in a ’mobile. They took me to that jail you got me out of and chained me up.”
“What happened to the ’mobile? Any idea? We didn’t see one there.”
Zahlman just shrugged.
“Then what happened?” Pru asked. “I assume they questioned you.”
“Well, they did, of course. The Sheik, the head man – that’s what we had to call him, and I never knew his name – would come and talk to me, ask questions for an hour or two, then go away. Then one of the others would come and read to me from the Koran, you know, the recitation they used to use all the time long ago.”
“How was the food? They did feed you; you don’t look starved.”
“I got a meal twice a day. Same stuff they ate, I think. I just couldn’t go anywhere, except where the chain would let me. I had to use a bucket for a latrine.”
Pru could feel his shame and anger at that treatment.
“Is that all there was? What about the bruises?”
“That was the guards. Sometimes at night, when the Sheik and the reader were gone, one of them would come in and beat me up – hit me, knock me down and kick me and call me names. ‘Infidel’, ‘Apostate’, stuff like that. The Sheik didn’t seem to notice, even when I got bruises. Pissed me off! These were the same guys I’d been training with all along, and they were beating on me.” Zahlman grinned at Zaratta. “Of course, then someone threw a rock at me, too. Got me right in the gut. Seems to have knocked me cold.”
“All right,” Pru said, “now I want to know everything the Sheik asked you when he interrogated you. Start with the first day. I want everything. And then I want to know all about the training you got before you quit.”
They spent the next several hours going over the content of Zahlman’s questioning while Jazira sat close beside him, doing what she could to jog his memory, but never giving the impression the debriefing should not continue.
During a break for more coffee and for food, she said to her husband, “You know we need to do this, Zahl. We need to find out what these guys are doing and why.”
“I know that, Jazz,” he replied, “I’d like to know, too. At first, I was kind of taken up in the ancient rituals. They’re very seductive, you know; they give you a sense of community. Praying five times a day gets to be a habit, especially when everyone around you is doing it. You get into a kind of trance at prayers, if you’re tired or worried.”
“Well, there’s nothing wrong with that, with prayer,” Jazira told him. “It’s all the stuff about the roles of men and women, and the way they distort the view of the world. That’s what I can’t handle.”
“I began to realize that, too.” He looked at her fondly. “I began to think about how much a part of me you are, and how much I can rely on your brains and charm.”
“I wasn’t very charming tonight, Zahl, I’ll tell you that. It was all I could do not to use one of those slug-throwers.”
“I know you wouldn’t have. It’s not like you.”
Pru was not as certain about that as he seemed to be. She knew Jazira better, in some ways, than he did. And, she could sense the woman’s seriousness when she spoke.
When they had gone over everything, seemingly at least twice, Pru called a halt and they all settled down to food and quiet talk. During Zahlman’s questioning, Mira had cooked up a huge pot of Tagine and sausages, Moroccan style; they left little uneaten. Jazira and Zahlman went off to bed early, and the rest of them made ribald remarks as they left, their intentions all too clear.
Next day, Pru bid the four others goodbye and, late in the day, went to the Neo-Tantra office. Sarah was just closing up. Pru found Said and gave him a very fond hug. Sarah looked on, then smiled when Pru hugged her, too.
‘This stuff makes me horny,’ Pru thought with surprise.
Much later, she shooed Said and Sarah out of the office and called Solly.