Mrs. Pollifax Unveiled (9 page)

It was to be a long, frustrating and hot day for her, and she found work a blessing. She was shown a contour map of the site that looked like an abstract Picasso drawing; she learned that each new inch of earth had to be recorded, dated, and postholed. She was allowed to attend a flat screen set on legs and sift the excavated earth for any tiny objects or detritus brought up by spade or trowel. After lunch she took her turn at a long table helping Amy Madison assemble bits and pieces of ceramics like a jigsaw. She was shown the interior of the field office building, where found objects were stored and locked
up each night: a veritable treasure house of ceramics whose fragments had been successfully assembled by Amy and shellacked; fragments of clay pots, writing tablets, bones; a tiny bronze statue, quite beautiful; a necklace of stones and a cache of coins.

And during the afternoon a line of donkeys made its way over the stones and pebbles, each carrying huge tin containers of water for them, and driven by two men in long gray skirts, black jackets and white turbans. “From the nearest village,” Amy told her. “We boil the water, of course, and occasionally, when we tire of chickpeas and falafel, we have them butcher a sheep for us.”

“They’re shepherds?” said Mrs. Pollifax in surprise.

“Oh yes, the village must have at least a hundred sheep grazing in the fields around the wadi, and when the grazing thins they move, but it’s a real boon for us. We have shish kebabs to celebrate.”

“I could look forward to
that,”
said Mrs. Pollifax.

But the best moment of a tiresome day was Joe cornering her before dinner to whisper, “You got it.…”

“Got what?”

“The Land Rover. For two hours tomorrow, noon until two o’clock. Siesta time.”

“Wonderful!”
She gasped. “Oh thank you, Joe. Now if you could just produce the miracle of a guide for me, too.”

He grinned. “You’ve got one—me. It’s the only way Dr. Robinson will allow you to be shown the desert in his precious Land Rover … and of course I’m your nephew, remember?” he said mischievously. “But don’t worry, I’ve a good compass—a really good one—not to mention I was an Eagle Scout and went through Outward Bound and all that. Not such a bad deal, is it?”

She smiled. “I have the most fervant desire to hug you but I won’t embarrass you. You’re really offering
help.”

“No,” he said, “just a ride into the desert to show you what you’re up against.”

She said gravely, “I’ll accept that. Until tomorrow noon, then.”

S
he bunked that night with Amy Madison, a woman whom Joe had described as a tough old bird, but Mrs. Pollifax liked her. She was a faded blonde in her fifties, gruff voiced, carelessly dressed, a native of Australia and author of a book on the Umayyads, and she was not at all interested in small talk, which Mrs. Pollifax found restful after her tiring attempt to seduce Dr. Robinson into loaning his Land Rover, and a long day of work in the desert heat. She was even able to endure another morning, this time helping Julie Lowell make falafel, bean cake stuffed in bread and garnished with tahini sauce, but she watched the sun climb higher in a sky white with heat and waited patiently for the midday siesta.

When Joe drove the Land Rover up to Amy’s tent the workmen were lounging in the shade and smoking cigarettes, but the site was otherwise emptied. “So,” he said, smiling. “Off we go!”

As she climbed in beside him he unfurled a map. “I’ve been studying this,” he said. “It’s hard to know where
not
to go. If we head directly south away from the highway and from the digs it could be tricky.”

“Why?”

He said uneasily, “Because there are
said
to be a few military camps in the south. One of the rumors,” he added dryly, “that I passed along, no doubt already known by your own people, if true. And we don’t want to head west, there’s a well-known military post at Khabajeb, about twenty miles from here.”

“How do you know
that
?” she asked.

“It’s a very poor country. From time to time there’ve been a few things stolen that we’d report. Food mostly, or tins of kerosene. Everything of value we keep locked up and guarded.”

Peering at the map she asked, “What is that long name in capitals?”

“Badiet esh-Sham—Arabic for the Syrian Desert. We have only two hours,” he reminded her. “What I suggest is that we drive for one hour, not south but to the south
east
, then make a turn and drive straight west, and, after scouting that, head back north to our camp. That should cover a fair number of miles and bring us back in time. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” she said. “Sounds most efficient.”

He started the engine and they drove out of camp past the field office and the privies, and soon there was nothing but flat and empty earth except for the shape of a mountain far away to the north and hazy from heat. Mrs. Pollifax had already learned that deserts were more often fashioned of grit and pebble, and only seldom the golden sweep of windblown sands shown in ads and in the movies, and she automatically braced herself for a rough drive.

“It’s like a moonscape, isn’t it,” she said. “Is there the slightest possibility of finding sheep—or Bazir Mamoul—in this direction?”

“I’ve never been this way before but I’m afraid it’s doubtful. Along the highway that brought you here, running from Tadmor
to Deir Ez Zor, one sees flocks of sheep. They stop traffic when they cross the road, and we can try that direction another time—Dr. Robinson willing—but if this shepherd saw this girl you speak of, it had to have been well away from highways and villages, and his stopping at our camp for water suggests he’d been looking for his lost sheep on this side of the highway.”

Mrs. Pollifax nodded.

“Who is this girl, anyway?” he asked. “Other than her name, I mean. Amanda, you said?”

“Amanda Pym. Not much known about her except that she came from a small town in Pennsylvania, both parents dead, one of them recently. We couldn’t risk bringing photos of her. A rather plain young woman, twenty-three or -four, and looking—to be frank about it—rather dowdy.”

There was no further conversation; the Land Rover had been stripped to essentials, and although it was topped by canvas to shade its passengers there was no windshield, and an occasional stirring of air sent dust back into their faces. They had been driving for perhaps half an hour when the earth ahead of them began to rise, the pebbles grew larger and they bumped up and down over holes and hillocks.

“Are the tires sound?” Mrs. Pollifax inquired rather anxiously, thinking it time to speak. “I mean, if a tire goes flat have you a—oh, look!” she cried, pointing to a patch of green.

They stopped and left the car to look, and, “Sheep have been here, yes,” said Joe, picking up a handful of dried dung.

“But not recently,” she said. “Not much grass left.”

“No, they cleaned out the best of it and it hasn’t rained since. By George,” he said, turning to her, “I’m beginning to feel like a detective.”

She smiled at him. “Welcome! Shall we go on? We’ve thirty minutes left before turning west.”

They continued more slowly, looking for other patches of green. As they approached a more impressive rise in the ground Mrs. Pollifax said suddenly, “There’s something on that hill, Joe, it looks like a sign. See it?”

“And a wire fence,” he added, and driving closer he braked. Peering ahead he said, “Can’t see what it says, my glasses are foggy.”

“It’s in Arabic, isn’t it?”

They left the Land Rover to walk closer.

“Oh dear,” said Mrs. Pollifax. “Not
all
in Arabic.” Underneath the musical scrawls of Arabic there was a line in French and then in English that read,
OFF-LIMITS. KEEP OUT
.

They looked at each other with interest, and Mrs. Pollifax said, “You could wait in the Land Rover.”

“Of course not,” he said crossly. “Can you crawl?”

She nodded. “I can crawl, yes.”

Side by side they crept to the top of the hill and peered over it. “Tents,” she whispered.

“Not Bedouin,” Joe said grimly. “Bedouin tents are black goat hair; those are army tents.”

“Not necessarily,” she whispered back. “You have the same khaki tents at your camp, but there are only four here and two long ones.”

“Mercifully at a distance from us,” Joe pointed out, “and not a single human being in sight. It’s deserted—abandoned.”

Mrs. Pollifax assessed the camp with a critical eye, noting how the hill surrounding the camp looked man-made, surely not at all natural, since it appeared to embrace the tents like a large horseshoe, making the site resemble an amphitheater. There were shrubs growing here and there, and several stunted
trees, and in places the grass grew knee-high. It was hot, the sky a cloudless blue and empty, until a hawk or kite in the distance interrupted the silent and lifeless scene. “Did you happen to bring binoculars?” she asked.

“Good grief, yes,” he said, “I’ll go back to the car. I brought the usual gallon of water, some bread and the map and I think the binoculars are in the knapsack. I’ll fetch them.”

When he returned he handed them to her. “What are you looking for?”

“I thought something moved,” she told him.

“Moved? In this empty place?”

“Moved,” she said, lifting the binoculars to her eyes, and adjusting them she suddenly gasped.

“What?” he whispered.
“What?”

She handed them to him. “See if you can see what I do. Four people—in camouflage seats—seated in a row, over by the tents, and staring out at this empty place and I hope not at us. They’re quite distant.”

Joe wiped the dust from his glasses, and when he lifted the binoculars to his eyes he whistled faintly through his teeth. “I see them. With notebooks. They stare at the shrubs and grass and trees and—darned if they don’t write things on paper. Four of them. And you’re right—camouflage.”

Puzzled, she said, “What does that mean?”

He said grimly, “It means we should get the hell out of here and damn fast.”

“Why?”

“Because I think this must be a camp for training snipers. Ask Barney, he was in the army and knows about snipers. It means there could be someone hiding three feet away from us under that nearby shrub, for all we know. It’s like a game, training snipers … the four with notebooks are writing down
what they see, which may not be much if they’re new recruits.” He backed away in alarm. “What we don’t want is for them to see us, too.”

Mrs. Pollifax reached for his binoculars. “I want to look just once again. To where I saw something move before.” One glance and she nodded and returned them. “You’re right, there’s the toe of a boot protruding from that second shrub. It can’t be easily seen from their side when it’s barely visible from here, and so much closer. It must have twitched for me to see it. And there’s a bird in that stunted tree—a dead one, it has to be because it doesn’t move.” She suddenly felt a chill that she couldn’t explain. She said, “If only you had stronger binoculars—”

“Let’s
go!”
he pleaded. “For God’s sake let’s get out of here, Mrs. Pollifax.”

“—so we could see the faces of those four people taking notes.”

But there were no stronger binoculars available, and they slid down the side of the hill and walked back to the Land Rover which, far enough away as it was, still seemed suddenly too close to what they’d seen.

They had almost reached the car when Mrs. Pollifax stopped, frowning. “Look, Joe, there’s been a fire over there,” she told him, pointing. “The earth’s black, someone’s burned something there.”

“So they were cold or hungry and cooked something.
Don’t,”
he said flatly. “I’m not stopping for anything now until we get back to the safety of the camp. We could be shot if we’re seen here, or at the very least arrested.”

But Mrs. Pollifax was already on her way to the circle of blackened earth. “I’m curious,” she said, “there’s something
dark blue sticking up out of the charcoal, something that didn’t burn. You haven’t a trowel, have you, or a knife?”

“No,” he said bitterly.
“Or
a shovel.
Or
permission to be this near a posted, off-limits training camp.”

With her fingers Mrs. Pollifax was brushing away the char, digging deeper, and with her fingers she brought up a tiny triangle of stiff, shiny blue cardboard with a scorched
T
at its edge that looked as if it had once been gold. Puzzled, she said, “This is strange.”

“What’s strange?”

“The feel of this, it’s familiar in some sort of tactile way.” She turned over the scrap to study it: the fire had run fiercely up the back of the card, blackening all but two letters and three numbers and she sat back, staring at them.

“Please—let’s get
out
of here,” Joe pleaded, glancing nervously over his shoulder.

She nodded and silently they returned to the Land Rover. Joe quickly started the engine, turned and headed a mile back the way they’d come before he stopped the car. “Well?” he said. “And what on earth have you been searching for in your purse?”

“My passport,” she told him, drawing it out. “And look—it has the same midnight blue color and the same texture—it matches! I ought to know, I’ve had to show it often enough on my way here. And see the gold
T
in the top corner, forming the last of the word
Passport
?”