The Gulf by David Poyer Page B

man was still hesitating, holding the short one up. The smaller man was screaming louder now, his hands trying to hold his belly together.
    He didn’t want any. Phelan picked up the dust-covered pistol and stuck it in his belt. He backed out of the alley, holding their eyes, then turned quickly and made several sharp turns through the bazaar. He hit concrete block again and went back into the market.
    The man who had bought the binoculars gave him forty dollars for the gun.
    *   *   *
    The room was two dollars and two flights up, a stinking hole without a lock on the door. There was a pallet on the floor. Phelan decided not to check it for bugs. He liked the room. No one else off the ship would come here.
    He tied the latchstring, put the paper bag on the floor, and began taking things out of it. Four quarts of Coke, so cold his fingers left prints in the condensation. He’d have preferred beer, but he couldn’t find any for sale. Six packs of Marlboros. A sack of the flat, doughy Arab bread. A bag of what he hoped were pretzels or chips, though it was opaque and the label was in the funny Pak squiggles.
    He was still scared, still angry, and to calm himself he took a deep swallow of the pop. Then another. At last he felt calm enough to proceed. He sat down on the pallet and flattened out the grocery bag for a work surface.
    The brick was warm from his pocket. He peeled a slice off it with the knife, noticing as he did so that there was still blood where the blade folded. He wiped it quickly on the pallet and kept peeling, making the slices thin and curling, with plenty of air. He could smell it, thick and sweet and heavy. His fingers shook and he gulped more Coke till they steadied down.
    When he had enough, he slit open some of the cigarettes and shook out the tobacco. He mixed this with the opium and glued the paper back together lengthwise with spittle.
    When he had five fat joints, he lined them up on the windowsill. He put the open knife beside them. He looked down at the street, at the passing taxis and dark-haired heads. No one looked up. There was a shade and he pulled it. The room went dark.
    Fuck them, he thought. Fuck the fucking Paks. Fuck the fucking Navy. Fuck the Indian, fuck the white man, fuck the world. This is where it’s at.
    He picked up the first joint, smiled shyly at it, and pulled fire out of a match with his thumbnail.
    Turning his head, Bernard Newekwe slowly and solemnly blew sweet smoke to the four corners of the room, then up, then down. Then he drew it in, to the seventh corner of the world, to writhe and curl and purify his own turbid and troubled soul.

4
    Manama, Bahrain
    THE heat, Blair Titus thought; that was what blindsided her every time she did the Middle East. Certainly Washington, twelve hours before, had been grim in the dread dog days of August. Paris, that morning, had been hot but not uncomfortable beneath a gentle rain.
    But Bahrain was like a junket into Hell. Her lightest traveling suit had soaked through just coming in from the airport. She pushed her hair back, annoyed at its clingy dampness, and scratched at a prickle under her armpit.
    â€œWhen’s Admiral Hart due back?” she asked the aide. It came out more sharply than she’d intended. Blame it on the heat.
    Trudell started; she noted with a flash of annoyance that he was staring at her chest again. “Uh, he must have been delayed, ma’am. He wanted to attend a change of command down at the pier. But he knows you’re here. He knows about the brief.”
    â€œCan we start without him? I’d like to make the five o’clock to Riyadh.”
    The lieutenant was so horrified his eyes lost their fix on her bust. He began giving her the reasons they couldn’t start without the admiral. Blair tuned him out. She scratched again and strolled to the window. She looked out, absently flipping the collar of her blouse.
    The Middle East again. Last time it had been