Chapter 11
The air attacks on Karbala lasted one day. Iraqi war missiles whistled retaliatory strikes over Iranian skies.
Chet, Karen and Abdullah, Minister of Information, were sitting discussing the odious Jibsen and his Iranian terrorists. The Americans had checked into the Hussein Hotel and after a good night's rest their strength had been restored.
"I'm trying to get all this straight in my head," said Chet. "The attack in my Beirut hotel room, the airplane blowing up, the train tracks being bombed, and Karen's experience at the harem were all tied together?"
Abdullah nodded. "That's right. We've had spies planted in Faisal's palace and it appears the diffa was a sore failure since Jibsen was unable to deliver the goods. Faisal took it out on Karen basically, he distracted the other Sheiks by offering them the use of all of his prized harem girls. But yes my friend, the goods were not delivered."
"Which was? I still can't figure out what Jibsen was looking for from me? Jewels? Dope? What?"
Abdullah smiled patiently. "As I told you, Faisal is much concerned about weaponry. It is reported by our spies that he will soon have the secret to the bomb. That will make him an independent power within Iraq, a most dangerous situation for the harmony of our country."
"I'd say," snorted Chet.
"Speaking of our luggage, isn't something missing?" Karen wanted to know. She slung one slender leg over the other and cocked her head seductively. "Wasn't there a present I was supposed to have been given?"
Chet snapped his fingers. "Sorry, babe... forgot about that. My satchel's locked up downstairs. Why don't you two entertain yourselves while I go find my satchel."
Convincing the hotel desk clerk his battered face was the same as the handsome one on his clearance papers and passport, he was granted entrance to the luggage storage room filled with American luggage belonging to soon to be deported news reporters and war correspondents.
Keeping in mind that every occurrence with his luggage seemed to conjure up trouble, Chet slipped the key in the luggage storage door silently and twisted the latch. A beam of sunlight stole fugitively through the barred window. The afternoon shadows angled over the line up of oddly shaped luggage. Finding his satchel would be no easy task.
He'd stepped a few feet into the room when his sixth sense alerted him to another presence. Whirling around he tumbled to the floor with Jibsen's full weight hurling through space to pin him to the floor, knocking the wind out of him.
Gasping for air, Chet struggled to twist onto his back; but Jibsen had seized his arm and screwed it up between his shoulder blades.
The struggling filmmaker beat uselessly at the floor with his free hand. Jibsen's weight crushed him, and although Jibsen was flabby in the stomach, he was strong. Chet had to break the grip to keep his arm from being broken. His mind reeled with pain... Jibsen had gone for his left eye socket. With a grunt, Chet lunged his head forward and his teeth sunk savagely into the flesh of Jibsen's hand.
"You fuckin' sonofabitch!" roared Jibsen, releasing his grip on Chet's arm to grasp for his hair and drag the cruelly biting teeth from his hand.
The second the arm was free, Chet drew his knees up and with one supreme kick, threw Jibsen's heavy body to one side and scrambled to his feet to kick furiously at Jibsen's jowls. The tip of Chet's shoe caught Jibsen on the side of the chin and the sound of bone crunching filled the room. But Jibsen was a Marine and Marines fight to the death. He was up in a flash, his hands held away from his sides, an evil glint in his piggish eyes.
"This is what I've been waiting for, Jibsen... I've got a bone to pick with you! You raped my girl! Turned her into a whore!"
"Shuddup, chickenshit..." growled Jibsen, running his tongue over his teeth and finding a few missing. He spit them out just as Chet rushed forward again, swinging a powerful right to Jibsen's jaw.
The big man blocked the punch with his palm and smashed a murderous hook to the side of Chet's head. Chet staggered back against the luggage rack. His cheek had been split, and blood trickled down his chin. Jibsen seemed to have a thing about battering the left side of his face.
Jibsen was coming at him again, panting hoarsely as he hammered a flurry of blows to Chet's battered face and aching body. But Chet was tough too, and younger. Gasping and wincing as Jibsen's meaty fist raked across his chin, sank agonizingly into his abdomen and hammered into his ribcage, he stood up and returned punch for punch. His only hope was to stay on his feet and hope the older man tired first.
Jibsen's chin got a leaden beating as Chet thudded glancing blows there before punching at the heart. One fist into the solar plexus wheezed the air from Jibsen's lungs... and Chet, ducking under Jibsen's fists, brought up his head to pound his fist squarely into the other man's face.
Jibsen yelped out in pain as his broken nose gushed crimson; he swayed dazedly from the attack.
Tigerishly, Chet leapt forward to land a searing left and a pile driving right across Jibsen's diaphragm. Jibsen grunted and fell back against the luggage rack behind him, while the filmmaker punched into his gut.
But Jibsen wasn't an ex-Marine for nothing. He drew a deep lungful of air and came at Chet, knocking him alongside the head, sending stars shooting in front of his eyes. Then, grabbing a suitcase, he swung it at the younger man to throw him off balance.
Windmilling backwards, Jibsen took a flying leap at the fallen man.
Chet jerked his knees back into his stomach, smashed his heels into Jibsen's groin and straightened his legs with all his strength. Jibsen hurtled backwards and landed on his back, his head banging into the luggage rack.
Chet was on him in a flash. Blinded by blood streaming from a cut above his eye, Chet kicked him in the belly. The big man howled with pain and tried to scramble away on his knees. Chet grabbed him by the lapels and hauled him to his feet. A bent knee jabbed into Jibsen's groin, bringing him to his knees for good.
As he lay moaning through cut and bloody lips, Chet jumped astride his panting body, jammed one foot into his armpit, seized his right wrist in both hands and hauled upward on the arm with all his might.
"Let's have it, I want to hear the whole story..."
"What the fuck you talking about?" groaned Jibsen.
"About the Persian thugs attacking me... what have I got that's so damned important to you?"
Jibsen yelped. "You're breaking my arm!"
"I said talk!" Chet Bentley had two scores to settle... the attacks on his life and the abduction and raping of his girl friend. He took neither lightly. Breathing heavily, Chet shifted his other leg so that his knee was jammed against the back of Jibsen's elbow. Still hauling the arm up against the pressure of his foot, he began bending it back over his knee. "Tell me, you shithead, or I'll break your arm off!"
Jibsen screamed with agony and writhed on the floor, kicking his heels. More pressure... sweat beading Chet's forehead.
"Aaagggghhhh!" wailed Jibsen. The sound of cracking bones reverberated in the room. Chet let go, and Jibsen's useless arm flopped to the floor. "You broke my arm, you fuckhead!"
"I'll break the other one if you don't start talking!"
"Okay, okay, I'll talk..." conceded Jibsen weakly.
Jibsen groaned through set teeth. "Those... were Iranian terrorists... following you... the luggage... in Beirut you bought some lingerie in... a French boutique..."
"Yeah, big shit!" mocked Chet. "Let's hear the rest!"
"The lace... in your girlfriend's panties... has the secrets for the bomb woven... in Arabic..."
"That's for Faisal, right?"
Jibsen nodded.
"For a goddamned piece of underwear your Iranian terrorists blew up a fucking airplane... killing innocent people?" grated Chet. For that heinous crime, Chet grabbed Jibsen's good arm and brought it back against his knee.
"Aaiiiiie! Stop, goddamned you!" He struggled for breath. "It wasn't my idea!"
"Then whose was it?" snarled Chet.
"Faisal's... he's backing the anti-Khomeini groups in the States... giving 'em all money and papers to stay in the States... wants to take Iran... oil fields... Aiieee!"
"And Karen... why did you sell her to Faisal..."
"She... she didn't have the Milady bag... the stupid twat... so I fucked her good and made some money off her slutty, freckled ass... it's your fault, you asshole," he sang through clenched teeth. "You shoulda given her the lingerie and none of this shit would have happened... it's your fault Faisal turned her into his personal slut!"
"Why the hell did I end up with the lingerie... tell me that!" Another inch forced back against Chet's knee made Jibsen's back arch off the floor.
"Somebody else by your description... ouch... Christ, you're killing... me... Was supposed to pick it up..."
"Chet, I'm so glad to be going back to New York," chirped Karen hastily packing her suitcases in the Hussein hotel room. "Chet, I know you want me to keep the other piercings, and to be honest, I've sort of grown used to them, I kind of like them now myself... but can't we take the nose ring out, everyone who sees me will know I was a harem girl. And isn't there a danger in that?"
"I doubt it. You have your passport, your with me, and we have the attention of the American Embassy. I doubt very much anyone will try anything. Karen that ring is pretty thick in your little nose honey, I don't have access to a cutting saw. As soon as I get you home, I'll cut it out for you ok?"
"Okay, baby, I guess I can live with it a while longer. I've had it in my nose so long, it seems kind of normal by now. And as for the stares I get... well, it can't be much worse than the humiliation of being an Arab's plaything..."
He swung her around by the shoulders, his face a mass of swollen purples and greens. "Karen, I love you so much! I'm going to make this all up to you I promise! But before we go there's something I have to turn over to Abdullah... Reaching into his satchel he hauled out the lace trimmed tap pants and camisoles and spread the lace over his palm. Karen's slender finger traced the inch-wide lace.
"It looks terribly irregular... look at the stitches, they're going this way and that..."
"That's the code for the H bomb, my dear... woven into the lace of your underwear! That's why Jibsen's Persian thugs were trying to kill me... I had the secret they needed to keep Faisal from disemboweling them..."
Karen's forehead wrinkled. She shivered. "Sounds familiar," she murmured under her breath, rolling emerald eyes at the ceiling.
"Abdullah reported that's exactly what happened to the conductor who tried to knife me and the two thugs who attached me in Beirut and the airport... all over a goddamned pair of underwear... makes you wonder what the world is coming to."
"And the conductor... what happened to him?"
"Hanged himself in prison. It's called Islamic honor..."
A knock on the door and Abdullah appeared, ready to drive them to the airport.
Shelling attacks had temporarily halted and special dispensation had been granted to Americans anxious to return to the States. Chet was told by Abdullah that a private jet had been chartered by a group of Arabs who wanted to repay him and Karen for saving them from the threat of the bomb. They would fly home in style.
At the airport, the couple headed for the ticket counter, checked in their luggage and headed for the private VIP lounge for a quick drink before takeoff. Their flight was announced minutes later and scurrying through the gate, Karen quickly boarded the flight, two or three steps ahead of Chet who had stopped to show their passports to an inquiring guard at the gate. Karen had been waved through, and she boarded the plane, a flush of excitation rouging her cheeks.
"Hello, my friend," smiled the Lebanese stewardess closing and locking the fuselage door behind Karen, speaking through raspberry-red lips. "Welcome aboard your flight to Baghdad. If you will please sit in the seat near the back, I can strap you in, and make your flight a pleasant one... or not, it all depends upon you... Sheik Faisal has been very concerned about his private property, he is anxiously expecting you!"
Karen sucked in his breath and her pulse quickened. It was the French-speaking Lebanese stewardess from the train...