*
SUCKING up the last of the lemonade, Ali set the glass on the table beside him and swung his nicely browning legs off the lounger. It was time for a swim. He had spent much of the morning sizzling in the rather fetching canary yellow trunks he had found in the drawer and playing Snap with Kinky. She had paled alarmingly under her tan when he had told her about the head, and that Hands across the Sands funded suicide bombers. She claimed she had no idea, nor that the boys she had 'entertained' went on to blow themselves up in buses, markets or crowded mosques.
They came for two or three days, swam, lay in the sun, prayed a lot, and then left. Al-Sekem told her they were sent to foster-families in Jordan, that his villa was a kind of rehabilitation centre, a halfway house between the orphanages and the family home. Hands across the Sands helped kids make the adjustment from one institution to the other.
''It's a halfway house all right,'' Ali remarked, ''Between Earth and Heaven. Or Hell. Was there a weasly guy with furry teeth, tons of pimples and really bad breath? Name of Yasser?''
Kinky grimaced. ''Really bad pimples. They oozed white pus. He sweated a lot.'' She remembered how he had frozen at her touch and stared past her head with dead, blank eyes.
''You're sending them away to die as men,'' said Ali, ''So they can enter Paradise. It's part of Al-Sekem's sick deal. That boy Yasser. He killed my family. That's why I'm here. To stop Al-Sekem, to end this.''
''I thought you seemed different,'' she said thoughtfully. ''The others were very religious. They spent most of their time praying. One or two were terrified of looking at, let alone touching my boobs.'' She smiled and laid her hand on his knee. ''Not something you struggled with, you naughty boy.'' She let her fingers walk up Ali's thigh. He caught her wrist in a steely grip.
''What's he up to, Kinky? What's he planning for the Jerash Festival?''
''I don't know,'' she said irritably, shaking off his hand. ''He tells me nothing. I get all this for an occasional massage, maybe some erotic dancing, a hand-job or two. I'm not complaining.''
''And Al-Sekem? What do you do for him?''
''He has no interest in me,'' she said simply. ''I thought he was homosexual but he isn't. As far as I know, none of the boys who have been here were molested. I believe him to have no sexual impulses or urges either way. Uthman, on the other hand, would love to get his freakish hands in my knickers. He slavers over me. They all give me the creeps.'' She sighed and tossed her hair gently. ''Have you ever seen Al-Sekem's eyes? They chill me to the bone. And he has no eyelashes, none at all. Some disease called madarosis made them fall out when he was a kid. He looks like some primitive reptile that has spent too long in the dark.''
Shuddering, she recalled the Russian soldiers who had pawed her breasts and groped her bottom as she served vodka in the little Georgian border bar she had helped her parents run, until a stray tank-shell had blown it apart in the brief August war.
''They give me the creeps,'' she repeated, heading for the 'little's girl's room' with a suggestive sway of her hips.
Ali puffed out his cheeks. Although this place was a lunatic asylum, he had never experienced a holiday like it. Luxury living, awesome views, an endless supply of excellent food, and a beautiful, half-naked woman sprawled on the sun-bed next door. His brothers would have called him a 'lucky dog'. Smiling quietly he hummed ''Yesterday, I got a pocketful of sunshine'' and stood up for a swim. Suddenly Al-Sekem and Uthman emerged from the house with Hisham.
Hisham. Here.
Damnation. He had to think quickly.
''That's Ali Amin!'' he shouted, ''The Super-Spy! He works for the Arab League!''
''Liar!'' yelled Hisham. ''He's Ali the Super-Spy. He works for the Arab League.''
Hisham sprang at him. Cocktail glasses, cups, plates cascaded to the tiles as the two boys crashed onto and over the sun-loungers. Hisham got his hands round Ali's throat, squeezing, throttling, choking… His dark eyes blazed with rage.
''I'll kill you!'' he screamed.
Pressing his thumbs into Ali's windpipe, Hisham shifted his weight to straddle his opponent, getting his inner thighs against Ali's ribs, but, as he moved, Ali stopped trying to lever the choking fingers off his neck, and slammed instead one hand into Hisham's balls and the heel of the other into Hisham's gut. The pressure on his throat ceased instantly as the other boy rocked sideways clutching his groin and whimpering like a kicked puppy. Wincing, Ali sat up among the smashed crockery and shattered glass. Jagged splinters had pierced his skin. Gingerly he touched his bruised throat.
''That's Ali Amin,'' he said hoarsely. ''He must have found out where we are.''
Al-Sekem, standing over the sprawling boys, seemed to be assessing this development.
''Ask him how he got here,'' Ali said angrily. ''He didn't come from Al-Houri, that's for sure, partly because he didn't know about it and partly because the driver's dead. Yes, I saw the head in the fridge. His paymasters brought him here.''
''He's lying,'' Hisham whimpered tearfully. ''I hitch-hiked.''
Ali brushed china specks from his trunks and snarled ''So how did you cross the border?''
''I got ID.'' Hisham was struggling to sit up. ''It's in my pocket.''
''Forged,'' said Ali, ''Undoubtedly forged.'' He nodded at Hisham's left hand and the raw, half-healed wound between the third and fourth fingers. ''Ask him how he got that scar.''
''You…you stabbed me!'' Hisham stammered, ''In Leila's kitchen.''
''Just as I said.'' Ali feigned angry disgust but his stomach was somersaulting like an Olympic diving team. ''I stabbed him when he sabotaged my mission.''
Hisham's voluble protest transmuted into a snuffled whine of ''He's Ali, not me''.
After an eternity, Moustapha Al-Sekem, indicating Hisham, issued his orders.
''Get the truth, Uthman,'' he said. ''Use any method you like. Just get him to talk.''
Uthman lifted the boy with one terrifying hand and slung him over his shoulder. His lipless grin, malicious, delighted, cruel and excited, chilled Ali's blood.
Plainly terrified, Hisham begged ''Please! You have to believe me. I'm Hisham. You must believe me.'' His ashen, tear-streaked face vanished down the steps and into the pump-room. Moments later a shrill, almost inhuman scream shattered the silence.
Ali kept his face impassive, though his stomach and groin were crawling with ants of nervous anticipation. ''Bloody spy,'' he said casually. ''I hope Uthman breaks his legs.''
''Oh,'' said Al-Sekem casually, as another desperate, bowel-loosening cry resounded round the garden, ''He'll do much more than that.''