Chapter 17
He awoke to banging on his hotel door. Groggy, Haatim sat up and rubbed his eyes. What time was it? It proved impossible to tell because his body felt completely out of sync. Not yet that awake, he staggered across the room to the door and threw it open.
Savin stood there, grinning widely. “Are you ready?”
Had a few hours passed already? He yawned. “Sure. Hang on; let me get changed.”
He moved to close the door, but Savin stepped past him and into the room. “You like cold air?”
Haatim nodded. “Yeah. I turned up the air conditioning.”
Savin nodded solemnly and went over to the AC unit by the window. He stood next to it, holding his hands over the vents as though studying them.
Haatim hesitated. “You, uh … going to wait downstairs?”
Savin turned, tilting his head to the side. “No, why?”
“So I can change?”
“You can change.” Savin turned back to the AC. “I can wait. It is no problem.”
Haatim opened his mouth to object, changed his mind, and headed over to the restroom. Though small and cramped, he managed to put on some fresh clothes in only a couple of minutes. He left the bathroom door cracked open, though, because the tiny room got too hot when he closed it.
Dressed, he unwrapped the scarf from around his neck. He hated scarves, even in winter, and it felt almost like peeling off a Band-Aid on his tender skin. It still looked red and swollen but had started to heal a little. The chain marks remained visible, but they too had faded.
The bathroom door pushed open all of a sudden and almost knocked him aside. Savin stood there, smiling. “Ready?”
“Yeah,” Haatim said, hastily wrapping the scarf back around his neck.
Savin’s expression changed to concern. “What happened?”
“Nothing major,” Haatim said. “Just an accident.”
Savin didn’t seem convinced but didn’t say anything. Instead, he turned and headed for the exit, and Haatim followed.
As soon as they got outside the room, the heat set in again, and Haatim found himself struggling to breathe once more. Time spent in the air conditioning felt like resetting, and his body had to adjust again.
The air had cooled, though, and even though only five o’clock in local time, the sun had dropped already.
Father Paladina had set up Savin to take him around the city and act as his guide, and apparently, Savin knew their intended destination. They headed out to the street, and the car sat parked in the hotel’s turn around, right next to a sign that warned that it was a tow away zone.
Savin climbed in, and then he reached across and opened the door for Haatim. Less formal now, which Haatim appreciated.
“Let’s go.”
Haatim shrugged and then got in. “Where to?”
“Market.”
“What’s at the market?”
“Food,” Savin said.
He put the car into gear, jerked out into traffic, and they were off. Haatim found himself clutching the doorframe again, and in the twilight of the sun disappearing, the Cambodian’s wild driving seemed even more terrifying.
“Hungry?”
“What? Yeah.”
“I know good food,” Savin said.
They drove the rest of the way in silence for about another ten minutes, weaving through traffic and down narrow streets until they, finally, came to a stop in front of an open-air corner restaurant.
Haatim took a few steadying breaths. His hands shook and had turned red from holding onto the car so tightly, and he sweated copious amounts once more.
“We’re here.”
Haatim nodded and climbed out of the car. The restaurant looked small and deep, an open establishment with ceiling fans spinning lazily overhead.
It had about ten tables inside. All of them empty except for two occupied by diners. A woman greeted them at the door, speaking quickly to Savin in Khmer, and then she led them over to one of the empty tables. Savin beckoned for Haatim to follow.
“Good food,” he said.
The woman smiled at them both, set down a pair of menus, and then disappeared. Haatim picked up the menu, took one glance at it, and then looked at Savin. “I can’t read any of this.”
Savin nodded. “I know. I’ll choose for you.”
That didn’t sound too encouraging. Haatim didn’t consider himself a picky eater, but for definite, he didn’t like having other people pick out food for him.
Still, he couldn’t recognize any of the words on the page, or even the alphabet, so he sat there, sort of helpless.
The waitress returned, and Savin ordered in Khmer, speaking quickly and gesturing his hand toward Haatim. The woman nodded along and then disappeared once more into the kitchen.
“What did you order for me?”
“Chicken and rice.”
That surprised Haatim because it sounded quite a bit tamer than he’d expected. By the time the food arrived, he felt starved and chowed down on it at speed, devouring the whole plateful. The food—a bed of rice—came with a dish of soupy stew that he poured over the grain as he ate. It tasted spicy and flavorful.
The kitchen had chopped up the chicken into little pieces, bone and all, and Haatim had to eat the pieces slowly to make sure he didn’t swallow any little chips of the bone.
Savin had ordered himself a bowl of what looked like intestine, but Haatim couldn’t make it out for sure. He’d eaten intestine before, but not in a long while, and he hadn’t become a fan of the texture.
They didn’t talk while they ate, focusing on the food, and Savin finished eating everything in only minutes. Haatim considered himself a fast eater, but he’d barely gotten halfway done when Savin pushed away his plate. Then, he just stared at Haatim while he chewed.
It got awkward, fast, and Haatim tried to strike up a conversation to make it less so. “Have you seen the woman we’re looking for?”
Savin nodded. “Yes. The black woman.”
“Where?”
“Here,” he said. “That’s why we came. It was a few nights ago.”
“Here?”
Haatim couldn’t help but look around, hoping he might spot Abigail sitting somewhere in the restaurant. Though not here, of course, he couldn’t help but feel a little let down.
Still, it gave him hope that they’d come to the same area where she was last seen.
“Yes. She came here.”
“Have you seen her anywhere else?”
Savin shrugged. “I have seen her around the city. In the market.”
Not the most helpful of guides.
Haatim finished eating just as the waitress brought over the bill. She set it on the table and then stood next to it, staring at him. It took him a second to realize that Savin also sat staring at him.
“Oh,” he said, fishing out his wallet.
He glanced at the bill but couldn’t understand it. Basically, it just looked like a garbled mess of numbers, and he had no idea of the exchange rate.
Father Paladina had given him a fair amount of cash and told him the rate when he first left, but he’d forgotten—something like three or four thousand to one. With a shrug, he pulled out a twenty and handed it to the woman.
She smiled, picked up the bill, and disappeared. A few minutes passed, and then Haatim glanced over at Savin.
“I won’t get change, will I?”
Savin shook his head, still grinning. “No.”
Haatim sighed and stood. “What now? Should we check out the market and see if we spot her?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
Savin stood, too, and headed outside. Haatim followed. The marketplace appeared mostly empty, and it looked like many of the vendors worked at closing up. They went into a huge auditorium type of building and saw countless vendor stands littering the area. Packed close together, they formed narrow walkways that proved difficult to navigate.
Savin weaved through the crowd gracefully, but Haatim found himself stumbling into people every couple of steps. He kept an eye out as they walked, looking for Abigail, but didn’t see any sign of her.
They kept walking for about an hour, moving to another marketplace that seemed to have been an old military building crammed with walls to section off individual stores. One child ran up to him, holding up bracelets and speaking quickly, and another appeared a few minutes later, offering sunglasses.
Haatim waved away both of them, gesturing that he couldn’t understand them, and they seemed to get the idea. One of them tried the same thing on Savin, who yelled at him.
“Like rats,” Savin said, shaking his head.
Haatim couldn’t think of a good response, so they continued walking in silence. He didn’t see any sign of Abigail, but he noticed a pair of foreigners that earned a double glance from him. One of them, a skinny man, had sallow skin and a shaved head, and the other had darker skin and dead eyes.
They looked out of place sitting in an outdoor restaurant, and what caught Haatim’s attention most was that while he and Savin walked through the marketplace, they’d passed the same place twice about an hour apart, and the men hadn’t moved. They sat watching the crowd studiously, searching for someone.
Father Paladina hadn’t managed to supply him with pictures of who the Church had sent to deal with Abigail, but he’d said it was two men and gave descriptions of them. These two matched up almost perfectly.
Finally, they gave up the search that night when most of the shops had closed down, and the streets stood empty. Savin drove Haatim back to his hotel and dropped him off. His driving didn’t seem as insane with fewer vehicles on the road, and to be honest, Haatim felt too tired to care anymore. His legs hurt. His neck hurt. And he just wanted to get cleaned up and go to bed.
He kicked off his shoes and took a quick shower before climbing under the sheets. The staff had shut off the AC while he’d gone out, so he flipped that on again. Worry crept through his head because if the assassins found Abigail before he could, then it would make it difficult to get her to surrender. Now that he had seen the two men, the danger of the situation seemed more present.
It would prove nearly impossible to talk to her even if he found her, though. What would he say? Hey, I know you don’t want to talk to me, but I’m here to try and save you from Church assassins?
Hey, I know you don’t care about me, but I care about you and want to keep you safe.
Still, he had to try.
His biggest doubt, however, came from wondering what he would do if the Church found Abigail while he met with her. If he couldn’t convince her to turn herself in, then he would be forced to try and protect her, which seemed like a dangerous and risky prospect. The exact opposite of what Frieda wanted for him. The Church didn’t hunt him right now, but if he did that, he would certainly get added to their list.
But, the more he thought about it, the more all right he felt with that possibility. In any case, he wouldn’t abandon Abigail to her fate, no matter what she decided or how she had treated him. Even angry with her, he cared about her more than he wanted to admit.
With so much to worry about, Haatim felt unsure if he would ever fall asleep. Naturally, he went out cold after only minutes.
