August

June 1

They arrived in the desert three hours before sunup. The green rumbling ex-military aircraft set them down at a tiny airport in the north of the country. Caddy had slept most of the flight, and was still sleeping now. Phidias had dozed on and off, waking every now and then to catch glimpses of the ground from the window of the plane. Only Henrik had stayed awake for the entirety of the ride.

Wafra was so much more beautiful than Phidias had ever expected. He stepped down from the stairwell of the dingy old plane and into the blazing heat of the desert. The wind billowed in from the east, blowing the linen of his clothes and billowing his scarf. Sand kicked up around them, and Henrik took his hand, then Cadmus's, leading them both across the tarmac to their waiting cars.

Phidias glanced back behind himself once, to see the desert, but his scarf blew into his eyes and obscured his view. He had been here before. Or somewhere like it, at least. Years ago, his first research project abroad had taken him to the Sahel. He'd studied valuation and gender in a densely populated village north of the nearest city, far out into the dunes and shortgrass. He had seen women there, little moving dashes on the landscape, covered neck to feet, dressed in bright blues, reds, dark blacks and greys with their hair tied up in pretty scarves. At the time, he'd thought little of it - there had been the comfortable distance of academia between them, and other things of far more immediate import had filled his mind. Life had seemed so busy then; time so short. The streets had been more crowded, and he had always had to rush in the morning in order to get to his site for work. Life had always been such a rush in those days. But now, standing on the other end of that memory, time seemed to stretch on infinitely into the past.

Of course, that was before the plague had spread; those sweet, carefree days where the world still seemed to be in order. When women blustered past him in packs in the marketplace, blowing by in clouds of dust and fanciful cloth. When cities, towns had thrived. When Emily had been alive. When Phidias had lived another life.

Henrik came up behind him, taking his elbow in one strong hand to steer him out of his reverie.
"Come on, Phidias. This way."
Phidias was directed towards a silvery-gold town car, idling on the runway between three identical others. He looked at them, then at his husband.
"Who else is coming in?"
Henrik glanced up, worriedly at the sky, for a moment, then his face relaxed.
"Oh. No one. These cars are for us."
Phidias looked at him curiously.
"We're each taking one?"
Henrik shook his head and opened the side door for Phidias and Caddy to get in.
"One for us. One for our things. Two for decoys."

~

The estate at Wafra was magnificent. Neither Henrik's pictures nor his descriptions had done it justice. Clustered together around an oasis, six spectacular buildings rose up out of the desert. They looked like palaces, Phidias thought, and wondered then if that made him a princess. He laughed out loud, making Henrik look at him strangely before going back to watching the road.

The caravan of silvery cars headed up a long path that led off of the main desert highway towards the houses. Phidias leaned closer to look out the windows and tried to take in all the detail. The six houses of Wafra were in the 19th century Spanish style, with a heavy Moorish influence and significant borrowing from neoclassicism. The buildings were set in a hexagon, with the central one standing taller than the rest; Phidias knew immediately, from years of anthropological experience, that this was probably the house that the chief lived in. Phidias looked at it, trying to puzzle out who the Big Man of Wafra might be.
"Anthony and Mahir live in the main house. Everett and Tyson, as well."
So much for mystery.
Phidias squinted across the land at the main house, hoping to catch a glimpse of a familiar face in a doorway, or a window perhaps.
"Over there," Henrik pointed to the building directly adjacent to the main one, on the far side from the entrance, "is our home."
Caddy, who had spent most of the ride fiddling with the cloth covering his hair, looked up, caught sight of Wafra, and gasped.
"Wow! It's freaking beautiful!" he squeaked, pressing his nose against the window that Henrik had forbidden him to roll down. "It's even more gorgeous than your Union house, Henrik!"
Henrik smirked, pleased with Caddy's delighted reaction.
"Our Union house." he corrected. Caddy nodded dumbly and continued to stare. "Denis and Josef live there with us. Although they are in the country only rarely - they prefer the climate at home, I suppose."
Caddy nodded again. Suddenly, he whipped around to face Henrik, his eyes already in full puppy-dog mode.
"Do I get to pick my own room?!"
Henrik frowned, but Phidias squeezed his hand and he exhaled and simply raised an eyebrow.
"You may have any room in the upper living suites, excluding ours and Anders'."
Caddy's grin got even wider.
"Yes! Thank you, Henrik!"
Phidias grinned and Henrik leaned over to kiss him. The car began to slow to a stop, and as it did, the front doors of the main house blew open and Mahir emerged, smiling to greet them.

~:~

Saul Jefferson's body was uncovered in a shallow grave off of Highway 6, 1500 miles from the base which was his last known location.

Identifiable pieces of Dr. Eugene Step's body were recovered from a river 150 miles from the Dothan compound of Woodacre.

Neither crime had any witnesses.

~:~