Critical Mass (39 page)

The entire world had seen his acceptance of Islam. “That I cannot say. Certainly he is angry. But that’s to be expected. Islam becomes very quickly a habit of soul. This is why, once converted, so few fall away from the faith. But it’s hard for them at first. You know.”

“Yes, Eshan, very well. What is next?”

“The acceptance, which you saw.”

“Yes, and then what did he say in his privacy?”

“For twenty minutes, nothing. The signal was lost for a time.”

“Ah. Why is that?”

“You hear him walking, then a whirring sound, then static. Ten minutes later, the whirring again, then he walks, speaking . . . some sort of declamation.”

“May I listen?”

Eshan sped the tape forward until he heard the peeping of speech again. When he slowed the machine, the president’s voice returned: “ ‘Come, let’s away to prison: We two alone will sing like birds i’ the cage: When thou dost ask me blessing, I’ll kneel down, and ask of thee forgiveness: so we’ll live, and pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh at gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues talk of court news . . . ’ ” Then he laughed, muttered, and went on declaiming.

“This means what?”

“Master, this is unknown to me. It’s in a old form of English. Perhaps a poem.”

The master looked at him, then stood and went across the broad room, his stockinged feet whispering on the weathered blue mosaic. “It is said that the devil is a mule, Eshan. Do you know of that saying?”

“No, Master.”

He chuckled. “This American devil is indeed such a creature—stubborn without cause, mean out of his deepest nature, habitually cruel.” He pointed a finger at Eshan, a long finger, the nail pale sculpted ivory. “Mind me, he knows very well that we are listening, and I tell you this—what we want to hear is what he said when the static was on. This is when he spoke the truth.” He waved the hand, opening it as if freeing a bird to the air. “All we have heard is a lie.”

“He has not embraced the faith?”

“He has not.”

Eshan tried to understand. “Then, Master . . . is he mad?”

“But of course, mad not to take the hand of Allah when it is extended to him. In his madness, I am afraid he leads the world further down the Crusader path, and all else is lies.”

“What is to be done?”

“All things come to him who waits.”

“That is a saying of the Jews.”

“Who respects the Jews has their measure. We will now punish Washington.”

“We cannot accomplish this at present.”

“Ah, no? You think not? I think that Allah has fixed that which was broken, my son, because Allah knew that the time to punish the Crusader capital was not two nights ago. It is now.”

His dark eyes twinkled, and Eshan knew that the Mahdi truly had entered Syed, for how otherwise could he possibly have such insight?

Syed laughed. “You wear your puzzlement so clearly, Eshan, you of the hopping eyebrows!” The laughter extended, then faded to a gentle sadness. “A carpet, Eshan, is woven of many threads. You are but one thread.”

“Then we are proceeding against Washington, Master?”

“It saddens my heart, that so many must suffer for the obstinacy of so few.”

Eshan tried to contain the explosion of joy that came up within him, but the sheer intensity of it caused a ripple of delighted laughter—whereupon the master gave him a slap with a hand as soft as a woman’s. There was no real pain, but he turned his head aside, bowing to the shame. “Forgive me, Master.”

“Tell me, do you miss Aziz?”

This question frightened Eshan, because there could be no right answer.

The Mahdi gave him that charming smile, then touched his cheek. “Sometimes he worked for Mr. Deutsch, you know. Sometimes for the Russians. Did you know?”

Eshan struggled to quell his hammering heart. If there was the slightest suspicion of him, his life was over. “I killed the Russian contact with my own hands,” he said. “I slit his throat.”

Syed Ahmad smiled brightly. “Now come and help me pack and move, for it is certain that the Americans will unleash Dream Angel the moment that our beloved bomb detonates. We must hide among their running dogs, or we will be burned with the faithful.”

“Do we not desire martyrdom?”

“Of course we do, but we have work to do for Allah; we cannot yet allow ourselves to inhale the sweet scent of heaven.”

Eshan remembered the death of Aziz, and for the first time the thought touched his mind that this man might have been behind it, somehow. When the eyes twinkled again, Eshan saw something behind the merry glitter, a stillness of a sort he had seen just once before, but unforgettably. It had been in India. He had been walking along a path by a stream. It was twilight. In a field nearby, children were playing soccer, their voices echoing. He’d seen,
beyond the path, something so still that he thought at first that it was a statue. Another instant, though, and he realized that the gold he was seeing belonged to the eyes of a tiger. It was watching the children. They were only Hindus, so he had hurried on.

Syed Ahmad of the tiger’s eyes stood. “Nowadays there is never enough time for tea!” He swept off into the deeper parts of the house, Eshan going quickly behind.

A LEG UP

As Rashid entered Alexandria, he became careful, and then very careful. There
were few people about, most of them either gone or respecting the curfew. He did not doubt that there was a bulletin out for him by now. Once they lost him, they would be beside themselves, putting all of their resources to work. Would his own supporters keep him safe? They were salted here and there, two in the FBI that he was aware of, certainly a few more in the CIA, in Homeland Security, in the National Intelligence Office, cutting false orders, diverting real ones.

He’d spent the day sitting in his car listening to the radio news and watching to see how the local police patrols were organized. When he’d heard Fitzgerald sniveling about his conversion, Rashid had instantly known that Allah had granted Washington these additional hours precisely so that the cowardice of the Crusader king could be revealed to the whole world. Allah, beloved father, was always a step ahead of the devil.

Rashid drove until he found an indoor parking garage, then went in deep. He parked the car and climbed the stairs to street level, where he watched the sparse traffic for a time without stepping out. When he did so, he kept his head down. It was a long chance, but a skilled analyst could come close to identifying a specific individual, if the target was looking up
at just the right moment. He had personally made Osama bin Laden four times. Nothing had happened, though.

Rashid had never met Bilal and Hani Aboud, the Moroccans who were responsible for this most important of all the bombs. How it was that Inshalla had chosen them, Rashid did not know. Obviously, though, something was not right.

He walked out into a ghostly quiet. Stores were closed, some of them with steel shutters. This was actually helpful. Although he was the only person on the street, which obviously made him a target of the police, it was also true that it would be easy for him to spot the opposition.

He walked steadily and quickly, keeping as close to buildings as he could, taking advantage of any overhead cover that presented itself. In tracking, he knew what he was capable of, and Mark was even better, and he would be highly motivated, for sure, Mark who was facing weeks of interrogation about the mole who had worked for him, and probably would see his career go into terminal decline. So Mark was up there in the sky looking right now, as were they all.

In addition to worrying about what might be happening overhead, Rashid had to think about the police. There were few squad cars, thankfully, and the National Guard was not deployed in this death trap, so his chances of encountering anybody were not great. Still, he stayed off of short streets as much as possible. He didn’t want some damned cop to come swooping around the corner before he had a chance to conceal himself.

He had been walking for three blocks when he heard a faint sound, perhaps a car engine. For a moment, he saw no place of concealment, but then he noticed that one of the stoops of the row houses he was passing had a small space under it. He slipped in, forcing himself down among the garbage cans that were kept there, making as little noise as possible.

The sound became more distinct, an engine nearly on idle, coming closer. Automobile, he thought. No lights, though. The police, then, being very stealthy.

This did not seem like a routine patrol. This seemed like what might happen if they had been sent here to look for somebody. Rashid forced himself not to look, not to even think about moving.

Something tickled his ankle. Then he felt a pinch. Of all things, a damned rat was biting him. He loathed filthy creatures like snakes and rats. When he
moved, though, the garbage cans immediately rattled, and the guttering of the engine was now distinct, so he had to simply hold his breath and bear it, an awful sensation, stinging, then tickling as the creature licked at the blood it was drawing. He was sickened; his skin crawled.

Then he heard voices, soft, intent, and a shaft of light appeared, shining along the wall. He watched it play carefully around the stoop. A glow filled the cul-de-sac. He pressed himself hard against the back wall . . . and the light moved slowly away.

He begged God to make them leave, because the rat was tearing at the skin now, sending excruciating waves of pain up Rashid’s leg. He tried to move the garbage cans, but again there was sound—a scraping. And again the light returned.

Click.
The car door had been opened. There were steps on the sidewalk, and the scuff of feet on the two steps down. Rashid could hear the cop breathing, in and out, in and out, a slight wheeze to it. Crashing, then.

“Shit!”

“What?”

“They got every garbage can in town down here.”

The pain in his leg stopped and the flashlight beam wavered as the rat sped into the pool of light that ended just an inch from Rashid’s crouching body.

“It’s a rat,” the cop said, his voice now uninterested. A moment later he was back in the car and the danger had ended. Still Rashid crouched, trying to get his heart to slow down. Allah, he knew, had done this. What rat bites through a man’s trouser leg and chews at living flesh? No, it had been a miracle, God making sure that the rat would be present when needed. “Thanks be to God,” he breathed. He waited, though, until the guttering of the engine had entirely faded and been gone for a time. Then he came out, allowing the cans to clatter a little. At first, he stood in the shadow beneath the stoop. Then he stepped back up onto the sidewalk. With the streetlights out—and they had been turned off earlier all over the Washington area, presumably to make it more difficult for any pilot to locate his target—the street was now far darker than it had been. But even so, just before this Rashid had been able to see. Then he realized, of course, the moon had set.

It had been over a year since he had gone online to find this house on a map. He had done it from a computer at a public library in Bethesda, and mapped a nearby location, not the actual house. He had also concealed his
search in a series of other searches for local Wal-Marts and Target stores. This made him fairly sure that his tracks were covered, but again, he knew the skills of the analysts in Nabila’s department. Somehow, they might be able to uncover his search, although he could not imagine how.

He moved through the silence and blackness, no longer bothering to keep close to walls. There was no point. That sort of maneuver made it harder to get visuals, but a single man walking the streets on a cool night had an unconcealable infrared signature. If the cops were being directed from above, they would be back very shortly, and this time he would not escape.

He walked quickly, moving down one block and another, past houses, then bleak-fronted apartment buildings, their lobbies dark. A dog followed him for a time, a gray, panting shadow. “Come,” he murmured, “come along,” but the dog went off. Too bad; it would have appeared less suspicious.

Here and there, he saw a parked car, but never one that looked as if it could be easily used. And then it hit him like thunder from the hollows of his soul: You are here to die. If you are successful, you will not see another dawn.

He stopped, held his hands before him, two pale claws. His tongue felt his teeth, his skin the cool air. His mind was filled with images, memories, thoughts—and suddenly he saw inside himself a truth that he had been denying for years or, rather, covering with an increasing elaboration of prayer. This was that the Muslim promise of a heaven stocked with virgins seemed boring to him. More than that, he did not, he had to admit, believe in heaven at all, or hell, or anything, really, except the night air that surrounded him now, and the fact of death. So, why did he do this? He had no answer. He was face-to-face with the mystery of the soul.

Then he came to the critical block. The house was just around the corner. He could not assess the situation by walking to one end, then doubling back, or going around the block, or anything like that. Anything except going directly to the house and quickly letting himself in would be immediately suspect. So he walked down the sidewalk, crossed in the middle of the street, and approached the door of the red-brick row house. The street was so quiet that the only sound was the whisper of his sneakers on the pavement. Although the Air Force planes cruising above showed no lights, he knew that they were there, too high to be heard, knife-edge planes piloted by magically skillful men who would swoop after him the moment he became airborne. He had no illusions about this. The flying of the plane would be his responsibility. The only question was, what had happened to the Aboud
brothers? They had not been captured, of that he was certain, because his unit at the NGIA would have been among the first to know and he had not been discovered until after they had failed to detonate their bomb.

He reached the front of the house and went up the steps. In his training, he’d learned the particular locks that were installed on all of the buildings that were in use for this project. Simple locks had been chosen intentionally, and the tongues had been filed to allow easy entry to anybody who knew the secret. Their security did not rest in things like locks. A lock couldn’t keep out the authorities, and they were the only threat that mattered.