The Brotherhood Conspiracy (10 page)

Now it was Tom who searched the ground for an answer. “Well, Doc . . . you know. I am different now—”

“No, wait, let me finish,” Johnson interrupted. “For the first time in my memory, in Jerusalem, I had a sense of God’s existence, his presence. And I witnessed your confidence in God’s presence in your life, and how it led you. And circumstances didn’t change that faith. You’ve been through a lot, like your daughter’s heart surgery. But those things only made your faith stronger. Your relationship with God was very winsome, Tom. It was interesting, attractive, and confusing at the same time. But it’s been on my mind ever since.”

Tom knew Doc had long searched to satisfy a longing he could barely define. Johnson lived most of his life in the rarefied air at the pinnacle of academia. But, for all his intellectual accomplishments, Doc often saw himself simply as a frustrated sixty-eight-year-old man with an unfulfilled pursuit. In addition to secrets and treasures, Johnson also spent his life in pursuit of meaning and purpose. Sadly, despite his earnest attempts, Johnson found no peace in atheism, Eastern mysticism, or New Age philosophies. With all his knowledge, he was still a man seeking truth.

“I wish . . . I was hoping I could find your kind of faith. Maybe that would help me deal with the anguish and remorse I feel over Winthrop’s death. In the past, your faith has given you a place of comfort in the midst of crisis. I’ve seen it. It’s something I’d like to find. But,” Johnson leaned over and picked up a small stone, tossed it in his hand. “I don’t see that comfort in you now. I can understand my doubts about what we experienced, but it’s alarming to see you lose faith.” Johnson flipped the stone into some bushes on the far side of the
street. He frowned and looked up at Bohannon with pleading eyes. “What has happened?”

Bohannon tried to keep his face placid to mask the turmoil in his emotions. Part of him was angry at Doc for putting words to his own disappointment with God, part of him felt guilty for his anger at God, and part of him just wanted to find someplace to curl up and hide from all the stress that continued to build in his life. He was conflicted, confused. If this was a time for fight or flight—his emotions were on the cusp of running as fast as his feet could carry him. But that was the old Tom. The Tom who would run and hide from his problems; the Tom who would unplug and withdraw from the life around him. Like his father, the Tom who would isolate his consciousness from the pressures of life and the world around him.

The old Tom . . . who was dying, but whose character flaws still hung around like cantankerous weeds that randomly pushed their way into a well-tended garden.

The new Tom took a deep-breathing sigh, trying to break the knot in his chest.

“Doc,” he began, finding it difficult to tie his thoughts to his tongue, “I was so sure we were doing something good.”

Tom shook his head. The thoughts and feelings pounding through his nervous system felt like a wild, white-water ride down a swollen river. “I . . . I just don’t get it.” Tom turned on his heel and paced away, his hands holding his head, fingers tangled in the curls at the nape of his neck. “If this so-called adventure of ours was God’s will, how could so much evil come from it? Not only Winthrop’s death. My daughter was nearly abducted. Kallie lost everything. Shoot . . . thousands of people died during that earthquake in Jerusalem. That was good? That was God’s plan?”

Tom spun around. “I feel like a fool!”

Bohannon’s confession echoed up to the height of the trees providing them shelter. “A fool who endangered my wife and my children. A fool who nearly got us all killed. Who am I to think that God speaks to me? Just an arrogant, self-centered . . .” Bohannon threw up his hands, out of words. He inspected a tree trunk.

“Self-pity doesn’t become you.” Doc’s voice was as soft and gentle as the gathering evening—without a hint of accusation.

“I have flagellated myself with the same self-recrimination. I feel personally
responsible for Winthrop’s death and every bit as foolhardy as you do. But there is something that you are forgetting. Something that you cannot deny, that Brandon helped me to see. What happened under the Temple Mount was real. I’ve been on plenty of digs, uncovered some remarkable artifacts. But I never experienced anything like what all of us experienced under the Mount. It was more than amazing . . . it was miraculous. And you and I lived it. There was some power at work that is beyond us. You call him God—and you prayed and he answered.

“If God exists, then he is not capricious. Your God, the God of the Bible, is not like the ancient gods of the Greeks, or the Sumerians, or any number of people groups, who were so fickle and unpredictable that men could never figure out what was coming next. The Christian God is the great creator, the one who brought order and beauty out of chaos. If you believe, he’s the one who sent his Son as a sacrificial offering to wash away the sins of those men who believe. That’s in your book. So, Tom, that God is not a puppeteer who is impulsively pulling your strings. If he is the Creator God, who brings order, then it is not in his character to bring chaos.”

Bohannon was stunned by Johnson’s theological insight. “Do you really believe that?”

“It is my belief, Thomas, that you will need to reconcile the dichotomy you perceive as God. Either he is a good God who cares for you . . . who leads you in prayer . . . or he’s an unpredictable and erratic creature who can’t be trusted. I don’t see how you can have it both ways.”

Well groomed, impeccably dressed, Doc was an anachronism sitting comfortably on that rock. And Tom, without conscious effort, found himself once again considering the depth and progress of Doc’s spiritual journey. But Doc wouldn’t let him off the hook.

“I believe you are experiencing what is called a crisis of faith?” Johnson said with a question at the end, a smirk wrestling with a smile. “And how you deal with your dilemma will determine the rest of your life. And, I believe, will have a profound impact on mine.

“Come along.” Doc rose from the rock, reached out, and grasped Bohannon’s elbow. “The light is beginning to fade and I don’t want to break an ankle on this sad excuse for a street.”

Tom’s mind was scrambled like the stones at the crumbling sides of Independence Avenue as the evening gathered around them. Doc was leading,
picking his way along the left side berm, head down, intensely focused, as they came to the crest of a small rise. Tom heard it first. A rumble. He looked up. Over the rise launched a black SUV, no lights, spitting stones as it rode the side of the street. There was no thought. Had he thought, they would both have died. Tom’s right hand flashed out, latched onto Doc’s shirt between his neck and right shoulder, and pulled with all his strength as he dove headlong into a hedge of forsythia bushes that lined the side of the street. Bohannon could feel the heat of the engine on his back, his body jolted as fender or running board rapped the sole of his retreating shoe. His face felt like it was at an acupuncture convention, but the huge SUV continued careening down the street, the driver apparently unaware of the two men he sent diving into the bushes.

Suspended in the shrubbery like some tossed-away rag doll, Tom groped with his left hand, looking for something solid to use for leverage, and then realized he still held Doc’s shirt firmly in the grasp of his right fist. “Doc?”

“Yes . . . yes, I’m all right,” Doc croaked from within the bush. “Punctured and bruised, yes, but alive.”

Bohannon released Doc’s shirt and pushed against the bush, trying to regain his feet. “Stupid kid, probably joyriding in his father’s gas guzzler.” His right foot scrabbled in the stones, then got traction. “Probably never saw us.” Bohannon stumbled to his feet . . . and saw Doc staring at him. The force of Bohannon’s rescue had pulled Doc to the left, but also backward, dragging Johnson into the bushes on an angle, his face still pointing out to the street.

Bohannon pulled Johnson from the prickly embrace of the forsythia, then held him at arm’s length.

“You didn’t see him?” Doc asked, his question dripping with warning.

Tom felt a shiver ripple up his spine. “No . . .”

“Black hair. Prominent nose. Skin the color of the desert,” said Johnson. “He was looking directly at us. And he wasn’t happy that he missed.”

8

S
ATURDAY
, A
UGUST
1

Damascus, Syria

The sun hammered hard against the al-Shaab presidential palace situated on a hilltop overlooking the drab, dusty streets of Damascus. But in the bunker, far below the soaring fountains and white marble porticos of the palace, the dim lighting and heavy air-conditioning obliterated any thought of sun or sand.

It was a small band, but some of the most powerful men in the Arab world, that met around the polished maple table. The president of Syria was the ostensible host, but even his presence was trumped by that of Rahim Kashmiri, the ruthless leader of the mafiocracy that ruled Syria’s economy and kept the president on a short leash. Across from Kashmiri sat Muhamed Nazrullah, the visible head of Hezbollah who carried Lebanon in his back pocket. Facing the president sat a short, thin man with a round head, a wispy beard and—at least in public—an unrelenting smile. A man who looked more like a school teacher than the president of Iran—Mehdi Essaghir, public enemy number one of the United States and Israel.

But the power behind this meeting—the true leader of Hezbollah and the Muslim Brotherhood—stood at the head of the table, holding the others in rapt attention.

As usual, a black kaftan covered Moussa al-Sadr’s thin, bony frame and a black turban covered his head, leaving visible only a wild mass of gray-streaked beard and two eyes that sang of fanaticism.

“This is our moment,” said al-Sadr. “The Saudis are of no importance. Abbudin has been neutralized by this lie of Islamic unity . . . this farce of the
Arab Spring . . . as if we would actually trust that fat, Sunni fool.” His voice was as low as the lighting in the sealed bunker. “We hold the heart and hope of Islam in our hands. Kamali will not survive in Egypt, where the Brotherhood is consolidating its power. When we rise up, all Arabs will join us in the battle. Jihad will call to them from the sands of time.”

“We don’t need speeches,” said the criminal Kashmiri. “What we need is action.”

Al-Sadr leaned forward, his thin hands supported by the edge of the table, the withering force of his will projected at the overflowing bulk of the thug, Kashmiri.
You, too, will earn justice.

“There is only one goal, my impatient friend.” Al-Sadr’s voice dripped honey, but his eyes overflowed with hate. “The restoration of the Caliphate. Just as Islam ruled the known world one thousand years ago, so Islam will rule the known world today. For that momentous event to occur, we must break through the Israelis’ illegal blockade, reclaim the Haram al-Sharif before the Zionist pigs can seal up the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque with their plans to rebuild their so-called Temple Mount. There can be no Zionist presence to desecrate the holy hill. Now is the time to strike. But with wisdom, not foolhardy bluster. Our attack must be swift and decisive. We must give the Americans no time to respond.”

“The Americans are fools.”

Al-Sadr looked down the table and was surprised to see it was the Syrian puppet who spoke. “You have some insight to share, Baqir?”

The president held a small knife in his right hand and was seemingly absorbed in cleaning his fingernails. “The Americans are fools,” he repeated, his gaze fixed on his fingers. “They have no idea what to expect from us. One day I received one of their senators, and the next week I received the Russian president. No, venerable one, the Americans are confused. They don’t know who is their friend or their enemy, except”—Baqir al-Musawi bowed to the Iranian president—“for our fearless brother. The fools even believe I have stamped out the Muslim Brotherhood here in Syria. No, my brothers, our concern remains how to neutralize the Israelis.”

Al-Sadr nodded his head in agreement. “Yes, Baqir. Someday the long-arm threat of Iranian nuclear warheads will prevent Israeli aggression. But, for now, the fighters of Hezbollah will once again neutralize the weak-willed soldiers of the Jews, but this time on their soil. Is the heart of Amal prepared to strike?”

“The army of Hezbollah moves at your wish,” said Nazrullah, who was heavier and younger than his mentor, but who wore the same clothes, grew the same beard, and nurtured the same hate.

“Then begin inserting your men across the border,” said al-Sadr. “They will not engage the Israelis in any way, even if it costs them their own lives. Put them in place, then await my word.”

Al-Sadr pointed to a map on the wall behind him. “Tunisia, Yemen, Bahrain are the dominoes that will fall first. And when our Brotherhood stirs up the fury of the poor and oppressed in Egypt, Kamali will receive justice.”

“Yes, yes . . . we know all that, Moussa,” said the Syrian president with a dismissive wave. “Kamali upholds that blasphemous peace with the Jew and has poured billions into his own bank accounts. He bent his knee to the American dollar. He will receive a just reward for his sins. And the family Saud? They have prostituted themselves for the petrodollars that fuel their debauched lifestyle. Abbudin is a traitor to the faith. We must wipe his family from the face of the earth, yes. But why Qaddafi? Why our friend and ally?”

The force of al-Sadr’s hatred swept through the room like a stampede—pushing against dissent. “The king of all kings of Africa?” he mocked. “The man who was the West’s greatest enemy when he had courage? Where is he today? Not this whimpering dog who creeps to the door of our enemies for their blessing. This man is your ally? This effete pretender who takes his blonde, Ukrainian ‘nurse’ with him wherever he goes, flouting the chastity of Islam? This is your ally?”