The Aisha Prophecy (21 page)

He approached the table and the half naked woman. His first instinct was to feel for a pulse at her throat. There was no need, however. Her eyes, though fluttering, were opened wide. Her expression told him that she had seen and heard everything. She was trembling, but he saw that it was not out of fear. He removed his suit jacket. Very gently, he used it to warm her.

He took a moment to gather himself. He made an effort to soften his features. That done, he lowered himself to his knees and he brought his face close to hers. He waited, before speaking, so that she could see the sadness and the pity in his eyes.

“If I swear before God that I mean her no harm, will you tell me where I can find her?”

The young woman lowered her eyes. She didn’t answer.

“I don’t mean your classmate. I mean the one who is coming. I’m referring to Aisha herself.”

Her eyes took on a shine. “She is coming.”

“I know that,” said Sadik. “I know there’s an Aisha. I know all about her. And I believe that your friends, the Darvi sisters, are now with her. The Darvi sisters were taken to France and from there they were taken to America. They were taken to South Carolina. Did you know that?”

The young woman looked away. He felt sure that she did.

“Another girl, a Saudi, was taken there as well. Same time, same way, first to France and then America. She did arrive safely, did she not? Her name is Rasha.”

One eye flickered. She seemed to know that name as well.

“Only tell me this much. They’ve stayed together?”

The girl hesitated. She gave a slight nod. Sadik let out a breath. He said, “Thank you.”

His lowered his voice to a confidential whisper. “They were taken to a safe house run by the Nasreens.”

She blinked. He thought he saw a look of surprise that he knew about the Nasreens. He said, “Of course, I know them. My own wife is one of them. My daughter keeps a photograph of their founder on her wall. Myself, I applaud what they do for young women who want only to use the gifts that God gave them. Look into my eyes and believe that.”

She did. Her own eyes softened. They hinted at trust. But then her jaw tightened. She closed them.

He said, “But something happened. There was trouble at that safe house. For whatever reason, it was disbanded and its residents and staff were relocated, scattered. Had it been discovered? Had it been attacked?”

Her eyes fluttered. He saw a slight shake of her head. She lips moved as if she were about to reply. She did not, but her manner suggested a denial. Her eyes seemed to say, “No, it wasn’t like that.”

“No attempt on their lives? The Darvi sisters? Or Aisha? Not that sweet little Saudi girl either?”

Once again, another slight shake of her head. He said, “My daughter will be happy to hear that. She’s your age, by the way. She, too, is in college. She and I have spoken of this prophecy as well.”

The young woman finally spoke, her voice a choked whisper. She asked him, “Does she believe?”

He considered lying, if only to comfort her. Instead, he answered, “I think she would like to. You, though. What made you believe?”

She wet her lips. “My friend told me. My friend does not lie.”

“Even friends can be mistaken. They can want to believe. We all believe many things because we wish to.”

That shine reappeared. “But she came to me.”

“Who did?”

“Aisha. She came.”

Sadik shook his head. He said, “I don’t understand. She came to you how? Through the internet?”

“Here. Dressed all in white. She was so beautiful.”

“Yes, but… what is here? Do you mean in this prison?”

Farah nodded. “She came. She touched her hand to my face. After that, the pain was less. And I believed.”

Delirium, thought Sadik. Delirium and shock. Thank God for delirium and shock. He said, “I’ll tell my daughter. This will please her.”

He saw that softening again. Not yet trust, but a beginning. He said, “I say again, I intend them no harm. But you must know that there are others who want them all dead. Especially Aisha. She’s the one they’ll want most whether she’s the true Aisha of the prophecy or not. My interest is in keeping her alive.”

A small shake of the head. “She cannot die.”

“But many others can and will. Many others will suffer. Look what’s already happening to you.”

She winced at the thought of it. Her eyes went toward the door. She said, “You are a man. You are with them.”

“I’m with whom? Those two dolts? You saw what I thought of them. I came on my own and my motives are just. If I lie, may I never see paradise.”

She started to speak. She paused to bite her lower lip. She said, “If I betray my friend, I won’t either.”

He heaved a sigh. He reached a hand to touch her cheek. He said, “Oh, you will. I have no doubt of that. You’ve been loyal and true and firm in your faith. Your name will be honored. I will see to it.”

Tears welled in her eyes. She said nothing.

He asked, “When she came to you, did you see her face?”

She said, “I saw her glow. I felt its warmth.”

“Did she speak?”

“Not in words. But I heard without words. She said to me, ‘Take heart. I am coming.’”

“When, though?” he asked her. “Is it to be soon?”

“Soon. She is almost of age.”

“So she knows that she is Aisha? That she’s Aisha reborn? Or has that not yet been revealed to her?”

Her expression showed confusion. “She must know.”

“Because she came. I understand that. But the prophecy says that she must first come of age. You said that she is almost of age.”

The young women tried to concentrate. She seemed not to be sure. She said, “I think soon. Very soon.”

“Until then, is she safe? Is she well protected?”

A nod. “The angel Qaila protects her.”

He smiled. “Yes, I know. I am familiar with the prophecy. The flame-haired angel, Qaila, who has guided her, protected her. But this angel has more than one name, does she not?”

She blinked her eyes uncertainly. The equivalent of a shrug. Disappointing. She did not seem to know.

He could now hear loud voices approaching the door. They were berating the guards who had left him alone with her. The guards were protesting. They were blaming the sergeant. The sergeant was bawling, “Look what he did to me. He broke both my knees. Shoot him. I order you to shoot him.”

The old mullah’s voice: “He’s from the Council. No shooting.”

“Smash him,” yelled the sergeant. “Cut off both his hands.”

“No cutting,” said the mullah. “Arrest him.”

Sounds of trying the door. Someone’s boot kicking at it. Sadik knew that he had little time left with her.

He spoke a name. He said, “Elizabeth Stride.”

He watched for some sign that she recognized the name. He couldn’t be sure. He tried again.

“I think the angel called Qaila is Elizabeth Stride. If that’s so, you’re quite right. She’s in very good hands. I haven’t met her myself, but I know much about her. She is also known as the Black Angel.”

He had hoped, he supposed, that saying this would elicit, if not recognition, some additional trust. If not their new location, an email address. The ones found on her computer were untraceable. And now the pounding on the door grew more desperate.

He asked her, “Please. Won’t you tell me where they’ve gone? I need to find them before others do.”

Her lips formed a word. She couldn’t bring herself to speak it. A tear fell. “You ask me too much.”

The pounding took on a sharp crunching sound. A battering ram. A sledge hammer, perhaps. With each blow, clouds of dust flew out from the hinges. Soon the door would give way and they would arrest him. Would they hurt him? No. Only rough him up, maybe. Nothing worse, he felt sure, without leave from Mansur. But they’ll likely take it out on this girl and what little life that she has left in her.

He said, “You heard them say that I am a doctor. I do not have my medical bag because they would not let me bring it. I would have given you all the morphine that I have. Do you understand what that would mean?”

“I’ll… be with God.”

“And no more pain. Your body’s poisoned and it’s maimed, but not your beautiful soul.”

She understood. She almost smiled. “You would release it?”

A snapping sound amidst the pounding. The upper hinge had given way. He said, “I have no morphine, but I have one other thing. Let me show you. Try not to be frightened.”

From his pocket he produced a stainless steel pocketknife. It was made for a surgeon. It held several small instruments. He opened a blade that resembled a scalpel. He said, “I can’t save you, but I can free you. I will only do so if you wish it.”

He waited until her eyes focused on the blade. They showed that she did wish it and that she was ready. He said, “It’s very sharp. You’ll feel only a tug. Like a necklace that breaks and slides off.”

She swallowed. She asked, “The others. Can you help them?” Her head tilted toward the sounds of women praying.

He understood that she meant the other women in the pens. He knew that she didn’t mean ending their lives. He said, “I swear that I’ll do all I can. And that goes for your friends in America.”

“Why?”

“Ask God when you see him. He knows my heart.”

She took another breath. She nodded toward the knife. Once again, she almost managed a smile. He leaned forward and kissed the top of her head. Then, with the smallest flick of his fingers, he opened her carotid artery.

She barely flinched. Just a short intake of breath. She could see the pulsing arterial stream. It soaked the hands and shirtsleeves of the man from Hamas. He had made no move to avoid it.

She asked, “What is your name? I could not hear your name.”

“Like the angel, Qaila, I have more than one. But God knows me as Rajib Sadik.”

She whispered, “I’ll remember. I will ask God about you. I will ask him to bless you if you’re telling the truth. I will ask him…”

Her expression went blank before she could finish. Her brain, starved of blood, had stopped functioning. Gently, he reached to close both her eyes. Once again, he leaned forward and kissed her.

TWENTY ONE 

On Tuesday evening, half a world to the west, Howard Leland had returned from his canoe trip. He was sore and he was sun-burned; he’d stretched seldom-used muscles. But he’d also been in more pleasant company.

He’d been with men who’d relished being out on open water, doing what most hadn’t done since they were young. They were wealthy, accomplished, but one wouldn’t have known it. Nor were they especially deferential to him. To them, he wasn’t a cabinet officer. On that day, he was simply Howard to them, one of thirty in all, three in each of the canoes. They’d encouraged each other when they fought against currents. They’d sung songs; they’d told jokes; they reminisced of their school days. It was all very wholesome indeed.

It had been a far cry from yesterday, Monday. That day began with Haskell showing up at his door before he had fully collected his thoughts, Haskell pumping him about Elizabeth Stride. After that came his breakfast with Haskell’s associate.

The mogul had questions of his own about Stride. They were personal questions. Unexpectedly so. The mogul had asked what it is about her that might explain the powerful effect she seems to have.

“On whom?” Leland asked him.

“On… men in general.”

Powerful effect? What effect was that? His only knowledge of her was through Roger. The mogul seemed to wonder, although he never quite said it, whether she was some sort of enchantress. Stride? An enchantress? Does he think this woman got close to her enemies by batting her eyelashes at them? From what he’d heard, she was far more direct. He had told the mogul the same lie that he’d told to Haskell, to wit, that he spoken to her late Sunday evening and that she’d agreed to do what she could in recovering that disk from the Nasreens. He said he doubted that she would use witchcraft to do it. She would probably just make a few phone calls.

The mogul reddened slightly. Hemming and hawing. “Sorry. Just wondered. No reason for asking. Not important. Let’s discuss something else.”

The next item on the mogul’s breakfast agenda was some neo-Darwinian drivel about the concept of natural selection as it applied to themselves. The mogul was intent on getting him to bear in mind the sort of people with whom he belonged by virtue of his family lineage. It was more of that arrogant we-run-the-world business, but couched, thought the mogul, in more acceptable terms. Something like the divine right of kings.

“It’s a genetic imperative, this position we hold. We didn’t get to choose. We were chosen.”

He’d replied, “You don’t suppose we were just lucky, do you? Being born into families of means?”

“Not born into. Bred into,” insisted the mogul. “Luck has little to do with genetics.”

Leland’s eyes became hooded. “There are some who’d disagree. Tell that to all those who’ve been struck down in their prime due to one lurking gene or another.”

The mogul shook his head. “Not us. They’re bred out of us. The best and the brightest of us are the strongest. Luck has no bearing. What it is, is preparation.”

“For what, though?” asked Leland. “To rule? Or to serve. My parents brought me up to serve.”

“One serves by leading. We are needed to lead.”

The mogul’s views were presented as being self-evident. He hadn’t seemed to notice, while growing into manhood, that many of his social peers were dimwits.

He’d said to the mogul, “This is all most enlightening, but we’ll have to discuss it some other time. I’m afraid I have another engagement.”

It was then that he sought an engagement to have. The posted activities list was the place. The canoe trip was on it, but that wasn’t until Tuesday. For Monday, there were a series of lectures. The one about oil seemed worth attending, but Haskell would probably be at that one. He’d opted for a skeet-shooting contest instead. He came away from that event with a second place trophy even though he hadn’t shot skeet since Princeton.

He ran into Haskell later that day. The two exchanged greetings, but little more than that. Haskell asked him, “By the way, when you spoke to Stride…” but Haskell never finished the sentence. He’d just said, “Never mind,” with an odd little smile. He added, “All in good time,” as he looked at his watch. He was probably more anxious to hear from the banker whom he had dispatched to Riyadh.

Even so, that smile. There seemed a smugness to it. Perhaps the banker had called with good news.

Leland had kept his distance for the rest of that day. He sought out other company for dinner. By chance, he fell in with a group of men who were planning to join that canoe trip. He’d signed up as well. It seemed just the thing. It would kill another day until the banker returned with his report on that sabotaged computer. It would kill another day until Clew could ask Stride where the Saudi girl’s disk might be found.

Ear to the ground, but be patient.

The canoe trip turned out to be more than a diversion. It had been a delight start to finish. Nor did it end when the flotilla returned. Leland and his fellow paddlers and songsters stayed together through cocktails and dinner. More jokes, more laughter, not an ego in sight. These, he decided, were the real Bohemians. Men like Haskell and the mogul and the stuffy British banker must have gotten in through a side door.

Leland’s head was swimming when he got back to his cabin and climbed the steps to his room. His canoe mates had bought a round of nightcaps for the house. They’d ordered Black Russians. Not a sensible drink. Then the house bought another. His canoe mates bought a third. He’d managed to walk the hundred yards to his cabin in, more or less, a straight line.

He peeled off his shirt and stepped out of his shorts, holding on to his bed post as he did so. He could smell the shirt; it had gotten a bit gamey, but a shower could wait until morning. Those Black Russians, however, could not. He stepped into his bathroom and expelled what remained of them. Can urine smell of alcohol? His certainly seemed to. He hadn’t noticed the smell before then. He reached for his mouthwash, took a swig from the bottle, swished it and spat it into the toilet. He washed his hands in the basin, ran a cloth across his face, then turned and happily eased into his bed. He lay on his stomach. The room spun less that way. He was mercifully asleep in two minutes.

It was just as well that he’d foregone a shower. It would have made a bad end to his day. If he’d pulled back the curtain to reach for the tap, he’d have learned the true source of that alcohol smell. He’d have seen the Saudi prince staring back at him.

He’d have seen sightless eyes bulging out from a face that looked like a melon ripe to burst. He’d have seen a tongue protruding from a slackened mouth whose lips, like his ears, had turned purple. He’d have seen the green sash of his own terry robe wrapped twice around his throat and tucked into itself. The other end would be attached to a shower head arm that had been partially torn from the wall by his weight. The body would not have been hanging, exactly. It was more of a sag, its feet splayed across the tub. It was not so much a hanging as a strangling.

He would have seen that the prince was now dressed as a Saudi, not the slacks and windbreaker that he’d worn on the beach. He had on a typical Saudi thobe, a white ankle-length garment that now looked like a shroud. A Saudi head dress, a ghutra, had somehow stayed on his head. It would not have seemed that it could have.

Leland might have noticed the sheet of note paper that was folded and pressed beneath the prince’s bearded chin, held in place by a wrap of the sash. He might have seen his own name on the paper’s outer fold, written in shaky block letters. He’d have wanted to read it before summoning help, but to do so he’d have needed to lift the whole body in order to loosen the sash.

If he’d read it he might have considered destroying it. Tear it up. Burn it. Flush the ashes down the toilet. Say he moved him to try to resuscitate him. A note? What note? A suicide note? No, he hadn’t seen any note.

He might have considered it. But he would not have done it. He would not have so dishonored himself.

But Howard Leland didn’t have to deal with these questions because he had gone straight to bed without showering.

There would be time enough in the morning.