The Prophet's Ladder (10 page)

Todd was silent for a few moments, processing all that he’d been told. “Yes, yes I do.”

“Good. Good!” The sheikh seemed pleased, and somewhat relieved. “But if you find that something...
overt
happens, or if you notice something that in your judgment could compromise our security protocols, those you’ve already been briefed on, please report it to me or to a staffer immediately. Alright?”

“Yes, most definitely.”

“Then let us talk of other things! The day’s hunt has only begun.”

****

Ali was sweating. The heat from the lamps was near overwhelming, and the light shining on his face was blinding in its intensity. Nonetheless, he stared directly ahead at the camera, as ordered. He was kneeling in front of a black and white
Islamic State of the Maghreb
flag, which had been strung up against the wall. Behind him stood several men with assault rifles and machetes.

Earlier that morning, at dawn he had been kicked awake by these same men, unchained, dragged on top of a grate, and hosed down before being handed a pair of trousers and a dirty, oil stained t-shirt; they hadn’t even given him a towel to dry off his soaked, battered body. They had not bothered to feed him. He thanked God that at least he’d been able to keep his shoes, as the concrete floor of the warehouse was ice cold and he’d not slept at all, only rested on the heels of his feet. It was a small kindness amidst a storm of cruelty.

A piece of paper was handed to him by one of the armed terrorists, and he was instructed to read. “My name is Ali ibn Abd al-Aziz. I wish to confess my sins to God. I have slandered the holy Quran with my writings on my website. I have defiled my family’s honor with my words. I now realize the error of my ways. I do not support a secular government in Tunisia. Rather, I favor the return of the Islamic Caliphate in North Africa. I beg the forgiveness of the Most Merciful, for I have sinned. I will be punished.”

Ali’s hands began to shake, his nerves once more getting the better of him.
They told me I would be set free
. The men behind him began shuffling their feet, but he did not dare turn around. Instead, he read the words scrawled on the paper.

“God is great.”

The cameraman began yelling at him. “Shout it! Shout the words if you want God’s grace!”

“God is great!
Allah Akbar!
God is great!” Ali screamed the words, knowing that it was all he could to preserve his mother, his brothers, Amina. He felt a wind brush the hairs of his neck. In that instant all he could think about was his fiancée, how she was all that really made sense to him in this irrational, unjust world. She was so beautiful: her scent, her eyes, her passion, her confidence. His nerves momentarily forgotten, his heart aching with thoughts for her, he longed to hold her in his arms just once more.
Oh Amina. I love you.

The machete blade fell, and Ali’s head toppled from his body, a look of mild shock and surprise on his face. Blood sprayed violently from his eviscerated neck and shoulders. The body remained seated for several seconds before slumping over. While the jihadists chanted slogans the cameraman wiped the ichor from his lens with a clean cloth. He knew he’d be hunched over his computer well into the night, cutting and pasting the day’s footage on editing software, inserting logos and scrolling text, polishing the beheading footage, making it look ‘professional.’ Recently, he’d struggled for some time learning how to upload videos directly from the production program onto various online video hubs, but just yesterday he discovered a tutorial that made it all seem so easy. If he were perfectly honest with himself, the cameraman felt his craft was unappreciated amidst the collection of insurgent hardliners, mercenaries, and ex-soldiers, but he dared not complain. After all, he was doing God’s work.

****

Amina was asleep in bed when the police chief called. It was 4:30 AM on a Friday, and she struggled to find her cellphone on her nightstand. Having forgotten to set the phone on silent, she picked up only to ensure her parents didn’t wake up from the blaring ringtone, if they hadn’t already.

“Miss Hannachi? This is chief Radhouen Al-Din.” She bolted instantly awake.

“Yes chief? What is it? Is it about Ali?”

“Miss, we’ve received additional information concerning your fiancé. I must ask you to come down to the station as soon as possible. Can you be here by 6:30?”

She listened as the chief spoke, a tone of reluctance in his voice, as if he was keeping something from her.

“Is it possible for you to have your father accompany you? We’d like to speak to him too, if that’s all right. We may have identified the perpetrators based on recent information.”

“Yes, I think so, I’ll ask him.”

“Good. Good. See you shortly, Inshallah.”

Washing and dressing herself rapidly, Amina was ready to go in short order. Hassan, her father, had immediately agreed to drive her to the station and to speak with the chief. They arrived as the light of dawn burned away the dense nighttime fog that had rolled in from the sea.

The mood inside the bureau was oppressive. The chief immediately whisked them both into his office. “Have you watched the news or gone online yet this morning?”

“No, we don’t listen to the radio in my car. Too distracting. It’s dangerous enough driving in this city as it is. Tell me
sidi
, what is this all about?” Her father was always blunt and to the point when discussing business or other serious matters.

“Well I’m afraid I have some bad news for you. Ali’s been...well…” The chief swallowed, his nerves spilling through his usually stoic disposition. “There’s no good way to say this, so I’ll just say it, God forgive me. He’s been murdered. By extremists. I’m so sorry.”

And just like that, Amina’s world fell apart. She didn’t remember anything else she said or did, just her father and the chief alternately yelling at one another and comforting her, over and over. Someone had been screaming, loudly; she wasn’t sure if it’d been her. It was several hours before the rest of her immediate family arrived to escort her home, along with the family doctor who offered her a sedative.

Her tears dried up as her mother walked her to her bedroom. Instead, a stony pit, like the center of a stale date began hardening in her stomach: hardening, and growing, feeding her strength despite its uncomfortable weight. Encompassed within the pit was a mixture of hate, rage, and despair in equal measure. She would find a way to win, to beat the monsters. And when she did… it would be all encompassing: an absolute victory to avenge her beloved. Her Ali.

****

There was rioting on the street the next day. Once the beheading video went viral on the Internet and the mainstream media picked up on the story, thousands reacted in shock and horror. Many of the protests were peaceful, a large contingent of Arab Spring veterans held candlelight vigils once they realized Ali had been one of their own, an anonymous voice for their generation who’d been there all along, lifting them up with words, with rallying cries from the underground. Many Tunisians of all stripes: academics, blue-collar workers, the unemployed, and others came forward and publicly admitted they were devotees of his writings. A few turned violent, attacking the gates outside the Tunisian parliament building and those political party headquarters that had known Islamist ties. Some even picketed Tunis police stations, angry that their law enforcement personnel couldn’t protect a civilian living in the heart of the capital.

Both Ali’s and Amina’s families were hounded by the press, followed by tabloid reporters and respected journalists day and night, many demanding exclusive interviews or biopics. Amina remained locked away in her room, the only light visible that of her computer monitor. Her mother left her meals outside her door, inwardly concerned for her daughter, though not willing to press the issue. Her father handled all inquiries on her behalf, repeatedly asking the media to respect their privacy. On the other side of the city things fared only slightly better. The neighborhood rallied around Ali’s family, shielding them, particularly his mother, from the worst excesses of the frenzy.

The country seethed and pulsed with anger. Tunisian politicians vowed to address the issue of Islamic terrorism, wishing to curry favor with their constituents. The military stepped up patrols of rural areas and the Algerian border, hunting for members of the Islamic State. The beheading story was quickly picked up internationally, with world leaders devoting press conferences to the events in Tunisia. The incident even drew the attention of those in power in the United Arab Emirates, who saw far reaching implications stemming from the death of one particular journalist.

Chapter 6

1326 CE, the Ilkhanate

“I am to understand that you hail from the kingdom of the Marinids, in Morocco?” The khan leaned back, reclining on a lavish bed of silk pillows. The lord’s tent was so sumptuously decorated that one could hardly tell that he and his retinue had pitched camp on the road north of Baghdad. Baghdad: that once glorious city, now conquered and beaten, a pale shadow of its earlier splendor. A servant offered Ibn Battuta a plate of colorful, succulent grapes, which he politely declined.

“Yes great khan, that is correct. I made the Hajj and now am continuing my travels, wishing to see the entirety of the known world.”

The khan laughed. “A lofty goal! I am told you are a scholar as well. What do you think of my lands, the
Ilkhanate
? How do they compare to your own?”

“They are truly incomparable, mighty khan. Your lands are a paradise next to mine. We of Tangier and the Maghreb are but a minor province, an extremity of the
Dar Al-Islam
, yours, the heart and the soul. There is ancient beauty here, and untold wisdom in its people and its history.”

“Well spoken, well spoken!” The khan chortled, and drank from his glass of iced cucumber water. “Well, I would not see a man of your learning want for provisions here in my demesne. I shall see that you are provided with fresh food, water, a fine riding mare and several additional pack camels for your journey. Let it not be said that the
Abu Sa'id Bahadur Khan
is an ungenerous host
of the learned, and the pious!”

“Your kindness astounds me, my lord. Thank you. Thank you so much. May God bless you and your children and your children’s children. I shall speak of your generosity to all I encounter.” Ibn Battuta bowed in obsequious gratitude.

“Haha. Indeed.” The khan nodded his head at the Moroccan, and he was ushered gently but quickly out of the tent by aids waiting in the shadows. Outside it was just before midday and already extremely warm. All about the khan’s caravan there were fields of withered crops and dusty, cracked soil. Somehow the materials and construction of the monarch’s tent had kept it pleasantly cool despite the oppressive sun overhead. Ibn Battuta’s friend Mohammed, a vizier in the imperial court, approached out of another tent’s side flap.

“Well, how did your audience go?”

“The khan was extremely generous. I have been gifted with provisions to extend and ease my journey.”

“Excellent! Khan Abu is indeed a wise lord. Wiser than his predecessors, many say.”

Ibn Battuta nodded in agreement and accompanied his friend to the rear of the encamped procession of tents, yurts, wagons, carriages, and animal herds, where his own meager bedroll laid ready and packed by Mohammed’s bivouac. As they walked he considered, not for the first time, that such a procession would better suit a traveling circus than a powerful king.
But then, perhaps they are one and the same
.

“Where will you travel to next my friend?” Mohammed asked him. “Surely you’ve attained all that you desire. You’ve been to Mecca and completed the Hajj; you’ve seen Cairo, Damascus, and mighty Baghdad, or at least what remains of its former glory. Certainly you must have thoughts of home creeping into your mind?”

“No my friend, I will not yet return home. There is still so much to see! I think I will travel to Tabriz next, I have heard it is quite lovely.”

Mohammed laughed. “It is! It is indeed.” He looked at his companion shrewdly. Well, I can already see I will not sway you. Travel safely. If you should return this way to Baghdad, call on me again. It has been a pleasure conversing with you these past few weeks.”

Ibn Battuta clasped hands with his friend. “ I will. Peace be with you.”

“
Wa Allakum, Salaam
.” They kissed one another on the cheek and parted ways. A servant to the khan had quickly brought the gifts he had promised Ibn Battuta as he packed his gear. The horse was a fine Arabian, coal black. Atop the steed was another fine, if unexpected, gift: a beautiful Mongolian saddle, its leather soft and warm like fresh goat butter.

The two camels accompanying the horse were loaded with satchels of fresh fruits, dried bread, and water skins. The Moroccan thanked God privately for the occasional benevolence of the powerful. Wasting no time, he harnessed the horse, which made no protest as he mounted and guided her around the camp. “I shall name you Iskandra, for astride you we shall travel the ends of the Earth. How does that sound?” Ibn Battuta patted the noble charger on her flank, and she neighed appreciatively. The animal was indeed well trained, eminently suitable for a great khan.

A steward finished packing his gear, and handed the reigns of the small pack train to Ibn Battuta, who discovered that the additional beasts of burden seemed less willful than his own camel.
Perhaps they are fearful of the khan’s wrath should they misbehave. I know I would be.

The path to Tabriz meandered northeast, growing steeper and steeper until it passed through a gap in the mountains, eventually connecting to a well-traveled trade road. The terrain was quite impressive, with the rocky peaks covered in snow, reminding Ibn Battuta of his homeland’s Atlas mountain range.  There were no inns or caravanserai at this elevation. Instead, he found comfortable shelter in caves or lean-tos each night for himself and his animal train, using kindling and sticks to light fires for heat, though the camels’ body heat provided warmth enough, despite the oppressive, bestial odor.

Eventually, the city of Tabriz appeared on the horizon as the road began to descend slightly. Its skyline was filled with minarets and richly decorated palaces, emulating the peaks of the surrounding mountains. Tabriz was one of the few cities that remained untouched by the recent Mongol conquests. Unlike its southern neighbors it had welcomed the khan by opening its gates rather than trying to resist the invaders, as Baghdad and other metropoles had done. In this way the city was spared and now grew wealthy and prosperous, serving as the Ilkhanid capital. Ibn Battuta reckoned that he was one of the first from Morocco to visit the revitalized city, and delighted at the prospect. As he passed beneath the outer gates he noted that the entire ring of stone walls was lined with beautiful gardens, a feast for the eyes of a practiced aesthete like himself. Roses, lilies, and tulips flowered beneath cypress and hornbeam trees, while delicate lotus blossoms emerged from shallow ponds beside which many residents picnicked in the warm afternoon air.

Nodding to the city guard whose watchful eye scanned the line of merchants passing by, Ibn Battuta smiled, making his way to the nearest Madrasa.
I think I shall like it here.
It was his standard protocol to ingratiate himself with the learned academics of a realm, thus obtaining free lodging and friendship in equal measure.

Admitting himself at the entrance of the marble and granite structure, the young man from Tangier bowed to a bearded, middle aged scholar and spoke in erudite classical Arabic, the
lingua franca
of the age, spoken from Iberia to India and beyond. “Peace be upon you, wise sir, my name is Ibn Battuta, and I hail from far afield….”

****

Todd and forty other Al-Hatem employees stood stage left of Sheikh Nur as the man strode purposefully onto the auditorium’s massive raised stage. His audience consisted of hundreds of journalists, the occasional investor, and more than a few rivals’ industry spies to boot. Mounted on the wall behind him were several large, theater-sized LCD screens upon which flashed Al-Hatem Aerospace’s logo in trim black, green, and gold. This was the public unveiling of the Tower project, as speculation had run rampant over the last year as to what they were building in the UAE’s corner of the Empty Quarter and how.

Already construction had begun and, in the unlikely event that everything went according to schedule and on budget, the project would be completed in two year’s time. Skilled engineers and workers had swarmed the company’s facility to work under absurdly strict, often redundant degrees of security. Just last month unmanned surveillance drones launched by a covert Israeli espionage team had been detected and shot down at the outer perimeter of the Tower, before they could start transmitting valuable visual data. Slowly, ever so slowly, the four kilometer wide foundation of the Tower of Babel had expanded across the desert, creeping along, sinking its roots into the earth. Concurrently, a single massive spire had crept upwards from its center as workers, remote controlled drones, and robots crawled across its surface, building, adding ceaselessly to its already immense height and girth. Scaffolds spread as latticework across the surface of the Tower, appearing and disappearing rapidly like spiderwebs in a dusty attic.

Todd looked at Nur as he waved at the crowd, cheered and exalted with endless applause from the audience.
Always the showman, he is. Look at him; he loves it.
It had been six months since he and Nur had gone falconing on his estate, and Todd felt that he had grown very fond of the man, his boss. He looked at him now like a sort of father figure, though he couldn’t truly say if Nur liked him as much as he liked Nur; he hoped so.

The sheikh spoke into his wireless microphone. “Ladies and gentlemen, investors, tech-savvy fans, and the press, good morning. It is a pleasure to be here today to announce the latest development at Al-Hatem Aerospace LLC. We’ve been planning this one since our founding, folks.” Todd noticed Nur’s accent was some sort of British English and American heartlands hybrid, at once easy going but well informed; educated, but friendly; designed to cultivate trust. He knew too that it was a conscious decision for him to speak that way; everything was premeditated with that man.

The lights dimmed behind the sheikh, and the massive screens shifted, the image of a colossal asteroid came into view in stark black and white. Part of its rocky body lay in shadow, the rest of the planetoid’s grey surface resembling nothing so much as a pockmarked potato. Nur spoke casually, gesturing at the image on screen. “My friends, behind me is MSO-17993-L7, a C-type asteroid approximately two kilometers in diameter. It is composed mostly of carbon and silicate, with some amounts of iron, nickel, iridium, and small amounts of other metals. Common enough materials here on Earth, and yet, it is priceless to me and my company.”

A voice spoke up from the crowd. An Irishman. “Did’ja call us here to look at pictures of a tuber your highness? We’ve all seen asteroids before.” Laughter from the crowd. The sheikh laughed with them, genuine mirth crossing his face.

“I did! I did. One second please.” And with that Sheikh Nur tapped a touchpad in the palm of his hand. The camera began zooming out. “This is live footage by the way, from one of our satellites.”

Still zooming out, there was a flash of light on the edge of the screen. Suddenly, there was Earth. In hundreds, thousands of shades of grey, white and black, there in front of them was the pearl of the solar system, illuminating in stark contrast the asteroid, dwarfed by its presence; it took up the entire screen. Nur spoke. “Here let me shift to color.”

Another live image, this one in full color flashed across the display, replacing the dull black and white. It was breathtaking. The asteroid, still grey but with shades of purple, brown, and metallic silver danced in front of a blue and alabaster marble. There was a surge of murmurs in the crowd, notes of panic. Another question, this time from a Frenchman. “What is the trajectory of the asteroid? Is it going to impact Earth?”

A serious face from the sheikh, a look of parental concern. “No. No, certainly not! For the last eight years we’ve been slowly adjusting the trajectory of this celestial body, bringing it into orbit about Earth’s gravity well. Approximately 35,786 kilometers above sea level.” Nur looked offstage at Todd and winked. “That’s 22,236 miles for you imperial unit minded folks. Using rocket motors and RCS thrusters attached to its surface via multiple missions launched by Al-Hatem, the asteroid has been placed in a stable, high geosynchronous orbit above central Asia. Its orbit will not decay for ten thousand years at least, guaranteed. Nor will it be brought anywhere near other artificial satellites or the international space station. We are all quite safe, as are your television channels and your GPS.”

“Was your company even incorporated eight years ago?”

Sheikh Nur smiled. “I’ll leave it to the dedicated journalists to discover the answer to that question. Suffice to say, it was all done legally.”

“Do you plan on mining the asteroid for precious metals? For gold and platinum?”

“No, we have other plans for our ‘potato.’” The image shifted again, the screen displayed an architectural graphic of the Tower, though it was more akin to an artist’s interpretation of what the Tower would be in two year’s time. Todd noted that the image was suitably impressive, but vague enough, lacking in detail, to not give away any company secrets.

“Now I know what some of you are thinking: ‘impossible; an impossible thing.’ But I’m here to tell you, my friends, that it is possible, because we dared dream it so: a space elevator. Some of you suspected already. Indeed, the ‘cat’s out of the bag,’ as they say, in certain professional circles. But it will happen. In two year’s time MSO-17993-L7 will serve as a counterweight for our tether, which will enable us to climb into the heavens far cheaper than modern rockets currently allow.”

He says it so forcefully, they want to believe him
, Todd thought. The images behind Nur began moving, an illustrative cartoon displaying the elevator, transporting peoples, goods, and cargo, traveling up and down the cable into high earth orbit. A second graph, displayed in the corner, compared the costs per kilogram of a conventional rocket to the tower’s elevator. The murmuring became a dull roar, and hands went up as the press started rapidly shouting more questions. “Well, I suppose we’ll take some more questions directly then. Yes, you.” Nur pointed at a South African reporter.