‘With the eyes of a hawk, great sir!’
Try the telephone, please.’ The two men reached the elevators and the taller subordinate pressed the button; a panel opened immediately. They walked inside and the door closed. ‘Is that man competent?’ asked the shorter Arab as the machinery whirred and the elevator began its ascent.
‘He does what he is told to do and what he has been told is not complicated… Why was the Mahdi’s office sealed for so many months?’
‘Because the authorities were looking for men like us, waiting for men like us.’
‘They tore the room apart…?’ said the subordinate hesitantly, questioningly.
‘As with us, they did not know where to look.’ The elevator slowed down, then stopped and the panel opened. With quickening steps the two visitors walked to the staircase that led to the Mahdi’s floor and former ‘temple’. They reached the office door and the shorter man stopped, his hand on the knob. ‘I’ve waited over a year for this moment,’ he said, breathing deeply. ‘Now that it’s arrived, I’m trembling.’
Inside the huge, strange mosquelike room with its high domed ceiling filled with brilliantly coloured mosaic tiles, the two intruders stood in silence, as if in the presence of some awesome spirit. The sparse furniture of dark burnished wood was in place like ancient statues of ferocious soldiers guarding the inner tomb of a great pharaoh; the outsized desk recalled the sarcophagus of a dead revered ruler. And standing against the far right wall, in clashing contradiction, was a modern metal scaffold rising to a height of eight feet, side bars permitting access to the top. The taller Arab spoke.
‘This could be Allah’s resting place—may His will be done.’
‘You didn’t know the Mahdi, my innocent friend,’ replied the associate’s superior. ‘Try Midas the Phrygian king… Quickly now, we waste time. Move the scaffold to where I tell you, then climb above.’ The subordinate walked rapidly to the raised platform and looked back at his companion. ‘To the left,’ continued the leader. ‘Just beyond the second slit of the window.’
‘I don’t understand you,’ said the tall man, stepping on the slip clamps and climbing to the top of the scaffold.
‘There are many things you don’t understand and there’s no reason why you should… Now count to the left, six tiles from the window seam, then five above.’
‘Yes, yes… it is a stretch for me and I am not short.’
‘The Mahdi was far taller, far more impressive—but not without his faults.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘No matter… Press the four corners of the tile at the very edges, then force the palm of your hand with all your strength into the centre. Now!’
The mosaic tile literally burst from its recess; it was all the tall Arab could do to hold on to it without falling. ‘Beloved Allah!’ he exclaimed.
‘Simple suction balanced by weights,’ said the shorter man below without elaboration. ‘Now reach inside and withdraw the papers; they should all be together.’ The subordinate did as he was told, pulling out layered sheets of an extensive computer printout held together by two rubber bands. ‘Drop them to me,’ continued the leader, ‘and replace the tile exactly as you removed it, starting first with pressure in the centre.’
The tall Arab awkwardly carried out his orders, then climbed down the scaffold’s crossbars on to the floor. He approached his superior, who had unfolded several sheets of the printout and was scanning them intently. ‘This was the treasure you spoke of?’ he asked softly.
‘From the Persian Gulf to the western shores of the Mediterranean, there is no greater,’ answered the younger man, his eyes racing across the papers. ‘They executed the Mahdi, but they could not destroy what he created. Retreat was necessary, retrenchment demanded—but not dismemberment. The myriad branches of the enterprise were not crushed nor even exposed. They merely fell away and returned to the earth, ready to sprout trunks of their own one day.’
‘Those odd-looking pages tell you that?’ The superior nodded, still reading. ‘What in Allah’s name do they say?’
The shorter man looked curiously up at his taller companion. ‘Why not?’ he said, smiling. ‘These are the lists of every man, every woman, every firm, company and corporation, every contact and conduit to the terrorists ever reached by the Mahdi. It will take months, perhaps several years, to put everything back together again, but it will be done. You see, they’re waiting. For ultimately the Mahdi was right: This is our world. We will surrender it to no one.’
‘The word will spread, my friend!’ cried the older, taller subordinate. ‘It will, will it not?
‘Very carefully,’ replied the young leader. ‘We live in different times,’ he added enigmatically. ‘Last week’s equipment is obsolete.’
‘I cannot pretend to understand you.’
‘Again it’s not necessary.’
‘Where do you come from?’ asked the bewildered subordinate. ‘We are told to obey you, that you know things that men like me are not privileged to know. But how, from where?
‘From thousands of miles away, preparing for years for this moment… Leave me now. Quickly. Go downstairs and tell the guard to have the scaffold removed to the cellars, then signal the car as it circles the street. The driver will take you home; we’ll meet tomorrow. Same time, same place.’
‘May Allah and the Mahdi be with you,’ said the tall Arab bowing and rushing out of the door, closing it behind him.
The young man watched his companion leave, then reached under his robes and pulled out a small hand-held radio. He pressed a button and spoke. ‘He’ll be outside in two or three minutes. Pick him up and drive to the rocks of the south coast. Kill him, strip him, and throw the gun into the sea.’
‘So ordered,’ replied the limousine’s driver several streets away.
The youthful leader replaced the radio inside his robes and crossed solemnly towards the huge ebony desk. He removed his ghotra, dropping it on the floor as he walked to the thronelike chair, and sat down. He opened a tall wide drawer on his lower left and lifted out the jewel-encrusted headdress of the Mahdi. He placed it on his head and spoke softly to the mosaic ceiling.
‘I thank you, my Father,’ said the inheritor with a doctorate in computer sciences from the University of Chicago. ‘To be chosen among all your sons is both an honour and a challenge. My weak white mother will never understand, but as you incessantly made clear to me, she was merely a vessel… However, I must tell you, Father, that things are different now. Subtlety and long-range objectives are the order of the times. We will employ your methods where they are called for—killing is no problem for us—but it is a far larger part of the globe that we seek than you ever sought. We will have cells in all of Europe and the Mediterranean, and we will communicate in ways you never thought of—secretly, by satellite, interception impossible. You see, my Father, the world no longer belongs to one race or another. It belongs to the young and the strong and the brilliant, and we are they.’
The new Mahdi stopped whispering and lowered his eyes to the top of the desk. Soon what he needed would be there. The greater son of the great Mahdi would continue the march.
We must control.
Everywhere!
Book Three
* * *
Chapter 45
It was the thirty-second day since the wild departure from the island of Passage to China, and Emmanuel Weingrass walked slowly into the enclosed veranda in Mesa Verde; his words, however, were rushed. ‘Where’s the bum?’ he asked.
‘Jogging in the grounds,’ replied Khalehla from the couch, where she was having her breakfast coffee and reading the newspaper. ‘Or up in the mountains by now, who knows?”
‘It’s two o’clock in the afternoon in Jerusalem,’ said Manny.
‘And four o’clock in Masqat,’ added Rashad. ‘They’re all so clever over there.’
‘My daughter, the smart mouth.’
‘Sit down, child,’ said Khalehla, patting the cushion beside her.
‘Smarter mouth infant,’ mumbled Weingrass, walking over and removing his short cylinder of oxygen to lower himself to the couch. ‘The bum looks good,’ continued Manny, leaning back and breathing heavily.
‘You’d think he was training for the Olympics.’
‘Speaking of which, you got a cigarette?’
‘You’re not supposed to have one.’
‘So give.’
‘You’re impossible.’ Khalehla reached into her bathrobe pocket, withdrew a pack of cigarettes and shook one up while reaching for a ceramic lighter on the coffee table. She lit Weingrass’s cigarette and repeated, ‘You are impossible.’
‘And you’re my Arab Mother Superior,’ said Manny, inhaling as though he were a child wallowing in a forbidden third dessert. ‘How are things in Oman?’
‘My old friend the sultan is a little confused, but my younger friend his wife will straighten him out… Incidentally, Ahmat sends you his best.’
‘He should. He owes me for his grades at Harvard, and he never paid me for the broads I got him in Los Angeles.’