Assassins - Ian Watson & Andy West (19 page)

“The exotic isn’t necessarily
nice
.”

“Aphorism of the day? Well, I think I’ll try
it. Drinks? Oh, there’s no wine.”

“Or beer. Homemade lemonade for me. I don’t
think I need zesty carrot juice.” Paul wrinkled his nose,
rabbit-like, but then suddenly he was serious. “Look, Abi, my
newsman’s nose says there’s a whole lot going on with you that I
don’t know about, and maybe you’re out of your depth.”

“I can cope.” returned Abigail. But could
she? Men like Jack didn’t just give up.

“Who in ICE is hassling you, and why? Why is
that old poem such a big deal?” His questions sounded like
entreaties. He gazed at her earnestly, like a loyal dog.

Abigail wavered. “He’s called Jack Turner. He
seems a big-size fish, in Boston at least, but… misguided.”

“I already helped you, Abi. Maybe I can help
you again?”

The Press was a powerful ally, and Paul could
make a good friend. It was as if a dam burst inside Abigail.
Safiyya’s fragment.
Eagle Teacher
. The insights that sweet
gentle Walid had given her… until his untimely death. The Assassins
of Alamut. Paul had swiftly pulled out his smartphone as well as a
notebook, setting the former into audio record mode. “Hang on, go
back,” he’d interrupted. “Don’t know if our voices will pick up too
well with all this background…” He scribbled valiantly.
‘Hospitaller have pity’. Holy Water. Jack Frost’s crazy notion
about a terrorist plot…

Their food and lemonade arrived, and he could
cope with listening and eating and note-taking all at once. Abigail
was mostly neglecting her puréed smoked eggplant, and Paul didn’t
care to interrupt her flow.

So who exactly was Sinaldin? And where did he
get his Holy Water from? And what exactly
was
his Holy
Water? And did the Hospitaller Guy de Dieulefit leave any records
or legacy or just even a tomb, to find more out about him? Safiyya
likewise? What did all this have to do with plague? Finally,
Abigail gulped lemonade.

“Wow,” said Paul. “But Mrs Lincoln, did you
enjoy the Baba Ghanoush?”

Abigail noticed her toyed-with meal. “I don’t
know,” she said. “How about yours?”

“Great. Succulent. And the feta in the salad
went well.”

“That’s all right, then.” She could safely
invite Kamal.

Drawing a line under serious matters, they
made small talk during dessert, Abigail consuming hers with more
enthusiasm than her main dish. But later as they parted company at
Harvard station, Abigail insisting she could walk the rest of the
way home on her own, she felt a stab of guilt. Paul couldn’t
imagine she was romantically encouraging him, could he? So was she
just using him?

Boston,
Massachusetts: May

As Paul travelled homeward towards his eventual
destination of Revere Beach in the north-east, he pulled out his
notebook, intending to make additions while Abi’s tale was still
fresh in his mind. But his pen soon faltered and he found himself
wondering why on earth he’d told her explicitly that he lived with
a Retriever and a dad. Sure, this showed he was unattached, but you
wouldn’t think he was a hot-shot journalist accustomed to honing
his phrases. Just as well he hadn’t also blurted out the dog’s name
– Rudolph. Rudolph the Retriever, like some kiddies’ cartoon
character. Abigail would’ve laughed, though she mightn’t be so
amused by his home environment. Three males, one of them canine, in
a house without womanly presence; piles of old mags and newspapers
on the floors, all the higgledy-piggledy books! Tidying would ruin
their highly informal filing system. Which didn’t mean you could
tell Rudolph: “Good boy, fetch me the atlas.”

Each time he met Abigail, it seemed he
admired and desired her more. He would turn cartwheels for her. No,
that would make him look like a clown. He’d help her all he could.
That tumbling golden hair and those intelligent greeny eyes; her
assertive chin; her figure of a cushioned slimness; breasts evident
though far from trying to burst her clothes. Ideal, really.

Should he mention to Abigail that his mother
ran off with a charismatic and seductive preacher, of all people?
Apparently the pair were now making a tidy income from their
crusade in Kansas. Or mention that his desolated,
insulted
dad did his best, and never brought another woman near their home?
Although Paul had done so a couple of times. No, no. That would all
sound as if he was trying to push a sympathy button.

He was
normal
. Just, things never
lasted… The relationships were too shallow. Yet Abigail… for better
or worse, Abigail was deep. In those depths she was hiding things,
maybe even from herself. So would it be appropriate concern, or
obsession
, if he looked into more than just her medieval
mystery? Walid’s death niggled. Inappropriately timed, as regards
Abigail’s research!
Or not?
Great though it had been to see
her at the funeral, odd connections and coincidences always bugged
him. Would it be naked jealousy to check out Kamal al-whatever?

Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Downtown Boston,
Massachusetts, May

Jack seethed. That damn journalist had gotten hold of
his name. A call from Paul’s mobile to his editor: they were
thinking of revealing his identity in print. Could only have come
from one place; Leclaire and Summers were closer than sardines in a
can! He’d have to lean on the Globe.

Jack took out the Bible from his desk drawer,
shut his eyes and opened the book at random, then jabbed his finger
at a page. Only then did he look: Psalm 57.
The words of his
mouth were smoother than butter, but war was in his heart…

Maybe he ought to have been smoother with
Mam’zelle Abigail: that could be the meaning. However, war was in
his heart. Precisely! The war against America and the war against
God. The ultimate war. In his experience, opening the Bible always
yielded a truth, although sometimes the words might turn out later
to bear a different interpretation.

His phone rang.

“Brother George? Great to hear from you!

“…Fact is, I’m dithering about going to the
IAAT thing next week. There’s a lot of extra workload at the
moment, and I’ve a feeling the you-know-what investigation here
might break open any time.

“…Yeah, I realise if I go to the Omaha
gabfest I’m only an hour away from you. You really feel it’s so
important I meet up with the Elders?

“…I know how important it is to the Lord! I
used the wrong word. I mean, is it
essential
, just at the
moment?

“…Okay, I’ll book flight and hotel, and
you’ll send a car. I guess it’s another tick on my career
profile.

“…and God bless you too, Brother George.”

Thoughtfully Jack cradled the phone, then
lifted it again to summon Chronicles. The staff did his bidding
more faithfully if he looked them in the eye.

Dan Siegel came soon enough, to be told,
“Look, I’m off to Omaha for an IAAT meeting next Monday.”
Aye
Double-A Tee
, was how he said it.

Siegel looked momentarily blank.

“Inter-Agency Action on Terrorism. Are you
with me now?”

“Ah, it sounded like some medical conference,
I dunno, International Association for Alzheimer Therapy…”

“Did it indeed. In total I’ll be gone four
days. Regarding Dr Leclaire, there’s still no
proof
of a
medieval connection to
Eagle Teacher
, or any proof yet that
she’s involved in anything, but my gut tells me
both
are
true.” Jack drilled his gaze into Dan. “So you keep alert to any
hints via the Paul Summers taps while I’m away!”

The Nile: November
1158

They slipped down the Upper Nile, the raucous dawns
of lush jungle far behind them. Hakim sat by the bow and listened
to the ripple of water, which gave him hope of a swift return to
civilisation, hope of progress. The new sun rose into a purple sky,
a vast silk tent anchored left and right at distant black banks
like sleeping dogs stretched out. The boat sliced through burnished
water, its single sail engorged on the dawn breeze.

Much later in the morning, Hakim observed
bleached villages trying to hide under scattered palms. The boatmen
ate bread and fish. Hakim didn’t associate much with them. Like
many people outside the major towns of Egypt they were Sunnis,
despite two centuries of Ismaili dominance under the Fatimid
dynasty. It was in this very country, in Cairo, that the Ismaili
cause itself had faltered, when some sixty-five years ago the light
of the one true Imam had flickered out. That light was championed
now only by the Nizaris of Mid-Syria and Persia, while a puppet
Caliph, a false Imam, was virtually imprisoned in the Fatimid
palace by his own army.

Cairo was a necessary stop-over. His old
colleagues at the university would provide him with clothes and a
little money. He could earn more by doctoring for men of rank. He
would rewrite his damaged journal that was still tucked beneath his
robes, organise his knowledge from its precious medical notes. But
he could invite no official assistance for his mission. What, put
such power into the hands of a degenerate pretender? Nor could he
expect help from the religious leaders, the da’is, whose feet had
strayed along the wrong path.

He pitied the people of this land, following
their leaders into darkness. Once, they were the
people of
graduation
,
ahl al-tarattub
, acknowledging the truth if
not fully perceiving the spiritual reality of the Imam. Now they’d
drifted away from the truth, perhaps unable to be rescued.
Consequently, they were the
people of opposition
,
ahl
al-tadadd
, and doomed.

The boatmen made many stops and haggled
incessantly over goods and shipping fees. Days had become weeks.
Yet finally the great river was approaching Egypt’s beating heart,
whose lifeblood it was. Traffic steadily increased. Barges and
dhows and clumsy rafts, and even dainty pleasure boats for the
rich, all plied the massive artery that nourished this ancient,
wealthy land… which throughout history had leaked plague into the
Mediterranean as if from a giant bottle with a loose stopper.

By the time the first slender minarets arose
above the wooden wharves and hotchpotch warehouses of a major port,
Hakim had his plan clear. This would require enormous amounts of
money, no less of faith from those not blessed with his own vision
and hard-won knowledge. To obtain backing, he must purify his
spirit and rise in the religious hierarchy of his Syrian
birthplace. He must become one of the super-elite,
akhass-i
khass
. Only thus could he eventually approach the Master of
Alamut himself, for there was no one higher in the whole Ismaili
world, no other nearer to the hidden Imam, nor to Allah.

Whatever the sacrifice, his rise needed to be
swift. He was only a lowly
rafiq
, a comrade in the Ismaili
faith. His medical skills and knowledge of plague had taken years
of dedication, leaving no time to gain even the lowest ranks of the
da’i.

Yet he had his burning faith, his keen mind,
and his grand vision of plague as the ultimate weapon against the
enemies of Allah, a vision he now
knew
was realisable. At
times he felt Godlike. God grants the gift of life, and in accord
with His purpose also takes it away. The taking away is as
necessary for God’s design on Earth as the giving. So God’s will
permits diseases as well as their cures, and by way of a
devastating disease the world might progress towards a state of
perfection when everyone’s belief in God would be true and all men
that survived would be enlightened. The mirror of mankind would at
last reflect God’s forbidden face, which is all-consuming radiance.
Then the world would cease, its purpose at last fulfilled.

At last he came to bustling Cairo. As the solid
ground rocked under Hakim’s legs that were used to the river, he
presently came across a commotion in a busy square. A veiled lady
lay on the cobbles. A panicky eunuch companion was supporting her
head and shoulders, while a tubby black-clad servant woman called
her name and pinched her arm. Two guards stood uncertainly by.

“I can help,” asserted Hakim confidently.

Reluctantly, the guards allowed him near.

“May I lift the veil?”

“I shall,” said the servant woman.

Quickly Hakim assessed the lady’s signs, then
fished some potent smelling salts out from his pouch, one of the
last two medical items he still possessed, the other being a vial
of poppy extract.

In moments the lady’s eyes opened. Her pupils
focused. The companions expressed relief.

“Who are you?” she asked.

Hakim smiled.

“I am the doctor appointed by Allah, and I
will cut out the canker of unfaith from the world.”

Her veil swiftly restored, the eunuch raised
his lady to a sitting position, then gratefully gave Hakim two
dinars.

“Let her sit for five minutes longer.”

“Where do you reside?” the eunuch asked.

“I’m newly arrived from Upper Egypt, although
I studied at the university here.”

“Hmm, I have a problem of some delicacy…
Might I escort you to a lodging I know after we have seen my lady
safely home?”

Truly, Allah provided.

Sabra
restaurant, Cambridge, Massachusetts: May

When Abigail had phoned Kamal, it transpired he was
working at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies up in Cambridge
all day long. So of course her invitation to the Sabra for the
evening, couched in tones of mock apology, made perfect sense.

When Abigail and Kamal entered the
restaurant, the same waiter greeted her with, “Hullo again, Madam!
Two nights in a row. We must be doing something right.”