Blackout (15 page)

Sunday, August 23, 10:15 a.m. EDT

Washington, D.C.

On the computer screen a headline announced “Riley Covington's Homecoming.” What followed in the ESPN.com story was a very detailed, very personal look into what superstar and American hero Riley Covington was feeling as he entered Platte River Stadium for the first time since the attack. It told of his joy at seeing his old teammates, his tears during the reading of the victims' names, and just how much fun he'd had embarrassing his former nemesis, Chris Gorkowski, and sacking Randy Meyer. All in all, it was a very well-written article that provided interesting insights into the mind and heart of Washington Warrior Riley Covington.

However, as Scott Ross watched Khadi Faroughi staring at the monitor, he somehow knew that her eyes were not on the text. Instead, they were fixed on the picture by Whitney Walker's byline—a picture that showed Whitney with a microphone in one hand and Riley's arm in the other.

Scott, too, had stared at the picture for a long time while in his office. There was something more there than just the hand on the arm. Maybe it was the way Whitney was looking up at him—such a deep admiration in her bright green eyes. Maybe it was the laughter on Riley's face—easy, comfortable.

Or, maybe . . .

Scott couldn't help thinking of a scene in the movie
While You Were Sleeping
—a movie Scott never missed when it was on late-night television, although he would never admit it to any male friend—where Sandra Bullock's character was accused of “leaning.” She was told by the character who was in love with her that “leaning” involved more than just hugging; “Leaning is whole bodies moving in. . . . Leaning involves wanting . . . and accepting.
Leaning
.”

Maybe I'm overanalyzing—although I guess that's what analysts are supposed to do—but I could swear that both Whitney and Riley are
leaning
in that picture,
he had thought.

Scott cleared his throat.

“I know you're back there, Scott. You're about as stealthy as a water buffalo,” Khadi said, keeping her eyes on the screen.

“Sorry. Asian bovine characteristics tend to run in my family.”

Khadi chuckled softly. “You know, I was just looking at this picture of Riley and Whitney. Is it just me, or do they look like they're
leaning
?”

“
Leaning
? What do you mean by leaning?” Scott asked, feigning ignorance.

Khadi finally turned around and said, “Oh, come on, Scott. Don't try to pretend you don't watch
While You Were Sleeping
every time it's on TV. It's the one chick movie every guy likes but is afraid to admit it. It's been scientifically proven or something.” She turned back toward the monitor. “So are they leaning or not?”

“Yeah, they're leaning,” Scott admitted.

Khadi sighed. “I guess they are.”

She reached across her keyboard and turned the monitor off before turning back to Scott. “You know, I really like Whitney. After everything calmed down back in June, she and I even went out to lunch together. She is a smart, beautiful, funny woman.”

“But not at all Riley's type,” Scott said, hoping to lift Khadi's spirits.

“Oh, really? And just what is his type?” Khadi responded.

Scott remembered reading a study that had recently been completed that found that two to three times each year every male on the planet finds himself in a conversation with a female during which he would willingly commit Japanese ritual
seppuku
if it meant extracting himself from the situation.
Or maybe I didn't read about it; maybe I just thought the study should be done. Either way, it doesn't matter; the truth still stands. I guess it's a good thing that I'm not wearing a sword today, although she does have a pretty mean-looking letter opener on her desk. . . .

“Scott, come back from your own little world—you're not getting off that easy. I asked you just what is Riley's type.”

Khadi's question pulled Scott back from his struggle to remember if the ritual went “plunge, then left, then right” or “plunge, then right, then left.”
Doesn't matter! Right now I'd just settle for the plunge!

“Uh, what is Riley's type? Well, it's like this: in
our
conversations, he's told me . . . he's said that . . . the . . . the girls he likes . . . are . . . are . . . smart, beautiful, funny . . . and Persian! Yep, he always added Persian. Don't know why. I don't know any Persians. Do you know any Persians?”

Khadi couldn't help but laugh. Scott relaxed when he saw her softening up.
Might it actually be possible to survive this?

“Khadi, I don't know what's going on with Riley right now,” Scott said, leaning against the doorframe. “I doubt Riley knows what's going on with Riley. We've—I've taken his life and turned it upside down. Then, no sooner does he get here than he's thrown into training camp with a new team, then preseason. Plus he's got all the memories of his dad and of what he personally has gone through this last year. I think Riley's a struggling boy right now.”

“I know,” Khadi said sympathetically, “and I want to be there to help him through it. But between his schedule and my schedule here, we've only seen each other three or four times since he's arrived in Washington.” Then, motioning back to the computer screen, she added, “But he does seem to find time for Whitney.”

Khadi fell back into her chair and started laughing. “Listen to me. I sound like a teenager with a schoolgirl crush. Riley and I don't even have an actual relationship going, and here I am acting like a jealous little girl.”

“Listen, Khadi,” Scott said, taking a step into her office and lowering his voice, “I don't know what's going on with Whitney, but I'll tell you what I do know. I know how Riley's face lights up when you show up. I know how he watches you when you're across the room.”

“Like you do with Tara.”

“Right, like I do with—wait a minute, I do not watch Tara from across the room,” Scott defended himself.

“Oh please, Scott. Everyone sees it except Tara.”

“Listen, if I'm watching Tara Walsh, it's because she is an exceptional analyst and I am admiring her skill and womanly fortitude.”

Khadi just smiled at Scott.

“You really don't think she knows?”

“She's clueless.”

Scott gave a sigh of relief, then said, “Good. Now where was I?”

“You were telling me how much Riley digs me.”

“Exactly. Listen, if you two kids didn't have this whole religious rigmarole between you, Riley would have been down on one knee with you months ago.”

“You really think so?” Khadi asked with her eyes wide.

“I really think so.”

A genuine smile filled Khadi's face. “Thanks, Scott; I guess I needed to hear that.”

“Anytime,” Scott answered, amazed at how quickly he could move from the brink of ritual suicide to chick-hero.

“And by the way, nice use of the word
rigmarole
,” Khadi complimented him.

“Thanks,” Scott said proudly, “I've been wanting to use it in a sentence for a while.”

“Hey, you two, am I interrupting anything?” Tara Walsh asked from behind Scott. This was the first he had seen her today, and she was more beautiful than ever. The August humidity had caused her to temporarily give up her usual pantsuits in favor of cooler fare. Today she was wearing a sleeveless black and cream empire jersey dress and had her hair pulled back in a loose ponytail. The whole package together caused Scott's tongue to temporarily stick to the roof of his mouth.

“No, we're just chatting,” Khadi answered, saving Scott.

“Good, because it looks like Evie may have found something.”

“Seriously? We'll be right there,” Scott said, having managed to pry his tongue loose.

“Okay, I'll let everybody know,” Tara said, turning to go.

Scott watched as she walked away. When she finally rounded the corner, he looked back at Khadi, who gave him a wink.

“Doesn't Tara look nice today in that summer dress?” Khadi asked innocently.

“I hadn't noticed.”

“Obviously.”

“I have to run to my office,” Scott said as he started out the door. “I'll see you in there.”

“Scott,” Khadi called out, causing Scott to stop midstride and peek his head around the doorway. “Thanks again. I needed that.”

“Anytime. You know where I'm at,” Scott answered, then was out the door and back to business.

Sunday, August 23, 1:45 p.m. IRDT

Tehran, Iran

Looking out the window, Ayatollah Allameh Beheshti could see the embassies of the Vatican, Italy, and France. Just beyond his sight line, he knew, were the delegations of the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, Armenia, Germany, and—way off in the distance—the United States of America.

So much of the world, so close! What will be happening in those buildings in the days to come? What panic will take place? What threats will be made? Will those complexes even be standing at the end of the year?

Who will be ruling Iran . . . Islam . . . the world? Which reminds me . . .

“Close your books,” Beheshti said to the teens sitting at two long tables. Immediately, all thirty-two books snapped shut. He examined his students—all male, all aged thirteen to eighteen, and all wearing long white kurta shirts with white kufis on their heads.

These young men represented some of the cream of Iran's future. They all came from extremely wealthy and influential families; while there was a lot of oil money represented, there were also two brothers whose father owned a chain of electronics stores throughout Tehran and the surrounding provinces, four students whose fathers were either governmental ministers or deputy ministers, and one boy, the youngest of the class, whose father was the owner of the third-largest television network in Iran.

That was why the textbooks were new, the madrassa was clean, and all five of the Islamic school's classrooms were protected from the oppressive August heat by air-conditioning.

Ayatollah Beheshti had set no standard tuition rate, but the student selection process was very strict, and the families were expected to donate generously to the upkeep of Jomhouri mosque and madrassa. This expectation allowed Beheshti to live a very comfortable life. It also helped to fund his personal projects—the most important of which was currently aboard four separate freighters, each of which was on a long ocean journey to America.

“Farid,” Beheshti called out to one student whose upper lip was covered with a dark, soft down, “how many imams have ruled Islam from the time of Muhammad, peace be upon him, until now?”

Farid stood and answered confidently, “There have been twelve,
sayyid
.”

Some of the students giggled at his response, and Farid whipped his head around to find the offenders.

Beheshti singled one out. “Namvar, since you find Farid's answer so humorous, please do him the favor of telling him why he is incorrect.”

Namvar stood and turned to his classmate with a smug look on his face. “There have been only eleven imams who have ruled Islam, starting with the Prophet's cousin and son-in-law Ali ibn Abu Talib al-Murtadha, peace be upon him, and continuing until Hasan ibn Ali al-'Askari, peace be upon him. The final imam, Muhammad ibn Hasan al-Mahdi, never had a chance to lead Islam.”

“And why is that?” Beheshti asked, scanning the room, bypassing the anxious eyes that were trained on him and searching for those that were averted. “Pasha?”

The boy stood up timidly. “Because he was killed?”

More laughter told him he was wrong, and he sat down.

Beheshti fixed him with an angry glare. “Could you please tell me what you were doing for the last half hour while everyone else was reading about this subject?”

“Daydreaming about Danush's mother,” a voice called out from the back of the class.

While the class erupted in laughter, Pasha and Danush both pushed their chairs across the tile floor and leaped up, ready to pounce on the one who had said such a vile thing.

“Stop it.” Beheshti's voice echoed through the room. “You young men forget where you are and who I am!” Calm was instantly restored to the class. “Now, Yahya, perhaps you can tell me what happened to the young imam.”

Yahya stood and cleared his throat. “When the Mahdi was seven, Caliph al-Mu'tamid tried to kill him. His mother tried to hide him, but the caliph would not rest until he was dead. So Allah in his great mercy granted him invisibility, and the Twelfth Imam disappeared from humanity until such a time as Allah sees fit to restore him to his rightful place as ruler of all Islam.”

“Very good, very good. You have studied well.”
Maybe there is hope for this next generation after all,
Beheshti thought with no small amount of self-satisfaction. “The Mahdi has been hidden away by the hand of Allah for more than a millennium. But the time for his re-emergence during the End of Days is near—very near. Quick, what are the signs we are to look for?”

“The hero Yamani will fight the enemies of Islam,” one boy called out.

“Sofiani will fight against Islam,” another said.

“Jibril will call out from heaven!”

“Sofiani will be destroyed!”

“The Pure Soul will be killed!”

“Iran will win the World Cup!”

Again, laughter filled the room.

“Excellent, excellent,” a smiling Beheshti said. “Except for you, Namvar; I'm afraid when it comes to football, you have put patriotism ahead of common sense.”

While he much preferred teaching adults, guiding the children of the wealthy into the truth was what drew the fathers—and their money—into the mosque. So this was an obligation that Beheshti accepted only reluctantly. But there were times, like now, when watching a class full of youths really grasping his lessons gave him a joy that surpassed anything he felt when he led in the mosque.

The ayatollah stood at the head of the two tables and tried to let his pleasure show on his face. All eyes were on him as the students waited to see what he would do next. He slowly smoothed his long beard, grabbing a handful and gently pulling it down, as he prepared his final flurry of questions. The teens, who were used to these rapid-fire sessions, waited on the edges of their seats, each ready to jump up if his name was called.

“Anoush, where will the Mahdi appear?”

“Mecca!”

“Rahim, will he remain in Mecca?”

“No, he will conquer the enemies of Islam and finally rule from Samarra in Iraq!”

“Youness, will he come alone?”

“No,
sayyid
, the prophet Jesus, peace be upon him, will appear with him!”

“Jamshid, will Jesus fight against the Mahdi as the Christians believe?”

“On the contrary, Jesus will lead the final jihad, destroying all those who do not accept the truth of Islam!”

“Mansoor, what time is it?”

The boy leaped up before realizing the question had nothing to do with the lesson and hesitated just long enough for the classroom to break into laughter. Looking at the wall clock, Mansoor answered sheepishly, “Two o'clock,
sayyid
.”

Beheshti smiled. “It's good to know you can handle even the most difficult of questions, young man.”

Again the students laughed as an embarrassed Mansoor slowly sat back down.

“For tomorrow,” Beheshti said, pausing long enough for everyone to reach for pen and paper, “make sure you have Surah As-Saff and Surah Al-Fath memorized, and write down passages from each which you think might refer to the Mahdi. Good work today for most of you. You are dismissed.”

The students filed past him with a respectful bow. Farid and Pasha each received a light slap on the back of the head and a stern look from the ayatollah.

When they were all gone, Beheshti made his way down the corridor toward his office. This was the time of day that he cherished most. The meetings were finished, the classes were taught, and there were still three hours or so until the
'Asr
prayer time. Now was when he could think, pray, and plan for the future.