The guards, with hatred and fire in their eyes, but restraining themselves for their own sakes, said not a word.
“But if you’d bother to read that Koran of yours, you’d realize that you really only get seventy-two raisins. Just the right size for guys like you, right? But you can’t even read – and that’s just how your officers and your imam want you. You know, guys? If you’d just free your minds, your asses would follow.”
The two men, with their lips pursed and their hands trembling, barely able to restrain themselves from the looks of it, pushed Cody along with the butts of their rifles. They pushed him towards the door and then onto the street, crossing the gutter first, where fresh sewage promised to boil shortly under another hot, summer sun. Once across the street, they headed for the sidewalk leading to the doors of the courthouse.
Cody took a long deep breath. “Gotta love the smell of Islam in the morning, right fellas? Is it true what they say about your right index finger? You know, that the nail is longer and usually brown? And that’s why you have to eat with your left hand?” He shook his head. “You would’ve thought toilet paper was some kind of indication of progress, right?”
One of the guards butted him in the back with his rifle, cursing in Arabic.
The courthouse, a three-story, pre-Civil War brick with a large clock tower sitting in the middle of the roof, had always impressed Cody. He knew all there was to know about it, historically; and he’d even found a bullet fired during the Civil War lodged in the mortar between two bricks.
“I bet you two don’t know this,” Cody said, as he walked along. “This guy, who called himself The Human Fly, climbed to the top of that bell tower with nothing but his bare hands and feet. That was back in 1923, before your kind began turning America into the Gaza Strip.”
The guards nudged Cody again, this time a bit harder, and they all stepped up to the rear doors of the courthouse. Cody opened the door on the right.
“This fly guy – he started to come down, having reached the top, but he lost his footing and fell,” Cody said. “Slid off the roof, punctured his skull, and broke his neck before he hit the ground. Hell of a mess.”
Cody pointed to the stairwell to his right, turned, and the guards followed him.
“The guy wasn’t from here,” he said, and he turned and pointed his finger up in the air, shaking it, to make the point. “And nobody knew his name. The local undertaker, right here on the square, laid him out in the window for a few days hoping somebody could identify him. But, in the end, he started to get ripe. The town couldn’t bear the reek any longer, and so they buried him in a mass grave down the road. And that was that. Life went on.”
Cody turned right and hurried up to the top of the steps, whistling as he went. The recently-renovated courthouse hadn’t changed much since the ISA occupation. The only thing conspicuously missing was running water, air conditioning, and toilet paper. The toilets were still used, however, but they were hand-scooped daily by whichever of Cody’s men was lucky enough to draw the shortest straw.
Bashar’s office was at the left rear of the courthouse, and the door was open, like it always was, when Bashar knew Cody was coming. The guards saw him in, turned, and walked out.
“Come in, my old friend,” Bashar said, standing up as he spoke.
Tall, dark, and very handsome – fifty-seven-year-old Bashar el Sayed. Leader of his own army, a high-ranking member of the Muslim Botherhood and an ISA general, Bashar was just back from a trip to Nashville. His officers and men referred to him affectionately as Bash Man.
Cody took off his baseball cap and held it in front of him, not out of respect for the man who had raped and pillaged Tennessee, but because the two men, still friends of sorts, both shared a pleasant history together. Funny, Cody thought, how that before the war, he had been able to spend as much time with Bashar as he had and never once suspect him of being the kind of guy who could later commit acts of unspeakable horror on so many defenseless people.
“You know, my friend – and I tell you every time I see you – none of this should have turned out this way,” Bashar said, almost as if he needed to convince himself. “I never wanted it – you know, the violence.”
“If it helps your conscience, then I’m all ears,” Cody said, as if he’d said it before.
Cody understood him. He knew that Bashar, in the past, had been part of the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization dedicated to non-violent, civilization jihad. He’d done what had been asked of him, and he’d been effective. Little by little, Muslim neighborhoods, filled with middle eastern immigrants imported by U.S. corporations and President Obama’s administration, started making demands of their city councils. They demanded the banning of pork from school lunches: the board of education complied. They insisted on prayer rooms in every place of business: the businesses were forced to provide them. They fought for laws regulating the usage of privately owned gyms: the government made the health clubs comply until all of them closed their doors. They worked to repeal the Second Amendment: Obama took everyone’s guns.
The Federal Government bowed to Muslim Brotherhood demands, every single one of them, up to and including the institution of Sharia Law in Muslim neighborhoods. All for the sake of enhancing government power, all of it paid for and funded with money American politicians received from their wealthy, Islamist patrons.
“Look, Cody,” Bashar said, and he came out from behind his desk, carefully turning over a small, wooden picture frame. “We’ve got a little problem.”
“The mosque will be ready, Bashar – you don’t have anything to worry about.”
“Yes, I know the mosque is on schedule, thanks to you.”
Cody felt a pain in his waist, a pressure of sorts, where he’d been shot. He placed a hand over the old wound and leaned forward a bit, reaching out and steadying himself on the back of the red, upholstered chair.
Bashar rushed up to him and put his hand on his shoulder and said, “Please, sit down – can I get you something?”
Cody shook his head, took a deep, pained breath, and sat down in the chair. “No, I’m good. Must be a storm coming. Whenever the barometric pressure changes, I feel like I’ve been shot all over again. But you can let me get out of Murfreesboro – just look the other way.”
Bashar el Sayed squeezed Cody’s shoulder gently and returned to his dark, leather chair. “It’s not so easy now. You know the imam. He hates you and he loves you at the same time. Funny thing. He doesn’t even know you. But he’s going to have you killed.”
“I get it, Bashar,” Cody retorted, as he shook his head. “I understand all the others. It’s just you I don’t understand. Sure, I know we were friends – at least on my part – but you knew what was coming down the road for people like me. I fought your people in Nashville. You should have washed me away in an acid bath two years ago, like you did the others.”
“We won’t talk about that – the killings,” Bashar said, with a scowl on his face. “I don’t like to talk about unpleasant things.”
“But you do kill. And yet I know you don’t want any part of it – or do you?”
“My men kill.”
“And they’re going to kill me on July fifth or sixth,” Cody said. “Word travels fast around here these days. And when I see you out there, out in the field, you’re a completely different man than the one I know right now, right here in this office.”
Bashar kept his eyes on Cody, not saying a word.
Cody could tell his old friend wanted to change the subject, or at least to look away; but Bashar did neither. And Cody didn’t blink. Instead, he looked at Bashar, seeing hurt and injury, something terminal, deep in the dark eyes of his opponent. Bashar knew what lay on the fast approaching horizon, he thought. The only question was if he would tell Cody.
“In a few days,” Bashar said, “the last day of Ramadan will come. On that day, just before sundown, I will no longer be in charge here. Your men will all die. But for you, I have this.” He pull
ed open his drawer and pulled out a crescent shield. He stood up and handed it to Cody.
Cody took it and weighed it in his hands. A round, crescent encircling a star made of pure silver. He looked closely at it, turning it over in his hands, and said, “Number thirteen? You’ve got to be kidding me, Bashar.”
“You’ve always said the thirteenth hole was your lucky hole!” Bashar laughed. “This pass, this shield, will expire, as will all of my passes, on the morning of the sixth. I can only hope word of that will not have reached any of the soldiers. It might help you get out of Murfreesboro. But it might not.” Bashar ran his fingers through his thick, black, oily hair. “But there’s something else. The ring around Murfreesboro has been tightened. Every exit, every road, is being watched. And a few smaller units are now, as of last night, taking up positions on every road. You will not get as far as you did a few nights ago. And yes, you can have your truck back because you still have work to do.”
“You’re a study, old man,” Cody said. “You kill like there’s no tomorrow and yet you somehow seem human.”
“I will forget you said that,” Bashar said.
“Why me, Bashar?” Cody asked. “Of all the people in this big, wide world, why me?”
Basher smiled and nodded. “I will assure you that I am faithful to the writings of Mohammed and loyal to Allah. You have paid the jizyah, the capitation tax they levy on all the non-Muslims that they do not kill.”
“You mean the ones you don’t kill?”
“The ones they do not kill, enslave, or take as wives. You have paid in labor because you have built the mosque. It is with a clear conscience I can offer you this way of escape. But it is also possible for others to stop your escape. No one will question me – not even the imam.”
“Why not let the others go?” Cody asked dutifully, concerned for those who worked with him. “Why can’t you allow Jose to escape?”
Bashar smiled, but he rolled right on, changing the subject. “After today, we will no longer speak to one another like this. It will be better for both of us – and I know you will understand. And if I should see you on the street, be sure I will make life difficult for you because I am also being watched because our relationship is suspect. I will single you out tonight – but know I do so with great pain and anguish and that, in another time and place, we could have played a round of golf.”
Cody nodded and, after a brief pause, said, “A man’s got to do what a man’s got to do.”
“You taught me that,” Bashar said. “But you ask me why you and not the others?”
Cody nodded.
“I once promised myself I would never tell you or anybody this because, for security reasons, we had to keep it secret,” Bashar said. “You, my friend, once protected my son Jadhari, and you took a bullet for him when he was very, very small.”
{ 13 }
Cody Marshall sat at the small, wooden desk in the basement of the Greenspan Realty and Auction building. He was leaning forward with his arms on the table, caressing the hands of Lisa Maddox, the mother of Marcus, the woman who lived in the basement of the destroyed Emmanuel Methodist Church. The single oil lamp, trimmed to a minimum, glowed faintly in the small, damp space.
“And you saw him take Marcus?” Cody asked, as he looked into Lisa’s dark, sad eyes. “You saw Jadhari take Marcus?”
Lisa, her eyes glistening in the light, and her mouth contorted in sorrow, nodded her head and said, “Yes. Jadhari and five men. I couldn’t shoot – I was trying to get my gun unjammed and . . . and the next thing I knew, they were gone.”
“Nobody saw you?”
Lisa shook her head. “I’m a coward,” she said softly. “I couldn’t bring myself to save him and I---”
“No, Lisa,” Cody said, his voice reassuring and gentle. “You came to me because you know that I know people. I will get Marcus back. Look at me, Lisa. Look at me.”
Lisa lifted her face. Her dark brown eyes, awash with tears, and her long brown hair, dusty and thick, didn’t detract from her beauty one bit. Cody loved her face, the way she looked, and he loved her deeply as a friend. He’d thought of her often over the last year or so, remembering to bring her odds and ends he’d stolen just for her and her son. Necessary things, like food and medicine. He’d even brought her clothes, infidel clothes, tight and high cut. Without him, she and her son would have perished long ago.
“I will get Marcus back,” Cody said. “But I need to ask you if our little secret is still safe.”
“Yes.” Lisa sniffled and managed a pained smile, a sure sign she knew Cody could handle Marcus’s safe return. She got up and came over to Cody’s side of the table and wrapped her arms around him. “Nobody will ever know how much I---”
Cody, distracted, tried to turn when he heard the light footfalls of someone stepping into the room, but he couldn’t see who the footsteps belonged to. A second later, he saw Tracy; and she saw him and Lisa, in their embrace, before they saw her.
“Cody,” Tracy said, her voice high and surprised. “What are you . . . what are you two doing here? This place is supposed to be---”
“A place for runaway slaves, Tracy,” Cody snapped, and stood up. “Or are you so caught up in your mission you’ve forgotten the mission?”
Lisa stood up, startled, and looked at Tracy. “Is she a friend of yours, Cody? I didn’t think there were any women left.” She put her arm around Cody and balanced herself, tilting her head on his sleeve to wipe the tears from her face. Then she looked at Cody and asked, “Can she help us?”
“Absolutely she can help us,” Cody said. “She’s the wife of one of Bashar’s men – and she’s an old friend of mine from another time and place. Lucky for us she’s on our side.” Then he leaned over towards Lisa, cupped his mouth with both of his hands so that Tracy could not hear him, and he whispered, “When I pull away, giggle and smile.”
Cody pulled away, smiling.
Lisa asked him, “Why do I have to giggle and smile?”
Tracy rolled her eyes at Cody. “Nice try, moron.”
“Lisa and Marcus were in hiding,” Cody said, coldly and plainly. “Jadhari and some of his thugs found Marcus, and now they have him. We – that means you and I – are going to find Marcus and bring him back down here. Now, Tracy, if you don’t mind, where in this tunnel do we hide people?”
“Under the courthouse is as good a place as any,” Tracy said, pointing past Cody. “The problem isn’t that Bashar will find us down here. The problem is going to be how we feed her . . . them, I mean the people we hide.”
“Figure it out – you’re the one living with the enemy,” Cody said. “I’m sure a logistics guy can figure out how to get a couple of meals down here, don’t you think? You’re the one with the communications degree, start talking to Zafar.”
Tracy shook her head, looked at Lisa, and said, “Follow me, Lisa – and bring that lamp.”
“Why don’t you let her live with you?” Cody said. “Let her sleep near the door of this little subway of yours – if there’s trouble, she can run. Or, better yet, we can get her a burka and Zafar can have twice the fun.”
Lisa eyes opened wide, “That’s a bit inappropriate, don’t you think?”
Cody drew Lisa up to him and hugged her. “Zafar is a Christian with a family, posing as a Muslim who wants a harem. He’s harmless.” He looked at his watch. “Time to go. It’s six o’clock, July first – Tracy – Friday morning.”
“Just get Marcus,” Lisa said. “I’ll do anything---”
“Remember what I told you,” Cody said.
Lisa smiled, wiped her face again, and nodded. “I love you, Cody – you know what I mean. You’ve been the only man who’s ever taken care of me and Marcus.”
Cody picked up her rifle, the one he had traded to her a few days earlier, and told her to keep it under wraps. He smiled and sent her away with Tracy. Cody got up and headed for the mosque.
“They took Mikey,” Jose said remorsefully when Cody walked in
to the construction trailer. He got up from his chair, accidentally knocking the blue prints off the desk, and approached Cody.
“It was only a matter of time,” Cody said.
“You’re not saying you don’t care about him are you? You know what Bashar’s men are going to do to him. They found out that he used to be---”
“Gay?”
“They’re gonna throw him off the top of the courthouse tonight,” Jose objected. “And that piece of crap Bashar – may he burn in hell – is gonna make us watch it. Jadhari told me so.”
Cody pushed Jose out of his way, but with care and gentleness and a half-smile, and he walked over to the office desk. He knelt down and picked up the papers Jose had dropped. “You have to learn to pick up after yourself, Jose. This country already looks like the Gaza Strip – imagine if we add Mexico to it. Hell, we’ll be tunneling through garbage like taco-sized rats.”
“And when are you gonna finally man up and start fighting?” Jose yelled. “You---” Jose moved closer to Cody, bent down beside him, and lowered his voice to a whisper. “You have bombs. The rest of us, well, we can round up a couple of nice guns – at least lead us so we can go down fighting. Maybe we can take down a few of those towelheads, along with that bastard Bashar, and make them hurt a little.”
“They’d shoot us like fish in a barrel,” Cody said calmly. “And you know what they would do to anyone they caught alive. Bashar’s men live to watch and enjoy long, creative, slow deaths.”
“Like, we’re not fish in a barrel already? When are you gonna wake up, man? Come July fifth, we’re all dead men anyway.”
“Aren’t we dead men already?”
“And there you go with that crap again, Cody!” Jose yelled. “So you’re just giving up, right? Giving up on everybody but yourself. I know you – you’re gonna run, aren’t you? But we’re just too much baggage that will slow you down!”
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