by Fritz Galt
“Frank, I don’t even know the UN ambassador, and besides—” She noticed the others watching her again, and lowered her voice.
“His name is—”
“I know his name. He’s Lucius Ford. Other than that, I couldn’t even recognize him if I passed him on the street.” The U.S. Ambassador to the UN had changed recently, and she had not stayed abreast of that development.
“That’s not important,” the ambassador said.
“Then what the hell is important, Frank?”
“Do you want me to spell it out for you? If you don’t use this opportunity to kick the New Initiative into high gear, you’re out.”
She swallowed hard. He had used the code word for her secret work over the past year. Most recently, she had seen it in the eyes-only cable shortly before Mariah had lapsed into her coma. That cable had spelled out her new job in Delhi.
“Okay, Mr. Ambassador. I hear you.”
She listened with a drowning sensation as the ambassador’s secretary filled her in on the details of her evening flight to Karachi and on to Kabul.
Fred and Linda stepped past two uniformed guards outside the swank Taj Mahal Hotel and climbed the stairs to their room. Another policeman was posted by the open door to their room. They entered their suite and looked around.
A man, garbed in a white uniform, stood in the center of the drawing room holding an envelope in both hands.
“Goddamn staff won’t leave us alone,” Fred said.
“Allow me to introduce myself. I am Police Inspector Gupta. We found this envelope shoved under your door,” he said.
“What is it, a letter bomb or something?”
“No, we have checked it over thoroughly.”
“And probably read it,” Fred said.
The man maintained his benign expression.
Fred grabbed the envelope and turned it over. It bore no name or return address.
He slid a finger into the side-opening slit. From the torn edges, he could tell it had already been opened.
He reached in and pulled out a white sheet of stationary with a single handwritten sentence. “Thank you for sending your daughter to the Temple of the Highest Peace.”
He handed it wordlessly to Linda, who sank into a sofa in tears.
“Honey,” he said. “I’m calling the American consul right now. This has gone far enough.”
“You’re safe?” Lou asked. He could scarcely contain his relief at hearing the congressman’s booming voice.
“We are safe. We’ve been safe all along, except for trying to get away from these leeches that work on the hotel staff. My wife and I spent the night at the Marine Plaza.”
Lou covered the mouthpiece and told Natalie’s group, who had just entered the room, and the others already sitting there that the congressman was alive and well.
“It’s our daughter who’s missing,” Fred continued uninterrupted, his voice increasing in volume. “She’s been kidnapped by international narco-terrorists or some underground Indian group. She may have even been assassinated.”
“When did you last see her?”
“Yesterday morning. She wandered off on the streets by herself, and we never heard from her again.”
“It’s only been twenty-four hours. There’s no cause for alarm.”
“No cause for alarm? By God, this is a full-blown national emergency. We’re talking about a rogue nuclear state. It’s a major diplomatic incident. I don’t care what wackos have taken my daughter, we’ll sever ties with India. I’ll send in troops to find her. If they kill her, so help me, I’ll drop the bomb myself.”
Lou held the phone away from his ear.
Over the next few minutes, he did his best to allay the frenzied congressman’s fears and ascertain the facts. At last Fred calmed down enough to mention the Temple of the Highest Peace.
“How did you come by this information?” Lou asked.
“It says so right here.”
Lou heard Fred rapping a sheet of paper.
Fred explained. “We just returned to the Taj and the police handed me a note from the terrorists. It says, ‘Thank you for sending your daughter to the Temple of the Highest Peace.’ If that doesn’t mean she’s dead, then I’ll have to assume that she’s been brainwashed by some cult.”
Lou had heard that story many times before, but he listened patiently to the distraught father.
“Keri has a history of weakness for mystic religions and human suffering. She shocked the crap out of us when she once joined a group modeled after the People’s Temple.”
With a chill, Lou remembered Reverend Jim Jones’ multi-ethnic church in San Francisco. He still shuddered when he contemplated the fate of those hundreds of converts some twenty years earlier. When a U.S. Congressman had tried to inspect the church’s jungle settlement in Guyana, he was shot dead at the airport, whereupon the converts committed mass suicide by swallowing cyanide-spiked punch.
Still, Lou knew that a week hadn’t passed at the consulate without another concerned family member telling them about a son or daughter who had run away to join some cult, obscure or otherwise, in his consular district. The consulate had a list of such cults, complete with phone numbers and addresses.
India attracted the liberal religious mind, and he could not, and would not, make it otherwise. There was nothing to be done on the governmental level other than to send a consular officer out to visit the girl once they established her whereabouts.
“Mr. Congressman,” Lou said in his most soothing voice possible. “We’ll look into it right away.”
“You’re damned right you will.” The phone clicked dead.
Lou set down the receiver and announced to the room, “This is all just a big misunderstanding. The congressman and his wife are safe. They just played hooky. But their daughter is missing. They think she joined a cult called the Temple of the Highest Peace.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure she joined voluntarily,” Natalie said. She told the group that she had just interviewed the father-in-law of the terrorist who had brought guns and explosives to the Taj hotel. “It’s genuine. He is a terrorist with business in Pakistan and connections with various Islamist groups.”
“Such as bin Laden?” Lou asked.
“Most likely. He worked for one of bin Laden’s front organizations. He’s here in town with submachine guns and looks ready to roll. My money says he’s got Keri.”
Lou sat down and sank his head in his hands. “I’ll have to call Fred back. We’ll expand the search.”
“Look, Lou,” Natalie said, after giving him some time with his thoughts. “The embassy wants me to go directly to Kabul.”
“You’ve got my blessing.”
“There’s a problem, though.”
Lou raised his head and looked at her. “You’re a woman.”
“That’s the problem.”
Howard Cohen, who was listening, reached for the dupatta hanging from her shoulders.
She flinched, but didn’t move.
His long, awkward fingers folded the scarf upward and placed it over the back of her head, spun it around front to cover everything on her face except her eyes, and flipped it back over a shoulder. He stood back and admired his handiwork.
She felt wrapped up like a mummy.
Lou emitted a rare laugh. “Looks like you could blend into the landscape if you wanted to, except for one thing.”
“What?”
“Your eyes. They ain’t brown.”
“Hey, don’t you remember National Geographic’s Afghan Girl with the haunting green eyes? I could blend in.”
“Your eyes are blue,” Lou said.
“I’ve got it,” Luke Sharp broke in. “Give her a veil. Nobody will pull up her skirt at immigration.”
“That’s right,” Lou said with a snap of his fingers. “A long, black snap-on veil over your face.”
“Guys, I’m not a spy. I’m a diplomat.”
She felt silly, like a human mannequin. Yet a stra
nge feeling of anonymity began to seep into her. Concealing her body seemed to invest her with superhuman powers like the ability to walk unnoticed among leering men and to tackle world crises with invincibility.
Chapter 16
After tumbling off the motorized trishaw, Alec headed for the island’s capital on foot. Would the coup succeed? Was Camille really against the government? And could Alec reach his Bank of America contact in time to inform Washington?
Dirty and sweaty, he finally came within sight of the city.
Moroni was a walkable town. Its port faced west toward Africa, which lay just over the horizon. The city’s low, white buildings carpeted several knolls.
Why had Bank of America even bothered to set up shop in such an impoverished outpost?
He entered a lively market where robed merchants called to him as they sat on mats surrounded by enormous baskets and mounds of food.
There was no immediate sign of a coup in progress. No airplanes strafed the city, no tanks rolled down the street, no soldiers marched by, and no gunfire ripped the air.
Hmm. Maybe he had overreacted.
The Sunni Muslim population, composed of Arab and African stock, seemed unaware of any impending disaster. Dressed in fluorescent garb that glinted with sequins, women shoppers moved from peddler to peddler. From their mats, venders, mystics and barbers reached up and gently tried to attract his attention.
“Yeah, you can help me,” Alec told a fruit vendor. He bent over the man and asked, “Where’s the Bank of America?”
The vender inhaled slowly before responding. “You must go through the medina. It’s out the other side.”
“Thanks.” Alec dropped a ten-franc note in the man’s slender hand.
He walked briskly through the shoppers and entered the narrow, winding street of an Arab-style medina.
Men lounged against doorways of bakeries and jewelry shops. Gold clanked around women’s necks, wrists and fingers. More ornaments dangled from their noses and ears. All were swathed in brilliant colors.
He climbed atop a small hill. From there, he could see the capital’s picturesque harbor. Arched windows of an elegant mosque overlooked rock jetties and fishing trawlers.
He paused to listen to the city around him. It was filled with automobile traffic, conversations, bartering, the ring of bicycle bells and the methodical clop of horse hoofs. Around the harbor, shipbuilders noisily plied their traditional craft.
He grabbed a man’s arm. “Where is the Presidential Palace?”
The man pointed just beyond the harbor.
Alec squinted in the sunny haze. Several boats had pulled up to shore there. They were no high-hulled fishing boats. They were low, like motorized rafts or speedboats.
The president’s residence had been stormed eight times in the past seventeen years. Over that span of time, Soviet-backed Marxists, liberal statesmen, conservative curmudgeons and the puppets of mercenaries had been installed and subsequently deposed or assassinated. The current president, Ali Ben Said Boulih, was a devout man and arguably the most tolerant and democratic president in a long time.
Then again, it might just be one of those days when change hung in the air.
“Where can I find a telephone?” Alec asked the man.
“No phones,” the man said. “Phones and power have been cut.”
“And you’re not worried?”
The man shrugged. “It happens all the time.”
Alec looked through the open doorways of shops. No electric fans were spinning or lights burning. Just like his hot, dark hotel room.
He thanked the man and, his sweaty shirt clinging to his skin, he trotted down the maze of back alleys to the harbor.
There, he approached the elegant, whitewashed Friday Mosque. If he climbed to the top, he might have a better view of the Presidential Palace.
At the entrance to the circular building, he kicked his sandals off and left them with a shoe-watcher. He trotted around washbasins in the outer arcade and found stairs leading up a minaret.
As he reached the building’s second tier, an unusual sight caught his eye. Behind a pillar, a woman whose entire body was veiled in a black shroud bowed in a circle of turbaned men. Despite her veil and through her contrite sobs, he recognized her voice and her prayer.
“I bear witness that there is no God but Allah, and I bear witness that Muhammad is His Messenger.”
Then a man mumbled something to her in Arabic.
Camille was publicly declaring her faith.
Repeating after the man, the sacred words flowed freely from her lips.
She witnessed the Oneness of Allah. She rejected any form of deity other than Allah. She witnessed that Muhammad was His Messenger and that he was chosen by Allah to convey His message of Islam to all humanity. She witnessed that Muhammad delivered humanity from the darkness of ignorance into the light of belief in, and knowledge of, the Creator.
The men, with their weathered skin, black beards and earth-toned headgear, reminded him of the impressive images of Afghan Taliban. However, Taliban were normally seen with rifles.
He waited behind a cluster of worshipers and watched Camille carefully. Her words cut through the throng.
Now she was bearing witness to her leader Osama bin Laden.
He felt dizzy. Her leader was the world’s most wanted man. She couldn’t have spelled her allegiance out more clearly.
Just as these thoughts raced through his mind, Camille leaned forward until her forehead touched the ground. She began another declaration.
This one witnessed Osama bin Laden as the holy leader of the jihad against injustice to Muslims around the world. She witnessed that joining al-Qaeda was the fulfillment of her role on the earth, and she vowed to glorify Allah by purifying the world of the Satan Americans and Jews.
“Camille, Camille,” he whispered. “This really is not good.”
She gathered her robe up and led the group down the stairs. They grabbed their rifles by the exit.
Alec was stunned. He scrambled to the top of the minaret to watch. The Taliban party sauntered toward the Presidential Palace with obvious intent. When they reached the front gate, they opened fire.
“Oh God,” Alec said. “It’s happening.”
Natalie returned to her corner of the consulate’s Control Room and stared at the phone. She pulled the scarf off her hair and let her auburn waves sweep against the back of her chair.
She stared at the ceiling for some time before picking up the phone and dialing the Maldive Islands.
“Hi Mick. It’s me.”
“Mariah’s fine,” he said, remarkably unsurprised and in control. “There’s no change. Ninety-eight point six degrees. She’s no better, no worse.”
“Okay. I guess I’m glad to hear that. I was hoping to come and take care of her.”
The line bristled with silence.
“I guess I don’t have to explain why I can’t, huh? So why am I calling? No particular reason. Actually, I have many reasons.”
He wasn’t holding up his end of the conversation, so she started to relate news from the WHO press briefing. “The story of the epidemic hit our consulate like a bombshell. We’re going into emergency overdrive. Not to mention that we’re all probably infected with the damned thing ourselves.”
“Jesus. Does it match the disease Mariah has?”
“I’m almost certain.”
“She must have contracted it earlier than anyone else in Bombay.”
“According to a transcript of the press conference,” she went on, “the disease is most harmful to the elderly, the sick and the young. Mariah’s certainly young.”
There was a studied pause at Mick’s end of the line, then his voice came back, this time less certain. “Dr. Yates figured out similar information based on blood tests. So I guess there’s no cure.”
“I hope someone’s working on one,” she said. “I’ve volunteered to spearhead contacts with health agencies in the West.”
She registered no response from Mick.
“Moving right along, next item.” She mentioned the incident with the congressman’s daughter, Keri Butler. “Congressman Butler says she was abducted by a ‘Temple of the Highest Peace’ cult. But I think it was actually an Islamic terrorist. So we have that to deal with.”
“Sounds like fun.”
“You want fun? Listen to this. I’m flying to Kabul tonight.”
“Why Kabul?”
“They’ve got Lucius Ford, the U.S. Ambassador to the UN, held hostage. It’s all very hush-hush. News has not reached the public yet. They want me to negotiate his release in secret.”
“Don’t go.” Mick said abruptly.
“Why not?” Maybe he wanted her to return to the Maldives.
“You don’t know how they treat women up there.”
“Don’t worry about me,” she said bravely, perhaps expecting him to put up a strong defense of her.
“Besides, it’s not your job to rescue hostages,” he said. “Let a professional go.”
She swallowed hard. “Well, at this point, I can’t refuse to go. It’s set in stone. Furthermore, it is part of my job. I have a new job, which means I’m moving out of Bombay. All of our household effects are heading for New Delhi where I’ll take on a new assignment next week.”
“The embassy will still take you, disease and all?”
“I imagine the disease has spread up there, too.”
Mick was silent, perhaps absorbing the latest bad news, then finally said, “Is the job so important that you can afford to leave Bombay in such a mess?”
“I’m not the first to leave Bombay.”
She detected a slow simmer on his end of the line, so she hastily tried to appease him before it boiled over. “We’ll divvy up our belongings at some point.”
Still no response.
“I can send your stuff to the Maldives,” she suggested.
“Whatever. Take your time.”
“Right.”
Was he going to hang up?