Still looking at the injured Texan, Qassam concluded with an ominous addendum. “But most importantly, I want him to live long enough to see what he helped bring upon his own people. That is what I wish for him more than anything else.”
Qassam spoke to the guard again in Arabic, who slung his AK and produced more zip ties. Resignedly, Max turned around and crossed his wrists behind him.
As the guard secured his hands, Max contemplated Qassam keenly.
“You have something that you want to say, ‘doctor’?” asked the terrorist leader, adding a slightly demeaning lilt to the last word.
Max ignored the intended insult as he kept looking into the other man’s eyes. “No, not as in making a declaration or a judgement, Yahla al-Qassam. But perhaps as an observation.” He paused and added mildly, “As well as a warning.”
“I am somewhat surprised at you, Herr Grephardt. I had the police officer pegged as the threatening sort, not you.”
“No, it is not a threat” countered Max. “Only a warning, an experienced perception from one human being shared with another for reflection.”
“You arouse my sense of curiosity, ‘doctor’” said Qassam, verbalizing that same lilt again. “Tell me, what would you warn me of?”
“I would warn you of your hate, Yahla al-Qassam” answered Max, “and what it will ultimately do to you. Many years ago I saw such hate. I was then only a young man, not near wise enough to realize the ruin ahead until it was far too late. You mentioned something about the things we hold dear. I saw most everything I held dear at that time destroyed because of such hate. It nearly destroyed me, also.
“No matter what you might believe you can gain through it, you will ultimately lose much more. Hate leads down a path of self-destruction and makes it far easier to ruin than it does to build. No two words stand in any starker contrast to each other than those, they lie at opposing ends in any language.
“Hate and its dependents will never build anything of lasting worth. All that hate will do is consume from the inside out, leaving nothing but burnt ashes where a man’s soul once resided. For your sake as well as others, I hope you can somehow change your present course before it is too late.”
Qassam sneered openly at the German. “That is quite an unusual speech from someone who once wore the Knight’s Cross with Oak Leaves so proudly, Herr Grephardt. Your words sound much more like those uttered by some pious old Christian holy man, rather than an eagle in winter who once excelled in the slaughter of his enemies.”
“My father was one of those Christian holy men,” replied Max in a steady, nonconfrontational tone. “A Lutheran minister who tried in vain to make a headstrong son understand what I am now attempting to tell you. He was a better man than I, and far wiser. Remember my warning, Yahla al-Qassam, please think upon it with scrutiny and reason.”
Pointedly ignoring Max’s last remarks the terrorist leader said something to the guard, who began herding the three prisoners back into the adjoining smaller room. Ezekiel Templar stood on his own and hobbled slowly in that direction, grimacing with each painful step. Walking awkwardly, he limped over to a wall and managed to sit down in a semi-reclined manner.
Max Grephardt watched the retired Air Force colonel as he did so, alert to any further signs of bleeding or other complications. Once satisfied and knowing he could do nothing more to help Ezekiel at this time, Max sat near him and began losing himself in thoughts of both past and present.
The old German mused to himself how strange the workings of the human mind could be. The memories now spreading forth had not been considered in some time, nor the life lessons learned. There were things in a man’s life which were just too hurtful to be explored too often, one tried to make some good of them in what was termed as experience and went on.
Yet briefly speaking of that past brought so much of it into the present, especially when one had time to examine such sad souvenirs in minute detail. More so, there was much to consider than just the memories themselves.There were the past evils so firmly enjoined to them, the evils that he had both looked upon and been a part of during his younger years.
And then there was the present evil he had just shared a conversation with, an evil that would never rest and could never be anything else.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Micah Templar sat on the cold concrete floor, doing his own thinking to size up the situation as best he could. He had seen more than his fair share of violence, and how some seemed to thirst for any opportunity to work the worst depravities imaginable on their fellow man. Between two years as a grunt in Vietnam and some twenty years in the highway patrol, he had seen all manner of human wickedness and what it was capable of. But in all those years, he had never seen someone with such an impossibly cruel and calculating intellect as Yahla al-Qassam.
The former Marine was not familiar with this nerve agent that Qassam possessed, and only had a general idea of how it would be distributed from The Uvalde Raider. He did know his uncle well enough to tell when he was concerned, and Tio Zeke became gravely so as the terrorist leader explained his plan. Moreover, Qassam had left Micah Templar with no doubts as to his intent to commit mass murder on a scale that boggled the mind. Nor could Micah entertain any doubts as to whether Qassam possessed the needed capabilities in carrying out such a monstrous act.
The trooper studied their guard, who again stood in the half-open doorway. It was the same terrorist as before, but the AK toting Arab was now at a heightened sense of alertness. Every time any of the three prisoners made an audible sound, the guard provided his full and suspicious attention.
Micah came to the grim realization that even Qassam’s own men were somewhat afraid of him, with the possible exception of that two-legged rattlesnake called Mustafa. What had happened in the adjoining room was an abject lesson to those men as much as it was to anyone else. Their fear would keep them on their toes for as long as Qassam was anywhere around.
Up to this point, the highway patrolman had moved cautiously enough as to not disturb the tension on the handcuffs clamped to his wrists. If they weren’t actually double locked, they still had not tightened up any further. In the semi-darkness he began slowly rotating and exercising his hands at intervals to keep the circulation and feeling in them. Micah was still looking for the opportunity to use his hidden key and he would need his hands as flexible and ready as possible for that, as well as whatever was to come afterward.
“Nephew?” murmured Ezekiel through thick, dry lips. The guard snapped his head around to determine the source. Micah moved as quickly as he could to his uncle’s side, studiously examining Tio Zeke’s wound as if he had been called for that purpose. At the same time, Max Grephardt pressed in from the other side. The guard relaxed and turned back around.
“Same guard?” the fevered man croaked out.
“Same one, but more alert and suspicious” replied Micah in a low voice while Max Grephardt nodded in agreement. “Qassam has them wired pretty tight,” the younger Templar added.
“Yeah” replied Ezekiel slowly, “I think I can understand why.” He managed to grin slightly.
“I’m pretty sure we can talk, as long as the guard thinks it has to do with this hole in your leg” remarked Micah quietly. “You sure pushed his button the hard way, Tio.”
“Yeah, tell me about it.” Ezekiel muttered in half humor. Then his voice turned grave, insistent. “We have to stop him. Somehow, some way, he has to be stopped, or a lot of innocent people are going to die a horrible death.”
“We will, Tio” Micah cast a quick glance at the guard who had turned again and was looking square at them. The trooper made busy as if he was taking a closer look at the bandaging and continued to speak in low tone. “I can get loose, but I need a few minutes unobserved to get it done. Our friend at the doorway don’t want to play ball right now.”
Both of the older men shot quizzical looks at the younger one. Micah did not say anything else, he only nodded in affirmation to confirm his wor
ds.
“Can we help?” asked Max.
Micah shook his head slightly from side to side. “Not now, but be ready if that guard happens to wander off.”
Ezekiel Templar spoke again, a driving earnestness in his hoarse voice. “Whatever it takes, Micah. Qassam is a monster, and a very intelligent and fervent one. He’s dangerous and his zealotry makes him that much more so.”
Micah nodded his understanding. “Tio, will his plan work?”
Ezekiel Templar looked up at his nephew. “It can and it will, unless we do something about it.” The older man stared intently into his eyes, and Micah understood without another word how much depended on that small handcuff key secreted in his trousers.
“Okay” Micah replied. “Try to get some rest, it’s the best thing you can do for right now.”
“The pain killers should let you sleep awhile” murmured Max. “Let them work, Ezekiel.”
It was Ezekiel Templar’s turn to nod his head in affirmation. He fixed his gaze on the two other men, each in turn. His facial expression still bore the evidence of pain but it was also furrowed with the lines of an intense determination. “We have to stop him. We have to stop him cold.”
The older Templar leaned back against the wall, searching for a position in which he could rest a bit. Max Grephardt and Micah Templar looked at each other for a moment, and then wiggled away from Ezekiel to find their own spots. When they began to move, Micah noted they had the guard’s full attention and it held to the point their movement ceased.
‘Not now, not yet,’ Micah thought to himself. ‘But soon. We need to make our move soon.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
A few minutes had passed, and Ezekiel Templar’s breathing smoothed out and grew deeper. As Max Grephardt had predicted the pain pills were taking effect, giving his friend respite from the quarter inch hole in his left thigh. The former Luftwaffe hauptmann sat in the half-lit gloom, wiggling about while trying to find something remotely akin to a comfortable position. When he did so, their unwanted chaperone gave the German his full attention. Max ignored the extra scrutiny and instead fixated on the opposite wall.
Micah was correct, the guard was far too alert at present for them to try much of anything. In the meantime, their cause was best served in resting as they could and being ready to move fast when the opportunity arose. Max was not sure of what Micah had in mind, but the younger man seemed confident that he could free himself if allowed just a few minutes of not being observed. When that time came, everything that followed would be happening at tremendous speed and coming from unexpected directions. Of that much Max was sure of. The three of them would have to make the most of their attempt as it happened, there would be no second chance.
As the minutes crept by, his mind went through a hundred different scenarios and ways he might respond to each one. After a while it became a mental jumble of ‘ifs’ ‘buts’ and ‘maybes,’ until Max shut it all down and distracted his mind on to other things. It was something he had learned to do long ago, and it called for a good deal of inner self-discipline and experience.
His father had often said that life was a matter of courage and faith: one used his personal courage to carry him as far as it could and then relied upon a trusted faith in God to do the rest. As he had grown older and seen the ironies of life mostly for what they were, Max Grephardt had found that advice a source of both strength as well as solace when facing the difficult times of his past.
And that was where his mind was now returning yet again, to his past. To another time and place, and of a world long gone and of people long dead. When Yahla al-Qassam had spoken derisively of a “pious old Christian holy man,” Max had thought of his vadi, his father.
But the kind of man the Hezbollah leader had dismissed with nary a second thought had been just the kind of man one needed to remember. A gentle and loving husband and father, who viewed the world and those in it through wizened and knowing eyes. He had been a man whom Max had never learned to fully appreciate until it was too late. Max Grephardt knew that he was far from being alone when it came to fully understanding such men in their own time, but that knowledge did not take away any of the regret for not doing so.
Vadi had been the minister of a small rural Lutheran church near the medieval town of Meiningen, located in the central part of Germany along the Werra River. Meiningen was then considered the cultural, judicial and financial center of southern Thuringia, and the surrounding area was steeped in the traditions and philosophy of what was to become known as the German Enlightenment.
Famous personages such as Goethe and Schiller had walked along its picturesque streets only a century before, conversing with each other on subjects pertaining to history, poetry and philosophy. Together in Meiningen they would work on their collection of short satirical epigrams known as Xenien, an artistic form of thought attributed to the Roman poet Martial.
Not too far away, in the neighboring city of Weimar, Germany’s first democratic constitution had been signed following what was then known to mankind as ‘The Great War.’ Few would have guessed during that historic event they would be fully engulfed in a second world war following so closely behind the first.
It was into this environment, at about the time that short-lived document was being finalized, that Maximillian Friedrich Grephardt was born. He was the middle son of five in the family, a situation making for ready playmates on hand to share his free time with. Together the five brothers would explore in and around the countryside, and all up and down the verdant banks of the nearby Werra.
But in their young minds the boys were high in the Himalayas or the Alps, or along the banks of the Congo or the Amazon. Each son in his own way yearned for adventure and Max possibly thirsted for it most of all. He would sometimes make up wild stories to fill the large gap between that constant thirst and the reality of their quiet existence, until Vadi would raise an eyebrow and wag his index finger. That would be all that it would take to gently remind young Max of the difference between fanciful dreams and factual circumstance.
His Mamma would come through the busy kitchen at such times, shaking her head and asking her husband where the middle son of a Lutheran minister could possibly come up with such thoughts.
Vadi would chuckle and reply, “Because he is a boy, Mamma! All boys think such thoughts, and certain boys like him just happen to give voice to what is imagined in their minds.”
His father would reach across and pat his middle son’s head affectionately, a joyful twinkle in his eye. “God has special plans for Max, but Max must first grow into a man to fulfill those plans. For now he is still a boy and boys need to fill their lives with adventure, imagined or otherwise.
“The time will come when he will be able to put such imagination into harness. All great men had great imagination, with which they were able to turn their dreams into reality.” He would then look at Max and smile, putting his own imagination to work in regards to the future of his precocious son.
That future involved the dream of Max becoming a doctor, a man who would save lives and make the world a better place for all to be. Max did not know then, but Vadi had been an Imperial German Army feld sanitater, or medic, during the Great War. It had never been something he talked about much to anyone save his wife, who had seen first-hand how it had changed her husband over those despoiled years.
Max’s two older brothers claimed to have seen a whole row of medals in a weather-stained trunk they were rummaging through one time, right before Mamma caught them and shooshed them away. They had stood their ground just long enough to find out the medals were Vadi’s, before Mamma backed up her shooshing with a kitchen broom.
And so the years went by and Max and his brothers grew. As they changed into young men, the outside world around them changed also. The short-lived Weimar Republic, headed by the aged statesman and military hero President von Hindenberg, had come to an ignominious end. The ancient field marshal, failing in physical health and slipping into seni
lity had appointed Adolph Hitler, leader of the German Nationalist Socialist Party, as chancellor of Germany. After a long, bitter political struggle that often devolved into mob violence as well as outright murder, the Nazis had at long last taken control of the Vaterland.
It was the first time he had seen Vadi become angry. Even isolated as they were, the jovial Lutheran minister followed world events as closely as possible and was a voracious reader. Max’s father was respected in the surrounding area as an informed and passionate debater of history and religion, and oftentimes visitors would stop by just to have a conversation with him.
Upon first learning of the Nazi consolidation of power, the erstwhile composed minister had pounded his fist in exasperation upon the dinner table. As his startled family and visitors involuntarily jumped from the uncharacteristic outburst, he covered his face with both hands and shook his head from side to side. Massaging his forehead with the fingers of his right hand, he leaned back and said, “The Nazis and the Communists, two sides of the same sinful coin. God help us all, for they do not know what they have done.”
In the stunned silence that followed Max’s youngest brother, Paul, asked innocently, “Who, Vadi? Who does not know what they have done?”
His father slowly took his right hand from his face and looked at his youngest. The ignited flash that had burst from his outraged features had been replaced with an immensely sad look, a look that made him seem both worried and vulnerable. It was another emotion Max had never seen before in his father, and he did not know which of the two distressed him more.
Vadi sighed and replied, “My son, they are the people of Germany who do not know what they have set loose. They have sown the wind and we shall all pay in the reaping of it.”
Looking around the table and cognizant of the air of uneasiness among those seated, he added, “Please forgive me of my anger, the last thing we need at this time is more anger. But what we do need is prayer, earnest prayer for Germany, for her people and for our families. As I have already said, only God can help us now.”
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