THE WAVE: A John Decker Thriller

by J. G. Sandom

  “In the hierarchy of the arts, Islam accords the highest rank to calligraphy,” Hassan replied, “since it’s the art that embellishes the word of God. The Qur’an itself bases its authority on its being the literal word of God, dictated to the world through the mouthpiece of a messenger, the Prophet Mohammed. Qur’an literally means ‘a reading.’ The visible Qur’an is but a reflection of the Preserved Tablet, the supernatural archetype laid up in heaven, which is a kind of metaphor for the mind of God.” The Professor paused, deep in thought. Then he added, “This principle of mirroring, of reversibility recurs throughout Islam. For example, in Islamic architecture the dome represents the vault of heaven. But in the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, a highly stylized Cosmological Tree spreads downward, upside down – the arbor inversus. In the same way, from each of the four corners of the earth and in Mecca itself, one always prays towards the Ka’aba. But once within the Ka’aba, one prays in the reverse direction; that is, outwards, toward any of the four walls.

  “The Ka’aba is the holiest site in Islam,” said Hassan. “In fact, the location was considered sacred even before Islam, but after the Muslim conquest of Mecca in 630, Muhammad destroyed the numerous pagan idols in the building. Within the courtyard of the Ka’aba are several sacred sites, including the burial place of Abraham and the Zamzam well, which sprang up miraculously for Ishmael and his mother, Hagar. Today, there is an ablution fountain between the external and internal features of every mosque, generally located in the center of the courtyard. In Islam, water is the vehicle of purification.”

  Decker recollected the tapestries in the hall behind him. One featured the unicorn – before his death – dipping his horn in water, purifying a well.

  Hassan picked up the second illustration, the one from Moussa’s locker. He studied it for a moment before confirming what Decker had already translated: Death Will Overtake You. Unfortunately, said Hassan, there wasn’t enough for him to guess at a source.

  “And the numbers?”

  The professor shook his head. “I’ve no idea. Wait a minute,” he added. He studied the first illustration. Then he picked up the second again. “You know,” he said. “This is interesting.”

  “What?”

  “See these lines here, this kind of T-junction in both drawings?” His hand swept across the designs. “These indentations, and this round shape in the arabesque over here?”

  “What about it?”

  “Both of these illustrations are laid out like . . . like virtual mosques.” He pointed at the illustration from the apartment in Queens. “This one looks like a masjid, the kind of mosque used for individual prayer.” Then he pointed at the other, the one from the jukebox dealer. “But this one looks like a musalla or idgah, a community mosque. They both have qibla and transversal axes, but this one has a minbar. See?” He stabbed a finger at a small rectangular shape. “And look how open it is – a true place of Id’.”

  “Hold on a minute,” said Decker. “What’s a kibla and a minibar?”

  Hassan laughed. “Not a minibar! A minbar – a pulpit.” He paused to explain. “In Islam, prayer – salat – is conducted at four different levels. For three of these, there are distinct liturgical structures – mosques. The first mosque, the masjid, is said to be for Individual prayer. The prayer rug also corresponds to this level. It’s used for daily worship, performed at the five liturgical hours: dawn, noon, afternoon, sunset and evening. It’s not used for the Congregational or Friday prayer, nor during Community prayer. But, like all mosques, it has a mihrab, a niche in the center of the qibla. You see these lines and this concave niche?” He pointed at Decker’s rough illustration.

  “I’m still not following you. What’s a kibla again?”

  “A mosque is a building erected around a single horizontal axis, the qibla, which passes invisibly down the middle of the floor, and terminates eventually at the Ka’aba in Mecca. Imagine Mecca as the central point; all mosques sit at right angles to Mecca, as if Mecca is the hub of a great wheel with lines, like spokes, fanning out in a great circle. At the point where the qibla axis meets the far wall of a mosque – the transversal axis – an indentation is produced, a directional niche called the mihrab, which is the liturgical axis made visible. This is where the imam or prayer leader stations himself to direct the congregation in prayer.”

  Hassan pulled the second etching before them. “But this one is different. You see this here?” He pointed once again at the rectangle in the center. “It looks like a minbar, a pulpit. Of course, this mosque could be a jami’ masjid, which is used for Congregational prayer. That’s the second type, employed on Fridays. But I don’t think so. It’s too open and airy. I’d say it’s more likely a musalla or idgah, used in the third, Community prayer. Think of it as an open prayer area with nothing but a qibla wall and a mihrab. In other words, a mosque reduced to its barest essentials. It’s designed to accommodate an entire town or Community, hence the name.”

  “What about the fourth kind of mosque. You said there were four.”

  “Four types of prayer, or salat. But there is no liturgical structure or mosque for the fourth prayer. There couldn’t be. It’s meant for the Ummah, the entire Muslim community – worldwide. It would have to encircle the globe. The fourth prayer is reserved for the Hajj, or pilgrimage to Mecca. Unless he’s sick or otherwise incapable, every Muslim is required to make the Hajj at least once in his lifetime, although pilgrimages are encouraged every year.” Hassan paused for a moment, studying the second illustration. It was muddy and smudged. He looked up at Decker with a quizzical expression on his face. Then he said, “Was this traced or something, from another sheet of paper?”

  Decker nodded.

  The professor waited for Decker to say something but he remained impassive. “Was there something else behind the drawing?”

  “What do you mean, behind?”

  “Underneath. Like Palimpsest.”

  “Why?” asked Decker. He did not know where the Professor was going.

  Then Hassan told him that one of the most basic tenets of Arabic architecture was the focus on the inside, as opposed to the outside of a building. Rarely did a façade of a Muslim building give any indication of the organization within. Indeed, hidden architecture could be considered the dominant motif of Islamic architecture.

  “That’s often the function of calligraphic texts,” explained Hassan, “to identify the purpose of a building.”

  “But Western buildings use calligraphy,” Decker said. “I remember a book I had when I was a kid about the Notre Dame cathedrals. Calligraphy isn’t unique to Islamic architecture.”

  “Perhaps not. But while European architecture is created as a balanced plan, Islamic architecture shows no such characteristic. Indeed, there is a kind of dissolution of this balanced plan, its . . . ” He paused for a moment, struggling for the word. “ . . . absorption into a maze of additional structures which accumulate around the nucleus of the original design. Like crystals.”

  “Crystals?”

  “Exactly. And like crystals, there is a basic geometrical organization to this growth. Islamic architectural drawings are executed across a grid of squares, which represent the structural modules of the plan. Simple divisions of the basic grid determine all the dimensions, such as those of the dado, the door, the doorframe, the rows of upper windows, and so on. The walls form a perfect cube, while the height of the dome corresponds to the diagonal of the generating square. This is almost universal in Islamic architecture. Proportioning is based primarily on arcs drawn from the diagonals of squares to give ratios of one to the square root of two – the ‘Golden Ratio,’ as Pythagoras called it.”

  “I’ve heard of that. That’s Phi,” said Decker. “It’s used in Western architecture too. Like at Monticello, in Virginia. The house that Thomas Jefferson built.”

  “The formula was carried back by the Crusaders from the Middle East,” Hassan said with a nod. “The masons who built the Gothic cathedrals of France u
sed the same ratio. And Jefferson was a freemason. Freemasons are the intellectual and spiritual cousins of the original medieval masons.”

  Decker closed the book and handed it back to Hassan. The professor had been so reluctant to speak at first, and now he could scarcely contain himself. It was clear why he was legendary as an academic, and why he was so often sought after as an expert on Islam. A lifelong, ferocious advocate on behalf of the Palestinians, he made great copy, a dramatic yet incredibly well-researched and well-balanced counterpoint to the pro-Israel intellectuals he so often combated on TV. Not only was his knowledge of Middle Eastern politics considerable; not only did he serve, from time to time, as an advisor to PLO General Secretary Mahmoud Abbas himself; not only was he an architect of the American Muslim sensibility, but he was charged with passion, driven by a deep abiding interest in, and a great love for all facets of Islamic cultural history.

  “The very possibility of enlarging a given structure,” Hassan said, “in almost any direction by adding units of every conceivable shape and size to the original scheme, totally disregarding the form of the original structure, is a characteristic that Islamic architecture shares with no other major culture. Furthermore, the multitude of decorative treatments goes hand in hand with this non-directional plan, the tendency toward an infinite repetition of individual units – bays, arches, columns, passages, courtyards, doorways, cupolas, what have you.”

  He sighed and leaned against the wall. He stared at the fallow garden. “Islamic art is an art of repose, Agent Decker, intellectual more than emotional, resolving tensions by design. Patterns are limited to well-defined areas but are, at the same time, infinite – in the sense that they have unlimited possibilities of extension. Water and light are also of paramount importance since they generate additional layers of patterns, and help to transform space. It is this variety and richness of decoration, with its endless permutations, that characterizes Islamic buildings rather than their structural elements. In the Islamic context, these infinitely extensible designs have been interpreted as visual demonstrations of the singleness of God. His presence everywhere. Indeed, Islamic architecture is like the Qur’an itself. There are those who think there is little order in the sequence of the Qur’an. In truth, those who reflect upon the flow discover not one order, but a multiplicity of orders in the sequence and juxtaposition of its Sura, depending upon the character of their quest.”

  Professor Hassan stiffened. Decker heard voices and a group of students began to file in through a door at the far side of the cloister. He could hear French – Parisian French. Hassan began to fiddle with his briefcase. He slipped the two volumes back inside, slammed the case shut, and clambered to his feet. Decker stood beside him. “No, no, sit down,” Hassan said, hissing through his teeth. “I’ll contact you again,” he added, moving off.

  Decker watched the Professor amble slowly down the portico, gazing lackadaisically at paintings and woodcuts on the walls. The students buzzed, and swerved, and swirled around him. Then he vanished through a portico into the Late Gothic Hall.

  After a few minutes, when the students had passed by, Decker circled around the other way, past the Early Gothic Hall, the Pontaut Chapter House and Langon Chapel, moving backwards through time. He made his way along a long stone corridor, down several flights of stairs, and finally exited in front of the museum.

  The sky was cloudy and white. It looked like it was going to snow. He started walking back along the promontory toward his car. Decker could see the distant Hudson River far below the palisades, studded with blocks of ice, chugging lethargically along, and it brought to mind the Mississippi, Iowa and home. Or, what had once been home. The Quad Cities hadn’t changed much over the last decade; yet they seemed so far away now, so alien and small – just as the tapestries remained predominantly the same; only the audience was different.

  Then, out of nowhere, he remembered what Warhaftig had told him the first time they had met: El Aqrab is no ordinary killer.

  But how a poor kid from south Lebanon, the son of a part-time electrician, could be the same man who had learned to paint with fire, to illuminate the Qur’an with incendiary pain and death, with a calligraphy of flames, Decker simply couldn’t fathom. It was indeed a mystery, as inscrutable as those initials on the tapestries within.

  Chapter 17

  Sunday, January 30 – 6:06 AM

  Damascus, Syria

  The three mules of Gulzhan Baqrah arrived in Syria early Sunday morning – hungry, dusty and ground down by the road. It had taken them more than twenty-five hours of non-stop travel to make the journey from Kazakhstan to Rasht in Iran, then by land in separate cars and trucks and even, for a few hours, on horseback through the mountainous regions of northern Iraq, before finally arriving in Damascus. They traveled along separate paths to a small, non-descript apartment building just south of Al Shouhada Square, where a young man named Ghazi Khadeja greeted them. Khadeja did not know much about the operation other than the fact that the three men were important friends of Gulzhan Baqrah. The men washed up and had a hearty meal of lamb and raisins and falafel bread.

  Just before noon, as the sound of the muezzins called the faithful to prayer, a man arrived at the apartment. His name was Moustapha. Tall and skinny with a scruffy thin black beard, Moustapha carried a message from Gulzhan Baqrah for each of the three mules – their instructions for the next leg of their journeys. Within an hour following the noonday prayers, the mules were packed and ready for the road, assembled in a little courtyard behind the apartment building.

  Ali Hammel was the first to be collected. An old man with a patch over one eye appeared in a battered dark green Land Rover. The Algerian got in without even saying goodbye.

  Five minutes later, it was Ziad’s turn. A truck transporting what appeared to be chrome or manganese ore picked up the Lebanese. He nodded once toward Auwal Al-Hakim and Khadeja, and then climbed up into the cab.

  Another five minutes passed and a third and final vehicle appeared. Auwal Al-Hakim watched as the black Citroen nosed its way through the alley and pulled over on the far side of the courtyard. A thin young man jumped out to help him with his case, but the giant Egyptian glanced at him with his vacant ox-like eyes, and he hesitated, stopped and backed away. Khadeja introduced the young man as Zimrilim. He would take Al-Hakim as far as the docks in Tartus. The Egyptian thanked Khadeja, picked up his silver case and knapsack, and squeezed into the front seat of the car.

  * * *

  It took Zimrilim several hours to drive the 250 kilometers north to the coastal town of Tartus, and it was dusk when they finally reached the city limits. They had barely spoken the entire journey. Zimrilim had tried to strike up conversations with Al-Hakim, on several different topics, but – in the end – he had simply given up. Al-Hakim preferred to sleep, and he snored volubly for hours until Zimrilim pulled over for the evening prayer. They stopped once more for gas before they reached the coastal plain. Zimrilim had an uncle in Tartus, and he invited the Egyptian for supper, but Al-Hakim told him it would not be wise. So they kept driving. They drove and drove until the great gray Mediterranean opened up before them in the distance, and they could drive no more.

  With over 160,000 inhabitants, Tartus was Syria’s second most important port town after Latakia. Zimrilim told Al-Hakim that the city had once been a charming fishing village but it had lost most of its grace over the last few years due to over-development. Even the famous Cathedral of Our Lady of Tortosa in the old city was surrounded now by modern office and apartment buildings.

  Founded in antiquity, the city had originally been called Antaradus, since it was anti-Aradus, or facing the island of Aradus, a former Phoenician colony. Zimrilim pointed to the island off the coast. “The city was rebuilt in AD 346 by Emperor Constantine I,” he said, “who renamed it Constantia, and it flourished during Roman and Byzantine times as a significant trading port. Eventually, Crusaders converted it into a fortress-town, successfully defending Tartus against Mu
slim attacks throughout the twelfth century. Even Nur Al Din took over the port city for a time before the Crusaders recaptured it and placed it under the dominion of the Templars. Tartus was the Templars’ last stand on the Syrian mainland. When the city fell–”

  “Did you say Nur Al Din?” interrupted Al-Hakim, as if he had just woken from a dream.

  “You’ve heard of him?” said Zimrilim. “He was a great explorer, a conqueror and–”

  “He was Egyptian. From the Arabian Nights,” said Al-Hakim. “It would be wise for you, Zimrilim, to remember the behest he made Hasan, his son, as he was dying. ‘Be overintimate with none, nor frequent any, nor be familiar with any. So shalt thou be safe from his mischief, for security lieth in seclusion of thought from the society of men, and I have heard it said by poets, In this world there is none thou mayst count upon/To befriend thy case in nick of need/So live for thyself nursing hope of none/Such counsel I give thee now, take heed!’” The big man laughed, and looked down at his watch, and said, “How much further?”

  Zimrilim glanced at the Egyptian. “Not far,” he said. “Ten minutes, maybe less.” Then he stared back at the road. He was young, only recently turned nineteen, but he wasn’t stupid. He knew exactly what Al-Hakim was telling him.

  They traveled through the narrow winding streets of the old city to the main shipping yard. As they drove along the docks, Al-Hakim noticed a number of foreign ships lit up in the harbor and Zimrilim told him that Lebanese, Egyptian and even Greek shipping companies routinely registered their bulk and cargo ships in Syria due to the country’s favorable maritime regulations. Zimrilim pulled over to the side, stopped the car, and pointed toward a freighter.

  It was a small ship, less than 50,000 dead weight tons, an old Handy workhorse of the dry bulk market. Al-Hakim got out at the bottom of the gangway and stretched his legs. Zimrilim remained inside the car. For some reason, the Egyptian’s reference to the Arabian Nights had unnerved him. There was something about Al-Hakim that did not brook debate. Zimrilim waved once, slipped the Citroen into gear, and drove away.