Unfortunately, he still had to travel; and when it came to travel, he was inherently frugal. That had been hard-wired into his DNA by a father who considered it a mortal sin to waste anyone else’s money, be that the government or a corporation. His grandfather was even worse. “Integrity is what you do when nobody is watching,” Bob used to hear him say. His only indulgence with company money was to allow Maryanne to book him seats in First Class, so he’d have enough room to open his laptop, read some reports, and use his time efficiently.
The dark side of flying to Chicago, of course, was flying into O’Hare. Air Traffic Control always looped the big jets into the airport clockwise, bringing them in from the west and onto Bob’s favorite runway, L-110. It was as if the tower gods knew he was on board and took sadistic delight in stirring up some bad memories from one such flight the year before. So, he always insisted Maryanne find him an aisle seat, and he never looked out the window. Once the trips became regular, he lowered his profile even further by selling his Arlington Heights townhouse and booking rooms in a string of nondescript chain business hotels.
“Don’t worry,” Linda laughed. “The Gumbahs would never think of looking for you in dumps like that. It would offend their sensibilities.”
“Maybe, but I’ve grown to like them, and ‘Dave’ really does leave the light on for me.”
CHAPTER TEN
Raqqah, Northern Syria
The interior of the small house was as spartan as its exterior, with one old, threadbare couch, two unmatched overstuffed chairs, a small kitchen table, with two rickety card-table chairs. White sheets had been nailed over the windows, allowing light to pass through, but little else. In addition to the man who opened the front door, Shaw saw two more armed men standing guard inside. One blocked the arched doorway that led to the rear bedrooms, while the other sat at the kitchen table thumbing through an old newspaper. All three were tall and muscular, dressed in dark suits and open-collared white shirts, with closely cropped dark beards. They had stockless, short-barreled, AK-47s hanging around their necks on straps, which they carried with the casual familiarity of men who knew how to use them. They gave a quick, appraising glance at the pale-skinned stranger, looked at Aslan Khan, and soon went back to what they had been doing, which appeared to be not much of anything.
To Shaw, the house appeared to be in very transient use, most likely by men only. There was a stack of Arab-language newspapers lying on the kitchen table, two overflowing ashtrays, and plastic trash bags full of Styrofoam carry-out food containers stacked in the kitchen corner. The house reeked of garlic and too many cigarettes, and was in desperate need of a good airing out, which didn’t appear likely anytime soon. A moment later, Shaw heard the faint shuffling of stockinged feet in the rear hallway. He looked up and saw the Caliph squeeze past the tall guard in the doorway to the rear hall, ducking under his arm like a mischievous child. The Caliph was drying his hands on a towel and had apparently come from the house’s lone bathroom. He had changed his clothes and now wore a floor-length dishdasha, the loose, flowing outer garment that was common in the Arab world. It appeared to be made of a cheap, undecorated cotton, the kind one could buy in any street market or local shop.
He and Shaw exchanged glances, each taking stock of the other. To Shaw, he appeared very ordinary and much shorter down here at eye level than when he stood on the platform in the crowded mosque. Shaw could only assume that he appeared as disappointingly ordinary to the Caliph, but didn’t wait to find out. As he had planned for weeks, when al-Zaeim stepped forward to greet him, Shaw immediately threw himself on the floor at the Caliph’s feet and prostrated himself with his forehead on the floor and his arms straight out from his sides. That stopped al-Zaeim dead in his tracks.
“Professor Shaw, what are you…?” al-Zaeim asked nervously as he took a step backward and glanced at Aslan Khan for help, but he found none. Clearly, they were both dumbfounded by the American’s sudden actions.
“My Caliph, I know you can’t possibly understand, but this is something I must do, something I was… ordered to do.”
“Ordered?” al-Zaeim asked as he bent over and reached for Shaw’s hand. “Please get up, Professor Shaw, please. Ordered by whom?”
“If I tell you, you’ll think I’m crazy,” Shaw answered. “You see, I had a vision. No, I had the same vision, over and over again. He came to me in the middle of the night, and…”
“Who? Who came to you?” al-Zaeim asked, as much concerned as curious. They had invested a lot of time on this American, and to now learn that he might be insane was disconcerting. “Tell us who came to you? Who ordered this?”
“It… it was… An-Nasir Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub, my Caliph.”
Al-Zaeim’s jaw dropped as he heard the name, but it was Aslan Khan who spoke first. “You mean the great Saladin?” He was the famous twelfth-century Arab general whose armies defeated the Europeans in the Third Crusade. He drove them out of Palestine, retook Jerusalem, and even bested Richard the Lionheart, at least in the movies. A devout Muslim, who through his bravery and military leadership, rose through the ranks to become the First Sultan of Egypt and Syria.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Shaw said. “Saladin? But I’m not crazy. He came to me in the middle of the night, over and over again, for a week, and it scared the hell out of me. Here,” Shaw said as he pulled the neck of his loose gown down over his shoulder, revealing a large scar and a festering blister. “It was as if a lightning bolt struck me,” he said. The two men leaned closer and examined the wound, and their smiles slowly faded. There was no way for them to know, but the big scar came from a roadside IED in Iraq, years before, and his Ka-Bar knife heated over a can of Sterno in the hotel in Sanliafa did the rest.
Al-Zaeim reached out and wanted to touch the open wound, but he pulled back. “Yes, I see,” al-Zaeim said as he stared at it. “But how did you know who it was? How did you know it was the great Saladin?”
“Oh, it was him!” Shaw trembled. “He looked exactly like his pictures in all the books — tall, with a dark, pointed beard, and he was wearing a white silk frock with gold embroidery, and a red turban covered with pearls.”
“He came to you in your bedroom, you say?”
“Yes, it was the middle of the night, three months ago. I was in my bed, sound asleep, when something woke me. A sound? Or a movement? Then I saw a faint, smoky glow, like a thin, wispy cloud rising above the foot of my bed. It grew larger, denser, and brighter, until something took shape in it.”
“What was it?” al-Zaeim demanded to know, wide-eyed. “What was this thing?”
“A man, a ghost, tall and deathly pale, with a pointed, narrow beard. It materialized and floated above the foot of my bed. The windows in my bedroom were closed and the air wasn’t moving, but his frock seemed to shimmer and flow around him. The most terrifying thing of all, though, was the gleaming, golden sword in its hand. It was a curved, razor-sharp scimitar and it flashed like lightning as he swung it back and forth over my head.”
“A scimitar?” Khan asked, realizing he was being sucked in too.
“Yes! I sat up in bed, knowing it must be some kind of a dream, it must be! But the apparition looked so real, so lifelike. I had spent the evening reading a Medieval Arab history text about the holy lands during the Crusades, and I must have fallen asleep. The book was still lying open next to me on the bed, and I hadn’t even turned off my reading lamp. The picture in the text must be where this horrible dream came from.”
Khan stood up and nodded. “Yes, it must have been horrible.”
“I rubbed my eyes and tried to snap out of it, knowing you can’t be dreaming while you’re wide-awake, but the ghost was still there, hovering over the foot of my bed… and then it pointed that sword at me and I screamed, ‘What do you want?’ ”
“ ‘You!’ ” it answered and moved closer. ‘I’ve come for you. You are the Redeemer! You are my Sword,’ it said. ‘You must go and prostrate yourself before the Caliph
. Your mission awaits you!’ it repeated to me, again and again.”
“It told you to prostrate yourself in front of… me?” Al-Zaeim asked.
“Yes! Finally, it went away and disappeared back into its cloud. I assumed it was a dream or a nightmare, so I went back to sleep and ignored it. Sure enough, the next night, it appeared at the foot of my bed again. ‘You! You must obey!’ it said, glaring down at me. ‘Go forth and prostrate yourself before the Caliph as I told you, because your mission awaits.’ The ghost repeated it, louder and more insistently this time, raising the sword and swinging it over my head again, threatening me. ‘It is your destiny. You must go, this is your last warning!’ ”
“I jumped out of bed, but it vanished again. Was someone playing games with me, I asked myself? Quickly, I walked around the house and checked the doors and windows, certain that someone was behind this. One of my students? They wouldn’t dare. A jealous faculty member? Much more likely. Or maybe it was a bad meal rebelling in my stomach, maybe my dinner or a touch of mustard gone bad.” Shaw got that idea from one of his favorite black-and-white movies, A Christmas Carol, the old one starring Alastair Sim. Shaw substituted the scimitar for the clanking chains, but he remembered Scrooge’s line about ‘an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard?’ and figured it would impress these ignorant Arabs.
“Exhausted, I finally fell back in bed, but I had the same vision the next night, the night after that, and the night after that. Each time, the ghost became more and more agitated, more insistent, and more threatening. Truly, I was terrified.”
“With an eight-hundred-year-old ghost threatening you with a sword?” Aslan Khan chuckled, trying to regain his skepticism. “I believe I can understand that.”
“Yes! But by the sixth night, I had enough of the fellow. I went to sleep in my guest room at the opposite end of the house and locked the door, figuring the ghost might lose interest if it didn’t find me in my bedroom.”
“And did it go away?” Al-Zaeim asked.
“No. I must’ve gotten it angry. It came through the wall and screamed at me, ‘Go prostrate yourself before the Caliph! Prostrate yourself, because your mission awaits you.’ ”
“ ‘Go where?’ ” I screamed back at it, ‘What Caliph?’ ”
“ ‘There is only one Caliph!’ it said, ‘the Caliph in Raqqah!’ the apparition answered as it reached out with that gleaming scimitar and touched me on the shoulder with the tip of the long, curved blade, here!” Shaw said as he pointed to the festering wound. “When the sword touched me, it was as if I’d been struck by a bolt of lightning. A burst of pure white light flashed across the room and threw me out of the bed.”
“ ‘Go!’ it screamed at me again. ‘Show the Caliph my mark,’ it said. ‘That is what he shall know you by.’ That was the last thing I remember. When I woke, I found myself lying on the floor, five feet from the bed. The morning sun was cascading in through my bedroom window, and my telephone was ringing on the nightstand. I finally rolled over and was able to reach the telephone cord. Every muscle in my body ached, but I pulled on the cord and it fell off the table, narrowly missing my head. It was my teaching assistant telling me I had missed my ten o’clock class. I’d been asleep all that time and had no idea what hit me. I finally got up and stumbled into the bathroom. That was when I saw this huge, raw burn mark on my shoulder. I was shocked, I can tell you that.”
Shaw looked up, his eyes moving back and forth between al-Zaeim and Khan.
“That was when I remembered what the ghost said. ‘Go prostrate yourself before the Caliph!’ its voice commanded. ‘Prostrate yourself. Your mission awaits you,’ and it all came rushing back. That was when I realized what I had to do. The ghost had said it all, when he told me, ‘There is only one Caliph, The Caliph in Raqqah!’ So here I am.”
Shaw looked pathetic as he slumped on the floor in front of them. He was a skilled con man, and he had put everything he had into this preposterous story, knowing the bigger the lie and the more ridiculous it sounded, the easier the sell. What was it those bastards at Chicago told him? He was not “radical enough?” Shaw tried not to laugh. When this was over, he would post a photograph in the campus newspaper of himself standing on the battle lines here in Raqqah with his arm around the Caliph, the Black Flag flying behind them, holding an AK-47 high over his head. Would that be radical enough for them?
Al-Zaeim laid his hands on the American’s head, knowing there wasn’t much in the way of religious “miracles,” “healings,” or sham conversions that he hadn’t seen, heard of, or been part of over the past three years. They left him very depressed. Oh, he believed, probably more than most men, but he had always been a modest, practical man. He was a simple preacher, not a miracle worker. Looking down at Shaw, however, he remembered the stories they told the children in the madrasah religious schools about miracles and great battles, and how Allah would reach down and touch the most peculiar people. In those days, people believed such things. Somewhere along the winding path from then to now al-Zaeim had stopped believing, but his eyes saw the truth. Something had indeed happened to this fellow Shaw, something that Abu Bakr al-Zaeim had hoped he would never have to face — a miracle and a true believer.
That was when Aslan Khan broke the spell. “This may surprise you, Professor, but we know you are telling the truth,” he said, impressed, but having no intention of letting this American con them. “You see, the great Saladin also appeared to the Caliph last week, here in Raqqah as he was sleeping.”
“He did?” Shaw frowned, sensing his plan might be going awry.
“Oh yes, didn’t he, my Caliph,” Aslan Khan locked his eyes on al-Zaeim’s, before the little man could open his mouth and say the wrong thing. “Saladin told him that he was sending a pale, learned man from the West to us, one who was destined to do great things. He said we would recognize him by the mark he left on him.”
The Caliph wasn’t sure what Khan was doing. He stared deep into the American’s eyes, and what he saw scared him. In the past three years, he had looked into the eyes of soldiers, farmers, peasants, murderers, smart men, arrogant men, and stupid ones, but he had never looked into the eyes of one who had been touched by the hand of God, and he didn’t know what to say to him.
Aslan Khan was not nearly as reticent, however. “It is indeed a heavy burden you carry, Professor. Heeding what the old general told the Caliph, he and I have decided upon a very important mission for you. We were discussing it this very morning. It is so important, that the future of the Caliphate now rests in your hands.”
“I knew it!” Shaw jumped to his feet, trying to regain control. “When the great one touched me with his sword, I was remade, reborn. That’s why he sent me here, to fight at your side and help you drive the infidels from your lands, to help establish the Caliphate.”
“It is very brave of you to say that,” al-Zaeim said, as he reached out and took Shaw’s hands. “It shows that the fires burn hot inside you. But Allah has much more important work for you than to carry a rifle on the battlefield. That would be a waste of a very great opportunity.”
“But I’m a Marine! You heard what I did to the Syrians yesterday. Ten of them. I…”
“Indeed, you are a skilled fighter, a Marine, as you say, and there is no doubting that,” Khan cut him off before he could go any further. “But you must listen to the Caliph, Professor. The ghost of the great general told you of a mission, but it is not here on our battlefield; it is back home on yours.”
“Aslan and I have been talking since the great Saladin first spoke to me,” al-Zaeim jumped in and took the lead. “The ghosts are signs from Allah, and we cannot disobey.”
“You are an American, from North Carolina, from Fayetteville. You live there in the middle of that nest of vipers,” Khan continued. “With your blond hair, blue eyes, and fair skin, with your passport, you can go where we cannot go and do what we could never do. So tell us more about this university you work at near Fort Bragg.”
&
nbsp; “Well, it isn’t a university, merely a small college, Blue Ridge College.”
“Ah, yes, but it is in Fayetteville, isn’t it?” al-Zaeim asked with a thin smile.
Shaw stared at them. “I see you’ve heard of Fayetteville,” he said, puzzled.
“Oh, yes. We are quite familiar with it… and with your Fort Bragg,” Aslan Khan turned and looked at al-Zaeim; the two men exchanging nods.
“Well, it’s not my Fort Bragg,” Shaw laughed and tried to correct them.
“Perhaps, but it is the home of the 82nd Airborne Division, the Special Operations Command, even the Delta Force, is it not?” Khan asked him, undeterred as he rattled off the names. “Surely you are familiar with those devils?”
“Me? Well, not really. I was a Marine… Semper Fi,” he tried to respond lamely.
The other two men glanced at each other for a moment. “But we understand you teach there, on the Army base, too?” Aslan Khan probed.
“Actually, they call it a post.” Shaw corrected him. “And yes, I have soldiers in my classes, mostly in the night classes. In fact, I was supposed to teach a class on post this quarter, but when I don’t show up…”
“You must show up, Professor,” Khan told him. “We are counting on it.”
“But I came here to fight, to stand shoulder to shoulder with you on the battlefield against the Crusaders and the infidels,” Shaw told them. “I don’t want to… teach.”
“We know you don’t,” al-Zaeim reassured him as he took his hand, helped him up to his feet, and led him to the couch. He placed Shaw on one side, while he took the other, and Aslan Khan pulled a chair over and joined them. “But there are times we all must open our hearts and minds and hear what Allah is really telling us, not what we think we hear.”
Burke's Revenge: Bob Burke Suspense Thriller #3 (Bob Burke Action Adventure Novels) Page 10