Chapter 69 – Saeed Kahn’s Meeting with the Master
Sunday afternoon June 15, 2008 – 2:00 PM
Saeed Kahn was still reeling from the disastrous aftermath of his pre-dawn escapade when the ringing of a telephone disturbed his early afternoon meditation. On the other end of the line was the cerebral master and he was requesting Kahn’s presence for a confidential meeting in his quarters at promptly 8:30 PM.
The master had never once beckoned Kahn to a private sitting before, and so all day long the news of this unanticipated audience with the prince left him feeling staggered with a sense of impending doom. All day long he prayed to the Almighty for guidance, but nevertheless the queasiness in the pit of his stomach continued to slosh around, sending a steady stream of bile flowing, unabated, up through his throat and beyond his Adam’s apple.
Kahn was so utterly discombobulated by the unfortunate events of the wee hours of this morning that he decided to skip the traditional 8 AM Prayer service in its entirety, which couldn’t have made the master very happy. But deep in his heart of hearts he knew full well that the hastily arranged meeting with his superior had a lot more to do with the ill-fated decisions which led up to his absence rather than the actual absenteeism itself.
In Kahn’s eyes, the master was a visionary. But he was also a man you would be wise not to anger, and alas, he fretted that he may have gotten on the bad side of his sovereign governor.
And on top of all his other problems, Kahn was now faced with a new nemesis, none other than one Mr. Frank Newlan.
“How could Mr. Frank, that dog of a man, have penetrated my inner world?” wondered Kahn. In his tormented mind, it seemed incomprehensible that Newlan could have possessed the power of vision; a power which was ordinarily reserved for only the most supreme seekers of the truth.
“And yet somehow my thoughts were clear to him. Perhaps he is a more formidable foe than I give him credit for,” reasoned Kahn as he simultaneously dangled an ornate dagger in one hand and the suddenly dangerous aura of Frank Newlan in his other hand.
“Ah, but Mr. Frank did not possess the power to interpret the Almighty Spirit’s message, where he informed me to alter my plans,” exclaimed Kahn as he smiled like a loon and gazed admiringly at himself in the mirror, dressed in his ancestral garb.
Kahn’s mood continued to fluctuate from one extreme to another, back and forth, all afternoon, but after many settling doses of liquid encouragement over the course of the day, he was as ready as he would ever be for his sitting with the kingly master.
Kahn arrived at the guru’s secret meeting location at precisely the bottom of the 8th hour of the evening, but instead of the expected ceremonial greeting, he was met with the mandate of an unspoken nod, and in return he obediently sat cross-legged on a Persian rug by his pedagogue’s feet. However, beyond a bowing of the head, the master sat silently on his throne for quite some time, seemingly lost in prayer. But then suddenly he sprang to life and began to speak, and his impassioned tone immediately struck the fear of Mephistopheles in Saeed Kahn’s heart.
“It has been brought to my attention that the suspicions of our adversaries have been aroused…BY YOUR STUPIDITY,” shrieked the overseer of truth as Kahn shriveled with the dread of a man facing imminent death.
“I beg your forgiveness my righteous leader,” cried Kahn as he kissed the master’s bare feet. But regardless of loyalty and devotion, the master was not so quick to absolve his groveling pilgrim of his sins.
“You have jeopardized our plans for zero hour with your foolish subterfuge which was ill advised from the beginning,” castigated the perturbed master in a stern voice.
“Please, oh holy man, allow me to explain myself,” appealed a terrified Kahn.
The master responded by removing a small sword from his scapular and he tapped his student on one shoulder and then the other before announcing his verdict.
“You may plead your case my son,” informed the master, and Kahn, in turn, exalted mightily in his good fortune.
“Oh dear master, the voices informed me to change my course of action, to stage a dress rehearsal, a dry run, a fact-finding mission, a proof of concept if you will,” expounded a trembling Kahn. For despite his master’s goodwill, at this point in their conclave, Kahn remained petrified by the uncertain prospects which the fates had bestowed upon him; and it showed in his lack of poise.
“But your endeavors were foiled, were they not? Foiled by a man you consider to be a fool, am I not correct?” demanded the master.
“Yes it is so. A buffoon, not fit to be in our presence, somehow invaded my conscience. But how it came to be I cannot say. How it came to be I cannot comprehend. But you…you knew of this harlequin? Oh wise man, please enlighten me,” implored Kahn.
“From the very beginning I sensed that a man with the power of vision lurked within your midst…a man with a court jester’s exterior, but a dangerous man nonetheless. And yet I chose to allow you to walk down the path of freewill my scion. An error in judgment perhaps on my part, but my inner being, fueled by the Almighty, counsels me in each and every one my decisions, and so, despite our blindness, we mustn’t ever challenge the foresight of the all-knowing Emperor,” haltingly responded the master with his eyes tightly closed; and from the expression that was etched upon his face, one might surmise that he was summonsing up every last ounce of concentration that his spirit could muster in a vain attempt at solving a most perplexing of riddles.
“I feared that it was so, dear master…but what am I to do to rid myself of this cunning tomfool of a man?” dutifully petitioned Kahn. But alas, the master’s answer left him cold.
“My penance for you is elementary in nature my wayward warrior, but it will require the virtue of patience,” replied the regal sentry as he looked his pupil squarely in the eyes and paused before adding, “you must regain his trust.”
Although Kahn would have preferred a death sentence ten times over, as opposed to regaining Newlan’s trust, he didn’t dare protest his benevolent regent’s leniency. But unbeknownst to Kahn, there was a very good reason for the master’s peculiar condemnation. Unbeknownst to Kahn, the supreme leader had bigger plans in mind for him than he could have ever possibly fathomed. But in the meantime, the master wished to minimize the possibility of his overenthusiastic zealot disrupting their plans any further than he had already done.
It was the master’s sincere hope that by assigning Kahn to this menial task, it would keep him occupied for the time being…until he could be used for a more sacred purpose.
But Kahn on the other hand was nonplussed by his punishment, and even though he bit his tongue and subserviently bowed his head, deep inside he burned with hatred over this befuddling censure. Deep inside he wanted nothing to do with Frank Newlan, except perhaps to aid in his ultimate and untimely demise.
Of course, it remained to be seen whether Saeed Kahn possessed the stomach for such a messy chore, regardless of his shady past. Because even though, in his sixty-something odd years on this Earth, he had witnessed many a sight not fit for the faint of heart, and he had also participated in many a crime against nature, for some reason, when his moment of glory was at hand, at the last minute he balked. So who’s to say that he wouldn’t do the same thing again if push came to shove? Was he all bluster? Was he a frightened yellow-belly? Was he a chicken-shit coward? Or perhaps a shred of decency still remained hidden somewhere deep within the beating of his frozen heart. Perhaps a glimmer of humanity still lingered somewhere deep within the depths his soul. And as such, perhaps he suffered from a last second case of a guilty conscience at the thought of massacring his innocent neighbors; some of them foreigners just like him. Or perhaps, maybe, just maybe, there really were voices in his head instructing him to alter his vile plans.
But in any event, whatever the reasoning behind his folly, Kahn was unable to paint the finishing touches on his macabre, yet luminous, masterpiece of a plan
. And so what, perchance, might happen, if he were to find himself with a licensed gun gripped tightly in his hand and Frank Newlan’s smug face perched within a few feet from the receiving end of his haymaker? Would he have the guts to pull the trigger? Would he have the guts to kill one measly man when he had been unable to stamp out the remnants of a mankind that didn’t fit into his likeness?
Only Saeed Kahn could provide an answer to these probing questions with any sense of surety, but the one thing that we do know for certain is that by the time Kahn was dismissed from the master’s presence and he made his way back to his automobile, his legs were weak like the jelly from a barrel of ripened grapes.
Kahn flopped into the driver’s seat of his car and he shivered with angst as he peered at himself in the rearview mirror. However, much to his delighted astonishment, the eyes that looked back at him were foreign to his sight. The eyes that looked back at him were no longer human anymore. The eyes that looked back at him were the eyes of pure evil. The eyes that looked back at him spoke volumes, and in their treachery they told him all we need to know.
What Saeed Kahn’s eyes told him was this; “Regain his trust indeed. This infidel deserves nothing of the kind. On the contrary my reverent master, Mr. Frank deserves nothing less than death…a death of prolonged agony at that…and then…and only then…will I ever be at peace.”
…
And so dear reader, there you have it; our lovable loser Mr. Frank Newlan, a man who up until recently didn’t have a care or an enemy in the entire world, somehow managed, in roughly the course of twenty four hours, to incur the wrath of not one, but two men…and as we have recently discovered, if someone wants you dead bad enough…there’s not a damn thing…you can do about it.
From the Eyes of a Juror Page 82