The Kafir Project

by Lee Burvine

  Danni did a comic palm smack on her forehead.

  Louis could see he wasn't in on some joke. "What? What am I missing?"

  "The message from Professor Kazemi, our Herodotus. It said to meet him at the JPL Library," Danni said. "Rees thought it might mean-"

  "The Jet Propulsion Laboratory," Louis cut in. "Down in Pasadena. You guys weren't even sure this was the right place?"

  Morgan and Danni laughed it off, and Louis let it go. Privately, he thought it didn't exactly inspire warm confidence in his teammates.

  * * *

  MORE THAN A half-hour later, after they'd scoured all six floors of the library several times with no sign of Kazemi, Louis's confidence cooled by a couple more degrees.

  They had pulled up the religious history professor's picture on Louis's phone. A male of Middle Eastern descent, mid to late forties, balding, heavyset, with a fringe of collar-length graying hair. He wouldn't have been very hard to spot.

  He just wasn't there.

  As the three of them walked off the staircase onto the library's ground floor, Louis asked, "What if Kazemi's a no-show? Maybe he got spooked after what happened at Livermore last night."

  Morgan agreed it was possible. They decided to stop at the reference desk to check if anyone there had seen the history professor around.

  The library assistant's arms were sleeved-out with tattoos, and a mouse could easily have crawled through the flesh tunnels in his ears. Louis was pretty sure the man was stoned too.

  "Yeah, he was here," the library assistant said. "He had to go home. He wasn't feeling well. He left a message for, uh, you guys, I guess. He said to say, 'My history book is here.' Said you'd know what that was about. Oh, and I told your other friend too."

  Morgan did an actual double take. "I'm sorry, who?"

  "Oh, I didn't get a name. Blond hair, light blue eyes. He was here about, mmm ... an hour ago? Looking for the professor. And also for that astronomer guy."

  "Gevin Rees?" Morgan asked.

  "Uh huh. Hey, I thought he was in some kind of trouble."

  Morgan flowed with that. "Yeah, no, they just wanted to interview him as a witness. So did anyone else come by for the professor? Or Gevin Rees?"

  "Nah. Just you guys and your buddy there earlier."

  Morgan gave the librarian an appreciative smile. "Okay. Well, thank you for the message."

  Louis tried to force a nonchalant grin that probably looked like gas pain. Then he followed Morgan and Danni as they walked away from the reference desk.

  When they were out of earshot, he erupted. "What the hell? What's the deal with the book? Why are they looking for Rees? They have Rees already."

  Morgan started to answer, then waited as a couple of students walked close by. "All right. First, we might not be talking about just one group here."

  "A multi-player game," Danni said in a conspiratorial whisper. "That could be why the man who slammed into us didn't shoot anyone. He's not even with the blond guy. He's got, like, different rules of engagement."

  It made sense, and they quickly agreed on a couple of important strategic points. First, the guy who grabbed Rees probably hadn't beaten them to the library. He would have needed some time to question Rees before he set off to get here.

  Second, the blond man was probably still lurking somewhere nearby. Somehow he had known that Rees was coming here. So he'd almost certainly be staking the place out. Which meant he must have seen them already.

  Now he was probably just waiting for them to go someplace with fewer witnesses and security cameras.

  Even though Louis's instincts told him to run away fast and far, he had to admit these were two very good reasons not to leave the library quite yet.

  Then there was the whole question of the book. The one the librarian had mentioned.

  Morgan was first to offer a theory there. "So Kazemi was here, but decided it wasn't safe to hang around. What if the history book thing is-he left us a message there?"

  "Like, for a new, safer rendezvous point?" Danni suggested.

  Morgan nodded. "I can't think what else it could be about."

  They hiked back upstairs to look for a history book authored by Burhan Kazemi.

  That quickly proved to be a bust. Kazemi's book, or rather books, were there all right, tucked far back in one of the history aisles.

  But they were all opened and scattered on the floor.

  They riffled through each book, and shook them all out one at a time. They found nothing.

  "Well," Morgan said, "if there was a message stuck in one of these books, that blond guy got it."

  "Did he?" Louis picked up one of the books. "Assume he stopped when he found something. Because you would, of course. There are, what," he looked around the floor, "nine books here. And no unopened books by Kazemi left on any shelf. The odds you'd have to pull out all nine of his books to find the right one on your very last try? That's eight to one against. Pretty unlikely."

  "You know," Danni said, "Kazemi could've just left a note for Rees at the reference desk. With the rendezvous info in it. Time and place. So why the rigmarole about a book? Unless it's like a code. You know, to help protect the information. Like he did with the whole JPL thing."

  Morgan recalled something then. "Rees said there was an ancient book called The Histories. Maybe my history book means-"

  Danni finished her thought. "Herodotus's book. Yeah, it's the first great history book."

  The book was only one aisle over. The Histories. Morgan pulled it off the shelf. As she opened the cover a piece of paper fell out.

  It landed at Louis's feet. He picked it up and read it out loud. "Ferry Building plaza. Five PM. Come alone."

  "This is good," Morgan said. "It's very good. But our top priority is finding Rees. And our best shot is still right here. We wait here until the man who abducted Rees comes here looking for Kazemi."

  After another brief discussion, they all agreed on the plan. Morgan led them down to a first floor corner of the library, with a view of the entrance and the reference desk. Their stakeout spot.

  As they waited for an armed killer to show up, actually hoping he'd show up, a lot of questions ran through Louis's mind. One of them on heavy rotation.

  What the hell am I doing?

  CHAPTER 50

  REES'S CAPTOR HAD insisted that he take time to consider well, before the real questioning began. Then he stepped out of Rees's line of sight and busied himself in another area of the motel room.

  But Rees couldn't think. His head just kept filling with nightmare images. Hellish scenes from his hallucinatory drug experience. The green-eyed bastard no doubt knew this. It might all be part of the softening up process.

  He had no watch or clock to check. The drugs made guessing how much time had passed nearly impossible. It might be twenty minutes. It might be four or five hours.

  Rees finally heard his captor approaching again.

  The man who called himself Faraj stepped back into his field of view. He stood there looking relaxed, and spoke in a gentle voice. "Do you have the data, Dr. Rees?"

  Rees still felt the sharpening effects of the first drugs. Quite possibly it had made the hallucinations more horrible. But for now, it helped him think fast. And that was a very good thing.

  If a solution lay hidden somewhere here in this room, he would find it. He had to.

  "If I tell you everything. Will you kill me, without...?" Rees looked down at the syringe still lying on the coffee table. He had no doubt it had been left within his view for a reason.

  Faraj smiled. "Without putting you into a permanent state of psychosis? Yes. I give you my word I will kill you, Dr. Rees. It will not be quick. But you will understand the full height of human existence, which can only be appreciated from its nadir. It is a privilege."

  Rees pretended to be considering whether to cooperate or not. He'd already decided he would talk. To buy time, if nothing else. If there w
ere a way out, even in a direction that seemed absurd ... what would it be?

  "No," Rees said, when he judged he'd stretched the pause as long as he could get away with. "I don't have a copy of the Kafir Project data. The time-recordings."

  "Do you know who does? Or where it is kept?"

  Rees thought the truth would likely sound more convincing. "No I don't. But I think a man named Kazemi may have it. Or he knows where to get it."

  "And Kazemi, he is Herodotus? We are speaking of the religious history professor at San Francisco State University are we not?"

  His captor clearly knew a lot already. Rees was glad he hadn't started off trying to make up phony details. "I think so. I'm not positive."

  "And Anaximander? You know who this is?"

  "No idea. My understanding is that he has the lectionary codex, though."

  "And what about the time-viewing technology itself? My clients are very interested in reproducing it."

  So he didn't get the pouch and Fischer's notebook. Morgan still has it. Rees tried to buy more time to think. "Why do they want the technology? It could only hurt their cause."

  Faraj chuckled. "Oh, they don't believe that. They are certain the technology will validate their faith. They are very keen to show that the Prophet, peace be upon him, anointed Ali as his successor."

  Rees had never imagined an Islamic group would be anything but afraid of the time-viewing technology. But he understood now. "The Shias. That's what they want out of this? To prove the Sunni's are wrong, and they're right?"

  "No small thing, as I'm sure you know."

  "Yeah, I do. It would realign the entire Islamic world. They're going to be sorely disappointed. Both sides, in fact. Because, here's the thing. I don't have the technology." He decided to risk a lie here. "No one ever had it apart from Fischer and DARPA. And I'm not sure anyone in DARPA fully understands it. It's lost now that Fischer is really dead."

  "Hmmm. And what do you know about the second phase of the project? The work which was not condoned by your government."

  Rees had no idea what his captor was talking about now, and that unsettled him. He didn't want to appear like he was holding out. "I'm sorry, but I don't know anything about any second phase. Unless you mean the time-tracing? Finding the buried, historical artifacts?"

  Something flashed there behind Faraj's green eyes. "Interesting. So Fischer told you nothing about his extending the Kafir Project's mandate?"

  "He didn't get to tell me much of anything. Your people killed him too fast."

  "On the contrary. That was your people, by proxy. But no matter. I will explain on the chance you have heard more than you understood, and it jogs your memory. You are, I take it, aware of the Kafir Project's original purpose?"

  "To attack the historical foundations of Islam. In order to undermine radical extremists. That's my understanding."

  "Yes, and that is correct. It would seem, though, that Edward Fischer had also intended from the very start to expand the project."

  Fischer's words came back to Rees. And did you stop there?

  Fischer had asked him that in their very first phone conversation. After Rees explained how he'd examined the historicity of Mormon scriptures. Rees hadn't stopped digging there.

  And neither had Fischer.

  "They weren't stopping with Islam," Rees said.

  Faraj shook his head. "No."

  Rees could see now why the Kafir Project had been scrapped by its own sponsors. Why now those same people, with access to Defense Department computers and personnel, wanted Fischer and the data and all the principal players gone.

  Phase II. The expanded project.

  "Fischer searched back even further," Rees said. "To the beginning of the Common Era. Christianity. He investigated the historical origins of Christianity too."

  "Yes. Judaism as well. It appears he was on something of a quest."

  This all made sense. Of course Fischer would have looked back further, once he had his hands on the tools. He wasn't fighting Islamic radicalism. Not for its own sake.

  He was waging his own personal war on religion.

  There were plenty of people in the US government, or closely associated, who just wouldn't stand for that.

  Rees's focus had turned inside. Now he looked up again. "I understand. But I wasn't told about any of that. Nothing about the ... additional targets."

  Faraj tucked in his chin and drew a deep breath through his nose. He puckered his lips and nodded. "Yes. Yes, I think this is the truth." He turned and picked up the red syringe again.

  "What? What are you doing?" Rees asked. "You just said you believed me."

  Faraj approached Rees with the syringe. "I said I thought you were telling the truth. And soon, I will know for certain."

  "No! No!" Rees began rocking the chair back and forth again.

  Faraj stopped and shook his large head. "You will remember that you have only two choices here. The same two as before."

  Rees could turn his head far enough to look to either side. To his left-couch, painting, light switch, stain on the wall. To his right, about five feet away-thermostat and ... the room's TV set. It sat on a cantilevered wooden shelf, mounted about shoulder height on the wall.

  A strategy began to form.

  Rees kept rocking the chair as violently as he could. "I don't care. I don't care! No. I won't let you do it!"

  Faraj brought the needle up beside his own face, and tilted it toward one bright green eye. "It will be extremely unpleasant, Dr. Rees."

  He's left-handed. He'll want to come around to my right side. "No! No! Get it away! No!" Rees found it quite easy to sound like he was unglued. But inside he'd become a machine. Cold and emotionless.

  He had discovered that by alternately pushing off one foot and then the other, he could rock the chair from side to side as well as forward and back. And by jerking his head and trunk at the same time, he could rotate it too. And scoot it.

  Toward that TV shelf.

  Faraj huffed impatiently. "I take this to mean that you have made your choice. So be it. The eye, then." He approached Rees with the needle in his left hand.

  Rees had managed to turn the chair through about forty-five degrees clockwise. He halfway faced the TV now. It was about three feet away and to his right. He started to whip his head quickly from side to side.

  Faraj frowned at him. "That won't help. In fact you may cause me to tear your cornea with the tip of the needle. Or worse."

  Yes, but you'll try to steady me first with your right hand. You don't want to make a mess of it. You're neat and tidy aren't you?

  Rees turned his head away from his captor, to the far right. He held it there.

  Faraj still had the syringe in his left hand. He came around to Rees's right side. But to do so he had to duck down awkwardly, under the TV shelf.

  That's it. That's right. Get over here asshole.

  Faraj placed his right hand on Rees's left cheek, trying to hold him still. The big man had gotten himself wedged in tightly now. Between the chair, wall, and the TV shelf.

  Rees craned his head further back and to the right as far as he could, until it felt like the cords in his neck would snap.

  Faraj had to lean in even farther then, bend down a bit more awkwardly. Rees could feel his warm breath. It smelled of some kind of breath mint.

  Lower, he's got to come lower.

  And as if he just responded to the silent command, Faraj squatted down on his haunches. Getting more comfortable, taking the strain off his bent back.

  Yes! There you go.

  Rees pointed his toes, rocking the chair backwards. He bent his head straight back. Cocking it to fire. He held an image in his mind. A war machine dating back to the Dark Ages.

  Faraj's grinning face was just two feet from Rees's own now.

  Rees lifted his toes off the floor.

  He allowed a half-second for the chair to start its drop. It rocked him
forward. A moment later he whipped his head forward too.

  In his mind's eye, Rees could see the forces and levers and axis points all at work in perfect mechanical harmony. The counterweight of his body dropping with the chair, the throw-arm of his spine, the sling-like motion of his neck. All together they functioned like the interlocking mechanisms of a medieval trebuchet. A particularly deadly kind of catapult.

  He could see exactly where the thick, supraorbital ridge of his skull would connect with the fragile nasal bones of Faraj's face.

  He closed his eyes.

  In his imagination, he watched the impact drive shattered splinters of the other man's nasal bones up into his forebrain.

  He felt his head still accelerating as it smashed home on its target.

  The world exploded into colored sparks and streamers of light.

  Rees felt and heard Faraj's nasal bones and eye socket cracking, crushing, caving in.

  He opened his eyes and watched his enemy falling backwards.

  Rees's chair continued rocking forward as his momentum carried him. Now he too was falling. Falling in slow motion.

  He turned his head to keep from breaking his own nose on the floor.

  His body thumped on the carpet, then bounced. He came to rest on his left side as the chair rolled to a stop.

  Rees took a deep breath, then lifted his head.

  Faraj lay on the carpet next to the coffee table. Flat on his back. Motionless.

  Is he dead? He looks like he's dead.

  Faraj groaned. His eyelids snapped open. The green eyes found Rees. They opened wider.

  Oh, no. No, please...

  Faraj began to sit up. Stunned perhaps, but very much alive.

  Rees had failed. There would be no freeing himself from the duct tape, as he had hoped.

  There would be only retribution.

  Rees's tormentor had fully sat up now on the floor. Torrents of bright red blood gushed from his ruined nose and streamed down his chin, onto his white shirt.

  Rage burned in his emerald eyes.