by Allan Topol
Musa pondered Omar’s words for a full minute. “You’re right, Omar. We’ll do it that way.”
Once Omar left, Musa continued brooding. Yesterday Craig had called him “Just another Islamic terrorist.” Those words had deeply upset Musa. He saw himself as far more than that. As a modern day Saladin. An emerging leader of the Islamic world. A military genius who would annihilate Christian armies. But what if others shared Craig’s perception, that he was simply another terrorist?
Chafing at those words, Musa put on his shorts and went for a run on mountain trails. While he ran, his mind kicked into high gear. He was able to solve problems. Thirty minutes into the run, perspiring heavily, he had the answer: “Legitimacy.”
His movement needed legitimacy.
Terrorists attacked what wasn’t theirs. People with a legitimate claim retook what rightfully belonged to them.
Somehow he had to find that legitimacy. He knew where to start. A few months ago he had attended a conference in Tangiers on the changing nature of Islam in the modern world. There he had met Abdil Khalid, a professor of medieval history at the University in Casablanca. Khalid had made a presentation on the incredible accomplishments of the Arabs in the period from the tenth through the fifteenth centuries in Spain. Then he talked about the clash of civilizations now occurring in Western Europe. Khalid will be sympathetic. He hoped Khalid would be sympathetic and would be able to help.
When he returned to his office, he summoned Omar. “I have to go away for a couple of days. I want you to ascertain the status of the four missiles being shipped into Italy for the attack on the Vatican. Also, I want you to make sure our antiaircraft batteries are operational here as well as the ground to air missiles the Chinese sent.”
“Are you expecting the EU to attack?” Omar asked anxiously.
“It’s a possibility. And I can’t rule out an attack by Farez. We have to be prepared for everything.”
33
PARIS
Craig and Elizabeth exited the jetway at Charles DeGaulle at five in the afternoon. As soon as they were in the terminal, he stopped and took deep gulps of air. The air of freedom. They were still alive. He’d had a number of brushes with the Grim Reaper over the years, but this morning’s was the closest.
He threw his arms around Elizabeth and hugged her tightly. Weak in the knees, she collapsed with him onto a blue upholstered bench in the gate waiting area. Passengers lined up to board were staring at them, but he didn’t care.
His heart was pounding with joy. His breath coming in short spurts. In the surge of emotion, he stammered out the words, “We made it.”
Tears had filled her eyes and were rolling down her cheeks. “We couldn’t come any closer than that. Never. Oh my God!”
He squeezed her hand so tightly that she pulled it away. He caressed the back of her neck.
“Watching you try to undo that knot,” she said, “gave me a reason to hope.”
He took a deep breath and blew it out with a whoosh. “Let’s get out of here.”
They stood up, and he looped an arm around her waist.
Outside, moving toward the cab line, he said to her, “Apartment?”
She replied, “Oh, yes.”
Once they were in the door, he kicked it shut, took her in his arms, and kissed her deeply. Then he pulled away. “We’re safe,” he said. “Safe at last.”
“I still can’t believe it.”
In his mind, he saw Musa on that horse. Musa charging at him. Musa aiming his spear. No, he told himself. It’s over. We’re both alive. I won’t think about it anymore.
He kissed her again. As he did, he was unbuttoning her blouse. Unsnapping her bra and caressing her breasts—while she unzipped his pants. They were on fire. With each other. With life.
He unhooked her skirt, let it fall to the floor, and slipped down her pants. She was soaked and she was grabbing his erect cock, pulling him toward the bedroom.
By the time he pulled the spread off, she was on her back, her arms outstretched. They couldn’t wait. He entered her immediately. Their fused bodies moved together in perfect rhythm. Both breathing hard. Perspiration dotting her forehead. He kept moving back and forth, driving her wild, until she cried out, “Now. Yes. Now.” And he exploded in her.
Their bodies entwined, sated from lovemaking, they fell asleep. When he woke up, it was eight thirty in the evening. She was still sleeping soundly. He called the Bristol for a table when early diners departed. Then he retuned to bed and kissed her on the lips. “Hey,” he said. “Time to wake up.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Everything’s great. We have to finish our celebratory dinner at the Bristol. We were interrupted six months ago.”
“I’m on my way to the shower. I don’t want to miss that.”
They started the same way. Champagne. Then fois gras, followed by the rack of lamb and Grand Marnier soufflé they had to miss. All accompanied by ’05 Chambolle Musigny from Dujac. This time something was different: He turned the power off on his cell phone.
Craig sipped the spectacular burgundy and looked across the table at Elizabeth. She was glowing. Positively radiant. If I had any sense, I’d resign my job, stop exposing myself to danger, buy a place in the French countryside, and spend my life living with and loving her. It seemed so tempting. But no. He couldn’t. Not yet, at least. He had to capture Musa and put the Spanish Revenge out of business.
He felt a tapping on his arm. Elizabeth said, “I’ve lost you. You must be thinking about Musa. Not me.”
“Actually, I was thinking about both of you. After I finish him off, I want to quit this terrorism business. I’d like us to decide what we want to do with the rest of our lives. How’s that?”
“I’d love that, but…” She hesitated.
“Go ahead.”
“You won’t like what I’m going to say.”
“This evening I can handle anything.”
“OK, you asked for it. When I was a young girl, my father took me out in a boat. He pointed to the line where the sky meets the water, out in a distance, and he told me ‘that’s the horizon.’ I said, ‘can we go there?’ He laughed and told me, ‘The horizon is always ahead of you. But you can never reach it.’” She said it with a twinge of sadness.
“I understand what you’re telling me. But maybe …”
She put her hand on his. “We’ll have plenty of time to talk about that after you capture or kill Musa. Now tell me: What’s your next move?”
A waiter removed their dessert plates. Another brought espresso. When they were gone, he answered her. “I want to arrange an emergency meeting in Paris on Sunday of the Defense Ministers of France, Spain, Germany, England, and Italy. I’d like you to be there. Also Giuseppe, and Jacques. I want to present everything we know about Musa. Then get them to take action.”
“To do what?”
“Issue an ultimatum to the Moroccan government: Turn over Musa and roll up his base or …”
She was looking at him wide-eyed.
“Or these five countries will send in a commando team to abduct Musa and Omar. Followed by bombers to decimate the base.”
She gave a long low whistle. “You’ll be asking quite a bit. You really think you have a chance?”
“I have to convince them to do it. You saw how powerful Musa’s become with Chinese support. If we don’t stop him now, he’ll wreak incredible destruction.”
For a moment, she didn’t respond. Then she said, “You’re right to try. God knows you played plenty of long shots when you went up against General Zhou and stopped his Operation Dragon Oil.”
She excused herself to go to the bathroom.
As he sat alone, her words, “You went up against General Zhou,” reverberated in his brain … General Zhou … General Zhou … General Zhou.
Musa’s alliance with the Chinese had all the earmarks of General Zhou’s involvement with the Iranians in Operation Dragon Oil. Collusion with an enemy of the West. Secret supply
of sophisticated arms. An unlikely, but brilliantly conceived, conspiracy.
The longer he thought about it, the more convinced he became.
As soon as she returned, he told her in an impassioned voice, “I think General Zhou is Musa’s connection.”
She gave a start. “Based on what?”
“The MO is similar to Operation Dragon Oil. Particularly that Muslims are involved, as they were in Operation Dragon Oil. General Zhou must see value in Chinese Islamic joint action against the Christian West. I figure it has to be another of his rogue operations, because President Li’s Chinese government has tried to placate the United States since the blow-up of Operation Dragon Oil. President Li would never approve another confrontation.”
“But at the end of Operation Dragon Oil, Li told Brewster that General Zhou was being relieved of his position. That he resigned from the Chinese military. You were there with me. You heard the phone conversation on speaker in the Oval Office.”
Craig raised his hand. “I know all that, but General Zhou is a resourceful SOB. He could have gotten the decree lifted. We have to find out whether he did. What about that reporter friend of yours, Carl Zerner, from the New York Tribune, who helped us in Beijing? Is he still there? He might know.”
“Carl and I talked last Christmas. No politics, just social chitchat. How are you, and that sort of thing. He told me he would be in Beijing for another year.”
“Why don’t you call him?”
“You’re barking up the wrong tree. Do you really think …”
“What do you lose? It’s just a call.”
“I’ll have to be careful. Carl’s convinced they listen in on his calls.”
“You can do it without raising suspicions.”
“OK,” she said reluctantly. “When we get home.”
Once they were in the apartment, he didn’t wait for her to take off her coat. “Call Carl.”
“God, you’re persistent.”
She checked her watch. “It’s eight in the morning in Beijing. Carl will probably be running in the park.”
“Perfect.”
She called on her cell and put the call on speaker. “Hey, Liz …”
She cringed. No matter how many times she told him, he insisted on calling her Liz.
“Good to hear from you. How’s life in Paris?”
“I just finished one of those dinners you couldn’t get anywhere else.”
“I’m jealous. Maybe one day I’ll come to visit you.”
“I’d like that. Listen, Carl. I’m doing an article for the Herald on the continued expansion of the Chinese military. I’ve been able to assemble a lot of facts from various sources, but one thing I need help on is who the decision makers are in the military after General Zhou’s resignation.”
Carl reeled off the names of three generals.
“Does that mean General Zhou hasn’t come back to power?”
“Correct. President Li forced him to leave the country. Exiled for life. He’s not allowed to return under the expulsion order. It was all very secretive. General Zhou went somewhere in France to live. The public story here is that he’s in the north on the Siberian border under house arrest. But the answer to your question is that he doesn’t figure in the current military leadership. You don’t have to include him in your article. Maybe you’ll run into him one day on the Champs Elysees.”
“That’s very helpful. Thanks.”
She hung up phone. Stunned, she said, “France.”
Craig repeated Carl’s words, “General Zhou’s somewhere in France.”
“That is what Carl said.”
Craig felt an adrenalin rush. He rolled his hand into a fist. “So I’m right. He’s engineering Chinese involvement from France. And Musa even confirmed it.”
“How?”
“When he said that the things closest are the ones we don’t see.”
He could tell she wasn’t persuaded.
“That’s a large leap. Anyway, how could General Zhou arrange to ship arms and supply Chinese instructors from France?”
“Not a problem. With General Zhou’s friends in the Chinese military and his brother’s commercial network, he could easily have set that up from here.”
“But what’s his motive?”
“Maybe he wants to inflict damage on the West. He may hope to return to power in Beijing one day. An alliance with Musa would help him weaken Europe and enhance Chinese world dominance. Dreams like that don’t die.”
“And perhaps he sees Musa’s success as a way of evening the score with you. But, I’m sure you never considered the personal revenge issue. The idea of vengeance and a more complete victory for Francesca’s murder never entered into your mind.”
She had just said exactly what he was thinking. She knew him so well it was frightening. “Of course not,” he said.
“Boys will be boys. The macho fur is about to fly. I better climb into a fox hole.”
“You can’t. You’re on the front line with me.”
“Do you intend to include this great revelation about General Zhou in your presentation to the meeting of Defense Ministers?”
He shook his head. “It’s too speculative. I don’t have a shred of evidence to back it up. Besides, my case is already thin enough.”
“Then what’ll you do about General Zhou?”
“At this point, I don’t know. Let it run around in my mind for a little bit. Sometimes in bed, after sex, I become creative.”
She yawned. “If that’s a sneaky way of getting into my pants, forget it. We’ve already had sex once this evening. I’m going to sleep.”
She headed toward the bedroom, leaving Craig to think about General Zhou. He was pleased with this development. The end to Operation Dragon Oil had been unsatisfying.
General Zhou, you’ll pay for Francesca’s death.
34
CASABLANCA
On Casablanca’s Boulevard Yacoub El-Mansur, the traffic was fierce. Befitting Morocco’s largest metropolis, of more than three million. French cars predominated, but Japanese, American, and others were in abundance, belching exhaust fumes, with drivers honking furiously in a city seemingly without traffic laws. Casablanca, a place of intrigue with networks of spies, was also the commercial center of the country.
To Musa, Casa, as it was known, appeared to be a larger version of Marseilles, which wasn’t surprising, because that was the objective of the French architect, Henri Proust, when he planned the city.
Musa was alone in his Citroën, having driven to Casablanca himself. He no longer trusted Farez. The Prime Minister was capable of arresting Musa, if he heard he was in Casa. Or even having Musa assassinated to avoid Musa turning on him over the payments made to the Swiss bank account. So before leaving the base, Musa shaved his beard and mustache. In Marrakech, he bought a gray wig and a pair of eyeglasses with black frames and plain glass lenses. He tucked a pistol into his briefcase.
When he had called Professor Khalid to arrange the meeting, he said his name was Mohammad. He was a graduate student at Harvard, in Morocco for research for his dissertation. Khalid was willing to meet with him in the Professor’s office.
Once he parked the car and entered the grassy university grounds, he walked swiftly and purposefully, his head down.
Professor Khalid, in his sixties, was short and rotund, resembling a pear, Musa thought, with thinning black hair and heavy sacks under his eyes. He was dressed in a suit and tie.
The office was a cluttered mess. The shelves overflowing with books, the wooden desk so covered with papers that Musa couldn’t see the wooden surface.
While the Professor’s secretary brought coffee, Khalid was staring hard at Musa, making him feel uncomfortable. He positioned his briefcase at his feet, ready to go for the gun if he had to.
As soon as she departed and closed the door, the Professor said, “I have a unique ability to recognize faces. Even when they’re disguised. You and I met at a conference in Tangiers a few months ago
. You’re not Mohammad. You introduced yourself as Ahmed Sadi. We spoke. Afterwards, I did some research. This is a small country. People talk. I know exactly who you are. The man who would dare to call himself Musa Ben Abdil.”
Musa pulled the gun from his briefcase and aimed it at the Professor, who responded with a smile. “You can put that thing away. I sympathize with your objective, to the extent I understand it. I imagine you’ve come to me for help. I’ll do what I can.”
Musa breathed a sigh of relief and put the gun away. He paused to sip some coffee.
“Now tell me what you want,” the Professor said.
“I attended Columbia University …”
“I know that.”
“There I took courses in world history, but I never studied in detail the history of Islam in Spain. I read a book about the expulsion of Muslims in the fifteenth century from which I learned about Musa Ben Abdil.”
“What are you looking for?”
“I don’t know. I’ve read that, for centuries, the Arab Islamic civilization in Spain was glorious.”
“It was indeed. Our history began in the Eighth Century, when Abd Al-Rahman had a falling out with the ruling family in Baghdad, then the center of the Muslim world. He moved with an entourage of his followers to Cordoba, with the objective of creating an Arab Islam empire that wouldn’t merely rival that of Iraq and the Middle East. It would eclipse them. The man was a dreamer.”
“And a bold man. A visionary.”
“For sure. Though he never lived to see it, he succeeded beyond his wildest expectations. Students of Western European history describe the period from the Fifth Century to Tenth as the Dark Ages. But for the Arabs and Islam in Spain, even up into Southern France, it was the Golden Age. Not merely of economic prosperity, but of learning and enlightenment. Writers, poets, mathematicians, scientists all prospered. The literary output was phenomenal. Greek works were translated into Arabic. And for the most part there was religious tolerance. Jews, though a minority, thrived as well. For their scholarship and theology it was also a golden age.
“But history is change. Eventually it all came crumbling down.” The Professor stood up and opened the window. “It’s stuffy in here. Where was I?”
