Chaos Theory

by Graham Masterton

  While Leon contacted CNN, Silja poured them all a glass of wine. Noah tugged off his beard and peeled the latex bump from the bridge of his nose, while Adeola scraped the embalmer’s wax from her forehead.

  Noah had expected to feel excited, after making the video, but he was unexpectedly depressed. He took his wine out on to the veranda and lit a cigarette.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Adeola asked him, from the doorway.

  ‘Yeah, I guess so. But I keep thinking of all those hostages who get killed for real, by people who don’t even know them, for causes they don’t know nothing about.’

  She came out and leaned against the railing beside him. ‘Why do you think I do what I do? It’s horrifying, talking to fanatics. I gave up trying to appeal to their sense of humanity long ago: they simply don’t have one. They see their cause and nothing else. All I can do to stop them from murdering innocent people is to make it more profitable for them not to.’

  Rick came out, too, and took hold of Adeola’s hand – rather possessively, Noah thought.

  ‘Hey,’ said Rick. ‘You sure don’t feel dead.’

  That evening the news of Adeola’s murder was featured on all the TV news networks, although only a few of them showed the actual moment when ‘Abdel Al-Hadi’ blew a hole in her forehead.

  Alvin Metzler came on to the screen, and he looked deeply distressed. ‘I want to say how much we’re going to miss Adeola, and what an outstanding contribution she made single-handedly to world harmony.

  ‘In her memory, I am personally going to make sure that the accords which she was negotiating in Ethiopia are carried through. DOVE is prepared to divert millions of dollars of extra funds to achieving a political and social settlement in the Horn of Africa, and also to several other diplomatic initiatives which Adeola was working on, in other parts of the world.

  ‘It’s the least I can do to honour her courage, her self-sacrifice, and her devotion to peace. She was a beautiful, gifted woman, and I still find it almost impossible to believe that we’re never going to see her again.’

  Adeola wiped the tears from her eyes with her fingers. Rick put his arm around her and gave her a squeeze. ‘He likes you. Listen to him, he really likes you.’

  ‘Oh, sure. Now I’ve passed away he likes me.’

  Twenty-Five

  Professor Halflight was limping through the cloisters of Royce Hall when a man in a short black hooded jacket stepped out in front of him.

  ‘Professor Halflight?’ the man asked him, with a strong Middle Eastern accent.

  Professor Halflight stopped, leaning heavily on his lion’s-head cane. ‘Yes?’ he demanded. ‘If it’s lecture notes you’re after, you’ll have to wait till tomorrow. I flew in from Israel less than two hours ago, and I’m feeling exceedingly jet-lagged. Leave your name with my secretary.’

  He tried to swing himself forward again, but the hooded man moved to the left, and wouldn’t let him pass.

  ‘Is there something else?’ said Professor Halflight. ‘You don’t want my wallet, do you, because I can assure you that it’s not worth stealing. I have about thirty dollars and a maxed-out Visa card.’

  ‘Professor, I need to have talk with you.’

  ‘Well, as I say, leave your name with my secretary, and we can arrange a mutually convenient time.’

  ‘Is now not convenient?’ The man dragged back his hood. ‘You see who I am? You recognize me?’

  Professor Halflight stared at him for a very long moment, with his mouth puckered, as if he were trying to identify the taste of a rather inferior wine.

  Then he said, ‘Put your hood back up. Come with me.’

  The man in the black jacket followed him through the cloisters. When Professor Halflight reached the Department of Middle Eastern Languages and Culture, however, he didn’t take the man through his secretary’s office. Instead, glancing over his shoulder to make sure that he wasn’t being watched, he unlocked a side door, and led the stranger directly into his study.

  The man in the black jacket walked around the room, nodding in admiration. ‘So many books. So many photographs. Very great status!’

  Professor Halflight lurched across and pointed with his cane at a black-and-white photograph of himself shaking hands with a man in an Arab headdress. ‘Me and Abu Ammar.’

  The man in the black jacket nodded even more enthusiastically, but didn’t reply.

  ‘Better known as Yasser Arafat,’ Professor Halflight explained. ‘But then you knew that.’

  ‘Of course! Yasser Arafat! He was my hero.’

  ‘So who are you?’ asked Professor Halflight. ‘And what’s this group of yours? I haven’t been able to turn on a TV or open a newspaper for the past three days without seeing your rather less than prepossessing face.’

  ‘My name, sir, is Abdel Al-Hadi. I am the leader of the Armed Front for the Freedom of Palestine. We have the same aims as yourself.’

  ‘Mr Al-Hadi – you are responsible for the murder of a well-known international peace envoy. I am a professor of languages and ancient culture. I fail to see how you can think that our aims are in any way coincident.’

  Abdel Al-Hadi kept on nodding. He went up to the window and touched the leaves of the tall, spiky plant on the window ledge. ‘Asphodel,’ he said.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Food for the dead. They grow in my father’s garden, in ’Bayt Hanun.’

  ‘I’m a very busy man, Mr Al-Hadi,’ said Professor Halflight. ‘I think you need to come to the point.’

  Abdel Al-Hadi reached into his pocket and produced the silver medallion which Rick had taken from the would-be assassin he had killed at Parknasilla. He held it up high so that, as it slowly rotated, Professor Halflight could clearly see the cuneiform writing and the name K A Z I M I.

  ‘This is the point, Professor. This medallion. When she was down on her knees begging me to spare her life, Ms Davis told me all about this medallion, what it means, where it came from. She said that if I wanted to further my struggle, I should come to you, because you know all about the people who wear such medallions.’

  Professor Halflight walked around his desk, dragged out his chair, and sat down. ‘What on earth made Ms Davis believe that I could be involved in anything like that? I teach dusty old history to sweaty young students.’

  ‘Ms Davis did much research. She found pictures of you with known assassins. I saw these pictures for myself.’

  ‘Fakes, probably.’

  ‘No, professor. She had much other evidence. Like the killing of a man called Speller, and his wife. And other killings. She believed that if she told me how I could join Emu Ki Ilani and wear one of these medallions, I would spare her.’

  Professor Halflight raised one eyebrow. ‘But you didn’t spare her, did you? You shot her. You murdered her, publicly. In front of a worldwide audience.’

  ‘The value of liberation is much greater than the price of any life, Professor.’

  ‘So you’re here, why exactly?’

  ‘As I say, to join you. To strike at our oppressors.’

  ‘I see. How many of you are there, in the Armed Front for the Freedom of Palestine?’

  ‘I am the leader.’

  ‘Yes, but how many of you are there altogether? Ten? Fifty? Two hundred?’

  ‘So far, just myself. And sometimes my friend Safwan.’

  ‘Just yourself? You’ve organized an armed front with just yourself?’

  ‘And sometimes my friend Safwan. It was he who drove the SUV, when we kidnapped Ms Davis.’

  ‘One man hardly constitutes a front.’

  ‘But I am armed, and I have shown you what I am prepared to do. I have killed Ms Adeola Davis, which you were unable to do. Even if the AFFP is only one man strong, it is strong like a lion, and it has proved itself.’

  Professor Halflight unscrewed a tortoiseshell mechanical pencil and scribbled a note on a sheet of paper. Then he said, ‘How long have you been in the United States, Mr Al-Hadi?’
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br />   ‘Seven months, nine days.’

  ‘Do you have papers?’

  Abdel Al-Hadi shook his head. ‘I was making application for asylum.’

  ‘Where did you first land, when you arrived in America?’

  ‘Newark. I fly from London. Before that, from Lisbon.’

  ‘All right. I also need to know where you were born, and when, and where you were educated. Are you married? Do you have any relatives in the United States? Where have you been living since you got here? Do the immigration authorities know where you are?’

  ‘You are making a check on me.’

  ‘You’re a very perceptive man, Mr Al-Hadi. Yes, I’m making a check on you.’

  ‘I am Abdel Al-Hadi, from the Armed Front for the Freedom of Palestine.’

  ‘So you say.’

  ‘It is true! I have proved myself! I have personally killed Ms Adeola Davis. All the world has seen this!’

  ‘All the same, I like to know who I’m dealing with. The world is a hall of mirrors, Mr Al-Hadi, a hall of mirrors! In my seventy-two years I have yet to meet a single person who has turned out to be anything like who or what they first presented themselves to be.’

  ‘Very well, OK. Yes. I give you my answers. I was born in Cairo, 16 January 1971. I was educated at Cairo University at Fayoum, first-class degree in hydraulic engineering. You asked married? I have never been married. In the United States I have two cousins who have aluminium siding business in East Orange, New Jersey, Mohammed and Raouf. First I live in New Jersey, too. Then I move to Los Angeles.’

  ‘Very good,’ said Professor Halflight.

  ‘Very good?’

  ‘You answered all of my questions correctly.’

  ‘What? How do you know this?’

  ‘Because I initiated a background check on you as soon as I saw your little home movie. You kidnapped and assassinated one of the prime targets on the international hit list, yourself, personally, right under the noses of some of the best security guards that the world has to offer. You don’t think that I wouldn’t be interested in a man like you?’

  Abdel Al-Hadi blinked. ‘So – if I had not come here today—?’

  ‘That’s right. In a day or so, once I had gotten over my jet lag, I would have come to find you.’

  ‘So you are interested that I should join you?’

  Professor Halflight tossed down his pencil and stood up. ‘There’s something you need to understand, Mr Al-Hadi. This movement which you call Emu Ki Ilani does not specifically support Palestine against Israel, or Eritrea against Ethiopia, or Iran against the United States. It does not specifically support Islam against Christianity or indeed anybody against anybody.’

  ‘I do not understand this.’

  ‘To understand it, you have to understand the ancient history of Babylonia, under King Nebuchadnezzar.’

  Abdel Al-Hadi frowned suspiciously, but said nothing.

  Professor Halflight picked up his stick and slowly paced around his study. ‘Nebuchadnezzar ascended to the throne of Babylon six hundred and five years before the birth of Christ. He carried on the military adventures that his late father had begun – especially to the west, against the Egyptians, and in 597 he captured the city of Jerusalem.

  ‘Eight years later, the Egyptian pharaoh Apries tried to retake Palestine, but again Nebuchadnezzar laid siege to Jerusalem and this time he destroyed the city and brought down the Temple, and to make sure that he kept Jerusalem under his thumb, he took some of its most prominent and influential citizens into exile. Hence, “by the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept, when we remembered thee, o Sion.” Psalm one-thirty-seven.

  ‘Nebuchadnezzar was one of the first military leaders to realize that the best way to subdue your enemies is to keep them in a constant state of chaos and dissent. Divide and rule. If any of his enemies looked as if they were likely to make peace with each other, he would send assassins to kill those who were responsible for negotiating the treaties. After each assassination, he made sure that each side would blame the other, and peace would be averted.

  ‘But it was more than that. Nebuchadnezzar also grew to understand that when men are at peace, they fail to evolve, and they fail to fulfil the potential that was given to them by the gods. They become complacent, lazy, and reactionary. Think of the Amish. In the twenty-first century, these peaceful people are still riding around in horse-drawn buggies? Is that an insult to the intelligence that they were given by the god they claim to worship, or what?

  ‘Many historians say that Nebuchadnezzar went mad. But I believe that he was one of the few people who could clearly see human destiny for what it was meant to be.

  ‘With his priests, and his advisers, he formed a secret society known as Nakasu, which in Babylonian simply means “to slaughter”. For each member of this society, a medallion was forged – a sort of Babylonian dog tag, if you like – about five hundred, I believe, possibly more. Down the centuries these medallions were passed from one member of Nakasu to another, with their names being engraved, and erased, and re-engraved. Many medallions, of course, have been lost. But at least fifty have survived.’

  Professor Halflight heaved his way across the study to Abdel Al-Hadi and stood so close that Abdel Al-Hadi could see the brambly white hairs protruding from his nostrils.

  ‘The mission of Nakasu is to keep mankind at war, for ever, until they become like the gods. It is their holy vocation. If men do not fight, they cease to develop. Those who try to make peace are the true enemies of human aspiration, and that is why they have to be eradicated. Nakasu has been doing that since biblical times.’

  Abdel Al-Hadi said, ‘You don’t care who you assassinate? You don’t care which side they’re on?’

  Professor Halflight stared at him for a long time, almost as if he suspected that he was wearing a disguise. But then he smiled and said, ‘Absolutely right. All we want to do is to keep the world in a permanent state of chaos. Chaos is the only way forward. Otherwise, we atrophy. Physically, intellectually and economically. And spiritually, too.’

  Abdel Al-Hadi said, ‘If I join you, then, you might ask me to assassinate any leader who is trying to make peace? Even Palestinian?’

  ‘That’s right. We even had a plan to kill Yasser Arafat, after he made the Oslo Accords with Israel in 1993, when the Palestinians grudgingly recognized Israel’s right to exist. But our man was arrested before he was able to get close, and we never got another chance.’

  ‘And who else? Tell me. You say that Nakasu have been assassinating people since biblical times? I mean, for instance, like who?’

  ‘Mr Al-Hadi, if I told you every single one, we would be here, you and I, for a week.’

  ‘Plizz. Tell me some names.’ Abdel Al-Hadi’s Palestinian accent suddenly sounded very thick. He was conscious that ‘for instance, like who?’ might have been too American.

  Professor Halflight looked at the clock on his desk. ‘Why don’t you come back to my house? I can freshen up, and have some breakfast, and we can continue our discussion there. Besides – I feel much more comfortable about the security, back home. You know what they say about walls having ears. Not to mention phones having bugs and mirrors having concealed video cameras.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You can trust me, Mr Al-Hadi, I assure you. Like I trust you. You don’t think I would have told you anything about Nakasu, if I didn’t? You eliminated Adeola Davis, which has saved us a great deal of complicated planning and expense. You have just the right combination of fervour and gall and sheer bloody-minded stupidity, if you don’t mind my saying so. Believe me – we can use a man like you.’

  Twenty-Six

  Professor Halflight drove a half-mile up Nichols Canyon, and then turned into a down-sloping driveway. He parked in front of a two-storey cedar-wood house that looked as if it had been architect-designed in the late 1960s, with a flat roof and a deck that ran around three sides of it, and huge picture windows with slatted blinds.


  As they climbed out of the professor’s big silver Mercedes, Abdel Al-Hadi looked up and saw that somebody was sitting out on the deck, staring down at them – a very white-faced woman, with a dark brown headscarf. But Professor Halflight didn’t acknowledge her. He heaved himself up the wooden steps and opened the front door and led the way inside.

  The house was gloomy because all of the blinds were three-quarters closed, and there was a stale smell of last night’s dinner. The walls were painted a dull magnolia, and were covered in dozens of Arabic prints and documents, all of them framed in dark brown wood.

  Professor Halflight ushered Abdel Al-Hadi into a wide open-plan living room, with a dark polished floor and faded Persian rugs. All of the furniture was Middle Eastern, too: a green velvet ottoman with its stuffing hanging out like a disembowelled horse; and several leather armchairs with frayed fringes.

  Abdel Al-Hadi heard the sharp flip-flap of slippers, and a diminutive Mexican woman appeared, wearing a black dress and a brown apron. If she was happy to see Professor Halflight back home, she didn’t show it.

  ‘Ah, Berta. I could use some breakfast. Coffee, and juice, and huevos rancheros. What about you, Mr Al-Hadi? Maybe some tea?’

  ‘Hot water for me only, please. Maybe a squeeze of lemon.’

  ‘OK. Hot water it is. And have Miguel bring my cases out of the car, would you?’

  Berta said nothing, but flip-flapped away again. Professor Halflight took off his coat and pulled off his bright lavender necktie and tossed them both on the ottoman. Abdel Al-Hadi could see himself in the large, mottled mirror on the other side of the room. Although the air conditioning was rattling away furiously, the living room was stifling, and he was growing increasingly uneasy about his black hair dye.

  ‘My partner will be down shortly,’ said Professor Halflight. ‘I’m sure she’ll be delighted to meet the man who rid the world of Adeola Davis.’

  ‘That was your partner, on the deck, when we arrived?’

  ‘Fariah is housebound, I’m afraid. She was seriously injured, not very long after we met.’