But the Bible has that covered too, doesn’t it:
You shall not test the lord your god.
Franklin fought the sick feeling rising in his gut as the plane climbed sharply then . . . ohhh . . . roller-coastered into a shallow nosedive.
“Uh — Kkkshshsh” — static. “Ladies and gentlemen,” the pilot’s voice over the intercom, “we hope to be through this rough air pretty soon. Just so you know. We’ve had no reports of additional nuclear explosions. This is simple turbulence. Please hang in there.”
A shaking vibration roared through the whole fuselage. It seemed to go on and on and on . . . Franklin’s hands felt as if they would rip the armrests from his seat. Bam — bam. BAM!
He closed his eyes. He was getting damned tired of flying.
Anywhere.
When he opened his eyes they were dropping smoothly below thick dark clouds, into Cleveland. Where he would catch the connecting flight to Utah.
Safe Harbor
Norse Wind followed the soft, sleepy morning ocean breeze south. Slow rolling waves decreased behind her stern as the freighter entered the harbor channel. The ship had threaded the needle, slid by undetected. The entire east United States was far too restive. Anywhere within reach of its territorial waters would already be subject to three times as many Coast Guard inspections, perhaps even calling in Naval personnel.
The muffled roar of her engines fell and she blended quietly into a pack of similar looking container ships and crane-decked cargo carriers — just one of many, pulling up to moor along the old concrete docks. Hidden in plain sight, Norse Wind looked like nothing but another old rust-bucket. Who would suspect that inside her belly she carried mankind’s ultimate destructive force: two halfway-converted nuclear bombs.
Zhou’s replacement engineer would not arrive for a day. Docking arranged, Norse Wind could well wait where she was.
Zhou could not.
On deck, Norse Wind’s new captain responded nervously to the giant Asian’s orders. “Yes, I shall await the new technician. But should you not stay? What if we are inspected?”
Zhou offered an odd smile. He watched Captain Musharif shiver suddenly in the warm Cuban sun.
“Ready to sail in three days, sir. Take on all fresh supplies. Fuel, water, food. New man only, permitted aft access Deck Three.”
There would be no further questions. Orders would be followed.
Without response, Zhou walked off the boat. And off the docks.
Foresight nearly blinded without Ting, Zhou’s inquiries took an unusually long time to find the right pilot. Nearly four hours. Time he didn’t want to spend. Negotiation was not Zhou’s strength. But blood and pilotage hardly mixed, and knife work would gain him little. A privately chartered flight was arranged for a suitcase full of cash.
The jet lifted off for Pearson International. Exactly as the Kongju had advised: Toronto, Canada.
And then, Pennsylvania.
Return Of The Second Imam
“You were not in Mosque for two days, were you not?”
“No.”
“No one seemed to know where to find you, Imam — in this time of crisis, the U.S. government asking —” The interviewer shook his head, afraid to push too hard . . . he had to. “Everyone is asking: Are Muslims behind these American bombs?”
The Imam’s narrow shoulders were covered by his robe’s dark cloth. His long face, tight full beard, piercing black eyes filled the camera. His full lips remained closed and silent.
“Many people said it was as if you had disappeared. As if you had dropped off the face of the Earth. I think what so many people want to know first is, Imam, where were you?” the interviewer prompted gently. “Where did you go?”
Though he’d gotten his two questions in, the interviewer felt more than a bit intimidated by the tall man’s presence. Shi’a Imam Abu Shakir was the most important interview the young Al Jazeera reporter had ever broadcast from the tiny, well-worn Iraqi studio on Nisa Street. In fact, while the Imam was an authority, known and highly respected, famous across the Muslim world, he had never appeared on television anywhere before. Though only one in six Muslims was Shi’a worldwide, in Iran and Iraq Shi’as were the vast majority. Abu Shakir was arguably the most learned Shi’a cleric in all of Al-Islam — in Iraq, the most powerful.
And, the feed was live.
An odd twitch crossed the cleric’s face, surprising the reporter.
Twitch-twitch.
On anyone else new to television, the reporter would have suspected nerves. But the Imam had spoken before thousands. So the interviewer gave Shakir time, so much at stake now.
America’s two-city destruction had rocked the entire world. And millions more lay dying. Considering the history of attacks on New York’s World Trade Center, suspicion was once again pointing its long finger at Muslims everywhere. And Iraq, still in the midst of its long bloody protracted civil war — Shi’a against Sunni, whole families killing each other — disappearances in the middle of the night — that finger often centered on Baghdad.
“You ask where I have been,” the Imam finally began.
BOOM! The sound rattled glass. The whole building shook.
The reporter couldn’t help himself, cameraman tracking him as he rushed to the windows — but the Imam was faster, steps ahead.
Five stories below, smoke rose in the street from the remains of a car bomb. Bodies lay scattered in a circle of destruction around the wreckage. The interview was over. The Imam would go. He would try to help the dead and the dying, console the bereaved. Sirens started up in the distance.
But instead the tall man returned solemnly to his seat before the camera. The interviewer, uncertain what to do, remained standing.
“Sit!” Imam Shakir commanded. “It is too important!”
The interviewer sat down.
The Imam looked directly into the camera. “You ask where I have been. For these past two days, have I been completely isolated in prayer. Allah, praise him, has seen fit to allow me a priceless gift. A vision!”
“From Allah? What have you seen?”
“Three truths I am instructed to present the world.”
The camera pulled in close, framing Shakir’s narrow face at the top and bottom of the screen, the dark eyes, their brows like bushy black caterpillars. At bottom, his full lips and beard. The face of a stern disapproving professor.
A saint.
A soldier of the one true God.
“I do now ask my Shi’a brothers to repudiate all mut’ah — all fixed-term marriages of convenience and duration. Surah Al-Nisa, 4:24 says nothing of mut’ah. Mut’ah should be haraam — forbidden!”
The reporter was speechless. The highly respected religious leader’s turnabout on Shi’a dogma completely contradicted a major closely held belief. Temporary Shi’a marriages were one of the main things that for so long had irrevocably separated Shi’a from Sunni Muslims. When he could breathe, the interviewer asked, “And the second? The second part of your vision?”
In a voice that grew to resemble the powerful call to prayer the Imam was capable of projecting across the city from atop a minaret, Shakir answered, “How can we Shi’a truly reconcile claiming Caliph Uthman as a usurper of Ali’s caliphate and Imam-hood — when it was Uthman who originally collected the surahs into the Qur’an?
“We former Shi’a are now ordered, yes ordered by Allah, to accept the early Caliphs — Uthman, Umar, Bakr, Peace Be Upon Them — to join our Sunni brothers and sisters in accepting these holy men as the true and rightful heirs of the Prophet!”
The reporter was incredulous, shocked as he had never been. Sunnis everywhere would be overjoyed. It would be as if they had won some great cosmic lottery. But much of the Shi’a population must rebel. Certainly.
“And third? The third part of your vision?” The television host held his breath.
“The third shall be revealed in two days time . . . on Sunday night!”
Disappearance Of Their Husbands
Wearing a baseball cap and dark glasses, Franklin kept to himself during the two hour wait at the gate in Cleveland. He spent most of it watching the horrific news from New York and Virginia Beach. A brief report mentioned the first power to be restored was in a small part of east Pennsylvania near Trenton, New Jersey, which sounded like the area Everon was working in.
Finally they called his connecting flight to Salt Lake City. Security was tighter than he’d ever seen. From the IDs being shown, passengers appeared to be limited to government workers and those granted special privilege to fly. Security agents were hand-wanding each person at the gate — regardless whether they’d entered the airport locally or from a connecting flight. The line inched slowly forward.
“There!”
“There he is! Reverend!”
Oh, no! Franklin thought. That television video. The President’s speech. The People and TIME articles were still following him.
They were two baggage handlers in blue uniforms, weaving their way through the crowd straight for him. Frizzy hair stuck out around their airline ball caps. They were female. And looked a bit old for baggage handlers.
“Dr. Reveal!” The blonde-haired one called out. “Reverend?” The gray-haired one had a hand raised, waving.
The two women in their sixties or so ran up to him and by his jacket sleeve literally dragged him from the line. People turned to look at him.
“Reverend Reveal, may we speak with you?”
“Just for a moment? Please?”
Someone up ahead was removing a belt in what appeared to be submission to a near strip-search. It looked like he had a few minutes.
He shrugged out a sigh, let the women lead him over to a group of airport chairs where they introduced themselves as the gray-haired Barb Swan and her blonde friend Mattie Choriza. And then they seemed to hesitate.
He looked back and forth between them. He smiled.
Barb took off her cap, ran fingers through her wavy gray hair and gave an anxious little nod to Mattie. It was easy to remember. Barb was the more emotional one. Like someone was constantly jabbing her with a hot prong, a barb.
“We met because of our husbands,” Mattie began.
“And?” he wanted to say. He looked over, surprised to find his flight line half gone already. But so used to people dumping their problems on him, Franklin sensed something important between the two women, something personal. “Your husbands have been friends a long time?” he suggested gently, not knowing which way to urge them.
“No,” Barb shook her head. “They met only three weeks ago.”
Franklin’s eyebrows fell.
“Barb’s husband Miles is a translator,” Mattie explained, “specializing in ancient Semitic languages. My Louie’s an engraver. We used to live in Arlington. Lou was retired, you see. For more than eight years. From the Treasury Department.”
“The U.S. Treasury?”
Mattie nodded.
Barb clarified, “Miles consults for the government sometimes.”
“Three weeks before the New York explosion,“ Mattie went on, “Lou got a telephone call. He was asked to fly to Washington on a rush job. He was told not to discuss anything about it with anyone. Of course, Louie never kept any secrets from me,” she added with the pride of a woman who has managed a perfect marriage for many years. “We told each other everything.”
“I didn’t want Miles to go!” Barb blurted, “It was all so mysterious. He couldn’t talk about it. Who knew how long he’d be gone? A few weeks, maybe longer? But the money! Well, it was quite a lot of money!”
Mattie reached out and patted Barb’s knee. When she looked back at Franklin, her own mouth was tight with tension. “When I took Lou to the airport, he gave me an address, a stop we had to make. Lou asked me to wait in the car while he went up and rang the bell.
“When he got back, he had a man with him I’d never seen before.” She looked at Barb. “It was Miles.” She turned back to Franklin. “Miles seemed surprised to see anyone else in the car. Like he didn’t expect me to be there.”
A female voice blared over the intercom: “All passengers, please board now for Salt Lake City, Flight 113.” Franklin’s face remained passive.
“After two weeks I hadn’t heard anything from Lou, so I tried contacting his old boss at the Treasury. But I couldn’t get through to him, or anybody else! After another week, still no call, I remembered that address. I went back and rang the bell. That’s where I met Barb. She hadn’t heard from Miles either.”
Franklin shook his head. “Why aren’t you going to the police with this? If your husbands are really missing — I assume that’s what you’re leading up to. What have I got to do with —”
“We have called the police!” Barb said fiercely.
The Mint Mark
“Their definition of who qualifies as a missing person has tightened up quite a lot since New York!” Barb said.
“The police are so busy right now,” Mattie explained. “They’re just overloaded.”
It’s true, Franklin thought. If Everon and I hadn’t gone into the city ourselves that morning —
“They say we have no definite indication they’re actually missing!” Barb added, her tone filled with nervous sarcasm. “I mean our husbands told us they’d be gone for a while.”
“But we know —” Mattie stated flatly. “I know Lou would never go a whole week without telephoning me.”
The intercom boomed again: “Last call for flight 113!”
Barb nodded. “Miles too. It’s been nearly four weeks.”
Franklin’s eyes narrowed, “But ladies, why me?”
“These!” Mattie handed over two news articles. The first, torn from that morning’s Cleveland Plain Dealer, was an announcement of Franklin’s invitation — and acceptance — to be part of the team to authenticate the Mormon Plates.
“In the paper?” Franklin frowned. “They only asked me last night.”
“We took a chance,” Barb said, oblivious to his surprise.
“There was only one flight from Erie this morning,” Mattie explained. “And one to Salt Lake City. We had to talk to you. A friend snuck us past security.”
“Two days ago, we found this on the Internet,” said Barb.
The second article was a color picture, a man in a white robe posing with a brilliant gold tablet, covered in large Arabic characters.
Mattie scoffed, “It’s supposed to be another recently discovered religious tablet, a missing part of the Qur’an. It was dug up four days ago in Saudi Arabia.”
“I heard about that,” Franklin said. “An amazing find. But what —”
“I know my husband’s work!” Mattie shot back. “Lou’s a perfectionist, he’s an artist. He designed and cut plates for printing money. At home even — his hobby was working gold.” She pointed, “Look there! In the corner! There!” She tapped a finger against the picture. “See that small dot?”
Large as the news photo was, it was a bit difficult to make out.
“Here, look!” She pulled another page from her purse, a grainy blow-up. The dot looked vaguely like a square stylized C.
“That’s Louie’s engraver’s mark. No one cuts a C like that. Our last name is Choriza. Lou Choriza!”
Franklin squeaked through, wanded only moments before they closed the gate door.
The Dead Engineer’s Trail
Blond-haired Ray Williams skipped down the basement steps and put a hand on the shoulder of his younger dark-haired brother Jacob. “What are you up to, Bro?”
A puddle of water had formed around the chair, dripping from Jacob’s swim trunks. Next to his desktop computer, a scrap of paper contained some symbols and one neatly printed word in English. Nearly identical to what Jacob had up on the screen:
“Dead Boat-Guy’s ID?” Ray said. “I didn’t see you write it down.”
“I’m sneakier than you are, Ray.”
“That you are, Bro! You know that thing was expired. We might not even find him.”
“I know. I got a few of the characters wrong. Took me a few tries.”
“What language? Arabic?” Ray asked.
“Urdu.”
Ray studied the hint of a smile on his brother’s lips. “Urdu? How did you know it was Urdu?”
“I had a little help. Here’s what it translates out to.” Jacob hit a key. The foreign characters disappeared. A single word took their place:
“I looked up PINSTECH.” Jacob hit another key and the screen changed.
“Pakistan Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology,” Ray read aloud. He grinned at his brother. “English and Urdu are the official languages of Pakistan. And the blue logo off the guy’s ID!” Ray laughed and slid a chair over. “That’s pretty close to cheating, Bro.”
Unlike the other small blue and yellow icon that was blurred by salt and water damage, this one was crisp and clear.
Jacob grinned back. “Haven’t gotten to the name, yet.”
“Ahmad Hashim,” Ray recalled.
“Pakistan Energy Department database?”
“The Russian Atomic Energy database’ll be easier. It’s actually just the same old U.S.S.R. stuff. Same functionality. I’ll bet they track everybody. Lots easier than the —”
Jacob clicked through several onscreen links.
“Try Moscow,” Ray said.
Jacob rejected another twenty pages then stopped. “How about this one — Moscow State University?”
Search For Reason (State Of Reason Mystery, Book 2) Page 35
