The Light of Our Yesterdays

by Ken Hansen

  WE HOLD THESE TRUTHS TO BE SELF-

  EVIDENT: THAT ALL MEN ARE CREATED

  EQUAL, THAT THEY ARE ENDOWED BY THEIR

  CREATOR WITH CERTAIN INALIENABLE

  RIGHTS, AMONG THESE ARE LIFE, LIBERTY

  AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS, THAT

  TO SECURE THESE RIGHTS GOVERNMENTS

  ARE INSTITUTED AMONG MEN. WE…

  SOLEMNLY PUBLISH AND DECLARE, THAT

  THESE COLONIES ARE AND OF RIGHT

  OUGHT TO BE FREE AND INDEPENDENT

  STATES…AND FOR THE SUPPORT OF THIS

  DECLARATION, WITH A FIRM RELIANCE

  ON THE PROTECTION OF DIVINE

  PROVIDENCE, WE MUTUALLY PLEDGE

  OUR LIVES, OUR FORTUNES AND OUR

  SACRED HONOUR.

  The second inscription to the statue’s front left focused on certain Jeffersonian arguments about religious freedom:

  ALMIGHTY GOD HATH CREATED THE

  MIND FREE. ALL ATTEMPTS TO INFLUENCE

  IT BY TEMPORAL PUNISHMENTS OR

  BURTHENS…ARE A DEPARTURE FROM

  THE PLAN OF THE HOLY AUTHOR OF

  OUR RELIGION…NO MAN SHALL BE

  COMPELLED TO FREQUENT OR SUPPORT

  ANY RELIGIOUS WORSHIP OR MINISTRY

  OR SHALL OTHERWISE SUFFER ON

  ACCOUNT OF HIS RELIGIOUS OPINIONS

  OR BELIEF, BUT ALL MEN SHALL BE

  FREE TO PROFESS AND BY ARGUMENT

  TO MAINTAIN, THEIR OPINIONS IN

  MATTERS OF RELIGION. I KNOW

  BUT ONE CODE OF MORALITY FOR

  MEN WHETHER ACTING SINGLY OR

  COLLECTIVELY.

  The third inscription to the front right revealed various Jeffersonian views concerning liberty, education, and the evil of slavery (although he was himself a slave owner and probably fathered a child by a slave):

  GOD WHO GAVE US LIFE GAVE US

  LIBERTY. CAN THE LIBERTIES OF A

  NATION BE SECURE WHEN WE HAVE

  REMOVED A CONVICTION THAT THESE

  LIBERTIES ARE THE GIFT OF GOD?

  INDEED I TREMBLE FOR MY COUNTRY

  WHEN I REFLECT THAT GOD IS JUST,

  THAT HIS JUSTICE CANNOT SLEEP FOR-

  EVER. COMMERCE BETWEEN MASTER

  AND SLAVE IS DESPOTISM. NOTHING

  IS MORE CERTAINLY WRITTEN IN THE

  BOOK OF FATE THAN THAT THESE

  PEOPLE ARE TO BE FREE. ESTABLISH

  THE LAW FOR EDUCATING THE COMMON

  PEOPLE. THIS IT IS THE BUSINESS

  OF THE STATE TO EFFECT AND ON

  A GENERAL PLAN.

  Finally, behind him and to his right, the inscription reiterated Jefferson’s famous penchant for keeping up with the times (indeed, he had once famously penned: “I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical”):

  I AM NOT AN ADVOCATE FOR FREQUENT

  CHANGES IN LAWS AND CONSTITUTIONS.

  BUT LAWS AND INSTITUTIONS MUST GO

  HAND IN HAND WITH THE PROGRESS

  OF THE HUMAN MIND. AS THAT BECOMES

  MORE DEVELOPED, MORE ENLIGHTENED,

  AS NEW DISCOVERIES ARE MADE, NEW

  TRUTHS DISCOVERED AND MANNERS AND

  OPINIONS CHANGE, WITH THE CHANGE

  OF CIRCUMSTANCES, INSTITUTIONS

  MUST ADVANCE ALSO TO KEEP PACE

  WITH THE TIMES. WE MIGHT AS WELL

  REQUIRE A MAN TO WEAR STILL THE

  COAT WHICH FITTED HIM WHEN A BOY

  AS CIVILIZED SOCIETY TO REMAIN

  EVER UNDER THE REGIMEN OF THEIR

  BARBAROUS ANCESTORS.

  Huxley played with the inscriptions in his head, trying to find some recognizable pattern. He tried using the telephone numbers in the Jeff Thomas III entry to pull out letters or words from the inscriptions, but nothing came of it but gibberish. Perhaps he needed the NSA’s decrypting computers, but some important piece seemed to be missing. Without more, the computers could prove useless.

  Not divining any other codes, Huxley returned to East Potomac Park and glanced at the river. On the other side, a few large yachts were moving into their slips at Southwest Wharf. He shook his head and looked away, but his mind had already turned back to his father’s death. An accident. Bullshit. He and his mother had pretended it was an accident when everyone must have known it was suicide. A man does not accidentally string himself up by the neck on cables hanging from the wharf’s edge. No, that son of a bitch screwed an ambassador’s wife and then couldn’t face up to it when his nine-year-old son caught him in the act. A gruesome way to kill yourself, though. To hell with that bastard. Huxley swallowed and exhaled. Focus on the investigation. Slowly, the old, recurring, horrible images faded away.

  Anwari must be the key here. The coincidences were just too great. The man was probably in the pay of Pardus and possibly his only link at finding the warheads. Huxley would need to get him here, but he had to play it right, or the Afghan hero would become just another corpse left mute in Pardus’s wake. Huxley pulled his phone out of his pocket, cruised his own contacts list, and punched “Abdul Saboor Anwari.” Nobody answered. Had the hero disappeared again?

  Crap, what else did he have—a bunch of words in old Jeffersonian writings and a spirited taunt about playing The Apostle? Playing. He looked at the Jeff Thomas entry again. The word “The” was capitalized before “Apostle”—why? If you wrote, “play the Apostle of Democracy,” as in “play Thomas Jefferson,” you wouldn’t capitalize the article “the.” Pardus had not been sloppy so far. Then maybe “The Apostle” is itself a title. When would you play something with a title of “The Apostle?” The clue was on a cell phone. Shit, that must be it: You play The Apostle not as an actor but as a gamer.

  Huxley went back to his own contacts list and found the entry for his favorite Israeli captain and selected his “home” number.

  “What do you have for me, Huxley?” answered Captain Yadin.

  “Not much. But I have a hunch, and I’m wondering if you can help me with it.”

  “Didn’t your mother teach you it was better to give than receive? You’re always taking and never giving.”

  Huxley chuckled. “Sorry about that. I’m sharing what I can same as you. I’ll tell you this—I had better figure out something soon or we may all be very unhappy.”

  “OK, you’ve got me spooked. Word is out you Americans are putting on a full court press, but we don’t have the details. However, we are not feeling too great knowing Pardus no longer needs assistance from the one man who could help him hide nuclear warheads. That cannot be good. Is there something else you want to tell me about the location of another country’s nukes?”

  “You know I can’t say anymore. I wish I could. Nevertheless, I desperately need your help.”

  “What do you need?” asked Captain Yadin.

  “Najwa’s phone. I downloaded the contacts list from it, but I’m wondering if there is something more on it.”

  “Sure, there are plenty of apps on it, including a few we’ve never seen before.”

  Huxley crossed his fingers. “You see a game called ‘The Apostle?’”

  “You noticed the Jeff Thomas entry.”

  “Yep. Is there a game?”

  “A game?” Yadin said. “I don’t know—we haven’t been able to get anything from it. It just makes the screen go completely dark. There are no instructions, no graphics, no text at all. Just a blank, dark screen.”

  “You try to type in a password.”

  “Of course, but nothing’s worked. Tried a bunch of things from the Jeff Thomas entry and then from other entries in the contact list. Nothing changed the screen. You have any ideas?”

  Huxley sighed. “Not really, but this bastard knows me. Maybe I could tinker with it for a few days and see what happens. You willing to part with it?”

  “Hell, it’s just sitting in storage right now. I have a courier heading to Washington tonight. You sh
ould have it tomorrow morning. But I want you to promise you’ll let me know if you discover anything concrete.”

  “Whatever I can, Captain. Whatever I can.”

  Chapter 68

  Tomadus and Peregrine walked down a wooded path running beside the Sequana River as they approached its northern apex within Parisius, a mid-sized town in the western-most section of the Mahdian Muslim Empire. Tomadus looked to the north and saw the Sultan Akbar Mosque atop the only real hill in town. From this vantage, the mosque dominated the town both physically and culturally. But that was not their destination. They were heading for the Forumaparisium on Quay, where Tomadus expected to find Isa speaking this morning.

  “He will remember you,” said Tomadus.

  “Why?” asked Peregrine. “He only met me once, and that was over three years ago.”

  “Trust me, he will remember. Do you believe in his god?”

  “We are both Romanus technologists,” Peregrine replied. “Must you even ask?”

  “I’d wondered if the visions had changed you,” said Tomadus.

  “You know they have, but they have not yet wiped my mind clean of my training,” Peregrine said.

  “Did you believe in God in the other world?”

  “Did I believe? Look, I see visions, but I do not yet accept as you do that I actually lived in this other world. The visions are not so clear.”

  “Yet you have memories of experiences there?”

  Peregrine shook his head. “I see it through a frosty window, though I admit I seem to see through the eyes of only one person.”

  “Yourself?”

  “I see only bits and pieces, but I think this person was a student. I can recall a few pieces of his college life, but no occupation, at least not yet. The memories come to you in waves?”

  Tomadus nodded. “They still come from time to time. It is as if I am currently living his life, and the visions just appear in my mind as new memories as they occur.”

  “You said he is some kind of spy for the American government? That seems strangely familiar, though I cannot pinpoint it.”

  “Not a spy, not really. But yes, he seems to be investigating some type of terrible terrorist plot, winding his way through unusual puzzles and clues left for him.”

  Peregrine tilted his head. “How odd.”

  Chapter 69

  “I’ll have the NSA nerds on it in minutes,” Kira said with her most gracious smile. “Is there anything else I can do for you, boss?”

  “No, nothing more for now.”

  Kira rose to leave.

  Huxley snapped his fingers and pointed at Kira. “There is one thing—thanks.”

  “Thanks?”

  “Yep. Thanks for putting up with my bullshit. I know I can be a bit demanding at times. You put up with it and keep coming through—and all without even calling me an asshole.”

  “Yeah, well, maybe not to your face.” After she laughed, she smiled softly. “Thanks for saying that, though. You okay?”

  “Sure, I’m fine. Just a bit down on this case, I guess. I talked to the boss man and it appears nobody can find anything about this Pardus prick. He’s going to blow up a couple cities and we might just have to watch it happen. I feel like the answers are lying right in front of me, but I’m too stupid to see them.”

  “You’ll get there,” she said softly. “You always do.”

  “I don’t know.”

  The office phone beeped and he saw reception was calling. He smiled and nodded to Kira, who left the room. “Hello.”

  “Mr. Huxley, you have a call from Ambassador Kadir al-Razin al-Asr. Shall I pass him through?”

  “The Ambassador himself?”

  “It appears so. He is quite the gentleman.”

  “That would be him. Sure, put him through.” Huxley paused and waited for the light clicking sound. “How is the one and only true Ambassador of Peace?”

  “Always a smartass,” came the response on the phone. “You need to show a little more respect for your betters.” They shared a short laugh.

  “To what do I owe the pleasure of a call?”

  Kadir said, “Just doing my part to keep the world safe for Americans.”

  “You must just love us. What have you got this time?”

  “Some intelligence on a former Catholic cardinal. You want it or should I talk to someone else?”

  “I’ll pass it on if appropriate.”

  “Okay,” said Kadir, “I heard this guy, Armondo Fine, recently became mixed up with some bad-ass Islamic terrorists. Kind of hard to understand the connection, but that is the information that has been forwarded to me. I do not know the names of the terrorists, though someone mentioned a leopard. Anyway, they have got something big cooking. My source said he heard the plan would make 9/11 look like a pathetic Molotov cocktail. He swore he knew no more details. Oh yes, they believe the cardinal is hiding in Rome. Something is apparently planned there as well. I do not know if it is just a meet or the location of the target. This connected to any of that shit you have been rolling in?”

  “Do I smell that bad?” Huxley asked.

  “In fact, I did not know until just now that odors could travel through telephone wires.”

  Huxley shook his head. “Funny man. Any idea where he might be in Rome?”

  Kadir took a few seconds to respond. “No, sorry. Anything else I can help you with?”

  “Nah. Thanks for your help.”

  “No problem. So how is that new Italian beauty you have been seeing?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “What? She bored with you already?” Kadir used that taunting tone of his. “You need your handsome friend to show her a good time?”

  “You’re just full of yourself today, aren’t you? No, I think I’ve fallen for her, but…”

  “But what?”

  Huxley said nothing for a few seconds.

  Kadir said, “Come on Sko-B, don’t you trust me?”

  “Of course I trust you, Kadir. I’m worried she is somehow involved with this terrorist I’ve been trying to find.”

  “That would not be good. Your boss know that?”

  “You kidding?” Huxley said. “I’m not going to hand her over to the CIA to water-board her.”

  “Well, good luck with that one, Sko-B. Hey, did I mention my new Sunseeker yacht arrived? It’s a gift from my second cousin, the sheik. Quite a craft. We should cruise the Potomac one of these nights and enjoy some scotch and Cubans. It has been awhile since you let loose. You sound stressed out.”

  Huxley leaned back. “No shit. I’ll take you up on that one of these days. Too much crap to wade through now, though.” Like finding that viper cardinal.

  “OK. Just let me know, Hux. If I am in the District and not busy kissing ass with one of your governmental officials, I can head out almost any evening. Just give me a couple of hours so the crew can prepare. But now I have other important matters to which I must attend. Take care of yourself, Sko-B.”

  Huxley smiled when he lowered the phone receiver. A cruise on Kadir’s yacht would be nice, but it was a diversion he could not afford. Kadir had confirmed his views of Cardinal Fine, so he still had one hard lead to follow up along with the puzzles Baqir Najwa had left him. No, Hux, don’t be a chump. Not Najwa. Someone else was yanking him around by a nose ring with those clues. Pardus. But the clues had been helping him solve the case. Without the clues, he probably would not have found the missing warheads in Pakistan. Without the puzzles, he might have never noticed the disappearance of the Israeli chemist. They had not led him astray. Not yet. Therein lied the problem. If this were Pardus’s handiwork, a trap would eventually await him, unless Pardus made a mistake. Even the Ghost Leopard could make a mistake. I must seize on the mistake and recognize his ruse at the proper time. He needed to find Anwari. Hell, he needed to find the cardinal.

  Chapter 70

  Tomadus and Peregrine approached the upper streets of the Forumaparisium on Quay and saw the crowd dispersing
below.

  “They say he is the Mahdi. Do you doubt it now?” said one man to his friend as they walked past Tomadus and sat on a bench within earshot. Tomadus stopped.

  “I hope so,” said the friend quietly. “We could use a little more justice and a bit less tyranny.”

  “Hush, you could be overheard. Besides, if he is the Mahdi, then the world will soon end. Is that what you wish?”

  “The end of the world? Phhht. Only morons think that way. But I hope he will bring the end of the world for our despotic rulers.”

  “Quiet yourself or I will be forced to report you.” The man looked around and saw Tomadus and Peregrine looking in their direction.

  Tomadus pretended to be looking beyond them as if he were waiting for someone else. He pivoted and continued down the street with Peregrine. “This is dangerous,” he whispered to Peregrine.

  “What?”

  “A man does not criticize the Emperor in the Mahdian Muslim Empire openly—not even a Mahdian.”

  “So? It is one man. The empire will deal with him if they like.”

  Tomadus looked at Peregrine. “Only a fool steps on a termite in his home without worrying about the hidden decay of the entire structure. The Three Emperors have long understood this and will not hesitate to fumigate before it is too late. I fear the repercussions for Isa’s movement. Ah, but here they are.”

  Isa and the Ten were sitting on the quay eating apples, figs and nuts, their legs dangling above the slow current of the Sequana. Isa saw the two men approaching and stood up to greet them. “Tomadus, welcome. We missed you in Tetepe.”

  “Greetings, Isa.” Tomadus kissed him on the cheeks. “Let me introduce you to my new friend—”

  “Peregrine, it is good to see you again,” Isa said.