Caliphate

out of.'

'It was down in the library back at IMA. Deep down,' she amended.

'Yes, but in the sober . . . okay, the seriously hungover, light of day, we're still—'

'—no longer cadets,' Hodge interrupted. 'Not in either's chain of command. Free and over twenty-one. Adults. Moreover, there'll be no punishment tours for you from getting blown by the first captain.'

'Hey, at least the first captain was female. That isn't always the way it works.' Hamilton laughed aloud. 'You know what, Laurie?'

'No, what?'

'She wasn't worth it. Unlike say, you, she gave lousy head. Mechanical, you know. All technique and no feeling.'

'That's what I heard . . . from more people than you would care to imagine.'

'Jealous, are we?' Hamilton smirked.

'Not anymore,' she answered, turning to face him.

Interlude

Kitzingen, Federal Republic of Germany,

16 April, 2003

Tikrit had fallen the previous day, totally eliminating any chance that Saddam Hussein might defeat, or even slow down, the American-led invasion. Gabrielle was of mixed feelings about that. The fighting was over, she thought, and civilian casualties would stop. These were unquestionably good things. But the Americans had not been humbled; America bestrode the world like a colossus. There was no way that could be good.

She saw the waiter from the previous week, Mahmoud, at this week's protest. He stood out for at least four reasons. One was that there were many fewer people; most of the stalwarts who could be counted on for this sort of thing were disillusioned and heartsick, and saw no reason to contest a fait accompli. Another was that he wasn't carrying a sign; indeed he was sitting down sipping a beer, a Kesselring, on this fine spring morning. The third was that he had a look of wry amusement written across his face. He didn't really seem to be part of the demonstration at all. The fourth was that, as she had thought when she had first seen him, Yum.

Gabrielle walked over and sat down. Well, she was, after all, a very modern girl.

'It's pretty hopeless, isn't it,' she said, meaning the protest.

'Beyond hopeless,' Mahmoud agreed, still smiling wryly. If he meant the protest he didn't specify. 'If I cared it would be humiliating.'

'You don't care?' she asked. 'You don't care about the hundreds and thousands of innocent people hurt and killed?'

'Don't you care about the tens and hundreds of thousands killed by the former regime or the even greater number who will now be saved?' he countered.

'But—'

'Never mind,' he interrupted. The look of wry amusement disappeared. 'I can't care because I can't do anything about any of it. What the Americans don't know, though, is that neither can they. The Arab world is a mess . . . beyond redemption. There is nothing anyone can do to change it. All you can hope for is to escape. That's why I came here. I don't even want to be an Arab anymore.'

'You are Arab?' Gabrielle asked. 'I would have thought Turkish.'

He shook his head. 'No, not a Turk. I'm from Egypt.'

Ah, well, that was okay. Gabrielle hadn't known many Egyptians but those she had known seemed among the gentlest and most reasonable of people.

'Moslem, though?' she asked, eyeing the beer.

The wry smile returned as Mahmoud put out one hand, palm down and just above the beer, and wagged it. 'If so, not much of one,' he shrugged.

Egypt . . . Egypt. There was a beautiful actor from Egypt . . . very famous. What was that man's name? He looked a little like this one, too.

Which prompted another thought. 'I don't even know your name,' she said, which was not strictly true. On the other hand, asking was a way to be friendly.

'Mahmoud,' the Egyptian answered. 'Mahmoud al Beshay. And . . . ?'

'Gabrielle von Minden.'

Mahmoud raised an eyebrow. 'Ohhh . . . a 'von.''

'Not the way you say it. 'Von' hardly means a thing anymore for ninety percent of the people who have it. And for the other ten percent . . . to hell with them. I'm an artist, not an aristocrat.'

Mahmoud shrugged. 'I'm just a waiter, but I hope to be something more someday. The problem though, is that while I came here to escape, I think I am still stuck with the Bedouin curse.'

Gabi raised a quizzical eyebrow. 'Curse?' she asked.

'We flee the desert, but we bring it with us wherever we go. I, and many like me, flee the restraints of Islam, yet we bring it with us, wherever we go.'

Chapter Three

Narrated Ibn Abbas:

My mother and I were among the weak and oppressed. I from among the children, and my mother from among the women.

—Imam Muhammad Ibn Ismail Ibn Ibrahim

Ibn al- Mughirah Ibn Bardiziyeh, al-Bukhari

Kitznen, Affrankon, 7 Shawwal,

1530 AH (6 October, 2106)

'Ooo, I almost forgot!' Besma exclaimed. Arms flying, she raced for her burka, lying on a carved wooden trunk on the opposite side of the room from her bed. She'd concealed the book Hans had given her in the burka's folds.

Petra, still clutching her rag doll to her breast, looked on in curiosity until Besma produced the book. 'I can't read,' she said. 'My brother was trying to teach me but we hadn't gotten very far.'

'I know. I can teach you. I'd like to teach you.'

'You can read?' Petra asked, wonder in her voice. 'I thought that Muslim girls were forbidden to learn to read.'

Besma nodded. 'Some are forbidden, but it's by their families, or sometimes by the local emirs and sheiks, not by the Quran. My father says that that's wrong, that it's 'improper and impious.' But a lot of people—maybe even most—still forbid their daughters an education in anything but managing a home and family. Some do other things to girls and those my father says are worse than impious. He says they're an 'abomination.''

'What things?' Petra asked

'You don't want to know. Come on,' Besma changed the subject, 'let's see what new clothes we can put on your dolly.'

Besma and Petra leaned against cushions set up against the wall between Besma's bed and her trunk. It was very late and so Besma had a small lamp lit, set into the wall behind them. The flickering flame of the lamp would have made reading the hand-scrawled words in the journal next to impossible except that the writing was so firm and fine. Whoever had written those words must have had very fine motor control of her hands.

'I can't understand any of it,' Petra said, her head hanging with shame.

'We'll work on that later. For now, let's just look at the pictures.'

'Pictures?'

'Yes. Hand-drawn ones. Whoever wrote this was really good with a pencil. I wish I could draw like that but—'

'—but?'