Swinging his legs over the side of the cot, he sat there for several seconds attempting to get his bearings. Then rising, he crossed to the entrance of the tent and made his way to one of the three portable toilets that had been set up at the edge of the encampment. Urinating, he threw some water on his face and dried it with a thin cloth towel.
Returning to his tent, he unlocked his case and removed the laptop from its secret compartment once more. Booting it up, he checked his inbox to discover an encrypted email from Reed waiting. Decoding the message, he quickly scanned the contents:
“Dear Sonny: Change of plan. Must move now. Bird flies tonight. Specialist must be prepped and ready by 2100. – Mother”
Instantly awake, he began to recalibrate his day. The sudden urgency of Reed’s message requiring them to move Tariq this evening left no margin for error. First, Corbett would have to return to Xeria immediately, find Tariq and bring him back. To avoid suspicion, he would have Hector add Tariq’s name to the daily work crew. But the unexpected change underscored the danger and uncertainty of the entire mission. There could be no absolute plan. He would have to be ready to improvise at any moment should everything start to go pear shaped. Dressing quickly, he left the tent.
*****
Despite Sebastian’s insistence that he take a different vehicle, Corbett slipped behind the wheel of the same Land Rover he had taken two evenings before. With the exception of the damaged front bumper, the car showed few aftereffects. With the brilliant morning sun already cascading down through the mountain passes, he followed the twisting road toward the village once more. At the same time, he found himself reliving the violent drive down the mountain and the men who had attempted to force Tariq over the edge.
The two men in the car were no doubt members of the same ISIS cell that had been called to action through religious psychobabble and collective ignorance. He could not imagine they had known anything about Tariq beyond his name and perhaps who his father was. Yet they were willing to sacrifice their own lives to take his. All for what? A misreading of the Holy Qur’an. In their minds they were acting on God’s will. Allah, the merciful… Allah, the just… He who must be obeyed without question for He is the one true God. How easily a man might justify the murder of a stranger by laying it off on his Creator. He wondered if Allah would knowingly accept such guilt by association? Acts of Faith foisted upon Him by His most fervent and true believers. For how can the God of love and forgiveness be held responsible for the violent misreading of His word uttered by those so clearly inferior to himself?
Corbett shook his head. It was an ancient lie told throughout history by every religion. God shall remain blameless. It is Man who is the sinner and who must atone for his evil acts or be damned for all eternity.
Somewhere in the distance along the valley floor far below, the flat sounding of brass, a church bell echoing through the early morning air. Was today the Sabbath…? Corbett wondered, realizing he had somehow lost track of time. Maria Birjina Eliza, the Church of Xeria’s Blessed Virgin, was calling its worshipers to Mass. Without questioning the summons, they would come, kneeling in prayer, asking for forgiveness of their sins. Doing penance so that they may, with a clear conscience, sin again.
He thought again of Islam, Judaism, Christianity. Three co-conspiracies run by the same con artist under different aliases. If there can be only one all-knowing God, how can He permit such confusion and bullshit? How, Corbett wondered, could such a preposterous scheme succeed with millions of followers over so many millennia? Unless it had been God’s plan all along: appearing only to those demented souls capable of mistaking the irrational voices in their heads for the word of God and preaching it to all who would listen. The more insane the better. Belief in God demands absolute, unquestioning faith. Logic has no place while religion becomes a narcissistic self-indulgence that invents its own truth while denying every empirical, demonstrable fact. To sustain such a lie, it is little wonder that unbelievers must pay in blood, for heresy cannot be tolerated.
As he reached the outskirts of the village, Corbett turned off the road, allowing the Rover to roll to a stop among the tangle of weeds that crowded the edge of the roadway. Shutting off the engine, he climbed out. The air was clean and crisp and the dew still clung to the cobblestones as he made his way through the quiet streets toward the clinic. The uncomfortable thought of having to face Amaia again in order to get word to Tariq nagged at the back of his mind. Still, he could think of no other way around it.
Approaching the clinic, he surveyed the street, which was empty save an olive drab, canvas-covered stake bed truck parked directly across the street. Moving up the street, he could hear a child’s laughter coming from within the clinic.
“A’ishah, stop…!” It was the unmistakable voice of a mother, a mix of command and concern.
An instant later, the front door flew open as a little girl rushed out. Not looking where she was going, she collided with Corbett’s legs and started to fall. Reaching down, he caught her by the arm and held her upright.
“Whoa… easy does it,” he said suppressing a smile as the fleeting image of his sister’s little girl momentarily flashed across his mind, bringing with it the pain of 9/11. Staring up at this unexpected stranger, the girl’s dark eyes began to fill as her lower lip
