Rising together, both men threw themselves after the loose blade. Grabbing it first, Jarral attempted to regain his feet as Corbett tackled him from behind, clutching the Jihadi’s wrist with his left hand. As the two men wrestled for the sword, Corbett slipped his right arm around Jarral’s throat and leaned hard against his windpipe. Listening to his labored breathing, he felt Jarral’s grip grow slack. Releasing the choke hold long enough to wrest the peshkabz from his grip, Corbett spun away.
Gasping for air, Jarral scrambled to his feet. The thought of the Infidel desecrating such a sacred weapon now consumed him. Hurling himself at Corbett, he found instead the upraised blade. Bracing himself, Corbett drove the peshkabz deep into Jarral’s chest, allowing the Jihadi’s own body weight to do the rest. Lips still moving in silent prayer, his eyes fixed on some distant point of light, Jarral hung there suspended for an attenuated moment, then collapsed at last, dead as his body hit the ground
Pulling free, Corbett disentangled himself from the dead man and stood, exhausted. It took several moments before the sound of the twin Diesel’s reached him. Turning, he stared out across the water. He could see the trawler churning through the waves once more. It took him a moment to realize that that final bullet must have actually struck the RPG itself, altering the warhead’s trajectory. For there, gripping the aft rail, the lone figure of Tariq stared back.
For a long time, Corbett stood watching as the trawler disappeared into the early morning mist. When he could finally no longer see the ship in the cold gray dawn, he turned and began the long trek back across the sand.
Stopping near the road, he removed his shirt and tore a strip of cloth from the bottom. Binding his wound, he tied it tightly, then turned the shirt inside out, and slipped it back on.
As Corbett began to make his way along the edge of the blacktop, his thoughts returned to Tariq. What was it he had said? “Insha’Allah.” God’s will be done. A simple act of faith. But what if that faith were misplaced? The irony of such a possibility resonated within him conjuring up the words from Lawrence Durrell’s Justine: “…That God neither created us nor wished us to be created, but that we are the work of an inferior deity, a Demiurge, who wrongly believed himself to be a God.” Who could say for certain which one was right? Corbett stared into the darkness. It was nearly daybreak. A new day. And with it the chance to begin again.
THIRTY
T he small café stood beside the highway near the beach just before the road turned inland toward Bilbao. Given the predawn sounds of gunfire, the talk of terrorism was once again on the news. The lone television screen had been tuned to CNN’s European edition where a pair of newsreaders, a woman with a British accent and a man who sounded vaguely Middle Eastern, were describing a strange story that had broken overnight.
“While authorities refuse to confirm or deny the possibility, there appears clear evidence of international terrorism here. The question is: Why…?”
The image of the newsreaders was replaced by footage of the decimated base camp along with a shot of the burned-out skeleton of the rescue helicopter near the cave’s entrance. Police and medical personal were everywhere. The area had been cordoned off with yellow crime scene tape.
“The attack occurred overnight at an anthropological dig being conducted by the University of Salamanca. Located in the Pyrenees not far from the village of Xeria, itself the victim of recent terrorist activity, the body count currently stands at twenty-three, but is expected to go higher.”
An old photo of Corbett now filled the screen.
“Still among the missing, American visiting professor Michael Corbett.”
Seated at a small table at the back of the café, Corbett watched, his bandaged ribcage concealed beneath his shirt. His face betrayed no sign of emotion as the woman behind the news desk continued her report.
“The lone survivor appears to be a female student, also American, in her twenties. According to authorities, she has been taken into protective custody. Her identity has not been released.
Corbett’s image on the television was now replaced by a shot of the disabled pickup on the beach as the newsreader continued.
“In a separate, but potentially related incident, several bodies and a burned-out pickup truck were discovered early this morning on a remote beach northeast of Bilbao. Stay tuned to CNN as we continue to update this story throughout the day…”
Moving from behind the counter, the barista made his way among the customers to the corner table. Collecting the empty coffee cup, he quickly cleaned the table with a damp rag. Corbett was gone.
EPILOGUE
The Pyrenees Mountains, Northern Iberia
32,000 B.C.E.
Night had fallen. Beside the entrance to the cave, a crackling bonfire sent showers of sparks into the pitch black sky as the Cro-Magnon hunting party huddled together, arguing among themselves in a primitive, half-spoken tongue. At the center of the circle stood the young hunter whose shaft had first impaled the Neanderthal earlier that day. Afraid of the darkness and all they did not understand, the others shook their heads, motioning to him that it was time to leave.
Rising in defiance, the young hunter grabbed his fistful of spears and drove them into the soft earth. Then selecting a single shaft, he stooped to pull a burning stick from the fire. Fearful that the Neanderthal’s angry spirit might somehow be lurking within, the others stepped aside, allowing
