here in Colorado is five minutes past three in the afternoon.
Among the disembarking passengers spilling out of the exit ramp were five priests whose features were Caucasian but whose skin was darker than that of most white Occidentals. They moved together and talked quietly among themselves, their English stilted yet understandable. They might have been from a diocese in southern Greece or from the Aegean islands, or possibly Sicily or Egypt. They might have been but they were not. They were Palestinians and they were not priests. Instead, they were killers from the most radical branch of the Islamic jihad. Each held a small carry-on bag of soft black cloth; together they walked into the terminal making for a news-stand.
'La!' exclaimed one of the younger Arabs under his breath as he picked up a newspaper and scanned the headlines. 'Laish!’
‘Iskut!’ whispered an older companion, pulling the young man away and telling him to be quiet. 'If you speak, speak English.'
'There is nothing! They still report nothing! Something is wrong.'
'We know something is wrong, you fool,' said the leader known throughout the terrorist world as Ahbyahd, the name meaning 'the white-haired-one' despite the fact that his close-cropped prematurely grey head was more salt-and-pepper than white. 'That's why we're here… Carry my bag and take the others to Gate Number Twelve. I'll meet you there shortly. Remember, if anyone stops you, you do the talking. Explain that the others do not speak English, but don't elaborate.'
'I shall give them a Christian blessing with the blood of Allah all over their throats.'
'Keep your tongue and your knife to yourself. No more Washingtons!' Ahbyahd continued across the terminal, glancing around as he walked. He saw what he had to find and approached an inquiry desk. A middle-aged woman looked up at him, smiling pleasantly at his obviously bewildered expression.
'May I help you, Father?'
'I believe this is where I was instructed to be,' replied the terrorist humbly. 'We have no such fine arrangements on the island of Lyndos.'
'We try to be of service.'
'Perhaps you have a… a notice for me—further instructions, I'm afraid. The name is Demopolis.'
'Oh, yes,' said the woman, opening the top right-hand drawer of the desk. 'Father Demopolis. You're certainly a long way from home.'
'The Franciscan retreat, an opportunity of a lifetime to visit your splendid country.'
'Here we are.' The woman pulled out a white envelope and handed it to the Arab. 'It was delivered to us around noon by a charming man who made a most generous contribution to our charity box.'
'Perhaps I may add my gratitude,' said Ahbyahd, feeling the small hard, flat object in the centre of the envelope as he reached for his wallet.
'Oh, no, I wouldn't hear of it. We've been paid handsomely for such a little thing as holding a letter for a man of the cloth.'
'You are very kind, madam. May the Lord of Hosts bless you.'
'Thank you, Father. I appreciate that.'
Ahbyahd walked away, quickening his steps, veering to a crowded corner of the airport terminal. He tore open the envelope. Taped to the blank card inside was a key to a storage locker in Cortez, Colorado. Their weapons and explosives had been delivered on schedule, as well as money, articles of clothing, an untraceable hired car, alternative passports of Israeli origin for nine Maronite priests, and airline tickets to Riohacha, Colombia, where arrangements had been made to fly them to Baracoa, Cuba and points east. Their rendezvous for the trip home—home yet not home, not the Baaka; that was not home!—was a motel near the airport in Cortez; a flight the next morning would take them to Los Angeles, where nine holy men would be “assistance pre-cleared” on Avianca for Riohacha. Everything had gone according to schedule—schedules worked out once the amazing offer had reached the Baaka Valley in Lebanon: Find him. Kill him. Bring honour to your cause. We'll give you everything you need, but never our identities. Yet had those so precise schedules, those so precious gifts, borne fruit? Ahbyahd did not know; he could not know and it was why he had called a relay telephone number in Vancouver, Canada, demanding that new and lethal supplies be added to the Cortez delivery. It had been nearly twenty-four
