possibility.'
It was 4:25 in the morning, California time; 7:25 in the eastern United States. Andrew Vanvlanderen sat in his overstuffed velour chair, his eyes glazed, his heavy body weaving, his white, wavy hair dishevelled. In a burst of frenzy, he suddenly threw a thick-based glass of whisky across the space into the television set; it glanced off the mahogany cabinet and dropped ineffectually on the white rug. In fury, he picked up a marble ashtray and heaved it into the screen of the twenty-four-hour All News programme. The convex glass picture shattered and the set imploded with a loud, sharp report as black smoke rushed out of the electronic entrails. Vanvlanderen roared incoherently at nothing and everything, his quivering lips trying to form words he could not find. In seconds his wife ran out of the bedroom.
'What are you doing?' she screamed.
'There's—augh!—nothing, not a goddamned thing!' he shrieked, his speech garbled, his neck and face flushed, the veins in his throat and forehead distended. 'Not a fucking thing! What's happened? What's going on? They can't do this! I paid them a straight two million!' And then, without warning or the slightest indication of anything other than being in the grip of rage, Vanvlanderen lurched out of the chair, his arms trembling, his hands shaking violently, pressing a wall of air he could not see through his bulging eyes, and fell forward on the floor. As his face crashed into the rug, a furious guttural cry was the last sound from his throat.
His fourth wife, Ardis Wojak Montreaux Frazier-Pyke Vanvlanderen, took several steps forward, her face white, her uplifted skin stretched to the parchment of a mask, her large eyes staring down at her dead husband. 'You son of a bitch!' she whispered. 'How could you leave me with this mess, whatever it is? Whatever the hell you've done!'
The Icarus Agenda
Chapter 32
Ahbyahd called his four 'priests' together in the motel room he shared with the young member of the mission who spoke fluent English and who had never been in Oman. It was 5:43 am, Colorado time, and the long vigil was over. There would be no rendezvous. Command Two had not made contact, which meant that Yosef and his men were dead; there was no other explanation. The hardened veteran who was half Jew but with a consummate hatred of all things Western and Israeli would never permit a single member of his team to be taken alive. It was why he had insisted that the crippled, harelipped boy who would not be denied should be at his side at all times.
At the first sign of even conceivable capture, I will put a bullet in your head, child. Do you understand?
I will do it first, old man. I seek my glorious death far more than my miserable life.
I believe you, you young fool. But please remember the words of Azra. Alive you can fight, dead you cannot.
The martyred Azra was right, thought Ahbyahd. However, Azra had not defined the ultimate sacrifice sought by all who truly believed. It was to die while fighting. That was why the jihad was impervious to traps, even to death. And the thunderous silence that resulted from the attack on the house in Virginia and the absence of Yosef and his men could only be a trap. It was the Western way of thinking: Deny the accomplishment, acknowledge nothing; force the hunters to search farther and lead them into a trap. It was so meaningless. If the trap meant killing the enemy, in this instance the possibility of killing a great enemy, what did death matter? In their martyrdom they would find an exhilaration of happiness unknown in the life they led here on earth. There was no greater glory for the believer than to walk into the gentle clouds of Allah's heaven with the blood of enemies on one's hands in a just war.
It was this reasoning that confused Ahbyahd. Did not the Christians incessantly talk about walking into the arms of Christ for the causes of Christ, calling for wars in his name? Did not the Jews exalt their chosen status under Abraham's God to the exclusion of all others, fighting for deliverance as the Maccabees did, dying for their beliefs atop the Masada? Was Allah to be deemed unworthy in this company? Who decreed it? The Christians and the Jews? Ahbyahd was no scholar, barely a student of such difficult subjects, if the truth be known, but these were things taught by the elders, men steeped in the holy Koran. The lessons were clear: Their enemies were quick to invent and fight for their own grievances but quicker still to deny the pain of others. The Christians and the Jews were very free in calling upon their almighties in any conflict that threatened them, and they would certainly continue to deny the just cause of the lowly
