'Who are they, Aziz? There's only a spitful from Oman, and most of those are considered simple-minded. Come on, Aziz. Live like a sultan. Name an outrageous price. Try me!'
'Six seconds, Mahmet! Six seconds and your right hand is on the floor without a wrist! Next goes your left. We're on countdown, thief. Give me the information!' Six, Five, four… Blood.
Nothing. Zero. Madness.
And then a breakthrough. It came from an ancient muezzin, a holy man whose words and memory were as shaky as his gaunt frame might be in the winds now racing down from Hormuz.
'Do not look where you would logically expect to look. Search elsewhere.'
'Where?'
'Where grievances are not born of poverty or abandonment. Where Allah has bestowed favour in this world, although perhaps not in the after one.'
'Be clearer, please, most revered muezzin.'
'Allah does not will such clarification—His will be done. Perhaps He does not take sides—so be it.'
'But surely you must have a reason for saying what you're saying!'
'As Allah has given me that reason—His will be done.'
'How's that again?'
'Quiet rumours heard in the corners of the mosque. Whispers these old ears were meant to hear. I hear so little I should not have heard them had Allah not willed it so.'
'There must be more!'
'The whispers speak of those who will benefit from the bloodshed.'
'Who?'
'No names are spoken of, no men of consequence mentioned.'
'Any group or organization? Please! A sect, a country, a people? The Shiites, the Saudis… Iraqi, Irani… the Soviets?'
'No. Neither believers nor unbelievers are talked of, only “they”?'
'They?'
'That is what I hear whispered in the dark corners of the mosque, what Allah wants me to hear—may His will be done. Only the word “they”.'
'Can you identify any of those you heard!'
'I am nearly blind, and there is always very little light when these few among so many worshippers speak. I can identify no one. I only know that I must convey what I hear, for it is the will of Allah.'
'Why, muezzin murdenis? Why is it Allah's will?'
'The bloodshed must stop. The Koran says that when blood is spilled and justified by impassioned youth, the passions must be examined, for youth—'
'Forget it! We'll send a couple of men back into the mosque with you. Signal us when you hear something!'
'In a month, ya Shaikh. I am about to undertake my final pilgrimage to Mecca. You are merely part of my journey. It is the will of—'
'Goddamn it!'
'It is your God, ya Shaikh. Not mine. Not ours.'
The Icarus Agenda
Chapter 2
Washington DC
