health. But Hasul had already given them forty-eight years worth of validation, some of it aided by chance, since it was probable he would have died in childhood had his genetic defect not been the variant type… and still that wasn’t truly the point. In the end nothing escaped decay, flesh least of all, and he saw human longevity for the illusion it was. The body was perishable; only its spirit was eternal. Five years, fifty, a hundred — the difference between one life span and another did not amount to a murmur in the flowing river of time. Hasul had calculated and been willing to accept that each exposure would have consequences along the way. What mattered was that he remain true to the plan for which he was created, and this he had done, sparing none of his wealth and ability. Following God’s will through personal discipline, Hasul was soon to reach the culmination of his purpose in this world.
Today at dusk he had permitted himself thirty seconds of release.
No more, no less.
With a quick motion, Hasul had pulled the guard down below his chin. His head thrown back, arms outspread, he stood on his mound of earth and let the trailing remnants of the sunlight press against his naked face. The sound of blood rushing in his ears had been so loud, a thunderous roar beneath which his awareness had been briefly submerged, swept away like a soul in the eternal river.
And then the warning tones of his dosimeter, sounding into the tide.
Now Hasul stepped back from the window, watched his reflection withdraw into the black of night like a disembodied spirit, staring, its hand extended as if groping for the glass’s fixed solidity. He turned away and looked across his desk, his eye catching a slip of movement outside the mouth of an artificial rock cave in the large aquarium tank built into the wall to his right. In the opposite corner of the room, a broad, dark-suited man sat at a closed circuit digital surveillance console, his attention fixed on its flat panel monitor.
Hasul noticed his frown.
“Zaheer,” he said. “Something troubles you.”
“May I speak freely?”
“Please.”
Zaheer nodded toward the display.
“This
Hasul strode up to the console and studied the wide screen image. It showed three men in the ground-floor entry vestibule. Two were members of the Cadre, Aasim passing a handheld weapons detector over their visitor’s rangy frame, Qamal standing by in guarded readiness.
“He has proven capable and worthy of his reputation,” Hasul said.
“More than any of our own?”
“You know what lies ahead of us,” Hasul said. And then inserted the expedient half-truth. “No contribution will be greater than yours in coming days.”
Zaheer held stiffly silent, his eyes on the monitor.
Down in the vestibule, Aasim finished wanding the visitor and accompanied him through an inner door into the main lobby. Zaheer pressed a channel-selection key on his digital multiplexer and the CCD-TV screen view shifted to an overhead of the elevator bank, where the two men entered a waiting car.
Hasul glanced down from the monitor and saw the barely restrained skepticism on Zaheer’s face. “I think of the street dentists in Islamabad, Peshawar, and Karachi,” he said. “I remember their offices are dirty blankets and wooden crates on the open sidewalk. Their tools common pliers, chisels, screwdrivers. They are unlearned, work with grime on their hands, and for anaesthesia plunge needles into one side of the patient’s mouth to distract him from the agony of a rotting tooth being chopped and filed on the other.” He paused, continued to regard the other man. “Their skills are crude, bloody, and yet indispensable to those that require them.”
Zaheer’s face remained tight.
“Are we then among the poverty stricken who must turn to such a one in desperation?”
Hasul looked at him. Again, the partial falsehood. “We are for a higher mission, and above the sordid errands the infidel will be turned upon,” he said.
Zaheer fell silent, switched the monitor to its picture-in-picture mode. The area directly outside the office suite appeared in its main window. Smaller frames on its right tracked Aasim and the visitor as they rose five levels inside the elevator, exited, and then walked along the bends of the corridor to the suite.
Hasul watched them step into the main screen view, Aasim reaching for the buzzer on the electronic access control box beside his door.
He did not wait for the tone to sound.
“Show Mr. Earl through the reception area,” he said.
“Then I would meet privately with him.”
As he rose from his console, Zaheer made another weak effort at masking his unhappiness. Then he bowed his head in formal deference and went to carry out his instructions.
Hasul was standing behind his desk when John Earl came into the office. Zaheer lingered at the doorway only a moment, then backed out to leave them alone.
Earl waited a step or two inside the closed door. Sandy-haired, blue-eyed, sharp-chinned, his nose long and curved with flaring nostrils that gave him a raptorial look, he wore a black leather car coat, gray muffler, and jeans.
Hasul greeted him with a slight nod.
“You’ve arrived right on time.”
“Always.”
“And it is always appreciated.”
Earl stepped forward into the room, paused, and glanced over his shoulder at the wall aquarium. Nothing stirred amid the stony hollows and ledge formations of its habitat.
“Our pal Legs okay in there?”
“Yes.”
“One of these days he’ll have to come out and say hello,” Earl said. “I’ve been here enough so you wouldn’t think we’d be strangers.”
Hasul looked at him. “The blue-ringed octopus is a dangerous but retiring creature,” he said. “Its perception of who is or isn’t a stranger may be be different from yours.”
Earl grunted, still peering into the tank.
“I think maybe Legs just isn’t too fond of the nickname I gave him,” he said.
Hasul’s smile left a barely perceptible stinging sensation in a corner of his lower lip. He touched it with the tip of his tongue, tasted a fleck of dry ointment. Thirty seconds. Might damage to his skin have resulted from only thirty seconds?
He waved Earl into a seat in front of the desk and then settled into his own chair without betraying his discomposure.
Earl looked across at him and unwrapped his muffler. The smallest portion of a tattoo showed on the right side of his neck — just a stroke of red, the actual markings covered by his collar.
“All right,” he said after a moment. “What’ve you got?”
“Two projects for now,” Hasul said. “More accurately, a single project with two distinct and crucial elements.”
Earl had become very still.
“Break it down for me,” he said.
“One of my dealers vanished a week ago with costly inventory in his possession. He may have abused my trust and stolen it, or he may have come to harm during a transaction that was to take place. In either case, something has gone very wrong.”
“His name?”
“Patrick Sullivan.”
“What about the party he was showing the goods?”
“A buyer whose name I do not know.” Hasul shrugged. “As a rule I distance myself from the market chain at that level.”
Earl nodded.
