he was a “committed Muslim” and would spend the time furthering the cause.
Such a man might have good reason to disappear for a year or even more, but the day Ravid left Syria he expected never to return. He believed his days as an undercover agent for Israel were over. The nerve that had once been a taut steel wire binding his chest had melted under the fire of his grief. His courage turned to liquid and evaporated.
He fled to Corsica, an island where he knew no one and no one knew him. For many months, he drank to survive. Now he simply drank: vodka in the morning, vodka in the afternoon, vodka in the evening.
Ravid stared at the advertisement. If they were calling him this way rather than simply dispatching a low- level messenger to Corsica, there could only be one reason: they needed him in Syria again. The message implicit in the ad was that he must assume the identity of Fazel al-Qiam once more.
Ravid began to laugh. The sound bounced off the stones of the eighteenth-century house, strange and foreign; it seemed to belong to someone else.
Yes, it must. Aaron Ravid was no longer capable of laughter.
If they wanted him back as Fazel al-Qiam, it would only be for something critically important. An assassination, perhaps, or something even greater.
Revenge?
Not for him. To avenge his wife’s death alone would take something colossal. And to avenge his son’s… there was no possibility. It could not be measured. Wipe out Mecca, destroy Medina, wipe Islam off the face of the earth. Would that suffice?
If he still believed in God, perhaps it would. But the belief now was as foreign as the sound of his laughter, still ringing in his ears.
Ravid reached for the vodka bottle on the table. As he did, the newspaper caught against his arm and pushed against the bottle, knocking it over. Vodka lapped out onto the floor. As he reached to right it, anger seized him and he took the bottle and threw it against the wall. The stench of alcohol stung the air.
“I will leave today,” Ravid said, rising, his mind already sorting through the arrangements he would need to make.
Ferguson waved from his chair at the far end of the bar as Father Casey came in through the side door. The priest was not unknown here, especially on Saturday afternoon during the college football season, and it took him a few minutes to make it over to Ferg, who was about half way through a Guinness. Casey’s collar, bald head, and priestly demeanor made him seem like sixty or older, but the priest was barely in his forties. He had been fresh from Ireland and the seminary when he met Ferguson at the Catholic prep school twelve years before. Casey had taught Ferguson about Plato and Aristotle, coached him in lacrosse, and shared a thought or two about the lamentable degradation of penmanship since the introduction of the computer; the most important lessons were of a deeper nature and were ongoing.
“Notre Dame is getting squashed,” Ferguson said, pointing at the television as the priest sat down. “Quarterback can’t throw to save his life.”
“Aye, and didn’t I tell you to go to the school? You would’ve had all the records. You’d be in the NFL by now.”
“And you’d be on the sideline, right?” Ferguson had sprouted a few more inches from the seventy he’d stood as the prep school’s quarterback, but his frame remained on the trim side, and he would have been small even for a college quarterback. More important, he would have been bored most of the week. “I ordered some chicken wings,” he told the priest. “Extra hot.”
“Ah, you know I can’t eat them, Ferg, much as I’d like.”
“Yeah, I know. I got you some bread and a beer.”
“Well, thank you for that.” Father Casey turned and nodded at the barmaid, who was pouring a Guinness for him.
“And a filler-upper for me,” said Ferguson.
The priest said a quick prayer when the beer arrived, blessing himself before drinking.
“One of life’s small pleasures God gave man,” said Father Casey, sipping at the light head that topped the dark beer. He’d made the excuse before. “So how are you, Ferg?”
“Not bad today. Yourself?”
“Better than to be expected, thank the Lord.”
“Your hair’s growing back,” said Ferguson, gesturing at the priest’s head.
“Not so you’d notice.” Father Casey ran his hand over his bald pate. “I’m used to it now. I’ve been thinking on it. It’s not bad for a priest to lose his hair. It makes him look distinguished.”
“You were always distinguished.”
“Ah, as if it would’ve helped me with the likes of you and your friends. A hard crew you were, Ferguson. A hard crew: good hoys all ol’ you and pistol fast. Too much for me.”
“You were a good teacher. The students were the problem,” said Ferguson. But Casey was right about his teaching abilities, at least those required in high school. He’d seen the light after a few years and found a berth as a parish priest. Still, Ferguson and the other young men had found the young priest a relief from the Sisters of Charity and the ancient Jesuit priests who held most of the positions at the school.
“It’s the ladies I feel sorry for,” said Casey. “You see them with their kerchiefs. A hard thing, I think. Especially with the wee ones gaping at you all day. But we get through it. The good Lord tests us, but we get through it. You know how it goes.”
Ferguson did know. Both men had cancer, thyroid cancer in Ferguson’s case, which had metastasized beyond his thyroid and spread to his lymph nodes before being detected. The treatment of choice in his case was removal and radiation. He’d already done both, and in fact had reached the point where further radiation would have doubtful effect; the prognosis was hopeful or not, depending on which doctor was comparing his case history to which set of statistics.
Casey’s disease, pancreatic cancer, was much more virulent than Ferguson’s, and, unlike his, a death sentence without potential for remission. The priest would not be hearing earthly confessions six months from now.
“Before I forget — the Youth Soccer League,” said Ferguson, pulling a folded envelope from his pocket. “Covers the shortfall. You can end the season.
“You are a saint, Ferg, a true saint.”
“I thought you said I was a sinner.”
“A man can be both, and sure as I’m sitting here, you’re proof of that.”
Ferguson laughed. Lunch arrived. Casey ate less than a quarter of his plain piece of bread.
“Do you remember Ryan Dabson?” said Father Casey after the plates were cleared.
“Sure.”
“Working for IBM now.”
“Oh, there’s a surprise,” said Ferg, mocking his old classmate.
“I still remember pulling him off of you one practice.”
“I’m sure it was the other way around,” said Ferguson.
“It might have been,” said the priest, “but you wouldn’t want to fight him now. You’d be giving away a hundred pounds,” warned Casey, who had no idea what Ferguson did, except that he worked for the government. Casey began talking about Dabson, now married and with a little one on the way. The priest had the tone of a proud father, and in Dabson’s case, he had every right; he’d surely influenced Dabson more than his biological father, who’d left his mother when Ryan was three. Dabson had attended school with the help of a well-off aunt; when her funds ran low, Casey had arranged a scholarship.
“He’s planning a trip to Dublin in a few months. Tried to get me to go,” added Casey.
“You ought to,” said Ferguson.
“What? To Ireland? Heft the country for good when I came here, Ferg. I’ll not go back there now, not even to die.” He fell silent but only for a moment. “I’ll tell ya the place I’d look to go, if I had the chance: Jerusalem.”
“Jerusalem?”
“Aye. The Holy Land. Before I shake the mortal coil, to trod where Christ did. Aye, that I would give half my soul to the devil for.”
