Jihad

smiled at them, giving his head a half bow. One of the men said something to the other, and they both laughed.

“Yup,” said Karr, laughing himself. “Definitely my first time.” He ran his fingers through his yellow hair. “Guess it shows, huh?”

The men looked at each other and laughed again. They were in their fifties, obviously well off or they wouldn’t be here. They sat on a large couch covered with a cloth so thick it looked like a rug. A tray of dried apricots sat on a small table at the side, along with two glasses of elma or apple tea.

“Stuff in the pipe smells good,” said Karr. “What is it? Ganja?”

“Eh?” asked one of the men.

“Dope. Pot.” Karr put his fingers to his lips as if smoking a joint. The men remained confused. “Marijuana?”

“Oh, no, no, no,” said the man on the left. “This is tobacco,” he said, speaking in English. “Here — join us.”

“Me?” Karr glanced around.

“Yes, yes, come, come. You’re American?”

“Born and bred,” said Karr. “You guys?”

The man turned and looked at his companion, then burst out laughing.

“We’re Turkish,” said the first man.

“Well, no, you just speak English real well,” said Karr.

“English is the universal language,” said the second man. “Come, sit with us, young fellow. Have a smoke. Very good.”

The men moved over on the couch and Karr sat between them. He took a hit on the water pipe and immediately began to cough. This amused his new friends so much they nearly fell off the couch laughing. He did better with a second puff; the smoke had a soft, cool taste.

“Wow. Don’t let the surgeon general taste that, huh? Get hooked right away.” Karr laughed and sat back on the couch. “Name’s Thomas Magnum. Dr. Magnum. I’m here for a conference. Great city.”

“I am a doctor as well,” said the man who had first spoken to him.

“More than a mere doctor,” said his friend. “The head of neurology.”

“I crack heads open to take a look,” said the doctor. He laughed, then told Karr that he had trained for a while in the U.S., and had thought of living there for a while. But pleasures like his regular Tuesday and Thursday visits to the hamam brought him back.

An attendant came to ask if Karr would like any refreshments. He deferred to his hosts for advice; after conferring in Turkish, they recommended a glass of ayran.

“Okay,” said Karr. “What is it?”

“Very healthy,” said the doctor. “You will live to one hundred.”

The attendant returned with a large glass of a white liquid that smelled like curdled cream. It turned out to be a salty yogurt drink that was clearly an acquired taste.

“Maybe some tea,” he said, putting the glass back on the table.

Tears of laughter flowed from his companions’ eyes. A small glass of tea appeared almost instantly. Karr took a sip, swished it around to get the salty yogurt taste from his mouth, then began to sneeze. The attendant reappeared with a small cloth — a handkerchief.

“Just what I needed. Thanks,” said Karr, adding another of his meager store of Turkish phrases, “te?ekkur ederim.” The words meant thank you, and were pronounced “teh-shekkewr eh-deh-reem.” Karr stumbled over the middle syllable in each word, and looked apologetically at his hosts.

“Did I get that right?” he asked. Then he covered his face as he sneezed.

The doctor corrected his pronunciation. Karr tried the phrase again, but once more had to sneeze. He excused himself — in English — rose and turned away to be polite.

It also made it easier to remove the small prosthetic tape at the roof of his mouth. He took the flat capsule and snapped it between his fingers, dividing the contents in the other men’s tea cups, which were blocked from their view by his hulking back.

“Wow. Must be allergic to something.” Karr held up his glass. “A toast, to Turkey and its great hospitality.”

His hosts nodded, and raised their teas as well.

“Bottoms up,” said Karr, draining his glass.

CHAPTER 4

Charlie Dean tried not to react as the bodyguard grabbed Lia. As deliberately as he could, he pulled up the camera that hung around his neck as if to take a picture of the disaster in front of him. His fingers slowly manipulated the focusing ring, zeroing the crosshairs on the head of the man who had just grabbed his partner. The camera was linked to an automated sniper rifle hidden in a van parked nearby; when he pushed the autofocus button down, it locked the target, allowing the computer that guided the weapon to remember and track the head he’d zeroed in on for about ten meters.

He could hear Lia arguing with the man, her tone familiar despite the strange words in Egyptian Arabic she’d spent hours memorizing over the past few weeks.

She’s okay, he told himself; just keep playing tourist. If he was going to work with her, if he was going to remain close to her — love her — he had to learn to hang back. That was the deal they made.

Not that he could ever be comfortable with it: his heart jumped when he saw the bodyguard pull her roughly to her feet.

* * *

“What are you doing?” demanded Lia, speaking in Egyptian Arabic and then switching to English. “The men need attention and I am a nurse.”

The first man ignored her. Another grabbed the sleeve of her long Muslim dress.

“Stay back, sister,” said one of the bodyguards in Arabic. “We will attend to the wounded.”

“I am a nurse, educated at Aga Khan University School of Nursing in Pakistan. That man in the back needs attention. Look at the cut on his head,” she added, pointing.

“You’re not from Pakistan,” said the man. “Or here.”

“I was born in Malaysia.”

“You sound Egyptian.”

“Where I have worked for ten years. Are we meant to argue here while your friend bleeds to death? Is that why God Himself directed me to walk down the block at the moment of this catastrophe?”

Smoke poured from the bus. The bodyguard who had thrown Lia down took the man she had pulled out and began dragging him away.

“No!” yelled Lia. She surged forward, pressing against the arm of the bodyguard holding her. “He may have a head injury. You will paralyze him! Careful!”

The man on the ground was Asad bin Taysr. Known in the West as “the Red Lion,” he was the number three official in the al-Qaeda terrorist network. Traveling as a Syrian businessman, he had come to Istanbul for a meeting with other members of the terrorist network.

“Hayir, hayir!” screamed a man nearby, saying no in Turkish.

Lia turned in time to see another of the bodyguards pull a Beretta handgun from his holster and fire pointblank into the face of a driver whose car had stopped nearby. It was apparently a case of mistaken identity — the cabbie who had set up the accident was long gone — but it was too late for Lia or anyone else to do anything about it. The man’s head flew back and his mouth opened, as if he were taking a last gulp of air before expiring.

The gunman turned and came toward her, gun pointed at her face. Lia stared at the barrel; Charlie Dean was nearby somewhere, but it seemed unlikely that he’d be able to do anything if the man with the gun decided to