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“I said not yet.”
“I was remembering when we first met, Maurice,” said Redbeard. “You were adjutant to General Sinclair. I saw this tall African with the bearing of a king and wondered if you’d last a year with all the officers arrayed against you. The things they said behind your back…”
“It couldn’t have been worse than the things they said to my face,” said General Kidd.
Redbeard had shown up unbidden and una
“We’ve seen a lot of history.” Redbeard spat out a date seed. “You and I sailed some dangerous waters together, yet I feel the worst of our voyage still lies ahead.”
“The nation has gone off course, Thomas.” Kidd blew across his cup. “We were to be a light upon the world. Now, we might as well be kaffirs, the way the young people behave. They are soft and given to indolence and idolatry.”
“The young should be given time to find the way.”
“The young should be instructed in the way.”
Redbeard slurped his coffee. “Would you want Ibn Azziz to do the instructing?”
Kidd popped a fat date into his mouth, chewed slowly. “I heard you had a death in the family. The men responsible…they are dead?”
“The men who stole her from outside her mosque are dead. Killed by the man who sent them before I could find them. As if I needed to question them to know who was responsible.” Redbeard tore at his beard. “Allah has given you a choice. You can keep your oath and stand beside your president, or you can become the sword of a mullah who abducts and murders devout women. A mullah who takes refuge in the Grand Mosque with a hundred bodyguards. Is the protection of Allah not enough for him?”
Kidd’s face was a mask, but his eyes betrayed his turmoil. “I love President Kingsley as my own father, but he is old. He is dying.”
“We’re all dying, Maurice.”
“Did you come to tell me that, old friend?”
Redbeard reached into the basket of sweets, smiled. “I came for the dates.”
Rakkim had just finished checking the street again when Jeri Ly
“God bless you,” said Sarah.
“Don’t get excited yet.” Jeri Ly
Sarah made no move to take the box.
Jeri Ly
“It could take a while,” said Rakkim.
“Just promise that you’ll do it. I’m not asking for a schedule.”
“I promise.”
Jeri Ly
Sarah stared at Rakkim. She was thinking about what he had told her about the assassin. That he had no chance against him. “I trust him.”
Jeri Ly
Sarah tucked the box away.
“I don’t know if it makes a difference to you, but I would have killed Darwin anyway,” Rakkim said to Jeri Ly
Cameron wandered out from the back of the house. His hair was combed. He was wearing clean pants and a frayed L.A. Ramadan 2035 T-shirt. He sat in Jeri Ly
“Long as you want, baby.” Jeri Ly
CHAPTER 56
“You said we were to meet tomorrow,” said Professor Wu. He looked from Sarah to Rakkim, unsettled by the lack of harmony a broken engagement engendered. “We were to meet at the King Street Café, not here. Not at my home. We were to have dim sum, Sarah, and-”
“Could we come in, Professor?” said Rakkim. “I’d rather not stand out in the cold.”
Wu glanced at Sarah, disappointed, although she wasn’t sure if he was a
Rakkim and Sarah had driven straight through from Southern California, keeping to the main roads, lost in the traffic. According to a jeweler in Long Beach, Fancy’s medallion was slightly radioactive. Not enough to pose a danger, but still more proof of its co
It had been raining in Seattle for the last five days, a cold, steady downpour that drove people off the streets and sent cars sliding into ditches. Sarah missed the heat and freedom of Southern California, but it was still good to be home. Or what passed for home. A warehouse in the industrial section south of the Sheik Ali Mosque. Another one of Rakkim’s hiding spots. Three days ago she had sent photos of the medallion to Wu, a Chinese scholar dismissed a few years ago during a bout of campus politics.
Wu shuffled back into the living room, slowly lowered himself into a reading chair. His fingers curled against the leather arms of the chair. His neck was so thin it could barely support his head. “Tuesday is the best day for dim sum at the King Street Café,” he said, Adam’s apple bobbling. “Madam Chen is only able to work one day a week, but her spring rolls with black mushroom are still the best in the city.”