No one questioned him. If they called back the Washington number he gave them for verification, they would get Smith's Folcroft line. But no one called back. Virtually every district branch had had dealings with ASAG Smith in the past.
Chapter 16
It was the indignity of indignities. It was ignominy. It was shame.
But it was necessary, and so Yusef Gamal, alias Abu Gamalin, endured the shame.
He had made his escape to the airport and the flight that awaited him to the city of Toledo in Ohio. It was a good city name, Toledo. There was a Toledo in Moorish Spain. It was the original Toledo. Spain was one of the few nations where Islam has been in retreat for centuries, but that would also change.
Yusef Gamal was very happy at least that none of his fellow Palestinians could see him now seated on the flight to Toledo wearing a long, funereal black coat, black beaver hat and a wig fringed with stringy ringlets of hair called paye.
He was dressed as a Hasidic Jew. It was the perfect disguise, the Deaf Mullah had assured him by e-mail. "They will be looking for a postal worker. Perhaps, if they detect our intentions, an Egyptian or Palestinian. Never a Hasidic Jew."
"I must be a Jew?" Yusef had e-mailed back.
"To escape, you must be a Jew. Allow your fearless Semitic nose to guide you to sanctuary."
"As you command, Holy One."
So Yusef sat quiet in the back of the plane with his ringlets shivering and shame in his hot eyes.
At least it was a short flight. That alone was consolation.
That and the fact that the kosher in-flight meal they had served him was technically halal, and so, could be eaten safely.
At the Toledo airport, Yusef was the last one off the plane and looked around for the True Believer who had been appointed to meet him.
The waiting area was crowded with passengers hugging their relatives in the most naked and unseemly fashion. The women did not wear veils, and their brazen lips were everywhere, like flowers dipped in poisonous blood.
Some held up signs. The Deaf Mullah had not said who was to meet him, but it was possible the messenger carried a sign also.
Scanning the crude cardboard signs, Yusef's eager eyes alighted on one that was held over the heads of two shamelessly kissing women. It read: Islamic Front For The National Association Of Letter Carriers.
Fortunately it was in Arabic, and so was not understandable to Western eyes.
"Here! I am here!" Yusef cried, pushing through the crowd.
A head poked up over the kissing female faces, and Yusef's eager expression turned to a glower. The face was darkly freckled, and the hair was very red.
"You!" Yusef spat, seeing that it was the Egyptian who was called Jihad Jones.
"I was right. It is true. You are a Jew. A Hasid, no less."
"It is a disguise ordained by the Deaf Mullah himself," Yusef said defensively.
"The Deaf Mullah did not instruct me to pick up a Jew, but a mujahid. "
"I am that mujahid. Have you not heard of the wonderful carnage in Oklahoma City? I was the author of that carnage."
"I spit upon your carnage. My cousin Al Ladeen personally blew up several blocks in Manhattan where Jews such as you dwell, then drove his mail truck into the post office, obliterating the godless and himself in one mighty blow."
"I am no Jew. I have told you this. Why will you not listen?"
"Because the proof is standing before me, as black as a buzzard," Jihad Jones retorted hotly.
"The Deaf Mullah instructed you to take me to him. I insist that you do this at once."
Jihad Jones glowered, his face turning as scarlet as his disheveled hair. Yusef met his gaze with a contemptuous one of his own.
"Offspring of a Crusader!"
"Jew!"
"Idolworshiper!"
"Eater of pork!"
Finally Jihad Jones threw down his placard and said, "Very well. I will take you to the Deaf Mullah. But only because I know he will have you put to death."
"I am not afraid, because if I die a true Muslim, my allotment of seventy-two houris will be waiting for me in Paradise."
"We will see about that, too."
They drove south along a long, undulating highway. The area was very open, and there were barns. This was farm country.
"Where are we going?" asked Yusef Gamal. "To the town of Greenburg."
"What is there?"
"The secret sanctuary of the Deaf Mullah. A place where no one would think of looking for him."
"The Deaf Mullah hides in a town with a Jewish name?"
"The name is Greenburg. With a u, not Greenberg with an e. It is not Jewish."
"It sounds Jewish."
"You should know, who look Jewish."
"I am not Jewish. I am a Semite, the same as you."
"I am an Egyptian."
"We are both brothers in Allah."
"Except that you secretly practice Jewishness."