HE HAD MUCH WORK TO do along those lines anyway. Back in his office, Badrayn activated his desktop computer. This had a high-speed modem and a dedicated fiber-optic telephone line that ran to an Iranian—UIR, now—embassy in Pakistan, and from there another line to London, where he could link into the World Wide Web without fear of a trace. What had once been a fairly simple exercise for police agencies—that's what counterespionage and counterterrorism was, after all—was now virtually impossible. Literally millions of people could access all the information mankind had ever developed, and more quickly than one could walk to one's car for a trip to the local library. Badrayn started by hitting press areas, major newspapers from the Times in Los Angeles to the Times in London, with Washington and New York in between. The major papers all presented much the same basic story—quicker on the Web than in the printed editions, in fact—though the initial editorial comment differed somewhat from one to another. The stories were vague on dates, and he had to remind himself that the mere repetition of the content didn't guarantee accuracy, but it jelt real. He knew Ryan had been an intelligence officer, knew that the British, the Russians, and the Israelis respected him. Surely stories such as these would explain that respect. They also made him slightly uneasy, a fact which would have surprised his master. Ryan was potentially a more formidable adversary than Daryaei appreciated. He knew how to take decisive action in difficult circumstances, and such people were not to be underestimated.
It was just that Ryan was out of his element now, and that was plain from the news coverage. As he changed from one home page to another, a brand-new editorial came up. It called for a congressional inquiry into Ryan's activities at CIA. A statement from the Colombian goveminent asked in clipped diplomatic terms for an explanation of the allegations—and that would start another firestorm. How would Ryan respond to the charges and the demands? An open question, Badrayn judged. He was an unknown quantity. That was disturbing. He printed up the more important articles and editorials for later use, and then went on with his real business.
There was a dedicated home page for conventions and trade shows in America. Probably for the use of travel agents, he thought. Well, that wasn't far off. Then it was just a matter of selecting them by city. That told him the identity of the convention centers, typically large barnlike buildings. Each of those had a home page as well, to boast of their capabilities. Many showed diagrams and travel directions. All gave phone and fax numbers. These he collected as well until he had twenty-four, a few extra, just in case. One could not send one of his travelers to a ladies' underwear show, for example—although… he chuckled to himself. Fashion and fabric shows — these would be for the winter season, though summer had not yet come even to Iran. Automobile shows. These, he saw, traced across America as the various car and truck manufacturers showed their wares like a traveling circus… so much the better.
Circus, he thought, and punched up another home page—but, no, it was just a few weeks too early in the year for that. Too bad. Too bad indeed! Badrayn groused. Didn't the big circuses travel in private trains? Damn. But that was just bad timing, and bad timing could not be helped. The auto show would have to do.
And all the others.
GROUP TWO'S MEMBERS were all fatally ill now, and it was time to end their suffering. It wasn't so much mercy as efficiency. There was no point at all in risking the lives of the medical corpsmen by treating people condemned to death by law and science both, and so like the first group they were dispatched by large injections of Dilaudid, as Moudi watched the TV. The relief for the medics was visible, even through the cumbersome plastic suits. In just a few minutes all of the test subjects were dead. The same procedures as before would be exercised, and the doctor congratulated himself that they'd worked so well, and no extraneous personnel had been infected. That was mainly because of their ruthlessness. Other places—proper hospitals—would not be so lucky, he knew, already mourning the loss of fellow practitioners.
It was a strange truism of life that second thoughts came only when it was too late for them. He could no more stop what was to come than he could stop the turning of the earth.
The medics started loading the infected bodies on the gurneys, and he turned away. He didn't need to see it again. Moudi walked into the lab.
Another set of technicians was now loading the "soup" into containers known as flasks. They had a thousand times more than was needed for the operations, but the nature of the exercise was such that it was actually easier to make too much than it was to make just enough and, the director had explained offhandedly, one never knew when more might be needed. The flasks were all made of stainless steel, actually a specialized alloy that didn't lose its strength in extreme cold. Each was three-quarters filled and sealed. Then it would be sprayed with a caustic chemical to make certain the outside was clean. Next it would be placed on a cart and rolled to the cold-storage locker in the building's basement, there to be immersed in liquid nitrogen. The Ebola virus particles could stay there for decades, too cold to die, completely inert, waiting for their next exposure to warmth and humidity, and a chance to reproduce and kill. One of the flasks stayed in the lab, sitting in a smaller cryogenic container, about the size of an oil drum but somewhat taller, with an LED display showing the interior temperature.
It was something of a relief that his part in the drama would soon be over. Moudi stood by the door, watching the lesser personnel do their jobs, and probably they felt the same. Soon the twenty spray containers would be filled and removed from the building, and every square centimeter of the building would be rigorously cleaned, making everything safe again. The director would spend all of his time in his office, and Moudi—well, he couldn't reappear at the WHO, could he? He was dead, after all, killed in the airplane crash just off the Libyan coast. Someone would have to generate a new identity and passport for him before he could travel again, assuming that he ever could. Or perhaps as a security measure—no, even the director wasn't that ruthless, was he?
"HELLO, I'M CALLING for Dr. Ian MacGregor."
"Who's calling, please?"
"This is Dr. Lorenz at CDC Atlanta."
"Wait, please."
Gus had to wait for two minutes, by his watch, long enough to light his pipe and open a window. The younger staffers occasionally chided him about the habit, but he didn't inhale, and it was good for thinking…
"This is Dr. MacGregor," a young voice said.
"This is Gus Lorenz in Atlanta."
"Oh! How do you do, Professor?"
"How are your patients doing?" Lorenz asked from seven time zones away. He liked the sound of MacGregor, clearly working a little late. The good ones did a lot of that.
"The male patient isn't doing well at all, I'm afraid. The child, however, is recovering nicely."
"Indeed? Well, we examined the specimens you sent. Both contained the Ebola virus, Mayinga sub-strain."
"You're quite certain?" the younger man asked.
"No doubt about it, Doctor. I ran the tests myself."
"I was afraid of that. I sent another set to Paris, but they haven't got back to me yet."
"I need to know a few things." On his end of the line, Lorenz had a pad out. "Tell me more about your patients."
"There's a problem with that, Professor Lorenz," MacGregor had to say. He didn't know if the line might be bugged, but in a country like Sudan, it was not something he could discount. On the other hand, he had to say something, and so he started picking his way through the facts he could disclose.
"I SAW YOU on TV last night." Dr. Alexandre had decided to see Cathy Ryan at lunch again for that very reason. He'd taken a liking to her. Who would have expected an eye cutter and laser jockey (for Alex, these were more mechanical specialties than the true medicine he practiced—even that profession had its rivalries, and he felt that way about almost all surgical specialties) to take an interest in genetics? Besides, she probably needed a friendly voice.
"That's nice," Caroline Ryan replied, looking down at her chicken salad as he took his seat. The bodyguard, Alexandre saw, merely looked unhappily tense.
"You did okay."
"Think so?" She looked up, saying evenly: "I wanted to rip his face off."
"Well, that didn't quite come across. You were pretty supportive of your husband. You came across smart."
"What is it with reporters? I mean, why—"
Alex smiled. "Doctor, when a dog urinates on a fire hydrant, he's not committing vandalism. He's just being a dog." Roy Altman nearly choked on his drink.
"Neither one of us ever wanted this, you know?" she said, still unhappy enough to miss the jibe.
Professor Alexandre held his hands up in mock surrender. "Been there, done that, ma'am. Hey, I never wanted to join the Army. They drafted me right out of med school. It turned out all right, making colonel and all. I found an interesting field to keep the brain busy, and it pays the bills, y'know?"
"I don't get paid for this abuse!" Cathy objected, albeit with a smile.
"And your husband doesn't get paid enough," Alex added.
"He never has. Sometimes I wonder why he doesn't just do the job for free, turn the checks back in, just to make the point that he's worth more than they pay him."
"You think he would have made a good doc?"
Her eyes brightened. "I've told him that. Jack woufd have been a surgeon, I think—no, maybe something else, like what you're in. He's always liked poking around and figuring things out."
"And saying what he thinks."
That almost started a laugh. "Always!"
"Well, guess what? He comes across as a good guy. I've never met him, but I liked what I saw. Sure as hell he's no politician, and maybe that's not a bad thing once in a while. You want to lighten up a little, Doctor? What's the worst thing that can happen? He leaves the job, goes back to whatever he wants to do—teaching, I guess from what he said—and you're still a doc with a Lasker on the wall."
"The worst thing that can happen—"
"You have Mr. Altaian here to take care of that, don't you?" Alexandre looked him over. "I imagine you're big enough to stand in the way of the bullet." The Secret Service agent didn't reply, but his look at Alex told the tale. Yes, he'd stop one for his principal. "You guys can't talk about this sort of thing, can you?"
"Yes, sir, we can, if you ask." Altman had wanted to say this all day. He'd seen the TV special, too, and as had often happened before, there was light talk in the Detail this morning about popping a cap on the reporter in question. The Secret Service had a fantasy life, too. "Dr. Ryan, we like your family a lot, and I'm not just saying that to be polite, okay? We don't always like our principals. But we like all of you."
"Hey, Cathy." It was Dean James, passing by with a smile and a wave.
"Hi, Dave." Then she noted a few waves from faculty friends. So, she wasn't as alone as she thought. "Okay, Cathy, are you married to James Bond or what?" In a different context the question might have set her off, but Alexandre's Creole eyes were twinkling at her.
"I know a little. I got briefed in on some of it when President Durling asked Jack to be Vice President, but I can't—"
He held up his hand. "I know. I still have a security clearance because I still drive up to Fort Detrick once in a while."
"It isn't like the movies. You don't do stuff like that and have a drink, kiss the girl, and drive away. He used to have nightmares and I—well, I'd hug him in his sleep and usually that calmed him down, then when he wakes up, he pretends it never happened at all. I know some of it, not all. When we were in Moscow last year, a Russian comes up and says that he had a gun to Jack's head once" — Altman's head turned at that one —"but he said it like a joke or something, then he said the gun wasn't loaded. Then we had dinner together, like we were pals or something, and I met his wife—pediatrician, would you believe it? She's a doc and her husband is the head Russian spy and—"
"It does sound a little far-fetched," Dr. Alexandre agreed with a judiciously raised eyebrow, and then a real laugh happened on the other side of the table.
"It's all so crazy," she concluded.
"You want crazy? We have two Ebola cases reported in Sudan." Now that her mood had changed, he could talk about his problems.
"Funny place for that virus to turn up. Did they come in from Zaire?"
"Gus Lorenz is checking that out. I'm waiting for him to get back to me," Professor Alexandre reported. "It can't be a local outbreak."
"Why's that?" Altman asked.
"Worst possible environment," Cathy explained, finally picking at her lunch. "Hot, dry, lots of direct sun. The UV from the sunlight kills it."
"Like a flamethrower," Alex agreed. "And no jungle for a host animal to live in."
"Only two cases?" Cathy asked with a mouthful of salad. At least, Alexandre thought, he'd gotten her to eat. Yep, he still had a good bedside manner, even in a cafeteria.
He nodded. "Adult male and a little girl, that's all I know right now. Gus is supposed to run the tests today, probably already has."
"Damn, that's a nasty little bug. And you still don't know the host."
"Twenty years of looking," Alex confirmed. "Never found one sick animal—well, the host wouldn't be sick, but you know what I mean."
"Like a criminal case, eh?" Altman asked. "Poking around for physical evidence? '
"Pretty much," Alex agreed. "Just we're trying to search a whole country, and we've never figured exactly what we're looking for."
DON RUSSELL WATCHED as the cots went out. After lunch—today it was ham-and-cheese sandwiches on wheat bread, glass of milk, and an apple—the kids all went down for their afternoon nap. An altogether good idea, all the adults thought. Mrs. Daggett was a superb organizer, and the kids all knew the routine. The beds came out of the storage room, and the kids knew their spaces. SANDBOX was getting along well with young Megan O'Day. Both usually dressed in Oshkosh B'gosh outfits decorated with flowers or bunnies—at least a third of the kids had them; it was a popular label. The only hard part was parading the children into the bathrooms so that no «accidents» happened during the naps—some happened anyway, but that was kids for you. It took fifteen minutes, less than before because two of his agents helped. Then the kids were all down in their cots, with their blankets and bears, and the lights went down. Mrs. Daggett and her helpers found chairs to sit in and books to read.
"SANDBOX is sleeping," Russell said, stepping outside for some fresh air.
"Sounds like a winner," the mobile team thought, sitting in the den of the house across the street. Their Chevy Suburban was parked in the family garage. There were three agents there, two of whom were always on watch, seated close to the window which faced Giant Steps. Probably playing cards, ever a good way to pass dead time. Every fifteen minutes—not quite regularly in case someone was watching—Russell or another of the crew would walk around the grounds. TV cameras kept track of traffic on Ritchie Highway. One of the inside people was always positioned to cover the doors in and out of the center. At the moment it was Marcella Hilton; young and pretty, she always had her purse with her. A special purse of a type made for female cops, it had a side pocket she could just reach into for her SigSauer 9mm automatic, and two spare magazines. She was letting her hair grow to something approaching hippie length (he'd had to tell her what a hippie was) to accentuate her "disguise."
He still didn't like it. The place was too easy to approach, too close to the highway with its heavy volume of traffic, and there was a parking lot within plain sight, a perfect spot for notional bad guys to do surveillance.'At least reporters had been shooed away. On that one SURGEON had been ruthlessly direct. After an initial spate of stories about Katie Ryan and her friends, the foot had come down hard. Now visiting journalists who called were told, firmly but politely, to stay away. Those who came anyway had to talk to Russell, whose grandfatherly demeanor was saved for the children at Giant Steps. With adults he was simply intimidating, usually donning his Secret Service sunglasses, the better to appear like Schwarzenegger, who was shorter than he by a good three inches.
But his sub-detail had been cut down to six. Three directly on site, and three across the street. The latter trio had shoulder weapons, Uzi submachine guns and a scoped M-16. In another location, six would have been plenty, but not this one, he judged. Unfortunately, any more than that would have made this day-care center appear to be an armed camp, and President Ryan was having trouble enough.
"WHAT'S THE WORD, Gus?" Alexandre asked, back in his office before starting afternoon rounds. One of his AIDS patients had taken a bad turn, and Alex was trying to figure what to do about it.
"ID is confirmed. Ebola Mayinga, same as the two Zairean cases. The male patient isn't going to make it, but the child is reportedly recovering nicely."
"Oh? Good. What's the difference in the cases?" "Not sure, Alex," Lorenz replied. "I don't have much patient information, just first names, Saleh for the male and Sohaila for the child, ages and such."
"Arabic names, right?" But Sudan was an Islamic country.
"I think so."
"It would help to know what's different about the cases."
"I made that point. The attending physician is an lan MacGregor, sounds pretty good, University of Edinburgh, I think he said. Anyway, he doesn't know any differences between them. Neither has any idea how they were exposed. They appeared at the hospital at roughly the same time, in roughly the same shape. Initial presentation was as flu and/or jet lag, he said—"
"Travel from where, then?" Alexandre interrupted.
"I asked. He said he couldn't say."
"How come?"
"I asked that, too. He said he couldn't say that, either, but that it had no apparent connection with the cases." Lorenz's tone indicated what he thought of that. Both men knew it had to be local politics, a real problem in Africa, especially with AIDS.
"Nothing more in Zaire?"
"Nothing," Gus confirmed. "That one's over. It's a head-scratcher, Alex. Same disease turned up in two different places, two thousand miles apart, two cases each, two dead, one dying, one apparently recovering. MacGregor has initiated proper containment procedures at his hospital, and it sounds as though he knows his business." You could almost hear the shrug over the phone.
What the Secret Service guy had said over lunch was right on target, Alexandre thought. It was more detective work than medicine, and this one didn't make a hell of a lot of sense, like some sort of serial-murder case with no clues. Entertaining in book form, maybe, but not in reality.
"Okay, what do we know?"
"We know that Mayinga strain is alive and kicking. Visual inspection is identical. We're running some analysis on the proteins and sequences, but my gut says it's a one-to-one match."
"God damn, what's the host, Gus? If we could only find that!"
"Thank you for that observation, Doctor." Gus was annoyed—enraged—in the same way and for the same reason. But it was an old story for both of them. Well, the older man thought, it had taken a few thousand years to figure malaria out. They'd been playing with Ebola for only twenty-five or so. The bug had been around, probably, for at least that long, appearing and disappearing, just like a fictional serial killer. But Ebola didn't have a brain, didn't have a strategy, didn't even move of its own accord. It was super-adapted to something very limited and exceedingly narrow. But they didn't know what. "It's enough to drive a man to drink, isn't it?"
"I imagine a stiff shot of bourbon will kill it, too, Gus. I have patients to see."
"How do you like regular clinical rounds, Alex?" Lorenz missed them, too.
"Good to be a real doc again. I just wish my patients had a little more hope. But that's the job, ain't it?"
"I'll fax you data on the structural analysis on the samples if you want. The good news is that it seems pretty well contained," Lorenz repeated.
"I'd appreciate it. See ya, Gus." Alexandre hung up. Pretty well contained? That's what we thought before… But then his thoughts shifted, as they had to. White male patient, thirty-four, gay, resistant TB that came out of left field. How do we stabilize him? He lifted the chart and walked out of his office.
"SO I'M THE wrong guy to help with the court selections?" Pat Martin asked.
"Don't feel too bad," Arnie answered. "We're all the wrong guy for everything."
"Except you," the President noted with a smile.
"We all make errors of judgment," van Damm admitted. "I could have left with Bob Fowler, but Roger said he needed me to keep this shop running, and—"
"Yeah." Ryan nodded. "That's how I got here, too. So, Mr. Martin?"
"No laws were broken by any of this." He'd spent the last three hours going over the CIA files and Jack's dietated summary of the Colombian operations. Now one of his secretaries, Ellen Sumter, knew about some rather restricted things—but she was a. presidential secretary, and besides, Jack had gotten a smoke out of it. "At least not by you. Ritter and Moore could be brought up on failure to fully report their covert activities to the Congress, but their defense would be that the sitting President told them to do it that way, and the Special and Hazardous Operations guidelines appended to the oversight statute give them an arguable defense. I suppose I could get them indicted, but I wouldn't want to prosecute the case myself," he went on. "They were trying to work on the drug problem, and most jurors wouldn't want to hurt them for doing so, especially since the Medellin cartel came apart partly as a result. The real problem on that one is the international-relations angle. Colombia's going to be pissed, sir, and with very good reason. There are issues of international law and treaties which applied to the activity, but I'm not good enough in that field to render an opinion. From the domestic point of view, it's the Constitution, the supreme law of the land. The President is Commander-in-Chief. The President decides what is or is not in the country's security interest as part of his executive powers. The President can, therefore, take whatever action he deems appropriate to protect those interests— that's what executive power means. The brake on that, aside from statutory violations that mainly apply inside the country, is found in the checks and balances exercised by the Congress. They can deny funds to prevent something, but that's about all. Even the War Powers Resolution is written in such a way as to let you act first before they try and stop you. You see, the Constitution is flexible on the really important issues. It's designed for reasonable people to work things out in a reasonable way. The elected representatives are supposed to know what the people want, and act accordingly, again, within reasonable limits."
The people who wrote the Constitution, Ryan wondered to himself, were they politicians or something else?
"And the rest?" the chief of staff asked.
"The CIA operations? Not even close to any sort of violation, but again the problem is one of politics. Speaking for myself—I used to run espionage investigations, remember— Mr. President, what beautiful jobs they were. But the media is going to have a ball," he warned.
Arnie thought that was a pretty good start. His third President didn't have to worry about going to jail. The political stuff came after that, which was, for him, a first of sorts.
"Closed hearings or open?" van Damm asked.
"That's political. The main issue there is the international side. Best to kick that one around with State. By the way, you've got me right against the edge here, ethically speaking. Had I discovered a possible violation against you in any of these three cases, I'd be unable to discuss them with you. As it is, my cover is to say that you, Mr. President, asked me for an opinion on the possible criminal violations of others, to which inquiry I must, as a federal official, respond as part of my official duties."
"You know, it would be nice if everybody around me didn't talk like a lawyer all the time," Ryan observed crossly. "I have real problems to deal with. A new country in the Middle East that doesn't like us, the Chinese making trouble at sea for reasons I don't understand, and I still don't have a Congress."
"This is a real problem," Arnie told him. Again.
"I can read." Ryan gestured to the pile of clippings on his desk. He'd just discovered that the media graced him with early drafts of adverse editorials scheduled to run the next day. How nice of them. "I used to think CIA was Alice in Wonderland. That's not even Triple-A ball. Okay, the Supreme Court. I've read over about half of the list. They're all good people. I'll have my selections this time next week."
"ABA is going to raise hell," Arnie said.
"Let 'em. I can't show weakness. I've learned that much last night. What's Kealty going to do?" the President asked next.
"The only thing he can do, weaken you politically, threaten you with scandal, and force you to resign." Arnie held his hand up again. "I'm not saying it makes sense."
"Damned little in this town does, Arnie. That's why I'm trying."
ONE CRUCIAL ELEMENT in the consolidation of the new country was, of course, its military. The former Republican Guards divisions would keep their identity. There had to be a few adjustments in the officer corps. The executions of previous weeks hadn't totally expunged undesirable elements, but in the interest of amity, the new eliminations were made into simple retirements—the departure briefings were forcefully direct: Step out of line and disappear. It was not a warning to be disregarded. The departing officers invariably nodded their submission, grateful to be allowed to live.
These units had mainly survived the Persian Gulf War—at least a majority of their personnel had, and the shock of their treatment at American hands had been assuaged by their later campaigns to crush rebellious civilian elements, replacing part of their swagger and much of their bravado. Their equipment had b^en replaced from stocks and other means, and that would soon be augmented as well.
The convoys moved out of Iran, down the Abadan highway, through border checkpoints already dismantled. They moved under cover of darkness, and with a minimum of radio traffic, but that didn't matter to satellites.
"THREE DIVISIONS, HhAVIES at that," was the instant analysis at I-TAC, the Army's Intelligence and Threat Analysis Center, a windowless building located in the Washington Navy Yard. The same conclusion was rapidly reached at DIA and CIA. A new Order of Battle assessment for the new country was already under way, and though it was not yet complete, the first back-of-the-envelope calculations showed that the UIR had more than double the military power of all the other Gulf states combined. It would probably be worse when all the factors were fully evaluated.
"Headed where, exactly, I wonder," the senior watch officer said aloud as the tapes were rewound.
"Bottom end of Iraq has always been Shi'a, sir," a warrant officer area specialist reminded the colonel.
"And that's the closest part to our friends."
"Roge-o."
MAHMOUD HAJI DARYAEI had much to think about, and he usually tried to do it outside, not inside, a mosque. In this case it was one of the oldest in the former country of Iraq, within sight of the world's oldest city, Ur. A man of his God and his Faith, Daryaei was also a man of history and political reality who told himself that all came together in a unified whole that defined the shape of the world, and that all had to be considered. It was easy in moments of weakness or enthusiasm (the two were the same in his mind) to tell himself that certain things were written by Allah's own immortal hand, but circumspection was also a virtue taught by the Koran, and he found he was able to achieve that most easily by walking outside a holy place, usually in a garden, such as this mosque had.
Civilization had started here. Pagan civilization, to be sure, but all things began somewhere, and it was not the fault of those who had first built this city five thousand years before that God had not yet fully revealed Himself. The faithful who had built this mosque and its garden had also rectified the oversight.
The mosque was in disrepair. He bent down to pick up a piece of tile that had fallen off the wall. It was blue, the color of the ancient city, a color somewhere between that of sky and sea, made by local artisans to the same shade and texture for more than fifty centuries, adopted in turn for temples to pagan statues, palaces of kings, and now a mosque. One could pluck a new one off a building or dig ten meters into the earth to find one over three thousand years old, and the two would be indistinguishable. In that there was such continuity here as at no other place in the world. A kind of peace came from it, especially in the chill of a cloudless midnight, when he alone was walking here, and even his bodyguards were out of sight, knowing their leader's mood.
A waning moon was overhead, and that gave emphasis to the numberless stars which kept him company. To the west was ancient Ur, once a great city as things had been reckoned, and surely even today it would be a noteworthy sight, with its towering brick walls and its towering ziggurat to whatever false god the people here had worshiped. Caravans would travel in and out of the fortified gates, bringing everything from grain to slaves. The surrounding land would be green with planted fields instead of mere sand, and the air alive with the chatter of merchants and tradesmen. The tale of Eden itself had probably begun not far from here, somewhere in the parallel valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates that emptied into the Persian Gulf. Yes, if humanity were all one vast tree, then the oldest roots were right here, virtually in the center of the country he had just created.
The ancients would have had the same sense of cen-trality, he was sure. Here are we, they would have thought, and out there were… they, the universal appellation for those who were not part of one's own community. They were dangerous. At first they would have been nomadic travelers for whom the idea of a city was incomprehensible. How could one stay in one place and live? Didn't the grass for the goats and sheep run out? On the other hand, what a fine place to raid, they would have thought. That was why the city had sprouted defensive walls, further emphasizing the primacy of place and the dichotomy of we and they, the civilized and the uncivilized.
And so it was today, Daryaei knew, Faithful and Infidel. Even within the first category there were differences. He stood in the center of a country which was also the center of the Faith, at least in geographic terms, for Islam had spread west and east. The true center of his religion lay in the direction in which he always prayed, southwest, in Mecca, home of the Ka'aba stone, where the Prophet had taught.
Civilization had begun in Ur, and spread, slowly and fitfully, and in the waves of time, the city had risen and fallen because, he thought, of its false gods, its lack of the single unifying idea which civilization needed.
The continuity of this place told him much about the people. One could almost hear their voices, and they were no different, really, from himself. They'd looked up on quiet nights into the same sky and wondered at the beauty of the same stars. They'd heard the silence, the best of them, just as he did, and used it as a sounding board for their most private thoughts, to consider the Great Questions and find their answers as best they could. But they'd been flawed answers, and that was why the walls had fallen, along with all the civilizations here—but one.
And so, his task was to restore, Daryaei told the stars. As his religion was the final revelation, so his culture would grow from here, down-river from the original Eden. Yes, he'd build his city here. Mecca would remain a holy city, blessed and pure, not commercialized, not polluted. There was room here for the administrative buildings. A fresh beginning would take place on the site of the oldest beginning, and a great new nation would grow.
But first…
Daryaei looked at his hand, old and gnarled, scarred by torture and persecution, but still the hand of a man and the servant of his mind, an imperfect tool, as he himself was an imperfect tool for his God, but a faithful tool even so, able to smite, able to heal. Both would be necessary. He knew the entire Koran by heart—memorization of the entire book was encouraged by his religion—and more than that he was a theologian who could quote a verse to any purpose, some of them contradictory, he admitted to himself, but it was the Will of Allah that mattered more than His words. His words often applied to a specific context. To kill for murder was evil, and the Koranic law on that was harsh indeed. To kill in defense of the Faith was not. Sometimes the difference between the two was clouded, and for that one had the Will of Allah as a guide. Allah wished the Faithful to be under one spiritual roof, and while many had attempted to accomplish that by reason and example, men were weak and some had to be shown more forcefully than others—and perhaps the differences between Sunni and Shi'a could be resolved in peace and love, with his hand extended in friendship and both sides giving respectful consideration to the views of the other—Daryaei was willing to go that far in his quest—but first the proper conditions had to be established. Beyond the horizon of Islam were others, and while God's Mercy applied to them as well, after a fashion, it did not apply while they sought to injure the Faith. For those people, his hand was for smiting. There was no avoiding it.
Because they did Injure the Faith, polluting it with their money and strange ideas, taking the oil away, taking the children away to educate them in corrupt ways. They sought to limit the Faith even as they did business with those who called themselves Faithful. They would resist his efforts to unify Islam. They'd call it economics or politics or something else, but really they knew that a unified Islam would threaten their apostasy and temporal power. They were the worst kind of enemies in that they called themselves friends, and disguised their intentions well enough to be mistaken for such. For Islam to unify, they had to be broken.
There really was no choice for him. He'd come here to be alone and to think, to ask God quietly if there might be another way. But the blue piece of tile had told him of all that had been, the time that had passed, the civilizations that had left nothing behind but imperfect memories and ruined buildings. He had the idea and the faith that they had all lacked. It was merely a question of applying those ideas, guided by the same Will that had placed the stars in the sky. His God had brought flood and plague and misfortune as tools of the Faith. Mohammed had himself fought wars. And so, reluctantly, he told himself, would he.