No one on the Carnivore Crew knew. Joel was summoned, and he scurried away in search of the nearest imam, who when found allowed as how, yes, the moon was a big deal in the Islamic religion. Joel came scurrying back and Rick Robertson sat his royal pain in the ass down and went over the script for his lunar broadcasts word by word.
The Arabian Knight was upset. "It's not even Ramadan!"
"I don't care," Rick said later. "Nobody's issuing a call to prayer from one of my missions."
He glared at Kenai, who thought of protesting that it wasn't her fault, and settled instead for a wooden "Yes, sir."
The sooner they launched, the better.
Cal laughed when she told him. "Who knew dating an astronaut would be this entertaining?"
"Always glad to provide the light relief," Kenai said, yawning, and reached up to turn out the light. She tucked the receiver between her ear and the pillow and snuggled in.
"Am I going to see you again before you light the candle?"
She smiled to herself. Cal was coming along in astronautspeak. "I don't know. Probably not."
"We still on for going away when you get back?"
Her mind was filled with nothing but the mission, but she was willing to play along with the notion of a future after orbit. "How's your schedule looking?"
"We'll be headed to dry dock in Alameda by the time you get back. Refit and repairs and then back to Kodiak."
"Are you going north with her?"
"Yeah, for another year."
"And then where?"
"Don't know yet."
"What's on your dream sheet?"
He smiled to himself. Kenai was coming along in Coastiespeak. "Not much, yet. I can't decide if I want another boat."
"You went to the Academy, right? So you've got your twenty in?"
"Yeah."
"Do you want a shore job?" She couldn't decide if she liked the idea of him more available to her or not. Assigned to a ship, he would be gone on patrol half the time. It seemed to be working well for them so far. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
"I don't know. I don't like doing the same thing over and over again, I know that much."
"So, not another 378."
"I don't think so. And no guarantee I'd get one anyway, in fact probably exactly the opposite. There are more people waiting for the captain's chair on a cutter than there are waiting for a seat on a shuttle."
"Mmm. Where are you that you could call me, anyway?"
"Can't say. BSE Brief stop for fuel."
"And you're low on fuel why?"
"Chasing go fasts."
"Catch any?"
"Not yet," he said grimly. "At this point we're all looking forward to the shuttle launch as the highlight of the patrol."
MIAMI
Six months. He had never stayed so long in one place before, not since he was a child in Pakistan. At first it made him uneasy. He'd kept his head down, reporting in to work every day without fail, keeping close to home in the evenings. His plan was already in place, his team was recruited and ready to move at a word from him, he had arranged their transportation. There was nothing now to do but wait. Waiting was good. His enemies might hope that he was dead, and the more time passed without word or deed from him, the more they would believe it.
He'd seen on Irhabi's blog that Ansar was still looking for him. Which meant that the old man was still looking for him, because Ansar would be happy never to see Akil again, happy to step into the power vacuum left by Zarqawi's death. Akil had given some thought to the possibility that Ansar had been the one who had betrayed Zarqawi's location to the Americans, before dismissing the notion. Ansar simply hadn't the courage it took to betray a friend. Neither had he the intelligence to plan it.
What he did have was the ambition to exploit the results.
Akil didn't trust any of them. He had trusted Zarqawi because Zarqawi had stood by him, in spite of his not being Jordanian, in spite of his pioneering of the Internet, in spite of his refusal to lip sync his way through prayers with the rest of them. He'd never lied to Zarqawi. He could barely tell the difference between Sunni and Shia, and he didn't care if the whole world bowed toward Mecca. He hated the West for reasons of his own, and he would do everything in his power to bring it down. He'd proved it over and over again to Zarqawi, with the result that Zarqawi had trusted him completely, going so far as to make him his second in command, a signal honor in al Qaeda for the not Saudi- or Jordanian-born.
He did not contact Ansar, or the old man, or anyone from the organization. He had let all previous email addresses lapse, so he could say with perfect truth that he had received no message recalling him to Afghanistan. When his mission succeeded, they would know where he was, or at least where he had been. Even the old man would be forced to judge his precious money well spent.
So far as he could tell, the American authorities remained ignorant of his activities. He had seen nothing, in the Miami Herald he read every morning or on the television in his room or on Internet news web sites, that led him to believe that they even knew he was in the country. So far his cell was holding together, maintaining an admirable silence. Yussuf and Yaqub had done a good job of recruiting.
There was a soft knock at the door. "Mr. Sadat? Dinner is ready."
"I'll be right there," he said, and shut down his computer. He'd bought it to satisfy the curiosity of his landlady's daughter. He only rarely used it to access anything more alarming than a Hotmail account registered to an Isaac Rabin, which he used to subscribe to online versions of The NewYork Times, The Wall Street Journal, and the Atlantic Monthly. Isaac Rabin belonged to
Somewhat to his own surprise, he liked Miami. It was a vibrant city, filled with color and light and just the right amount of civil corruption, or at least enough to make him feel right at home. Everything was available here, for a price, including anonymity.
He left his room and went down the hall to the dining room to find Zahirah and Mrs. Mansour already seated. "I'm sorry to keep you waiting," he said, pulling out what had become his chair and sitting down.