“Leonard,” Aziz said softly. “Can’t we use this as an opening, though? Can’t we try and follow through? If they’re willing to let us coexist now, why fight them? Already over a thousand of us, mostly children, have died in clashes with the G.”
“Martyrs,” Ishmael said. “And I know how many have died.”
Talib drew himself up to his full height. He’d resigned from the Foundation and now he was about to resign from NOI. What was he to become: A man without a job, without even a place to call home? “Brother Ishmael,” he said officiously, “given the nature of your lack of trust in me and the worthlessness which will attach to my work from now on, I respectfully submit my resignation as spokesman for Nation of Islam.”
“Would you sit down, Abu?” Ishmael sighed. “I respect your opinion and the job you do. You’re irreplaceable. We’ll work something out with this Tang thing, all right?
I told—asked—you to sit down.”
Talib sat. “I’ve been working in New Cairo,” he said. “A mass exodus isn’t feasible. There’s not enough housing. The people we displace will destroy much in order to keep it from us. People, especially city people, have to be taught how to farm, to work with their hands. Drop twenty million people into that situation and you’ll have food and water and sewage problems you never even dreamed of.”
“I know,” Ishmael said. “We’re not ready yet. That’s why I’m considering the deal you’re negotiating with Tang.” Ishmael looked over at Aziz. “Would you sit down, too? You make me nervous.”
“I simply ask,” Ishmael said, “that no one presume on my authority. May I have general agreement on that?”
Nods around the table.
“Good. I agree that movement to New Cairo will be slow. Let us get the first settlement entirely on its feet and we’ll expand from there. Meanwhile, Brother Talib has done us the greatest service in bringing the news of Crane’s ultimate goaclass="underline" to use nuclear weapons to fuse the Continental Plates. Crane will be our focus.”
“Why?” Talib asked. “He will not be able to get the nuclear material or the authority to do such a thing.”
Ishmael looked at Talib as if he were a child. He smiled beatifically, sitting back in his chair, fingers steepled. “I continually wonder how it is possible,” he asked softly, “for you to have worked so closely with this man and not recognized his power?”
“His power is in his madness,” Talib said.
“His power resides in the clarity of his vision,” Ishmael returned. “The same place my power resides.”
“He’s dead in the water,” Talib said.
“He will find a way,” Ishmael said. “And it will be up to us to stop him. Crane is my Satan, Abu. I want no misunderstanding. He is the greatest battle I will ever fight. Like Mohammed with the Meccans, ‘Though they gave me the sun in my right hand and the moon in my left to bring me back from my undertaking, yet will I not pause till the Lord carry this cause to victory, or till I die for it.’ Promise me that if I do not live to see this through, the rest of you will continue after me.”
“I swear,” Talib said, “that I will not stop dogging Crane if there is breath in my body.”
“And I,” Martin Aziz said.
“Good. It is Crane who will ultimately provide the key to our Homeland. I don’t know how yet, but I can see it just as surely as I can see my own death calling out to me. Is there any other business from the outside world?”
Talib looked at the tabletop, then cleared his throat. “With all due respect and humility,” he said, voice choked, “I would like to ask your permission for your sister’s hand in marriage.”
“An alliance,” Ishmael said. “You don’t want Crane’s woman any longer?”
“I was a fool,” Talib said.
“Yes, you were,” Brother Ishmael responded. He stood and walked around to Talib. “But you are a fool no longer.” Talib got up; the two men embraced. “Welcome to our family. We will be real brothers now.” He kissed Talib on each cheek. Smiling, he said, “Let me go to find Khadijah and bring her to you. We must celebrate.”
In truth, Mohammed Ishmael could have sent someone to fetch his sister, but he needed time alone. He knew that Talib was a good man who was becoming a good Muslim, but the convert hadn’t yet begun to grasp the proper attitude when dealing with the Infidel. Ishmael knew he’d have to watch his new brother carefully—especially since Crane was drawing Talib and him into the web that would ensnare the three of them and shape their fate. Ishmael could feel it drawing around him now. Tears formed in the corners of his eyes. Like Moses, he’d see the promised land, but not live long enough to enter it.
Out in the hallway, facing the wall so none could see, he cried for himself, then cursed his weakness. Only the words of the Prophet brought him any solace. “Be in the world like a traveler, or like a passerby and reckon yourself as of the dead.”
So be it.
Sumi Chan watched her security monitor as Kate Masters’ helo glided gently onto the pad, disgorging the woman and an older man carrying a medical case. Lights around the pad blazed, catching the sequins of Masters’ bright red body suit, lighting her up like the Chinese opera on festival nights.
Sumi saw the figures approach the house elevator. She felt great trepidation, for she’d never trusted anyone with her secrets, not even Crane, and now she’d see what price she would pay for indulging in trusting Kate Masters.
The visitors disappeared from the screen and she switched to a shot inside the elevator. The doors opened and Masters and the doctor stepped in. Finding the camera immediately, Kate used its lens as a mirror and fixed her hair. “Hope these pictures look good in the archives,” she said, pulling her low neckline down a touch and winking.
The Vice President’s quarters were located in Silver Spring, Maryland, minutes from the Capital. The entire house was underground and electronically secured, leaving her protected without the expense of bodyguards. Sumi already had figured out a dozen ways in which the security could be breached here, but it didn’t matter. No one in the history of the United States had ever gone after a Vice President. They were too powerless and easy to replace.
Sumi hit the door activation button and hurried through the small but elegant traditional Chinese house whose windows looked out at holo projections of the Henan Province where she’d grown up—rolling farmland, workers tilling the fields, the Huang He River flowing gently from west to east in the distance. Over the course of a year, she’d watched the planting, growing, and harvesting of two crops, complete with typhoons in the spring and killing frost in the winter.
The elevator doors opened into her living room. Masters bounced into the room and gave Sumi a hug. “All this secrecy is very exciting.”
“I’m getting cold feet,” Sumi whispered into Masters’ ear. “This doctor, how do you know we can trust him?”
Masters smiled and straightened. “Vice President Chan, I’d like you to meet my father, Dr. Ben Masters.”
“Pleased to know you,” the man said, shaking a relieved Sumi’s hand. She should have known Masters would handle things impeccably. “Katie tells me you’ve got yourself something of a gender problem here.”
Sumi nodded. “I don’t want them to know I’m a woman,” she said and the words sounded odd coming out of her mouth.
“I’ll just give my report on your health,” the man returned, his wrinkled face relaxed. “I’m not a census taker. How long since you’ve had a physical?”