“Me too. Scrag, if you were my age would y - ” He stopped as an irritable BA official came out through Security and strode up to Rudi: “Captain Lutz, absolutely your last call! She’s already five minutes late. We can’t hold her any longer! You’ve just got to board the rest of your party at once or we’ll leave without you!”
“All right,” Rudi said. “Scrag, tell Andy we waited as long as possible. If Charlie doesn’t make it, throw him in the Gottverdammstechen brig! Goddamn Alitalia for being early. Everyone on.” He handed his boarding pass to the attractive flight attendant and went through the barrier and stood on the other side, checking them through, Freddy Ayre, Pop Kelly, Willi, Ed Vossi, Sandor, Nogger Lane, Scot last and dawdling until he could wait no longer. “Hey, Scrag, tell the Old Man okay for me.”
“Sure, sport.” Scragger waved as he vanished into Security, then turned away, heading for his own gate the other side of the terminal, Kasigi waiting there already, brightened as he saw Pettikin running through the crowd, hand in hand with Paula, Gavallan twenty paces behind. Pettikin gave her a hurried embrace and rushed for the barrier.
“For Gawd’s sake, Charlie…”
“Don’t give me a hard time, Scrag, had to wait for Andy,” Charlie said, almost out of breath. He handed over his boarding pass, blew a beaming kiss to Paula, went through the barrier, and was gone.
“Hi, Paula, wot’s cooking?”
Paula was breathless too but radiant. She put her arm through his, gave him a little shrug: “Charlie asked me to spend his leave with him, caro, in South Africa - I’ve relations near Cape Town, a sister and her family, so I said why not?”
“Why not indeed! Does that mean th - ”
“Sorry, Scrag!” Gavallan called out, joining them. He was puffing but twenty years younger. “Sorry, been on the phone for half an hour, looks like we’ve lost the bloody ExTex Saudi contract and part of the North Sea but to hell with that - great news!” He beamed and another ten years fell away, behind him the sun touched the horizon. “Erikki called as I was half out the door, he’s safe, so’s Azadeh, they’re safe in Turkey and…”
“Hallelujah!” Scragger burst out over him, and from the depths of the waiting area past Security there was a vast cheer from the others, the news given them by Pettikin.
“… and then I had a call from a friend in Japan. How much time have we?” “Plenty, twenty minutes, why? You just missed Scot, he said to give you a message: ‘Tell the Old Man okay.’”
Gavallan smiled. “Good. Thanks.” Now he had regained his breath. “I’ll catch you up, Scrag. Wait for me, Paula, won’t be a moment.” He went over to the JAL information counter. “Evening, could you tell me, please, when’s your next flight out of Bahrain for Hong Kong?”
The receptionist tapped the keys of the computer. “Eleven forty-two tonight, Sayyid.”
“Excellent.” Gavallan took out his tickets. “Cancel me off BA’s London flight tonight and put me on th - ” Loudspeakers came to life and drowned him out with the all-pervading call to prayer. An immediate hush fell on the airport.
And high up in the vast reaches of the Zagros Mountains, five hundred miles northward, Hussain Kowissi slid off his horse, then helped his young son to make the camel kneel. He wore a Kash’kai belted sheepskin coat over his black robes, a white turban, his Kalashnikov slung on his back. Both were solemn, the little boy’s face puffy from all the tears. Together they tethered the animals, found their prayer mats, faced Mecca, and began. A chill wind whined around them, blowing snow from the high drifts. The half-obscured sunset showed through a narrow band of sky under the encroaching, nimbus-filled overcast that was again heavy with storm and with snow. Prayers were soon said.
“We’ll camp here tonight, my son.”
“Yes, Father.” Obediently the little boy helped with the unloading, a spill of tears again on his cheeks. Yesterday his mother had died. “Father, will Mother be in Paradise when we get there?”
“I don’t know, my son. Yes, I think so.” Hussain kept the grief off his face. The birthing had been long and cruel, nothing he could do to help her but hold her hand and pray that she and the child would be spared and that the midwife was skilled. The midwife was skilled but the child was stillborn, the hemorrhaging would not stop and what was ordained came to pass.
As God wants, he had said. But for once that did not help him. He had buried her and the stillborn child. In great sadness he had gone to his cousin - also a mullah - and had given him and his wife his two infant sons to rear, and his place at the mosque until the congregation chose his successor. Then, with his remaining son, he had turned his back on Kowiss. “Tomorrow we will be down in the plains, my son. It will be warmer.” “I’m very hungry, Father,” the little boy said.
“So am I, my son,” he said kindly. “Was it ever different?” “Will we be martyred soon?”
“In God’s time.”
The little boy was six and he found many things hard to understand but not that. In God’s time we get to Paradise where it’s warm and green and there’s more food than you can eat and cool clean water to drink. But what about… “Are there joubs in Paradise?” he asked in his piping little voice, snuggling against his father for greater warmth.
Hussain put his arm around him. “No, my son, I don’t think so. No joubs or the need for them.” Awkwardly he continued cleaning the action of his gun with a piece of oiled cloth. “No need for joubs.”
“That’ll be very strange, Father, very strange. Why did we leave home? Where are we going?”
“At first northwest, a long way, my son. The Imam has saved Iran but Muslims north, south, east, and west are beset with enemies. They need help and guidance and the Word.”
“The Imam, God’s peace on him, has he sent you?”
“No, my son. He orders nothing, just guides. I go to do God’s work freely, of my own choice, a man is free to choose what he must do.” He saw the little boy’s frown and he gave him a little hug, loving him. “Now we are soldiers of God.”
“Oh, good, I will be a good soldier. Will you tell me again why you let those Satanists go, the ones at our base, and let them take away our air machines?”
“Because of the leader, the captain,” Hussain said patiently. “I think he was an instrument of God, he opened my eyes to God’s message that I should seek life and not martyrdom, to leave the time of martyrdom to God. And also because he gave into my hands an invincible weapon against the enemies of Islam, Christians and Jews: the knowledge that they regard individual human life sacrosanct.”
The little boy stifled a yawn. “What’s sacrosanct mean?”
“They believe the life of an individual is priceless, any individual. We know all life comes from God, belongs to God, returns to God, and any life only has value doing God’s work. Do you understand, my son?” “I think so,” the little boy said, very tired now. “So long as we do God’s work we go to Paradise and Paradise is forever?”
“Yes, my son. Using what the pilot taught, one Believer can put his foot on the neck of ten millions. We will spread this word, you and I…” Hussain was very content that his purpose was clear. Curious, he thought, that the man Starke showed me the path. “We are neither Eastern, nor Western, only Islam. Do you understand, my son?”
But there was no answer. The little boy was fast asleep. Hussain cradled him, watching the dying sun. The tip vanished. “God is Great,” he said to the mountains and to the sky and to the night. “There is no other God but God…”