2013: Beyond Armageddon (8 page)

Tarik let his gaze drift around the room, savoring the memories, and thanked Allah for allowing an Arab to have a good living in what was essentially a Jewish town.

It had been a good run, but since turning eighty several years ago his body had been giving out. It was finally time to close up for good. Only six customers for lunch, but what bothered him much more was that not a soul had stopped in for breakfast. The Oasis had been
the
place to have breakfast for years.

Tarik ran his gnarled hand through what was left of his white hair. After all these years his conscience would still not leave him in peace. For the ten thousandth time that nagging voice reminded him that he had abandoned his tribe and fled with the money from the scroll. Months after his thievery, gnawing guilt had made him risk being seen to go back into Jerusalem and check on the priest, only to find he had stolen the scrolls and—like himself—disappeared without a trace.

Tarik made a dismissive little wave and drank the last of his espresso. Ancient history. Again he tried to convince himself that the scrolls weren’t really cursed, that he had just been a naïve young man who believed too much in the superstitions of his tribe.

Tribe. He glanced down at himself in a suit and tie. Money had taken him a long way from his tribe. Unwilling to share with them his ill-gotten gains, he’d Westernized his name to Tarik Waheed, drifted north and become a businessman. And a good one. The Oasis had survived decades of turmoil to become an institution. He consoled himself that he had instilled in his son a tolerance and understanding of the different cultures of the world. His favorite times had been sitting in this chair, holding court, looking out at the street, savoring his good fortune, feeling as though it had all been worthwhile. And through it all, inside him had beat the heart of a Bedouin.

Tarik finished his espresso while making a last feeble effort to convince himself that premonitions and curses were superstitious nonsense, but he could not shake the uneasy feeling. He’d had it that night in the doorway, the last time he’d seen the priest.

I hope the scrolls brought the priest fame and fortune.

With a sudden overpowering sorrow he knew he had been kidding himself all these years. A priest does not pay that much of his Pope’s money for two scrolls and then steal them and disappear. Something very bad must have happened. Tarik knew—had always known—that the scrolls had cost the priest much more than money. They had cost him his faith.

Which meant they had cost him his soul.

The Bedouin looked at the suit he wore and realized they had done the same to him.

These last few years had been the worst. His dying business had forced him to find another source of income to keep it alive. Once again he had turned a blind eye to his principles and become a middleman in the antiquities market. Bedouin sold archaeological artifacts to him, and he in turn sold them to the Palestinian who had a thriving market in the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem. Tarik knew the goods were stolen, and that his Arab friend’s hatred of Israel and the West meant some of the proceeds would help to fund terrorism. He had rationalized it away by telling himself that a man had to look out for himself and his family first, and that he was helping his Bedouin kinsmen do the same.

He could rationalize no more. It was all over.

He gazed into the bottom of his empty espresso cup. Many Greek customers over the years had told of their custom of reading the grounds to predict the future.

The Bedouin stared long and hard into the thick black sludge. He saw no answers, only the quicksand that was his life.

Washington, D.C. October 5

Leah glanced from their booth at the Bipartisan toward the loud macho posturing at the bar. Happy hour on a Friday. The weekend warriors were five deep, alcohol and testosterone stoking their bloodlust as they got louder and louder about which football team’s ass was going to get kicked. Some of the women were right in there with them, laughing and sizing up the big manly studs. She was so glad to be out of all that.

Hurry up, Zeke. It had been fun going over strategy for his surprise birthday party tomorrow, but she wished he would hurry. The longer they were here the more it took away from their romantic evening.

She looked at the happy faces at her table. Hank and Rita Sloan across from her, Zeke’s sister Valerie beside her. She felt a familiar pang of sadness at how much happier she felt with Zeke’s family than she had ever felt with her own. Her parents had divorced over twenty years ago and still couldn’t be in the same room together. Her sister had never recovered from their incessant arguing and had become an alcoholic. Leah hadn’t spoken to any of them in years, didn’t even have their addresses.

Hank told the waiter to bring the second round of their two-for-one cocktails. Leah watched Zeke’s father with admiration. He was a large man, aging gracefully with a full head of nicely cut white hair. He and Rita were high school sweethearts. They had the kind of loving, comfortable relationship she hoped she and Zeke would have.

The waiter brought the second round and Hank held up his glass. “Hey, this is a happy hour, right? Let’s take a minute to count our blessings. First and foremost, thanks for our health, our love, all the good things that have happened to us along the way.”

They chimed their agreement and drank.

Hank held his glass up again. “Speaking of good things happening along the way, here’s to Leah. We couldn’t have wished for a better wife for Zeke. I guess since you’re technically a wife-to-be, I’d like to take this occasion to semi-officially welcome you to our family. Have you two set a date yet?”

“No, but I’m thinking we will this weekend. I know he’s ready, and so am I.”

Still holding up his glass, Hank said, “We love you, kiddo.”

“Yes,” Rita echoed softly, eyes shining with emotion. Leah heard Valerie sniffle beside her and started to laugh.

“Jesus Christ,” Hank said. “You people will cry at a good steak.”

In the year she and Zeke had been dating, Hank had used that line many times, and it was funny every time. Leah loved being part of a family that wasn’t afraid to express their emotions. Such a refreshing change from her own, where everybody always kept everything inside, except for the constant explosions of anger by her parents. She couldn’t remember ever hearing the word “love.” With Zeke she heard it every day.

Hank went on. “Let’s see if we can get through this without getting thrown out before Zeke even gets here, all right?” He held for the laugh, then proposed another toast.

“Here’s to Zeke. He’ll be… pushing fifty tomorrow. We thought we’d never get that boy married.”

Leah smiled and blushed. Rita, sitting to his left by the window, gave him a playful slap on the shoulder. “Hank.”

“Ouch, woman.” He rubbed the spot with comical exaggeration, then looked at her tenderly. “He turned out to be a pretty good kid, didn’t he, sweetheart?”

“He was always good.”

Hank shrugged an apology to Leah for doting on their son. “I know all parents say that, but she’s right. Even when he was real little you could see it. Most little kids scream bloody murder when you try to take their toys, but Zeke would come over and give it to you, like he wanted you to have it. There was always some charity drive going on—you know us Catholics—and Zeke always led the class in selling cookies, raffle tickets, whatever. Then he couldn’t wait to be an altar boy. He almost became a priest, until he discovered girls. Did you know about that, Leah?”

“What? That he wanted to be a priest, or that he discovered girls?”

Rita elbowed the side of his bicep.

“What? I don’t mean to be crude, but if he’s still a virgin at his age—”

“Dad.”
Valerie’s face was red.

“He’s right,” Leah said. “Pushing fifty and still a virgin might not exactly be ideal husband material. And yes, Zeke did tell me about the priest thing. He applied to the seminary at Catholic University but changed his mind. The girls thing.”

Hank held up his glass. “Thank goodness he chose girls, or we wouldn’t have you.”

Rita’s eyes welled up again. Hank saw it and wiped his hand over his face and looked away. “You people are embarrassing. We’ve barely finished one drink. I’d hate to see how you get when you’re really sloshed.” Warm laughter once more enveloped the table.

Rita said, “I was just remembering how close we came to losing him. And you. Both at the same time.”

“I guess Zeke told you about that, too,” Hank said.

Leah nodded. “He was hit by a car and you were shot down in Vietnam, right?”

A cloud came over Hank’s face. “December ’72. I was co-pilot on a B-52. The so-called Paris Peace Talks had fallen apart, and we got orders to bomb the bejeezus out of North Vietnam, help them make up their minds. The Christmas Bombings, they became known as. Our plane got shot down. I was lucky. The cease-fire was signed a month later, and we were released in February. Operation Homecoming.”

“Thank God,” Rita said. “It took a couple weeks before they could tell me you were still alive. The Christmas from hell.” She caressed his arm where she’d hit it before. “For you much more than me. You ended up at the Hanoi Hilton with a broken leg.”

“The Hanoi Hilton,” Hank said. “Those were some first-class accommodations.”

“Zeke told me about it,” Leah said. “Hoa Lo, right? One of the worst places for a POW.”

“It wasn’t nice. It was a 19th-century prison built by the French. It still had a guillotine in it, although I don’t know if it was ever used on any of us. They’d take you in and show it to you, though, make you think you were next. They whacked my broken leg a few times, probably why it didn’t heal right. Put a little hitch in my giddyup.”

Hank stared at his drink, his mind starting to wander down those dank corridors.

“Don’t think about it, sweetheart,” Rita said. “I’m sorry I brought it up.”

“No, it’s fine. I was just remembering something I haven’t thought about all these years. At the time it bothered me more than the beatings. It was this other POW. Some kid, a grunt right out of high school. Weird SOB. He’d been there a few months, most of it in solitary. A little while after I got there, they let him back into the general population. Barely said a word.

“Anyway, on Sundays they let us use one of the rooms as a chapel. One of the guys was a chaplain, and we’d have a little mass. One day this guy walks in and starts saying we can forget all this ‘God shit,’ he’s already tried it and look what it got him. He’s turned to Satan, he says, and that’s who’s going to get him out of there. Then he pointed all around the room, calling us the enemy, saying we’d be punished for our sins.”

“That’s awful,” Leah said.

“Yeah. For a while I wondered if there was something to the Satan thing, because a couple weeks later the guy escaped. And nobody escaped from the Hanoi Hilton.”

Rita shook her head against the Satan theory, then said, “Meanwhile, the doctor is telling me that Zeke had actually been dead for twelve minutes. The priest had already given him Extreme Unction.”

“Okay then,” Valerie said. “That was an interesting trip down memory lane. On the bright side, that’s why I’m here. As soon as dad got home, they decided to have another kid.”

Hank held up his glass yet again. “Another blessing. Here’s to life. And the Man Upstairs.”

Leah’s mind drifted to the evening she had planned with Zeke. First a candlelight dinner she had prepped last night, then a massage, then a bubble bath with drinks, then…

Having him spend the night was also a ploy so his folks could sneak over tonight and tomorrow to get his place ready for the party. The cleverness of their scheme made her smile. “I can’t wait to see Zeke’s face when he sees the home theater you got him.”

“Oh, he’s going to love it,” Rita said. “You know how he loves movies. I wonder where he got that from?” She gave Hank a coy look.

“Hey. There are worse things for a kid to be hooked on.” He looked at his drink with a raised eyebrow. “We really do need to cut ourselves off after this. We don’t need to be trying to set everything up half-drunk. I snuck by there earlier with the van and hid all the stuff in the guest room. You’ve got Zeke detail, right Leah?”

“It’s a tough job but somebody’s got to do it. He won’t be there until seven tomorrow night.”

“Perfect.” He held up his glass again. “Well, there is one more announcement I want to make, since we’re talking about movies. The deal on the business closed today. Hank’s Video is no more.”

“Dad!” Valerie said. “That’s terrific!”

Rita just looked at him and smiled. Leah could guess what was going through her mind.

Hank had opened one small store in 1979, mostly because of a love of movies that ran in his family. They had never expected to get rich, just supplement his Army pension and disability payments. But fueled by Hank’s passion for movies and his military attention to detail, the store had grown into a chain. When Hank hit seventy last year, he and Rita had decided to sell, and use some of that hard-earned money to do all the things they had put on hold for so long.

“Come here, woman.” Hank wrapped his arm around his wife. “First thing we’re gonna do is take that cruise to Alaska.”

As Rita’s head landed softly on his shoulder, Leah saw a man in a long overcoat walk by the window very fast. She wondered where he was going in such a hurry. She looked at her watch. Six-forty.

The man in the long overcoat burst through the front door. He brushed past the hostess into the middle of the room. All in one motion he flung open his coat and brought the rifle up to his shoulder. Despite the screaming diving mayhem, Leah saw Hank coolly assessing the situation.

“DOWN!”

They dove for the floor, knocking the table over as they went. Hank spread his arms out to protect Rita. Valerie pushed Leah further behind her.

The gunman began screaming gibberish and opened fire.

Amid a cacophony of death the killer turned in a frenzied circle, spraying bullets wildly. Leah saw Zeke come through the door. He had a bouquet of flowers in his hand. She watched in horror as he dove behind the hostess stand.