Nowhere Land: A Stephan Raszer Investigation (60 page)

    
“We welcome to our number,” announced
Chrétien, “Father Gilles Deleuze of Taize, who wishes to be escorted to Na-Koja-Abad,
the eighth climate. In the shadow of Na-Koja-Abad, in the place called El
Mirai, he hopes to find the one who goes by the world-name of Katy Endicott,
and deliver her safely into our care. We pledge to him our protection, insofar
as it is in our power to grant it, and ask now that the Green Man, al Khezr,
guide us beyond the crossroads. In the name of the creator, Khawandagar, and of
the uncreated, Haq, let it be so.”

    
“Let it be so,” chanted the group.

    
“We ask also that our actions take place in
the eternally created present, that there be no thought of past or future, and
that we be guided only by the truth as first shown to us by our beloved baba.
The world begins now.”

    
“The world begins now,” they all repeated.

    
“And from
alam-al-mithal
, the middle world, we call a servitor, spirit of
Shams of Taos.”

    
“For every beginning, there is an end,“
said Francesca, initiating a litany.

    
“For every lord, a vassal,” said Dante.

    
“For every angel, a devil,” followed
Mikail.

    
“For every life, a death,” said Jean.

    
“For every height, an equal depth,” said
the fifth.

    
“For every joy, an equal sorrow.”

    
“For every kindness, an equal cruelty,”
said the seventh.

    
“For every pleasure, an equal pain.”

    
“For every good, an equal evil.”

    
“For every truth, an equal lie.”

    
“For every soul in the other world, a soul
embodied.”

    
“For every heaven, an abyss,” said
Francesca, closing the circle.

    
“So taught our baba,” said Chrétien. “Peace
be unto him.”

    
“Peace be unto him,” they all said.

    
“Woof!” came an echo.

    
At some point during the recitation, a new
member had joined the circle, its presence evidenced only by a soft panting.
The dog, which Raszer guessed to be some kind of Irish wolfhound, had appeared
Francesca’s right and was now resting its muzzle on her skirts.

    
“Father Deleuze,” she announced, “we would
like you to meet our baba, Shaykh Adi, master and protector of our circle.”

    
“Shaykh Adi . . . ” Raszer repeated.

    
“He returned from the Eighth Climate to be
our guide and guardian.”

    
“The hardest kind of evil for people to
see,” said Dante, “is the evil that looks like good. But Shaykh Adi sniffs that
shit right out. He finds the snake under the rock.”

    
 
“He
chose the form of a dog because the dog is sacred to our faith. You see,” she
said, rising from the circle and indicating the crypt wall. “Here he is.”

    
Painted in natural pigments that might have
been millennia old were a series of figures, among them what was clearly a
canine holding a wriggling snake in its jaws.

    
“In the native religions of the Kurdish
people,” Francesca explained, “dogs symbolize harmony and unity; snakes stand
for discord and separation. Not in a dualistic way, but as counterbalancing
forces. You can’t have one without the other.”

    
Nearby was an elegant symbol from whose
north pole seven gently arching ribs flowed like lines of longitude, passing
through an array of seven beads at the equator and rejoining at the south end
of the axis, where they formed a vortex leading back up the circle by way of a
vulvalike ellipse at the center.

    
“And that,” Raszer said, indicating the
symbol. “Tell me about that.”

    
“At the top,” Francesca replied, “is the Haq,
the pearl of the godhead, and emanating from that is Khawandagar, the creator.
The seven arcs are the seven avatars of each of the world’s ages. They’re our
guides through all incarnations until we reach full humanity. Jesus was one of
them; so was the Prophet, and Isaac, and Ali. We can flow back to the source
through these, or we can, if our hearts are strong enough and the Khezr is
willing to guide us, take a shortcut through the center—”

    
“And then what happens?”

    
“We learn to live simultaneously in two
worlds,” she replied. “Our physical bodies remain in the world of
zahir
. But our subtle bodies pass
through the eye of the heart”—she placed her finger in the center of the
ellipsis—“and merge with the world of forms. We put on the psychic skin of our
avatars, and evil can’t touch us—”

    
“Because you’ve shed your own skin?” Raszer
asked.

    
“You’ve got it,” said Chrétien. “But it’s a
real trick to maintain that state. The subtle body flickers on and off like a
strobe . . . sometimes even like a dying bulb. Sometimes you lose it
altogether, and you’re stuck back in the world, washing dishes and swatting
mosquitoes.”

    
“And that can get dangerous,” said Dante.
“Because when you walk the middle path, you can just as easily fall toward evil
as good.”

    
“So we try to straddle,” said Chrétien.

    
“And you’re straddling now?” asked Raszer.

    
“Can’t you feel it?”

    
Shaykh Adi gave a soft but emphatic bark,
and his eyes glowed. The dog seemed to know. The dog, Raszer could persuade
himself, did seem to be in two worlds.

    
Francesca smiled at his recognition. “The
Kurds who live between here and Hâkkari practice the oldest organized religion
in the world. Organized, meaning it has a cosmology and shared ritual. It
influenced the Essenes and early Christianity. It shaped the Romans when they came
here as conquerors and turned them on to Mithras, who is one of its avatars. It
nearly absorbed Shia Islam in the Middle Ages, and still colors it. It sent the
crusaders back to southern France, singing troubadour songs to the Lady—who is
our lady, the lady of the Fedeli. It branched off into Baha’i in the nineteenth
century. And it’s the bedrock of the Bektash Sufis, who roam all over these
lands. The Cult of the Angels, they call it. It’s the face behind the veil.”

    
“And what about the other cult?” asked
Raszer. “The cult of the Old Man.”

    
“If you go back far enough,” said Chrétien,
“it’s a graft from the same tree. But so were Cain and Abel. The original
Ismaili Assassins—back in the eleventh and twelfth centuries—they were
Gnostics, mystical terrorists. Omar Khayyám was down with them. So was Shams of
Tabriz. And the Templars carried their wisdom back to Europe. On seventeen
Ramazan—the eighth of August in 1164, Hassan II, the son of Hassan-i-Sabbah,
declared the Qiyamat, the great resurrection. The chains of worldly law were
broken, and every man and woman was freed to live in the spirit as the vassal
of his or her own lord. Like the ’60s, only without the bad acid. Nothing is
true, all is permitted.”

    
“But that was meant to apply to life in the
resurrection body—the body without organs. The lords of this world misread the
message…used it as a cover for lawlessness and greed. That’s the problem with
the world—the rulers can’t read poetry.”

    
“So,” said Raszer, “the Old Man
appropriates the belief system of the Nizaris, offers his followers a paradise
on Earth, and rents his services out to Islamist and Christian fanatics alike,
knowing that he’ll wind up in the catbird’s seat if he can mediate their common
agenda. Is that about the size of it?”
  

    
“There’s a war on for the soul of the
world,” said Francesca.

    
“Look at where we are now,” said Chrétien,
picking up Francesca’s thread. “American troops and missile launchers all along
the Iraqi border with Syria, Turkey, and Iran. The Yanks have lost the Kurds—if
they ever really had them—because they reneged on their promises in order to
placate Turkey. And they’ve catalyzed a regional war. Syria’s one big arms
bazaar and a conduit for human traffic. Israel’s
pincered
between
two conflicting Palestinian states. Everybody’s locked into conflict, with no
way out. The world is in a preapocalyptic state.”

    
“Seems that way,” said Raszer. “Since
you’re the crew that’s going to take me across this battlefield, I guess I
should ask: Who are your friends and, more important, who are your enemies?”

    
“You’d be better to ask who
isn’t
our enemy,” Francesca replied.
“We’re a threat to everyone from emperors to schoolteachers. Right now, we’re a
particular threat to the Old Man’s recruitment effort, because pilgrims pass
through here on their way to him.”

    
“As far as friends go,” said Chrétien, “we
can count on the Yazdani spiritual leaders—the genuine ones—and the Bektash
Sufis . . . when we can find them. And the Kurdish tribesmen…if they aren’t
under the Old Man’s boot.”

    
“Those are good friends to have in this
neighborhood,” said Raszer. “And if we need muscle . . . to get Katy safely out
of the country?”

    
Dante answered. “Hired guns aren’t hard to
find here.”

    
“How large is the Old Man’s posse?” Raszer
asked. “Hundreds? Thousands?”

    
“At least three thousand at El Mirai,” said
Chrétien. “And more scattered around the globe.”

    
“Jesus. All from The Gauntlet?”

    
“No. Only his assassins-in-training. The
others are captured, like your girl, or put into debt bondage—only he gets a
little help in that regard. There are field agents—church pimps, to put it
plainly—planted within theocratic ministries on both sides who single out the
most alienated, most antisocial, most hopeless of their flock.”

    
An image of Amos Leach flickered onto
Raszer’s mental screen.

    
“And,” added Chrétien, “he’s got
mercenaries at his disposal—both local tribes-men and professionals.”

    
“I guess I should have figured that,” said
Raszer. “When do we leave?”

    
“Soon,” replied Chrétien. “But first, we
dance. And make you over.”

    
“Right . . . Dante mentioned a party.
What’s the occasion?”

    
Dante grinned. “Ever hear of the Ayini
Jam?”

    
“The spring equinox festival?”

    
The boys looked at each other. Dante
answered. “It’s going on all over Kurd country. Peaks two nights from now.
That’s when the candles get blown out.”

    
Raszer cocked an eyebrow.

    
“And,” concluded Francesca, “you’ll never
be afraid of the dark again.”

    
Monica
dragged her latest files into the folder named Ka’ba on her computer’s desktop.
As was to be expected with web-based research, some of the material was
dubious, some seemingly authoritative. A piece by a goddess scholar named Rufus
Camphausen even came with pictures of the rarely photographed black stone,
secured in the corner of the shrine by an oval-shaped silver band and
looking—Monica had to admit—like a vagina. What a twist. The same puritanical
Muslim men who wouldn’t allow their wives to leave the house unaccompanied,
lining up to kiss the cunt of a pre-Islamic goddess. It was four o’clock in the
afternoon, and she decided it was time for tea.

    
Four monitors were arrayed at her
workstation, each one with multiple windows open, each of them displaying
information related to Raszer’s current assignment. Monica scanned them to be
sure she’d saved anything newly written or discovered, then rose from the
console, empty cup in hand. As she began making her way to the kitchen, the
room grew suddenly dimmer. The effect was like that of a partial eclipse, but
there were no acts of God scheduled for today that she knew of. The floor lamps
in Raszer’s sunken living room had dulled to a sort of burnt umber, and she saw
ahead that the light over his slate-topped bar was flickering.

    
“Shit,” she said out loud, and turned in
alarm toward the office. “It’s a brownout.”

    
She hurried back toward her station, intent
on saving and shutting down before there was a power spike—a constant hazard in
L.A. She got to the threshold just in time to see the first of the viral worms
crawling across the monitor screen on the left. It was computer language, but
not one she recognized. The characters now gobbling up her research were none
that had origins on her keyboard in any configuration she knew. They streamed
in from the upper right-hand corner of the screens, leaving gibberish in their
wake. Her throat tightened, constricting her windpipe.