“What are you thinking about?” asked Redbeard.

“I’m remembering the day we met.”

Rakkim had been dressed as a religious student that morning, a schoolboy in a white jerkin, when he’d spotted Redbeard bustling down Pine Street. He knew from the way people scuttled out of his path that Redbeard was a man of importance, but Rakkim had held his ground, the Holy Qur’an clutched to his bosom, lips moving rapidly as he recited the verses he had memorized. Redbeard had stopped, questioned him on some point of Qur’anic law, and not getting the response he wanted, had cuffed Rakkim aside. Rakkim used the blow to pluck Redbeard’s wallet, backed away, sniffling phony tears. He almost made it into the alley before Redbeard grabbed him, shook him so hard his teeth rattled.

“See this one?” Redbeard pointed at a tiny frog perched on a blade of grass, the frog almost translucent in the pale light, its throat thrumming with every breath. “His species lives on condensation and algae. The invisible thriving on the ineffable. I treasure his kind-life at the margins of existence shows us the mercy of Allah.” He looked up at Rakkim. “That day we met, I saw a skinny thief with steady eyes, a boy who did not shrink from my grasp or beg to be released, but fought until he was exhausted.” He smiled. “You were lucky my curiosity was greater than my sense of justice.”

“I thought you were going to take me to the children’s prison. If I had known who you were, I would have been even more frightened to remain in your company.”

Redbeard watched the frog, fascinated, as though he had never seen one before.

“Then I met Angelina and I wasn’t afraid anymore.” Rakkim knelt beside him, watching the frog breathe, its green skin glistening. “I told myself that if she could survive your foul nature, so could I.”

“She spoiled you. She barely left the kitchen that first week, turning out omelets and steaks and fried potatoes-to this day, I never saw anyone eat like you.” The frog hopped away, finding refuge in the deeper grasses closer to the creek. “I told her you were a thief, but she just kept cooking, said in the eyes of Allah we were all thieves. I warned her not to get her hopes up, that I wasn’t sure you were going to be staying, but she knew that I had already decided.”

“So did I. I didn’t understand it then, but I was just what you were looking for.”

“I thought so anyway.” Redbeard raked a hand through his beard. “I never married. I had enough work, more than enough, but a son…I always thought a son would be a good thing. A son to stand beside me, a son to carry on afterwards.” In the heart of the water garden, a bird cried out, and Redbeard stood up, moving slower than Rakkim expected. “It was a vain and foolish wish.”

“Do you regret bringing me home that day?”

“What does it matter now?”

“It matters to me.”

“Regrets are for poets and women,” said Redbeard.

“It was my fault,” said Rakkim, tired of the pretense, the game, always the game, a game in which Redbeard got to make the rules. “The Super Bowl was my idea. No matter what Sarah told you, it was my idea.”

“Spare me the chivalry, Sarah has been ungovernable since she was born.” Redbeard wrinkled his brow. “What about the Super Bowl?”

Rakkim remained wary. An admission of guilt was never the last word for Redbeard, it was merely a beginning. Each thread had to be followed until all involved were snared, all named, so that new threads could be unraveled and followed in their turn. “Sarah and I were supposed to meet at the Super Bowl. Isn’t that why you brought me here?”

“I wish it was just a matter of you two disobeying me.” Redbeard seemed to lose his balance for an instant, but quickly recovered. “I need your help. Sarah…Sarah’s gone.”

CHAPTER 4

The Wise Old One watched his aide prostrate himself against the carpet, and he couldn’t remember the boy’s name. John, that was it. Named after the prophet that the Christians called John the Baptist. The one who had announced the coming of the Jesus. John, yes, that was the name of this youngster slowly getting to his feet. A popular name. So many aides now, so many more over the years, it was hard to remember all of them. The Old One’s birth name was Hassan Muhammad, but he hadn’t been called that in many years. The sound of his own name would be foreign to him now, even if there had been someone present who remembered it.

“Redbeard has brought in his nephew,” said the aide, his voice soft and uninflected, as though passion would hurt the Old One’s ears. So many fools who confused age with weakness.

“His name is Rakkim and he is no nephew,” chided the Old One. “He is a pawn raised by Redbeard to be a knight.”

The aide pressed himself against the carpet, a sallow intellectual with a scruff of blond beard. His white tunic and baggy trousers were supposed to imply purity, but to the Old One they revealed only a bland adherence to form. In time the boy would learn that though the Old One valued devotion, he valued intelligence even more. Devotion alone limited the ways a tool could be used.

The Old One sat on an embroidered yellow love seat, arms casually spread across the back. His beard neatly groomed, his long, thinning white hair combed straight back as in his youth, the regal elegance of a vain man whose vanity had only grown with time. He crossed his bony shanks, admiring the sharp crease in his cuffs. Many of his aides preferred robes and tunics and slippers, but he preferred suits from Barrons Ltd., and supple, black tassel loafers, a remnant of his British education. The English were a wan and bloodless race, but their tailors were still the best in the world. Today’s suit was a dark blue, double-breasted, and a custom, ivory dress shirt with a regimental tie. Windsor knot, of course, and lapis lazuli cuff links. He examined his manicure, then peered down from the dais. “How fresh is this news about Rakkim?”

“We believe he is still at Redbeard’s villa,” said the aide, still on his belly.

“You believe?”

“Yes…yes, Mahdi.”

Mahdi. His aides had called him that more often lately. The Mahdi was the awaited one, the enlightened one written of in the scriptures. A messianic figure prophesied to appear at the end of time, when Muslims were most in peril. Destined to unite the believers, the Mahdi would lead them to a great victory over the infidels and usher in an era of peace and justice. A one-world caliphate. The first time the Old One had been called Mahdi, he had been annoyed, feeling it was presumptuous, and there had been others thought to be the enlightened one, bumblers like Osama, who had not lived up to the calling. Now…the Old One decided that he would leave his naming, as all things, to Allah.

“In deepest secrecy, Redbeard sent a mission into the outskirts of the city earlier tonight,” hurried the aide. “Our brothers followed them, but it was a ruse. While we gave chase, a trio of Redbeard’s agents stole into the Zone and brought Rakkim to the villa in an ambulance, sirens howling. Redbeard often has ambulances visit, so that we never know his true medical condition.”

The Old One rolled his eyes. He did not need this wispy-bearded youth to muddle through Redbeard’s strategy for him.

“The deception failed,” said the aide.

“The deception didn’t fail, otherwise you would know whether Rakkim was still at the villa,” corrected the Old One. “Who alerted you that Rakkim had been picked up?”

“We…we got a phone call from one of our sympathizers in the Zone.” The aide’s lower lip quivered. “It…it took some time for the call to be made, and for the information to be forwarded.”

“So we got lucky.” The Old One smiled. “Don’t look so frightened, I’ve been lucky all my life, thanks be to Allah.” He admired his reflection in the shine of his right shoe. “Still, don’t you think we should have had a brother watching Rakkim, rather than depend on the beneficence of God?”