Tongues of Fire (41 page)

That was it. He wanted to live. It was time to forget about Israel. That meant forgetting Naomi, Lena, and his mother too. He would do it. He would try. He had suffered enough. The sacrifice was over.

Behind him on the deck everyone was asleep. He knew it was the same on the other boats on the sea that night. They all loved the Mahdi. Hundreds of thousands of people were doing what he had planned so long ago. Millions more were believing what he had wanted them to believe. The Red Sea had parted for him.

The dream was coming true. But it meant nothing to him. His dream belonged to death. He wanted to live. The ships, the people, the Mahdi—these he had created, and he could destroy. Then he would take his boy back somewhere safe, where he could live the life he had not had, the normal life that everyone had a right to.

The thought excited him, and made him dizzy. He was weak. Life in the cubicle had made him weak. He lay down on the deck and rested. He was weak and tired. He closed his eyes. No. Don't sleep. He opened them. It was too dark to see.

He heard a voice: “Hurry up with that blanket.”

Someone answered: “I'm coming.” There was a pause.

Then the first voice: “Oh, God. Look at his back.”

He looked up. It was too dark to see whoever it was. “I'm all right,” he said. “Just resting.” He took a deep breath and felt better.

Dawn came at last, a slice of gold in the eastern sky. Rehv rose and looked over the prow of the fishing boat. He saw Arabia; it was an easy swim away. On the shore waited crowds of people. Everywhere boats were gliding in to land.

A helicopter flew by, very low. A cameraman leaned out of the open doorway and started filming. CBS it said on the side of the cabin.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Inside the Sacred Mosque at Mecca there was no room to move. Wedged tightly between hot bodies, Krebs stood in the huge uncovered square in the center of the mosque. It was enclosed on all sides by two tiers of galleries, packed just as densely with people: men, women, children; white, yellow, brown, black. More were squeezed on the wide roofs over the galleries. Human heat rose in the air and shimmered in the morning light.

Not far in front of him he could see the Kaaba, the holy shrine of Islam: a cube as tall as a village church, draped with gold-embroidered black cloth. In one corner was sealed the Black Stone. Black-and-gold carpeted portable stairs had been rolled to one side of the Kaaba. Krebs was not as close to it as he wanted to be, but he did not try to push forward. If he attracted attention he might have to talk: in forbidden territory for a non-Muslim. He would have to do what he could from where he was. He kept his mouth shut and did what everyone else was doing: He waited and watched the small golden doors at the base of the Kaaba. It was quiet.

The sun rose higher in the sky, drawing moisture from countless pores and bathing the crowd in communal sweat. Krebs barely felt the heat. At first he had worried about how far he was from the Kaaba, and about his eyesight, which had never been as good after that night in Kordofan. But then he had suddenly realized how clearly he was seeing everything: the faded patterns etched on the black cloth, the red eye of a bird flying overhead, a mole on the edge of someone's earlobe. Not since childhood had he seen so sharply. He had stopped worrying.

Now he was calm. He watched the golden doors and waited. He was waiting for the two other non-Muslims he knew were in the mosque: the Mahdi and Isaac Rehv. He was very patient. He had waited a long time. A few more hours made no difference.

The doors opened. A tall broad man in a white robe and a white turban walked out. Krebs looked closely at his face. It was a brown face, much darker than Isaac Rehv's, but he could see something of Rehv around the mouth, the bridge of the nose, and especially in the eyes.

It was the Mahdi. He turned and started climbing the stairs to the top of the Kaaba. Three old men came through the doors and followed him up the stairs. In a glance Krebs saw that Isaac Rehv was not one of them. He recognized the king of the Saudis, the president of Egypt, and the shah of Iran. They wore simple white robes like the Mahdi's.

Rising onto the balls of his feet, Krebs stared into the shadows beyond the golden doors, straining to glimpse a fourth man. No Isaac Rehv. A man in a skullcap pulled the doors closed.

Now, for the first time, Krebs doubted. Perhaps Rehv was dead, after all. Or he had gone mad and disappeared. He had felt the madness in him that night in Kordofan. What would he do if Rehv did not appear? Go back? To what? He had nothing to go back to. And even if he had, there was no going back now, because of Fairweather.

The Mahdi reached the top of the stairs and walked slowly across the top of the Kaaba. In the center he stopped and looked about him at the crowd. His face was cold, but his eyes burned. It seemed to be what they wanted. They began to roar.

The king of the Saudis, the president of Egypt, and the shah of Iran stood behind him. They did not roar, but they tried to look happy. Krebs saw that the Mahdi ignored them completely. His burning gaze swept slowly over the roaring crowd. Everywhere liquid brown eyes adored him. Krebs felt himself being pressed forward, and saw the fear on the faces of the three old men on the Kaaba.

He knew Rehv had won.

Krebs pushed against the crowd. He was sick of its sweat, its smell, its roar. He wanted to go. The crowd pushed back. He jabbed his elbow into something soft. An elbow jabbed him. “Let me go,” he shouted. They squeezed him tighter. He thought of drawing his gun and shooting the Mahdi. He was an easy target. But there would be no point without Rehv there to see. On his own the Mahdi meant nothing to him. They squeezed.

He butted his head at the roaring face behind him. A hard foot kicked the back of his knee. It buckled, and he started to slip down to the ground. They would trample him. Wildly he clawed around him for something to grip. Cloth tore. Someone yelled. He regained his balance.

As he stood up he saw a commotion at the base of the Kaaba. Near the stairs the crowd surged together like a contracting muscle; heads rippled in a little wave; a man fell forward on the stairs. He was dressed like a pilgrim. After a moment he pulled himself up and began climbing the stairs. A hand reached out and spun him around. In that instant Krebs saw the pilgrim's face. It was old and hollow and white-bearded, but it was Isaac Rehv's.

He had been right. He had been right the whole time. All the others had been wrong—Armbrister, Bunting, Birdwell. The president. From the beginning he had done it by himself. From beginning to end. He slid his hand inside his jacket and pulled out the gun.

On the stairs Isaac Rehv jerked himself free, turned, and started walking up. Krebs let him get about halfway so he could fire over the crowd. Then he pointed the gun at the back of Rehv's head. The crowd roared in his ears. He pulled the trigger.

Rehv staggered on the stairs; but he kept going. Krebs aimed again, a little higher. The back of Rehv's head was suddenly huge: He would not miss. He wanted Rehv to know. “Isaac,” he shouted as loudly as he could. “I'm killing you. Me. Krebs.”

Someone knocked the gun from his hand. It bounced off his foot. He bent down to find it. Hands grabbed at him. “Stop it,” Krebs said. “I'm not shooting at your goddamned Mahdi. I'm shooting at Rehv.” He tried to think how to tell them in Arabic. Before he could, they tore him apart.

Isaac Rehv watched the golden doors open and saw his son step out of the shadows. His heart pounded. The air tingled around him. He felt light-headed and swayed forward. Someone shoved him back, hard. The air stopped tingling.

His son was climbing the black-and-gold stairs. He was no longer the boy he had left beneath the two baobab trees. He was a man, a big man: almost as big as Sergeant Levy. As he reached the top of the Kaaba and turned, Rehv peered at his face, scanning it for some vestige of the face of the boy who had said: “Dad, what if you can't make it next week?” He did not see any.

But he was so far away. Rehv tried to push forward; he could not move at all. He pushed harder, as hard as he could. He squeezed forward a little way. He kept pushing. His breath began to wheeze in his throat. He was weak.

Across the top of the Kaaba his son walked with an easy, fluid power. He stopped and looked around him. In that look, in those burning eyes, Rehv saw that it was too late to go back, too late for a normal life. He saw the Mahdi.

But it was not too late to be near him. He pushed forward. Shoulders, elbows, knees, feet pushed him back. He pushed harder, panting with effort. Slowly he inched forward through the crowd.

For the first time he noticed the three old men standing on the Kaaba behind his son. He had never seen them before, but he knew who they were. Once he had lain on a camp cot far away and thought that there could only be an Israel if the Arabs gave it back; and gazed into red eyes, dreaming of warrior hordes. So he knew who the three old men were.

He no longer cared.

He was much closer now, close enough to see his son's face very clearly. It was cold and calm—the face of a man who loves power. The face of the wolf he had loosed on the world. The sight of it made people roar like animals.

Rehv understood then that there was no point in asking forgiveness. His son would not want to hear that: He would want to thank him instead. But still Rehv wanted to be near him. He wanted to tell him he had not abandoned him that night under the baobab trees. Even more, he wanted to tell him to stop. Now. To stop loving power, to stop living death. He did not blame his son. He blamed himself. It was his duty to tell him, to make him listen.

Rehv strained against the crowd. It resisted him. He lowered his shoulder and pushed with all his strength. The crowd swore at him. It punched him and kicked him. He pushed. “I want to be with my son,” he shouted. Suddenly he fell forward, out of the crowd and onto the black-and-golden stairs that led to the top of the Kaaba.

Rehv lay panting on the stairs. The air tingled around him. He knew it was coming, the moment planned so long ago. But perhaps the cold dark man on the Kaaba would not say what his father had told him to say. Perhaps he believed he really was the Mahdi. That was more reason to stop him: not for the sake of a new Israel, but for his own sake, and the boy's.

Rehv stood and started climbing the stairs. A hand clutched him. He jerked free and mounted another step.

Something bumped him in the back. What? A bullet. He knew it instantly, from long ago.

He stumbled and almost fell. Somewhere behind him a man screamed. He kept climbing. His back began to hurt. He wanted to lie down and rest it, to curl up, just for a little while, and sleep. Keep going. Three steps. Two steps. One more.

Rehv fell hard on the flat roof of the Kaaba. The sound was lost in the roaring, but his son must have felt the vibration in his feet. He turned and looked at him. “Paul, Paul,” Rehv tried to say. “Stop.” The words whispered in his throat but went no farther. Without a sign of recognition his son turned away. He did not know him.

Rehv took a deep breath. “Paul. It's me. Your father.” No sound came. He tried to crawl to him, but could not move. “Paul.” His back hurt. The roaring filled his head. It sounded like the sea.

As his eyes began to close, he saw the Mahdi step forward and slowly raise his arms above his head. The roaring stopped at once. In the silence Isaac Rehv heard his blood dripping on the Kaaba. “Paul. Paul.”

Death reached up his spine.

Acknowledgments

many thanks to Ron Tysick

About the Author

Peter Abrahams is the author of thirty-three novels. Among his acclaimed crime thrillers are
Hard Rain, Pressure Drop, The Fury of Rachel Monette, Tongues of Fire,
Edgar Award finalist
Lights Out, Oblivion, End of Story,
and
The Fan,
which was adapted into a film starring Robert De Niro and Wesley Snipes. Under the name Spencer Quinn, he writes the
New York Times
–bestselling Chet and Bernie Mystery series, which debuted with
Dog on It
. Abrahams's young adult novel
Reality Check
won the Edgar Award for Best Young Adult Mystery in 2010, and
Down the Rabbit Hole,
the first novel in his Echo Falls Mystery series, won the Agatha Award for Best Children's/Young Adult Novel in 2005.

Abrahams lives on Cape Cod with his family. Visit his website:
www.spencequinn.com

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1982 by Peter Abrahams

Cover design by Barbara Brown

ISBN: 978-1-5040-1632-2

This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

345 Hudson Street

New York, NY 10014

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