Excerpt:
The betrayal was a sorrowful revelation—ignoble in every respect—made all the more wounding when it came from someone we loved, or at least trusted. Hasan, of all people. Professor Leakey was weeping in great, heaving sobs.
“No, I scolded gently. “Don’t give up on yourself. He isn’t worth the despair.”
He gave me a smile shadowed by disappointment.
“I thought he was my friend. I believed in him blindly. Even Professor Lawrence held him in the highest regard. For years he was our guide—more than that, our friend. And now I see that ambition, the thirst for personal power, can bring anyone low. It’s crushing to realize…” He covered his face with both hands. “One day, Basilio, when you’re older, you’ll understand what I feel.”
I clenched my fist harder than ever and roared into Hasan’s face:
“You’ll pay for this, you filthy hypocrite—you’ll pay!”
A hail of blows sent me sprawling. Hasan remained unmoved, almost resolute. When the leader spoke, he raised his hands to the sky and declared coolly, staring straight at Samir:
“The infidels have no place in the realm of the tariqa.”
Samir drew a finger across his throat and laughed uproariously. Emboldened by the group’s unity and his leader’s brutality, Hasan bellowed:
“Death to the Infidel!”
Samir ordered the mercenary from Namia to execute us. The man obeyed by forcing us to our knees in the center of the vault. I watched, lips trembling, as he raised his sword to the nape of Professor Leakey’s neck. Then, as he stepped forward, Samir—trailing just behind—caught sight of the Argifonte and recoiled instinctively.
“By Sinimmar! What is that thing?”
“Nemrod, the Infidel,” Hasan answered gravely.
“Stop talking nonsense,” Samir snapped. “It’s nothing but a pagan metal statue.”
“It is the Infidel of Nemrod who dared loose an arrow at the Most High from the Tower of Babel.”
“Rubbish!”
“Alif–Lām–Mīm: A good word is like a good tree, its roots firm and its branches reaching toward heaven. The Word is no trifle; it is the means by which God speaks to mankind.”
“Why do you always talk to me as though I’m an idiot and you’re some prophet? It annoys me—no, it sickens me. Shut up.”
Hasan fell silent.
At last Samir came to me, seized me by the hair, and dragged me down the passage out of the vault. I thought he meant to kill me himself, but soon realized Professor Leakey and the others were being marched behind us.
He stopped in the middle of the altar.
“Let me see your face,” he said. “Are you afraid to die, you stupid Yankee?”
I shook my head. That only enraged him further.
“You know what, you filthy pig?” he screamed, driving his knees into my face twice. “I’m going to have Namia put a bullet through your skull.
“Namia, leave the old man and come here!” He spun around, positioned himself in front of Hasan, then changed his mind. “No—stay there. I’ve had a better idea.”
He kept his grimy, sand-caked fist twisted in my hair. He called Hasan over.
“We should follow the Sunna the old way,” he went on. “I took this scimitar from a Druze in Kirkuk. I want you, my friend Hasan, to cut this pig’s throat.”
Hasan stepped forward and took the blade. Samir, mocking me, yanked my head back to bare my neck and stood behind Hasan, who waited wordlessly for the command.
“You are making a terrible mistake, Mr. Samir!” Professor Leakey cried suddenly, bruised and filthy. “Think! We are scholars, not soldiers! Money—is that what you want? The university could negotiate quietly—”
Samir ignored every plea. The professor turned to Hasan.
“Hasan, if I ever had the honor of being considered your friend…” Hasan’s face looked harder than I had ever seen it. “…then by Allah the Most High, by Muhammad the Infallible, by the Angels of Paradise, by every prophet of old—by whatever you hold sacred—I beg you, do not kill Basilio. He is an innocent boy. Must this young man die without ever having known the Prophet’s faith? I implore you, have mercy! Run me through instead—spare him!”
Hasan did not flinch.
“Behead him!” Samir ordered.
Hasan straightened his arm, pivoted, and—gripping the scimitar that flashed in the torchlight—brought it down in a single, sweeping arc. To the stunned disbelief of the mercenaries, of Professor Leakey, and of myself, he took Samir’s head clean off. The severed head, black with dust and blood, rolled like a billiard ball around the boots of his comrades.
“Verily we belong to God, and to Him we shall return!” Hasan roared, sword dripping.
We were all frozen. Then a war cry split the chaos: “Jihad!” Hasan answered with his own furious “Jihad!”, brandishing the blade and charging. The professor and I, still on our knees, could do nothing.
Pandemonium followed. The mercenaries raised their rifles and opened fire indiscriminately. Hasan’s sword spun through the air as he fell, grievously wounded. We scrambled behind rocks, but the storm of bullets was relentless. My head knocked against the professor’s back; amid the deafening roar I shouted what I thought would be my final words:
“Even so, Professor, I regret nothing. Just tell me one thing: do you still have the orthostats in your bag? Good—keep them safe. Professor Beveridge must see them; maybe he can still arrange my degree—posthumously, of course. Don’t look at me like that! Ha, ha! I’m not mad yet, Professor Leakey, not yet! And while we’re here, forgive me for always contradicting you. It was the enthusiasm of youth, the hunger to become somebody… Ha, ha, ha… What a stupid ambition—to become somebody! Ha, ha… I’m a man, just a man! What else did I think I could be? And to realize it only here! Life is unfathomable even to the cleverest of us.”
The professor reached out and gently stroked my cheek.
“Don’t lose hope, Basilio. We may yet live.”
“Hope, Professor? They’re twenty meters away and about to turn us into minced meat. Never mind my rebellions—let me say this before I die: you have always mattered greatly in my life.”
“Thank you, Basilio. But we are not dead yet!”
Then the earth shook and a deafening roar filled the chamber. The mercenaries rushed us, but—O glorious Fate, I still cannot comprehend you!—after a few steps they collapsed in a heap as enormous boulders, torn from the walls and ceiling, crashed down, opening gaping wounds in the dusty floor.
I saw Hasan lying near the edge of an abyss and ran to him. Pain shot through my leg in violent cramps. Some mercenaries were already rising; Namia among them, aiming his submachine gun at me.
“Damned Yankee pig!” he screamed and fired.
I squeezed my eyes shut. Yet between the bullet and me stepped Professor Leakey. Namia’s eyes blazed; he snarled like a jackal and loosed another burst, but an even mightier tremor roared, and colossal stones intervened, crushing his murderous fury beneath a wall of granite.
“Take heart, dear Basilio!” the professor shouted, suddenly revived despite his limp. “I’m all right—really! It’s only a minor wound! Run, hide in the darkness of the vault—go!”
“Keep the orthostats safe, Professor!” I called back, half delirious. “And don’t forget to bring the Argifonte home!”
“Don’t worry—the degree is already yours! The Argifonte? I’ll see it delivered to your door… Now run!”
Chaos reigned supreme. Mercenaries and we alike (I dragging Hasan) fled the terror of being buried alive as the cave split in two under the destructive force of Tomahawk missiles. They escaped outward; instinct drove us deeper, into the vault. We reached safety.
“How is Hasan?” the professor asked.
“Can’t see in this darkness. Sadly, Il Millione was left behind.”
“We must leave,” he said. “The missiles have punched holes in the ceiling; sunlight is filtering through. Come.”
We made our painful way back. The light was faint.
“Let’s check on Hasan.”
“Multiple gunshot wounds—shoulder and ribs,” I reported.
“I’ll examine him…”
“Professor,” I asked anxiously, “do you think the army will reach us in time? Dawn is breaking.”
“I believe so. The mercenaries are outside, blocked by that great stone barrier. We can wait for our troops—perhaps three more days.”
“I’ll be frank, Professor,” I said heavily. “Those impacts felt like missiles from a destroyer in the Red Sea. Ground forces are still far off. If we’re still alive, we may see them in a week.”
“Hasan worries me, Basilio; he’s in bad shape.”
“Speaking of which—how are you? Namia shot you point-blank.”
“Just a graze in the groin, luckily.”
“And you?”
“Battered, Professor.”
“You’re limping.”
“Small cut on the sole of my foot—nothing serious. The cramps tormenting my leg all night are worse.”
“Let me see.”
I was about to remove my boot when Hasan stirred.
“He’s awake,” I said.
The professor attended him. Hasan’s lips curved faintly upward; I managed a strained smile in return.
Before us, where once had stood the highest hill of Mount Shergat, rose an artificial volcano spewing black smoke into the desert. A massive wall of fallen stone now bisected the space, shielding us—for the moment, depending on mercenary stubbornness—from the passage that led outside.
“Are you feeling better, Hasan?” the professor asked.
“Yes,” he answered weakly. “Ah—my chest!”
“Lie back.” Then to me: “Basilio, some water, please.”
“Water?” I stared, stunned.
“Yes,” he replied as if it were the most natural request in the world. “You don’t have a drop in your canteen?”
“I don’t even have the canteen. All our gear and provisions are back in the village.”
The awful truth crashed over us: three wounded men prone to infection, without food, medicine, or water, trapped inside a furnace of stone beneath a waterless sky. Worse still, even if we escaped the vault we would face the mercenaries again. I prayed—Lord forgive me—that Namia the jackal lay crushed beneath the rocks.
“We must find water, Basilio, and quickly,” the professor said. “Without it, we die within five days—less with infection.”
“Where on earth would we find water, Professor?”
“I don’t know. But Hasan cannot wait.”
Cornered, I resolved to search. Each step was agony.
“What’s wrong?”
“My foot… the cramps…”
“Let me look.”
I pulled off the boot. He examined it—O cruel Fate that grants us one day in Paradise only to hurl us mercilessly into hell the next—and his face told me the verdict before he spoke.
“Well… I’m hardly a doctor, Basilio…” he began, trying to soften the blow. “But you have a very high fever…”
“Tell me the truth,” I demanded, tired of the dance. I bent to see for myself.
“No—wait—”
“What in God’s name—”
My foot was black, and the stench was unbearable. I nearly fainted.
“Infection,” he said quietly.
“Gangrene?”
He closed his eyes. When he opened them they fluttered; he could not meet my gaze.
“It can’t be!” I cried with all my heart’s strength, trying to will it untrue.
The professor lowered his head. Yes—gangrene.
“The necrosis is advancing slowly. I’m afraid there is no choice but amputation.”
I broke down and wept. In that moment I wished I had fallen in battle rather than rot helpless in this tomb. My first thought was bitter fury against God or whatever ruled the indifferent stars. Why me? Why not one of the thieves, murderers, swindlers—those parasites who drag humanity backward? Why me, who had spent my life studying the past to offer the future a key toward light?
“How long do I have?” I asked coldly.
“Basilio…” he faltered. “Let’s not think about that. Come, try to stand.”
“Young Basilio,” Hasan said weakly, “I wish to beg forgiveness for everything. And yours too, Professor Leakey.”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I snapped.
“It’s all right, Hasan,” the professor said gently.
“I had no choice. Please understand. I see the young man is very angry.”
“You saved our lives, Hasan. That is all that matters,” the professor replied with compassion. “That redeems you. Basilio is very ill.”
The remark stung. Suddenly the protective wall shuddered; explosions thundered on the far side.
“They’re trying to blast through with grenades!” I shouted. “Damn them all to hell!”
“Calm yourself, Basilio…”
“No, Professor—a thousand times no!” I shook my fist at the sky. “Damn every last one of them!”
Hasan, helped by the professor, struggled upright.
“We must find another way out,” he said, “before they break through. The wall won’t hold another day—nor will our dear Basilio.”
“We’re finished,” I sobbed. “I curse the day I was born.”
“I think the barrier may last two days,” the professor offered. “First we need water if we are to survive and treat these wounds.”
“Water!” I laughed bitterly. “Water, water, water! Do as Moses did—strike the rocks! What does water matter when death is hours away?”
“Wait,” Hasan said suddenly. “After Samir dragged us from the vault, he brought us here. If I remember rightly, there were large clay jars—perhaps for the brotherhood’s use. They were somewhere over there…”
Another explosion rattled the chamber; rocks rained down. Maddened by the sentence hanging over me, I cursed aloud.
“Filthy dogs!”
“Don’t upset yourself,” the professor said sweetly. “Strong emotion could hasten the spread.”
“Who cares? Leave me alone! Go follow your traitor friend!”
Hasan, breathing hard, stopped searching and fixed his eyes on me.
“Listen, young Basilio,” he said, brow deeply lined. “Allah the Exalted, the Clement, the Merciful is my guide, my light, and my judge. To Allah alone must I answer for my deeds. I have already told you that—beyond the well-being of Allah’s true children—neither your political ideologies nor those of my own people interest me in the slightest. When I consider them all, they seem nothing but fraud. Only the way of my Father Allah truly matters. In Allah I am one with my people; in Allah’s embrace there are no rich or poor, no victors or vanquished; we live in perfect equality as one single man. One man’s joy is every man’s joy; one man’s pain is every man’s pain.
“Holy war? This war is not mine, nor is it Allah’s. It is the war of greedy and tyrannical men. If ever I raise my arm again, young Basilio, it will not be beside these mercenaries who today crush us, nor for the Americans who attack us for love of gold, but against any who—having first come to know the faith, for how could I judge the ignorant?—defile the holy rule of Allah.
“I neither side with nor hate the Americans. They are nothing to me—except for you, my true friends.”
The professor remained silent. I sat hunched on the rocks, listening without looking at him. Hasan continued.
“Why do you think I took Samir’s life? Not to save my own skin, nor because I am some pro-American agent. I did it because Samir, though once a believer, mocked the name of Allah, the Sunna, and the holy Qur’an. That scarecrow had no right to order the murder of innocents or to kill for pleasure. He claimed to speak for the Most High, yet his cruel, satanic actions revealed a sinful, perfidious, bloodthirsty soul. Samir was a mercenary who respected nothing and no one; money was his god, even as he filled his mouth with Allah’s name. Had I cut your throat, young Basilio, Allah would be judging me justly at this very moment.
“Oh, you cannot imagine the grief in this heart of mine! May Allah have mercy on Samir and his men! I feel such sorrow—
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