The Caliphate André Gallo (list of ebook readers TXT) 📖

glasses for a lot of people. Steve assumed the van belonged to a caterer. However, the men who came from the building didn’t seem to be dressed for a holiday or a celebration. They looked to be in their twenties and fit. Steve noticed they wore combat boots. But in a world where teenage girls often wore combat boots as a fashion statement, Steve didn’t think twice about the caterer van and kept walking.

     About half-an-hour later, Steve was walking on a quiet street with no vehicular traffic and very few pedestrians. The van he had seen before stopped about ten feet in front of him, pulling up to the curb. He assumed it was making another delivery, even though it wasn’t parking in front of a doorway. Two men emerged from the back and two from the cab. As he drew abreast of the van, they seized him and, before he could even try to free himself, he was hustled into the back of the van, where his hands were tied with plastic handcuffs, and he was blindfolded and gagged with duct tape. As the van started moving, the men threw a large duffle bag over him.

     The van moved quickly. He felt they had gone only a short distance before stopping. Still in the duffle bag, he was carried out. When they extracted him, they tied him to a chair, still blindfolded.

     Steve assumed that although he was looking for al Khalil, clearly the man had found him first. He expected the worst. There was no reason he could think of why his life would be spared. Why hadn’t they just killed him in the street? Perhaps his captors thought that their chances of getting away were greater if they killed him in more controlled circumstances? Suddenly he feared for his father. Would they track him down too? They might surveil the car to see who came back to it. He thought of the keys in his pocket, with a tag that provided the license plate number of the rental car.

    His more immediate thought was to escape. He wasn’t sure if anyone was in the room with him but he thought not. He stayed very still but couldn’t detect movement, breathing, or scraping of a shoe on the floor. By peering down, he had a minute window through which he could see his knees and, if he moved his head, a small patch of floor.

     He couldn’t see his bonds. He tried to loosen his hands tied behind his back but only succeeded in cutting the skin to the point of bleeding. He tried to move his feet as well but to no avail.

     Since he couldn’t get away, what could he say to improve his situation, assuming he had the opportunity to say anything? He would stick to his tourist cover. He had no brilliant idea. Talking was probably not in his captors’ plan. He wondered if al Khalil would question him or if he would leave it to someone else. Would al Khalil know who he was? Or recognize him? Was this still about the Quranic document? After what seemed to Steve to be at least an hour but was probably much less, he heard someone come in the room and walk toward him. Then the tape was ripped off his mouth and blindfold was removed. Tariq al Khalil stood before him and dismissed the two men who were with him.

     Al Khalil seemed taller somehow. His gray eyes were laser-like Steve now understood what Kella had meant about his eyes—like a snake hypnotizing its prey, she had said. He stood about three feet from Steve, his arms crossed, dressed in black slacks and a dark blue long sleeve shirt. He noticed that al Khalil’s beard, shaven when dressed as a monk, was now starting to grow back. He understood all too well that this was a dangerous man.

     “Marhaba,” Tariq said mock-graciously. “I know you, Steve Church. Do you believe in fate? Is it fate that you keep cropping into my life? Why are you here? I saw you in Jerusalem wearing a costume. Was that a Christian cross, a crusader cross, perhaps? We know that you are all crusaders, wanting to take our lands, you Americans and the Jews. You’re the ones who want to go back in time, not us. Or are you still doing research to prove that the Quran is a false document?”

     “I know you too. Tying me up like a sausage is a strange welcome. This isn’t the Arab hospitality that I’ve heard about,” Steve replied.

     Al Khalil’s lips compressed into a thin, unfriendly line.

     “This will add to your extensive experience with Arabs. I don’t have a lot of time to spend on you. Tell me why you are in Ashqelon.”

     “Do I need a reason? I’ve never been to Israel before and, since I was here for a ceremony in Jerusalem, I’m trying to see some of the country.”

     Al Khalil waved his hand dismissively.

     “That’s not good enough. You seem to turn up wherever I go. I learned that you were in Timbuktu. What in the world does the CIA want in Timbuktu? Yes, I know you’re with the CIA. You didn’t take a lot of precautions to hide it when you were in Morocco.”

    Surprised at the accusation, Steve countered, “I recognize the symptom, common in the Third World. It’s called CIA Fixation—the CIA is everywhere-and-they’re-after-me-syndrome. But speaking of Jerusalem, wasn’t that you dressed as a monk in front of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher? When did you convert to Christianity?”

     “You must have been dreaming. Unlike your Pope’s declaration that Islam acts against reason and therefore against Allah, I am trying to reason with you. Islam is not violent unless forced to be. Tell me what you are doing here.”

     Now that he could