The Reykjavik Assignment (Yael Azoulay #3)(33)
Clairborne nodded. He closed his eyes for a moment, opened them, and then focused on the text in front of him. “And there were lightnings, and voices, and thunders. And there was a great earthquake, such a one as had never been since men were put on the earth, such an earthquake, so great.” He sounded more confident now, drawing strength from the presence of the man sitting next to him. “And the great city was divided into three parts and the cities of the Gentiles fell. And great Babylon came in remembrance before God, to give her the cup of the wine of the indignation of his wrath. And every island fled away, and the mountains were not found.”
Packard smiled. “The islands fled away, and the mountains were not found. Such language. Very good, Clarence. Carry on.”
Clairborne continued. “And great hail like a talent, came down from heaven upon men, and men blasphemed God for the hail, because it was exceedingly great.”
Packard held up his hand.
Clairborne stopped reading. He looked at Packard.
Packard’s smile had vanished. His eyes were now glacial, his voice flat. “But the hail did not come down from heaven, did it Clarence? It did not come down from anywhere. And certainly not from a car that had been parked in a garage on New York Avenue in Washington, DC.”
Clairborne swallowed, his tongue dry against his palate. “Yes. No. I’m sorry. I don’t know what happened.” He reached for his glass of water.
Packard’s hand snapped around his wrist, holding it suspended above the side table. “What went wrong, Clarence? Do we have a leak?” The preacher’s eyes drilled into his. “A traitor, perhaps?”
“No, no, of course not. It was just bad luck. An attendant in the garage was suspicious. He called the cops. Everything is on high alert here.”
“Are you still a believer, Clarence?” asked Packard.
Clairborne glanced at the photographs on the wall of him with three previous presidents. These men, each in his time the leader of the free world, had all sought his company and counsel. Soon after their conversations, inconvenient regimes had collapsed, revolutions had imploded, social justice movements had withered away, activists had been arrested or killed in mysterious auto accidents. Clairborne had helped remake the world in his own image. He had built his company from nothing. He had more money than he could ever spend, but could continue to name his price for any one of the multiple services his company provided, to be paid by bank transfer to a range of accounts or even in cash. Yet this elderly preacher made him feel like a nervous teenager. He nodded decisively. “Yes, sir, I am. In Jesus Christ our Lord, absolutely.”
“And in the prophecies of John of Patmos?”
“Those too. More than ever, as the day approaches.”
“Why?”
“Because they are true.”
“And what do they tell us?” Packard’s grip tightened on Clairborne’s arm.
“Rapture is coming.”
“Rapture.” Packard smiled, an almost dreamy look in eyes. “Do you remember the last verse of Revelations, Clarence?”
Clairborne nodded again. “I do.”
“Recite.”
Clairborne sat up, his back straight, his voice louder now. “And he said to me: Seal not the words of the prophecy of his book: for the time is at hand.”
Packard released Clairborne’s wrist. “The time is at hand, to vanquish the Antichrist. But sometimes even the Lord needs a helping hand. A hand to clear away obstacles.” He reached into his briefcase and handed Clairborne a brown paper file, a small photograph stapled to its front. “You know what to do with this?”
Clairborne glanced at the photograph. Yael, frozen in midstep, as she walked toward her apartment building. “Yes, sir,” he said, “yes, I do.”
13
Najwa scribbled on her pad, trying to put her thoughts in order: Abbas Velavi, Hafiz Bakshari dead. Salim Massoud?—KZX? Like spies, journalists sought patterns, similar incidents involving the same, or connected, actors. The pattern was forming now. Was the envelope from Bakri? He was certainly the most likely suspect, especially as the writing was in Arabic. If so, he was telling her that Salim Massoud, whoever he was, was killing Iranian dissidents and had also killed Henrik Schneidermann. But why? And what was Bakri’s agenda? Despite his admiring glances, he certainly wasn’t passing this material to Najwa to boost her career.
The Arab League might be derided as a hopeless talking shop, but it was also a place where neighboring countries met and agreed on a common agenda. None more common than that shared in the Gulf, where Saudi Arabia and its neighbors were united in their fear and hatred of Iran. The rivalry between the Arabs and Persians for control of the Gulf, indeed for the whole of the Middle East, reached back centuries. The Persians, whose culture had produced masterpieces of art, architecture, and poetry, looked down on the ascetic Bedouin of the Arabian Peninsula. Religion introduced an extra dimension to a classic regional power struggle. The Saudis were Sunnis and the Iranians were Shiites. Because of a schism rooted in the death of the Prophet Muhammad, who was predeceased by his sons and did not designate a successor, each regarded the other as apostates.
Most of Muhammad’s followers supported Abu Bakr, his father-in-law, and became known as Sunni Muslims after the sunna, the teachings of Muhammad. But a smaller group, the shiaat Ali, or partisans of Ali, claimed Muhammad had anointed Ali, his son-in-law, as his successor. The two branches went to war. Ali’s son Hussein, Muhammad’s grandson, and his companions were massacred at the battle of Karbala, now in Iraq, in 680. Millions of Shia Muslims traveled there every year for Ashura, which commemorated the battle.