The Mahdi, page 13
Now, at the head of the classroom, Kufdani was beginning to put those salient pieces in place. “We will pray five times a day,” he instructed the prisoners. “Study in the practice of Islam will be held each afternoon. All will pray. The rest of the hours of each day will be spent in learning.”
“Get out of my face,” said one younger man, balding with a scruffy beard. “We don’t want to spend our time learning about Islam from you.”
“You have not done me the courtesy of even listening to my plans,” Kufdani replied. “That offends me. Are there others among you with the same attitude? If so, please raise your hands.”
Several prisoners looked around at the others, but no one raised their hand.
Kufdani walked to the man. “I don’t deal well with the discourteous,” he said, grabbing the hair at the back of the man’s head with his left hand.
The man flailed his arms toward Kufdani’s face, but his reaction was too slow. Kufdani took the beard with the other hand and snapped the man’s neck.
“We must all be attentive to the lessons of the prophet,” he said.
He almost felt bad about the dead man, but Salama knew the rules. Salama was accustomed to eliminating a problem without leaving fingerprints, and Kufdani had to set expectations of obedience.
“Baadi, I am preparing to teach,” Kufdani said. “Please remove this man before he starts to smell. Now, where was I?”
Over tea yesterday, Salama had finally acknowledged that an inventory of leaders among the prisoners might reveal greater promise than one might expect in a dreadful place like Ktzi’ot. “Let me think about it,” the old man had said. “I was considering, before our meeting, the cleanest way to kill you. But the religious aspect to your plan was … unexpected. It shows promise.”
“The religious aspect is a means to an end—perhaps a violent end, as the prophet himself so often experienced.” Kufdani had asked Salama to arrange a meeting with a group of twenty or so chosen leaders, without upsetting the prison staff—plus one man who had a big, gossipy mouth and whom Salama would be better off without.
“The prison staff is greedy, but more and more they are also fearful,” Salama had said slyly. “A few have died under strange circumstances after interfering with our administration of the prison population. I don’t think they will become a problem. Inshallah.”
“Inshallah,” Kufdani had replied. “Thank you for your time, Salama.”
Now it was time to bring those twenty true leaders into the fold, and Kufdani would have to really work the crowd. From Muhammad’s perspective, love of Allah paired naturally with the willingness to fight for Him. They would fight—if led.
“You are the core of the leadership effort selected by Yousef Salama. You will lead the others and teach them what you have been taught. Together, we will bring credit to Allah with our prayers and actions. So, there is a lot to do.”
Kufdani pulled his Kphone from the left hip pocket of his orange jumpsuit, pressed at the touchscreen, and cast an image on the wall.
“But Allah’s teachings are only the beginning. We’ll also study small-unit tactics, and there will be instructions on management—how you will manage the men who must answer to you on the battlefield. And you will receive instruction on communications and the discipline that goes with it. Of course, we’ll discuss a host of medical and logistics problems that must be sorted out.”
Kufdani gestured toward the wall.
“The weapons I will provide, when the time is right for us to bring glory to Allah, will look something like this: the US-made Mk19, a belt-fed 40mm shoulder-fired weapon. So, our lessons will include tutorials on its ammunition and deployment.”
Twenty men shifted in their chairs, murmured among themselves, and looked eagerly at Kufdani.
“We are leaving here before too long,” he said, “and we wouldn’t want to be unprepared to cut the Israeli army off at the knees.”
HAARETZ ONLINE, TEL AVIV
FRIDAY
ELSA SACHS HAD A DAILY STORY TO GET OUT AND SEVERAL PODCASTS to organize. She still had some time before sunup, however, so she sat at her desk checking email before her workday started in earnest. She was hungry and still had sleepers in her eyes. Last night’s blouse had a wine stain on the left breast, and she hadn’t yet showered. And when the office lights blinked out and her PC flickered, switching to battery power, she was irritated but wasn’t immediately concerned—until she looked out the window.
Tel Aviv was entirely dark.
Just minutes earlier and thirty minutes away, clustered in the shadows of a West Bank construction site just northeast of Jerusalem—on land that formerly belonged to the Bedouin—dozens of trucks, earthmovers, and bulldozers had stood ready to begin another day’s efforts. New streetlights had illuminated the site, joining the interior security lights from five thousand recently completed apartments and another two hundred in final construction. One day soon, thousands of Orthodox Jewish Israelis would move in.
Anyone awake at that predawn hour might have seen a flash of very bright light near that West Bank construction site. It blazed for a split second only, and when the skies darkened again, the streetlight equipment and the newly finished apartments had gone as dark as the unfinished buildings. A faint stench of burning insulation wafted on the early morning air.
When the phone rang in Elsa Sachs’s Tel Aviv office, the sound somehow louder in the early morning darkness, she felt around her desk, found it, and answered without thinking—just as the lights in her office blinked on again. Outside her window, the city was lit again too. All of Tel Aviv had been dark for just a moment. Thirty miles away, however, outer Jerusalem faced a more permanent blackout.
Over the past few years, Elsa had become the online voice of Haaretz, a role she had chosen without much sponsorship but, thankfully, little resistance from the family. Publishing was in her blood: a distant uncle owned the publishing company behind the Haaretz newspaper, the liberal beacon of the Tel Aviv intelligentsia. But Elsa had found her niche online and built an active following of nearly a million viewers. That was 10 percent of the overall Israeli population, and 15 percent of the country’s Jews. She no longer worried much about the perception of nepotism.
“Hi,” came an unfamiliar voice in English. “I turned the lights off in Tel Aviv for a few seconds so you would pay attention to me.”
Elsa stared at the phone for a second. The number was as unfamiliar as the voice. “Who the hell is this?”
“My name is not important. I want to tell you a story that happens to be true. I want you to pay attention.”
“I don’t do stories with anonymous strangers,” Elsa said, and hung up.
The lights of Tel Aviv blinked again, this time in a sequence of short and long flashes. Then all went dark for a brief second, and the lights were back on just as quickly.
Elsa’s phone rang again.
This time, the voice said, “Do you listen to stories from an anonymous source who can play ‘shave and a haircut, two bits’ on the Tel Aviv power system?” The mystery woman sang the words a little off-key.
“Okay, you have my attention,” Elsa admitted. “Tell your story, then go away. Who did you get to mess with the power system in Tel Aviv?” Now that was news her listeners would want to hear.
“I’ll tell my story, but pay attention. You were recommended to me by a very reliable source, a big-time name that I will divulge to you in good time. It’s either you or Guzman at the Jerusalem Post. And I didn’t need any help with the power system. This demonstration of credibility shit will quickly become tiresome.”
Elsa sighed but tried to recover her composure. The voice sounded cultured and knowledgeable; perhaps there was something here after all. “Tell me the story,” she urged, hoping she didn’t seem too eager.
“So, there’s this guy, Kufdani, who was recently named chief of all the Bedouin tribes. The tribal leaders want him to right the wrong in the West Bank—the Israeli confiscation of Bedouin land to build apartments for other Israelis—mostly ultra-Orthodox Jews. The Haredim, of course.”
Elsa transcribed the caller’s words with fluid shorthand. The story was getting better and better.
“Long story short: He’s an influential guy, so he snags a meeting with your prime minister to make his case. Travels there on a Moroccan diplomatic passport, with an introduction letter from the king of Morocco. But the prime minister rejects him and instead arranges a meeting with key legislators in Jerusalem—Orthodox Jews and Haredi. When the Bedouin diplomat drives to the meeting just north of Jerusalem, of course those Haredi leaders turn him down too. And on the way out, the Bedouin is drugged and imprisoned in Ktzi’ot, complete with the false backstory that he’s a Jewish rapist of Bedouin girls.”
Elsa had heard enough. “This is clearly bullshit. Shit like this does not happen in Israel. I don’t need to hear another word of—”
The lights blinked.
“Of course you do. Why else would I bother with this conversation?”
Elsa turned back to the computer screen. “And you can prove everything you’re telling me?” Despite her journalistic skepticism, the faint whiff of a Pulitzer Prize kept her attention.
“Turn your printer on. I’ll feed you things as we talk.”
Elsa couldn’t resist. “You can’t turn my printer on? What’s that about?”
There was a sigh. “Yeah, I know. I have trouble with devices that are turned off and not connected. It’s hard, as much as I hate to admit that anything is. Turn it on.”
Elsa touched the ON button, and the printer came to life. Thirty seconds later, two pages printed. The first was a smiley face with a flickering, pointy tongue printed out in eight colors. The second was a list of names.
“Those are the men who attended the meeting in Jerusalem set up by your prime minister.”
“I don’t recognize any of these names except Yakov Bernstein,” Elsa said, throwing the smiley face in the trash.
“Four are Haredim. The others are Orthodox Jews of a less confrontational sect, but still, they took part and must face scrutiny if not prosecution. I am looking into their personal backgrounds as we speak.”
Elsa said, “And the hard part? The matching up of these names with the story you’re spinning?”
“I’ll leave that to you. You are both an accomplished journalist and a committed Israeli. The facts are there. You just have to connect the dots, and you’ll find that it’s all true.”
Elsa snorted. “If I’m going to go off on this wild goose chase, I’ll need more than a list of names. It would be nice to have some confirmation. Are you planning to provide evidence or just hearsay? Blinking the lights is not enough to make me trust you.”
“Yeah, good point. I’ll email you a voice file of the meeting between the Bedouin and the government people. It lasted just over ninety seconds, but that should do it. But you’ll have only two hours before it deletes itself.”
Elsa was used to working to a deadline. “I have to ask: What is your stake in this?”
“My stake?”
“There has to be a motive for you. Why are you doing this? Are you Jewish?”
She heard a chuckle. “Another good question. If you must know, I’m in love with the Bedouin in question, and the way he has been treated pisses me off. But expect him to mount his own retaliation. I’m just helping out.”
“I’ll look into it,” Elsa said.
“That’s all I can ask. And oh, by the way, the largest West Bank construction site just went dark twenty minutes ago. Irreversible damage. Billions in losses, political bullshit—there’s a storm brewing. Now, do I give good story, or what? Get on it, girl.”
The lights blinked twice, and the call ended.
Holy shit, this might be real, Elsa thought. What a fucking scoop.
She dialed the number of a stringer she often used in Jerusalem. “Get your ass out of bed, and head out to the big apartment project at the West Bank. Take your camera. Get in their faces. If things break right, we’re about to have one hell of a story.”
She was right.
By full light, men in construction clothing would begin collecting in little groups at that West Bank construction site, watching as some of their colleagues tried to switch on each piece of heavy equipment, one by one.
“Nothing,” one man said. “There’s nothing. No power anywhere.”
“It’s spooky,” another replied. “If it was just the power company, at least the equipment would start, right?”
None of the lights worked.
No equipment would start.
Puzzled, the men ambled down the slope, away from the finished apartments, shaking their heads.
MOSSAD HEADQUARTERS, TEL AVIV
FRIDAY
GUNS EPSTEIN WALKED THROUGH THE DOORS TO HIS OFFICE AT 8:55 a.m., ready for the day. He flipped on the TV, then turned to his computer and his coffee. The TV screen showed a huge construction site surrounded by a cluster of emergency vehicles some with their lights engaged, still flashing. No construction activity was visible.
“No clue,” a man in a hard hat was saying to the TV reporter. “My wife saw a flash in the sky, and everything went silent.”
Transformer must’ve blown, Guns thought, sitting down at his desk. And this is what passes for news these days?
“No lights, no radio, no vehicles, nothing,” the man continued, looking into the camera. “None of the vehicles will start or even turn over. Man, this stuff is fried, fried, fried.”
Guns looked up at the television just in time to see a large banner rolling across the bottom of the screen: POWER FAILURE. POSSIBLE BILLIONS IN DAMAGES.
From a power failure? Guns thought, leaning back into his desk chair.
He turned his attention to his computer. Haaretz Online refreshed every morning at 9:00 sharp. Elsa Sachs’s articles covered topics that other media outlets ignored, especially in the conservative environment created by the current government. Guns made sure to catch them whenever he could—HOL was big among New York’s liberal Jewish crowd. The headline for today’s top piece got his attention: ARE WE BEING LIED TO? BEDOUIN LEADER DRUGGED, KIDNAPPED AFTER GOVERNMENT-SPONSORED MEETING.
Reading on, Guns sat up suddenly, as if he’d been struck by lightning. “Oh, shit.”
The article outlined the events the Mossad man had been aware of—Cooch’s brief meeting with the prime minister, including a description of his diplomatic credentials, and the prime minister’s rejection of Cooch’s request to sponsor legislation that would return occupied West Bank lands to the Bedouins—but went on to reveal something shocking: Cooch had then met with Defense Minister Bernstein and members of the Orthodox leadership, after which he was drugged, kidnapped, and dumped into the notorious Ktzi’ot Prison in the Negev Desert.
Why? the article asked.
Mere arrogance on the part of our Orthodox brethren? Mr. Kufdani was traveling on a Moroccan diplomatic passport with an introductory letter from that nation’s king to our prime minister. How is this possible? Is this the way a democratic world power should operate? How long are we going to tolerate this kind of behavior in the name of God?
“No shit, Dick Tracy,” Guns mumbled. “That camel is out of its corral.” He scrolled to the next story:
SUSPICIOUS EXPLOSION LEADS TO BILLIONS IN LOSSES IN THE WEST BANK.
Reliable sources report that an explosion of some sort destroyed the electrical systems for more than five thousand completed apartments in the disputed West Bank and for all the heavy equipment that toiled at the site. The entire electrical system in the surrounding two hundred meters or so has been utterly, irreversibly destroyed—an unprecedented, unexplained event that sources say were caused by intentional tampering with the city’s power grid.
What happened? Who is responsible? This makes the second major incident in recent days threatening to disrupt West Bank politics. When are they going to tell us the truth: that this was not just an electrical glitch or a blown transformer?
The office phone rang. When Guns picked it up, his boss was already speaking. “Are you reading the Haaretz Online piece?” Pelzer asked.
“Yeah, I read it,” he replied. “Time to check the West Bank for EMP damage. But quietly.”
“Why quietly?” Pelzer demanded. “That journalist is bluffing. No one has yet managed to control an EMP burst that closely. Unless you know something different …?”
“I don’t,” Guns said, “but I know someone who might.”
Pelzer silently awaited his next words.
“Caitlin O’Connor,” he said at last.
“The AI expert? Cuchulain’s girlfriend?”
“According to Jerome Masterson, she’s an EMP wizard. She helped design the stuff used in the Iran attack. And if we find that the West Bank explosion was some form of EMP, I rather doubt it will be the last.”
“And on the Cooch matter? Did we really try to bury him alive in Ktzi’ot?”
“I think their next move will be to try and buy him dead,” Guns admitted. “But he’s been in there too long for that to work. I think it’s about to get ugly, and fast. Let’s just let it run its course.”
“Agreed. If this is a domestic matter, let’s stay out of it. Best-case scenario, we figure this out without rushing into the spotlight.”
Guns hoped she was right. “After all, it’s out of our purview,” he said. “But we should be ready in case this goes onto the international stage. There may be a need for us after all.”
“Be careful what you wish for,” Pelzer said and hung up the phone.
TANGIER
MONDAY
IT FEELS GOOD TO BE BACK IN BUSINESS, JEROME THOUGHT. HE HAD always loved Cooch’s tactics. He didn’t relish the image of his old pal sitting on a cell bunk, locked up in a brutal Israeli prison. But Cooch had his Kphone. They were in touch every night after the prison dinner hour, and he was making shit happen. Jerome had complete faith in his friend’s plan and his unique ability to bring it to life.
