Only the Mullah of the Black Tent was allowed to walk free.
He, after all, had become the most important man in this war.
Akbar and Abdullah, both longtime soldiers of the caliphate, were there when Abu Suleiman al-Naser, the head of the War Council and military chief of the Islamic State, came to see the Mullah. That had been such an incredible day, a blessed day. And within a week of that meeting the soldiers of Allah had scored two massive attacks against their enemies. After another meeting with Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the caliph himself, special teams of soldiers were able to detonate bombs in Syria, Egypt, and Kurdistan.
The pattern was like that. A high-ranking member of the caliphate would visit with the Mullah and shortly thereafter some great victory would occur.
It was only a matter of time, Akbar confided to Abdullah, before bombs would begin going off in America.
But they were wrong.
It was not bombs that would fall.
It was planes and it was hope.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Marty Hammond didn’t consider it cheating. No way. Cheating was something you did when there was some kind of emotional commitment. When there was the chance the girl — or the woman — was going to want more, to expect something beyond a dinner, some drinks, a few joints, and a hump in the hay. Cheating was what broke marriages apart, and as Marty saw it, these little encounters — his word of choice — had probably saved his marriage to Connie ten times over.
Connie was great. He loved her. Really loved her. Had since eleventh grade, and always would. They had three kids together. Bobby, who was a senior at LSU; Caitlyn, who was just starting at Emory; and little Cindy, who was still in the ninth grade. Great kids. Good-looking, too, which they got from Connie. Smart as whips, which they got from him. Or, to be fair, maybe a bit from both, because Connie was clueless but she wasn’t stupid. Not by a long walk. She was smart enough in her way, but her way was St. Anthony Park in St. Paul. Connie almost never left her little town. Never willingly, anyway, and never for long. She didn’t like to travel, not even to the islands. She’d gone with Marty to conventions in Jamaica, Aruba, and Hawaii, but after the third one she said that she was done. Tired of traveling. Bored with the whole thing.
That’s what she called it. The “whole thing.” Conventions, travel, meeting new people, parties, mixers, dinners with clients and colleagues, hotels, new places. The whole thing made her long for their home, their two acres of grass and trees with the little koi pond. Connie would rather stay behind even when the International Association of Commercial Realtors had their annual convention at the Paris Casino in Vegas. It boggled Marty’s mind. It made no sense at all. Who the hell did not want to go to Vegas? The crowds, the restaurants, the shows? Really? Ditto for Houston. There was a lot of fun to be had in Houston if you knew where to look. A whole lot of fun.
Not as far as Connie was concerned, though. She’d rather stay back in St. Paul and play bridge. Bridge, for Christ’s sake? Who the hell played bridge anymore? At first Marty thought that it was a code name for Connie and her friends having hen parties where they bring in male strippers and blow them. But he had a buddy of his randomly drop by a couple of times to pick up things from Marty’s home office. What he found was twelve women playing cards and eating those faggy little sandwiches. Marty believed he would actually have been okay with Connie smoking some bone-a-phone. It would be real. Bridge was not real. Bridge was a rerun of Mad Men or some shit like that. Old-fashioned yesterday stuff.
Marty sometimes wondered how the two of them ever managed to have kids. Connie was pretty, and when they were in the mood and in the sack, she had all the right moves. Even some mildly kinky stuff. Did anal twice. Wore a costume a couple of times. Like that. She wasn’t exactly frigid, but she never made the first move. And if he didn’t make a move at all, she seemed cool with it. As if sex didn’t really matter. It wasn’t any kind of serious thing to her.
It was a lot more than that to Marty. Hell yes. He was a man in his prime. Okay, upper end of prime. But these days fifty was the new thirty, or that’s what Marty heard. He had needs. He had urges. He needed to get laid a lot more than Connie ever did, and since he was on the road sometimes twenty, twenty-five weeks a year, either he built up inch-thick calluses on his hand whacking off, or he took a more practical approach. The girls who worked the bars on the convention circuit weren’t street hags. They were pretty. Some of them were gorgeous. And they were clean. You don’t get to work a circuit with high rollers if you’re carrying crabs. No way, Jose.
They were also commitment free. It was no different than any of the business transactions that went on a hundred times a day at these conventions. Marty got his needs met and he didn’t get attached to anyone because no one at these hotels was looking for complications. A little money changed hands. They all took plastic and the billing was discreet. And when the weekend was over Marty went home to Connie. Clean and happy and without issues.
Everybody walked away a winner.
Tonight was just like all the others. He was way up on the sixteenth floor. Nice room, big king bed, and a Korean gal in the bathroom washing round one out of her snatch while he tried to get it up for round two.
“You ready for me?” she asked, her voice floating through the semidarkness.
“Getting there,” he said. Being honest about it because there are things you can fake and things you can’t. And you can’t fool a hooker into believing that a soft dick is a blue steel spike. It would be a professional discourtesy. Besides, he’d been with this one before. Last May and the December before that. Houston was a good conference town. The girl — Lily — knew some tricks to put some iron in the ol’ putter. Yes, sir, she had a full and complete set of techniques for that. Back in December she’d helped him get it up three times. Three. He hadn’t done that since the late nineties. Marty thought his heart was going to explode. So, yeah, he booked Lily again and again. And each time she proved that her skill set was mighty damn impressive. Borderline supernatural.
The drapes were open and outside the sprawl of predawn Houston was gorgeous. Lights by the million, even this early. Glittering like jewels, making him feel rich. Making him feel like he was on top of the damn world. Above the glittering skyscrapers he saw a line of jumbo jets angling down toward Bush airport. They passed directly over the hotel on their way, and somehow imagining all that power roaring above him helped Marty find that tingle that let him know tonight was going to be at least a doubleheader. If not another December hat trick.
“Here I co-o-o-o-ome,” teased Lily. She opened the bathroom door and stood hipshot in the spill of light, her naked body slim and curvy and silhouetted. Marty’s cock jumped. God, she was a knockout. Not one of those big bouncy broads he used to like when he was younger. No. Lily looked like she was maybe fifteen. She had to be at least twice that, but she always played it like she was a kid. A naughty, naughty kid. “Are you redeeeeee?”