He thought about that, knowing that he had to have some contingency plan should fate work its awkward magic. Could he tell Lawrence he had been sent from Cairo to see about him? He was sure that his obvious American accent and sketchy knowledge of the people and doings there would be an immediate giveaway. Lawrence would see though him at once. Could he claim to be a lost traveler, perhaps a pilgrim on the road to Mecca? That avenue offered more prospect of believability. He could say he was an American history professor trying to retrace the old pilgrim’s road to Mecca on sabbatical. Most people took the train now, but the old caravan road was still there.
Trains to Mecca! That had been the first intrusion of the modern West into the long history of the Arabic speaking world. The local tribesmen had made a living for generations, charging 40 to 60 pounds sterling to caravan the believers along the pilgrim’s road to Mecca. Then came the Hejaz rail line, and a journey of two months by camel was reduced to a few days by train for a tenth the cost. Angered by the loss of their income, the tribesman mounted futile attacks against the cold, unfeeling iron rails and the trains they carried. But they would be coerced to carry on that fight for other reasons when the First World War broke out.
The rail line through the Hejaz was the extension of Ottoman power into the heart of Arabia. When hostilities erupted the pilgrims were quickly replaced by Turkish soldiers trying to prop up the Sultan’s empire and the Arabs had accepted this yoke for a time. Though Turkey was a secular society, it was at least rooted in the Muslim traditions and culture. Now, however, the Arabs were becoming pawns in the hands of the Western Generals. Germany and England both wanted to use the Arabs for their own ends.
Germany had ambitions of forcing a great wedge down through the Middle East and Central Asia by igniting a Holy Jihad against the British and French colonies there. It was the Kaiser’s dream to have a pair of strong metal rails all the way from Berlin to the Persian Gulf—steel lines that would cut across the map and sever overland connections between the Mediterranean and the heart of Britain’s colonial empire, India. For her part, Britain struggled to prevent this, and to wield the Arab uprising as a foil against the Ottoman Turks. This was how the game began, a struggle of power and competition—a clash of interests that would take many decades to work itself out. While the German hope of fomenting a Holy War against the British failed, England had a little more luck with Lawrence and the Arab uprising. Why did they fight for Britain, Nordhausen wondered? Lawrence believed they were fighting for their independence, yet this war would ignite a nationalist fervor in the Arabs that would burn, unsatisfied, for another century.
The dominoes of history seemed so clear to him now as he reviewed it all in his thoughts. One thing led to another, a line of causality that would end on the island of Palma nearly a century later. The onerous peace imposed upon Germany in the Treaty of Versailles would prove fertile ground for Hitler’s radical views. World War II would result, with its hideous gas chambers, and it would lead to a fervent desire of the oppressed Jews of Europe to seek a homeland of their own in Israel. That the land of Palestine was already occupied by Arabic peoples did not matter. The Western powers had been slicing up the desert and giving it away for years, what harm would there be in making one more slice? Unfortunately, the birth of Israel would leave the Palestinians without a homeland, and the nationalist desires ignited by Lawrence and others would go unfulfilled.
With sudden clarity Nordhausen realized that he was just another soldier in the battle that had been unfolding for decades. Here he was trying to save the world, but whose world, he wondered? The long battle that had begun here in the deserts of the Trans- Jordan would reach a fever pitch in the early 21st century. It would culminate in a climax of terror that would send the slopes of a long unstable volcanic island thundering into the sea—surely an act of God. He was certain that Ra’id Husan al Din and his Holy Fighters would view it that way. They were listening to a different voice whispering in their minds and hearts as they brandished the gleaming edge of a scimitar against the West. It was the will of Allah.
Nordhausen realized that the sword that was even now being drawn from its scabbard in the Arab rebellion of 1917 would eventually cleave the side of that mountain, and spell the doom of the West. He was here to make sure that never happened; to render that stroke as feeble as the pathetic attacks the Arabs mounted against the rails of steel that scored the holy soil of their deserts. In a way, he was just another Lawrence—sent back into the desert to make sure the West had its way in the end. The layers of clothing he wore were a fitting metaphor of what he was about. He was an American, covered in British kit and then wrapped in the robes of a Sheikh—a wolf in sheep’s clothing, to be sure. Now he was worrying that he might meet the other beasts on the prowl in the night—that he might cross paths with Lawrence himself!
He sighed, inwardly realizing that, if he succeeded and they managed to pull him back to his own time again, he could have the satisfaction of reading about the encounter in Lawrence’s Seven Pillars. That notion released him from his reverie with a note of alarm. The more he thought about it, the more risky his mission seemed. Maeve was correct. He knew he had to do everything in his power to avoid contact with a Prime Mover. He would just have to find a way of ditching his Arab guides once he got Minifir in sight. That might end up being a task all on its own. Suppose they insist I follow them? They’re the ones with the gun.
He drew his robes tighter about him, wincing as he stumbled over a loose shale. His heart ached as well, for he was bothered by sudden misgivings about his mission, and the grim realization that it was the West that would always land the final blow. The technology represented by the Arch was absolute power. It was greater than the doings of any man; greater, perhaps, than the labors of a God. It all seemed a bit unfair to him now. He realized that he was a soldier sent from the distant future to ensure the continuation of a way of life—a wolf set loose in the Holy Lands, intent upon preserving the continuum for the West.
He didn’t like being a wolf, he thought. His feet hurt.
Part VIII
Pushpoint
“A little thing comforts us because a little thing afflicts.”
22
Paul knew he did not have much time. The train was moving slowly, and gathering speed. If the Colonel was waiting for his car to come up from behind he could be at the doorstep any moment. Paul eyed the window at the back of the coach, and crept that way, keeping low. When he reached it he peered over the lip of the window sill, cautiously taking in the gray morning as it painted the tumbled landscape in sallow strokes of hazy light. The sky was still dark and low, with the threat of rain.