A flustered student marched around the corner, clutching a heavy stack of loose pages and sending the dust flying in wild swirls. As the young man brushed past Drake and fled into the hall, a Middle Eastern voice called out from the inner sanctum in impeccably articulated English. “Next! And be quick about it. I have an important meeting.”
With trepidation that his subconscious dragged up from his Notre Dame years, Drake crept around the corner. There, he found an aging Egyptian with neatly trimmed gray hair seated behind a desk cluttered with papers and more stacks of books. If there was a computer, Drake could not see it. The professor’s eyes, partially hidden behind square-rimmed glasses, remained buried in a thick volume. “What do you need?”
“Dr. Fuad… um… ahem.” Drake tried to banish the twenty-year-old student from his voice. “My name is Drake Merigold. Nick Baron sent me.”
Rami abruptly looked up. His stern expression melted into a warm smile. “Ah, Mr. Merigold. I apologize. You are the important meeting.” He stood and took Drake’s offered hand, pumping it up and down. “Welcome to my castle.”
Drake had to bend forward to accommodate the handshake. The professor’s head barely came up to his chest. The rapid change in the Egyptian’s demeanor left him off balance. “Um… was I interrupting something?”
“Hmm? Oh, you mean the student.” Rami flicked a thick hand at the door as if he were shooing away a mosquito. “I just gave Mr. Wentworth my review of his dissertation. He still has a lot of work to do.” He gestured to a wooden chair in front of his desk. “Please, sit down and tell me your tale. Nicholas did not give me much information over the phone.”
Drake unlocked the screen of a tablet computer and passed the device over the stacks of books into Rami’s hands. “Nick took these photos in what we believe to be a Hashashin catacombs,” he said as he settled into the chair, “under the Ankara Citadel.”
“There is nothing under the Ankara Citadel,” argued Rami, taking the tablet. “Over the years, the Turkish National Museum has pelted that hill with enough sonar to raise a Russian submarine. They find it is solid rock every time.”
“We beg to differ. In light of our recent intelligence, I’d say the museum was bought off.” Drake shook his head. “But that’s beside the point. Professor, those symbols may be the key to stopping a terrorist group planning to release a bioweapon. Can you identify them?”
Rami squinted at the screen in his hands, flipping back and forth through the photos. “You are certain these were taken beneath the citadel?”
“Absolutely certain.”
“If that is true, then you’ve made a discovery of historic proportions. I must go and see it for myself.”
Drake grimaced. “Not advisable. Not all the Hashashin in that tunnel are dead.” He forced a smile. “The symbols? Please, professor.”
“Right. Of course.” Rami glanced through photos one more time and then handed the tablet back across his books with a definitive nod. “Yes. You can tell Nicholas that these are, in my opinion, Hashashin.”
“Is that all you can tell me about them?”
“Oh, no.” The professor stood and pressed himself against the sloped ceiling to get out from behind his desk. He gave Drake an excited grin. “There is more, my boy. Much, much more.”
CHAPTER 32
Rami walked the perimeter of his office, bobbing up and down at random, pulling books from shelves above his head and lifting them from the stacks on the floor. None of them seemed to satisfy him, and he kept putting them back, rarely in the place where he had found them.
“Doc, we’re in a bit of a hurry, here,” urged Drake.
“Shh.” Rami held out a quieting hand and continued scanning his shelves. “You cannot rush knowledge.”
Drake shook his head and left the professor to his searching, wandering impatiently around the small office. Amid the clutter and books, he saw the artifacts and memorabilia one would expect in the den of a professor of antiquities — fragments of pottery, blocks of hieroglyphics and cuneiform script. Then he came across an old Bible with dog-eared pages, lying open on a stand. He leaned closer to the Bible. It was open to the tenth chapter of Romans. Faded orange highlighting covered the thirteenth verse. For whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
“Not all Middle Eastern people are Muslims, Mr. Merigold,” said Rami, suddenly standing right next to him. “That is especially true in Egypt.”
“You’re a Copt. Nick didn’t tell me.”
“As well he shouldn’t. It is not for him to tell.” The professor held up a book bound in blue leather with both hands, one index finger holding a place in the text. “Come, I have found the information we need.”
Drake eyed the weighty volume. “Doc, I don’t have time for a history lesson.”
“Trust me, you’ll want to make time for this one.” As if to emphasize the point, the professor made Drake wait while he squeezed back behind his desk and cleared the space between them.
“These are the writings of Hulegu Khan, the grandson of Genghis Khan,” he said finally. “Hulegu sacked the Hashahin stronghold of Alamut in Persia and spent many hours in their library. In this book, he recounts the story of a splinter group that left Alamut a century before he arrived in the region. Scholars have always dismissed it as pure fiction.”
“Why should they dismiss it?” asked Drake.
“Because there was no archaeological evidence to support it.” Rami’s thin lips spread into a conspiratorial smile. “At least, not until you stepped into my office with those pictures.” He laid the book on the desk and opened it to the place he held with his finger. At the center of the page, beneath flowing silver script, was a hand-drawn illustration of the same five symbols that Nick had photographed in the tunnel.
The professor’s eyes shone behind his square lenses. “What do you know about the Hashashin?”
“They were assassins,” said Drake. “Everyone knows that. But Nick said they were pragmatic killers, not apocalyptic zealots like the terrorists we’re chasing.”
Rami gave a dubious nod. “Nicholas was half-right. The Hashashin leader, Hassan, used his assassins to consolidate power for his Ismaili cousins. He killed far more Muslims than Crusaders and was, indeed, a pragmatist. But”—the professor raised a finger—“his foot soldiers were the quintessential apocalyptic zealots.”
Rami swept backward through the text until he came to a tinted illustration of a lush garden, lit by a radiant sun. Four bearded men in long robes stood in a half circle, happily conversing.
“Where are the seventy virgins?” asked Drake.
“I am sure that many retired suicide bombers have asked the same question,” said Rami, sitting back in his chair. He gave a dismissive wave of his hand. “The heavenly harem is a more recent invention. Hassan did not promise his followers postmortem sex. He promised them an earthly paradise instead.”
“An earthly paradise?” repeated Drake, furrowing his brow.
Rami nodded. “Hassan promised his soldiers an eternal age called the Qiyamah, a final peace brought on by the return of the twelfth imam, the Mahdi. He convinced them that he was the Qaim, the ambassador who could speak to the Mahdi across the veil between worlds, and that all these assassinations were preparing the Earth for the Mahdi’s return.” The professor shrugged. “The great Hassan was nothing more than a charlatan, and every charlatan has his comeuppance. That is where Hulegu’s splinter group comes in.”