Now his fate as a soldier was about to commence.
Leaning over the lip of the bathtub filled to capacity, Hakam carefully shaved his chest, arms and face, preparing and purifying himself for Paradise. After dabbing his face with a cloth, he sprinkled himself with rosewater and closed his eyes, his lips moving silently as he rubbed the perfume along his torso in gentle, circular sweeps.
Six months ago he met with Yorgi Perchenko in a land that was constantly cold, gray and depressing. The Russian and an Arab sitting across from each other in a wasted barn seemed an unlikely scenario given the Afghan war. But when Perchenko had the opportunity to conclude a deal for the sum of thirty million dollars, he didn’t care who the client was and no longer held the one-time prejudices that once bound him. He even told this to Hakam who responded with stares of indifference. But when Hakam had to speak he did so in perfect Russian without accent or dialect, making sure his answers were brief and to the point. His mission was simply to move the weapons into al-Qaeda hands as fast as he could.
Six months after that transaction he was in Rome, securing the leverage necessary for the next step of his operation by acquiring the Italian woman and her children, and immediately had them transported to an abandoned warehouse in Perugia, Italy, which was within eyeshot of the Ponte Felcino Mosque.
Now, back in the States after his brief spell in Italy, Hakam had just been informed by his contacts that the Arizona-Mexico team failed in its run to get their device across the border. The other two teams, however, succeeded, which in itself was good news.
Putting on a newly ironed shirt, Hakam stared at his image in the mirror as he dressed. When he moved his right hand to button his shirt, the mirror image moved its left. When the corner of his left lip curled into a semblance of a smile, the mirror image lifted the right. Everything — motions, tics and expressions — reflected the opposite. When he gazed upon his appearance one last time, the image staring back at him was the reflection of youthful innocence.
All around them shadows not their own seemed to ebb and flow inside a room choked with free floating dust and sepulchral dampness. Somewhere water dripped from a pipe or aged spigot, creating rancid-smelling puddles teeming with bacteria Vittoria Pastore didn’t even want to consider.
For three days she and her children were holed up in this room where cold, blue light filtered in through the marginal seams surrounding the boarded up windows. The walls that held them were made of corrugated tin, which were firmly riveted in place to steel framing. And the door was stalwartly solid with a small access door at its base that opened and closed for the proffering of food, water and the occasional clean blanket.
For days she remained strong, huddling the girls close together on the bunk bed stroking their hair softly, her eyes staring at nothing in particular as she sat there with all the fortitude of a machine, each day wondering if this was the day her children would breathe their last.
But Basilio wanted none of this motherly action, considering himself too old and manly to be stroked endearingly by his mother, even at the age of fifteen.
But she was proud of him.
When she wasn’t staring at a fixed point on the opposite wall, she would watch him pace from one side of the room to the other, noticing the striking similarities to his father, such as the way he kept his shoulders straight when he walked in a gait synonymous with confidence and strength, the gait of a leader. Yet she couldn’t help notice the worry and uncertainty regarding their fate in the young features on his face. And if her eyes could readily adapt to darkness, she might have seen the hairs on his arms stand out like the hackles of an animal sensing great danger.
Once the girls were asleep she would carefully set them aside so as not to wake them, and with Basilio by her side, they would search for a small opening around the window’s seam that would offer a minimal view of their captors.
In the three days held captive, they were able to conclude there were no more than six captors, all the same faces, same voices, always speaking Arab. Dressed in camouflaged military fatigues, they also wore the red-and-white checkered keffiyeh, an attire of their faith, and noted the weapons they carried.
Although she knew nothing of weapons in general, she knew without a doubt the weapons they possessed looked powerful enough to obliterate whatever target they were aiming at.
The outlook was not good.
Grabbing the fabric of her shirt, Basilio tugged at it to get her attention. When she faced him she could see the forced calm on his face, the way it belied his underlying and true sense of agitation… Just like his father would if he was in the same predicament.
“It’s been three days,” he whispered. “Nobody’s coming. Nobody even knows where we are.”
Unlike his father who had patience, Basilio did not.
“And what do you propose we do, Basilio? Take on soldiers fully armed?”
“Would you rather we wait and be slaughtered?”
“Basilio.” She reached out and placed a warm hand against his cheek. “Your father will figure this out. And when he does, everything will be fine.”
“Papa is in America. And we are… wherever this place is. Papa cannot do anything, and you know it.”
Vittoria knew he was right. Her husband was halfway around the world flying the pontiff from one destination to another for the Papal Symposiums. Even she didn’t know where they were, which was duly pointed out by her son. Nevertheless, she was not about to let Basilio make any propositions that would put them all in jeopardy.
“We have to find a way out of here. Perhaps when the guards fall asleep we can—”
“Basilio, no!” Her words came out harsher than expected. “There is always one guard awake, you know that. There is no way out. The walls are solid. We looked.”
He stood erect, his chest pumped out in macho pomposity. “Then we will die like cowards,” he said, moving away. But Vittoria knew better — knowing her son was simply venting because underneath he was scared like the rest of them. If one of the captors pointed a weapon at his face, she knew Basilio would break in a heartbeat.
Vittoria stood away from the slight aperture in the window frame that granted her a view of the world beyond tin walls and closed her eyes. After taking a long breath into her lungs, she then exhaled in an equally long sigh.
It wasn’t so much as dying like cowards as her son had suggested. It was the fact of dying period.
Why are they keeping us alive? she asked herself. And for how much longer?
CHAPTER EIGHT
Kimball Hayden, like most nights, slept little but never looked haggard or deflated. Instead, he always looked rejuvenated, his cerulean blue eyes always sparkling, the color of his face never pallid or dull, but always carried the sun-baked hue of tanned leather.
The nightmares plaguing him never drew from him physically. They only weighed him down emotionally.
Standing before the mirror, he noticed the marginal creases forming at the edges of his eyes and along the forehead. He was aging, no doubt, as nature does to a man by robbing him of his youthful appearance. But the man still maintained enough strength and power to remain at the top of his game.
When he was a newbie coming up through the ranks as a presidential assassin, he carried with him the claim that he was the ‘best the world had to offer’ when it came to double-edged weapons, for which he was master of the silent kill and combat engagement. Having run his blade across the throats of numerous enemies with impunity and undeniable skill, made him a lethal prodigy within the power halls of the White House. In fact, the principals were so enamored with his skills that they placed him amongst the current gods of Mount Olympus until the moment of his epiphany. Nobody had seen anything like him.