Cohen sensed his withdrawal, and her face tightened slightly as she watched his eyes.
“Thanks, Rebecca. It's good to know.” He turned quickly away from her and left the room.
6
Across the world in the mountains of Afghanistan, darkness had fallen, and the one called Kamir felt a chill descend. His group of mujahideen sat quietly around a small fire, several smoking, weapons at their sides. He was exhausted from a long day of drills, scrambling to keep ahead of American squads tracking them through the rough terrain. Their leader had posted guards at two positions around their camp, and three others at high and low points more distant. He grunted. They would see no Americans tonight.
His mouth formed a sneer. His group lacked any high-tech equipment — motion detectors, night vision, satellite surveillance — expensive toys used lethally by their spoiled and arrogant American hunters. Instead, they used an older set of tools: their eyes, ears, nose, and skin. Truer tools given from God, each a more finely tuned instrument than anything assembled to take their place. They learned the land; memorized its pulse, the night sounds, the scents that belonged, and those that did not. His troop remained several steps ahead of their pursuers, mocking the grand collection of technology arrayed against them.
Tonight, his senses were charged. No, they would not see the American army tonight. The last few days, a nervous tension had grown within the group. Grown within him. Normal banter had been replaced with sharp whispers, and movements were made with unusual caution. No one spoke of it. There were no reasons, no evidence of danger. Yet all felt it, a sense of encroaching violence. Kamir felt like the prey when the predator was near.
Too many training cells had disappeared. Only months ago, theirs was one of the most promising training centers, already receiving praise from terrorist groups seeking their fighters. He was proud of the demonstrations of their prowess and the respect they had earned. Suddenly, everything had changed. Groups stopped returning from missions. At first, it was explained as American interceptions, until they became too numerous, too frequent, and often occurred in locations not patrolled by United States forces. Not once had they recovered the bodies of their slain brothers. The mystery fueled a growing superstition: of dark forces, demons, spirits sent out by the Evil One to undermine the jihad.
Today, his small training cell had slipped past a second American patrol just that morning, and the sense of threat had only grown. The Americans were not the threat. His mujahideen brothers began to mutter old nonsense from grandmothers and pagan times to ward off the evil. Fools! They did not even understand the words.
Kamir signaled to a haggard man stirring the fire. “Jawad, see that there is little smoke.” Jawad grunted but showed no other sign of having heard him. Kamir stood up and quickly walked over beside the fire, crouching low.
Finally Jawad spoke. “I don't like it. We have not heard from the scouts for too long. We should wake the others. Something is wrong.”
Kamir nodded and muttered a curse. He glanced anxiously around the campsite. “Not even the insects speak.”
The men around him stirred restlessly, and several rose from their pallets and fingered their machine guns. Whatever it was, whatever had been following them like a wraith, it was here now. He felt it.
A harsh cry sounded out from one end of the camp. Kamir turned his weapon toward the sound. He jumped back as a mujahideen warrior staggered into the light of the fire, his hands covered in blood, his neck sliced open. He fell suddenly into the blaze, scattering the logs and tossing sparks into the air, his dry clothing bursting into flames.
From around the campsite, muffled shots were heard, and, one by one, the trained guerrilla fighters around him fell. Kamir spun in circles, unable to identify the attackers. Next to him, Jawad cried out, having been hit simultaneously in the chest and head, and fell backward several feet to land roughly on the ground. Kamir dropped to a prone position and scanned quickly outside the camp for a target. A blur to his right suddenly came into focus, a metallic gleam of a broad blade glinting. He turned rapidly to aim, fired wildly, but he knew he was too late. He felt an icy burn in his chest, and several gunshots thumped against his shoulders and abdomen. Momentarily, he passed out.
Opening his eyes to a fog of sound and pain, he tried to move but found himself unable to do so. He watched helplessly as several others managed to fire into the darkness, his eyes discerning only blurred shadows and motions. Each man soon fell, brought down by weapons unseen, controlled by hands unknown.
A silence fell around him, and yet he watched. A body continued to burn, now in the center of a circle of bodies, the stink of charred flesh carried on the soft breeze. His vision receding, he heard rapid shuffling sounds from the darkness, and several man-sized shapes sprinted into the camp. The fire was doused, and darkness infiltrated the area. A faint light from the stars weakly illuminated a group of active shadows that seemed to drift above the bodies, dragging the dead forms away. He felt his ankles clamped tightly.
He knew no more.
7
Savas struggled in a dream like a man drowning in water. It was the same nightmare. Dimly, a part of him recognized this, but his unconscious was in control and doomed him to walk through it again.
It was late September, 2001. He felt the storm rage over New York City. From above, he saw a depression, born in the Gulf, crouched over the Atlantic like an obscenely stretched octopus or some giant thumb of cloud-form pressed firmly on the eastern coast. Slowly rotating, its counterclockwise motion drew in the colder air of the north and built a storm system as cold winds mixed with the moist, warmer air from the sea. Savas's omniscient perspective contracted from the heavens to the streets below. He felt the pull in his stomach as he fell. Rain and thunder blanketed the concrete landscape of the city, and he came to rest near a small church in the Greek American enclave of Astoria.
A blue-and-white car was parked in front of the building. Inside, he saw the metallic finish of a handgun reflecting the orange streetlights at opposing angles, facets blinking underneath the rain-swept window where pouring water blurred the lighted icon of Christ on the church door. Worshippers trailed in, crossing themselves, dropping coins or bills to pick up candles, lighting them with short prayers, kissing the icons before entering. Inside, Savas knew, incense and chanting filled the air. Warmth and the damp smell of wet bodies and clothes mingled. Outside, only the incessant drumming of the rain, swallowing all other sound, blurring all images within the NYPD blue-and-white. No light shone from within. He followed a male figure as it stepped out of the official vehicle and entered the church.
As the doors opened, he saw an old woman inside, barely five feet tall, draped in widow's black as she hunched over candles, harvesting them, pruning those that had burned too low in the supporting sand beside the icons. She turned with arthritic slowness toward the door. Its opening brought a cold blast of moist air. Savas followed the shadowy man, the soaked and disheveled outline of his police uniform hardly recognizable.
As the dream continued, Savas felt himself approach the form, merge with it, until he felt himself striding with a mad purpose, drenched and chilled in his ruined uniform. He marched past the icons and candles, stepping through the narthex onto the red carpet that ran alongside rows of parishioners. He focused on the iconostasis and the altar, gripping a wet gun in his hand.
A priest was bent over the altar, hands cupped before him. He spoke the prayers before the Eucharist in a soft drone.