“And we don’t have earplugs,” Gordon commented.
“Among other things,” confirmed Taleghani. “A day after that a surface window opens in Gaza near the remains of the football stadium, and it’s likely neither one of us would survive that.”
“You were on the same side in the war. You are Muslim, aren’t you?”
“As you phrased it, Mr. Redcliff, I am but I wear the wrong hat.” The archeologist raised a hand and patted Gordon’s shoulder. “We will be fine once we return here to the site. I hope to extinguish everyone’s indignation with a bit of wonder—call it showmanship. Tell me—may I call you Gordon?”
“You’re writing the checks.”
“Gordon, are you familiar with a historical figure named Squanto? He was an American aborigine who was kidnapped in 1605 by one George Weymouth, brought to England, and shown to—”
“I know who Squanto was.”
“Good. I plan to return to our time with one of those villagers, Gordon. We’re going to bring back our own Squanto. I’d like your thoughts on that.”
In English Gordon answered, “Holy crap.”
Gordon found the supplies had been well thought out. The archeologist’s youthful anthropology, language, and martial arts assistant, Harith Fayadh, had included Ka-Bar fighting knives, a Detz .44 magnum bolt-action hunting rifle with optical telescopic sight, an old-fashioned but very reliable S&W .38 Special revolver, and a very modern Fedders M2 shockcomb. Gordon decided to keep the Detz rather than use his own rifle. The Detz was a simple, rugged, reliable weapon. Gordon’s Stryker was quicker and deadlier but relied upon sophisticated electronics. If something went wrong, the Stryker would be so much dead weight. The Detz could be repaired with just about anything from a penknife to a coin. The optical sights were rugged and removable.
Harith had thrown out his back at the dig, the pinched nerve in his spine causing terribly painful spasms. A blessing in disguise, as Dr. Taleghani informed his cot-ridden assistant when they visited him in the tent he shared with three archeology students who were at the sorting tables. “You have all the information regarding the expedition, my boy. If something should happen to us while we’re back there, we will be depending upon you to get us safely home.”
Harith nodded once brusquely, glared at Gordon, then fixed his gaze on a tent pole holding his corner of the shelter above the sand. “Please stop this juvenile sulking, Harith,” requested Dr. Taleghani as he sat on the edge of the young man’s cot. “It’s quite tiresome.” He patted Harith’s shoulder. “Now, tell me what is troubling you so, my boy.”
“An American sniper,” he hissed, glancing at Gordon. “His only skill is murder.”
Dr. Taleghani burst out with a laugh. “What nonsense is this? Gordon is a bodyguard, and he is very good at what he does. He is also quite gifted in learning languages, which is my principal reason for finding him valuable.”
“I have black belts in karate and tae kwon do. What belt do you have?” Harith asked.
Gordon pointed to the hand-tooled leather belt with silver buckle depicting a winking Coyote in his belt loops. “A black Hosteen Ahiga.”
Harith rolled his eyes. “Really. Eight ninety-five at your Wal-mart?”
Gordon glanced at Dr. Taleghani. “I see I have been misinformed about Egyptian manners.”
“There is no need to have manners with a murderer,” retorted the young man. “Doctor, this man is evil. I saw his record. He murdered for the Septemberist gangsters and spawned more murderers like himself.”
With an ill-concealed expression of astonishment, Taleghani leaned back and looked at Gordon. “I apologize. I’m afraid I’ve not been aware of my assistant’s depth of feeling about the war.”
“He’s a little young to have been in it,” observed Gordon.
“My father wasn’t,” countered Harith. “Perhaps you are the one who killed him.”
“Perhaps,” acknowledged Gordon. He studied the young man for a moment then walked until he was standing on the opposite side of Harith’s cot. “Where was your father killed? And when? Were you told?”
“Tabriz. The last year of the war.”
Gordon shook his head. “That’s one death I’m not responsible for, Mr. Fayadh. My unit never made it north of Malayer and I spent the last year of the war in a hospital.”
“And I am to believe you, of course,” Harith said sarcastically.
Gordon shrugged. “I would lie if there was a point. There is no point.”
Harith closed his eyes, the muscles in his jaws flexing. “Do not tell me the war is over.”
Gordon grinned as the memory of an Iranian captain he once met touched his mind’s eye. “No war is ever over, Mr. Fayadh,” he answered. After a pause he squatted, looked into the pale young man’s dark eyes, and said, “When I was a boy, much younger than you, every morning in the dark before sunrise my mother would take me to the top of Bear Rock. There she would stand, cursing the gods she imagined, beating a medicine stick against the rock, demanding the sun to appear. She called the sun Glittering Man. Some believed her to be a witch, but her only goal was to bring light to the world and end evil.”
Gordon thought back to the schoolhouse and the boys and girls taunting him about his mother, the witch. He had fought back, eventually. First it was with fists. Eventually he told them he was studying to become a witch himself, and that his studies would require him to kill someone, preferably a child. In middle school he once cut off a bit of his own hair and taped it to a filing card with the name, address, relations, and habits of Lee Waters, an eighth-grader and the ringleader of the school’s bullies. He allowed the card to be “lost” in the hallway between classes, and it eventually found its way to Lee Waters.
“What is this?” demanded Lee during the next class break, his hate-filled eyes dark and small in the boy’s angry face.
Gordon turned from putting his books in his locker and glanced at the card. “That’s for making medicine—you know, spells and curses. I have cards like that for everyone in school.” He had gone on to describe evil-wishing magic and how he needed hair, fingernails, blood, or such from a person to bury with corpse flesh to pray them down into the dirt. Lee took the card and put it deep within his own pocket. Gordon smiled. “That’s all right. I have more.” The bullying ended, but the terrible isolation continued.
“My mother called her gods Glittering Man and Blood Woman,” he said to Harith Fayadh. “I would help my mother raise Glittering Man from the night with my own curses. As the edge of the disk cut the horizon, my mother Nascha would sing her chant demanding the gods to bring down pain, death, horrible sickness, confusion, and all the punishments on the evil ones in the world. Just in case the spirits were forgetful, she would recite for them all of those evils. Mrs. Potts, the lady we bought eggs from, was evil.”
“An egg lady? Why was she evil?” asked Harith.
Gordon pointed with his forefinger at the side of his head. “Mrs. Potts was wall-eyed. She never had it corrected and always favored looking at the world through her left eye. My mother believed that was the egg lady’s evil eye.”
“What nonsense,” said the youth with unconcealed contempt.
Gordon pointed at Harith. “You are also one of the evil ones my mother begged the gods to kill.”
“Barbarian rubbish,” protested Harith. “I am not evil. And how would she know me?”
“You are Arab Bilagana, the child of Arabs. To my mother, that made you evil.”