The Last Infidel Page 16

  “If that’s what you want, then that’s what you can do,” Bashar said.

  “You’re here alone?”

  Bashar handed Cody a piece of paper, something that looked like it had been torn out of a three-ring binder belonging to some junior high kid.

  “Are you serious, Bashar?” Cody said. “You fired guys with poor office habits a few years ago. Now you’re worse than they ever were. I guess I’m supposed to read this?”

  Bashar nodded.

  Jadhari came into the room, making it a point to announce his presence by calling Cody’s name.

  Cody kept his eyes glued to the paper, reading it over, line by line. “And to think that you had to type this. I guess computers are a thing of the past. And so you’re taking Vernon away from me? For slandering the prophet? You must be kidding me. Why don’t you just beat the hell out of him like you do everybody else and let’s call it even?”

  “Let me remind you, Mr. Marshall, that I am not here for your opinion on the matter,” Bashar said.

  “And the imam doesn’t want yours either, I take it.”

  “Where is Vernon?”

  “Probably at the mosque by now – I didn’t hear the truck arrive because I’ve been trying to close my eyes for a bit. In fact, I don’t see any of my guys here. So that answers your question.”

  “Then you will go to the mosque and bring him back – and you will take Jadhari with you.”

  “Bashar, if you don’t mind – can we both, for auld lang syne, just revert to four years ago, when life was good, back when he had Charmin and toilets and personal lubrication, and all those wonderful things that made us a civilization, and speak as friends?”

  Bashar rolled his eyes.

  Jadhari walked back into the work room, uninterested in the discussion.

  “Why don’t you let me take Jadhari to the mosque, I’ll let him have some target practice, and we’ll let him tell the imam that he put Vernon up against the wall and shot him. You know and I know that I need Vernon to help me out with---”

  “But he’s a metal guy,” Bashar insisted.

  “Not anymore,” Cody said. “He’s been working on the electrical system with me. If he doesn’t get his job done, the lights part of the project isn’t going to dazzle anyone. You know when someone is lying, and you can tell I am not lying to you. I taught you how to spot a liar how many years ago?”

  Bashar, not humored at all, just stared at Cody.

  “Just lie this time, Bashar,” Cody insisted. “And I hope you have a plan to get me out of here before they trim too much off my shoulders, if you know what I mean.”

  A loud crash, like something metal falling to pieces on a hard, wooden floor, came from the work room. Cody turned, thinking the noise nothing more than a typical workday mishap, and looked. Jadhari said or yelled something – whatever he said sounded muffled and unintelligible, like some adolescent cursing quietly so that a parent couldn’t hear – and then everything went silent.

  “The imam thinks he’s going to keep you on indefinitely,” Bashar said. “And that’s partly why I have come to talk to you. Between you and me, you just need to convert – but that’s not important right now.” Bashar leaned to the side and looked past Cody towards the door to the workshop, probably looking for Jadhari. “I’ll do what I can for Vernon. How much good that will do, I cannot say. But I think it will be best if you head over to the mosque and spend the rest of the day there. And just keep the imam happy and make sure we’ll have power tomorrow at five. I’ll follow you out to your truck.”

  Cody and Bashar walked through the workshop, Bashar saying something or the other about the generators, and how he’d planned on keeping the mosque supplied for the next two weeks with gasoline.

  Cody paid him little attention, his eyes cutting over to the partially opened door to the Underground Railroad tunnel. It was cracked by an inch or two, but cracked wide enough that it might draw attention. Cody positioned himself between the entrance and Bashar, and he tried to hurry up their little meeting. When he and Bashar walked through the shop to the back door into the alley, Cody pushed the lock button on the inside of the knob and closed it snuggly behind him. Now, Bashar would have to walk down the alley to get back to the courthouse. He’d never see the secret entrance to the tunnels.

  The driveway into the mosque from Greenland Avenue was as smooth as any asphalt road. The parking area – perhaps ISA thought there’d be thousands of cars parking here one day – was much lager than a building this size needed. But the higher powers agreed that it was sufficient, and Cody let it be.

  Several men, all of them Muslims, all of them wearing their signature camouflage, looked up when Cody stopped his truck in front of the mosque. A cloud of dust, thick and gritty, swooped forward, enveloping the men, who covered their faces with their hands.

  The tall man, the one wearing a towel around his head that matched his camouflage shirt and pants, was the imam, Husain Kumali. This was the same man who’d overseen the execution of Jose a few hours earlier.

  As Cody stepped out of the truck, he tried to remember Jose’s face. Nothing. That’s how it had been for the last two and some odd years. Here today, gone tomorrow. Only there were fewer and fewer infidels to step up and take the places of old, departed friends.

  This time it was Cody who greeted the imam, and his feigned eagerness in getting the job up and running suggested a willingness, however contrived, to let bygones be bygones. “I guess you’ll be wanting the air conditioning on as soon as possible – but I can only promise air for the prayer rooms only. Sorry about that. But that’s reality.”

  “Are you saying we are responsible for that reality, Mr. Marshall?” Imam Kumali announced loudly in a pleasant, up-beat voice as he handed a tablet of curled legal paper to a man standing beside him.

  “Of course not, sir,” Cody said. “But you’re doing a great job convincing the rest of these guys of the truth of the matter, so I bow in your general direction.”

  Imam Kumali turned and whispered to the man standing behind him, and both men smiled and laughed. He turned to Cody and said, “We thank you for your compliments, truly. Now, if you will, we have some businesses to attend to – is that right?”

  “The generators, yes,” Cody said. “Unfortunately, we don’t have enough generators to power the entire building, as you already know, so we need to be careful about what we turn on and when we turn it on. We don’t want to strain the motors, not if you want them to last. Then there’s the matter of the gasoline.”

  “We have the gasoline matter well in hand at the moment,” Imam Kumali said. “We have a tanker truck, a large one that is full. It is on the way as we speak.”

  “Where are you going to park it?” Cody asked.

  “It is near the Golf Course Camp, as we speak. It should be here in the morning.”

  “I mean no disrespect, sir – imam – sir,” Cody said. “Where are you planning on parking the tanker when it gets here?”

  Imam Kumali conferred with the man beside him yet again, and then he said to Cody, “Wherever you think it should be parked.”

  Cody saw movement out of the corner of his eye. Vernon was inside the mosque, walking the perimeter of the wall. Imam Kumali must have just arrived. Otherwise, he’d have bumped into Vernon and had him arrested. That, or had him summarily beheaded or shot, probably the former, as the imam was a great fan of Mohammed’s techniques.

  “If you will, your hineyness---”

  Imam Kumali bowed.

  “Why don’t we all take a quick walk around the side of the mosque and get a look at how I have this thing all set up, would you mind?” Cody asked with his hand out towards the right side of the mosque. “You never know what might happen to me, right?”

  Everyone agreed and started off towards the right of the building.

  Cody brought up the rear, lagging behind a yard or two, and then he said loud enough for all to hear, “Just go on ahead of me, I need my tool kit.” He wa
ited long enough for Imam Kumali and his entourage to clear the front of the entrance, and then he ran to the door. Vernon wasn’t too far away.

  “Vernon!” Cody yelled as he waved him over to the door.

  Vernon came jogging over. “You’ve got a death warrant on your head – blaspheming the prophet, or some such nonsense. Imam Kumali has put out a warrant for you, only nobody’s seen the warrant. You have food and water, right?”

  Vernon, his eyes wide with fear, and his hands clasped together in front of him, began to shake. “I’ve got plenty.”

  “Get into the crawl space beneath the rear emergency exit – you remember it,” Cody said. “You had to cut the vent to fit – it took you half a day.”

  “I got it,” Vernon said.

  “You get in there, and you stay in there – and don’t you come out until somebody comes for you, do you understand me? I think I have a job for you that you’ll really like. Just be sure to grab a jug of ammonia from the cleaning closet and---”

  “I know, I know – cover up my scent.”

  “Imam Kumali will almost certainly make a sweep of the mosque tomorrow,” Cody reminded him. “Remember, stay hidden. If nobody comes for you Wednesday morning, head east through the dumps and . . . and just go.”

  Vernon, looking both ways, scanning the porch area from left to right, hurried away through the main prayer room and disappeared. Cody closed the glass door and jogged over to this truck. He grabbed his tool belt and caught up with Imam Kumali.

  Cody spent the next hour explaining the operation of the air conditioning units and how and when they were to be used, and how to combine their usage with the usage of lights. He also detailed how classrooms and hallways could be heated and cooled independently of the many large prayer rooms.

  “This is a nightmare, Mr. Marshall,” Imam Kumali announced for all to hear, as he looked to his posse of head nodders for agreement and support. “But, on the other hand, there is nothing else we can do about it. Not until we can get electricity back again.”

  Cody chuckled to himself. Electricity? ISA had destroyed the electrical grid two years earlier, they’d demolished every factory on the east coast; and every road, including the interstates, needed resurfacing. Cody had heard a year earlier that, during the rainy season, I-24 at Antioch had a fifty-yard section washed out during an epic flood. And the only gasoline factories that remained in the United States were in the west. How the military was holding up out there was anybody’s guess.

  The tour with Imam Kumali and his men ended a half later at the rear of the mosque where Cody knew the gasoline tanker would need to be parked in order to serve the generators.

  Cody looked back towards what used to be Middle Tennessee State University – now an ISA camp for half of Bashar’s Islamic Front Army. A high, flat plateau of packed earth and gravel, elevated about a story high and paved before the war, blocked his view. The original blueprints for the mosque included plans for an office complex on the site but, due to monetary restraints before the war, the plans were scrapped. Instead, it became an elevated parking lot where contractors parked their heavy equipment, much of which still sat parked up there, mired down in the asphalt.

  “We’ll park the tanker right here, up against the building,” Cody said.

  Imam Kumali’s assistant leaned over and whispered something in Arabic, and the two seemed to have a disagreement.

  Cody got their attention and said, “But, if I were you, I would place the tanker further away. Maybe I could park it behind the mosque, up on this paved elevation. I don’t like the idea of having it so close to the mosque.”

  Imam Kumali raised his hand in the air and said, “Just the point my . . . I was making to my assistant. This tanker would make an easy target, being so close to my mosque – so, yes. I agree. We will park it up on the hill with the other equipment.”

  “Shall I begin cooling the prayer rooms for tomorrow’s celebration?” Cody asked.

  “Yes, sixty-nine degrees, no more and no less,” Imam Kumali demanded.

  “Sixty-nine is the best position, as you obviously know,” Cody said. But seventy-four is the best I’ll be able to do. Maybe seventy-three.”

  “Seventy-three it is, then,” Imam Kumali said in a surprised voice, as he looked at his watch. “Now that we have everything worked out, Mr. Marshall, please spend the rest of the day and inspect once more. Report to me if you need anything.”

  Cody looked back up towards the elevated area as Imam Kumali and his men walked back towards the front of the mosque.

  And he smiled.

  { 25 }

  Tracy was absolutely, no-holds-barred, vicious as she sat at the wooden table, in the old Greenspan basement, in the light of two oil lamps that seemed to flicker whenever she spoke. “Whatever Lisa chooses to do with Jadhari,” she pronounced to Cody with a fury know only to scorned females, “would be far more civilized than any pardon or leniency granted by the henchman of ISA to any of their victims.” And the best thing about her having snatched Jadhari from the workshop of the hardware store – Tracy shouted to Cody from the basement after he had gotten up and hurried towards the room beneath the courthouse where Jadhari was tied, gagged, and chained to the wall – the best thing, Cody, was that there would be one less, high-powered, Muslim thug left in Murfreesboro about whom innocents would have to worry. Jadhari is worse than them all – holy cow, Cody, really – even though you can’t see it through that overly-sentimental, wishful thinking of yours that everyone can change given the time and encouragement. And now that you have Lisa, your new girlfriend, the second one you’ve ever had, an affair at which I’m frankly shocked knowing about, shows how little you grasp the reality that’s staring you in the face – that there can be no love in war. Not two years ago, certainly not now, not ever.[i]

  And if you can stop Lisa from killing Jadhari, slowly, and with the great pleasure she’s entitled to, then tomorrow will never come: nothing will ever change.

  Jadhari had to die.

  The first words Cody and Lisa said when they saw each other were simple words of greeting, familiar to them both, kind and gentle. Cody told her he understood her reasons for wanting to do what she wanted to do, that he knew she wanted justice for what she and her son had endured recently and over the last two years. Lisa responded with a nod, telling him she was glad he understood her position; but she also reminded him that no fate could ever be too severe for Jadhari, just as Tracy had said.

  Jadhari seemed to have something to say in the matter, if body language and muffled grunting and moaning was any indication that actions spoke louder than words.

  And Cody carefully reminded Lisa that all of the infidels remaining in town were in this fight together; and that, “If you kill Jadhari,” he whispered in her ear, “the plans I’ve made for the last day of Ramadan will probably fail.”

  “I really, really want to hurt him,” Lisa said softly, putting a long combat knife against Jadhari’s throat.

  Lisa was an athletic type, nothing flabby or lose about her, with well-defined calves, muscular thighs, and an upper body chiseled from her waist up. Cody had first seen her a year ago, up close, near the edge of a stream, after he’d quietly made his way down to the edge of the water to refill his canteen. Lisa had just finished taking a bath. She’d seen him watching her – she recognized him as the ex-sheriff immediately – and allowed him a moment’s glance at her bare chest before covering herself. After picking up her bow and quiver, she turned and spoke to him, saying, “Hey there, Cody Marshall,” much to his everlasting embarrassment.

  Cody knew Lisa wanted to kill Jadhari. But he kept his cool and smiled in a way he always did just before he made an arrest he didn’t want to make. “Jadhari here would like to dissuade you from slitting his throat open from ear to ear,” he said, and Jadhari, nodding his head, seemed to agree. “But even then, I don’t want you doing it – but only for your sake.”

  Lisa just kept her damp eyes on the task at hand. Sh
e wore a tensed frown, the sad kind, a frown that told Cody she’d never do it, and that she knew she couldn’t. If Jadhari had been in the sights of her rifle, where she could have shot him at an impersonal distance, she probably would have pulled the trigger. But a knife to the throat took cold, dark talent, something Cody thanked God Lisa would probably never have.

  “If I don’t do it, he’ll just keep on doing to others what he did to Marcus,” Lisa said.

  “So you’ll kill him and that’ll be the end of it,” Cody agreed. He slipped in close to Lisa, putting his lips to her ear. “One more day – that’s all we need.”

  Lisa lowered the knife and turned towards the opposite side of the room, taking a few steps with her blade at waist level while Cody watched her.

  He studied her movements and, now that his eyes had acclimated to the low light conditions in the room, he tried to study her face. He felt sure she’d never do it. The tears in her eyes were tears of anger: she probably hated herself because she knew she wouldn’t be able to bring herself to cut Jadhari.

  Lisa put her knife back into its sheath. Without a word, she stormed back down the passage to where Tracy was waiting.

  Cody let her go. He’d catch up to her in a minute. He walked over to Jadhari and said, “You know and I know that I should have let her cut you. But you owe me now – this is the last bullet I am ever going to take for you, do you understand me?” He saw Jadhari struggling to breathe, so he loosened the ropes around his chest and arms. Then he turned and followed Lisa.

  Cody, Lisa, and Tracy sat around the wooden table, all of them looking at each other, waiting for the others to speak. How many times they’d gathered around this table he couldn’t guess. But this would probably be the last time.

  Cody didn’t bother with trivialities, because every hour, every minute, had become precious. He could only see the evening’s job staring him in the face, and he knew he needed to be working. It would take him at least two hours, maybe three, in the workshop, fabricating a tool he’d need on the last day of Ramadan. And he’d need two men to help him with the job.