Crucesignati

By Hilary Rhodes

From the author of THE LION AND THE ROSE, THE AETHELING'S BRIDE, and THE TRINITY CROWN comes a modern-day historical thriller unlike any other. When Abdul Mansour Rahman, a brilliant nineteen-year-old Iranian video game designer, falls in with an emerging terrorist group and decides to attempt his most audacious project yet -- bringing the medieval Muslim hero Saladin, champion of the crusades and legendary opponent of Richard the Lionheart, back to life -- it sets off a dangerous chain of events in a fast-paced, high-stakes adventure across the globe. As CIA agent Talia Montcarro tries to track Rahman down, she finds herself assigned to an even stranger job: supervising the eventful resurrection of Richard the Lionheart himself, who has also been brought back to life in an attempt to defeat Saladin's legacy once and for all. Working with an uptight Cambridge professor and a disgraced ex-Royal Navy captain, who has a hidden agenda of his own, Talia is in a race against time to stop an increasingly dangerous Rahman, control the perilous repercussions of "immortality technology," and come face to face with some unimaginably dark family secrets of her own.

Based on an actual quote in a twelfth-century chronicle, CRUCESIGNATI is a spellbinding, genre-bending page-turner that explores the ongoing war on terror in the context of the medieval crusades and some of their most famous champions, who have to join forces to survive in a bewildering, treacherous modern world that has changed beyond their imagination -- and yet in some ways, stayed very much the same. By turns humorous and heartbreaking, it incorporates questions of religion, science, technology, virtual reality, and more, and is filled with diverse, complex characters. Part sci-fi/speculative fiction, part dark modern satire, part historical novel, and part techno-thriller, CRUCESIGNATI is uniquely poised to speak to our fractured, uneasy political climate, in a world increasingly focused on the threat of ISIS, Islamophobia, and extremism from all sides, and to challenge perceptions of past and present alike.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hilary Rhodes
• Release date: Sep 15, 2016
• ISBN: 9781370192205

Hilary Rhodes

Hilary Rhodes is a scholar, author, blogger, and general geek who fell in love with British history while spending a year abroad at Oxford University. She holds a B.A. in English and history and an M.A. in religion and history, and is currently studying for her Ph.D in medieval history in the UK. She enjoys reading, writing, traveling, music, her favorite TV shows, and other such things, and plans to be a professor and author of history both scholarly and popular, fictional and nonfictional.

Book preview

CRUCESIGNATI

a novel

by

Hilary Rhodes

Copyright © 2016

All Rights Reserved

table of contents

Crucesignati

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Epilogue

About the Author

C R U C E S I G N A T I:

Latin legal term, circa twelfth century, meaning ‘signed with the cross’. It and the Old French croisier were used to indicate a particular type of armed Christian soldier performing functions very different from that of an ordinary pilgrim to the Holy Land. But these were by no means standard or descriptive of the same thing, and only after 1187 (the call for the Third Crusade) were they given any secular or legal weight. [. . .]

While as late as the end of the eleventh century the Muslims were regarded as merely one among a horde of pagan or non-Christian people, it took one event to crystallise them as the chosen enemy: the calling of the First Crusade in November 1095 by Pope Urban II, in response to Byzantine Emperor Alexius Comnenus’ request for help driving the Seljuk Turks out of Palestine and the East. The specific charge levelled against them was their ‘unlawful possession’ of a Holy Land conceptualised as rightfully belonging to the Christians, despite the fact that the geographical area in question had been ruled by the Islamic caliphate for over four centuries, which was certainly not involved in actively persecuting its Christian citizens. This harkens back to St Augustine’s criteria for ‘just war’, and demonstrates the ideological debts of the movement: the First Crusade was created by rhetoric, not reality.

It is worth noting, however, that the crusade was by no means originally constructed as a populist, Christendom-wide movement – in fact, quite the opposite. Both Alexius and Urban expected a single detachment of professional soldiers, but it was instead fuelled by a popular piety far beyond either man’s imagination, as hundreds of thousands of poor peasants and lowborn knights took the cross. The crusaders, called ‘pilgrims’, constructed themselves specifically as holy warriors, an identity that had tragic ramifications for Jews at home in Europe as well as Muslims abroad. They finally recaptured Jerusalem in 1099, ending a horrific siege with an even more horrific massacre; one infamous account claims that the blood of slain Jewish and Muslim citizens reached the knees of their horses. After this, they established the Latin Christian kingdom of Outremer (Old French: over the sea) ruled by kings of Frankish extraction for almost a hundred years.

After the debacle of the Second Crusade (1145-1149), the Third was called in response to Sultan Saladin (Salah al-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub)’s crushing victory at the Battle of Hattin in July 1187, in which he defeated and massacred a Christian army and then obtained Jerusalem’s surrender that October. In response, Pope Gregory VIII issued the papal bull Audita tremendi, blaming the sins of ordinary Christians for God’s decision to let the Holy City fall back into the hands of Muslims. It found enthusiastic reception among the princes of Europe, including the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick Barbarossa, the king of France, Philip II Augustus, and the soon-to-be king of England, Richard I (the Lionheart).

In forming a preliminary assessment of the source material for this period, it is important to note Richard’s remarkable lack of religious bigotry. His condemnation and punishment of the anti-Semitic riots that broke out at his coronation, his 1194 law Capitula de Judæis that made it illegal for Christians to kill Jews in his domains, and his open and frank willingness to treat with the Muslims as he would any other political entity – including going so far as to offer to marry his sister Joanna, with whom he was very close, to the sultan’s brother Saif al-Din – shows that he did not necessarily view the religious other as a threat, in a time of zealous and absolute opposition to it. He was also keenly aware of the bloodshed and pointlessness of the endeavour, at one point writing to Saladin, ‘The Muslims and the Franks are bleeding to death, the country is utterly ruined, and goods and lands have been sacrificed on both sides. The time has come to stop this’. This is not to suggest, however, that he had no personal involvement in the conflict. As the most celebrated warrior in Europe, the crusade was a paramount challenge for him, and as a Westerner, he felt entitled to Jerusalem over the competing Muslim claim.

As for Saladin, he admired Richard’s bravery but criticised his rash willingness to plunge into the middle of any fight, and took a more conservative approach to the war for the Holy Land, firmly rooted in Islamic and cultural tradition. Yet Richard allegedly stated that he would prefer to fight alongside the brave and gallant sultan, rather than his scheming and self-serving Christian allies, and called Saladin the greatest prince in the Muslim world; Saladin in turn replied that if he had to lose his lands, there was no one besides Richard he would rather lose them to. The Itinerarium Peregrinorum Et Gesta Regis Ricardi [IP], one well-known chronicle source, records Richard’s continued reluctance to move directly on Jerusalem, recognising the limitations of his tactical position from a thoroughly pragmatic and realist perspective, as well as Richard and Saif al-Din’s truly remarkable friendship; the two men had dinner together and exchanged many gifts and pledges of goodwill, and Richard famously referred to him as ‘my brother and my friend’. Saladin dispatched his personal physicians to treat Richard when the latter was ill, and during the Battle of Jaffa in August 1192, sent the king two horses after seeing him fighting on foot. After a treaty was concluded later that month, Saladin and Saif al-Din allowed many of Richard’s men permission to visit Jerusalem. Even the IP praises, ‘Under [Saif al-Din’s] protection the pilgrims had free access to the Holy Sepulchre [sic] and were treated with the greatest liberality, and afterwards returned joyfully to Acre’.

– From the Introduction in The Crusades: A New History (Nigel Philpott; Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK; 2005).

Saladin, therefore, asked him about the king of England, and what the Christians said of his Saracens. To which the bishop replied, In truth, as concerns my lord the king, I will only say what justice demands, that he has no equal among all the knights in the world, either for valor or for liberality in giving; for he is in every thing distinguished for every excellent quality. In short, my lord, in my humble opinion, if any one, bating your majesty’s sins, were to bring your virtues into comparison with those of King Richard, and were to take both of you together, there would not be two other men in the world that could compete with you.

– Itinerarium Peregrinorum Et Gesta Regis Ricardi

(Itinerary of Richard I To The Holy Land)

P r o l o g u e

Somewhere Near The Karakoram Highway, Pakistan

October 10, 2017

The men climbed the steep incline in single file, the cold, dry autumn wind whisking at clothes and beards and keffiyehs, a fine rain of dust and pebbles slipping from beneath their boots. The sky was a bleached blue-white that silhouetted their profiles as stark and black as if stamped with ink, and Abdul couldn’t resist glancing back nervously, even though he knew they had not been seen. His palms felt damp no matter how many times he wiped them on his jeans, yet there was too much at stake to show fear. The weight of the Kalashnikov was making his shoulders sore, but it wasn’t much farther. He tried to work up a little spit to wet his throat, but he still tasted parched.

Up ahead, Ibrahim signaled for a halt, and Abdul and his companions crowded in on the narrow mountain ledge. Below, he could just see the serpentine coils of the highway weaving in and out of the jagged karst, mounting toward the rockfall they had spent the night building. Behind, the ice-shouldered giants of the Karakoram Range tore holes in the clouds, a snow-laden current sighing down from the Baltoro. The road was still clear, but within another few weeks, winter would close like an iron fist.

Abdul sniffed and wiped his nose on the sleeve of his sweatshirt. His fingers felt stiff and clumsy, and he flexed them a few times, trying to get the blood flowing. His companions, by contrast, appeared completely unaffected. Ibrahim, the leader, was wearing old Soviet invasion-era army fatigues, while the others were only in turbans, salwar kameez, and leggings. Abdul could feel them looking at him, waiting for him to say something, but he refused. He knew they were all expecting the city kid from Tehran to be too soft, too weak, too squeamish, and he would not give them that satisfaction. He had been training for months with them, but they did not trust him yet, and would not for some while. Today was only the first step.

His companions were unslinging rifles, checking ammunition magazines and undoing trigger locks with practiced ease. Abdul followed their lead, surreptitiously double-checking that he knew how to feed it from the bandolier. His heart was pounding fast and short. This would be just like the video games, he reminded himself. He had played MMORPGs all the time back home, beaten all the bosses and won all the gold, then started writing his own when he couldn’t find anything challenging enough. That was how he learned English and where he met Jihadi32 and warrior_for_allah. Jihadi32 was American; warrior_for_allah was British. Anyway, they told him that he had a perfect opportunity, actually living over there. They sent him links to YouTube videos and blog posts and forums, and Abdul started listening to sermons by the sheikhs and reading about the struggle and really understanding how terrible it was, and how he had failed his duty to Allah. He hadn’t been all that religious before, a friendless, awkward engineering student at the University of Tehran, but these men understood him. They told him why he was so isolated, they were sympathetic, they liked him, and Abdul knew he had a place at last. That was why in June, he had told his parents he was taking a gap year, and used a fake passport to fly to Islamabad. From there, he quickly found his own.

Ibrahim was now making a speech, which Abdul followed with nervous half-attention. His Pashto wasn’t the greatest, though it was close enough to Farsi that he’d been more or less able to muddle along. Not that he needed to actually understand, as he knew perfectly fine what the point was. The Karakoram Highway was a big draw for adventure tourists, and there was a bus of them on the way. Today was the holy one thousand, three hundred and thirty-seventh anniversary of the massacre at Karbala, when the Prophet’s grandson Husayn was treacherously murdered by the infidel Yazid, and Abdul, a Shi’ite, had convinced the rest of the mostly Sunni brotherhood that their best chance of separating themselves from the crowded field, and distinguishing their cause to the pool of potential recruits, was to position themselves as the champion of all Muslims, over and against the unbearable oppression of the West. He had been more successful with some members than others; he was cognizant of the fact that he was one among many, and it was easier for them to humor him because he wasn’t a threat. Actually getting substantial groups of Shi’ites and Sunnis to work together would be something else entirely, but for now, they were willing to make the token appearance of unity. It was good PR, at least, and since Abdul had been the one to argue that they make the attack on the day of Karbala, he knew they were going to finger him with either the success or the blame for the result. It was paramount, therefore, that it go well.

"Bismillah hi rahmaan nir raheem," Abdul mumbled. Ya Allah, Allah is Great, Allah is One. He was still breathing hard, and not only from the thin air. He could just see the bus now, laboring up the hairpin turns, clouds of diesel exhaust chugging in its wake. The jihadis were running to take positions, propping their rifles on the rocks, and he did as well, lying flat on his stomach and pointing the muzzle of the Kalashnikov at the road below. Not much longer. He silently said dua to himself. O Allah, be pleased.

The bus was only five hundred yards away, and closing quickly. It was equipped, as were most of the hardy vehicles that dared the Karakoram, with a jangling array of bells meant to scare livestock off the road, as well as a horn that the driver, to judge from the sound, kept one hand on as a matter of course. Hopefully he used the other for steering, Abdul thought, and bit his lip hard. Laughter kept wanting to bubble out, half-hysterical, but he wouldn’t let it. When he had first mentioned to his mother that he should go be a fighter, she had said she didn’t want a dead son. Abdul didn’t get it. He’d seen plenty of videos where mothers in Palestine and the West Bank raised their sons from day one to be martyrs, suicide bombers for Hezbollah or Hamas or any of the other heroes fighting against Israeli tyranny. There was no greater honor than to know your son had died for the faith and was in Paradise. Maybe his mother didn’t love him, or didn’t think he was worthy, but he felt a faint glow of pride at the idea of showing her.

The bus had now reached the roadblock. All the honking in the world failed to vaporize the boulders and mud, and the diesel exhaust fug dimmed, but did not disappear entirely, as the engine died and the doors flew open like palsied buzzard wings. A troop of tourists piled out, cameras around their necks, wearing backpacks and sunglasses. One of them kind of looked like his cousin Zohair, and Abdul jerked, even though he knew it wasn’t. As the men started to help the driver move the boulders, and the women went to sit, probably trying to see if there was cell phone coverage, Abdul glanced at Ibrahim, and the leader gave a nod.

The next moment, they opened fire.

Abdul had forgotten his earmuffs, and the noise was like a crack in the world itself. A few of the tourists below thought it was another rockslide, looking up frantically for the hill to come loose and roar down on top of them, but there were some who knew exactly what they were hearing. Abdul aimed at the boy who looked like Zohair, because Zohair made his life miserable whenever their families got together at Eid and at any other occasion that presented itself, but at the last second he wrenched the gun away and shot out one of the bus’s windows instead. Bullets peppered the painted siding and the tires, which popped loudly, and the driver sprinted back and grabbed a rifle of his own from the dashboard. He began firing in the direction of the ambush, but the jihadis were well concealed, and the rounds sprayed harmlessly off the rocks. Then Ibrahim put one right through his turban, scoring a perfect hole in the middle of his forehead, and he fell.

Just like the video games. Terrified exhilaration burned through Abdul, high and hot as the flames of the village bonfire, when they had gone to seek out and destroy any books or paraphernalia deemed un-Islamic or kafir. He squinted down the rifle barrel at another of the tourists, frantically trying to get a transistor radio to work. He could have drilled her through the forehead too, but it showed more skill to just shoot it right out of her hand. His brothers were likewise gunning down anyone trying to place a call, and in a mad, lurching few moments more, it was over. Bodies sat or sprawled or toppled against the sun-warmed rocks and the side of the bus, desert islands in gently spreading seas of blood. By the sound of it, some of them were still alive.

Ibrahim jerked up a fist, and the brothers ceased fire. Then they broke cover, clambering down the bank. Half went to collect cell phones and cameras and anything else that could have recorded footage of the attack. The other half moved among the survivors, matter-of-factly dispatching them execution-style, and Ibrahim gestured to Abdul. You. Check the bus.

"Yes, sayyid," Abdul said respectfully, adjusted the black-and-white keffiyeh over his nose and mouth, and mounted the steps inside. It was warm and stuffy, and a syrupy-sweet Korean pop song was still warbling through someone’s abandoned headphones. Glossy magazines with pictures of Bollywood idols flopped open over the worn velour seats, crowded next to bags of snacks and bottles of American cola, one of which Abdul pocketed. Yeah, sure, it was Salibi soda, but the Pakistani version of it was crap and he wanted a good one for once. Even Ibrahim was known to enjoy a Pepsi on occasion, so Abdul took another bottle, something to present to him as a special gift, spoils of war. He couldn’t see anyone moving in the bus, and he let out a breath and turned to go. He also reached for a chocolate bar, took a step and –

It was then that he caught sight of the big dark eyes staring fixedly from under the seat, and his heart skipped a beat. It was a little Indian girl about three or four, wearing a puffy down jacket with a Disney cartoon princess on it. As they gazed into each other’s faces, she cowered harder and didn’t make a sound.

Abdul remained rooted to the spot. He knew what he had to do, and stalling would make it no better. Children were not innocent, Ibrahim had told the brothers, and they could not be spared, for would that stop the enemy from killing their children? They must understand how often the Muslim people had sat wailing with those small lifeless bodies in their arms, their dreams and futures snuffed out, their hearts broken, and know that pain a thousandfold.

Abdul pulled the Kalashnikov off his back, the barrel still glowing hot, and pointed it at her. Curled his finger around the trigger. Waited for the breath of God to move through him, to smite His foe. I submit to Your Will, he chanted: the very core of Islam, the duty of the people of faith. I am Your slave. In the name of Allah, the Glorious, the Merciful.

Nothing happened. He waited and kept waiting.

Another gunshot echoed through the broken window, and Abdul jerked. Nobody would find out until the bus did not arrive at wherever it had been expected, and families and friends became worried, and authorities were contacted. Then they would have to haul all the way up here and find the wreckage, assuming it had not been snowed in, and this, in Pakistan where nothing happened fast, would take weeks. Ibrahim had said there would be no Americans on the bus, to avoid tipping anyone off before time, and the Americans didn’t care about brown people killing each other. She would be dead by then anyway.

Abdul hesitated a moment more, then laid the Kalashnikov on the seat, knelt down, and unzipped the little girl’s jacket. She did not move a muscle to stop him, and he put the jacket on the floor, retrieved the gun, and shot it. Picking it up with its scorched bullet hole in the back, he dipped it in the blood by the window, then squared his shoulders and marched proudly out of the bus. One survivor, he said to Ibrahim. I took care of her. She was wearing these infidel rags.

Ibrahim surveyed the bloodstained jacket with approval, a look which turned still more pleased when Abdul handed him the bottle of cola. He unscrewed the top and took a deep gulp, then dashed the rest of it on the rocks and swiped the drops out of his beard. Good work, Brother Abdul. Raising his voice, he gestured to the others. Come. Let us pray.

The jihadis gathered in as Ibrahim took out his compass and reckoned the direction of Mecca. They passed a canteen to splash the blood off their hands, then raised them, said takbir, and proceeded through the rakat. After the fatiha, they recited from the Holy Qur’an, sura al-Maidah, ayah seventy-three: But there is no ilah who has the right to be worshiped but the One Ilah. And if they cease not from what they say, verily, a painful torment will befall the disbelievers.

Ibrahim swept a hand at the scene of carnage, to demonstrate that they had in fact done Allah’s work in bringing painful torment to the disbelievers, and the brothers genuflected, completed the rest of the prayer, and stood. Then they climbed down the path to where they had left their Jeep, parked on a pullout lower on the highway, and squeezed in. It was a drive of two or three hours back to the village, but the work for the day was still only beginning.

They sang nasheeds loudly as the Jeep roared along, spitting gravel, and once some bars reappeared on his phone, Abdul opened YouTube to show Brother Mahmoud one of his favorite videos: a nasheed set to footage of Saladin as played by Syrian actor Ghassan Massoud, in the Hollywood film Kingdom of Heaven. The young men marveled at his strength and nobility of purpose, until from the front seat Brother Haseeb pointed out that this year – this month, even – was the eight hundred and thirtieth anniversary of Saladin gloriously recapturing the Holy City of Jerusalem, just before the start of what the West called the Third Crusade. "Inshallah, we will have a new Saladin rise this year, he said fervently. The time is good at last."

A murmur of agreement rose from the jeepful of jihadis. Salah al-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub, the medieval sultan of Egypt and Syria, was a cultural hero so monumental to Muslims as to transcend nearly all differences of identity and ideology. The man who had taken Jerusalem back from the Christians and courageously stood against the foreign invasion that resulted, so renowned for gallantry and generosity that even the unwashed Franks admired him, whose legacy towered down the centuries and which had found a deeply renewed meaning in the years after Sheikh Osama’s strike at the heart of the American empire. Many a Middle Eastern leader, from Saddam Hussein to Bashar al-Assad, had tried to stake claim to this glittering mythology, but none had lastingly succeeded. The brothers hated the corrupt, secular governments of so-called Islamic nations anyway; one would not see the new Saladin rise from the iron-fisted dictators who conspired with the U.S. buyers of their oil, and the toadying, cowardly imams who propped up their regimes. Saladin was far from as popular among the Shi’ites, to be certain, but Abdul had decided he could overlook whatever nine-hundred-year-old petty political disputes formed the basis of that resentment. A great man did that, after all – magnanimously overcame slights and even substantial injuries in the name of the cause – and seeing as he was the one doing all the talking about a grand rapprochement, it was his job to put his money where his mouth was. They had helped him with the attack on the day of Karbala, and now he was going to help them with the rise of Saladin.

The sun had vanished behind the valley wall and the air was turning chill by the time they rattled up the single-track dirt road to the village, and the grubby jihadis clambered out, stretching cramps, cleaning guns, and drifting in the direction of food and evening prayer. Abdul, however, collected the cameras and cell phones and made for a sturdy shack roofed in corrugated iron, which stood apart from the other buildings of the compound. This was his sanctuary, his palace, and it was where he was going to do great work for the cause.

Inside, a bare bulb lit up a table piled with electronics, wires, monitors, black boxes, routers, modems, and Abdul’s own laptop. Pulling up the threadbare ottoman that served as his office chair, he switched on one of the black boxes, ran an Ethernet cable between it and his computer, then generated a new IP randomizer. If any watching security agency had reason to become suspicious of this browsing session, tracking the address would lead them to an Internet café in Hong Kong, or a suburban flat in Melbourne, Australia, or a dorm room in America – anywhere the players of Abdul’s MMORPG, Beastmaster: Age of Dragons, were located. It had started out with a few dozen subscribers among his fellow geeks at UT, but then, almost overnight, went viral. And when the game acquired new players, their login, location, IP address, and other details were pirated and converted into protocol masks. While Beastmasters of every background fought dragons, went on quests, bartered for gold, made alliances with fellow players, and rambled around a well-fleshed, beautifully designed fantasy universe, Abdul used them to hide from any potential government interceptor. It worked splendidly for everyone.

Abdul hacked the cameras and phones, extracted what usable footage there was – one had captured almost the entire thing, it must have kept running even after its owner was shot – sent it to himself, then wiped the memory cards. Then he opened his pirated copy of Apple Final Cut Pro, selected Saladin.mov, and really got down to business. Most jihadis were not about to be mistaken for award-winning filmmakers any time soon, and that annoyed Abdul, who had the chops to put together a really kickass production. He’d done almost all of it already – the voiceover of Husayn’s martyrdom, the appeal for Muslim solidarity, some battle scenes, images of the carnage in the wake of American and NATO bombing runs, and then at the end, the scene of Jerusalem’s surrender to Saladin from Kingdom of Heaven and the call for a new champion, Righteous of the Faith, to arise. All that needed to be spliced in was the actual bus attack, and Abdul did so with loving care. Once he finished, rendered it, and played it back, the final result brought him to tears.

Abdul saved the video to his thumb drive, then tore open the chocolate bar, started to munch, switched IPs again, and logged into Dragons, scanning his contacts pane to see who was on. Jihadi32 topped the list, and Abdul clicked to open a chat window. While he was still typing, however, a message flashed up. finally! been waiting up 2 hear how it went. u get it done hbb?

beat the boss big time and got all the gold pieces, Abdul reported, Jihadi32 being one of the very few people outside the brothers’ immediate circle who knew what that really meant. He was also, unofficially, Abdul’s CFO; the revenue from Dragons was deposited in an American bank account, and Jihadi32 periodically withdrew the contents and credited them to Abdul’s PayPal. He did this because as far as everyone else was aware, he, an American citizen, was the legitimate owner of the account. In return, Abdul allowed him to make all the personal purchases he wanted, so it wouldn’t look suspicious that the account was repeatedly emptied and transferred to a third party. Dragons was raking in enough that he barely noticed it, and Abdul was happy to let him enjoy the fruits of their labor. Jihadi32, after all, was one of the men who had awakened him to his true purpose and brought him to the brotherhood, and he enthused, u should hav been there. cant wait 4 u 2 see the video.

sweet!!! be released soon?

yep, Abdul typed, just finished. btw – u kno any1/anything who cld help us w/ a particular project? it’s what we need 2 really make an entrance.

what project hbb?

our newest game. battle of jerusalem 2: rise of saladin. we need the main character to come to life. so to speak.

u mean like someone 2 play saladin?

yeah more or less. will appear in vids 4 us, dress up/act the part, do some promotional materials/filmed fighting too. We need some1 good, mind u. not some crappy d-lister. Some1 to really behave/dress/embody saladin 4 us.

ya allah amazing!!!

So do u know any1 like that? Abdul often relied on Jihadi32 for these kinds of busywork operations; he having both a newfound vast amount of free time and a knowledge of the weird, wild, bizarre, and insane dark corners of the Web that rivaled even Abdul’s own. And while this was transparently a slick marketing tactic, nobody would know the difference. Why sit with their thumbs up their butts vainly hoping that a new Saladin would suddenly appear, when they could create him for themselves and reap all the glory that came with it? Muslims from every corner of the world would be jostling to join the brotherhood, finally form an alliance actually capable of resisting the imperial West and grinding their faces in the dust. we need to make everyon1 believe that it really is saladin (may allah be pleased w/him) come to life again. ideas/contacts/suggestions?

A very, very long pause. Then at last, Jihadi32’s terse reply flashed up on the screen: no. Yet while Abdul began to formulate an indignant rebuttal, the rest came far faster.

but u will never, NEVER believe what ive got 2 to show u instead.

C h a p t e r 1

Langley, Virginia

October 23, 2017

There was another crowd of protestors blocking the sidewalk when Talia Montcarro reached the top of the subway station escalator and dodged out into the chilly autumn rain, which wasn’t terribly unusual. This year had been one protest after another, and she had just gotten used to putting her head down and trying to push through them. Talia had been bombarded from every side of the ideological spectrum, yet she always couldn’t help but wonder what good the protestors thought they were doing in Langley. Maybe it was just the first stop on the subway that looked official, and hence they assumed they were in the right place. Or maybe they thought that if a clandestine overthrow of the President was necessary, they had better address themselves to the experts. They weren’t wrong that the CIA (and most intelligence services) didn’t trust him.

She emerged from the gauntlet comparatively unscathed, jogged to the intersection, and started to cross before the light flashed. Upon reaching the far side, she passed the perimeter remote checkpoint, then proceeded down the treed walkway, into the shadow of the long grey buildings, and finally under the half-moon glass atrium of the entrance to New Headquarters, part of (Talia had always found it scathingly ironic) the George Bush Center for Intelligence. She scanned through once more, exchanged a brief wave with the receptionist, then stepped into the elevator, made sure her Terrorism Analysis Division security-clearance badge was prominently visible – she just didn’t feel like being mistaken for an intern today – and hit the button. They glided upward, and Talia walked out into what promised to be the granddaddy of all cases of the Mondays.

Despite the early hour, the floor was mostly filled, and there was hushed talk at the water cooler – as well as, no doubt, the weekend gossip, an office of professional spies being the absolute worst when it came to keeping their noses out of their coworkers’ private lives. Talia moved briskly toward her cubicle, but not fast enough. Hey, Tal. Finally joining us to do some real work?

You should talk. But then, I understand that actually analyzing the attack might take away precious Beastmaster time.

Nick grinned, completely untroubled. I’m level eighty-nine right now, I gotta make level ninety before the briefing starts. You should play, you’d like it. I’ll teach you.

No thanks. Stereotypical Rich White Douchebag: thy name was Nicholas Giametti. He was blonde, athletic, wore preppy sweaters and J. Crew khakis, used words like antediluvian, sententious, axiomatic, and inchoate as if he had just looked up from SAT Verbal flashcards, and had a habit of constantly twirling and spinning his pen that set Talia’s teeth on edge. She had long suspected that he was at least somewhat interested in her, but his flirting technique had never progressed past the little boy pulling pigtails on the playground, closely followed by his tendency to tell sexist jokes or make derogatory comments, then get offended when she called him out on it. But Talia stubbornly refused to quit, mostly because she knew they were hoping she would, and also because times like now were what made the job what it was. Though they might eventually skip the passive-aggressive formalities and just roust her out. They’d been leery of her since she joined, largely because of her dad; Hector Montcarro was a longtime social activist, author, and Harvard politics professor, who blasted the U.S. government and its foreign policy in no uncertain terms. No matter how many random polygraph tests they sprang on her, and Talia passed, they still were not entirely convinced that she wasn’t feeding choice nuggets to him, just to fuel his fire. Her days here were almost certainly numbered, anyway. She was too female and too ethnic to make the President, and his buddies, very comfortable.

C’mon, Nick persisted. I discovered this cool trick the other day. I am The Beastmaster, but you may call me Sir. Let me show you. You know you want it.

No. Talia kept walking as he pouted and swiveled back to face his screen, which was running his new obsession, Age of Dragons, in glorious high-def. Fucking around like that would have gotten any of the hoi polloi axed on the spot, but Nick (and more importantly, Nick’s filthy-rich lobbyist daddy) were close friends with the President, and hence part of the billionaire boys’ club that got to call the shots these days. He could probably get shitfaced, strip naked, and expose himself to the security cameras with both middle fingers extended, wipe his ass with an American flag, and he’d only get canned if the video came to light by the efforts of some meddlesome journalist (or dissatisfied coworker, not that Talia would ever stoop so low). Such behavior had not disqualified his boss from getting elected, after all.

The sanctuary of her cubicle finally achieved, Talia shucked her coat, shook out her long, straight dark hair, and scooped up the pile of paper on her desk. The one on the top was another inter-office memo from the Equal Employment Opportunity initiative, and she groaned. Her father being half-Spanish and half African-American, and her mother, Anne-Marie, being French-Canadian with parents from Brittany by way of Algeria, Talia was featured front and center whenever the CIA needed some diversity snapshots. Census or any other demographic forms were the bane of her existence; she always just picked Other from the list. She had read enough Edward Said to appreciate the irony.

Talia gave the glossy handout a once-over, then tipped it into the trash. The second folder was a sealed dossier that proved to be a summary of the intel gathered to date on the Pakistan bus attack (not much). Two American citizens had been killed, part of an overall death toll of thirty-six, and the only survivor was a three-year-old Indian girl, who had lived off the remaining snacks and drinks and was now recovering in a New Delhi hospital. Agency investigators were hoping to speak with her as soon as they located a suitable Bengali-language specialist, but she was traumatized and would not utter a word to anyone. They were still not even sure of her name, which was hampering the search for family.

Talia’s mouth tightened as she twisted her hair into a thick braid, hoisted the folder under her arm, and clicked down the hall to the briefing room. There was nothing tying this to any of the usual suspects the CIA kept tabs on, and while lone-wolf attacks were certainly possible, this seemed just too slick and carefully planned for some random guy with a gun. The only thing out of place was the fact that they had left a survivor. If they’d wanted her to talk about the terror, spread the news to the world, they would have picked an adult, and either way, it stuck out to Talia. As she stepped into the briefing room, she chewed it over in her mind, hoping to spark some kind of connection, but it remained dark.

The head of Terrorism Analysis arrived soon after, as stragglers trickled in clutching Starbucks cups and Cinnabon bags, the security shades were lowered, and the meeting began. The glow from a dozen laptops lit the gloom as the director rolled down a projector screen and announced that this video had come to his attention just last night, picked up from the badlands of the Internet by one of the cyber-spooks in the NCS. After a preliminary viewing, he had determined that it might be relevant to their interests, and wanted them to take notes. It had been released to a little-trafficked jihadi forum, but was already racking up views far out of proportion to the site’s user base. And while the domain was on the CIA’s watchlist, they’d never seen anything like this from it.

The roomful of agents leaned forward, ears pricked, as the director hit play. It started with a voiceover in Arabic with English subtitles, explaining the Battle of Karbala, and calling for Muslim unity against their common foe, that they could not win if they kept distracting themselves by fighting each other. From there, it moved to medieval-style battle scenes, to newsreel-style footage of bombed-out civilians, to a jarring phone-camera video of what definitely looked like the Karakoram Highway attack, and concluding with the climactic moment of Jerusalem’s surrender from the film Kingdom of Heaven, and the call for a new Saladin. The shot lingered on the actor’s face, dwindled to black, and then words in English formed, stark and white. AWAKE. ARISE. THE TIME TO BECOME A HERO IS NOW. SALADIN HAS JOINED THE FIGHT – WILL YOU?

Reactions? The director raised the screen, and cued the lights back on. Yes, Montcarro?

This is too professional. Talia tapped her stylus on the table. Someone who knew what they were doing put this together. Did they trace the original poster on the forum?

Yes. It led to a private residence in Athens, Greece. The NCS has people on the way.

Talia shook her head. Unless the person on the ground in Pakistan emailed the footage of the attack to them – and I can’t see why they would take that risk – it’s either a fake or a stolen protocol. We’re not going to get anywhere by following that up.

Well, we’ll see. The director glanced over her shoulder. Giametti?

Flip, flip, flip, went Nick’s pen. "From the emphasis on the historical-religious event of Karbala, I propose that the creator and/or creator(s) of this incendiary missive are Shi’ite Muslim, or at least they would prefer for us to consider this the operative circumstance. But then they conclude their jeremiad with the stated desire for Saladin, a well-known Sunni Muslim hero, to join the cause, and seem to be forwarding a simplistic desire for Muslim unity? Plus, may I point out that the production values are quite high. It feels like a misleading propaganda piece, to be frank. Possibly even a fake, created by some shadow ministry in any number of Middle Eastern countries to fan the flames of intra-religious conflict."

The director looked thoughtful. Hmm. You’re right that clearly a lot of professionalism went into it. You think Karbala is a red herring?

Something like that. I mean, look at them. Nick shrugged. "Shi’ites and Sunnis loathe each other. It would never occur to them to bridge ideological divides. The internal divisions in Islam will always keep them from forming any sort of feasible coalition against the West. On the off-chance that it is genuine, I suggest we kindle Sunni outrage at Shi’ites attempting to co-opt one of their most central figures, as well as reminding Shi’ites of how much they’ve suffered from Sunni extremism. That would put an end to whatever plan they have in mind."

And how, exactly, is making Shi’ites and Sunnis hate each other even more going to solve the actual issue of who is responsible for the bus attack? Talia put in.

Nick glared at her. Excuse me if I’m trying to envision a solution that doesn’t require constant military intervention on our part. Playing peacekeeper has obviously failed, spectacularly. We need to get out of that hellhole and leave them to their fate. If they want to fight each other to the bitter end, let them. We will, of course, protect our investments, but getting involved every time some Arab stubs their toe, decides it’s their neighbor’s fault, and fires a rocket launcher at him has to stop. This terror-solidarity idea of theirs will almost surely stumble on practical application anyway, but it’s in America’s interests to make sure it does.

"So you suggest we inflame religious hatred, then get out of there and make sure everyone knows it’s not our fault? Seriously?"

That’s not what I was saying! You don’t get it!

Oh really? What don’t I get? Explain, please.

One of Nick’s buddies rolled his eyes. Christ, can you two just shut up and bang already? Then the rest of us can be spared your bickering foreplay. Plus, Talia, little tip. You could stand to dial the ice-bitch act back about ten notches.

Talia opened her mouth, then closed it. She hadn’t realized that trying to do her job made her a bitch, and that her repeated rejections of Nick must mean that she was in fact hot for him and was just playing hard to get, but she did know that everyone else thought so. Smarting, she did her best to get back on message. "Why is it so impossible that Muslims of any stripe would look to Saladin as an inspirational hero? This group, whoever they are, have given us