Though the 9/11 jihadi attacks had little direct, long-term impact on the United States, the martyrdom operation induced the former regime to overextend itself in fruitless military engagements around the world. After their failed attempt to create democracy in the Islamic homeworld, the Crusaders fled, grown weary of war, eager to return to their idle pursuits. This great retreat left the West drained of capital, manpower, and, most important, bereft of will.
The Old One stared at Sarah’s words. Most historians considered the transformation of the former United States into two nations, a Muslim republic and a Christian Bible Belt, as preordained by Allah, a separation of the faithful and the faithless prior to Judgment Day. What nonsense. Barely fourteen, Sarah had seen more clearly than any of these so-called experts. Had he known how well she had learned the lessons Redbeard taught, the Old One would have killed her before she bled.
When the U.S. troops trickled home, the former regime was confronted by a prolonged economic downturn that only exacerbated the gap between rich and poor. As the recession deepened and politicians chattered, thousands died in job riots and whole cities were torched. The final straw was the suitcase nuke attacks on New York City, Washington, D.C., and Mecca in 2015, by the Israeli Mossad, which collapsed the former society.
When martial law was lifted two years later, the economy was still unstable, the government distrusted, and the people spiritually starved. Western churches, rather than offering moral guidance, were weak and vacillating, unwilling to condemn even the most immoral behavior. Islam offered a bright light and a clear answer, and the faithful could not build mosques fast enough to satisfy the need. While no force of arms could defeat the armies of the West, it was their moral and spiritual void that ultimately vanquished them.
Sarah couldn’t have known-few even suspected-the hand of the Old One at play in the decline of the West. It had been his money, filtered through numerous fronts, that had had financed the academic think tanks and jihadi legal defense teams…all the useful idiots. It had been his money that had funded politicians and religious figures, compliant judges and radical journalists, billions of dollars in honoraria, with presidential libraries and foundations in particular targeted. That was the carrot. The Old One stroked his chin where his beard had once been. There was also the stick. Hard-line military leaders discredited. Evangelists mocked. Curious investigators framed or fired. Or worse.
The Star of the Sea shuddered slightly. This part of the Pacific was prone to rogue waves kicked up by the super-typhoons that had become so prevalent. Waves and ripples, ripples and waves. He half closed his eyes, fondly remembering the images from long ago-New Orleans flooded, the blacks huddled on their rooftops, waiting for help that never came, while breathless TV reporters spread false stories of murder and cannibalism, of babies raped and women butchered. That was a historic pivot point: the moment when America realized there was no great white father in Washington eager to soothe their woes. All it had taken was a few carefully chosen inept bureaucrats and a dozen small explosive charges placed under the levees of the Ninth Ward. When the great warming permanently submerged the city a few years later, it was almost irrelevant.
He had come so close. Three years ago, his plan to seize control of the Islamic Republic had finally seemed within his grasp. The first step of the greater plan. President Kingsley and his moderate coalition were old and tired, the nation adrift, waiting for a strong man who would lead them forward. In truth, the Old One was the man come to lead the world, the Mahdi, the twelfth imam, the Islamic messiah come to guide the world away from materialism and idolatry. The man chosen by Allah to appear at the End-Time, chosen to create a one-world caliphate under sharia law, and usher in an age of peace and piety. After the nonbelievers were put to the sword.
Then, Sarah and Rakkim had ruined everything. All the Old One’s work had been undone when that bitch’s research uncovered the truth: The Israeli Mossad wasn’t responsible for the suitcase nuke attacks twenty-five years earlier. It was the Old One.
The blood libel exposed, the Old One had fled his citadel in Las Vegas, his bank accounts and assets confiscated. The accounts they could find, anyway. The most-wanted man on the planet, that’s what the news reports had called him. The Islamic nations cried loudest for his head, those apostates in Arabia and Iran with their false Islam. Even his oldest son, Ibrahim, had questioned their survival, but then, like most men, Ibrahim had a tiny white worm in his soul, devouring his resolve. With a son like Rakkim, the Old One would have already stood astride the world, but the Old One’s bloodline had thinned. He had to make do with the sons he had.
The Old One and his inner circle had taken refuge on the Star of the Sea, ensconced on a floor of suites he had purchased when the ship launched five years ago. The liner was a perfect redoubt, always in transit, a nation unto itself, its encrypted communiqués allowing him to maintain at least tenuous contact with his operatives around the world. The vessel itself was under his command-the captain and security team offered him their complete allegiance.
He angrily tapped the tablet with a manicured finger and the screen went black.
Eleven thousand passengers on the Star of the Sea, twenty decks of luxury and excess, the largest passenger vessel on the ocean, with dozens of movie theaters, casinos, shopping malls, churches, and mosques. Eleven thousand passengers and the Old One had to encounter Ambrose Gladwell their third night out of Buenos Aires. Forty-five minutes ago, Gladwell had nearly bumped into the Old One, his eyes widening slightly as he made his apology. The Old One had touched his hat, continued on his promenade as though nothing had happened, but he knew that Gladwell’s curiosity had been piqued. It wouldn’t take long before he realized whom he had met. Leave it to that sharp-eyed bond trader to see what others had missed.
Of course, there was no direct connection between the man who had hired Gladwell fresh out of the London School of Economics and the most-wanted man in the world. The Old One had been already past middle age then, already wealthy beyond any expectation, already secretive too, never quoted, never photographed. Gladwell had been nervous during the initial interview, crossing and uncrossing his long legs as he sat before the Old One’s desk. The Old One had been called Derek Farouk then, one of the many names he had used over the long years. One of the many faces he had shown the world. The son of a British mother and an Egyptian father, that was the story. Gladwell couldn’t keep his hands off his necktie, adjusting and readjusting his Windsor knot as the Old One peered down his nose at him.
William, one of his young aides, slipped into the salon through a side door. He stopped a few paces from the Old One, lowered his eyes. “Mr. Gladwell is in the anteroom, Mahdi.”
“No one saw him enter?”
William shook his head. “The chief steward himself escorted Mr. Gladwell here. Most of the passengers still awake are at the festivities on C deck.” He inclined his head. “The communications officer said no calls or communiqués were made from any of Mr. Gladwell’s personal devices in the last hour.”
The Old One dismissed him with a wave of his hand.
Gladwell bustled into the salon as soon as the door to the anteroom was opened, his joints still limber in spite of his years. Eighty-two last July 17. He wore a herringbone smoking jacket and flannel trousers, deerskin moccasins and no socks. Recommended sailing attire, according to the brochure for the Star of the Sea.