Assassin

Chapter Fifteen

The Emirate

THE EMIR’S STARK FORTRESS STOOD AT SOME TWELVE THOUSAND feet, nestled between four craggy peaks rising like curved stone incisors at each of the four walled corners of the ancient fortress. Since the Emir himself knew he would never leave his citadel for any destination save Paradise, he didn’t care that it was virtually impossible to reach in any season. This was precisely why he’d chosen the inaccessible site in the mountainous heart of the Emirate. He had begun to enlarge and modernize this bastion some thirty years prior.

Remote as it was, security was sophisticated, and pervasive. A large monitor, one of many mounted above the small divan in the Emir’s day room, showed a small caravan now making its way upwards through the pass toward his gates, battered by a howling snowstorm. It was the camel train of Snay bin Wazir the infidel, the impious, the indispensable, the son-in-law. Although the Emir despised Snay bin Wazir, his impending arrival met with considerable anticipation.

His Excellency, the Most High, the Emir had but one burning lifelong goal. To establish Khilafah. Allah’s rule over all the earth. His fiery zealotry was deeply and purely religious. He wanted to purge the planet of every drop of the blood of the infidels, the unbelievers. Only then could humankind live in peace under the One True God.

Truly, a lot of infidel blood had already been shed. But this the Emir considered but a drop in Allah’s bucket.

The ice-coated bin Wazir, now making his way up the steep incline, shuddered with cold and anger. His loathing was predicated on far less righteous ideals than those of the noble Emir. Bin Wazir burned with envy. Jealousy. Humiliation. It was a source of great friction between himself and his father-in-law. In the late nineties, the Emir had found Snay bin Wazir’s highly publicized love of western luxury and the western mores of London debasing and disgusting.

Then one of the Emir’s British agents had sent him a taped BBC segment entitled:

“Beechum’s. A First Peek Inside The Pasha’s New Palace.”

Snay’s days as a bon vivant on the London scene were already numbered. This public humiliation of a member of the Emir’s household was one thing. But the Emir had heard through the grapevine that his son-in-law had recently attracted the attention of the police. Interpol and the Americans were looking into a series of brutal murders in London. Knowing Snay’s bloody proclivities, the Emir knew his guilt in the matter was more than likely. It was only a matter of time before the investigation would lead to the Emir’s doorstep. And so he’d had his network of sleeper agents inside Britain kidnap the infidel and his wife, the Emir’s beloved daughter Yasmin, fly them out of the country and transport them to his mountain fortress.

In a trial presided over by the Emirate’s sole authority, the Emir himself, bin Wazir had been found guilty of endangering the holy cause and bringing great shame on the House of the Emir. He was dragged away in chains, his fate sealed, his wife pleading with her father, to no avail.

On the morning of Snay bin Wazir’s scheduled beheading, however, the Emir had second thoughts about his despicable son-in-law. To execute him, however just, would kill his own daughter just as surely. She swore she would follow her husband to Paradise. The Emir could not imagine life on this earth without his precious child, no matter how cruelly she had disappointed him.

He would save two birds with one uncast stone.

His son-in-law was a vicious, vengeful animal with more cunning and raw intelligence than was typical of his low-bred breed. He could, the Emir considered, actually be useful. He could render service to Allah even though he was not remotely a true believer. He could become, with time and training, yet another swift sword in the Emir’s hand. He would have to be schooled ruthlessly until he had mastered the Arab warrior’s timeless arts of murder. After that, yes, this beast Snay could prove useful.

After some thought, the Emir made another fateful decision. He would recreate an age-old Arabic institution: the hashishiyyun. Once a secret sect of medieval Islam, this drug-crazed cadre of exquisitely skilled assassins was originally comprised of both sexes. In the Emir’s vision, this murderous clan would be comprised of the deadlier of the species. All seductive females, the better to insinuate themselves more easily into the enemy’s hearts and lives. And bin Wazir, who had a certain power over women, would be the ideal chieftain for such a secret army.

The ancient assassins would gladly hurl themselves from the tops of lofty towers at the click of the master’s fingers, just to demonstrate their contempt for life and absolute fealty to their lord. The Emir believed Snay could command that kind of loyalty. He had a strange power over women.

So Snay bin Wazir’s head, to his amazement and delight, remained affixed to his torso. So long as he trained faithfully, and ruthlessly executed the Emir’s evolving strategies for the creation of the new hashishiyyun, his existence would be tolerated. He would retire from public life in the west. He and his wife could live as they chose as long as they remained chiefly inside the Emirate’s borders. The Emir deposited one hundred million pounds sterling in Yasmin’s name in a bank in Zurich. Six months later, Snay and Yasmin began construction on their magnificent new mountain-top residence, the Blue Palace.

There, in splendid isolation, bin Wazir would create this new order of hashishiyyun. An army of perfectly trained female killers. Seductive and lethal, they would go out into the world, far beyond the borders of the Emirate, to do the bidding of their immediate master through the orders of Snay’s own exalted lord, the Emir.

“Shit!” Snay shouted to his camel boy, wiping a fresh coating of snow from his frozen beard. “How much farther?” His camels stumbled once more and he was nearly thrown from his tossing and pitching sedan. Camels were for the desert. Normally camels were the transport of choice in these mountains, too. But, ascending icy mountain ranges in a blinding snowstorm was not their strong suit.

The new millenium was already in its fourth year. Riding atop these bloody frostbitten camels was a far cry from gliding around Mayfair in the rear of his gleaming Silver Ghost, sipping a Pimm’s Cup with his old friend Attar. Ah, he’d been the toast of London for a while, his handsome face and glitzy lifestyle the stuff of glossy magazines and Sunday supplements.

Then, Beechum’s.

He had opened his opulent palace with great expectations. It was to be the cornerstone of his expanding personal real estate empire. But, then the disastrous opening and, the morning after, that infamous boldface tabloid headline had appeared. Two bloody words (written, no doubt, by the treacherous Stilton) were emblazoned above a close-up picture of Snay at the opening night reception. A full-page, four-color nightmare.

The fatal stab was the headline all London saw that morning. Above the shot of Snay toasting the camera with champagne, the erstwhile Pasha of Knightsbridge read these words:

“YESTERDAY, THE TOAST OF LONDON…TODAY, HE’S TOAST!”

Five long years after the fact, bin Wazir, still nursing those old wounds, was riding out another storm. Only now he was slung between two surly camel mounts in a custom cradle of ebony with an ivory rim, richly adorned with gold and jewels. Wind and snow whipped through, lashing the canvas awnings aside as if they were ribbons. Snay’s thick moustache was solid ice beneath his nose.

“How long, boy?” he called out.

“Another hour or two, I believe,” the boy Harib called back, quaking with fear. “Inshallah.”

Harib knew his indefinite answer would only serve to anger Snay further. Inshallah had many shades of meaning, from ‘God willing,’ to ‘soon,’ to ‘don’t count on it.’ But Harib couldn’t be more precise because he couldn’t see any of his familiar landmarks. The snowstorm wasn’t his fault, but Snay didn’t care. He’d been screaming at everyone for the better part of the day. Harib had already felt the sting of Snay’s rhino-hide whip across his shoulders when one of the camels had stumbled into a deep crevasse hidden by snow, nearly spilling the four-hundred-pound sumo-weight Pasha into a snowbank.

There were, in all, twelve camels in the storm-lashed caravan, the lead six bearing Snay, his four sumo guards, and the African chieftain Tippu Tip at the front of the pack. Six more camels behind them were loaded with supplies, weapons and Snay’s mountain fighters. The weaponry was sophisticated in this remote part of the world and included the very latest German machine guns and laser-guided rocket propelled grenades, RPGs.

No sign of trouble yet, fortunately, but there were many ancient warring tribes in these mountains, vicious warriors who bore no allegiance to either Snay or the Emir, and the danger of a surprise attack by these screaming, saber-rattling hordes was ever present.

The wind-whipped snow had been increasing in intensity. Snay had known he faced a treacherous ascent, even in mild weather. In white-out conditions, as now, it was madness. But what choice did he have?

He’d been summoned by the Emir. And so began the long, dangerous journey which would take him from one mountain peak, his own 18,000-foot Blue Mountain, down and across the Dasht-e Margow, the Desert of Death, that crossroads where three continents meet, and, from the baking desert floor, up again into one of the world’s most treacherous mountain ranges.

Ahead, on the so-called trail, Snay bin Wazir could almost distinguish three giant figures atop their struggling mounts. Tippu Tip was leading the two sumos in front of his sedan. Behind were camels bearing the two other sumos. He was well guarded as always, he thought, trying to find some comfort in his situation. But what could protect him from plummeting through a snow-covered crevasse? Or from a rock slide, an avalanche, a murderous horde? These things happened with regularity at this altitude and—

“Pasha! Look!” the camel boy shouted, interrupting his dark musings.

“What?” Snay said, looking everywhere for signs of his imminent demise. As if he didn’t have enough on his mind, wondering what the Emir wanted that—“What is it, damn your eyes?”

“There!” the excited boy said, pointing off to the right. “Do you see it? Allah be praised!”

Relief swept over him. No wild devils on horseback were sweeping down on him from the heights. No, what he saw was a massive radar dome. It was just the first of an outlying perimeter of many radar sites leading up to the fortress itself; but it meant the caravan was much closer to its destination than he’d been told by the witless Harib. First, the radar, and then, climbing higher, the anti-aircraft and surface-to-air emplacements. He was, by all approximations, less than an hour from learning what his future held.

Snay bin Wazir shut his eyes. He knew this next bit well enough. The cages.

Now came the first of many “man cages” erected on either side of the pass. These filthy iron baskets, stretching along either side of the “mile of death” leading to the fortress’s massive gates, held men, women, or the remains of either. They were ancient devices, made of thick iron slats, woven into basket shapes. The victim was placed inside, then hoisted high on poles that loomed above the pass, where no friends or relations could pass food, water, or salvation in the form of poison to the condemned. The cages were a sobering reminder of the Emir’s absolute power over all his subjects and agents; not that bin Wazir, of all people, needed any sober reminding.

“Allah preserve me,” Snay croaked, miserably rubbing away the painful icicles that had formed on his frozen eyelashes.