The Last Patriot

It was such a powerful discovery that Khalifa could barely sleep at night. It dovetailed so well with another project his colleague Anthony Nichols was working on back in America, that he felt as if Allah himself was steering his research, that this was His divine will.

All Khalifa could think about when he wasn’t at work was getting back to the CFLR facility each day to further investigate the fragments.

Though on evenings like this Khalifa missed Lombardi’s companionship as well as his expertise with the technical equipment, the truth was that he hardly noticed when the young Italian was gone. In fact, he was often so engrossed that he barely noticed Lombardi even when he was standing at the desk right in front of him.

Turning to the voluminous collection of information he had stored on his rugged Toughbook laptop, Khalifa pulled up one of the thirty-two thousand images the CFLR had already digitally archived. While he could have crossed the room and retrieved the fragment itself, he often found it unnecessary as accessing the digital images was much easier.

Khalifa was working on lining up six slivers of text written in the Hijazzi script when a shadow fell across his drafting table. “What did you forget this time, Alessandro?” the scholar asked without looking up.

“I didn’t forget anything,” responded a deep, unfamiliar voice. “It is you who have forgotten.”

Dr. Khalifa looked up and saw a man in a long, black soutane with a white collar. It was a common sight throughout Rome, particularly near the Vatican. But even though the CFLR did a certain amount of work with the Holy See, Khalifa had never seen a priest inside the building. “Who are you?”

“That’s not important,” replied the priest as he moved closer. “I would rather discuss your faith.”

“You must be confused, Father,” said Khalifa as he sat up in his chair. “I’m not a Catholic. I’m Muslim.”

“I know,” said the priest softly. “That’s why I’m here.”

In an explosion of black cloth, the priest was suddenly behind Khalifa. One of his large, rough hands cupped the scholar’s chin while the other gripped the side of his head.

With a powerful snap, the priest broke the scholar’s neck.

He stood there for a moment, the corpse clutched tightly, almost lovingly to his chest, then stepped back and let go.

Khalifa’s head slammed against the table before coming to rest beneath it.

The priest dragged the body across the floor and positioned it at the bottom of a set of stairs which led up to a small archival library. From there, it took only moments to set the fire.

Two hours later, having showered and changed, the assassin sat in his hotel room and studied Khalifa’s laptop. Connecting to a remote server, he had the Koranic scholar’s password program cracked within fifteen minutes. From there, one e-mail confirmed everything he needed to know.

Marwan,

Finally, good news! It appears we have located the book. A dealer named René Bertrand is bringing it to market in Paris at the Antiquarian Book Fair. I will be meeting him there to negotiate the purchase. As you know, my funding is limited, but I have faith that barring an all-out bidding war, the book will be ours!

As planned, I will see you next Monday at 9:00 a.m. in the Middle Eastern Reading Room of the Library of Congress-although now we’ll finally have the book and can begin deciphering the location of the final revelation!

Anthony

The assassin had had Khalifa under surveillance long enough to know who the sender was and what he was referring to. It was a parallel and potentially more damaging project, which up until this point had appeared stalled. Obviously, things had changed-and not for the better.

The assassin shut down the laptop and spent the next several hours pondering the implication of what he had learned. He then started formulating a plan. When all of the angles had been considered and tested in his mind, he reactivated the computer.

Attaching the relevant e-mails between Khalifa and Anthony Nichols, he composed his report and delivered his assessment to his superiors.

Their response came back twenty minutes later, hidden in the draft folder of the e-mail account they shared. The assassin had been cleared for the Paris operation.

At the end of the message, his superiors instructed that funds would be transferred to Paris and all necessary arrangements would be made. They then congratulated him on his success in Rome.

The assassin deleted the message from the draft folder and logged off. After reciting his prayers, he disconnected his phone and hung the Do Not Disturb sign on his door. He would be leaving early in the morning and needed to rest. The next several days were going to be very busy. His superiors were in agreement that the prophet Mohammed’s lost revelation needed to stay lost-forever.

CHAPTER 2

PARIS, FRANCE

FRIDAY

Thirty-seven-year-old American Scot Harvath studied the amazing woman sitting at the café table next to him. Her blond hair had grown back and came to just below her ears.