Christopher Reich - Numbered Account

Normally, he was thankful for the unerring efficiency of the Swiss. No other country oversaw the execution of a client’s instructions with such exactitude. The French were arrogant. The Chinese imprecise. The Cayman Islanders—who could trust that colony of self-serving financial leeches? The Swiss were polite, deferential, and exact. They followed orders to the letter. And so his escape, when analyzed, grew more storied. For it was the disobeying of a clearly defined order that had permitted him to flee the grasp of the international authorities. He was indebted to an American: a United States Marine, no less. One whose brethren’s blood defiled the holy land over which he now drove.

Mevlevi could not stifle the laugh rising up from deep within his belly. The self-righteous Americans—policing the world, making it safe for democracy; a planet, dictator and drug free. And he was a dreamer?

Mevlevi checked his speed and kept the car pointed south on National Route 1, toward Mieh-Mieh, toward Israel. To his right, barren hillocks of pale alkali grit rose up from the Mediterranean Sea. Occasionally, a settlement dotted the top of a small rise. The low-slung structures were built of cinder block whitewashed to deflect the Levant’s bleaching sun. More and more sported antennas, some even a modest satellite dish. The Shouf Mountains rose steeply to his left, colored a bluish-gray and shaped like the dorsal fins of a school of sharks. Soon, their slopes would darken into a verdant green as the deciduous trees that flourished on the mountains’ slopes sprouted new buds.

General Amos Ben-Ami had led his forces down this very road sixteen years before. Operation Big Pine: the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. American-made tanks, armored personnel carriers, and mobile artillery streamed across the Israeli border in a vomitous wave of Western imperialism. The ill-organized Lebanese militias offered scant resistance. The Syrian regulars scarcely more. Truth be known, Haffez-al-Assad had issued orders to all senior commanders that should the vanguard of Israel’s troops reach Beirut, his soldiers were to withdraw to the relative safety of the Bekaa valley. And so when General Ben-Ami led his troops to Beirut and encircled the city, the Syrians were absent. The PLO laid down its arms and was allowed to disembark by sea for camps in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Eleven months later, Israel withdrew her troops from Beirut, preferring to establish a twenty-five-kilometer security zone on her northern border. A cushion to distance herself from the country of Islamic fanatics who lived to the north.

The Israelis had bought themselves fifteen years, mused Ali Mevlevi. Fifteen years of blemished peace. Their vacation would soon end. In weeks, another army would travel a path parallel to National Route 1, this time traveling south. A secret army under his guidance. A guerrilla force fighting beneath the green-and-white standard of Islam. Like the fabled khamsin, the violent wind that sprang from the desert without warning and for fifty days devoured all in its path, he would rise unseen and rain fury upon the enemy.

Mevlevi opened a sterling case at his side and withdrew a slim black cigarette, a Turkish Sobranie. One last tie to his homeland: Anatolia—where the sun rises. And where it sets, he thought bitterly, leaving its inhabitants poorer, dirtier, and hungrier than the day before.

He drew deeply from the cigarette, allowing the acrid smoke to fill his lungs, feeling its potent nicotine invigorate him. He saw before him the rugged hills and salt plains of Cappadocia. He envisioned his father sitting at the head of the rough wooden table that had dominated the living area, serving as workbench, conjugal bed, and on rare occasion, a formal surface for feasting and celebration. His father would be wearing the tall red fez he so treasured. His elder brother, Saleem, too. Dervishes, both of them. Mystics.

Mevlevi remembered their twirling and spinning, their high-pitched chanting, the hems of their skirts bouncing higher as their worship grew more impassioned. He saw their heads tilt back and watched their jaws fall as they cried out to the prophet. He heard their fevered voices urging their fellow Dervs into a state of ecstatic union with the prophet.

For years, his father had implored him to return home. “You are a rich man,” he said. “Turn your heart to Allah. Share your family’s love.” And for years, Mevlevi had laughed at the notion. His heart had turned away from Allah’s love. He had abandoned the religion of his father. Yet, the Almighty had not abandoned him. One day his father wrote to him, claiming he had been commanded by the prophet to bring his second son back to Islam. The note included a short verse, and its words had pierced a soul Mevlevi thought long dead.

Mevlevi had dwelled upon the words. The wealth of Croesus was his. He was master of a small empire. Numbered accounts at a dozen banks across Europe sheltered his money. But what had such material success brought him? The same despair, worry, and indirection quoted in the sacred verse.

With each passing day, his mistrust of his fellow man grew. Man was a putrid creature rarely able to govern his lesser desires, concerned only with acquiring money, power, and position. Interested in fulfilling his greed, sating his lust, and dominating all that surrounded him. Each time Ali Mevlevi regarded himself in the mirror he saw a king among such foul creatures. And it made him sick.

Only his identity as a Muslim could provide solace.

Recalling the moment of his awakening, Ali Mevlevi enjoyed a tremor of inspiration. His body was filled with an uncompromising love for the Almighty and a matching contempt for his own earthly ambitions. To what good could he put his wealth? To what use could he bring his experience? Allah alone provided the answer. To the good of Islam. To the greater glory of Muhammad. To the advancement of his people’s cause.

Now, on the verge of proving to his father and his brothers that he was capable of showering Allah with a greater glory than they, with their twirling steps and mystic chants, Mevlevi had unearthed a spy, an enemy of God’s will who threatened to destroy all he had worked for these past years.

An enemy of Khamsin.

Mevlevi reminded himself that his inquiries must center on those with access to the precise details of his financial transactions. It could not be someone in Zurich. Neither Cerruti, nor Sprecher, nor Neumann could possibly have known the amount of the transfer before it reached the bank. But that the amount was known beforehand was undisputed. His contacts in Zurich had been most specific. A Mr. Sterling Thorne of the United States DEA had been looking for a transfer of forty-seven million dollars.

The spy, therefore, must be nestled close by. The light of inquiry must be directed inside his compound. Who was permitted free passage through his household? Who might overhear a conversation or gain access to his most private documents? Only two persons came to mind: Joseph and Lina. But why would either betray him? What could motivate his lover and his closest manservant to seek his demise?

Mevlevi burst into laughter at his own naivete. Money, of course. Moral indignation had fled this corner of Western civilization years ago. Only financial gain remained as a plausible motive. And if for financial gain, who was the Caiaphas paying Judas his thirty pieces of silver?

Soon, he would find out. Perhaps even today.

Mevlevi settled into the soft leather seat of his automobile for the remaining drive to Mieh-Mieh. There he would find Abu Abu and discuss with him in a most businesslike manner the details of Joseph’s recruitment. His aide’s brilliant scar had lost its luster of incorruptibility.