State of Emergency

CHAPTER 35


Yazid Nazif held the phone to his ear and listened to the empty line. He’d tried to connect with the Venezuelan for the last four hours only to get nothing but empty ringing and dead air—not even so much as a message. One would think that when a person was paid almost half a billion dollars they would avail themselves of better communication. Nazif wanted to smash the phone against the wall. This stupid race Zamora insisted on running was beginning to be a problem.

The phone buzzed in his hand with an incoming call.

“Yes.” He smiled inside, recognizing the number. It was Ibrahim, his youngest brother.

Yazid stretched his back and picked up a small cup of coffee from the table before him, letting the familiar scent of cardamom calm his tattered nerves. Things would be all right, he told himself. All would work out. The stone that was cut from the mountain by the hand of God could not be stopped.

“Peace be unto you, my brother.” Ibrahim’s voice was familiar, like the comfortable sound of the gate to their garden back home.

“And you,” Yazid answered back. “I trust things are going well on your end.”

“Very,” Ibrahim said. “I am helping out at the church we discussed. There will be quite a large number attending. I believe you would enjoy the performance if you are able to arrive in time. Still, there are alternatives.”

“You think we should focus on another event?”

There was a long silence on the phone.

“Perhaps,” Ibrahim said at length. “I will text you a photo.”

“Watch yourself, brother,” Yazid said before hanging up. He ran a hand across his bald head and waited for the ping that signaled an incoming text.

“Not bad,” he said to himself, using two fingers to enlarge the photograph of a man with shaggy blond hair standing before a small choir of thirty or so smiling children—all a hodgepodge of race, ranging in age from less than seven to their early teens. They were ripe enough, Yazid’s heart raced when he saw the open auditorium behind the children—with seating for thousands. If Ibrahim had a target better than this, it had to be a ripe one indeed.