“You are not Muslim,” al-Aziz said.
Cross hadn’t even seen his mouth move, through the blinding sunlight. He drew close enough to al-Aziz to see a freshly trimmed beard darkening his gaunt face. His eyes looked too small for his face, dominated by grayish, languid pupils that seemed to have swallowed all the white. His hair, too, had been neatly coiffed, making him look like a businessman—an investment banker or something like that. He was shorter than Cross had expected, and al-Aziz’s frame was only slightly more muscular than his own.
“No,” he heard himself say, in a voice that sounded like someone else’s. “I’m not Muslim.”
“You know what alhamdulillah means?”
“Praise to Allah.”
“And ashokrulillah?”
“Thanks to Allah.”
Al-Aziz grinned slightly. “Alhamdulillah w ashokrulillah. Praise and thanks to Allah for your presence here. He has delivered you unto me, the nature of your faith irrelevant before the path He has set forth that has brought us together. So you need not be one with our fate, only one with our cause.”
“I am,” Cross said, forcing the words up through what felt like a dust ball in his throat.
“It is His will that has brought us here and His will that is certain to see this through to a blessed end.” Al-Aziz turned and swept his gaze about the whole of the city of Houston, left to right and then back again. “Do you know why we are meeting here?”
Daniel Cross shook his head, following his own reflection in the window glass.
“Stand on a hill of this height back in Iraq or Syria and there is nothing to see but wasteland. Nothing to rule, nothing to ravage and destroy.” The ISIS commander continued to stare straight ahead. Below, those pedestrians who were visible looked like creatures smaller than pencil tips, poised against a vast urban landscape. “Looking out over places like this fuels my vision, restores my faith in the great mission and calling to which I’ve been summoned. I was standing near the top of the Burj Khalifa building in Dubai when our bombs went off in the central train station. I was looking down from Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur when I conceived the idea of an attack on that nation’s subways. And I will be standing at the top of the International Commerce Centre in Hong Kong when the bombs go off in the city’s financial district, as Allah wills.”
Al-Aziz turned his gaze back on Daniel Cross. “And now the forces that have laid in wait in this cursed land have assembled the next phase of Allah’s grand plan before us. You will tell me everything you know. I will hear it in your words, and then the great reckoning will commence, and you will thank me for making you a party to it.”
Al-Aziz’s eyes widened as he smiled, freezing Daniel Cross’s breath and his insides anew.
“Mashallah,” said the military commander of ISIS. “As Allah wills.”
72
SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS
Company F headquarters was already frantic with activity by the time Caitlin arrived the next morning. Captain Tepper looked like a traffic cop, directing Caitlin toward the conference room as soon as he spotted her. She spotted White Eagle seated at one end of the table, flanked on either side by men with graying ponytails and clothes better fit for the nineteenth century.
“Glad you stopped by, Ranger,” Tepper said, before they entered. His expression was tight and pained, as if talking was aggravating a toothache. “White Eagle was just getting ready to press charges against you.”
“For what, exactly?”
“Criminal trespass, mostly, since Rangers have no authority to operate on the rez—a fact that seems to have slipped your mind. Speaking of which, I just heard from Doc Whatley. That candy wrapper you found in the cave matched the DNA from identical wrappers recovered from Daniel Cross’s apartment. He also said he needs to talk to you about the other ‘sample’ you left with him. That’s what he called it.”
“Guess the trespassing paid off, then, Captain.”
“Not until you tell me what the hell all this has to do with ISIS and those deaths in Austin.”
“Maybe White Eagle can tell us,” she said, as Tepper finally thrust open the door to the conference room.
*
Caitlin looked the old man in his milky eyes the whole time introductions were exchanged. She figured the men flanking the old Comanche were tribal elders, chiefs, lawyers, or maybe some combination of all three.
“You mind taking a seat, Ranger?” Captain Tepper said, his words more than just a suggestion.
Caitlin sat down four chairs from White Eagle, unable to keep her eyes off him. His skin looked like the top layer peeling off of sun-ravaged shingles, his eyes encased in flesh so mottled it looked like meat left too long on a grill.