Armageddon Conspiracy Read Online Free PDF Page B

was several minutes early, and in the brief moments before his meeting he reflected on his belief that Islam and the desert embodied the same truth. The extreme rigor of Wahaddi Islam seared impurities from a man’s soul, and the desert did the same to a man’s flesh. Westerners regarded both the land and the religion as inhumanly harsh, yet for Abu Sayeed truth and beauty could be accurately perceived only in utter extremes, either morally or in the physical contrast of life and death.
    “Lost in thought?” a voice asked.
    Abu Sayeed looked up from his tea, and from years of practice his mind instantly changed gears. He searched the American’s eyes for any hints of danger or betrayal. He sensed extreme nervousness, but no immediate threat. The man was clearly anxious at the risk he was taking, and he probably considered Abu Sayeed a lethal and unpredictable Arab extremist. So much the better.
    “I was reflecting on the irony of your offer,” Abu Sayeed countered in his flawless Oxford-accented English. He suffered a small flush of shame that he’d been caught yearning for his homeland. In the present circumstance all considerations other than the Greatnessof Allah were sinful, all personal desires inconsequential. He smiled and waved at an empty chair.
    The man threw an edgy glance at his two bodyguards who had positioned themselves in the entrance to the otherwise empty room, then sat. He tapped his toe against the table leg. “I see no irony,” he said after a moment. “We simply believe in different versions of truth.”
    Abu Sayeed smoothed an invisible wrinkle from his suit. He yearned for the freedom of an abaya and thobe, but traditional Saudi garb brought unwelcome attention in the West. He was thirty-four years old, a little under six feet with a lean face and piercing eyes that people often likened to a falcon’s. The eldest son of one of the richest men in Saudi Arabia, he traveled the globe managing his family’s vast business interests.
    The Western media fussed over his “movie star” looks, a preoccupation he despised, but he valued the accolades of its financial press regarding his brilliance. He wondered what they would say if they discovered that he also directed the terrorist group known as the Wahaddi Brotherhood.
    “Clearly one of us must be misguided,” he said at last. He needed what this infidel had to offer. With this man’s help he would carve a wound in the American Devil that mujahideen would sing about for centuries, yet he must not appear too eager.
    The American leaned forward, again betraying his intensity. “One of us is.” He was a few years older than Abu Sayeed, perhaps midforties, also with a reputation for financial wizardry. He had the high forehead of an intellectual and the leanness of an athlete, but the odd spark in his blue eyes betrayed his barely controlled fervor.
    “A belief in infallibility is a powerful weapon,” Abu Sayeed agreed. “I have the same conviction about the eventual success of my jihad.” He glanced at his companion’s uncalloused hands, on the surface as soft as any westerner’s. It was the wild passion that glowed just beneath the surface that made him formidable.
    The bodyguards—one red haired with freckles, the other big and square jawed, both with the rough-cut look of country policemen—had the same hot flush, too. All three of these men had the ardor of suicide bombers. Such emotion could make people resolute but at the same time unpredictable.
    The other man nodded and raised his eyebrows. “We pursue a common course, yet I’m afraid only one of us will find Heaven.”
    Abu Sayeed sipped his tea. “Each of us understands why the other is here.” He leaned back in his chair and smiled. “Which brings me back to irony.”
    The American’s eyes became pinched with impatience. “Which brings me back to the package. We have demonstrated our ability to do what we promise.”
    Abu Sayeed knew that he was referring to the Penn