“How good?”
“The phone’s encrypted. The office is soundproof. And we sweep daily for bugs.”
“Good enough for me.”
Dial leaned back in his chair, intrigued. “What’s going on?”
“Can’t get into specifics. But it looks like we hooked a big fish.”
Fish was a slang term for international fugitive. “We talking shark?”
“I’m talking whale.”
“That’s great news, isn’t it?”
“It was until he slipped off the hook. Took a lot of fishermen with him.”
Dial knew he wouldn’t- get any further details, so he didn’t bother to ask. “Sorry to hear that, Jon. How can I help?”
“Pardon the pun, but some things are rather fishy on my end. I’d appreciate if you could talk to some of your sources and let me know what you find. Facts, rumors, anything.”
“Not a problem. Of course, things would go much smoother if I had a name.”
“Yeah,” Payne agreed. “That makes two of us.”
21
For the first time since her arrival in Mecca, Shari Shasmeen did not want to be in the tunnel.
The murder of Fred Nasir had spooked her. The lack of an explanation from Abdul-Khaliq, who normally had an answer for everything, made things worse. But the final straw was her isolation with this new guard. It was unbearable. There was something about him that creeped her out. Maybe it was the way he grabbed her hand when he tried to take her keys. Or the detached way that his men disposed of the body. Or the way he looked at her.
Whatever it was, he made her squirm.
At first, she figured she’d be allowed to leave as soon as she’d given him a short tour. But he stopped halfway through to make a phone call to one of his men. Followed by another. And another. Any other place and she would’ve left the site and gone back to her hotel. Her time was valuable, and he was wasting it. On purpose. But in Saudi Arabia, women weren’t allowed to walk the streets alone. They had to travel with a close male relative, who could protect their virtue, or several other women, who could protect their reputation. Abdul-Khaliq had provided her with phony paperwork that claimed kinship with the other American scholars—it’s what allowed her to work with them in close proximity. But the lead guard had sent her coworkers away when he first arrived, and they wouldn’t return until they were summoned.
That meant she was trapped in the tunnel until he said she could leave.
To kill time, she entered the main site and made sure everything was all right. Like a protective mother who was about to go away for the weekend, worried about leaving something so precious in someone else’s hands.
Plus, she wanted to see it one last time before she left for the week.
A mental snapshot of her progress.
Right now it didn’t look like much, nothing more than the outer shell of a document chamber. Simple in design, it was assembled out of local stones, carved by Muslim craftsmen, and then buried underground for protection. Just like folklore had said. Her team dug around four sides, exposing four walls that could be measured, photographed, and tested. The bottom remained rooted in soil, holding it in place. The top remained undisturbed since its accidental discovery by a construction worker. Preliminary research proved it was built in the seventh century, not ancient by biblical standards but the perfect age for what they were hoping to find.
Staring at it, memories of the initial phone call from Abdul-Khaliq came flooding back. His interest in her research. Questions about her training and background. And eventually, an invitation to join the dig. A week later she was flown halfway around the world to run a project in the heart of Islam, right down the road from its most holy shrine. It was the type of opportunity that all archaeologists dreamed of.
A chance to shatter myths or reaffirm history.
But she wouldn’t know which until she looked inside.
The Qur’an is the central religious text of Islam. Muslims believe it is the literal word of God, revealed to Muhammad over the last twenty-three years of his life. Unlike Christians, who believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God, Muslims do not worship Muhammad as a deity; rather they honor him as their most important prophet, the man responsible for establishing Islam in its purest form.
According to Islamic scholars, Muhammad was born in Mecca in 570 AD. He was orphaned by age six and eventually lived with his uncle, Abu Talib, who was the leader of the Banu Hashim, one of the clans in the Quraish tribe. At the time, Mecca was a thriving economic center, partly because of the Kaaba, the great Islamic shrine that Muslims still worship, which attracted throngs of merchants during the pilgrimage season because violence between the various tribes was outlawed. Muhammad eventually became a merchant himself, traveling to Syria and other parts of the world, opening his eyes to many beliefs and cultures.