Free The Twelfth Imam by Joel C.Rosenberg Page A

these,” he said. “That’ll be a start.”
    For much of the next hour, they gathered firewood, hauled it back to the camp, dropped it off, and went back out for more, avoiding the older boys. In their gathering, they passed by a few cabins farther inland, unoccupied and clearly out of use. They were unlocked and seemed to have been left to the elements. One of them displayed plenty of bear claw scratchings around the door and windows, but another A-frame style cabin was in pretty good shape, just a little dusty. They didn’t have time then to explore, but this little island ghost town fascinated them both.
    It had been a long day, and once the gear had been set up or stowed for later, the whole group was sleeping by 9 p.m. The next four days stretched out in front of them with the promise of endless pike and walleye. But the fish would wait till morning.

14
    Sadr City, Iraq
    Najjar Malik was exhausted.
    Even after a long nap and a simple, home-cooked meal, the morning’s violence, the malfunctioning machine gun, and the strange encounter with the mysterious taxi driver still rattled him.
    After dinner, in spite of his weary protests, Najjar’s aunt and uncle took him shopping in the bazaar. At one point, his aunt was haggling with a grocer over the quality of some pistachios while his uncle sat across the street in the shade, smoking a water pipe and chatting with the older men. Najjar looked over a collection of leather boots and wished he had enough to buy himself a pair. But he still hadn’t found his wallet, and when it was clear he wasn’t going to be buying anything that day, the shoe seller told him to go away.
    Najjar nervously inched his way through the market, still wondering who the man was who had been kidnapped, still wondering who had kidnapped him and why, and why they had killed his wife and child. The gruesome images were indelibly etched in his mind’s eye. He wanted to forget it all, but he could not. Was it political? Was it for money? He didn’t want to think about any of it, but he couldn’t think of anything else.
    Just then he nearly tripped over a beggar sitting cross-legged against a cement wall.
    “Forgive me,” Najjar said. “I didn’t see you there.”
    “It is not mine to forgive,” said the beggar, a surprisingly young man—hardly older than Najjar himself—covered in a dirty brown robe and wearing no sandals or shoes. His filthy black feet were covered with oozing blisters. “Only Allah can do that, if he so chooses.”
    Najjar shrugged. The religious fervor of his youth was dying. What had Allah really given him? Sadness. Loneliness. Poverty. Despair. Were these the gifts Allah gave to his children?
    “Come, my friend,” the beggar said, “you look downtrodden. Let me tell you about your future.”
    Najjar shook his head, then scanned the crowd to find his aunt and uncle.
    “You don’t want to know your future?” the beggar asked. “Or you don’t think I can see it?”
    “Both,” Najjar half lied. He desperately wanted to know his future. But he hadn’t time for back-alley charlatans.
    “I think you are lying,” the beggar said, his tone suddenly low and sober. “I think you desperately want to know your future. But you think you haven’t time to spare for some back-alley charlatan.”
    Startled, Najjar whipped his head around and stared at the young homeless man in disbelief.
    “You are troubled by the violence you saw in the street this morning,” the beggar said, his face smudged with dirt. “But all your questions will be answered in due course.”
    Najjar was scared. Who is this person? How can he know my most intimate thoughts?
    “May I ask you a question?” the beggar said.
    Najjar nodded.
    “If you could go anywhere in the world, if you could travel anywhere and money was no object, where would you go?”
    “I don’t know,” Najjar said blankly.
    “Again you are lying,” the beggar said. “You don’t trust me. Fair enough. You don’t