The Aisha Prophecy Read Online Free Page A

Muslim girls with that name. He waved it off. “So this Elizabeth took both?”
    “And the other two new ones. The two sisters who got out of Iran.”
    Mulazim raised an eyebrow. “Those two as well?” He asked this, once again, as if he had known them.
    “The Darvi sisters,” said the second girl, nodding.
    “Niki and… let me think. Oh, yeah. Shahla,” said the other. “Aisha wouldn’t go without them either.”
    Mulazim made a mental note of the names. Shahla, fairly common. An upper-class Persian name. But Niki? What Muslim girl is called Niki?
    He asked if they knew where Elizabeth had taken them. One answered that Elizabeth had friends up north someplace, but was unable to be more specific.
    He asked, “You haven’t heard from them? No postcards or letters?”
    “Umm… a couple of the kids here got emails, I heard. From Niki, She’s the younger Darvi sister.”
    “Recent emails?”
    “I guess so. A week or two, maybe.”
    He brightened. “Which kids? Might I speak to these kids? News of Rasha would ease my heart greatly.”
    These two conferred briefly. They were trying to remember. In the end, they could not recall who. They had only, one said, heard of this through the grapevine. He took this to mean indirectly.
    “But what of the content of these emails?” he asked them. “Niki must have had some news to pass on.”
    “Let’s see,” said one, musing. “They’re planning a party. For Aisha. Her birthday’s coming up.”
    Not helpful.
    The other asked the first, “And they moved again, right? They moved in with some man.”
    “Some old friend of Elizabeth’s. An old boyfriend, I think. Niki said he bought Rasha a puppy.”
    The other shook her head. “No, she said a kitten. Saudi Muslims think dogs are unclean.”
    Mulazim wanted to scream. Kittens, birthdays, no relevance. He calmed himself, asking, “Moved again? From where to where?”
    They didn’t know.
    “This man they moved in with. Did she say this man’s name?”
    The two looked at each other. More shakes of their heads. “If she did, we never heard it,” said one.
    But the other, seeing his great disappointment, suggested that he speak to a woman named Bernice. This woman, she told him, worked at the front office. She assumed that Bernice would be forwarding any mail that might come for any of those girls. She might also know who this man is.
    The girl said, “You can catch her if you go up there now. Or else you’ll have to wait until Monday.”
    He understood. This was Friday afternoon. In the West comes two days off after Friday. He said “Thank you and God bless you,” to these two.
    He would speak to this Bernice, but not at the office. Unlike these two young students of tennis, she would probably not answer the questions of a stranger, no matter what story he concocted. And she would likely report that this foreigner had asked questions.
    A good hunter would not take that chance.
     

THREE 
    He waited for Bernice until she quit for the day. She was a black woman, in her forties, and big. Bigger, maybe stronger, than he was. Mulazim followed her to her car as if he were strolling toward his own. She took a remote key out of her purse and clicked it, unlocking all four of her doors. When she climbed in, he leaped in alongside her.
    He said, “I have a gun, but I have no wish to harm you. I need only to get off this island.”
    She looked him in the eye. She said, “Let’s see the gun.”
    Part of his training in dealing with women was how to take advantage of their feminine nature. How it’s easy to play on their sympathies. So he made a show of seeming to sag and making his chin and lips quiver. He drew his hand from his pocket. He showed both empty palms. At this, he pretended to break down and weep.
    Women always soften when they see a man weeping. Not all are sympathetic, but all are less afraid. He brought his hands to his face as if he were ashamed. He said, with a sob, “All I wanted was to work and