Sworn

Chapter 7 - Rome

7.0

Izz al-Din dropped the green rucksack on an empty seat in the departures lounge of Cairo International Airport and slumped down next to it. It had been a long day. Before dawn, Hamdani had dropped him at a tunnel at the Egyptian border near Raffa. Once across, a motortaxi had taken him the twenty five miles to El-arish, the capital city of North Sinai, where he'd splashed out for a luxurious air-conditioned taxi to drive him to Cairo.

He sat admiring his passport. Izzy D'Ascenzo. Italian. Since Egyptians required visas for both Italy and Brazil, Abu had suggested an Italian passport, the friend of a friend working in the embassy having assured him it justified the extra cost. So far it had allowed him to buy a Saturday ticket from Cairo to Rome and pass customs without a hitch. As a gesture of goodwill, Abu's contacts also threw in proof he was a first year student studying for a B.A. in Modern History at the American University in Cairo, and stamped his passport with Egyptian entry and student visas.

He checked the departures' screen. There was still some time until boarding. He swivelled and lay back, his head on the rucksack, feet on the seats. Now stuffed with clothes, he remembered the elation he felt as he opened it to see dozens of thick wads of twenty and fifty dollar bills. It had been so easy. Perhaps Hamdani had been right, he should have asked for more. But it was too late now, and after paying for the passport and rewarding Hamdani and Abu the two hundred thousand dollars was now one. Half of that he carried with him, stuffed in the pages of a hollowed out history text book. The rest would be sent by Abu via Western Union as and when required.

 He closed his eyes. In little over four hours he'd be in Rome. Last time, the world as he knew it had been at war and it had taken a lifetime to travel the same distance as he followed the Templar retreat. He fought them at Antioch, Tripoli and Acre. Only once did he stray from his objective. Under his commander Baibars, seven hundred years past, in a vessel even younger than the present, he fought the Mongolian horde at Ain Jalut. Finally, when the Templars fled to Cyprus and on to France he followed, converting to a religion he despised to persecute them in their homeland.

This time, the Frank war, if it could still be called that, was different. There was no front, no tangible enemy to fight, and the men he had come to kill were shadows of their ancestors. The bloodline too was not as he expected. Before, it ran strong and pure, as in Charles Hauteville, beside whom he had sat, drunk on its scent and deafened by Her screams. Yet now, in others, like the young soldier he’d kidnapped, it was thinner than a drop of oil spread on water. It troubled him that She’d made no claim upon his life. She seemed to draw a line, where for him there was none.

The next time he looked up his flight was ready for boarding.

7.1

When a lone adolescent of Arabic origin speaking an archaic Italian dialect presented an Italian passport emitted just a week ago in the Italian Embassy in Cairo at the immigration desk of Rome Fiumicino Airport, the immigration officer raised an eyebrow and called over his superior.

Two Polizia di Stato escorted Izz al-Din to a small interview room, bare but for four white chairs, a large square table and the ubiquitous shiny black hemisphere protruding from the corner of the ceiling. His escorts left him seated and vacated the room, locking it as they left.

Izz al-Din waited, flipping through the newspaper he'd brought from the plane, Corriere della Sera. As he reached the centre pages for the third time he heard voices talking outside the door. The monologue was too fast, too colloquial for him to catch, but he heard the mention of a woman's name and guessed the speaker was complaining about a wife or lover. A second man laughed as the first swiped a card through the reader and the lock clicked open.