Final Winter

Henry Muhammad Dolan yawned as he exited the Tube station, carrying a plastic bag of groceries. It was a five-block walk home and his feet hurt with every step. He didn’t like picking up groceries — women’s work, of course — but since his wife was ill he had no other choice. He walked slowly, burdened not only by the weight of the bag in his hand but by other things as well. His wife had nagged him in that gentle way which wasn’t nagging, asking why she and their daughters could not go to Detroit to visit her sister. He had forbidden it, over and over again, but still she had come back to it, like a cat circling a meal, going around and around, until late one night he had lost his temper and said, ‘Because, woman! There will be something bad happening in America, and soon, and I do not want you or the girls to be there when it happens!’

Oh, curse it, for what had happened then was the probing and nagging and questioning. While Henry had said very little, he had said something about his meeting with the Sudanese and the work he had done and the warnings he had received and…

He stopped at an intersection. And another thing. The Sudanese should have come back. Should have told him more. Should have—

And, God’s beard, like something out of a fairy tale, the Sudanese was there, standing next to him!

The Sudanese smiled. ‘You look surprised, my brother. Hide your shock well. I do not want to draw attention to either of us. Continue your walk.’

‘I… I was just thinking of you, and what you asked me to do… tell me, can you tell me when—’

‘Hush, now,’ the Sudanese said. ‘I cannot tell you a thing. Not yet, at least. But I need to talk to you in private. Do you have the time?’

‘Of course!’

They walked among the crowds, the lines of people flowing about him, and Henry Muhammad Dolan was proud that the Sudanese had returned, for it meant something of importance was going to happen. Of that he had no doubt. None whatsoever. Like the vision he had once, that the black flag of Islam would one day fly over Whitehall, there was not a doubt. It was to be a reality, and sooner than anyone would think—

At a small hostel, the Sudanese went through a side door, up a narrow set of stairs. Henry followed. A television was playing loud and there was music and cooking smells, but it all meant nothing to him. All that mattered was the tall Sudanese dressed in a shabby dark brown suit, walking ahead of him. The Sudanese took out a key, opened another door. He walked ahead of Henry, put his own grocery bags on the floor. The room was simple, with a small bed, a table with a television on it, and a washbasin in a corner. The window shade was drawn, and on the floor was the oddest thing: a square of green plastic, two or three meters to a side.

The Sudanese said to Henry, ‘Before we begin, I must ask you something.’

‘Go right ahead.’

‘The task I assigned you — did you tell anyone of what you did?’

Henry felt his face grow warm and was wondering what to say when the Sudanese looked at him sharply and said, ‘You will speak the truth to me. Did you tell anyone?’

Henry looked down at the floor. ‘My wife. I told her a little. About you.’

‘And what else?’

‘Only that she was forbidden to travel to the United States next month. To visit her sister. I told her something bad was going to happen to America. That she had to stay home.’

The Sudanese seemed upset at something, but not at what Henry had just said. It was like some inner struggle was taking place. Then the Sudanese closed his eyes for a moment and said, ‘Very well. What is done is done. But no harm will come to your wife and children. None.’

‘Very good,’ Henry said, confused. ‘But what does all of this mean?’

The Sudanese reached underneath his coat, pulled out a pistol of some sort, and Henry knew what was about to happen, could not believe it. He started to say a prayer and the shock of what the Sudanese said next — ‘Greetings from the people of the United States’ — caused him to halt in mid-sentence, just before a split-second flash of light preceded a final darkness.

~ * ~

The man known as the Sudanese was now in a men’s room, staring at a mirror. He had the room to himself. He looked at the dark face and brown, impassive eyes. Water was running in the sink, and before him was an open container about the size of a yogurt carton. He took a washcloth, dipped it in water, and then dipped it again in the container, and started rubbing at his face. Rub, rub, rub, and the dark color started to wash away, revealing a lighter skin, brown but not as black as before. More rubbing and something else began to emerge, a pattern, a display of scar tissue, of facial skin that had been badly burned, years ago. More rub, rub, rub, and when he was done there was no longer a Sudanese looking back at him from the bathroom mirror.

Instead, it was Montgomery Zane, of Tiger Team Seven.

‘Welcome back to the world,’ he whispered to the mirror.

~ * ~