“You must erase those traces of fear still clenched to your DNA before you ask anyone else to do the same. It will not be easy. It will be impossible. Because beheadings aren’t something jihadists cherry-pick from medieval tradition. They’re at the heart of that tradition. I will do what I can to help you change that, even if it means my life…which I know it will.”

83

83

Tuesday, October 13

Dawn streamed in through the blinds. Jhana-Merise opened her eyes. She got out of bed in one of the guest rooms of the cottage. She went into the kitchen. Vincente looked up at her and said, “We can’t keep imposing on these kind people.”

“We need to be here, Father.”

With anyone else that answer would be presumptuous. But he knew his daughter’s humility was the source of her zeal.

Vincente’s mind weighed with the fact they’d been in America almost three weeks, much longer than he’d anticipated. And it terrified him they would fail in the mission to help bring enemies together, and Jhana-Merise, and they all would be harmed.

Vincente believed more in God of late. It was a different God. Not the God of his youth taught by priests and nuns. Not the God of the church. He believed there was a greater power not resting in one place—like air, invisible, but sustaining life. This was the power his daughter had grasped. A power she offered him in the form of her life force and passion. But he was scared. Scared for all of them who’d been brought together. Yet he knew he was here to protect them, even in the doubt and concern that lingered. The extent of that protection was unknown. He’d been there for his daughter. Could he be there for the others? He looked at her with tired and worried eyes, unable and unwilling to keep his unease from her.

Nazir entered the kitchen. He was surprised to see Vincente and Jhana-Merise up so early.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s all right,” Vincente said.

Jhana-Merise took Nazir’s hand and led him to a corner of the room.

“You’re going to have to go back to Iraq,” she said.

“Why?”

“To lay groundwork there. In the land of our ancestors.”

Jhana-Merise told him about the land of Sumer in the southern region of Mesopotamia, which is modern-day Iraq and Kuwait. It was the cradle of civilization.

“The first settlers were not Sumerians, but a people of unknown origin, from a prehistoric period in this region archaeologists have termed the Ubaid, which is said to mean, ‘servant of Allah’. We were those people. We are those people. And we must return to that land.”

She looked at him like a mother whose heart held all the love in the world. “But first, there is work to be done here.”