NanoStrike by Pete Barber Read Free Book Online

in whispers among the crowd. A hushed reverence filled the air.
    The man who had woken him spoke again, in English. “Are you the Mahdi? Are you the Messiah?”
    David looked at the gathered people. The murmured sounds of the Koran being read aloud had ceased. A waiting silence hung over the group. All eyes turned to him.
    “I am Dawud,” he said. Then, “ Bism Allah Allahu Akbar .”
    Those sitting close spoke the words back to him.
    Again he spoke, but louder. “ Allahu Akbar , Allahu Akbar .”
    Voices from below him on the hill echoed his phrases and David completed the prayer, “ wa lil Lahi Alhamd .” The prayer chant spread beyond the group at David’s feet. More and more took it up until ten thousand raised voices pledged, as one, their love for Allah.
    The faces of the pilgrims were lit with joy from the epiphany they had shared at Mount Arafat.
    David, for the first time, saw a clear path ahead. The mist had lifted. Allah had guided Imam Ali, and through that guidance, his father had moved the family to Ohio. That move had enabled David to study, to excel in science, and finally, to create nanobots—a technological breakthrough. He thought of the meeting Imam Ali had arranged with a stranger. Allah had planned this meeting, so David could help this man. And the son shall complete the work of his father.
    There, on the hill of forgiveness, David pledged obedience to Allah. From this point forward, Allah alone would guide David’s path in life. With a huge weight lifted from his shoulders, he began the march back to Mina.
    A haji hurried alongside, matching steps with him. “Dawud?”
    He recognized one of the pilgrims who had traveled with him from Jeddah. David could not bring himself to speak. He had forgotten how to converse. For three days, he had spoken only to Allah. He nodded to the man.
    “Dawud, in America, are you an Imam?”
    The question confused him. He shook his head.
    “Then how did you learn to recite the Koran as you did on the Mount?”
    With difficulty, David formed words and spoke. “I . . . I read from the holy book each day.”
    “But you spoke from the heart. You preached for an hour. Even Imam Ali cannot move me as you did.”
    “ Allahu Akbar ,” David said.
    “ Allahu Akbar ,” the pilgrim replied.
     

 
    Chapter 6
     
    The bus dropped David and the other hajis at the mosque in Jeddah late in the evening of the sixth day. The men hugged as they parted, no longer strangers, now Muslim brothers. When the hajis dispersed to their homes, David remained. The Ihram, so revealing and thin when he boarded the bus before the Hajj, was now a second skin. A warm breeze brushed over his bald pate, shaved clean on the fourth day. He stared at the open doors of Imam Ali’s mosque and felt the weight of the moment.
    Finally, he climbed the marble steps, removed his sandals, and, with back straight and head high, walked with purpose across the empty prayer space, conscious of the air flowing past his face as he moved.
    He knocked on the office door. When he saw Imam Ali, David began to cry. Not with childlike tears of sadness, but from a welling of powerful emotions that spilled down his cheeks. The Imam opened his arms and enfolded him as a father would a long-lost son.
    “I see on your face that you have accepted Allah as your one God.”
    David nodded, his head buried in the Imam’s robes.
    “I heard of your revelation at Mount Arafat. I called your father and told him how Allah had touched your spirit.”
    “I saw a golden light.”
    “You are blessed, Dawud, but with this blessing comes great responsibility.”
    David pulled back and wiped his face with the loose end of his Ihram. “Allah has shown me my path. I ask your help in attaining it.”
    Ali placed a hand on David’s shoulder. “I promised your father I would aid you as if you were my own son.”
    David looked Ali full in the face and spoke in the strong, confident voice gained on his Hajj. “I wish to become