Skeleton 03 - The Constantine Codex by Paul L Maier Page A

believe, Shannon. Here we thought al-Rashid was our friend . He gave that wonderful commencement address in Cairo. It helped take the fatwa off my head. Oh, oh, I forgot; the fatwa’s still there but harmless.”
    “You hope,” she replied. “Maybe he still is our friend. Notice that he admires you.”
    Jon nodded. Then he quickly scanned the other newspaper reports. Essentially they had the same story, though with different local commentary on the merits of the potential opponents.
    The phone rang. Marylou Kaiser and Richard Ferris were calling from adjoining phones in Jon’s office at Harvard. Their relief in finally getting through to “the boss” was palpable. They gave a lengthy rundown on the U.S. reaction to the debate challenge, which consumed at least twenty minutes’ worth of transatlantic phone charges. At the close, Jon said, “Yes, we’ll have to fly back. I can’t tell you how much I hate to interrupt what we’re doing since we’re really on to something here.” He swept the papers aside in frustration and sat on the edge of the bed. Raking his fingers through his hair, he forced himself to calm down and focus on the matter at hand. “But let’s convene a meeting of the ICO executive committee for this coming Monday. Of course Osman al-Ghazali needs to be there too. Can you set everything up?” The two easily agreed. “Great! See you soon, then.”
    When he had hung up, Shannon commented, “I guess that means you will accept the debate, then?”
    “Is the pope Catholic, Shannon?”
    “And that our great little tour of Greece is over?”
    “We’ll be back, my darling. And that’s a promise.”
    The manager at Hertz Rent-a-Car in Thessalonica grew apoplectic when Jon informed him that they would be unable to drive the car back to Athens, as they had agreed, since they had to fly home directly from Thessalonica. Why were Mediterranean types so excitable? he wondered. He could have fibbed that his mother was dying, so they had to get back, but his Lutheran conscience wouldn’t permit it. A couple of American fifties laid on the counter took care of everything instead.

    Olympic Air flights from Thessalonica to Athens, then Athens to New York, and finally the Delta shuttle to Logan in Boston, and they were back in Cambridge. Large, dark sunglasses seemed to protect them from the press at the three airports, where they carefully avoided anyone carrying a camera or a nosy cell phone–cum–camera. Lately, though, that seemed to be every other person on earth.
    Sunday back in Weston was devoted to unpacking and jet lag recovery. Incredibly the FBI was still keeping their house under surveillance. The government was nothing if not persistent. The phone kept ringing, but caller ID enabled them to answer only the most important calls, mostly from relatives and close friends.
    Early Monday morning, Jon stopped at his Harvard office to check the mail, ignoring the almost-continuous ringing of his office phone. Among his letters was an elegant envelope from Cairo that turned out to contain al-Rashid’s invitation to debate. It was in English, not Arabic, very proper, nicely worded, and almost friendly. To Jon, this only compounded the mystery of his challenge.
    Then he hurried over to Brattle Street off of Harvard Square, where his think tank was assembling in the board room of the Institute of Christian Origins. Unfortunately the media had put two and two together over the past several days and had the ICO under surveillance. When Jon appeared, they thronged around him until Cambridge police cleared his way. He was bombarded with questions, mostly variations on the same theme: would he accept the challenge to debate or not? Finally he held up his hands for quiet and announced simply, “We’ll have a press release for you this afternoon.” Then he ducked inside.
    Osman al-Ghazali was already sitting at the board table, Jon was relieved to see, since his advice regarding the debate would be