At the Tudor-Gothic residence the Webers called home, Shannon was catching up on her own correspondence between loads of laundry, relishing the quiet hours she was able to devote to more domestic pursuits. But in the late afternoon, the quiet seemed doomed as the phone began ringing incessantly. Each inquiry was from a newspaper, radio, or television station—all asking to speak to Jon but giving no hint as to the cause of all the furor. Yet each time she tried to call her husband at Harvard, the line was busy. His cell phone went straight to voice mail. She finally sent an e-mail to his BlackBerry, but there was no return call.
Again the phone rang. Might it be Jon? “Weber residence,” she said, trying to keep the exasperation out of her voice.
“Meeses Web-air,” someone with a thick accent said, “your husband has spoken lies about our great Prophet—may his name be blessed—and we will have our revenge. We know where you are living in Wes-tone. Dr. Web-air will be punished.”
“Who is this?” she demanded.
No answer. Just a click and the line went dead.
A clutch of apprehension started building inside her. First the media inquiries about Jon, then his failure to call, and now an ugly threat. She locked all the doors in the house and spent the next hour pacing the floor, looking out the windows, and alerting several neighbor friends. Call 911? Too early for that.
Suddenly the sweet music of her garage door opening provided welcome relief. More relieved than she wanted to let on, she greeted him with a fierce hug. “What in the world is going on, Jon? The phone’s been ringing all afternoon. Mostly media, but then there was a nasty call from someone with a thick accent who threatened ‘Dr. Web-air.’”
Jon sighed. “Sorry you were bothered, darling. I think I’ve cleared it all up, and—”
“But why didn’t you check your e-mail? I kept calling, but your line was busy. So I—”
“I’ll give you the whole story very shortly. But until things have a chance to blow over, let’s pack immediately for—shall we say—an ‘early vacation’ at the Cape. I mean now, instantly, Shannon. Twenty minutes and we’re outta here.”
“Good! You can explain on the way.” And explain he certainly would. Shannon never ceased to be amazed at the way controversy and unsought fame seemed to follow her husband wherever he went. It might even be amusing if it didn’t so often disrupt the quiet, scholarly life they both preferred.
Somehow, they managed their escape in a half hour. En route to Cape Cod, Jon told her all about the demonstration at Harvard Yard and that the real reason for their drive to the Cape was not the phoned threat but to escape the media. He refused to stand in front of TV cameras, a blank stare on his face, and whimper, “I have no idea how this happened.” He also admitted to a tinge of conscience in not having personally proofread the Arabic edition before publication. Had he done so, he would have caught the error immediately. “Of course, that should have been the translator’s responsibility,” he told her, “and if I don’t hear from Osman al-Ghazali soon, I’m going to go after him bare-handed!”
Just before reaching their hideaway at Cape Cod, Shannon asked, “So then, you think your—Mr. Housani, was it?—will explain things to the guy who threatened us on the phone?”
“Right.”
Shannon hoped Jon’s optimism was not misplaced. As much as she enjoyed their beach house, hiding out from the media when they had a major research trip on the horizon was not her idea of a vacation.
As a strategic retreat for times of both vacation and duress, Jon and Shannon had purchased an oceanside home several miles east of the Kennedy compound on Cape Cod. Only the police at Hyannis Port, Marylou Kaiser, and several trusted friends and neighbors knew of its existence.
They loved the place. It was spacious by Cape standards with four bedrooms, three baths, and a great room with cobblestone fireplace. The exterior siding was composed of cedar shakes painted in Cape Cod gray with white window trim, and it blended in perfectly with the many thousands of other homes at the Cape, Nantucket, and Martha’s Vineyard. They had named the place Thistle Do.
A broad lawn that rolled down to the Atlantic comprised their backyard, part of which fronted a small bay, where they had built a boathouse to match Thistle Do. It housed a thirty-two-foot runabout cruiser they used for excursions up and down the New England coast. Jon always apologized to his friends—piloting a tall-masted schooner with billowing sails would have been far better sport, but he just didn’t have time enough for all the hassle involved in readying the ship for a sail and then stowing it all away again. Maybe after retirement, or maybe sooner if the price for gasoline rose any higher.
Because of the extraordinary success of his literary works—both scholarly and popular—Jon was by no means poverty-stricken. He tried to use his wealth wisely. He gave to charity and tithed to the church but still had little twinges of conscience each time he fired up his boat or sped off in his BMW Z4. This merely proved that the man was Lutheran, a tribe that celebrated God’s grace and forgiveness all the more because of an inbred sensitivity to shortcomings and sin.
Jon and Shannon planned to stay no more than a week at the Cape and return to Cambridge once the brouhaha had blown over. Then they intended to fly to Greece and Jordan, as planned.
The day after they arrived at Thistle Do, however, Marylou Kaiser phoned, somewhat breathlessly. “You do have television reception out there, don’t you, Dr. Weber?”
“Sure. Of course . . .”
“Then please turn on your TV. You just have no idea . . .” There was a catch in her voice. She cleared her throat and began again. “All the networks—NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox, CNN—they’re all showing footage of Islamic riots across the world over your book, with—”
“What! Across the world? That’s ridiculous. Don’t they report that it’s all an error, for goodness’ sake?”
“No. At least, not yet, evidently.”
“Why haven’t they reported it?” he demanded. Then, realizing Marylou couldn’t possibly have the answer, he quickly added, “Probably because they want to let the ‘sensation’ play out first, maybe to build ratings, and then sober up with the truth.”
“I hope you’re right. Oh, I do have a bit of good news, Dr. Weber.”
“I need it about now.”
“Professor al-Ghazali is trying to reach you. Shall I give him your cell phone number?”
“Yes, please! But don’t tell him where I am.”
“Never.”
“Call me if anything else comes up. Sorry to leave you with this mess.”
She chuckled, her good humor once again restored. “I think it was all part of the package when I signed on with Indiana Jones—Harvard edition.”
Smiling, Jon said good-bye, then reported the conversation to Shannon. “I can’t believe this thing has gotten so out of control.”
Shannon gave a wry smile. “That’s what you get, darling, for being so famous.”
“As the Brits would say, ‘Balderdash!’”
Jon turned on the wide-screen TV and watched in growing horror—high-definition horror—the Muslim riots across the world. The BBC showed footage from London of a papier-mâché Jon being hanged in effigy from a lamppost in front of the Nelson monument at Trafalgar Square. In Paris, a similar Weber dummy was ceremoniously hurled from the top of the Eiffel Tower. In Madrid, he was gored in a mock bullfight, and only Germany provided a bit of grim humor when the Weber figure was drowned in a bathtub full of beer—though Muslims there insisted others had poured the amber beverage, of course.
Jon shook his head. “This is beyond all belief!”
His cell phone chirped, and he lunged for it. It just had to be Osman al-Ghazali. He was not disappointed.
“We were in Poughkeepsie, Jon, at our daughter’s graduation from Vassar,” he opened, “and I didn’t get the news until late last night, or I would have called you immediately.”
“All right, Osman. I’m listening.” It was not the friendliest response, Jon knew, but his translator deserved it. Unless he had some reasonable explanation for his now-notorious gaffe, Jon was ready to throttle the man.
“I . . . I can’t find the words to express my concern . . . my shock,” al-Ghazali said, “and you have my profound apologies for what happened, Jon. The typesetter in Cairo must have made the error, of course, but I should have caught it. . . . I should have caught it.”
Jon said nothing, so al-Ghazali continued. “I just can’t believe I didn’t catch it, since radi—evil—sounds nothing like tahaddi—challenge, as you well know. Well, they rhyme, but . . .”
“That could be, Osman,” Jon finally replied, softening. “Have you called our publisher in Cairo?”
“Even before calling you. I made them repeat the correct term for ‘challenge’ three times, and they’ll e-mail me proofs before going back to press.”
“Good, Osman. What in the world ever made the typesetter in Cairo do that—if he’s responsible? He’s not a Coptic Christian, is he?”
“I don’t really know. But I’ll find out.”
“In any case, you should also have a few words with him—to say the least.”
“You bet I will.”
“More than that, I think you’ll have to do a careful proofing again of the whole Arabic edition to make sure there are no other errors.”
“I’d already planned to do that.”
“Good. Oh, one more thing: word about the translation error seems to be a deep, dark secret as far as the media are concerned. I worry most about Al Jazeera. If they don’t report that it was all a mistake, rioting will rage on in the Islamic world.”
“Ah! Good that you tell me. I have a friend or two there. I’ll call Al Jazeera immediately—the start of my long journey back into your good graces, Jon.”
“Fine, Osman. Be sure to keep me posted.”
Shannon, who had been listening intently to Jon’s side of the conversation, seemed relieved and sighed. “I do hope that’s the end of this bizarre business. How it can ruin a beautiful spring!” It was obvious that images of her husband being hanged in effigy had done very little to boost her spirits.
They turned off the TV, put on walking shorts, and headed down to the Atlantic shore. Perhaps a long stroll along the beach and many breaths of fresh sea breezes would clear their minds.
Jon and Shannon returned from their seashore promenade eager to check the progress of Jon’s story. “What was it Mark Twain said?” Shannon asked. “‘A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth even puts its boots on’?”
“Yes,” Jon replied. “I guess it’s a corollary to Murphy’s Law that wrong information—particularly of a sensational nature—gets front-page treatment in the press and opening-story status in the broadcast media, while the truth, by way of correction, shows up later with only the briefest coverage on page 6 of section D in the papers or as a small afterthought on TV.”
Gingerly they turned on the television evening news, flipped through the networks, and were happily surprised. Diane Sawyer of ABC, Katie Couric of CBS, and Brian Williams of NBC all opened with a story on the error in the Arabic text of Jon’s book, while CNN even showed footage of a perspiring Osman al-Ghazali heaping blame on himself, but even more on the typesetter in Cairo.
Later in the telecasts, however, Jon felt the clutch of concern return when the news programs shifted to reports from foreign correspondents. A firebomb had been lobbed into the first floor of Jon’s publisher in Cairo, scorching much of the reception area until the blaze was extinguished. Footage from Lebanon showed a long column of Hezbollah marching through downtown Beirut, clad in green and white and demanding revenge against “Web-air,” as they chanted the name again and again. In Tehran, where the offending sentence had been mistranslated into Farsi with an even stronger term for evil, enraged mullahs were preaching about possible jihad, while rioting in Pakistan had actually left five dead on the streets of Islamabad.
Jon held his head in his hands and muttered, “People getting killed? For nothing? Nothing? Good grief, it’s Salman Rushdie all over again! How many died in those riots after Ayatollah Khomeini put a fatwa on his head?”
“Not just Rushdie,” Shannon added. “There were dozens of deaths in the riots that followed the Danish cartoon of Muhammad with bombs in his turban. And the same after the pope’s address in Germany at Regensburg.”
The phone rang—inconveniently, since the evening news had not yet ended.
“Just let it ring,” Jon said.
Shannon paused, then shook her head and lifted the receiver. “Weber residence.” She listened for a moment before handing the phone to Jon.
“Yes?” he said into the phone, with a questioning look at his wife.
“Professor Jonathan Weber?”
“Yes . . .”
“This is Morton Dillingham, director of the Central Intelligence Agency.”
“The CIA? Right! And I’m Alex in Wonderland.”
“No, Professor. This is the CIA, and we have very serious matters to discuss. Are you free to speak?”
“Yes,” Jon replied, meekly, in case the call was authentic after all.
“Is your phone line secure?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“Is anyone else there?”
“Yes, my wife.”
“No one else?”
“No. And by the way, how did you get this phone number? It’s unlisted.”
“We convinced your secretary that it was in the national interest and for your own personal safety.”
“Okay. Sorry about my levity.”
“Not a problem. Now, Professor Weber, here’s the situation. Our operatives in Tehran have just informed us that the grand ayatollah in Iran, Kazim al-Mahdi—their Supreme Leader—in consultation with his Shiite clergy, has just declared a fatwa on your head because of that Arabic translation business.”
“Ridiculous!” Jon nearly shouted into the phone. “Don’t they know about the translation error? And it’s in Arabic, not Farsi. In fact, do you even know about the error?”
“Of course I do—the CIA also watches the evening news! But no, evidently they don’t know about that mistake in Iran. And they decided to exploit the translation error for their own purposes, even if it was in another language.”
“Do you have any idea why Al Jazeera hasn’t announced the error?” Jon assumed the CIA also knew about the Arab TV network’s silence.
“We’re working on that one even as we speak.”
“Good.”
“But first things first, Dr. Weber, and that’s security for you and your wife. We hope, of course, that the fatwa will be lifted once they finally learn the truth in Iran, but meanwhile your lives are in some danger.”
“Oh, please; this can’t really be happening, can it?”
“I am not exaggerating, sir,” the CIA director said in a credibly serious tone. “Now, we have a direct parallel in the case of Salman Rushdie and his Satanic Verses novel that earned him a fatwa some years ago. We’ve already contacted Scotland Yard to learn how the British handled security in his case with such obvious success: although his fatwa has never been lifted, the man lives on! We intend something similar in your case, although—”
Jon erupted. “Rushdie was in hiding for months after the fatwa was announced, and I just can’t spare that kind of time!”
“A fatwa?” Shannon whispered. “Jon, what’s happening?”
He covered the phone with his hand and tried to reassure her. “I’m sure it’s nothing, darling. I’ll explain in a minute.” He spoke into the phone again. “I’m sorry, Mr. . . . ?”
“Dillingham. And that’s quite all right. But we do need to take every possible precaution to protect your life and that of your wife as well. You see, all we need is for just one fanatic to take the fatwa seriously and act on it. Your death would be his passport to paradise.”
Jon was stunned into silence. One stupid error was turning his life into a grotesque nightmare. Shannon’s too. Finally he asked, again rather meekly, “What do you suggest?”
“Since the FBI covers the home front and we the international, we asked them to send over a security detail immediately. In fact, they’d probably have been there by now if your secretary had told us where you are.”
Thank you, Marylou! Jon mused. Then he replied, “No, not here. It would disrupt the peace of the neighborhood. . . . All right, my wife and I will return to our home in Weston, and you can incarcerate us there.”
“Well, we certainly don’t intend to—”
“Strike that; bad humor on my part. But seriously now, we’re grateful for your concern.”
“We do have your home address in Weston, but we’d really prefer to have you escorted there by—”
“No, I absolutely decline that. Categorically. But thank you, Mr. Dillingham. We’ll be leaving first thing in the morning and should return to Weston by, say, early afternoon.”
“I’d feel better if you left this evening.”
“No, morning will do just fine. The fatwa hasn’t been announced over here yet, evidently.”
“Well . . . all right. Thanks for your cooperation, Professor Weber.”
“Yours too. Good night.”
Jon hung up and turned to Shannon, who was hovering nearby with a worried look on her face.
“What is it, Jon? A fatwa? On you? You’re kidding, right?”
“I’m afraid not, sweetheart. That was the CIA. They want us to head home so they can put us under official protection, at least until this thing blows over.”
“Jon, fatwas don’t ‘blow over.’ At least Rushdie’s didn’t. What about our trip? Our work? Oh, this is just ridiculous.”
“I know; I know. But when the truth finally sinks in at Tehran, they’ll lift it, I’m sure.”
“And if they don’t?”
Jon saw a tear or two glistening in her eyes. He tucked two fingers under her classically chiseled chin and said, “Then we’ll flee Weston and fly to Tahiti.”
Shannon made a conscious effort to shrug off the curdling climate of fear in their lives as they drove eastward to Chatham. She appreciated Jon’s attempts to cheer her up with a seafood dinner overlooking the Atlantic—one of her favorite things to do when they were staying at the beach house. It began with obligatory Lambrusco—the vintage they had shared on their wedding night—and went on to lobster for him, crab cakes for her.
Was it the edge supplied by danger? The wine at dinner? The gorgeous full moon floating over the eastern seascape? Whatever. The evening was a success as far as Shannon was concerned. By the time they returned to their hideaway, she had managed to put the fear and danger out of her mind. It was heavenly to return to their beachfront hideaway and forget, at least for the night, that anyone else existed outside the circle of their love.