

The Blue Gate

C.R. Black

Copyright 2012 C.R. Black

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. All characters and events are fictional and a creation of the author's.

This book is dedicated to Erik, whose love and encouragement have seen me through many dark days, and to the people of Fez, Morocco.

Chapter 1 - Wednesday - 10:15 am

"O Fez! In you are gathered all the beauties of the world. How many are the blessings and riches that you bestow on your inhabitants. The challenge will tax man's capacities and imagination to the full." Amadou-Mahtar M'Bow b.1921

Quickly placing the precious seeds into a pocket of his djellaba, Fettah Bou Chantouf walked out of the herbalists shop and down the narrow street, barely an arms span wide. Turning right onto the Tala'a Kebira, he merged into the deluge of shouted bargaining by local shoppers, school children, tourists and vendors.

The Tala'a Kebira, Broadway of the medina, was one of two main thoroughfares, running from near the Bab Bou Jeloud, the Blue Gate, downhill to the Oued Boukharareb, what passed for a river in this time of drought. Stretching along them cheek to jowl were 10,000 small businesses crammed into this densely populated, one square mile old quarter, the worlds largest car- free urban area. This was Fez el Bali, old Fez, dating back to the late eighth century.

A cacophony of sound, smell and color like no other in the world dazzled the senses of all who entered. Mixing with the shouts of merchants were undertones of neighbors exchanging gossip, tourists exclaiming over exotic sights, school children hurrying to class from a home lunch break, the smell of small street-side grills cooking brochettes, brilliant colored hanging Berber carpets and kaftans worn by the passing women. None of this was of the slightest interest to Bou Chantouf. What was first and foremost in his mind was to make sure he was not followed by agents of the makhzen; the governing elite in Morocco surrounding the monarchy. He particularly wanted to avoid the police, their military stooges, and especially the Direction de la Securité du Territoire (DST), the Moroccan secret police. Having spent his early years in this, his birthplace, he was intimately familiar with this labyrinth of the over 9,000 streets and alleyways inside its walls.

He had been careful to have more than one safe house easily accessible from several directions, including the rooftops of surrounding buildings and hidden doorways. He protected his real identity by using a cover name when renting the properties, but most usually he simply found an empty dwelling and had one of his cohorts either pick the lock or break in.

Within the small terrorist cell he was only referred to as Yattuy, the "tall one," which offered further protection. Few in this city knew his real name since he had gone to live with his mother's family in city of Zagora, between the Middle Atlas Mountains and Sahara Desert, when he was a teenager. Zagora, most famous for a sign on its outskirts reading, "Tombouctou (Timbuktu) 52 days," supposedly referring to the time it takes for a camel to walk to the fabled city in the desert. His height and dark skin betrayed his mother's Tuareg ancestry. Tall and lithe, standing straight and unbent, he carries himself like a warrior, which in fact is exactly how he sees himself. He always wears the same clothing; a white d'jellaba and kufi skull cap. Dark, hooded eyes, and serious, often scowling continence gave any observer second thoughts about entering a casual conversation with him.

Walking up the tala'a he passed through the food markets; stalls overflowing with baskets of dates, eggs, nuts, all manner of fresh fruit and vegetables. The meat markets selling everything from live pigeons to sheep heads with unseeing eyes glazed in death. He noticed one of the growing number of American families calling the medina home watching as the poultry butcher swept up the chosen bird, quickly blessing it before slitting its throat and placing it head down in a metal funnel to bleed. In short order the skinned chicken is placed, still warm from life, into a plastic bag.

Fettah did not smile at the young blonde haired boy begging to feed the chicken heads to the ubiquitous cats hanging around the meat and fish shops. Once his plans were carried out, it would be increasingly difficult for non- Muslims to live in his country. He believed in the purity of his religion and like most fundamentalists believed his idea of Islam was the only true version. Fiercely religious, hating anyone or anything that diluted the promises of the Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be unto him, Bou Chantouf was as committed to his cause as any suicide bomber. He did not believe that the Quran was a living document, pliant to a changing world condition. Islam was an immutable force to Fettah Bou Chantouf, and the world would have to adjust to its sublime teachings as it was written. He was resolute in the belief that allowing the coexistence of other religions in his cherished Morocco was an abomination not to be tolerated.

Hurrying along the Derb Douh leading from the Bab Bou Jeloud with its ATM's and fashionable sidewalk cafes and restaurants, he noticed a pretty, though scandalously dressed young Moroccan woman. She sits without hijab, a head covering, and wearing what he considers is an immodestly short skirt, drinking nus- nus, milky coffee, with a young man. While still the domain of the Moroccan male, increasing numbers of young Moroccan women were also now joining them at the cafes.

"She is the evil, spoiled, and corrupt Westernized woman. Her day will come too," Bou Chantouf said to himself, "and all those who would bring the evils of western culture into Morocco".

He continued onward, passing in front of the Continental Tourist Hotel, barely noticing a load of western tourists disgorging from a green tourist bus. Neither did he pay much attention to the coffee shops crowded with men sipping their cups, smoking their cigarettes, talking politics and the upcoming royal visit. He did, however, notice a seated figure dressed in the cotton djellaba over an obvious blue uniform shirt and striped trousers of the La Sûreté Nationale, the National Police force.

Walking on he quickly found the man he was looking for. Leaning into the cab window, he surreptitiously dropped the package into the cab drivers waiting hands, and asked,

"When will it be ready?" The driver, Hasan, one of a very small group of trusted cell members replied,

"It will be ready in time, In'shallah," God willing replied Hasan gruffly.

"Just be sure that the chemist knows that he will be amply rewarded when he is finished." Fettah seemed almost to hiss like a snake when he talked.

A brooding, muscular man whose thick, dropping eyelids conceal any trace of warmth or humanity, Hasan was a very useful cell member. Not only does he own a car, but with the cover of a taxi he could be seen in many areas without causing suspicion. No one noticed an ever-present red petit taxi since ALL petit taxis in Fez were identically painted red Fiat Uno's. Hasan possesses utter ruthlessness and his particular ability to quickly break the neck of any one carelessly crossing his path or deemed expendable by Fettah. He wasn't an intelligent thug, but a useful thug nonetheless.

Turning, Fettah casually scanned the passing crowds with humorless eyes before walking on downhill towards a safe house on the Ras Cherratene. A warm breeze carried the heady scent of this ancient quarter on its wings. Bou Chantouf, residents, tourists and children all deftly step out of the way at the call "balak, balak","lookout!" from the driver of a passing string of donkeys delivering bags of cement to some building site within the medina. Making his way to the safe house, he climbed a neighboring stairway leading to the rooftop. Ducking under one of many clotheslines, he stepped around an ever- present satellite dish puncturing the sky of this ancient city before climbing over a short wall. Reaching under a roof tile he retrieved a hidden key unlocking a rooftop door and allowing him to gain entry into the safe house.

It had the musty, closed-up smell of someplace that hadn't been lived in for a long time. Here he would finish making preparations, taking pains that everything would be perfect in time for the coming royal visit. Later, at the call of the muezzin, he would go to a mosque to pray for Allah's blessings on his cause. He thought he might go to the Andalusian section of the medina, maybe the Gzira or Makhfiya neighborhood, which would mean a walk, but that would all right. After all, he had almost 300 mosques to choose from inside the medina. It would only make it more difficult if anyone was either trying to follow him or tie him to one particular neighborhood. One could never be too careful at this point in the game, and security forces reportedly had informants everywhere.

Chapter 2- Wednesday - 10:18 am

"Instruction in youth is like engraving in stone." Moroccan proverb

Eian noisily begged to throw the head of the slaughtered chicken to the waiting black and white cat. Getting his way, he deftly tossed the head to the mewing cat, setting off a squall of hissing among the assembled street cats. Christopher, out on a shopping trip to gather food for tonight's dinner, smiled down at his son thriving here in Morocco, and especially in the medina.

Moroccan culture embraced young children, whether native or not, and it was unusual for children to pass by older adults without being patted or kissed on the head. Eian quickly discovered that oftentimes shop owners would also bestow small gifts of sweets or a toy.

Divorce had been hard on both Christopher and Eian. After seven years of marriage, his wife had suddenly decided that she didn't want to be married to him any longer and did not want the burden of a young child either. Christopher was left in the lurch before finally accepting a years travel magazine assignment to Morocco, which would allow him to take his young son with him. He had found that both he and Eian easily settled into life here in Fez, first finding a family willing to provide a home stay for cultural immersion. Days and weeks quickly turned into months before stumbling upon a riad, a Moroccan version of a Bed and Breakfast with a garden attached, for lease. That had been 3 years ago, though sometimes it seemed like a lifetime.

Christopher took the day in, knowing that two days hence he would take his son as part of a group to represent the community to meet the King on his visit to Fez to bestow blessings on the festival day of Moulay Idriss II, founder and patron saint of the city. The main event, a raucous procession which began outside the Blue Gate before winding its way along the Tala'a Saghira to the shrine at the heart of the medina.

Being culturally curious, he was quite content living here in Fez, the soul of Morocco. He could also run his own small guesthouse. He loved the unique blend of the ancient, modern and exotic around every corner; the fact that his home was built over 200 years ago and was still considered new; that the pace of life, at least in the medina, was on a slower, more human scale than outside its protecting walls; that his child seemed truly happy. He also loved the people he was becoming more and more familiar with. Passing by a dar, a small guesthouse like his own, but without a garden, he exchanged greetings with the owner.

"As-salam alaykum" called out the owner, Kamal, in greeting.

"Wa alaykum e-salam" replied Christopher. "No time to chat today. Eian is on a mission to get home and play with a new toy he received in the mail from his grandmother. Bislema, goodbye."

He smiled as Eian continued running down the narrow, cracked and dusty street to the corner where the old beggar woman always sat, eyeing especially visiting Western tourists. He did feel sorry for elderly widows, who often had to resort to begging, especially if there were no children to take them in, so he dropped a small coin in her lap as he walked by and received her blessing and thanks.

Passing onwards he met a group of American tourists dutifully following behind their guide towards either a carpet shop or the tanneries. He wondered if they knew that Morocco was the first nation to recognize the fledgling United States in 1777 or that the Moroccan-American Treaty of Friendship was the US's oldest unbroken treaty. He seriously doubted it. Smirking, he looked at the group tour guide who was paid a fee of up to 30% to bring them to specific shops and who always guaranteed that this was the place where you could get the best quality at the lowest price.

Passing through a portal separating neighborhoods, they continued on towards the Tala'a Saghira with its many small shops selling clothing, shoes, luggage, handbags, antiques (both old and freshly created) carpets, souvenirs, videos, pottery, musical instruments; a polyglot of goods being browsed by the bargaining crowds.

That was another thing he found enjoyable about life in the medina. With few exceptions, all purchases for goods were completed only after serious bargaining takes place between the buyer and the seller. If you didn't bargain it is often considered an insult. If you set too hard bargain then you may be called a Berber, which meant either you were very good at bargaining and was a compliment or that you were penurious and was an insult. Such were the vagaries of language and custom!

At the corner of Derb El-Horra, they stop to sample a bowl of snail soup, rich with the earthy taste of freshly cooked snails. Eian thought the snails were simply interesting, but was really waiting for the olive seller down the street where he could sample to his heart's delight.

Moving out of the way as a donkey passed delivering clinking cases of Coke, they continue on down the slope where corbeled buildings seem to reach out to touch them from above. In several places the buildings passes over their heads, one side connecting with the other, punctuated by unseen eyes, now rare traditional windows on the upper stories called rawashin, where women could look out onto the streets below unobserved.

Aromas assailed their nostrils. From cooking food, animal dung, fresh mint at a hundred different vendors, unwashed bodies, sandalwood or benzoin gum incense, neighborhood bakeries and the always-present dust that swirled through the air at this time of the year. No longer seen were the yellow blossoms of the agave plants that painted the distant hillsides yellow in mid-summer. September was the end of the dry period, when the surrounding hillsides were at their brownest and the only colors were the dyed sheep and goat hides, laid out on the ground to dry in the sunshine. Winds often whipped dust from as far away as the Sahara to the south and east. Soon he knew cooling rains would again fall on his adopted city, and bring with them ultimately the coming of the New Year.

As he entered the courtyard to his home, he noticed Fatima, the local girl who cooks and helps clean. Now he would be able to leave Eian with her and go back and wander the streets for a while, practicing his Arabic and soaking in the local flavor.

Chapter 3 - Wednesday - 10:22 am

"A narrow place is real big to the narrow-minded." Moroccan proverb

Salima sat talking with her brother Akmed as the tall, bearded man walked glaringly past their table. She knew by the way he was looking at her that he was mentally disapproving of her dress; her lack of head covering and, though modest by western standards, mid-calf skirt. She puts him down to a small group of Islamists that live in the medina who wanted Morocco to be a strict Islamic republic on the model of Saudi Arabia, where modern European or American fashions, music and other cultural influences were banned. He was soon followed by an American with his young son, a man that she knew slightly through her family and who lived in the medina. Handsome, she thought, with a slight smile on her face, but even the thought of dating such a man would be impossible because of the religious differences, no matter how outwardly acceptable he might be. Just the thought of marrying outside her faith would bring disgrace to her family as well as being outside the tenets of Islamic law.

Salima Benharoun was a striking 35 year old woman. With pale skin, blue eyes and almost blonde hair, she stood out against her darker haired and complexioned Moroccan sisters. She also was as yet, unmarried. She knows that she drew appreciative looks from most passing men, the isolated fundamentalist excluded. It was just that she was very picky and no one she had been introduced to had met either her or her family's expectations.

Like the majority of young, educated urban women in Morocco today, Salima has one foot firmly planted in the future and another in the traditional past. She came from a prosperous old Fasi merchant family that followed traditional Sunni Islam, as did almost all Moroccans. Her father was well respected in the medina, both living and having business ventures there for most of his life, even though he now lived in modern apartments in the Ville Nouvelle, the newest part of Fez built by the French after 1916. He still made daily trips to sit outside the families' carpet and antiquities shops on the Tala'a Kebira. The old family home now housed a small but luxurious guesthouse near Batha; another family enterprise.

Salima's Berber mother and her father had met while he was buying carpets in the Rif Mountains of northern Morocco. Her features bore those physical traits of her father, easily passing for a northern European, unlike her brothers and sisters who resemble her darker, rounder-faced mother. She did, however, have her mother's joie de vivre and laughing eyes, and was encouraged, within limits, to experience the world around her.

After finishing high school she had attended the University Sidi Mohamed majoring in accounting. Now she was part owner, along with her family, of an accounting office that was located in the medina and she was proud of its growing clientele. Salima thought of some of her clients, knowing outsiders would be surprised at the splendor of the homes hidden behind walls and unassuming doorways; the cooling fountains, marvelous tile and carved plaster work.

Salima eagerly awaited the promised coming government reforms sweeping the Arab world at this time. While progressive compared to virtually any other Islamic country, Morocco was still stifling to one such as Salima. She loved her country and believed that democratic liberalization was the only answer to its problems. Some of the more conservative religious political groups in Morocco wanted to fence the country off from the rest of the world and keep any western influences from entering, turning the clock back to a time that never really was. Morocco had always been influenced by forces from across the Mediterranean Sea and was a crossroads between Europe and Africa.

Until 1912 Morocco had never suffered foreign domination, and its mountainous interior was as closed to foreigners as any hermit kingdom. Phoenician coastal traders as early as the sixth century BC, followed by Romans, had brought their culture into the northern parts of Morocco and left behind ruins of great cities, most visibly at Volubilis, as well as both Judaism and Christianity. When the Romans left, successive waves of Vandals, Visigoths and finally the Byzantine Empire quickly followed. Morocco then resisted outside domination until the twentieth century. From 1912 until 1956 when modern Morocco was established, it was under a French and a Spanish protectorate. Today, waves of European tourists thronged into the country to enjoy a cheap and exotic vacation in the sun.

Salima and her younger brother laughed at several attempts to keep outside musicians from coming into the country to play at concerts, not just British great Sir Elton John, but also various Muslim female singers from Lebanon. Thankfully those attempts had been met with little support and young Moroccans were free to listen to whatever music they chose, but the threat of the conservative religious groups was a constant reminder of what was at stake.

Her discussion completed, Salima finished her second coffee of the day, kissed her brother goodbye and walked back to her office. Listening to the sounds of school children returning to their classrooms after going home for lunch always reminded her that she was unmarried and childless. What would the future hold for these eager children? For her? Would the King relinquish absolute control over most of the Moroccan government, allow true democracy and bow to the wishes of reformers? That was certainly her hope and the only safe path to the future. Would a sudden and violent uprising force the King from the throne and throw her country into chaos, like so many other North African and Middle Eastern nations?

Even worse, would the King perhaps be assassinated by some mad group of terrorists? Fundamentalists eager to establish "their" vision of utopia all traces of modernity suppressed after so much progress had been made? That was a future too grim for her to contemplate. Already an attempt had been made on the King's life at the annual Be'ya, or allegiance ceremony.

Hundreds of regional representatives came to bow to the King, seated on horseback, and chant "May God bless the life of my master," renewing their vows of obedience to the monarch. Luckily, the attempted assassination by a gun-wielding terrorist was unsuccessful, but it was a reminder to this, the Arab world's longest-ruling dynasty of the precariousness of rule.

Chapter 4 - Wednesday - 10:27 am

"Do not correct with a strike that which can be taught with a kiss." Moroccan proverb

Though drinking sweetened mint tea is most often associated with Morocco, coffee is equally as important, and drinking a small cup of espresso can take an hour if there is business to be conducted. Chief Inspector Ayrad Afellay of the Surete Nationale du Maroc or National Police force sipped his coffee, puffing on his ever-present cigarette and frowned as he read through the terrorist report for the fourth time. This was definitely not good news and was sure to further irritate his ulcer. He had just gotten off the phone with his commander and the conversation had not been pleasant. According to very reliable sources within the DST, the Moroccan secret police, a suspected terrorist attack was planned on His Majesty the King while visiting Fez during the upcoming festival.

His superior, all pencil mustache, French-made suits and Italian loafers, came from Rabat, and like many higher ups in the Sûreté tended to look down on anyone not from the capital city. He also looked down on those he considered socially or intellectually inferior. Normally he would see Chief Inspector Afellay as a person beneath his station. Afellay was a Berber, a group that still suffered from some degree of discrimination. Moreover, he had been raised in Fez el J'did, called New Fez, though in fact it was almost a thousand years old. Youngest son of a municipal administrator and a university professor of Classical Literature, Afellay had been exposed to moderate thinking and the best literature of both the Western as well as the Islamic World.

Profiting from a natural affinity to study, he won a scholarship to Mohammed V University in Rabat and earned a degree in public administration. He worked his way up to the rank of Chief Inspector through dint of hard work, his own intelligence and a bit of luck. Having grown up near the mellah, the old Jewish quarter which lay close to the walls of the medina and hard by a royal palace of the King, Afellay had a natural feel for the people in this part of the city. If anyone could get the needed information, it was he. He knew that for the next 48 hours he must use all of his skills to keep the king safe.

Taking a small notebook out of the pocket of the light cotton djellaba covering his uniform, he quickly went down the list of agents who would be best in and around the medina. Come down too hard and the people would clam up and the flow of all information would stop. He knew that while the king was popular with the vast majority of people, there was a small and dangerous minority that wanted the government to fall.

The King, aided by a powerful propaganda machine, chaired cabinet meetings and controlled the judiciary, religious affairs and the army. He could also dissolve parliament if it proposed laws that did not please him. It was best to tread gently, at least for the present.

Morocco was not yet at a juncture where the people would rise up against their leaders and the government. Afellay shuddered to think of a situation like in Iraq or Afghanistan where it was simply "all against all" and outside forces such as the United States or NATO only contributed to the destruction. Morocco, for the very first time had experienced protests where the king was openly criticized and government forces didn't open fire. The monarchy's response so far had been to promise change and write a new constitution. The King continued to steer the country in a decidedly pro-western direction even though general public opinion in the country and the Arab world in general was anti-American, though not violently so. This was something Islamists tended to emphasize.

Islamists, like the religion of Islam in general, were a varied lot. Extremists, Salafis, were a very tiny minority of the world's 1.9 billion Muslims. They embraced violent jihad against civilians and believed this was an allowable demonstration of Islam. He knew that Salafis said disparaging things about far more moderate Islamist groups while the moderates wrote the hard-core Salafis off as wild-eyed, anti-democratic, anti-feminists who couldn't even print a veiled woman's face on a poster. Further, Salafist's showed a distinct dislike of all Sufi movements, and Sufism was to a large degree supported in Morocco.

Afellay had no delusions about his life-long support of the makhzen. It was a necessity in his chosen profession, and he was a firm believer in slow reform with emphasis on the slow. Like the vast majority of police personnel the world over, Afellay was conservative in his outlook and hardly about to rock the boat. The term "gentle revolution" had been coined to describe Morocco's efforts to sidestep the revolutionary fervor that was sweeping the Arab world. It is his duty to see that reforms maintained order, kept the elite in power while at the same time assuaging the population. The dog-eared pages of history were re-visited yet once again.

Morocco at its heart was still a struggling, poor country with a fragile economic fabric. Thinking about the current political situation in his country, Afellay remembered an old Moroccan saying that applied to his situation; "Better a handful of dried dates and content with that than to own the Gate of Peacocks and be kicked in the eye by a broody camel." Change would come to Morocco, but In'shallah it would come slowly and peacefully.

Lighting yet another cigarette he started jotting down his list of agents. Within the hour they would start scouring the medina for any signs of terrorists. Punching the speed dial on his mobile phone, he read off the list to his second and quickly gave orders. The clock was now running.

Chapter 5 - Wednesday - 3:50 p.m.

"Fire purges everything." Berber saying

Inside the house Bou Chantouf walked quickly down the stairs to the sparsely furnished main room where he allowed himself to think back to when he first took up the Islamist cause.

His father, co-owner of one of hundreds of tiny tailor shops in the medina, had died when he was 12. Bou Chantouf's older brother was loosely associated with "de Fez," a terrorist cell that worked out of Fez in the mid-1990's and who pulled off the August 1994 shooting attack on the Atlas-Asni hotel in Marrakech that left two Spanish tourists dead. Even though he was not directly involved, his brother died during interrogation by Moroccan security agents, the hated DST. Revenge was a powerful motivator and he decided then to devote his life to the overthrow of the monarchy and the ruling establishment.

Today, fifteen years later, Fettah Bou Chantouf, is now among the zealous leadership of the extremist group as-Salfiya Jihadiya Magreb, a loose arrangement made up of a cluster of independent cells. Originally established to oppose government support for the US-led coalition against Iraq, it now actively promoted overthrow of the present government.

Most often such groups formed on the margins of society where people felt ill at ease with the urban middle class and the trimmings of modern society. As-Salfiya Magreb was no exception, and Bou Chantouf was a prime example. He closely identified with the takfari ideology, which held he and his group could accuse Muslims of apostasy or being an infidel and thus excommunicated in the eyes of the Muslim community.

Like many extremists, Bou Chantouf viewed the Moroccan regime as an apostate government, ripe for overthrow. There was too much crushing poverty here in a country where the gap between rich and poor was wide and all too apparent; far too much unemployment, especially of educated young men; too many living in sub-standard housing, most prominently in and around the major cities. All of this while members of the makhzen, the ruling elite, lived in luxury and open corruption.

He was equally disdainful of the moderate Islamist political groups such as the Justice and Development Party, which sought to make changes in the existing Moroccan government through peaceful, democratic methods, the so- called "gentle revolution". What was needed to his way of thinking was to wipe clear the diluting forces of the West and re-make his country. He believed that the very idea of democratic elections was un-Islamic and that women should be segregated from men in public. Yes, there were many changes needed in the new Morocco after this week was finished.

Bou Chantouf's plan was both simple and complex. The package he delivered to Hasan at the taxi stand contained seeds of Ricinus communis, in Arabic Khirwa' and known in the West as the castor bean plant. Following fairly simple chromatographic techniques, the poison ricin was easily made by anyone with an elemental knowledge of chemistry.

Ricin was virtually undetectable and fit perfectly into his plan. Fettah had read that in the 1970s, Bulgarian secret agents reportedly used a ricin capsule injected into the leg of a dissident, which proved fatal. More difficult was condensing the poison down to such a level that a small amount injected into the blood stream assured death in an extremely short period of time. Using the talents of an unemployed and disillusioned university graduate, the problem was finally overcome.

Harder still was creating a dart that would be both accurate when fired from the high-powered compressed air rifle, but would have all the outward appearances of a hornet sting. At last, after a long and difficult period of trial and error, the perfect dart was created. When fired into a subject's neck it delivered a massive dose of the condensed poison into the blood stream.

To test the weapon and delivery system, he had chosen a Westerner who collapsed and died within minutes of being struck by the dart. News reports stated simply that an elderly German tourist had collapsed and died after receiving a hornet sting. Nothing suspicious was noted.

Fettah then practiced for days with the special air gun provided fitted into what looked like a traditional musical horn seen at festivals, secretly constructed in a local metal shop by another cell member. Finally he was ready, sure that he would be able to strike his target and thus complete his part of the planned revolution,. The King would die from an apparently innocent insect sting, and his death would be the "will of Allah."

Once word was spread of the King's death, other cells around the country were set to carry out attacks against specific targets; foreign cultural missions, television stations, cafe's and hotels that attracted foreign visitors, cinemas, certain foreign embassies and business ventures owned by the makhzen. Other groups were poised to use recently acquired shoulder-fired missiles from Libya against the Moroccan military until such time as they were brought into the fold. He knew that the common people could always be brought to the bidding of the leaders if given the proper inducements.

At the muezzin's cry, Fettah glanced at his watch and noted the time. It was 4:05 pm, and his mind raced ahead two days hence to when his plan would be put into effect. He rose, left the apartment and walked purposefully towards the distant mosque.

Chapter 6 - Wednesday - 4:38 p.m.

"Angels bend down their wings to a seeker of knowledge." Moroccan proverb

Driven by a compulsive curiosity, Christopher continued down the narrow street, twisting first one direction then another. If he got lost in this warren of narrow streets, some only two feet wide, so much the better. That was when you truly discovered the wonders of Fez. A place soaked in history and that was what urged the writer in him onward. Some people center their lives on status or money, community or service to God. Christopher's center was learning.

Leo Africanus, the early sixteenth century writer wrote this about Fez; "A world it is to see, how large, how populous, how well fortified and walled this city is." Christopher had to agree completely with Africanus, also known as al-Wazzan az-Zayyati al-Fassi. Visiting Fez, Africanus assured that "a man may both satisfy his eyes, and solace his mind. Fez deserves to be called a Paradise."

The tan buildings of the medina spread out before him as he gazed towards the green tile roof of Al-Karouine mosque. Once again he was struck by the sights unfolding before him-the juxtaposition of satellite dishes projecting from virtually every rooftop beaming in the modern world and the ancient call to prayer of the muezzins; jet airplanes overhead and burros delivering goods to stores within the medina; sending emails around the world from a cyber cafe while outside a man is loading trash bags onto a donkey for transport; women wearing the black hijab and veil along with sunglasses and baseball caps. This was his world now; this was the Fez medina.

Finally reaching the bottom of the hill he understood the belief that Fez el Bali was one of the most complex cities in the world, making it nearly impossible for visitors to find their own way around. Walking on, he bent under the wooden beam across the street, placed so that people would bow modestly before getting close to the mosque. He stood looking into Al-Karaouine, which was, according to his well-thumbed copy of the Guinness Book of World Records, the world's oldest university, founded in 859. He mused over the fact that this mosque and the attached institution of higher learning were founded by a woman, wondering if those in the Islamist movement who wanted to keep women in a subservient role were aware of this. He wished he could enter the door to marvel at its classic design, capable of holding more than 20,000 worshipers and at one time the largest mosque in North Africa. Non-Muslims were prohibited from entering Moroccan mosques, a hold over from the days when the French had decreed that non-Christians were prohibited from entering their churches and cathedrals. Moroccans soon prohibited non-Muslims from entering their mosques as a way of rebelling against their colonizers and it remained that way today.

Sounds were especially important in fully experiencing life here in the medina. Calls to prayer five times a day over loudspeakers; the formalities of greetings heard on the streets; the chatter of children going to and from school; shop keepers calling out to tourists, almost always correctly guessing their nationality from their appearance. The buzz of motorbikes, like angry wasps and the gentle clip-clop of passing burros on centuries old cobblestones worn smooth by generations of trotting feet, even the sounds of chirping birds over a garden wall in an area of the city with few visible trees. This is what Christopher wanted to bring to his audience, the readers for his upcoming book. Turning, he heard the polyphonic sounds of the call for prayer, starting high in the minaret of the mosque and soon picked up by other mosques in the medina, a tradition going back centuries. It was said that in the minaret of the Al-Karaouine mosque there was a special room, the Dar al-Muwaqqit, where the times of daily prayer were established for the city.

Wandering aimlessly now past the religious shops clustered around the periphery of the mosque, Christopher crossed over into the Andalusian section of the medina. This was the very oldest part of the medina. It is an area often over-looked, yet it was just as fascinating as the more touristic sites in the Karaouine section to the West. Like all neighborhoods in the medina, those in the Andalusian section each contained a mosque, a school, a fountain, a communal bakery and a hammam or public bathhouse. Tradition said that people living in the medina could spend their entire lives without ever going outside its embracing walls!

Street foods were one of Christopher's passions. Inheriting an iron stomach and sense of adventure from his father, he prided himself on at least trying most available dishes, though he did admit that such things as sheep heads were a bit much. Coming upon a small street vendor grilling kebabs, he quickly purchased one along with khobz, flattened Moroccan bread. He knew the bread came from the bakery around the corner and wished that he could find some chebakia there, those wonderful deep-fried sweet pastries so plentiful during the month of Ramadan, but knew that he would have to wait.

Having satisfied his craving for some nourishment, he continued on up the Rue Seffah to the Andalusian Mosque, only two years newer than the Karaouine Mosque across the river. Standing in front of its magnificent wooden doors, he marveled again at the elaborate cedar woodcarvings of the eaves.

"So much to see and experience," Christopher muttered to no one in particular.

Passing by the Medersa Sahrij, he turned down El Adoua, a street he had not taken before. Intending to head back home, he stopped momentarily in front of a small, plain neighborhood mosque. He was able to look inside through the open doors just as the men in attendance were coming out from early evening prayers. Christopher was intent on observing the green zellij tiled interior when he noticed a tall man with a scowling face headed in his direction. Not wanting a confrontation, he quickly stepped in behind an older worshipper who was heading his direction. He held his breath. Being beyond his neighborhood comfort zone, though his knowledge of Arabic was sufficient to carry on conversations with friendly shopkeepers, it was another thing to get into an argument with an angry Islamic fundamentalist, one of the "bearded ones". He was able to avoid an ugly scene, though he did hear the tall man in the white djellaba telling him to "get out of the medina" before he fades into the distance.

Ahead of him, the old man slowly turned and said, "Please forgive him, he has no manners and isn't a real Muslim."

Christopher took the older mans hand and simply said, "Shokran bzzaf; Mashi moshkil," "thanks a lot, it's not a problem," before continuing on to his home.

Continuing towards home, he passed by one of the most photographed sights in all of Fez, the Chouara tanneries, which could be smelt long before they were reached. Established in the 1300s, their limestone pits were filled with a pungent mixture of pigeon droppings, pomegranate peels and the cow urine used to tan the leather. Young men stand thigh deep in those and other pits tanning or dying the famous leather with vegetable dyes using methods that have not changed in a thousand years. At least he didn't live nearby, where the unpleasant smell wafts in the gently blowing breeze adding another complex layer to the zest of the city.

Chapter 7 - Wednesday - 5:18 p.m.

"God pardons the ignorant." Berber proverb

Fettah Bou Chantouf walked out of the small mosque and directly into the tall westerner standing and staring into the interior. At first Bou Chantouf thought he might be a police agent before deciding he was just another tourist. Strange, he seemed to recognize the face and billed cap, but then no, just like so many others who all looked alike.

"Seer f'halek," "Go away," he shouted angrily at the staring foreigner, "get out of the medina."

He knew tourism was an important source of income for Morocco, with over 10 million visitors in the past year, but he also knows with European and American tourists comes Western culture. Eventually this culture would inundate his country and bury its identity just as it had done in so many other places in the world. This was the true danger of the West, and it couldn't be allowed to continue. The coming revolution would excoriate all those in its way.

Turning down a side street, Fettah took a back way to the safe house. He didn't think he had been noticed, but he wanted to make sure. This way he could enter from the building next door, crossing the roof tops. He would once again mentally go through the planned distraction and the act of shooting the dart at the King while making sure their escape route was decided. Tonight, the package would arrive with Hasan, and together they would go over every part of the plan to make certain that nothing was left to chance. There was now less than 48 hours until the beginning of the revolution.

Chapter 8 - Wednesday - 5:43 p.m.

"A wise woman has much to say, yet remains silent." Moroccan proverb

Salima looked up as the door to her office opened, smiling broadly as Chief Inspector Ayrad Afellay greeted her. She often thought of him as almost another uncle.

"Salama malakum, Salima. "Hello!" La bes?"

"La bes, Yes, I am fine," replied Salima, smiling.

"And the rest of your family, your father?"

"They are well also, thankfully. Have you heard lately from Idus?" Salima and Idus, Afellay's son, had attended high school and college together and had been friends, not unusual since both have Berber blood.

"Yes, Al-hamdu-lillah, he is fine and continuing with his architectural work in Casablanca." Afellay had once hoped that a romance might develop between the two, but that was not to be and they remained good friends and nothing more.

Deciding to follow her lead, he sat in the chair opposite the desk. Looking around he took in various accoutrements of a modern office; computer, fax machine, cordless phone, locking file cabinets, as well as other, more traditional touches. On the floor is a nice antique Zemmour Berber rug from the Middle Atlas. Hanging on the wall behind her chair is a very old purple silk kaftan in a glass frame. Other interesting pieces are artfully scattered around the room. He knows that all of these come from one of the families other businesses, an antiquities shop on the Tala'a Kebira. Exhaling smoke through his lips,

Afellay began; "Salima, I am coming to you because I know you and your family and I trust you because you are Idus' friend. A situation has developed and since your family has many ears in the medina, I was hoping you could be of help."

"Yes," Salima slowly replied. She knows that the Chief Inspector often works with the secret police, but that was all she knew and she is not too sure she wanted to know any more or have her family involved more deeply.

"I would like to know if anyone has heard of talk of disturbances, especially any involving the King when he visits here Friday for the festival. Maybe your family has picked up some tidbits on the street. I would go directly to your father, but since I am fairly well known in the medina I don't want to bring any undue attention on to him. Slipping into your office here is a bit different from stopping to chat on the Tala'a Kebira."

As he was saying this he noticed a slight catch, barely noticeable, in Salima's face.

Responding quickly, Salima said, "I have not heard of anything, no, but I will pass your request along to my family and see if they have heard of anything."

A heavy silence hung for two heartbeats. This was a very well known and respected family within the medina and he knows that he was treading on thin ice. After a few moments of small talk, mostly about Idus and his architectural work, Afellay rose, kissed Salima on both cheeks and wished her goodbye.

"Shukran, Salima. Thank you! I knew I could count on you. Please give my regards to your family. I will be in touch with you again soon."

"Beslama" replied Salima. "Goodbye!"

After Afellay left Salima sat quietly before going to the front door, locking it. She returned to her desk for a moment, collecting her thoughts before picking up her mobile phone and punching in a number.

"Akmed? It's Salima. I need to talk to you quickly my brother. Not over the phone, come by the office and we'll maybe go for a walk." Chief Inspector Afellay's visit has turned a completely different light on Friday's festival and the royal couple's visit to Fez.

Chapter 9 - Wednesday - 6:02 p.m.

"Boil the water and the scum will rise to the top." Berber proverb

Chief Inspector Afellay had sent his investigators to all the usual spots and all their usual sources. They flooded the barbershops and beauty parlors, which are scattered about the medina like dandelions across a summer lawn. The many tailoring shops sprouted in even greater numbers as well as neighborhood hanoot convenience stores; over 200 public bath houses; the list went on and on, and all had to be checked for the smallest scrap of information.

Afellay chuckled, thinking of the one honest statement in the famous 1942 movie Casablanca. Major Louis Renault says, "Round up the usual suspects," followed by "Realizing the importance of the case, my men are rounding up twice the usual number of suspects." They got that part true at least, thinks the Inspector, if nothing else.

So many American tourists came to Casablanca and expected Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman to walk around the corner. He hated to tell them that Casa was really just another big, not too picturesque industrial city filled with too many people trying to get by as best they could.

The usual suspects were rounded up. Known fundamentalist agitators, anti-monarchy radicals and general trouble makers were combed off the streets by the hundreds, but as yet there were no real leads into what organization or individual hoped to bring off the attack on the king.

This is not how Chief Inspector Ayrad Afellay of the Sûreté Nationale wanted to end his career and he vowed to do whatever was necessary to bring this case to a successful conclusion and wipe out a threat to the monarch and the Kingdom of Morocco.

Lighting another cigarette, he tossed the now empty pack of Marlboro's away and stepped around a meter deep hole and pile of ancient cobbles meant to repair yet another water or sewer line in the crumbling infrastructure. He continued slowly on through the Andalusian section. As he walked he mentally went over the few pieces of information that were available.

Knowledge had come from a known radical, who, under what was euphemistically called "enhanced" interrogation, revealed to secret police questioners that an attempt was going to be made on the monarch's life during his upcoming visit to Fez. Further questioning had made it known that the attack would be carried out by a locally based terrorist cell and would use a weapon only targeting the King.

That the terrorists were members of a small cell based in the Fez medina associated with the fundamentalist group as-Salfiya Magreb was no surprise. The country was plagued by so-called "lone-wolf" attacks made by small cells. The city also had a long history of birthing revolutionary movements. He knew that during the colonial period of his childhood, Fez was a center of anti-French rebellion. Given the right set of circumstances it could again be the center of rebellion.

Could the weapon referred to be one of the reported shoulder-fired missiles that disappeared from Libya following the downfall of Gaddafi? What about poison gas? A suicide bomber might get close enough before detonating his explosives, but then none of those methods would strike only the King. What if it was a woman? And how could they only target the King?

A long-range sniper rifle was a possibility, maybe someone who received training and experience in Iraq or Afghanistan. Have someone in the office check on any known returning mujahideen fighters and make sure the roof tops were covered. Little enough to go on with weeks to develop leads. Now, less than two days separated him from disaster unless something broke.

Pulling his mobile phone from a pocket, he called and requested that his car meet him at the Bab el Khoukha. While awaiting the cars arrival he noticed the familiar red "hand of Fatima" sign seen all over Morocco expressing in English, French and Arabic languages "Say No to Terrorism" and "Keep out of My Country." Ayrad Afellay knew that 99% of Moroccans believed in that sign, but it only takes one or two to change placidity to madness and terror. It was his job to see that this did not happen. As he waited he remembered hearing an old Jewish saying in his childhood; "Man plans and God laughs."

3
Chapter 10 - Wednesday - 6:32 p.m.

"Better to be watched by a wild animal than a nosy man." Moroccan proverb

Opening the door and admitting Akmed into her now closed office, Salima looked askance at her brother. She had already cancelled one appointment with a client in order to be able to devote full attention to what was now a potential problem.

"Akmed, there is a problem with Friday's plans" said Salima.

"What problem?" asked Akmed, concern showing on his face for the first time.

"Chief Inspector Afellay visited me earlier and asked if any of the family had heard about any disturbances planned for Friday's visit by the King. Do you think they know?"

"Lla!" says Akmed emphatically; No! "There is no way the police could know, only five of us are involved in the actual work. I'm sure that it is still a secret. It must be something else, maybe something religious since the festival revolves around the Sufi groups."

"Remember little brother, this is not just the gendarmerie that we are talking about; it is also the DST, and they do not play games."

"DST or gendarmerie, it is all the same and we have taken every precaution. The event will come off exactly as planned, at the royal reviewing stands with all of the TV cameras rolling. The movement will continue to press for a parliamentary monarchy, freedom, social justice and dignity."

These were the goals of the February 20 Movement, M20F for short, of which her younger brother, and herself to a lessor extent, were associated. Most young Moroccans had not involved themselves in politics until this movement was born, and it was now a driving force in Moroccan politics, proclaiming both the general rise of the youth movement and participation of young women in politics.

Pacing the floor Salima turned and said, "Do not bring any hint of disgrace down upon the family, you know it would kill our father besides harming our business interests. And be careful."

"Don't worry about me. My part is essentially over. I was a behind the scenes player, at least this time I was. Who knows about next time, if there is a next time?"

With that, Akmed kissed his sister on both cheeks and left the office with Salima noticing the look of unease in his eyes. Salima didn't dare go to any of the rest of the family to tell them about their involvement in the M20F to bring a true constitutional monarchy to Morocco with the King only as a figurehead.

Though she considered herself a modern Moroccan woman, believing that Moroccan men and women should walk hand in hand towards the future, she was still very much bound by age old rules of behavior and custom. This was especially true where the authority of her father was concerned. He was a peaceful man who believed that all was the will of Allah; that God would decide what should or should not take place and would work his miracles accordingly. Her father was against anyone or anything threatening to upset the status quo. A very tolerant and spiritual man, he still talked fondly about the good Jewish customers he had before most Moroccan Jews left in the 1950s and 60s. No, Salima would have to take a few hours to think this problem through. She hoped that Akmed was telling the truth when he said he was behind the scenes and their group was completely hidden from police view.

Deciding she would go for a walk to clear her mind and maybe do some shopping, Salima locked the door to her office and walked down the narrow street. She knew that most of the tailoring shops were turning out fancily embroidered silk kaftans for the coming festival. Maybe she could find one that struck her fancy.

Electing to walk up the Tala'a Saghira and shop along the way, Salima found nothing that she liked. Leaving the medina she took a red petit taxi to the nearby Fez el J'did district, barely a mile away. There she looked at various clothing and fabric stalls while walking down the covered market way, finally finding the right one.

The shop owner started with a price of 1000DH, about $125.00 in America. With bargaining skills learned from birth she was able to get the price down to 500DH, about $60.00. She knew she could probably get the price a bit lower, but if she stopped now the storeowner would probably also throw in a scarf that complimented the outfit. Price agreed upon, scarf included, she took her purchases out to find another taxi that would take her to the family home. She was tired and she had much to think about before tomorrow.

Chapter 11 - Thursday - 4:41 am

"The morning hour has gold in its mouth." Berber proverb

Christopher Harris, 36 year old divorced father of a growing son, writer, traveler, insatiable street food addict and landlord of the small Riad Mirabelle in the heart of Fez el Bali, greeted the early dawn as he often did; awakening to the local muezzins loud and off key singing of the Adhan, the call to morning prayer. In many cities and at many mosques it was truly a hauntingly beautiful song. When referring to most foreigners' captivation with the call to prayer, the Algerian poet Malek Alloula came up with a compelling interpretation. "In the blankness of cloth, the Westerner sees his own ability not to comprehend, and is titillated by the experience of being shut out."

"Allahu Akbar, God is Greatest.

Ash-had al-la ilaha illa llah, I bear witness that there is no God except the One God.

Ash-hadu anna Muhammadan rasulullah, I bear witness that Muhammad is God's Messenger.

Hayya 'ala-salahh, Come to prayer. Hayya 'ala 'l-falah, Come to success.

As-salatu khayru min an-nawm, Salat(prayer) is better than sleep.

Allahu akbar, God is Greatest.

La ilaha illallah, There is no God except the One God.

Looking at the clock on his bedside table he saw that it was 4:45 in the morning. Christopher frowned momentarily. Yes, Adhan "could" be a thing of beauty he thought, except this muezzin started earlier than all the others in the city, often dropped or coughed loudly into the microphone during the call and his off-key cry to the faithful was certainly not a thing of beauty. Oh, if this muezzin would suddenly get a year long case of laryngitis thought Christopher.

Rolling out of bed, he stumbled over a stuffed camel left by Eian. Smiling while pulling on a t-shirt, he headed downstairs to make himself a cup of tea. Maybe he will get a chance to enjoy the garden before the four guests came down for breakfast. Walking through the courtyard, he sat overlooking the garden below, listening to the awakening city's distant sounds of motorized traffic competing with the chirping birds and distant crowing roosters. Breathing in the faint scent of jasmine on the breeze, he decided today he would get to work on that faulty door latch in the upstairs guest room. Well, he would if nothing better came along. Right now though he would just sit and greet the morning sun and maybe dash off a few lines of poetry.

Sometime later he welcomed Fatima as she came smiling in to start her day.

"Sbah I-khir, good morning."

"Bonjour" replied Fatima brightly. She thought that Monsieur Chris should not only practice his Arabic, but his French as well.

"It's a nice day, so let's have the guest's breakfast out here in the courtyard today. I'll turn the fountain on in a minute. Are you planning on going to the festival parade tomorrow?"

"Oui, I would like to at least see the start and maybe catch a glimpse of the royal couple. She is so beautiful. Are you going?"

"I'm taking Eian. We are to be introduced to the King before the parade starts heading down into the medina. Eian will especially like all the different Sufi groups in their costumes and the mounted horsemen."

Fatima handed Christopher a copy of the morning's English language newspaper and walked towards the house to start breakfast, all the while thinking about what to prepare for the evening meal. Maybe b'stilla, one of Monsieur Chris' favorites, or a nice tajine using the preserved lemons she had prepared weeks earlier, with olives and raisins. Turning back, she reminded him to stop by the spice shop and get some ras el-hanoot, shopkeeper's spice mixture and a main ingredient in her cooking. Later she would make breakfast for Eian. She really hoped to be able to see tomorrow's festival, one of the highlights of the year in this most spiritual city.

Fatima, like many young women in Morocco, had few good prospects in front of her. She was from a poor family living on the edge of the medina. Her father, a construction laborer, had died of a heart attack at the age of 52. One younger sister had recently married a tailor working in one of the myriad tailoring shops that dotted the medina like measles on a young face. Another sister was still in school. Fatima's mother worked as a low-paid clerk in a tele-boutique that provided communications to the many in the medina who did not have mobile phones or landlines available. With her salary, meager though it was, the family was able to provide the basic necessities.

She enjoyed working for Monsieur Chris at his riad, especially the freedom she was given in deciding such things as the menu for the guests. She also relished occasional conversations with Chris about religion; especially the Sufi influenced Islam of Morocco. She derived great pleasure from the poetry of Rumi, the 13th century Persian Sufi mystic and poet which he shared with her and both received pleasure from the Quranic verse, "The gates of paradise open wide for he who can make his companions laugh." Only the Sufi seemed to have gotten the message.

Sufism, Islamic mysticism, and Sufi brotherhoods, called tarikas, were common in Morocco though Sufism was banned in many more conservative Islamic nations. At the present time, virtually all Wahhabi influenced Islamist and Salifist groups viewed Sufism as heretic and thus, like all such apostates, must either repent or die. Because of its liberal nature and tolerance, Sufism was much encouraged by the King. The Islam he, as head of the faithful in Morocco enforced was also generally considered liberal and tolerant. The more adherents Sufism gained, the fewer citizens left to question the King's role as religious ruler. Sufis were not generally interested in politics, a decided advantage to the ruling class. Its focus was on harmony between the outward and the inner, saying that outward differences are superficial when appreciating the power of love in and of God. Moroccan youth were increasingly drawn to Sufism because of its tolerance and rejection of fanaticism and embracing of modernity.

Music was an integral part of Sufi spiritual tradition in its attempt at reaching hadra, a trance state which inspired mystical ecstasy. An example was a Gnawa performance, centering on a spinning body and a high-pitched voice vocalizing rhythmic poetic verses in chants such as "There is no god but God, and Muhammad is his Messenger." These same words are frightening when uttered from the mouth of a terrorist bomber, but lifted the soul when sung by a pious Muslim Sufi.

Sufi gatherings inspired people to engage in interfaith dialogue and the emphasis on shared universal values with Christianity and Judaism such as the pursuit of happiness, love of family, tolerance of religious differences and promotion of peace. All of this knowledge made it possible for both, one a Moroccan Muslim the other American Christian, to enjoy the coming days celebrations.

Chapter 12 - Thursday - 5:28 am

"Among walnuts only the empty one speaks." Moroccan proverb

Chief Inspector Ayrad Afellay wearily put his phone away, stubbed out a cigarette and scratched the day old beard on his face. It had been another long night of questioning, running down dead-end leads and making sure that too many feathers of important people weren't ruffled in the process. Feeling pressure from above, the good Sûreté commander had passed it on down to him, making sure that he was aware of the "dire" consequences that would happen if the planned attack proved successful. He also demanded to know every detail gained so far in tracking down the terrorist cell.

Deciding to take a walk to clear his mind and more properly focus on the problem at hand, he left his office in the prefecture and walked towards the recently restored 18th century Garden J`nan Sbil with its palm tree lined walks, a lake and various fountains. From here he could allow his troubled mind to freely roam in search of an answer.

Some people could focus in the midst of chaos. Afellay was not such a person. He needed to not only stretch his legs, but his mind as well. His lungs too, if the persistent hacking, cough was any indication. Being a chain smoker was bad enough. Being shut up in a roomful of other chain smokers was worse. Breathing the fresh air he slowly walked past the water-wheel and observed several park workers exchanging gossip about the rising price of bread as well as a young couple strolling side-by-side between the palms in the early morning light, probably whispering terms of undying love before heading off to school or work. He suddenly thought of Idus and hoped that his life in Casablanca was going well. He needed to call him as soon as he had a free moment. He continued to worry about his son while his gaze took him to the North.

Jebel (Mount) Zalagh was the mountain that looked down on Fez. Almost due north from Fez el Bali, a person could view the entire river valley and city unrolled like a vast carpet. Here one could escape the noise and hustle of the metropolitan area below. This was where Ayrad Afellay escaped, at least mentally, to meditate on this puzzle.

He had climbed Zalagh many times as a youngster, and relished its emptiness, its quietness. Now he escaped in his mind, retracing the trails that led to the top. Closing his eyes, he imagined the city lights at night spread below, like the blanket of heaven above. Somewhere hidden in those twinkling lights was the answer. Pushing back the veil of darkness and allowing his mind to prowl unrestricted, he looked for a pattern to appear, for clues overlooked, for a connection, a thread that would allow him to unravel the cloth that bewildered. In that labyrinth of streets and alleyways, which spread out below hid his Minotaur, the secret terrorist cell that promised death to the monarch and mayhem to the country. It was there, he knew, and he only needed to reflect long enough to find it.

Refreshed by his walk, he decided to return to his office and review the latest bits of information. Afellay shuffled the layers of notes taken from the interrogations made in the last 24 hours by the National Security Police, Royal Moroccan Gendarmerie as well as the DST, the Moroccan secret police.

Like the many layers of the medina; the ones below hidden by those on top, he read each note. Maybe he needed to dig deeper in the investigation, to the bottom of the medina, to its most basic level.

Chief Inspector Afellay had not reached this position by being lazy or stupid. He has had a distinguished career. Success first came during the years of armed conflict in the former Spanish Sahara territory annexed by Morocco in 1976. When the Polisario Front had instituted a guerilla war that year, Afellay was already picking up information that made it possible for Morocco to blunt most of the Algerian backed Polisario's worst attacks.

He was known as the best manipulator of men in all of the National Police. He had often been ruthless and coldly efficient. Every war had its criminals, on both sides. He could still be if that was what was needed, but he would much rather use his own intelligence and skills to prevent terrorist attacks and protect the kingdom.

Quickly moving up the ladder of police officers in that region, his skills at gaining information from disparate sources drew the attention of his superiors, and he was transferred eventually to his home city, Fez.

Modern Moroccan terrorism had roots going back to the 1960s and 1970s with the establishment of certain clandestine groups, mainly on university campuses. Fueling these was deteriorating social and economic circumstances leading to riots in Casablanca in 1965 followed by the King's suspending of the constitution and disbanding of parliament. These actions led to two unsuccessful coup attempts in the early 1970s.

As in most countries of the world, the illiterate, rather than the educated formed the majority of those falling under the spell of extremist organizations. Relying on books, cassettes and DVD's for communication, these groups present a fanatical and puritanical view of Islam more intolerant than traditional Moroccan teachings and towards women and Jews specifically.

An attack on a McDonald's restaurant in 1993 was followed by attacks on a hotel and bombing of a Jewish cemetery in 1994, all carried out by Moroccan terror cells. Synchronized suicide bombings in Casablanca in 2003 as well as the April 2011 Marrakech attack was a reminder of the strength of underground Islamist movements in Morocco and a setback to the efforts of the King. The targets suggested that the terrorists wanted to destroy symbols of Morocco's tolerance and modernity- restaurants where the elite of different religions gathered, Jewish targets and a hotel with a popular nightclub. Moroccan terrorist networks were also dispersed throughout Europe and were very autonomous.

Afellay had been instrumental in connecting the cells involved with returning mujahideen who had received military training in Afghanistan before returning to Morocco and most importantly the connection of religion, not political philosophy, as the basis for the various groups. Religion, he knew, was a universal. It was part of what made us human. Combining religion with human weakness however, with intolerance, ignorance, hatred and finally politics, whether it was an Islamic theocracy such as Iran or a fundamentalist Christian America, brought the worst of possible worlds. Religious fanaticism was as serious a danger to religious liberty as excessive state authority according to James Madison, primary author of the US Constitution, and as Afellay knew Morocco was a long way from the democracy of the US.

Afellay was smart enough to know that you had to battle militant Islamists with ideas, not just guns. As the American William James once said, "Truth is what works" and truth was a weapon. If you raise the people's living standards, they were more likely to listen to you on non-economic matters. Though the leaders of the Moroccan terririst movement were mostly in prison, a new leadership would spring up to take their place. There was always someone ready to fill the empty place. He was reminded of the Berber proverb, "You have to calm the surface of the lake to see the bottom." How true! How true!

Going through the names given out by those caught in the sweep he noticed for the first time the name Akmed Benharoun, mentioned in association with the February 20 movement. This could only be the youngest Benharoun son, Salima's younger brother. Strange, thought Afellay. He had no reason to suspect any of this well respected family of involvement, but you never knew about young people with the influences coming at them constantly over the television and the Internet. Rhetoric often helped provide focus to paranoia and aggression. With pro-democracy movements springing up all over the Arab world the past year along with hundreds of terrorist websites that could be found online, no wonder there was so much confusion in the Arab world. New democracy could foster liberalism or extremism and he knew that this tug between an enlightened future and a reconstituted past had torn many well-respected families apart.

His own son, Idus, was involved, at least peripherally, in some aspect of the M20F. He had found this out when a friend who happened to be a DST officer had quietly come to him with reports following demonstrations in Casablanca. Approaching Idus, he had risked severing an already shaky bond with his son by informing him that he was being watched and that there could be dangerous repercussions that Afellay would not be able to protect him from.

Afellay also was aware that the Interior Ministry, which had control of the police and associated agencies, was behind the use of baltaguia, hired thugs that were implicated in several deadly attacks on protestors over the past several months. This was done in order to counter the anti-government protestors. Fear and intimidation were old tools used by the powerful against the weak the world over. George Orwell wrote, "Everyone believes in the atrocities of the enemy and disbelieves in those of his own side."

He would dig a little deeper into this piece of information and see what he could find. Meanwhile, he would send his men back out to run a finer mesh of netting through the medina to see what could be found. They only had hours to prevent a tragedy.

Chapter 13 - Thursday - 9:30 am

"If a man falls, all will tread on him." Moroccan proverb

Both Fettah and Hasan had worked through much of the night fabricating the poison dart. First they prayed, asking Allah to bless their undertaking and look upon them favorably. They then set to work creating the weapon from the small container that Hasan had brought with him from the chemist. Fettah barely asked if the chemist had been amply "rewarded." When Hasan responded, "yes!" the "tall one" smiled a reply; fewer loose ends to worry about.

Care was taken in the construction of the dart, made from a soluble plastic that would both resist disintegration when fired and yet would dissolve once it punctured the skin, releasing the deadly concentrated ricin into the Kings neck. Scientists sympathetic to their cause had provided the cell with the basic plastic along with a vacuum-forming machine in which to fabricate the dart. What was left was to make sure that the dart could hold the needed amount of poison and that the projectile could be accurately fired from the weapon. Except for the ambient sounds of the night the house was still; a perfect island of silent malevolence.

With the first call of Morning Prayer echoing through the medina, the two conspirators had finished their preparations. Hasan soon bid Fettah goodbye and promised to return in the afternoon at the new safe house with the final part of their plan. If it be the will of Allah, tomorrow they would join in the revelry as it passed by the royal revue stand. Walking upstairs, Hasan carefully stepped over rooftop walls before finally coming down a crumbling stairway two buildings away from the safe house, little noticing the shabbily dressed one-eyed beggar who looked up.

Chapter 14 - Thursday - 10:09 am

"Knowledge is better than wealth: you have to look after wealth, knowledge looks after you." Moroccan proverb

Christopher headed towards the Tala'a Sigira and then down to the shrine of Moulay Iddriss II, the focus of the city's pride and identity. With the saint's festival tomorrow, the usual milling crowd of Western tourists and candle-toting Muslim pilgrims had grown exponentially in recent days. Christopher knew that local Islamists refused to enter out of opposition to what they viewed as popular hero worship distracting from Islam's focus on obedience to God alone. Most pilgrims were quite joyful with anticipation of tomorrow's festival with its traditional Gnawa, Berber and Sufi music and immaculately dressed participants.

To the casual tourist, Morocco, and Fez in particular, appeared to be an impenetrable jumble of people, strange designs, discordant voices and passing animals. If one, however, learned to fit all the pieces together, then patterns eventually formed and understanding was unlocked. Unlike most Westerners, he knew that there were many "Islams," not one monolithic version. Quranic law, called sharia, varied from country to country. Stoning is the law in Sudan but not in Morocco. The wearing of a veil is obligatory for women in Saudi Arabia and Yemen but not Tunisia or Turkey. It was much like the various denominations found in Christianity, not only differences between Catholic and Protestant, but various divisions within each of those splits.

Virtually everyone in Morocco considered themselves a Muslim while very few of them actually practice the five pillars of Islam: professing faith in the existence of only one God with Muhammed as its Prophet, perform five daily prayers, fast during Ramadan, the giving away of money and performing a pilgrimage to Mecca. The fact was most people did not pray and many drank alcohol.

Morocco, and more importantly Fez, was much more divided by class, geography and ethnicity rather than religious sect as in Iraq or Pakistan. What went on outside the crenelated walls of the medina was of little interest to most Fasi's. They tended to look down on everyone, as if their city was still the cultural hub of all of North Africa.

He considered all of this as he walked north to the bottom of the Tala'a Kebira and started up the long slope towards the Bab Bou Jeloud market where he would pick up what was needed. Climbing the terraced cobbles of the tala'a, he passed the honey souk with its more than twenty kinds of honey for sale; past the antiquities and carpet shops of the warm and friendly Benharoun family, always eager to share a glass of mint tea and talk. Finally he came to an area of small shopkeepers who willingly helped him practice his Arabic in exchange for letting them improve their English.

First though, he stopped at his favorite spice emporium owned by old Hassan and his son, filled with fifty or more kinds of spices and herbs and carrying his favorite ras el-hanoot mixture to use in cooking. This "shopkeepers" spice mixture varied from shop to shop and contained a blend of cinnamon, mace flowers, turmeric, nutmeg, coriander, black pepper and more. It was a basis for most Moroccan cooking.

Continuing on he saw his friend Khalid standing outside his curio shop. Christopher thought of him as "Khalid of the Coke-bottle glasses." Khalid wears the thickest glasses ever seen, but his friendly ebullience is also apparent.

"As-salam aleikum, Khalid!"

"Wa alaykume-salam Christopher my friend!" Khalid's face beamed brightly.

"How's business?"

"Mezyan, good, al-hamdu-lillah, thanks be to God" as they sat down and Khalid motioned for a nearby boy to bring sweetened mint tea for he and his guest from the adjoining shop. Christopher watched as a fist-full of fresh mint springs were placed in the teapot, followed by 3 heaping teaspoons of green tea and 3 tablespoons of sugar. Onto this boiling water was poured and allowed to steep for a few minutes. The tea was then poured into glasses and another sprig of mint was added to each glass.

The two friends then talked about the upcoming festival bringing a tourist influx and its effect on their respective businesses as well as the coming Fall weather. Khalid asked about Eian's progress in French class at school and laughed at his refusal to learn and use more than just the basics of Arabic. All of this was done while sipping sweetened tea.

"Anything exciting happening on the tala'a today?" Khalid was often a font of gossip about what was happening up and down the tala'a and today proved no exception.

"Something is going on my friend. The gendarmerie has been talking with all their informants. Even DST agents are everywhere."

"What's that all about?"

"It has to be something connected with the Kings visit tomorrow and the moussem" said Khalid, shaking his head. "It's more than just a sweep for troublemakers."

"We can hope that the police and security forces are on top of everything. I'm supposed to take Eian to meet the royal couple as part of a delegation from the international community living in the medina. Are the Salfist's behind this?"

"That would be a good guess," replied Khalid, "though they have recently made statements saying that they are now willing to renounce violence and work within the political system. Of course there are quite a number of different Salafist groups and not all are associated with 'repentants,' those who have come out against violence."

Christopher thought over what Khalid had said, comparing that with what he knew of the few bearded fundamentalists here in the medina. It was easy to become freaked out by this group of religious puritans who were against basic democratic principles and human rights. He had travelled enough in the Arab world and East Africa to know how religious intolerance could be used to hold a country in a state of perennial stasis.

"I know the 'bearded ones' are for the most part not held in great esteem here in Fez el Bali, though I suspect that more than a few support their efforts to limit change."

"What you need to understand about Morocco" said Khalid,"is that at our core we are a nation trying to bridge an ever widening gap between the past and the future. In our heads we know that our future is with the West; with modernization and everything that it brings, yet our hearts long for a simpler time based on tradition without these outside influences that churn through Morocco like currents in the ocean."

They sat discussing everything from the weather; it was warmer than usual, to an upcoming visit by the new French president to Rabat to various construction projects around the medina. Finally Christopher rose to leave.

"Baraka allahu feek, may God bless you," said Khalid, embracing his American friend.

"And you also, Khalid. Beslama, goodbye."

Christopher worried over Khalid's story of possible trouble involving terrorists in the medina. He remembered back to 2003 when there were terrorist attacks at various locations in Casablanca, which killed 45. Those attacks had targeted foreigners specifically, and being a resident of the medina meant he stuck out no matter how low a profile he attempted to display. As his Muslim friends would say, In'shallah, God willing, everything would turn out okay. Realizing that it was almost lunchtime he wondered idly if his friend Mohammed was working at Le Bab Cafe today? Heading towards Bab Bou Jeloud, the Blue Gate, he climbed the steep stairs in the 3 level cafe, quickly finding his friend Mohammed. Ordering a lamb kebab, French fries and a Coke he casually remarked,

"Life can be good, even if there are crazy people in the world." Mohammed, smiling and rushed as he always seemed, agreed and hurried off downstairs to fetch his order while Christopher sat and looked out at the people passing through the open gateway below decorated in typical Fassi Zellij tiles; green, the color of Islam on interior facade, and blue, the color of Fez on the exterior facade. It was said that sooner or later all who visited Fez passed through the Blue Gate and it certainly looked that way today with a huge diversity of people; young, old, fat, thin, male, female, tourist or local, passing below him as he gazed out.

Chapter 15 - Thursday - 2:48 p.m.

"The abundance of money is a trial for a man." Moroccan proverb

Bou Chantouf had sent Hasan off to gather the final ingredient in their plan, a supply of stinging hornets, genus Vespa, commonly found throughout North Africa. These would be loosened near the royal viewing stand immediately prior to the attack. This would not only provide a cover for Bou Chantouf to shoot the poison dart from the air gun, but in the confusion they would cover their escape.

Though willing to die a martyr to the cause as long as the monarchy was destroyed and the pathway to the new Morocco started, practicality demanded that they at least try and get safely away since as-Salifa had more plans for his particular talents and energies.

Leaving the Ras Cherratene safe house Fettah walked to Place Seffarine and past the medersa Attarine, the religious school there. Circling the Kairaouine Mosque, he wandered aimlessly through narrow, winding alleyways with traditional crafts were being practiced in every nook and cranny. Past the brass makers souk with beating hammers that sound like so many guns being fired, before continuing on through a mind-boggling range of products available for sale. Leather goods, textiles and yarn, Moroccan pots, metal ware, jewelry, carpets, henna; each merchant busily trying to entice passersby with their wares.

To Bou Chantouf this was all the more reason that the country needed a revolution. His whole being felt that people had become bewitched with the material society of the West, thinking only of what they could buy and not of Allah.

It was at this time that he overheard two shopkeepers talking about the sweep for suspected terrorists. Bou Chantouf stopped, tense with a sudden alertness. He edged closer to better hear over the buzz of the crowded souk. Listening closely he learned that the gendarmerie plus obvious DST agents are combing both Fez el Bali and Fez el J'did for a terrorist cell that meant to cause havoc at tomorrows festival with possibly an attack. Momentarily he ducked into a nearby shop and pretended to be interested in some brass platters. He scanned the crowd outside the shop door for any obvious plainclothesmen or uniformed gendarmes. Seeing none he continued to look intensely at the large number of people before leaving the shopkeeper and joining the crowds outside. Jostling through the pre-festival crowds he frowned as he walked past the Shrine of Moulay Iddriss, focus of tomorrow's festival.

Like most Islamic fundamentalists, he believed that the attention given to so-called saints was haram, forbidden by religious doctrine, and that Sufi brotherhoods were heretical, feeling that a true Muslim should only follow the Quran, the teachings of the Prophet, peace and blessing upon him, and sharia law. Tomorrow's moussem and parade put on by the Sufi's made them unbelievers. Just the idea that a person should enter a trance to have direct communication with God was beyond his belief. It was fitting that the king would die on this day.

His eventual destination was a tiny tailor shop inherited from his uncle. Unlocking the folding metal gate securing the minuscule space within, barely 2 meters wide he began to quickly gather together copies of the Sufi robes he and Hasan were to wear in tomorrow's parade. Folding them, he was startled by the sight of a uniformed gendarme standing at the entrance. He quickly stuffed the Sufi gowns into a dark plastic bag, stood up and greeted the officer at his doorway.

"Salam aleikum," Fettah formally greeted the gendarme.

"Wa alaykume salam," replied the officer. "We are questioning businesses in the medina concerning a possible attack during the upcoming festival. Have you heard of any gossip regarding such a thing? From your appearance you obviously are a more traditional member of the faithful and as such, could hear things which we do not."

His mind quickly settled, Fettah calmly replied, "La! I have heard of nothing which might be of help in your investigation."

"If you happen to hear of something, of course you will report it to us immediately," responded the officer as he moves to the next business on his long list.

"Yes, of course," Fettah dutifully replied with a smile.

Soon Bou Chantouf was sitting in the sparsely furnished room of the el Yhoudi safe house, taking a long breath at having arrived without being further accosted. Twenty-four more hours to wait before the parade! So close nothing must come in their way. Shortly Hasan would be arriving. Now was a time for prayer to ask Allah to smile favorably on their undertaking.

Chapter 16 - Thursday - 3:47 p.m.

"Whoever wants to hurt never misses his target." Berber proverb

Meanwhile, Hasan has visited an acquaintance on the outskirts of Fez. He had known the old bachelor for many years, having grown up on a similar farmstead next door. He has visited this small farm numerous times before to buy eggs. He knew that in a dilapidated barn on the property hornets could be found. Having gone to the farmer weeks earlier, he requested a large number of the hornets captured and is now returning to bring his second deadly package back to the medina.

Driving up the almost hidden rutted road, he saw the old man stacking olive branches while a scruffy cat rubbed against his leg. He quickly got out of his car and within moments had received the box of hornets, paying the farmer a small sum of money. With fearsome, dead eyes Hasan watched and waited until the old man turned his back, then struck swiftly and brutally, snapping his neck between the second and third vertebra. Dragging the farmer's lifeless body into the barn, he retrieved his money along with the box of hornets and returned to his battered red taxi. He carefully placed the buzzing box on the passenger seat and headed back to the medina and the el Yhoudi safe house.

Negotiating the crowded streets, packed with both townspeople and tourists, Hasan drove past Borj Sud, the sixteenth century fort overlooking the southern ramparts of the city. Turning into the Bab J'Did gate, he finally reached the car park at the Place Rcif in the center of the medina. Stepping out of his taxi, he gently picked up the now humming cardboard box containing hundreds of agitated hornets. Locking the car doors, he walked off towards the safe house.

Not going directly to the house, he first walked down a side street, little more than a narrow and dusty alleyway really, before removing a key from his pocket and unlocking a door set into a garden wall. Quickly going inside, he again locked the door before crossing a small courtyard garden with overgrown and dusty shrubs and a non-working fountain. Using the key to unlock another door on the opposite side he exited into yet another winding alleyway, even more shadowed and narrow than the first. Here he met a young boy bound for the local bakery carrying a board with unbaked loaves of bread on his head. Hasan then remembered that he had not eaten since early morning. There would be time enough for eating once he is secure inside the safe house. He soon found his way to its hidden doorway, the sounds of the Maghrib time of prayer call floating above the medina. Casually he looked at his wristwatch; it is 6:18 pm, just 24 hours before the beginning of the new Morocco.

Chapter 17 - Thursday - 4:36 p.m.

"The polite tongue can suck the lioness' breast." Moroccan proverb

Ayrad Afellay's car passed through the Bab Ain-Zleten gate into the medina and parked in the adjoining car park. He exited his car near the steps leading down to the Tala'a Kebira, telling his driver to wait. Leaning against the flaking wall for a moment and lighting a cigarette he took in the hustle and bustle of the street, noticing that itinerant merchants had set up their small portable stands close to the stairs. This was illegal, since they neither paid business taxes nor were licensed by the government, but that was not his worry today. He was surprised that all of them had not moved their business elsewhere in the city with the flooding of the medina by both uniformed and plainclothes gendarmes and DST agents. He also realized they have to try and make a living to feed their families in this tight economy just like everyone else.

Rising, he walked down the crumbling stairs to the tala'a, going over in his mind how he will approach Akmed Benharoun and question him without overly alarming the rest of his family. In Morocco, as in much of the rest of the world, "Who" you were sometimes was more important than "what" you were, or in this case what you might be involved in.

In Morocco and Fez in particular there were a small number of elite families that were above the rest, a patrician bourgeoisie whose origins went back to the founding of the city of Fez. The descendants of those first families still dominated the business world in the country today.

Rising in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, they established their fortunes exporting hides and carpets to Europe and importing English fabrics and industrial products. As in Europe, daughters of wealthy merchants in need of prestige married them off to aristocrats in search of funds. Over the generations an aristocracy was formed that remained close to the Palace. Yes, better to walk softly; just lay it out without giving away too much and see how the young man reacted, then proceed from there.

When he arrived at the main family business he found Akmed had not come to work today, having called his older brother Miloud and telling him that he was ill with a fever. Chief Inspector Afellay quickly decided to proceed with questioning of Miloud. He asked if he had noticed anything suspicious involving his younger brother and told Miloud that Akmed's name had been mentioned in a routine investigation concerning possible disruptions during tomorrow's festival.

He was an open and candid man and made no attempt to dissemble his thoughts. He answered bluntly that he had noticed nothing that would be considered suspicious. Outwardly satisfied, Afellay extended his hand in thanks and asked Miloud to give his greetings to his father and mother before turning and continuing to walk down the tala'a. Turning to his right, he plunged into the heart of the medina. He did not like coincidences, and the fact that Akmed was absent today after his name being mentioned was too much of a coincidence. He would send someone over to the young man's residence and have him brought in for questioning. Something wasn't right and time was fast running out to pay too much attention to niceties.

Few shops were found in this mostly residential section, its narrow streets hemmed by flaking walls and bags of trash along with the odor of centuries. He was reminded of an old Berber saying; "A jointly owned house brings problems." One would still occasionally walk past a beauty parlor, a bakery or a simple pushcart selling fruit or nuts. As he neared Ras Cherratene he spied the old one-eyed beggar sitting in a doorway. Approaching him, he respectfully greeted the beggar, for he had been taught to respect first the age and then the wealth. This old man certainly had little wealth, but his great age was worn as a symbol of pride.

"As-salam aleikum" said Afellay.

"Wa alaykume-salam" replied the old man quietly.

"I wonder if you can help me?" asked the Chief Inspector while he idly clinked a number of 10 dirham coins from one hand to another.

"What would you ask a poor old beggar man?" came the reply. "I am Chief Inspector Afellay with the Sûreté Nationale. I was wondering if you had perhaps observed anyone suspicious in this area in the last few weeks?"

Slowly the old man reached into his tattered and stained djellaba and scratched his stomach before looking up at the Major.

"N'aam" he replied. "Yes," and he proceeded to tell his story.

Across the medina the call to prayer floated over the dusty rooftops. Akmed Benharoun sat in his friend's apartment drinking a barely chilled Coke and sampling some dried fruit from a plate. After his sister's warning, he had gone to one of his fellow conspirators for the night rather than returning to his own apartment. Akmed would remain here with his friends until tomorrow's parade, when he and the others would go to witness their strike for democracy. So much depended on getting close enough to the TV cameras that would be filming the review by the royal couple. In the corner lay boxes filled with their message to the world, soon to be scattered in front of a national audience.

Chapter 18 - Thursday - 6:14 p.m.

"The determined ostrich hunter will surely meet one." Moroccan proverb

Afellay returned to the waiting car and punched in the phone number to his office. Quickly he gave instructions for a search team to enter the suspected house on Ras Cherratene as well as the houses surrounding it, though he seriously doubted that they would find anyone at home. Next, he ordered that Akmed Benharoun be picked up and brought into headquarters for questioning. Finally he gave instructions for men to comb the Kairaouine section of the medina and be on the lookout for the taxi driver, possibly named Hasan and the elusive "tall one". Twenty-four hours from now the King would be in the reviewing stands and the potential for disaster was too great.

Being awake for almost two days straight, Afellay knew that he could not operate at full capacity without getting some sleep. Leaving instructions to be called immediately if anything of importance was discovered, he told his driver to take him to his home in the Lido Quarter of the Ville Nouvelle. Driving through this part of Fez, one could half close their eyes and imagine being in any modern southern European city, with its many sidewalk cafes, crowded streets and modern shops, maybe a little more shabby and dusty, but close enough.

Trees lined the European-style boulevards and pedestrians crowded the sidewalks. This Fez was the future, he knew, while the medina was its past. Looking out at the passing scene, he saw many young men and women strolling together dressed in the latest western fashions. It was not unusual to see three generations of Moroccan women, each easily distinguished from the other by their dress. The oldest would be in the all-encompassing dark kaftan, often with a veil covering the lower part of her face. Closer inspection might show, if the woman was from a Berber village, a tribal tattoo on her forehead and chin. Her daughter would most likely be dressed in a less covered fashion, probably a longish skirt with long-sleeved blouse and a headscarf covering her hair. The youngest generation would easily fit into any American or European scene, with no head covering and often bare arms and midriff.

This was the change that the Islamists hated most, and it had only come in the matter of two generations. It was also how they were able to gain recruits, especially from the poor and socially disenfranchised residents of the vast shantytowns known in Morocco as bidonvilles. With fashions, foods, music, literature, and TV from the West sweeping over Morocco like a tsunami, it was no wonder that many grumbled. Change was never easy, especially rapid change in an ancient culture. He had noticed hardline Islamist groups in several North African countries already publishing cartoons linking wealthy and westernized women to the crooked and opulent lifestyles of discredited governments. He knew it would be the same here if they were given a chance.

Wearily the Chief Inspector stepped out of the car and told his driver to report back at 5 the next morning. Slowly climbing the stairs, he unlocked the door and flicked on the lights while scanning the sparsely furnished apartment. He was getting old and after several days like this he felt even older. Though he was in fairly good shape for a chain-smoking man of 65, he carried a few extra pounds. The hard years of stress were taking their toll on his body, and his thinning gray hair was an indicator. Retirement in another couple of years would allow him to relax and maybe travel, though he also worried about boredom.

A widower for the past six years, Afellay had felt no need at his age to remarry or even express much interest in women period, though loneliness sometimes crept into his heart. His life since the death of his wife was almost solely centered on his job. He knew that he had neglected his family during much of his career and felt little need to burden still another person with such a life. Anyway, he was now settling into the life of a widower, eating when and what he chose and coming and going without having to make excuses or explanations.

Idus, his only child, lived in Casablanca and worked for one of the largest commercial architectural firms in the country; A. G. Designs. He saw him fairly often, though not often enough if truth were known, and he worried about his alleged involvement in the February 20 Movement as well as other life-style choices.

At this moment he decided he needed to get some food into himself and then a few hours sleep in order to be at the height of his powers to stop this threat. Walking into the kitchen, he opened the nearly bare refrigerator and found a pot of harira that he could heat up. This was Moroccan comfort food; a rich and hearty soup made with lentils, chickpeas, tomatoes, pasta, cilantro and a mélange of spices.

Putting the pot on the stove, he turned the gas on while lighting another cigarette and walked over to the cabinet, taking out a bottle of 12 years old Macallan Scotch Whiskey. Even though Muslims ostensibly did not drink alcohol, Afellay had learned to enjoy an occasional drink of whiskey early on in his career while in Britain for a meeting on international terrorism. It was especially relaxing when problems like this presented themselves. He chuckled that if single malt Scotch whiskey had been around when the Quran was written then it wouldn't have been proscribed. Besides, he never drank during Ramadan, and that was the important thing.

He sat smoking, mentally tallying what needed to be done before the beginning of the parade tomorrow, less than eighteen hours away. As the soup warmed on the stove and filled the small room with the delightful smells of its goodness, the Macallan relaxed his tensions and he prayed that Allah would bless his efforts to find the assassin before it was too late.

Chapter 19 - Thursday - 6:45 p.m.

"Little by little, the camel goes into the couscous." Moroccan proverb

Agents from all the bureaus involved; DST, Royal Gendarmerie and National Security Police, converged on the Ras Cherratene safe house and surrounding area, much to the grumbling of the neighbors who could do nothing more than stand outside and do what they were told. "No," they had answered, nothing unusual was noticed about the tall man or the rough looking one either, other than they sometimes came and went late at night and oftentimes used neighboring stairways to come or go. "Maybe they had forgotten their keys?" Poor residents of the medina tended to mind their own business.

As the officer in charge walked in the front door he felt the malignant air of the house. A thorough search was made of the apartment as well as fingerprints taken. Seemingly little was found of any use in the investigation and the lieutenant in charge was just about to release all of his team when he noticed some plastic-like substance on the edge of a table in the kitchen. Taking out an evidence bag, he had one of the technicians scrape up the translucent material and then seal it in the bag. They also take sample swabs of the tabletop.

"Strange stuff" he said to the technician, as they were finishing up. He then quickly called his superiors at headquarters and briefed them on what had been found and more importantly, what had not. Before leaving he instructed the remaining agents to get statements from all of the surrounding neighbors before returning to the office.

Back at headquarters, technicians went to work processing the fingerprints collected at the safe house and trying to match them with known anti-government individuals. At the same time, the table top swabs and the mysterious plastic substance were sent by helicopter to the main labs 120 miles away in Rabat where others were at work, quickly learning it had some very unusual properties.

Meanwhile, the search for Akmed Benharoun had proven fruitless. He had not been found at his apartment, neither had any of his family or neighbors claimed knowledge of his whereabouts. Not wanting to bother Chief Inspector Afellay with another report of no new developments, the senior officer told all of the officers to report back at headquarters by 5 the next morning. By that time they would hopefully have traced the fingerprints found at the Ras Cherratene safe house as well as knowing the specific properties of the plastic- like substance from the table and any other elements picked up by the swabs of the technicians. Science was now a weapon against the terrorists. By sunrise, the search would bear sparse fruit.

Across the medina Fettah and Hasan were making themselves ready for the coming day's attack. Both had quietly visited the nearby bathhouse before going to the Bab Guissa mosque for prayer. Afterwards they returned to the safe house, which they entered using a hidden door in a blind alley. They had eaten a sparse meal of salad, bread and olives and laid out all of their necessary equipment. Now it was simply a waiting game.

Fettah paced the floor. A sympathizer had quietly informed him after evening prayer that government agents and gendarmerie had raided a house on Ras Cherratene earlier in the evening. "At least we are safe for now," Fettah mumbled to Hasan as he busied himself with last minute adjustments to the air rifle and once again checked to make sure his deadly ricin darts were secure. Afterwards they would pray, asking Allah to bless their undertaking.

Akmed Benharoun and his friends were passing the hash pipe for the third time this evening, idly talking about their February 20 Movement action at tomorrow's parade and repeating an old Moroccan proverb; "A pipe of kif in the morning gives one more strength than a 100 camels in the courtyard." Like many modern young Moroccan males, the casual use of easily available hashish was looked upon as a mostly harmless rite of passage, and the country had an age-old tradition of its use. Akmed and his fellow M20F compatriots felt the proverb boded well for their efforts the next day.

Akmed knew his family disapproved and that technically hashish was illegal in Morocco, though in most cases the gendarmes tended to look the other way for locals using it. Not so for the many foreigners traveling the so-called "hippy trail" who had found to their discomfort that Moroccan drug laws could be severe. He also knew that he was nearing the time to settle down, marry and seriously become part of the family business. In'shallah, he would soon.

Chapter 20 - Friday - 5:00 am

"Cautious people are safe." Moroccan proverb

At exactly 5 a.m., Afellay's door buzzer rang announcing that his driver was waiting for him. Grabbing an extra pack of Marlboro's he shut the light off and closed the door. All night he had lain tossing in bed while trying to see a pattern where none existed, trying to think of what else could be done to protect the King.

He knew the monarch would refuse any suggestion to cancel his trip and review. Since the Constitutional election earlier in the year, and especially following the attempt on his life at the allegiance ceremony, the King was rigid in expressing his intent to meet his people and show them that he was accessible.

Even though the King had relinquished little actual power in the new Constitution, it was a small step in the direction of a true constitutional monarchy. Afellay knew that there were parties on both ends of the political spectrum who did not want to see that happen, either wanting complete democracy or on the other end, an Islamic theocracy. That was for others to fret over thought the Inspector.

The orb of the sun was breaking over the eastern ramparts of the medina as he climbed into the back seat of the car. He knew he must free his mind.

Saying aloud to his driver, a young corporal on the staff, "Medhi, one must learn to open their mind and let imagination take over to discover." And that was exactly what Afellay planned on doing this morning. Let his imagination and abilities run wild.

Reaching headquarters, Afellay learned that last night's raid on the Ras Cherratene house was not a complete bust even though no suspects were found. It was reconfirmed by neighbors that two or three suspects were seen entering and leaving the house and not always by the front door, going oftentimes over the rooftops to nearby stairways.

More interesting was the mystery substance found on the table inside. The material had been quickly flown by helicopter to the National Police laboratory in Rabat. It was learned that the strange plastic-like substance was a water-soluble compound that was also heat sensitive, causing it to disintegrate at temperatures above 95 degrees. The swabs from the tabletop contained the dangerous poison ricin. "At least," thought Afellay, "we now know what poison is to be used, though the delivery method is still unknown. If it was to be dispersed over the crowd, many would die."

Checking with agents that had been sweeping the medina overnight, he learned there were no sightings of the mysterious "tall one," nor of the thuggish cab driver, though a lead was developing on the cab number if well paid informants could be believed. Fingerprints did not produce any reliable hits of known suspects, proving only that the individuals sought had no contact with security forces prior to this time. A good deal still needed done in the next few hours and much was at stake. Giving last minute orders, Afellay then excused himself, walking directly to the area of the viewing stands in order to better prepare for the afternoon's event.

The morning sun broke through the autumn haze blanketing the awakening city. For Fettah Bou Chantouf, it was the day he had been working towards for years. No longer would he be one of the faceless masses, toiling to provide the barest essentials of life while also working to bring true Islam as preached by his spiritual leader. With a bit of luck this would only be the beginning. He imagined thousands of true believers rising up. Gone would be the Sufi mystics with their ceremonies involving trance, ecstasy and direct communion with God. From today onward that would be haram, forbidden. Gone also would be the insidious influences of the West which cheapened the true character of the people by making them slaves to consumer goods and the scandalous culture of the West. Most importantly, gone would be the hated makhzen and the surrounding attendants who kept them in power.

Today he and Hasan would not take the chance of leaving the safe house until late in the afternoon. By using the hidden exit and taking separate routes to the reviewing stand area at the Bab Jebala, they should be able to lessen any possibility of capture. Each would be dressed in the appropriate costume for the Sufi brotherhood they were going to blend in with. He had chosen one of the larger groups, the Wazzaniyya.

All of their efforts came down to the next few hours. With luck, they would escape detection and be able to slip into the confusion at the parade assembly point on the Avenue de l'Unesco. Once in their respective groups, there would be too much noise and confusion for anyone to notice one more Sufi member. All was now in the hands of Allah.

Chapter 21 - Friday - 7:02 am

"Unless you put your hands in holes, snakes will not bite you." Moroccan proverb

Christopher arose, Eian excitedly shaking him awake with tales of djinns, ghosts and magic doorways. From his active retelling, Christopher could tell that Eian had taken in the story of Aladdin and the magic lamp, originally a Moroccan fairy tale, and mixed it with other stories including Spider Man. Reading and imagination in the young were to be encouraged, but sometimes the result was more than a seven year old mind could handle. Reassuring him that djinns did not live down the sewer drain and sitting on the toilet was not dangerous, he climbed out of bed and quickly turned the conversation to today's upcoming parade and festival and the chance to meet the King.

Mentally he made note of the day's activities. First the guests had to be seen to, with one couple checking out and another checking in early in the afternoon. The King's attendance only heightened the crowds and made for more excitement, if that was possible. Fatima would decide and prepare tonight's meal for the incoming guests. She would also slip out to hopefully catch a glimpse of the royal couple if at all possible, though a lot of work lay ahead since Christopher was going to the review stands early. Since she had prepared a vegetable couscous last night she promised to make b'stilla tonight and would go to the Bou Jeloud market early to get the necessary ingredients before the crowds made it impossible to shop. Hopefully she would also be able to catch a glimpse of the royal couple before returning to the house and preparing the evening meal.

Chapter 22 - Friday - 4:39 p.m.

"The dogs may bark, but the caravan passes on." Berber saying

As the afternoon sun swung lower in the western sky, more and more people crowded the streets near the Bab Bou Jeloud. It was a festive crowd, with Moroccan flags flying everywhere along with pictures of the king visible on lamp poles. Street vendors were selling balloons and treats and there were an amazingly large number of visible security forces.

This was not just a religious festival honoring the city's patron saint. It was a reason for townspeople, especially those living in the medina to dress in their holiday best, bring their families and relish in the attention of the whole country as the King and princess consort visited the festival. Workers, given the day off in order to attend the days festivities thronged the streets and crowded every available rooftop.

Various Sufi brotherhoods began lining up now, and one could hear the blowing of long brass trumpets and the beating of tabals and krakebs, large drums and metal musical clappers used by the Gnawa. Two men in front of the procession were leading a light colored camel for Dbiha, the animal sacrificed at the shrine along with several bulls, their meat being distributed to the poor.

The noise level increased dramatically with the arrival of the first group of officials from the city and the King's Guard of Honor, arrayed in front of the reviewing stands. Darting through the growing crowds were children trailing balloons or cardboard Moroccan flags.

This was the major Sufi celebration in the city, honoring the founder and patron saint of the city, Mouley Idriss II. It was also a chance for each tarika to exhibit their brotherhood to the assembled spectators. Coffee shops were overflowing with men and women greeting each other; drinking and laughing while their children played in the crowd.

Into this swirl of sound and color came Christopher with Eian in hand. Eian had made a special double-sided cardboard flag at school; Moroccan on one side, US on the opposite, proudly waving it above his head. They joined the small international delegation at the reviewing stands and smilingly met the various gathered officials.

Suddenly the royal couple appeared, at ease among their subjects, but surrounded by a scowling retinue of bodyguards. Heightened security was very evident today. Each of the gathered officials was introduced along with the various delegations and then it is over. Christopher barely had time to say welcome when he and Eian are shunted off to the side, much to the annoyance of Eian, who loudly proclaimed that he could see much better up on the stand than down on the street level. Overhearing this, the princess whispered into the ear of a close-by attendant, who then moved Eian to a spot in front where he could easily see the passing groups, most walking, many carrying giant portraits of the King, but a few on horseback with antique silver-chased rifles from centuries past.

The dissonant noise grew louder from cheering crowds, musical instruments and chanting. In front of the viewing stand jubilant marchers walked past the royal couple. The various Sufi groups with their brotherhood flags flying start passing by the royal review. First came the Siqilliyya with their white djellabas, red tarboosh hats and polyphonic voices. Next the Chargawiyya, then Aissawa, the Hamadcha in their brilliant red robes. Finally the Jilala, followed closely by the Wazzaniyya, all interspersed with mounted riders on Arabian horses, various craft guilds such as potters, wood workers and leather craftsmen as well as men balancing silver tayfar, conical tagine-shaped containers containing symbolic offerings to be placed on the saint's tomb.

There is a constant rhythm of music throbbing from the passing brotherhoods. The whole flowing mass moved as one organ; Ebbing forward, then halting, then surging forward again. Many in the crowd are overcome by the pulsating sounds of the drums, the blaring of the single note horns and the passion of the moment. Spectators sprinkle orange water on the passing participants and shout out "Allah Akbar, God is great!" The noise, tension and excitement continued to build as the crowd grows more and more raucous, the musicians and singing creating a bewitching and joyful feeling.

Chapter 23 - Friday - 5:31 p.m.

"He who follows the right path, thorns will not hurt him." Moroccan proverb

Fettah Bou Chantouf aimed his horn at the Kings neck. He has practiced this so many times it is second nature. The King turned in profile, presenting the perfect target. Horns are blowing and with a slight bow of his head he signaled to Hasan to loose the hornets into the crowd in front of the reviewing stand. Hasan had been watching with lifeless eyes, and as soon as he sees the signal he opens the container and tosses it on the ground in front of the reviewing stand.

Noise and confusion boils up around the review stand as the angry hornets take out their retribution on the unsuspecting bystanders. Pandemonium breaks out with screams of pain mingling with cheers of joy as the Sufi continued to press on, oblivious to the goings on around the stand. Hasan was aware that green pamphlets had also filled the air at the same moment to add to the confusion. He smiled, even though he didn't know what the pamphlets said. It has worked perfectly. The shouting of those nearest to Hasan mingled with cheers from the crowd and music from parade participants.

Fettah had struck, triggering the air rifle to fire its lethal dart towards its target. Surely the dart had sunk deeply into the neck of the King. Excitement coursed through him like a charge of electricity. The revolution had now begun and the only thing left was to get safely away. Swiftly cutting diagonally across the flow of the procession, Hasan half turned as he reached the far side of the street and saw his companion quickly joining him.

There was a swirl of activity on the review stand as Fettah quickly turned to leave the procession before all exits were sealed. Moving to the right he was soon away from the immediate crowd, heading towards the car and safety. He saw Hasan in front of him, weaving through the excited onlookers. The blow was struck and excitement pulsed through his body.

Rushing through the surging mass of spectators, Fettah and Hasan cut down a narrow alleyway to the right and away from the parade route. They have concluded that this would be the route least likely to be jammed with festivalgoers, enabling them to reach the parked car in Rcif Square. They roughly jostle a young woman carrying grocery bags from the nearby market. Unsurprisingly, there are few others out on the streets of the medina with all of the excitement along the Tala'a Segura.

Chapter 24 - Friday - 5:33 p.m.

"The story is only half told when one side tells it." Berber saying

Fatima had made sure that she acquired all of the ingredients for the night's b'stilla. Monsieur Chris had obtained the needed ras el-hanoot, and her trip this afternoon to the Bou Jeloud market has supplied her with the other ingredients; two chickens from which she would use the breasts and thighs, red onions, garlic, red chili peppers, coriander and flat leaf parsley. When just making the dish for Monsieur Chris and Eian she often used pigeon instead of chicken, but some tourists balked at eating pigeon so she would use chicken instead. All of this would be cooked up with saffron, cumin, ginger and cinnamon. She would then make the thinest sheets of pastry possible, layering the pastry with toasted almond meal and butter and fill the pastry shell with the cooled chicken and spice mixture, covered with the folded pastry before putting it into the oven. Before taking it out she would top the pastry with cinnamon and confectioners sugar. It made her smile because she knew Monsieur Chris and his guests would like it.

Happy that she still had time, Fatima was able to squeeze herself and her purchases into a spot close enough to the viewing stands to be able to see the King and his wife as well as a few of the passing parade groups. Satisfied, she began retracing her steps into the medina proper when she was roughly pushed aside by two men hurrying down the street. One glimpse at the taller of the two sent chills down her spine. His eyes and scowling face left no doubt of what he thought about a woman on the streets unattended.

Akmed Benharoun's compatriots had infiltrated the last two Sufi groups using the silver tayfar offerings as cover for distributing their message. Knowing he was wanted for questioning by the police, Akmed wisely stayed away from the parade itself. Instead he chose the balcony of a nearby restaurant to watch the unfolding drama.

Nearby TV cameras recording the celebration documented his fellow committee members reaching under the shining silver lids and throwing handfuls of the green leaflets into the air, showering the parade with the February 20 Movement manifesto calling for complete democracy and free elections. They were quickly swept up by security agents and taken away to waiting police vans.

Suddenly, everything goes wrong with the peaceful gathering. Without warning an angry swarm of hornets appears seemingly out of nowhere, stinging the gathered celebrants, spectators and assembled Royal Guardsmen alike and spreading mayhem on the crowded viewing stand. At the same instance the air is filled with green sheets of paper bearing the February 20 Movements manifesto. Incertitude reigns on the viewing stand as bodyguards move to quickly shuffle the royal couple to safety. Swirling bodies, many wildly swinging their hands and arms try to ward off the raging hornets while green sheets of paper float gently down onto their heads.

All of this was beyond exciting for Eian, who stood immediately in front of the royal couple and had the best seat on the stand. This was the most exciting day in his young life, and Eian waved his homemade double cardboard flag to the passing marchers. Suddenly it flew from his hands as if struck by a rock, a nearby security guard observantly picking it up.

With the confusion swirling around the monarch, Afellay realized that this was the moment of the attack. Keying his radio, he alerted the security teams to be hyper vigilant. For a moment, he caught a glimpse of a tall Sufi participant carrying a celebratory horn, but then he is gone in the confusion. He has stationed snipers on surrounding rooftops as well as fifty of his best agents interspersed with the crowds in hopes of preventing catastrophe. Awaiting confirmation that the monarch is safe, he continued to scan the crowd. Some officers sweep in and immediately arrest the February 20 Movement protesters before they can escape or before any pro-government provocateurs can rush in and beat them up with TV cameras rolling. These will be hustled to awaiting police vans and taken to headquarters and questioned, though he knows that in the end they will probably be eventually released.

Simultaneously, Hasan and Fettah were winding their way towards the Rcif parking area. Freedom and escape lay only a few more steps to the waiting taxi. So far the plan appeared to have gone perfectly. Police though have now discovered the parked taxi belonging to Hasan. Their orders are to visually identify the driver and any passengers and relay this information to Chief Inspector Afellay. Radios crackled when the burly Hasan appeared, unlocking the car. Both he and a tall, bearded man dressed in a white djellaba climb into the taxi before starting off in the direction of the Bab J'did gate.

Meanwhile, on a narrow street overlooking Bab Rcif Square a fashionably dressed man with a pencil mustache watches the unfolding drama as Hasan and Bou Chantouf suddenly appear and climbed into the parked red taxi. Watching intently as obvious police detectives climb into a car and start to follow the taxi, he reaches into a pocket and retrieves his mobile phone, quickly punching in a series of numbers as he turns and walks up the hill towards the Bab Ftouh.

Suddenly there is a tremendous explosion catapulting the petit taxi's engine high into the air while turning the interior into a blazing inferno. Several nearby pedestrians lay nearby, their bodies shattered by the blast. Inside what continued to exist of the small Fiat, little remains of the driver or his passenger.

A thin smile crease the face of the man as he wipes dirt off of his expensive Italian loafers and makes another call to order a car to meet him at the Bab Ftouh taxi area. In the distance sirens blare like so many buzzing hornets.

Chapter 25 - Sunday - 10:10 am

"Believe what you see and lay aside what you hear." Moroccan proverb

Chief Inspector Ayrad Afellay, sat drinking coffee and lighting up his fifth cigarette of the morning. He was at his usual table outside the Cafe Mekouar, his favorite across from the Continental Tourist Hotel. From here he can observe the people, what he thinks as his people, busily going about their separate lives. Hopefully, his own life will now return to a slower, more normal pace, one that an aging 65 year old could manage to hold onto for the next two years until his planned retirement. As he sits nursing his coffee and cigarette, he lets his mind review the past 96 hours.

The King's life had been saved. Not through some heroic effort by either Afellay, or any other member of the protective forces. Not by good detective work, though there was indeed that. No, the King's life had been saved by fate, the hand of Allah, the all merciful. It was saved by the movement of a young American boys cardboard flag, which had intervened with the poison dart, meant to bring death, chaos and revolution to the monarchy and the country.

The two suspected terrorists had mysteriously blown up in their escape vehicle; supposedly victims of yet another terrorist plot gone wrong. Though several loose ends bothered Afellay, his superiors were content to wrap this all up neatly for king and country. Too neatly for Afellay; he did not like coincidence. A frown came across his grizzled face as he lit yet another cigarette and blew smoke into the late September air.

Fall was coming, bringing with it cooler temperatures and cleansing rains. Would that be enough to wipe clean the threat to the government and the country? Not just from misguided Islamist zealots bent on forcing their narrow interpretation of Islam on Morocco and the world at large, but well intentioned pro-democracy elements agitating to push the country to full democracy much too quickly.

A third possibility increasingly bothered Afellay. What if there was a clandestine force working within the government, inside the national security system and backed by a powerful group close to the King who would do anything to keep themselves in power, playing both sides against the other?

True, the February 20 movement had gained a moment on the TV screens, and their message calling for increased democracy had gained a more extensive audience. "In time, in time" thinks Afellay. There is danger in both extremes and it was his duty to stand in the forefront against them.

In'shallah! Only Allah knew what was written, for the country, for any man. The Kingdom of Morocco faced an uncertain future, blown as it were by forces far from its control. From the East came the winds of change, sweeping one totalitarian government after the other from power and shaking the status quo from the distant Hindu Kush of Pakistan to the High Atlas Mountains of Morocco. He knew that rocking the boat was not popular, but that needed reforms, especially in the areas of corruption and favoritism must be made quickly.

It remained to be seen whether the "gentle revolution" could indeed bring needed changes to his beloved country. He suffered no illusions as to what lay ahead of him in enforcing the dictates of the powerful elite surrounding the government. He was after all a soldier, and he would do what was demanded of him, utilizing his skills as best he could to protect the stability of Morocco. For now it was enough to sit in the warming sun, enjoy the pleasures of being alive and plan for his peaceful retirement.

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Glossary of Terms

Moroccan Arabic (Darija)

Moroccan Arabic is a dialect, and as such, it differs in both spelling and pronunciation from Classical Arabic. It, along with French and to a lesser extent Berber are the most commonly spoken languages of Morocco.

Adhan-call to prayer

As-salam alaykum-Hello! Peace Be unto you.

Al-hamdu-lillah-thanks Be to God!

Allah Akbar-God is great!

Bab-gate. There are 8 main gates into Fez el-Bali, the medina.

Balak-Look out!

Baraka-allahu feek-may God Bless you!

Be'ya-allegiance ceremony to the king

Bislema-good bye

B'stilla-sweetened pastry containing pigeon or chicken and spices

Chebakia-flower shaped fried pastry sweetened with honey

Dar-small guest house without a garden

Derb-narrow street or alleyway

Djellaba-long robe with hood favored by Moroccan men

Djinns-genies, spirits in mythology

Hadra-trance-like state in Sufism.

Hammam-public baths

Hanoot-convenience store

Haram-forbidden by religious law

In'shallah-God willing

Khirwa-castor bean

Khobz-flat Moroccan bread

La bes-How are you? I'm fine!

Lla-No!

Maghrib-evening prayer, the 4th prayer of the day

Makhzen-social and political elite

Mashi moshkil-no problem!

Mellah-literally "salt", area of Fez el-Jd'id formerly inhabited by Jews

Merdersa-religious school

Mezyan-good

Moussem-religious festival

N'aam-yes

Nus-nus-coffee with milk

Oued-river

Ras el-hanoot-shop keepers spice mixture

Rawashin-bay windows allowing unseen women to view the streets below

Riad-guest house with a garden

Salama malakum-hello, peace by unto you.

Sbah l-khir-Good morning!

Seer f'halek-go away!

Shokran, shokran bzzaf-thank you, thank you very much

Tala'a-street

Tarikas-Sufi brotherhoods

Tayfar-silver cone-shaped containers for spiritual gifts

Wa alykum e-salam-response to greeting, hello.

Author's Note

Dear Reader,

Thank you for purchasing this Ebook. It is my hope to not only provide a bit of reading enjoyment, but also help share my love for the people of Morocco and especially the wonderful and magical city of Fez. At least two more novellas centering on the life and challenges of Chief Inspector Aryad Afellay and the inhabitants of the medina will be coming soon.

Thank you,

C.R. Black

2012

