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Dec
27
“The Old Man of the Mountain,” I began, “was the name given to the leader of a Muslim-ish sect called the Hashshashin.”
“What do you mean ‘Muslim-ish’?” asked Liu.
“Well the rank and file may have had religious motivation, but the leaders were definitely in it for the money and power. So I don’t want to sully the Muslim religion by associating it too closely with the original suicide bombers.”
“What do you mean ‘original suicide bombers’?”
“Well if you’d shut up and let me tell you then I’d … tell you,” I snapped. Detective Liu was certainly living up to her ‘asian bitch’ title tonight.
“This sect,” I continued, “was created in the middle of the middle-ages, around the 11th century. They had an interesting method of operation which modern terrorist leaders are still following in a modified fashion.” Liu looked like she wanted to interrupt again but I held up an admonishing finger and she stopped.
“It went like this: You send a note to Sultan X saying ‘Hey dude, send us twelve camels loaded with gold’ and Sultan X says, ‘get lost, bozzos.’ Well, what is a greedy gold loving guy to do? Easy, you send a bunch of your guys out to find some not-to-bright country boys, you make friends and slip them some hashish. When they come to, they find themselves in a valley in the mountains surrounded by beautiful dancing girls, a fountain of honey, a fountain of milk and other wonders. The Old Man of the Mountain greets them and tells them this is paradise and that they are free to indulge themselves in anyway they wish. So for a couple of days they get to play with the girls, drink the milk and eat gourmet food.
“Now the Old Man comes back and says, ‘Look boys, you can’t stay here. You have to go back to Earth.’ The boys are upset, they don’t want to go back. So the Old Man says, ‘Well, if you do me a favor and get killed in the process then I’ll let you back in.’ ’What do you want us to do?” ask the boys. ’Go kill Sultan X.’ ’No problemo,’ say the boys. So the Old Man gives them a nice drink to celebrate and when they come to, they find themselves outside the city where Sultan X lives. Next thing Sultan X knows, a bunch of suicide assassins are trying to kill him. His guards maybe kill one or two but the third or fourth gets through and Sultan X is ex-sultan X.
“Sultan X Jr. now takes the thrown and receives a note saying ‘We asked Sultan X Snr. for some gold and he was not very co-operative. Perhaps you could send us the twelve camels loaded with gold?’ and Sultan X Jr. rushes to the stables to get the camels and make sure they are on the way with the gold within the hour.”
“Did that really happen?” asked Alvarez.
“Yes. It went on for a couple of hundred years until one of Genghis Khan’s descendants decided to take out the castle when the Hashshashin tried to put the bite on him.”
“And you’re saying that modern terrorists use this technique?”
“You think people are going to blow themselves up without some sort of pharmaceutical encouragement?”
“So what’s this got to do with the sword that killed this woman?”
“The personal guard of the Old Man of the Mountain used these swords. There were only twelve ever made and when Genghis’ grandson wiped them out, all but three swords were destroyed. The last time I saw one was in the late 1920’s in Germany.”
“You saw one eighty years ago?” snapped Liu.
“I saw a picture of one,” I said quickly. In fact I had seen one while in Munich pretending to be a member of the Thule Society, but I couldn’t very well tell her that.
“So your friend was killed with a nine hundred year old sword that used to belong to a bunch of suicide assassins,” said Liu, raising her eyes skyward. ”Hell, this case gets weirder by the minute.”
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