Canada, 13 Years Later

He woke up choking on a sob, bathed in sweat. It was late at night (or very early in the morning depending on your perspective) and this time it wasn t the thick heat that had him sweating. Salah had endured many nights like this since his childhood, nights filled with nightmares of his father beating him. He ran his hand across his forehead and pulled back his long hair. Staring out the window, he tried to catch his breath and calm his rapidly beating heart. Father was dead; why couldn t he relax?

Salah reached across the small, wooden nightstand and grasped the glass of water sitting under the lamp. The water cooled the heated insides of his body and felt good against the warm skin of his hand. Salah. Though born with a different name, he had chosen Salah because of the famous Salah Al-Din, known for establishing the Abbasid dynasty. In 1169, Salah Aldin was a respected Sunni Muslim who fought bravely against the Crusaders to free Jerusalem and Palestine and return it to the Arabs. Salah Al-Din was often compared to his European counterpart and opposition, King Richard the Lion Heart of England two men cut from the same cloth, but at different ends.

His father had passed on to his youngest child the responsibility of bringing great pain to the American people, avenging his brother who was killed 13 years earlier. And as Salah knew he could not use his real identity...