National Security jq-1

by Marc Cameron

  A note was waiting when he checked in to the Intercontinental Hotel. Mr. Othman with the university stud farm had left his business card and an invitation to stop by the stables after Asr — the afternoon call to prayer.

  Quinn had checked the times for the five daily calls to prayer before leaving the U.S. Everything in the world of Islam revolved around these times. Asr fell shortly after 2:30 P.M.

  Quinn had grabbed a quick shower and changed into a fresh white dishdasha and simple white ghutra headdress. In the lobby, he’d heard the call to prayer from a nearby minaret and followed the lead of other men as they knelt toward Mecca. Even in the five-star hotel, the Mutawwa’in — Saudi religious police, more formally known as the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice-kept a keen watch to see that no one shirked their duty when it came to prayer. Two bearded men with wooden canes had patrolled the opulent foyer, eyeing Quinn with the distrust they showed all under their domain. Both carried themselves with the haughty air of men given nearly unbridled government authority to prey on others-particularly those weaker than themselves. The will of Allah was to be strictly enforced, and as Quinn’s political science professor had pointed out so many years before: “Life in a police state is pretty good-if you are the state police.”

  Though it would have been sweet indeed to spend a few quality moments alone with the two bullies, Quinn had only smiled, trying to conceal his disdain for the draconian measures the men represented.

  The cabbie had negotiated a fair price for the quick trip from the Intercontinental Hotel to the university. He’d wanted to talk, but Quinn thought it best to play Mr. Al Dashti as a taciturn Kuwaiti who kept his thoughts to himself. In a country where impersonating a Muslim was against the law, getting caught spying could cost him his head.

  Heat waves rippled up from the stone walkways as Quinn studied the concrete buildings, formulating plans as he went. The air was heavy, like the inside of an oven, but with a hint of humidity from the Persian Gulf less than a hundred kilometers to the east to make things even more uncomfortable. University students and staff were evidently wise enough to stay out of the afternoon heat and the walkways were all but deserted.

  Quinn stood in the scant shade of one of the many date palms that lined the main paved road. Squinting against a low sun, he surveyed the empty campus, considering his options. Sparrows huddled and chirped in the shadowed fronds above him, unwilling to venture out in the blazing sun. A trickle of sweat ran down the back of both knees. He had no weapons-travel into the Kingdom was dangerous enough-but planned to use whatever was available when the time came. The odor of horse manure and sweet grass hay told him he was near the stables. Oddly enough, the smell had a calming effect. He knew horses-even Arabians-and had always felt better around them while growing up.

  Farooq’s operation was somewhere nearby, he could smell that, too. It was the bitter smell of something secret-the copper scent of death. Quinn looked at his watch-eighteen hours until his plane left Riyadh for Kuwait City. It would be his first window of opportunity for exit. All he could do now was explore and hope he stumbled onto something.

  The main stable was a sight to behold. Arabs held horses to be their greatest treasures and it showed in the ornate architecture of their barns.

  Quinn passed from the blinding sun between thick pink columns supporting a matching stucco facade that rose three stories above the circular courtyard and made his way into the relative cool interior of the barn. He walked slowly down the wide, tiled breezeway keeping his shoulders relaxed, eyes ever on the lookout for danger.

  The barn was empty but for a deaf-mute hired boy who shoveled manure into a wheelbarrow while he mouthed the words of a silent song to himself. Large ceiling fans whumped over head; water misters located up and down the ceiling beams sprayed a constant cloud that evaporated in midair. Detailed wrought-iron work decorated eight-foot-tall wooden gates and stall dividers. The scent of clean wood shavings wafted up from the floor of each spacious enclosure. An abundant supply of fresh hay and cool water filled built-in troughs on the walls. These horses lived more pampered lives than average Saudi citizens.

  Quinn heard muffled voices as he passed beside the heavy wooden beams and rough, slip-proof concrete that formed the wash rack and shoeing area. A coiled garden hose hung on a peg in the shadows of the inside wall. The medicinal smell of soap and wet horse lingered in the thick air. He stopped next to a portable acetylene torch used for horseshoeing and strained his ears to listen. Angry voices drifted down from an upper-level hayloft that ran above the stalls almost half the length of the building.

  Conflict, Quinn thought, as he heard the harsh sound of a slap on bare skin and a yelp of someone in anguish. Just where I belong. He moved forward, reminding himself to think in Arabic so he would remember to speak in Arabic.

  He stopped at the base of a thick timber ladder leading up to the storage loft. Voices tumbled down the wooden steps with bits of dust and trampled hay. Again, he heard the cry of a woman. Closer now, Quinn could make out the words.

  “Please, this is far from a Commission matter,” a female voice pleaded. “I assure you, we have done nothing wrong.”

  The naive urgency in her words made Quinn scan the barn for a weapon. This was no lover’s spat. The strain in her terrified voice was heartbreaking.

  “Child of Satan!” a male voice spat. “You will answer for your sins.”

  “We have committed no sin but to talk with one another…” It was another male voice now, soft and quivering with fear.

  Quinn heard the muffled whoof of air leaving someone’s lungs followed by a low moan.

  “You will rot in prison for your impudence, boy,” a gruff voice said. “But first, you will feel the lash. Khulwa is a serious matter.”

  Khulwa was socializing with an unrelated person of the opposite sex-going for a walk, or even having coffee. A university professor in Mecca had been sentenced to one hundred eighty lashes and eight months in jail for being caught at a coffee shop with an unrelated female. It was not unheard of for women to be raped at the hands of overzealous men-punishing their lack of virtue. Such a thing defied understanding, but somewhere in the dark recesses of certain male brains, rape could teach a woman a lesson in chastity.

  Up in the loft, cloth ripped. There was a muffled scream followed by a hateful chuckle.

  “On your knees,” a rough voice spat.

  “Tawfiq,” the girl sobbed. “Please, help me…”

  More laughter. “Tawfiq knows his place.”

  “I beg of you, sir…”

  Quinn sprang up the ladder in three quick bounds. Months of working outside the wire in Iraq made moving in the loose, dresslike dishdasha second nature. He hiked it up with one hand as he climbed, like a woman wearing a skirt, chuckling in spite of the situation-if Thibodaux could only see him now.

  At the top of the ladder, Quinn almost ran headlong into a dutiful member of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice. The brooding Mutawwa towered over a young Saudi woman-barely in her twenties-who knelt, quaking before him on a pile of loose hay. Her black abaya was torn away revealing a white T-shirt and jeans. Without the heavy black robe, she could have passed for one of thousands of American college students. The man’s fist wrapped her long, ebony hair in a thick twist. A delicate chin quivered above her slender olive neck.

  The beefy Commission man shot a surprised look over his shoulder, wrenching back the frightened woman’s head to bring home the point that he was still firmly in charge. He sneered at the new intruder, his teeth a white gash in a black beard. This Mutawwa was much taller than the two Quinn has seen at the hotel with flecks of gray in heavy whiskers.

  “Peace be unto you,” Quinn said in Arabic as he hit the startled man in the face with the flat of his hand. The Arab released his grip on the girl’s hair and teetered in place like a great bearded tree before a strong wind. Without another word, Quinn heaved him headfirst over the sh
ort wooden railing to the tile floor sixteen feet below. The task was easy enough since the Mutawwa’s underwear was down around his ankles, providing the perfect hobble when Quinn rushed him. His pious skull cracked like a ripe melon when he hit the concrete.

  One down, Jericho’s attention snapped to his second opponent. This one was shorter than the first, but with the broad shape of a fireplug. It was impossible to tell his true build under the full white robe, but a thick neck gave the man the look of a wrestler. He was younger than his dead partner, his black beard more sparse and wispy.

  The squat Mutawwa pulled himself into a crouch, invoking a whispered prayer to Allah. “Who are you to interfere with Commission business?”

  Quinn gave a humble shrug. “ InshAllah — Allah willing-I am the man who will end your struggles in this world today.”

  The Mutawwa snatched up a pitchfork, fending Quinn off with the glistening points. In the stalls below, Arabian horses-a nervous lot in the first place-pranced and snorted at the commotion above them.

  A block and tackle used to lift the heavy bales of hay swung on a thick rope from a pulley at the edge of the loft. In a fluid movement, Quinn sidestepped a futile jab with the pitchfork and rolled inside the other man’s reach, making it impossible for him to bring the deadly points to bear. He struck the Mutawwa hard, bringing the heel of his hand upward with all the force of his hips. Bone crunched and cartilage tore as the man’s nose all but disintegrated. Clutching the collar of his cotton robe like it was a judo gi, Quinn shouldered the handle of the pitchfork out of the way and gave him two brutally effective knees to the groin.

  The Mutawwa sank toward the ground with a low moan. A smear of fresh blood covered his slack face.

  Quinn grabbed the block and tackle, yanking it down to twist the hemp rope around the dazed man’s neck. “Murder… is a… capitol crime,” the Mutawwa gurgled, eyes bulging red.

  Quinn kicked him over the edge.

  “So is rape,” he said.

  From the corner of his eye, Quinn caught the fluttering movement of a young student in a white Saudi thobe and red checked ghutra. Blood oozed from a split lip. The boy gathered himself up to flee.

  Quinn put up a hand. “You will remain here.” His voice, still in clipped Arabic, was little more than a coarse whisper. The force of it pushed the boy back to the floor in a slouching, defeated pile.

  Quinn knelt to help the embarrassed girl fix her torn abaya. “What is your name, child?”

  “Huwaidah,” the girl whimpered. “He is Tawfiq.” She glared at her companion, who’d done so little to try and stop the men from the brutality they’d been about to commit.

  Tawfiq, a skinny Saudi youth with a pronounced goiter, stared dumbfounded at the dangling body of the dead Mutawwa. He repositioned his mussed head scarf with shaky hands. “You… killed them,” he stammered. “You killed them both…”

  Huwaidah clicked her teeth, her eyes flicking from terror to rage in the bat of a lash. Her name meant gentle, but there was no gentleness in her at the moment. Quinn remembered why soldiers from every army that had tried to conquer the Arab world were so frightened of being captured by the women.

  “I am glad he killed them,” she spat. “They deserved to die.”

  “But they were government officials…” Tawfiq swallowed hard, his goiter sliding up and down like a trapped Ping-Pong ball. His voice was a flaccid whisper, devoid of breath. “What will happen to us now?”

  Quinn grabbed the wall and leaned over the edge, scanning up and down the shadowed alley. Horses snorted below, sniffing at the blossoming pool of blood from the dead Mutawwa splayed across the tile floor, then gazing up with white eyes at the one dangling over their heads. There was no one in sight. He knew that could change at any moment.

  “Tawfiq is right,” he said. “We should leave at once. As long as we’re not discovered here-and you both remain quiet about what has occurred-things will be fine. There will be an investigation…” Quinn paused to let the youngsters realize the gravity of his words. “But no one need lose their head.”

  Quinn followed the pair down the ladder. On the ground, he paused long enough to grab a canister of iodine crystals out of a horseshoeing supply box and stuff it into the pocket of his dishdasha. Horseshoers used the caustic stuff to treat infections of the hoof. Quinn was familiar with a few other, more explosive, uses that were bound to come in handy.

  Once inside the shade of the neighboring barn, Quinn stepped closer to the young couple. “Now,” he said. “You must go your separate ways.” He gave a stern look to the girl. He was, after all, playing the part of an Arab male. “And cease to find yourself alone with men who are not related to you. It is an abomination.”

  The pair nodded, heads bowed toward their feet.

  “How may we repay your kindness?” Huwaidah muttered, her dark lashes fluttering like a wounded bird as the magnitude of what she’d just escaped crashed down around her.

  Quinn smiled softly. It was a question he’d hoped she would ask.

  “I am looking for a certain place… a place that I believe is also an abomination before Allah.” He paused to let her look him in the eyes. “A laboratory where very bad things take place.”

  Tawfiq’s gaze shifted toward the girl. He shook his head, teeth grinding loud enough that Jericho could hear the crunch.

  Huwaidah sighed deeply, blinking, coming to a decision. “Yes,” she whispered. “I have heard of such a place. The other girls tell awful stories. I thought they were to scare us and keep us from sneaking out at night.”

  “Huwaidah,” Tawfiq snapped. “Mind your tongue. You will be killed.”

  She ignored him, looking at Quinn with wide, green eyes-honest, resolute eyes that said she could amount to anything if she was not so beaten down. She covered her face with the torn abaya but squared her shoulders, looking toward the far end of the open barn, toward the bright patch of sunlight and blazing pink stone.

  “I want to show you the place you are looking for,” she said. “You have saved my life, so it is now yours. I do not care if they kill me.”

  Quinn fought the urge to put his hand on the poor girl’s shoulder. Instead, he sighed gravely. “I will not let that happen today.”

  CHAPTER 24

  Fallujah

  “The fat man, Malik gave me very little before he… left.” Zafir pressed the cell phone to his ear with his good hand. “I fear our meeting upset him more than he was able to bear. The boy, on the other hand, proved to be a treasure of knowledge,”

  The Bedouin sat on a sun-bleached wooden chair in the scant shade of a cafe awning. He sipped chai from a chipped ceramic mug as he spoke. Dressed in dark aviator shades, loose cotton shirt, and black slacks, he looked like any one of the hundred other Iraqi men milling around the streets in the war-torn country. All of these men had seen violence-but few relished it as much as Zafir.

  “I knew you would be… how shall we put it?… persuasive…” Zafir could hear the sheikh’s smile in his words.

  “I am humbled by your confidence.”

  “The board is set and the pieces are ready to move into place,” Farooq said. “I am anxious to open our game… unless, of course, you have information that dictates I should do otherwise.”

  Zafir fell silent as a platoon of American soldiers-they called themselves Peacekeepers-walked in formation down the dusty street, less than two meters in front of him. They eyed him warily because of his cell phone. Insurgents used cell phones to set off IEDs and holding one in front of an American was a good way to get shot. His throat tightened and he lay the phone down on the bench beside him without a word to Farooq. He took a long, slow breath and forced a smile, waving happily to the passing squad. On the outside he was a picture of calm, a docile lamb wanting nothing more than to comply with the American liberators. Inside, his stomach roiled, aching to cut the throat of the fair-haired boy who brought up the rear. The sheikh’s plan calmed him. The boy and thousands of his kind would die soon e
nough. In time, even the women of the west-the ones who survived-would find themselves behind the burqa. It was the unquestionable will of Allah.

  Only when the American patrol had disappeared around the corner a half a block away did he retrieve the phone. The sheikh was accustomed to such delays and the two resumed where they’d left off.

  “Allah willing,” Zafir said, “I am prepared to begin my part.” He knew better than to speak openly on a cell phone. The Americans even listened to each other. Though the chance of them picking up his conversations was slim, it was not impossible.

  “You’ve thought it through?” The sheikh was calm, his voice deadpan.

  “I have.”

  “Then of course you have my blessing,” Farooq said, with an air of finality that surprised even Zafir. There was no going back. Zafir caught a hint of newfound respect in his master’s words-and it caused his chest to swell with pride.

  “There is a small problem,” Zafir said. “The boy I spoke with today has been in contact with those who wish to stop your game.”

  “From the West?”

  Zafir gave an affirmative grunt. “There is one player in particular who bears watching. He may try and visit you. Perhaps I should return-”

  “You know that would not be wise.” Farooq chuckled. “We are on a strict timetable now. You have already made your testament. You have everything you need to begin your journey-including more of my trust than I reserve for any other living soul. My friend, I fear the next time we meet will be in the bosom of Allah.”

  “Allah willing,” the Bedouin said. “But for now, let me tell you all I know of a man named Jericho…”

  After he finished the phone call, Zafir sighed. His master now acted as a friend. It was more than he had dreamed could ever take place. But even as he spoke of fulfilling his destiny in the United States, his satisfaction wilted, dragged down by nagging thoughts of the American whore. She would pay for what she had done. Zafir consoled himself with the fact that he would be the one to exact that payment very, very soon.