The Godless One

by J. Clayton Rogers

  Wishing he could forego a performance, but realizing its necessity, Ari produced a deep sigh of regret. "I'm afraid I didn't tell you everything about Mustafa's death."

  "No," said Becky, a tower of negative distress.

  "Akila was shot. She died instantly."

  "Do you want to leave the room?" Grainger asked Becky solicitously. She hesitated, then shook her head.

  "Mustafa was beheaded."

  "No!" Becky said in despair, falling back into her seat.

  "No!" said Ben.

  Grainger stared disbelievingly.

  "I'm afraid it's true," Ari continued, secretly relishing the effect. He wondered if Americans would consider him...what was the phrase they used...a 'sick puppy'? Why not a healthy crocodile?

  "It was obviously intended to send a message to the Arabs living here," Ari continued.

  "But only a terrorist would do such a thing," said Grainger, carefully dodging ethnic identification. And then he shook his head in despair. "Or someone with a profound hatred for Arabs."

  "Indeed," said Ari, thinking, There certainly was no love involved. "I'm sorry to have added to your distress. Sid probably had nothing to do with the murders. Blowhards blow the least, has been my experience. But I think, just to reassure ourselves—"

  "You're not really thinking of going out there?" Becky persisted.

  "Why not?" said Ben. "Kill two birds with one stone?"

  Ari was not happy with the conceit. Ben and Ari...two birds.

  "There is no way I will condone this," said Grainger emphatically. "I've lost too many of my parishioners in the last year and a half. The Riggins, the Zewails...I refuse to risk your life...and yours, also, Mr. Ciminon. If I hear of you going out there to see this man...he really sounds unbalanced...I'll call the police."

  Becky blessed him with a glance.

  Ari sensed Ben resignedly backing away from his resolution. He could see only one way out of the impasse.

  "And if we took with us an armed Federal agent, would you agree?"

  Pastor Grainger looked skeptical. "A Federal agent? Where will you get him? Out of your hat?"

  "Her," said Ari. "She's only a phone call away."

  Grainger and Becky were brought up short.

  "And when do you intend to make this visit?" the pastor asked.

  "Well, why not now?" said Ben, who had brightened considerably. "He'll go off the wall when he sees a Fed and an Arab. But why not, after what he said at our house? At our dinner table?" He was directing these words to his wife.

  "He'll kill all of you," she whispered.

  Grainger seemed a little more acquiescent, but not by much. "If you insist, I want this Federal agent to come to me, first. I want to see her credentials. I'll be here until after the second service. Do you think she can get here by noon?"

  "Almost to a certainty," said Ari, feeling very uncertain. Karen's phone number was programmed into his cell. Would she respond?

  "You can wait here until she arrives," said Grainger, again looking at his watch. He stood and glanced down at Ari. "Don't feel obliged to answer, but do you have any faith, Mr. Ciminon?"

  "None whatsoever."

  "I didn't make myself clear. I wasn't speaking of Christianity. Do you hold any Islamic beliefs?"

  "None whatsoever."

  "And loyalty?"

  "I've sold my services to the Americans," Ari said. "Not my soul."

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  "Sid and I used to go hunting at the Powhatan WMA every week during season," said Ben as he turned his pickup truck off of 288 onto Route 711, a narrow road that led west into a countryside booming with new housing developments. "Some of the guys in the club used to call him 'Sid Vicious'. It wasn’t just the hunt that he enjoyed. I can’t put my finger on it, but it wasn’t anything psycho."

  "Club?" Ari asked.

  "The Paxton Hunt Club. All of them good guys who like a little sport, who like guns, and who would have had nothing to do with Sid if he was a loon."

  "But they called him ‘vicious’."

  "It was a joke! I won’t say it was too easy for him to kill something, or that he enjoyed killing too much. I guess there was some of that in all of us, or we wouldn’t have been out there in the woods. There was never any waste, by the way. Ever have groundhog stew?"

  "Probably," said Ari, summoning up Iraqi equivalents he had consumed while in the field.

  "It’s open season on groundhogs all year round, so if you’re ever hard up for a meal, groundhog’s the ticket. What was strange about Sid was…" Ben braked as the car ahead of them stopped to make a turn. He pulled out a pack of Marlboros from his jacket pocket. Ari took out his Winstons.

  "Uh, guys, would you mind not doing that?" Karen complained from the Datsun’s narrow back seat. "I’m almost suffocating as it is."

  A comforting frisson swept over Ari. It was like being back home, where a woman’s place was in the back. The only difference was that neither he nor Ben were related to Karen.

  Ben made a sound of self-criticism and returned the Marlboros to his pocket. After some hesitation, Ari followed suit, deciding not to test the deputy’s patience. It had taken only one minute to cajole her into joining him for this drive into Goochland County, and a full ten minutes for her to get over Ari’s confession that he had blown his cover, in a twisted sort of way. But the mention of Sid Overstreet as a possible suspect in the Zewail killings overthrew her doubts. She would show Grainger her badge (and, as it turned out, show Becky her gun) so long as Ben agreed to identify Ari as an Italian to anyone else that they met. Ari had anticipated that she would see this as a priceless opportunity to make amends for recoiling from the headless Mustafa. No slave to rules and regulations (when it suited her), she did not call for backup.

  "You said there was something odd about the way Sid hunted?" Ari said to Ben.

  "It was like his duty to kill those animals," Ben answered, pulling ahead once the car had turned. "He would laugh and share a beer with the rest of us—"

  "Booze and guns," Karen snickered.

  "—but there was something grim behind it. Even when we were kids he talked about joining the Army. Maybe he thought of hunting as some kind of training."

  "Is he still in the Army?"

  "That’s a funny thing. I was sure he would be a lifer and retire as a Sergeant Major or something. But he quit as soon as he finished his tour…honorable discharge, but still not what I would’ve expected."

  "Is he in the Reserves?" asked Karen.

  "No, and he could have used the money. But with the National Guard getting called up to Iraq and Afghanistan, there would have been a chance he’d end up back in the Sandbox. A lot of guys like that option—it’s not such a bad deal, if you don’t mind getting shot at."

  "Did he mind getting shot at?" Ari asked.

  "To tell you the truth, I don’t think he minded at all."

  "And you?"

  "I didn’t like it any better than the next guy, but that’s not why I didn’t go back."

  "Ah," said Ari. "I understand."

  "No, it wasn’t my buddy killing himself," Ben said. "I pulled myself together after that. It was…" He gave a short laugh. "I call it the ‘Eugene Sledge Syndrome’. Either of you ever hear of Sledge?"

  Both Ari and Karen confessed ignorance.

  "He served with the Marines in the Pacific during World War II. When he came home after the war he went out with his .22 one day and shot a dove. He went up and found he'd only wounded it. It was flopping on its back, struggling to breathe...and Sledge sat down next to it and began crying his eyes out. That's how his father found him. He told his boy if he felt killing things was so bad, just stop doing it, and Sledge put up his gun. He became a famous ornithologist. Later on, he wrote the best memoir about the war, 'With the Old Breed'."

  "That's why you didn't go back?" Karen said.

  "The same kind of feeling must have been in the back of my mind. I just knew something was wrong with me and pretty s
oon I wouldn't be able to pull the trigger. I didn't re-enlist. And when I went hunting with Sid at the Wildlife Management Area, it happened. I had a deer in my sights and I couldn't..."

  Karen raised her hand, as though she was going to put it on Ben's shoulder. Then she saw Ari watching and pulled back.

  "Sid was furious. Said I was brainwashed and had become useless. He spent all day trying to get the deer I'd let go. That was the beginning of the end between us. But I'm still hoping we can get back together. You just can't let your past go like that."

  Ari remembered shooting his own childhood friend, Omar, years later, in an apricot grove. It had been necessary, and not particularly difficult, emotionally. Under similar circumstances, he would do it again, without qualm. But he was an unsentimental old fool.

  "I wonder who he thinks brainwashed me against killing," Ben continued. "It wasn't the Iraqis, I can tell you. They don't seem to have any problem killing each other or anyone else. Uh, sorry, Mr. Ciminon, that's just how it looked to me out there."

  "No offense taken," said Ari.

  "I've tried to give up meat, once or twice," said Ben with a self-deprecating grin.

  "Hello, Veg-O-Matic," said Karen.

  "But I still love a good, juicy steak," Ben sighed.

  "I can introduce you to an Indian I know," said Ari. "They make excellent vegetarian meals. Pretty soon, you won't miss meat at all."

  "Sure, I can go Hindu. Then Pastor Grainger will hate me, too."

  They had gone seven or eight miles. Ari noticed a sign at a small junction.

  "'Powhatan Correctional Center'," he read out loud. "I thought that was on the other side of the river."

  "There's a single lane bridge connecting the north and south banks," said Ben. "It's easy to close if there's an escape attempt. They have other prisons on this side, too."

  "You have many prisons here?"

  "More than you can shake a stick at, and that's where all of us belong. Here we are." Ben slowed the pickup at a small dirt road with a large 'Support Our Troops' banner near the entrance. "As the pastor would say, 'gird your loins.'"

  "I've got my Smith & Wesson cosmetic kit right here." Karen patted the side of her thick jacket.

  "Let's pray it doesn't come to that." Fifty yards down the lane, invisible from the main road, they saw a large building that looked in need of major repairs. "I don’t see how he makes a living with that back-forty garage of his," Ben observed. "But things are a lot cheaper out here in the boonies. If he lived in town, he’d starve to death." He braked suddenly. "Whoa, where did that come from?"

  The lane made a circle around several trees. A huge, gleaming pickup was parked in the shade.

  "That’s a Lincoln Mark LT," Ben said, amazed. "That’s worth $25,000, easy. I’d hate to be making the payments on it."

  "Unless it’s paid for already," said Ari, looking back at Karen. She knew nothing about the story he had concocted about a rogue al-Qaeda agent in the U.S. and wondered how she would react if she found out about it.

  "Only if he’s robbed a bank," said Ben, switching off his engine. From the garage came the loud chatter of a generator, interrupted by a hissing noise. "That’s the spray gun. He’s painting. Listen, I should go up by myself, first."

  "That kinda misses the point of me being here, doesn’t it?" said Karen. "Are you having second thoughts?"

  "I’m looking forward to this…if everything turns out all right."

  "And if it doesn’t?"

  "It’s the biggest mistake of my life," Ben said. "What’s your call?"

  "It’s your show," Karen responded, sounding unhappy. She turned to Ari. "Don’t you think it’s best that he’s approached by someone he knows, first?"

  "Certainly," said Ari.

  Ben got out and walked towards a clearing in front of a rusty trailer that was propped on cinderblocks. His breath frosted in the cold air.

  "The Rustpile Ritz," said Karen. "And did you get a load of the license plate on the truck?"

  "I did," said Ari.

  H8-RAB.

  "I wonder how that got past DMV. Uh-oh..."

  Ari had mentally 'uh-oh-ed' the moment before, when he saw two German shepherds circling from around the back of the trailer. Ben dropped to one knee in the clearing and the dogs trotted up to him, tails wagging. In the garage, the hissing of the spray gun stopped. A moment later, so did the generator.

  "Hey, Mutt, hey, Jeff," said Ben, roughhousing the two dogs with a laugh.

  "Ten will get you fifty they won't be as friendly with us," said Karen.

  Ten will get you fifty, Ari mused, and filed it in his mental phrase box. Then he decided to test it. "If I bite them ten times, it's true they'll bite me fifty."

  "You need to go back to school."

  A man came through one of the open garage doors. In spite of the cold, he was wearing only jeans and a blue-streaked T-shirt. He was a sturdy six feet tall. His head was shaved; it, too, was streaked blue. Around his neck hung a bulky, dual carburetor respirator mask. Flashes of paint ran up his unprotected cheekbones, giving him the look of some kind of blue-streaked piranha. The paint on his arms imparted a comic book glow to his prominent muscles. Ari sized him up and decided (even after factoring in the hand-to-hand combat training Sid must have received in the 101st) that he would present a moderate challenge if it came to a fight. But when Sid saw Ari and Karen sitting in the Datsun and glanced down at an olive green metal can sitting just outside the door, Ari's threat assessment was instantly elevated.

  "Hello, Veg-Head," he said to Ben, removing the mask.

  "Hey, Sid," said Ben.

  Ari leaned back so he could experience the comforting nudge of his Walther.

  "May I ask you a personal question, Deputy Karen?" he said to Karen.

  "OK, Fred told me he spoke to you. I killed him, but thanks for not...you know."

  "I'm very pleased that you are pleased. However, that is not what I wished to discuss."

  "No?"

  "Is your safety off?"

  There was some rustling behind him. "It is, now."

  Ben stood. The dogs were not finished with him, jamming him between them and whining over their long-missing friend. He did not move. He seemed to be waiting for Sid to come out into the clearing and offer a proper welcoming handshake. Sid stayed where he was, in the garage door...near the metal can. Ari scouted out the area. There did not seem to be anyone else around.

  "You going to stay frozen like a statue?" Ben asked with a small laugh that was not nervous, but sadly tentative.

  "Who's in the truck?" said Sid. Ben's analogy was appropriate. Sid did not move a muscle.

  "Some people from my church."

  "Church!" From Sid, the word was like a curse.

  At that moment, Ari decided the man was not totally bad.

  "They have some questions regarding my friend and his wife. You remember Mustafa and Akila Zewail? They were my friends, I won't deny it. Did you hear that they had been murdered?"

  "Get lost."

  Karen pushed Ari in the back. "Get out. I'm stuck here until you move. Why’d you stick me back here, anyway?"

  "Because Ben was driving and I couldn’t fit." He opened the passenger door and stepped out. Then he turned and lowered the seat so Karen could join him.

  The dogs were on them as soon as Ari turned to face the clearing. Snorting, sniffing, they took particular interest in their waists.

  "Retired K9’s," Sid informed them. "Still got plenty of bite in them." He dismissed Karen with a glance. Into Ari he poured ocular lava.

  "Hold on, Sid. This is Mr. Ciminon. He’s from Italy. He was a friend of Mustafa’s and just wanted to ask a few questions."

  "And the tiny bitch?"

  "Just settle down, Sid."

  "Well?"

  "I thought you might not take to Mr. Ciminon, so I brought along a U.S. Deputy Marshal. She’s from my church, too."

  "Federal?" Sid was incredulous. "I get too much Yankee meat on my p
roperty, already."

  "Now, Sid—"

  But Sid was flicking his fingers at Karen. "Come on over here, show me the tin shit."

  "I’d be glad to, Mr. Overstreet, as soon as you get your dogs out of my crotch." Mutt (or Jeff) was vigorously muzzling her midriff. Jeff (or Mutt) had stopped two feet short of Ari’s crotch and was eyeing him warily, as though weighing the risks of a sniff.

  "Can’t you call off your hounds?" Karen complained when one of the dogs pushed her against the Datsun.

  "Are they bothering you that much, Miss? Looks like love to me."

  She shoved off the fender in Sid’s direction. "They’re sweet as can be, but I don’t believe in love at first sight."

  "Cm’on, Miss, I don’t have all day. I have cars to repair, a business to run. Not everyone can afford to take off Sundays."

  Ben also began walking towards the garage, using his familiarity with the dogs to lure them away from Ari and Karen. His face was befuddled by the great American ‘why?’. In Iraq, you trusted, you mistrusted, you were betrayed and you betrayed in turn, you played your advantages, you counted your losses. ‘Why’? No one thought to ask. But here, there was an obsession with cause and effect. Did your father scorn you? Were you picked on in school? Were you properly breast fed? Ari paid little attention to the currents underlying the base and the good. They might be real, they might be fictions. And if you pressed for an explanation of something that was not real, were you wasting your time? Or were you indulging in a fragile yet dangerous charm? Americans were not Unbelievers so much in the Muslim sense, but because of their persistent ‘why’s?’ It was their greatness in science and their madness in everything else. You didn’t ask God ‘why’? It was impertinent. And if He ever bothered to answer, it would be with a galactic, ‘Because.’

  Sid was not asking ‘why?’ He wore the old, practical expression of, ‘What now? And what am I going to do about it?’ And from the way he stood near the olive-colored can, his preferred option seemed clear.

  Ari glanced from side to side, unsure if Sid was alone in his forest hideaway. Fresh tracks in the snow told him at least two vehicles had been here since the early morning snowfall. Footprints led from the driveway to the trailer, to the garage, to the edge of the clearing and back to the garage, as if someone had been looking for Sid. Friend, enemy, lover, fellow conspirator? Dog tracks were everywhere, too. Mutt and Jeff had been sniffing a lot of crotches. It must have been an amusing scene. But had any of these visitors stayed behind?