“Amazing,” Hunter said. He couldn’t bring himself to choke out a few more words to praise their god, even though he knew he should have added them.
Several small rugs were rolled up in a pile along the wall. One of the twins passed them out.
“Give our guest Amir’s prayer rug. He no longer needs it. May Allah bless his soul,” Fazul said, his countenance suddenly dropping.
Each tango carried his AK along with his prayer rug to the barren courtyard behind the house and Hunter followed them. A goat gnawed at the sparse scrub and heat rose from the sun-scorched sand. He squinted, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the blinding light. As he had feared, they were in the middle of the desert with no other structures in sight. He could forget about slipping away quietly in the night.
Hunter walked over to a well and picked up the bucket to fetch water for the pre-prayer purification ritual. Fazul grabbed his arm. “No, my friend. It’s nearly dry. We have little water. We must use sand.”
To confirm his suspicions that they were Sunni like most of al Qaeda, Hunter paused for a second to see if they washed their hands rather than their faces first in the cleansing. He did the same, first rubbing his hands with sand, then his face, ears, arms and feet. During the first Gulf War when he was in the desert for days with Task Force Ripper, he had used the coarser Saudi sand for a dirt bath, but the powdery Iraqi sand left a dusty coating where the Saudi sand had come away clean. Next he only pretended to rub it on his teeth.
The four mujahedin turned toward Mecca, put their arms in the air and declared Allah’s greatness. Hunter listened for other insurgents as he said the prayers along with them, but he heard no other voices. The four to one ratio wasn’t great, but he could work with it. All he needed was one opportunity.
His teammates at Force Zulu had thought he was insane, practicing the Muslim prayers over and over until they became second nature. Those drills in both Sunni and Shi’a prayer customs were all that was preventing him from looking like the new guy at a dance class, struggling to mimic the others while tripping over his own feet. He folded his hands over his chest and recited the first verse of the Koran in Arabic.
He bowed.
He stood.
He prostrated himself.
He recited the prayers all the while watching for any opening to take them out. Fazul’s rifle was within reach, but the others were slightly off in their timing so that at every moment during the ritual one of them was on a prayer mat within reach of his AK. He could probably take out one or two, but not all of them and not before they got him. He stood, turned to the twin on his right, then Fazul on his left and exchanged the last prayer with each of them. “Peace be unto you and Allah’s blessings.”
Yeah, right.
Chapter Fourteen
“But DIA [the Defense Intelligence Agency] is now engaged in doing far grander things with regard to trying to penetrate foreign organizations,” said [Col. W. Patrick] Lang, the former DIA official. “They’re trying to penetrate jihadi organizations…. It’s happening all over the Islamic world.”
—The Los Angeles Times, March 24, 2005, as reported by Mark Mazzetti and Greg Miller
Anbar Province
Fazul ordered the teenage boy to fetch food and drink for Hunter. He returned after a few minutes carrying a plate mounded over with white cheese, olives and flatbread. He handed it to Hunter who stood near the table, eyeing the AK underneath near Fazul’s feet. Fazul was becoming more and more focused upon the bomb he was cobbling together.
“Rubbish.” Fazul studied the markings on a blasting cap, then tossed it onto the floor. “This is useless rubbish. Amir, my bomb-maker, killed himself in an accident a few days ago. We’re supposed to be ready for a wedding this afternoon, insh’allah—Allah willing.”
“Thoughtful wedding present.” Hunter balanced the plate with his left hand and ate. The cheese was mild and very salty. So were the olives.
“Here. Sit with us.” Fazul pushed aside some tools, clearing a space for Hunter’s plate. He picked up the sidearm from the table and set it on his lap.
Hunter sat at the head of the table where Fazul had indicated. He would’ve preferred a spot beside the ringleader since it would’ve made an assault easier. “Why strike a wedding and not the American infidels?”
“The families are prominent and they both came out in support of Abdullah. You know the teachings of al-Zahrani, may the Prophet bless him. We first have to clean our own house. Those who follow Abdullah are a pox on us all. Tell me, Sergei, do you know anything about bombs?”
“Enough not to wear one.” He chewed on an olive, taking care not to chomp down on the pit and hurt another tooth.
One of the cell phones was in pieces and Fazul attached blasting cap wires to a circuit board. Then he crimped a wire to the end of a cap and taped the wire to a small battery. Fazul looked up at Hunter. “Where were you trained?”
“I was in camps in Afghanistan.” Where I killed fuckers like you.
“Those days must have been glorious. Had I only been born earlier, insh’allah.”
“Where did you train?” Hunter said.
“Uzbekistan.”
Hunter had never heard of al Qaeda bases in the former Soviet Republic. During the early Afghan campaign, the Uzbeks allowed the US to take over former Soviet bases, but the arrangement dissolved after their government massacred a few hundred protesters and the US objected. Radical Islam scared the crap out the Uzbek leaders, but it wouldn’t be the first time a dictatorship played both sides. Pakistan had it down to a fine art.
“Uzbekistan? The Uzbek government sleeps with the Americans and prohibits teaching of true Islam,” Hunter said.
“Not anymore. Al-Zahrani has an arrangement. As long as we keep to ourselves, we are most welcome—for a price, I’m sure.”
“Keep your friends close and your enemies closer,” Hunter said and grinned. “Where is the Uzbek camp?”
Fazul laughed. “If you showed me a map, I could not find Uzbekistan. The camp was a hole in the desert. I saw nothing but sand and voles.” Fazul took the slab of plastic explosive and sunk the cap into the Semtex.
Hunter hoped Fazul really did know what he was doing, but his trembling hands hinted otherwise. He set the bomb down and looked into Hunter’s eyes. “You ask many questions, my friend.”
Hunter felt his body tense up and forced a deep breath to relax himself. “I was in Uzbekistan as a child, when it was part of the Soviet Union. I remember standing with my Young Pioneer group in Samarqand. The turquoise domes of the mosques, they were like nothing I had ever seen. At that moment, I realized that Islam had a glorious past and the communists were lying to us. I wanted to go in and pray, but I was told it was forbidden. The mosques were museums.”
“Patience. The Russians will pay one day, along with the Americans.” Fazul looked intensely at Hunter for a little too long.
A few minutes later the boy returned with a tray carrying glasses of tea and a bowl of sugar. The sugar had ants crawling in it, but the muj didn’t seem to mind. Fazul stopped playing with the explosives to scoop up a teaspoon of sugar and drop it into Hunter’s tea glass.
Hunter could never figure out why Iraqis didn’t use cups with handles for hot beverages. The tea glass burned his fingers, but he knew better than to show weakness and set it down—or to fish out the ants now swimming in the brew. The first sip was hot enough to scorch the hide off a camel and it singed his taste buds. He smiled and complimented them on the excellent tea.
The twins picked up their weapons and stepped into the room with the American hostage, leaving Hunter alone with Fazul and the teenager, who still carried an AK slung over his shoulder.
“No! Stop! No!” The American woman screeched. “No!”
Without thinking, Hunter grit his teeth and pain from the tooth immediately electrified his mouth. He searched for options, fighting to conceal his emotions while white-hot anger seared his gut. At Fort Bragg, Hunter had spent long hours
with his team day after day running through live-fire hostage rescue exercises in the Force Zulu shooting house. Suddenly their worst-case scenarios seemed so naïve.
The boy looked toward the door and laughed. Then he turned to Fazul. “May I go, too? I never get my turn.”
Ignoring the boy’s whines, Fazul fiddled with the wires of a blasting cap fastened to a AAA battery. He sat in the line of fire between Hunter and the boy’s AK. Hunter eyed a screwdriver laying on the table and he inched his hand toward it while he watched Fazul sink the blasting cap into the Semtex. Hunter would need the full force of his right arm to shove the screwdriver into Fazul’s temple, so he would have to use his left one to grab the gun from the terrorist’s lap to take out the boy before he could fire the AK. He figured that the twin waiting his turn at the woman would come running out of the bedroom with his AK before Hunter would have time to switch hands. He was glad that he had trained so hard shooting lefty.
The woman’s screeches grew fainter, more haunting.
Hunter snatched up a screwdriver and lunged across the table. His chair fell to the floor. At the last moment, he saw Fazul with a wire in each hand, moving them toward one another, about to close the circuit and accidentally detonate the bomb.
Hunter let the screwdriver fall to the floor as he seized Fazul’s hairy wrists and held them apart.
“Allahu akbar. Praise be to Allah. You almost detonated it,” Hunter said before the boy could react. He then pulled the yellow wire from Fazul’s hand, gave it a tug and the cap pulled out of the Semtex. He reached over to the battery and ripped the tape off, separating the wires from it.
Alerted by the commotion, one of the twins ran out of the bedroom and pointed his assault rifle at Hunter.
Hunter and Fazul stared one another in the eyes without moving. Then Fazul glanced down at the screwdriver and Hunter recognized the flash of doubt.
“I kept you from blowing yourself up,” Hunter said.
Fazul was shaking. “You saved my life. Thanks be to Allah, the merciful and compassionate.”
Grunts and screams came from the bedroom. The one twin was still going at her. Hunter hated himself as he tried to block out her screams and said, “Yes, thanks be to Allah, the merciful and compassionate.”
“Come.” Hunter followed, aware that the teenager was behind him, carrying his weapon. Fazul walked over to the doorway to the room where the woman was being held. Her blouse was ripped and she was naked from the waist down. Her legs and arms were covered with fresh red bruises and older ones that had turned shades of yellow and brown. “Now I reward you.”
“But I’m supposed to be after Gamal! Not him!” The boy said.
“Gamal! Off her! Now!” Fazul pounded Gamal on his back as if he were beating a stubborn donkey. “Off! I said off her!”
Gamal ignored him and continued to hump her. Fazul picked up his AK and whacked him with it in the kidneys. Gamal rolled off her, reaching for his back.
“Why did you do that?”
“Obey me.” Fazul kicked him.
The woman’s shoulder-length brown hair was matted from dirt and tears. Her lips were parched and cracked and her eyes sunken. The woman needed fluids badly. She turned on her side with her back to them and moaned. If she had been an animal, Hunter would’ve shot her to put her out of her misery.
“My friend, here is your reward. You may have her.” Fazul stretched his arm toward the woman as if presenting a gift.
“No. It is haram, forbidden to know a woman who is not your wife.”
“The Prophet, peace be upon him, blessed temporary marriages, particularly for those away from their wives when on jihad. It is halal. Declare your mut’a and take her. Then it is pure.” Fazul looked into Hunter’s eyes and grimaced. “My friend, you are not thinking of dishonoring me and refusing my gift?”
The room where they were holding the American woman had to be well over a hundred degrees and it reeked of stale urine and feces. Sweat dripped down Hunter’s face and he wiped it away with the sleeve of his dishdashah.
The twins and the teenage muj blocked the doorway. They carried their weapons and so did Fazul. Hunter was helpless to try and help the woman without getting both of them killed. Insulting Fazul by refusing to rape her could have the same effect. He understood the scenario well. When his unit had been crosstrained at the Farm, his CIA instructors had spent the better part of an afternoon making them role play the dilemma. He had gone along with the playacting, but he had always believed that if this happened to him, he would be clever enough to figure out an innovative solution.
Now it was for real and Hunter Stone saw no way out.
Chapter Fifteen
Anbar Province
“My gift awaits.” Fazul swept his arm toward the American woman lying on a ripped mattress in a fetal position, sobbing.
Hunter despised the muj, but at that moment he hated himself more as he pulled up his dishdashah and climbed on top of the woman, upon Jackie Nelson. She let out a low groan, a sound that penetrated Hunter’s bones.
Forgive me.
Chapter Sixteen
The days when journalists could move around Iraq just by keeping a low profile—traveling in beat-up old cars, growing an Iraqi-style mustache, and dyeing their hair black, or when women reporters could safely shroud themselves in a black abbaya and veil—are gone. When Jill Carroll of The Christian Science Monitor tried such tactics this January, she was kidnapped while trying to get to an interview with a Sunni politician…
—The New York Review of Books, April 6, 2006, as reported by Orville Schell
Ramadi, Anbar Province
Camille took off her Oakley sunglasses and rubbed her eyes. The bustling market was a security nightmare. Everyone and everything seemed to be in constant motion and the honking of car horns was deafening. Worst of all, they all were armed. She had long ago given up on trying to keep track of the flow of people for someone who might be watching them. Some of her best operators were close by dressed as locals, in case someone decided she was a target of opportunity and tried to snatch her like they had the American geologist a few weeks ago. Whatever the muj were doing to that poor woman, they were not going to have the chance with Camille Black—even if that meant premature death.
A hawker jumped in front of her with a display case of Iraqi bracelets and necklaces. She brushed him aside, remembering how she and Hunter were once enjoying a night market in Istanbul when two men had tried to rob them at gunpoint. They neutralized the threat and, rather than deal with the hassle of the police, Camille had wanted to flee the country. Hunter had surprised her with a better idea: kick up their vacation a notch and tour ancient ruins, staying one step ahead of the Turkish police, putting their skills to the test. Hunter knew how to treat a woman to a good time. She’d give anything to live like that again, she thought, as she and her Lebanese interpreter walked into yet another store selling satellite dishes and cell phones, Iraq’s two postwar obsessions. It was the fourth Omar’s Electronics they had visited in the past two hours. Since nowhere in the town seemed to have electricity unless it was from a generator, she couldn’t imagine that business was exactly booming.
“Marhaba,” Camille and her interpreter said.
A voice returned the greeting from the back room. Camille nosed around. The shop was hardly bigger than a dog kennel and it was crammed with every imaginable cell phone accessory and pizza-box-sized satellite dishes were mounted along the top of the walls all the way around the room. Camille stretched and peeked behind the counter. A prayer rug and a sleeping mat were rolled up and stuck in a corner. A picture of a man with the cuddly look of an Islamic extremist was tacked to the shelf. She pointed to it and whispered to her interpreter. “Any idea which one that is? I’ve seen his picture all over today and I can never remember which is which. Long mangy beards, serenely rabid eyes—they both look alike to me.”
“It’s al-Zahrani. He claims he is bin Laden’s chosen one. He says al Qaeda has become w
eak because of heresy from within. He says its membership must be purged of all of Abdullah’s heretics.”
“I know, Abdullah, the other Crown Prince of Evil. Succession problems will get you every time.” Camille picked up a Hello Kitty cell phone skin. “Isn’t that how the whole Sunni/Shi’a thing started? Not that I’m comparing Mohammad’s ascent to heaven with Bin Laden’s descent to hell.”
The shopkeeper ducked down as he squeezed through the low doorway. He spoke in Arabic, revealing a mouth full of gold fillings. Camille assumed that he was apologizing for the delay.
“I’m Sally Winston, a correspondent for Newsweek. I’m doing a story on yesterday’s skirmish here in the souk.” She paused for the interpreter, hoping Omar hadn’t caught on that American journalists hadn’t dared to venture out on their own in Iraq in years, but rather relied on their Iraqi staff to do the real reporting.
The man pursed his lips, shook his head and waved his hand. She didn’t need a translation. She had received this same message all day.
“Look, all I want to know is how this guy got away from the soldiers. Was anyone helping him?” Camille showed the man an old picture of Hunter. He was clean shaven and his hair was shaved in a Marine flattop, a look she much preferred to his current beard, civilian-length hair and moustache. She pulled out a hundred dollar bill and waved it in front of him. “I’m really getting sick of everyone playing dumb.” Camille turned to the interpreter and said, “Don’t translate that last part.”
Omar spoke, then the interpreter said, “Perhaps I know someone who saw him leave the souk. Perhaps he had friends.”
The shopkeeper snatched the banknote between two fingers. Camille held on.
“I need more, Omar,” she said.
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