by Thomas Hopp
“A medical man?” the Sheik asked McKean, as Rafiq bared Mike’s arm. “You have some knowledge of the healing arts, do you?”
“He is a scientific researcher,” said Taleed.
Abdul-Ghazi grinned. “You have done your last research,” he said. “Instead, you will be the experimental animal.”
Mike grimaced but kept silent as Taleed inscribed a serpentine gash along his forearm.
“Dr. McKean,” Taleed said when he finished with Mike. “See how easily we pass the virus from one infidel to the next? Soon - ” he eyed McKean cruelly as he drew another inoculum from the girl, ” - you will produce legions of new viruses for us. In you will grow the smallpox we will use in a second wave of our attack.”
McKean bore the slash of the blade stoically.
Taleed cleaned the knife, and as he put it back on the table, another man entered the room. Approaching the Sheik, he placed his hands together in front of him and bowed deeply. “Holy one,” he said softly. “Your jihadis are ready.”
“Excellent timing,” the Sheik exclaimed. “Mullah Shabab, my good friend, you have prepared well.”
The newcomer looked more African-American than Arab. His face was freckled, his skin a deep tan, his wavy black hair pomaded and combed back flat over his head. He had a blaze of white hair on one side. He wore a chestnut-brown double-breasted silk suit, and a black-and-silver striped necktie with matching handkerchief tucked in his breast pocket. The toes of shiny brown wingtips peeked from under the razor sharp creases of his suit pants. He seemed too suave, clean-shaven, and smiling for his austerely gowned company, and yet he was obviously an integral part of the conspiracy.
He and the Sheik embraced and kissed each other on both cheeks. Shabab was built like a basketball player, and stood somewhat taller than Abdul-Ghazi.
“The timing of your arrival is most excellent,” said the Sheik, holding Shabab by both shoulders. “Bring the soldiers of my first wave, immediately.”
Shabab exited by backward steps punctuated with small bows. He reappeared several minutes later, leading a group of young men, who followed him in single file. He shepherded the recruits’ movements like a soft-spoken drill sergeant, guiding them to stand in line near the redhead. The young men wore American style T-shirts with sport or fitness logos, or hoodie sweat shirts, or casual coats of leather or nylon, and most wore sport or fitness pants, shorts, and footwear. Some appeared to be of Middle Eastern origins, but others seemed more like Shabab - Americans of African ancestry. Still others were of European or Asiatic extraction. All, as McKean had anticipated on our drive to Winthrop, were quite young. The entire lot of them ranged in age from about eighteen to early twenties. All wore facial hair in one pattern or another, although some appeared to have been clean-shaven up until a week or two previously. Some even seemed hard-pressed to grow much more than peach fuzz on their chins.
Shabab spoke a few words, and the youths rolled up their left sleeves and prepared to file past the redhead. Taleed inoculated each one with the same dagger he had used on us, repeatedly daubing the dagger tip on the pocks of the unconscious redhead. Each youth offered his forearm and took the slash without complaint. Taleed’s assistant bandaged each boy’s arm with gauze, and then Shabab directed him back out the door.
The Sheik stood near the door, and the grim procession moved past him on the way out. He smiled beneficently and put a hand on the shoulder of each young man, whispering words of encouragement.
“You see, Dr. McKean,” the Sheik crowed between blessings, “how prepared these young martyrs are, for battle with your evil world? The virus will surely kill them all, but each one is quite prepared to die.” He paused to offer another soft-spoken benediction, and then resumed, “They shall see Paradise soon, and there, as martyred believers, they will live at the right hand of Allah, amid riches untold, and the attentions of so many women - “
McKean interrupted him, loudly calling, “Every teenage boy’s dream! Why not just give them the keys to your shiny new SUVs and a dating allowance?”
The Sheik stared hard at McKean as if he were not a man who tolerated interruption. He said, “My jihadis have their eyes focused beyond the temptations of this world. Driving fast cars and chasing fast women is the American way, not the way of jihad. These young warriors have been drawn away from your polluted cities and drug-infested streets by Shabab and his followers. They have turned their faces away from this profane land and they now look to heaven, not earth. But before they leave this mortal realm, they have pledged to send a great many of your fast-car drivers and loose-women chasers to Hell, where they will burn forever. Their faces dragged through hot coals - “
“You can spare the details,” McKean muttered.
The Sheik blessed several more boys, glaring at McKean. “These brave jihadis are but the first wave of our attack. A white truck and three white vans will carry them and the virus across this evil land, spreading it to every place your people congregate. Consider what will happen when they touch their sores to people, or door handles in hotels and stores, or faucets in lavatories, or escalators in shopping malls? Touching even the doors of schools where your children begin learning your evil ways?”
“A monstrously perfect plan,” McKean grumbled.
The Sheik laughed out loud. A diabolical glow lit his eyes. “Allah guides us in everything, Dr. McKean. The truck looks like a white moving van, but inside will be a cargo of jihadis who bring death to every major city in this land. And another truck will arrive soon, bringing more Americans recruited from among your country’s poor and dispossessed, and more of our own young men, whom we have smuggled into your ports in cargo containers from the far corners of the earth.”
“You’ve thought of everything, haven’t you?” said McKean in an oddly a smug tone, which made me think of Janet, two hundred miles away, carrying out procedures that would neutralize his threat.
“Allah,” said Abdul-Ghazi, “guides the righteous.”
Peyton shook his head slowly. “Regarding religious matters and jihad, I don’t believe either side can claim title to righteousness.”
Sheik jutted his goat-bearded jaw. “Allah will guide me in destroying America.”
“Do you really believe God will help you or anyone else murder millions of people? I don’t believe God is so cruel. What I believe is that he will oppose to you - and your jihad virus.”
“Brave words from a man who will die soon.”
After about fifty jihadis had been inoculated, the repeated daubing of the knife on the redheaded girl’s swollen arm drew her out of her torpor. Lifting her head, she went into spasms of coughing and gagging. Struggling uselessly against her restraints, she seemed to wilt as the last young man received his dose. She gasped one last time, and then slumped in the chair like a deflating balloon.
The Sheik saw this and blessed the last jihadi perfunctorily, sending him on his way. He came and leaned over the dead redhead and smiled cruelly. “You see, American harlot, what your whoring ways have brought you? Death, and soon, damnation. Allah be praised.” He nodded to the handsome Arab, Massoud, and the man began unbinding the body from its chair. I looked at him closely as he worked, recalling the young woman on TV describing a handsome Arabic face with neatly trimmed goatee and mustache.
“You’re the nightclub kidnapper,” I muttered.
His face lit with pride. “Yes, I am the one. My power over women is a blessing.”
He caressed the redhead’s matted hair the way the Sheik had done. “When I made love to you that night,” he said into her dead ear, “you cried out in pleasure. When we brought you here and cut your arm, you cried out in pain. Now you will join the other infidel slut in the hole in the ground behind this barn. There you will await the Day of Judgment. When it comes, Allah will cause you to cry out for eternity - in the burning fires of Hell!”
He lifted her limp body in his arms, and carried her out a rear door.
Abdul-Ghazi turned to us and said mo
ckingly, “I would ask for Allah’s mercy upon her, but she is surely damned for failing to follow the True Prophet. Allahu akbar.”
“What are you going to do with us?” I asked.
He smiled at me wickedly. “Your arrival here has been quite timely. Truly, you are another gift from Allah. Three gifts, indeed, for Allah is all-knowing, and has foreseen our need. In your arms, we will grow the virus for the second wave of jihadis. I had intended to hold back several of the first wave as carriers of virus for the second. But now it is you who will provide the virus for the next inoculation - out of your own dying flesh. Do you see how perfectly Allah guides my work?”
The sound of booted footsteps on the floorboards of the barn broke the fix of the Sheik’s malignant gaze on my eyes. He turned as the woman, Jameela, came to within a few paces of him. She glared at him fiercely. A red welt had risen on her cheek where Massoud had hit her, but contempt for them all was written in her haughty scowl.
“Jameela,” said the Sheik with a paternalistic smile. “My wayward little lotus flower.”
“What you do here is - is evil.”
“Ah,” he smiled. “Your eyes are as lovely as a lamb’s. They should not be permitted to see such things.”
“But I have seen - “
“And now,” the Sheik interrupted, “your childish mind cries for these people.”
“I’m no child.”
“But you are a woman, and Allah grants women no strength - “
“He granted me the strength to tell right from wrong.”
“No, my child. He did not. If he had, you would not go among men in such clothing.” With a gesture, he swept the curves of her blouse and pants. “So revealing. On such a desirable a body. Do you presume to explain Allah’s laws to me? You, who have not learned even to cover your head with a scarf and your body with a modest robe?” His gaze lingered on her breasts.
“I’ll cover my body with a thong bikini,” she hissed, “if I choose.”
His thick dark brows narrowed. She stared back at him haughtily, her chin jutting out and her lips pursed in repudiation. Their eyes locked.
“The Prophet!” the Sheik roared, “dictated in a sura that women should avert their eyes from men’s! Can you not obey even that small teaching?”
“Mohammad said no such thing,” she replied coolly, despite the way he puffed with rage. “Such behavior is called for only in women who live among righteous men, which I see you are not.” The glare in her Cleopatran eyes could easily have faced down a hungry lion.
“You insolent - !” The Sheik choked.
Trembling in rage, he hurried to a whitewashed wooden post and took down a strap from a peg. It was a wooden-handled leather flail, about two feet long. He approached Jameela, gripping the handle in his right hand and letting the strap dangle at his side as if he were accustomed to wielding it. He locked eyes with her but she held her ground. He stopped several paces from her and slapped the flail against his left palm. “We have used this strap to silence our captive, when her tongue became seditious. Perhaps you need a taste of it too.”
Jameela drew a braided black-leather riding crop from her belt and stood tall. “If you strike me,” she said, “I will defend myself. - And you too!” She wheeled and slashed the crop at Massoud, who had come back and approached her from the side. It caught him on the cheek with a sharp snap! He staggered back and put his fingers to his cheek. Then he doubled his fists, and looked about to charge her.
“No, Massoud!” the Sheik ordered, holding up a hand. “This is no time for such matters.”
Massoud unclenched his fists, and Jameela lowered her crop.
The Sheik tossed the flail back against post, where it dropped to the floor. “We are not here to debate the misbehavior of one women, or to punish it.”
“In my country,” he said to McKean. “A woman was recently stoned to death for the wearing a thong bathing suit at a public beach.”
He looked at Jameela and chuckled. “But you, my little lotus flower. You are high-spirited, just like my horses. When the time comes, insha’allah, you will bear me fine sons.”
“I will never bear you a child,” she growled.
“We shall see, my fiery one. Need I remind you that your father and mother are under my father’s protection in Kharifa?”
“In his custody.”
“As Allah wills. They are well cared for.”
“Allah wills this! Allah wills that!” she seethed. “Your sanctimonious words mean nothing to me. What do you care for the words of the Prophet? This - ” she indicated us with a wave of her hand, ” - is your plan, not Allah’s!”
The Sheik’s expression went from forbearance to anger. “Do not flout me with such insolence!” he bellowed. “I follow the laws of the Sharia, handed down from the companions of the Prophet - “
“The Sharia,” she shouted back at him, “was written long after the death of the Prophet, by men like you.”
“It is a holy scripture,” the Sheik muttered, “written by holy men inspired by Allah.”
“Some of them were cruel men,” she shot back at him. “Men who misinterpreted the words of Mohammed - who delighted in war - who oppressed their women.”
“Oppressed?” He cocked his turbaned head. “Oppressed?” He held out his jeweled hands in a gesture of conciliation. “Search your heart, Jameela.” He approached her closely, looking down into her face. “Are you not well taken care of? Allah gave men dominion over women, just as he gave them dominion over beasts.”
“Beasts!” she cried. “I am no beast! You will never have dominion over me!”
A hint of smile tightened his flaccid mouth. “We shall see.”
“You’ll never shut me inside your house, like a hen in a coop, the way you keep your wife.”
“My first wife,” he corrected, then bent toward her slightly as if to kiss her on the lips.
She turned her head aside but held her ground. He kissed her on the cheek, straightening to look down his hooked nose at her. “I know,” he soothed, “that you will never submit to me the way Khadija has done. You are like a wild horse, a mare that I shall - ” he leaned close to her face again, ” - take great delight - ” he leaned closer, ” - in riding, one day.”
Jameela uttered a half-choked cry of exasperation, and then turned and stalked out of the room. As her boot steps faded in the dark toward the front of the barn, he let his laughter follow her - cool, calculated and augmented by the chuckling of his men.
“She is a whirlwind of impiety,” he said to Massoud. “But Allah is oft forgiving, most merciful.” He suddenly glanced around as if his exchange with the woman had made him forget the business at hand.
The last jihadis and Mullah Shabab had disappeared while he sparred with Jameela. Now he noticed Sheriff Barker leaning over Mike again, muttering in his ear. “Hey, Mikey,” Barker hissed. “Too bad about your dog.”
“You!” the Sheik called gruffly to the Sheriff. “You take too much pleasure in doing the work of Allah. I do not wish to see you gloat so. Therefore, take this man,” he pointed at Mike but spoke to Barker and Rafiq. “Bind him, and put him aboard the truck. He will carry the virus to New York City. By the time he is delirious and is cast out on the streets there, our other jihadis will have dispersed to other targets.” Rafiq took up a bottle of clear liquid from the table and poured some on a white cloth. Then he moved quickly to Mike and put the cloth over his nose and mouth. Mike struggled, but in a moment he was unconscious. Unstrapping him from his chair, Rafiq and Barker laid him on the floor and bound him hand-and-foot with ropes.
“Take him to the truck,” said Abdul-Ghazi. “And, Sheriff, swallow your false pride at his death. You will not witness it, for he will be three thousand miles away.”
The Sheriff looked disappointed, but lacked the backbone to complain. He and Rafiq lifted Mike by the armpits and dragged him out with his cowboy-booted feet trailing on the floor. The Sheik turned to go, but paused at the door. He contempl
ated Peyton McKean once more.
“American Doctor,” he said. “How does it feel to be the agent of your own people’s destruction?”
McKean locked eyes with the Sheik. “Don’t be so sure of it,” he muttered. “This isn’t over yet.”
The Sheik burst into a yellow-toothed smile. “Sadly, for you,” he said, “I think it is over. Allahu akhbar.”
He left with a swish of his black robe.
That left only Dr. Taleed. He wiped the knife blade with an alcohol swab, put it back in its scabbard, and placed it on the tray table.
“Taleed,” said McKean.
“Yes?”
“I have been trying to recall your work. You studied the Dengue virus, didn’t you?”
“Indeed I did, at the Rockefeller Institute, New York City, long before the twin towers fell.”
“You determined the Dengue virus’s killing mechanism and how to neutralize it. You were a fine medical researcher, before you went bad.”
“Before I found Allah,” said the doctor, “and Sheik Abdul-Ghazi. His father’s money has built me a fine research institute in Kharifa.”
“I see,” said McKean.
“The Regime,” said Taleed, “has made me a prominent research director, as I have always wished.”
“Jihad has twisted your soul,” said McKean. “This new smallpox virus - why would you create such a thing? You could do so much good with your scientific knowledge.”
“The Qur’an,” said the doctor, “tells of a Day of Judgment when Allah will sweep away all the ills afflicting the righteous. We will have no need of doctors, no diseases to treat. Until that day, disease is a weapon of jihad. The young men you saw will die soon, but they are prepared for this. They will go to safe houses across this evil land, transported in the truck, the vans, and in the cars of sympathizers who will meet it on the highway. The jihadis will secretly disperse in the last days before the fever strikes them down.”
“And then?” asked McKean.
“After spreading the virus as the Sheik told you, they will go to public places and cry out the truth of Allah’s message, and show their wounded arms, thus striking terror into every American heart. Each has been taught the role he must play at the end of his life on earth.”
