The Occurrence

  Nazir entered the kitchen. He was surprised to see Vincente and Jhana-Merise up so early.

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

  “It’s all right,” Vincente said.

  Jhana-Merise took Nazir’s hand and led him to a corner of the room.

  “You’re going to have to go back to Iraq,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “To lay groundwork there. In the land of our ancestors.”

  Jhana-Merise told him about the land of Sumer in the southern region of Mesopotamia, which is modern-day Iraq and Kuwait. It was the cradle of civilization.

  “The first settlers were not Sumerians, but a people of unknown origin, from a prehistoric period in this region archaeologists have termed the Ubaid, which is said to mean, ‘servant of Allah’. We were those people. We are those people. And we must return to that land.”

  She looked at him like a mother whose heart held all the love in the world. “But first, there is work to be done here.”

  Vincente looked at the two of them and knew she was no longer his daughter. She belonged to the world. He’d always suspected that, and in his way lived to protect her so that she might do this work.

  “Don’t be sad, Father. We are all part of each other. Always have and always will be.”

  The energy in the kitchen changed as the scent of roses drifted in.

  Ancient drawings appeared on the walls of the room. Cave paintings from long ago.

  They stared at the story that unfolded.

  A series of primitive figures rising from sleep—floating in a smokeless fire.

  “We’ve been asleep a long time,” Jhana-Merise said. “We’re awakening now.”

  PART EIGHT

  Guardians

  84

  Friday, October 16

  Nazir entered the Islamic Mosque and Cultural Center in D.C. as the evening call to prayer sounded. Dominique had told him of the meeting she had with Hashim, and for there to be any chance of Hashim finding his way back into their world, Nazir would be the one to test the waters. It would be a risk. A risk because it would be based on a scenario created by the FBI and CIA to perpetrate the lie that Hashim had never surrendered but was captured and had escaped. That’s why he was in hiding. And that’s why he needed to get word out that he wasn’t a traitor.

  That the leaders of the mujahideen would believe this was a long shot, but the endless war on terror needed long shots, and Dominique believed it could be done. She had convinced Bruton and the president, each who’d realized, that since what had happened in the warehouse, there were forces at work to help them accomplish an unprecedented act.

  Nazir’s body thrummed with the rush of possibility and the chanting that reverberated in the large room that rivaled cathedrals. He was pulled to pray with the men gathered on intricately woven rugs in vibrant colors, for they reminded him of home. But he didn’t pray.

  He moved respectfully through the halls down the main stairs to a corridor and series of classrooms.

  At the end of one corridor a door had been left opened, and coming from inside—a familiar voice. He edged his way close to the opened door, and for a while, listened as Mariam Sarif spoke in Arabic teaching the Qur’an to a group of young children.

  One of the boys in the back row turned and saw Nazir, who motioned for him to turn his attention back to the teacher. But the boy smiled and didn’t shift his focus from the stranger in the doorway.

  A few of the other students caught wind of the boy’s distraction and they, too, turned their attention to Nazir, who then saw their attention whip back to the front of the room, and watched as their eyes followed Mariam to the back door.

  She wore a hijab, and gasped when she saw Nazir had distracted the students.

  The students at recess, Mariam and Nazir stood in the back of the empty classroom.

  “Where have you been?” she asked.

  “Hiding.”

  “Did you hear about the raid on the dry cleaners?”

  “Yes. And your father’s death. I’m sorry.”

  He touched her cheek.

  She blushed in the unexpected intimacy and stepped back.

  “How did they find him?”

  “I don’t know.” But it was a lie. He knew Hashim told the FBI about the farmhouse in Pennsylvania.

  She looked out the window at her students playing in the courtyard. He stood beside her, and could see in her tears that now she felt more alone than ever.

  She had told him the night they’d met that her mother had been collateral damage from a U.S. Forces air raid when Mariam was young. And he knew her father, Sayyid, was her one connection to family and tradition. He also knew she’d had a sheltered youth, and he’d come closest to her feeling of belonging. He knew his presence brought that longing back.

  He wanted to tell her the truth of why he was here. He wanted to tell her about the experience in the desert, about what had happened to him and Hashim since, but needed her to believe he was still who he had been. So he stayed silent. Maybe, at some point, he could speak the truth. But not now.

  He looked at her with love and sadness. Love for the life they might have had, sadness for the lies he still had to tell.

  “Can you get me a meeting with Pashtar?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she answered. “But why?”

  “It’s best you don’t know that right now.”

  He took her hand. It was damp and trembling. He knew his coming back would break her heart.

  85

  The club was packed and loud when Nazir met with Pashtar Abbas. Pashtar was in his forties, and in spite of—or maybe because of—his large, brooding frame, he was attractive to both the men and women who clustered around his corner table in the club. More likely, it was because he was rich and powerful. These were things he would never be under the Islamic State. But here, Pashtar had made himself a conduit into an underground world, and access to terrorist cells.

  In the room full of partiers, Nazir caught Pashtar’s attention.

  He also saw a young man being quietly escorted out of the club in a chokehold.

  The back room of the club was quiet. Soundproofing provided isolation from the noise on the other side of the walls. Nazir also sensed the isolation kept what noise happened in here from reaching other ears.

  “As-salamu alaykum,” Pashtar said as he eyed Nazir. His words were clipped, like shots.

  “Wa-Alaikum-Salaam,” Nazir responded.

  Pashtar embraced him.

  “Welcome,” he said and motioned for Nazir to sit in one of the expensive leather chairs.

  “Something to drink, Nazir?”

  Nazir shook his head.

  “You don’t mind if I do?”

  Nazir shook his head again.

  Pashtar plopped ice into a tumbler and poured himself a healthy shot of vodka.

  “This doesn’t offend you, does it?”

  Nazir just looked at him.

  “Good,” Pashtar said as he plopped into one of the chairs.

  There was puffiness about Pashtar’s face, and also stone-cold hardness. His eyes were dark orbs—not what eyes should be—mirrors that reflected light out from the soul. There was no light reflected here. It reminded Nazir of his teachers before Hashim. Their dark, impenetrable gaze compelled attention and instilled fear. That training Nazir knew would hold him in good stead as he maneuvered through these treacherous waters.

  “Mariam tells me you want to talk with the imam,” Pashtar said, staring at him.

  “Yes.”

  “You may be able to persuade a young, vulnerable woman with your youth and charm,” Pashtar’s words were ominous “but with Hashim’s surrender and your connection to him, why should I trust you at all?”

  “Because there was no surrender.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It was a ploy by the FBI.”

  “And how do you know this?”

  “I know where Hashim is hiding.”

  “
Hiding?”

  “Yes. He knows you all believe he was a traitor. That’s what they want you to believe.”

  “Why?”

  “There’s already a fatwa on him. His own people will do what the CIA and FBI never could. That’s their plan.”

  Nazir waited, calm in the deadly consequence of this falling on deaf ears.

  Pashtar slammed his drink on the table next to him and pushed his large body out of the chair.

  “Who else knows of this?”

  “You’re the first.”

  “And to what do I owe the honor?”

  “I need your help. I’m placing my life in your hands. It’s your trust I need before I can let anyone else know.”

  Pashtar’s need for acknowledgment and inclusion was common knowledge among the cells. It was the one thing that gave Nazir hope. He also knew that if he could get past this test there would be a chance he could succeed with the imam.

  “So, his surrender was a lie?”

  “Yes. He was captured. And escaped. The rest is the lie.”

  Nazir’s heart pumped in the absence of a response.

  Pashtar’s laughter filled the room.

  The silence that followed was deadly.

  “How do I know I can trust you, and this story?”

  “Test me.”

  Pashtar smiled. Arms at his side. He had the attitude of a gunslinger about to duel. His eyes fixed on Nazir, who knew Pashtar could kill him in an instant.

  Pashtar took out a mobile from his pants pocket and made a call that was answered on the first ring.

  “Bring him around back,” Pashtar said, and ended the call.

  He opened a drawer in the table next to him, and pulled out a switchblade.

  Nazir stiffened.

  Pashtar put a hand on Nazir’s shoulder. His dark eyes, piercing.

  “Follow me.”

  Pashtar and Nazir waited in the narrow back alley of the club.

  A black sedan pulled into the alley.

  A Caucasian man in a sharp, dark suit got out of the sedan.

  Banging came from the trunk of the car.

  Nazir was on high alert.

  Pashtar popped open the trunk.

  Inside, the young man who’d been dragged from the club was tied and gagged.

  Nazir looked at Pashtar.

  “You asked for a test. Allah gives to those who ask, and are ready.”

  He handed Nazi the switchblade, and pointed to the young man in the trunk.

  “Who is he?” Nazir asked.

  “Someone who lied.”

  The young man’s eyes opened wide. He kicked his feet against the inside of the trunk.

  His gagged pleas were cut short when Pashtar grabbed the young man’s throat, and cold-cocked him with his other hand.

  “Now, kill him,” Pashtar said.

  Hesitation meant death.

  Nazir steeled himself, flicked open the switchblade, and slit the young man’s throat.

  The three men watched him die.

  The man in the suit slammed the lid of the trunk shut, got back into the car, and took off down the alley.

  Nazir stood there, bloodied knife in his hand. His heart raced.

  Pashtar took the knife.

  “You’ll be contacted,” he said and went back into the club.

  Pounding bass from the club’s music bled into Nazir’s ears.

  After he’d killed Taliq, the FBI undercover agent, Nazir thought he’d shook off the compulsion to kill, but now he realized how deep the bloodlust from his jihadist life had burrowed into him. He’d fooled himself into believing he’d changed.

  The stranger he killed may have been an innocent man. But innocent or guilty it placed Nazir back into the world he’d left behind. This test reminded him of what he was still capable. It was a proficiency he knew would keep him alive. A double-edged sword he had to embrace.

  In the journey to healing there would be more bloodshed.

  86

  Sunday, October 18

  It was late Sunday night in the empty restaurant in a strip mall on the edge of D.C.

  Pashtar led Nazir to a thin man with a white beard, wearing a gray suit, and sitting at a table.

  The imam’s face was in shadow. And even in shadow, or because of it, Nazir sensed a powerful energy.

  He had the charisma of a mystic in a suit. And from experience, Nazir knew that magnetism would turn lethal if he didn’t convince him Hashim had never given himself up. He needed the imam to believe.

  Nazir knew suicide bombers back in Mosul. Young men who’d offered themselves to jihad. They rarely talked of their fear, they’d been so indoctrinated into the cause and reward there was little space in their fevered brains for fear. But the ones who managed to be honest, even if for a moment, spoke of their doubt, questioning the reasons for the vests they wore. Questioning the truth of the virgins that waited as reward. But they couldn’t let that deter them from the job at hand. Families depended on their choice. Poverty, hopelessness, and coercion were the coins of this realm. That certain fear crept up Nazir’s legs as he steadied himself, standing across from this man, this stranger—one of his own people, at least until what had happened in the desert changed his purpose. But it didn’t mitigate him feeling like those young men, for the vest he wore now was deception, and would mean death if he failed to convince the imam he was still on their side.

  The imam motioned for Nazir to sit across from him.

  Pashtar moved back, giving the men privacy.

  Nazir’s lie began.

  He told the imam that Hashim was in hiding somewhere far from here. The information about Sayyid Sarif at the farmhouse had come from the undercover agent, Taliq—whom Nazir had killed—not from Hashim as had been rumored.

  The imam pressed for details of what happened.

  Nazir spun the lie that Hashim had been captured, and after the trial escaped with the help of someone from a renegade cell who had been embedded within the FBI, and was killed protecting him. The FBI and CIA were willing to look like fools in Hashim’s escape, because they realized they could use what had happened, and spin a scenario that Hashim had surrendered, and that would create chaos within all the cells, who would believe he was a traitor. They banked on a fatwa to take him out, when they couldn’t. That’s why Hashim was in hiding.

  “It was a deception?” the imam said, his voice filled with doubt.

  “Yes,” Nazir answered, his voice composed and self-assured.

  “And how do you know this?”

  “From the one who died protecting Hashim.”

  The answer came as if it were the truth—it came from another source—the same source that allowed him to remain calm, as he saw the imam calculating what he had laid out.

  Nazir waited for the imam to make the next move. It would be with more questions or his death.

  In the space of this keen awareness, Nazir’s body pulsated—and the air around him filled with the scent of roses. Did the imam, and Pashtar, smell the fragrance, too? He couldn’t tell. He embraced the disquiet and the question as he sensed Pashtar’s body tense in the corner of the room.

  The imam’s face was expressionless. He rubbed his thumb over the crease in the paper napkin on the table.

  Nazir watched as the imam took a breath deeper than before.

  “It was brave, your coming here.”

  In the silence that followed, Nazir held his own against the authority that had come to hear him.

  “We need you to do something for us, Nazir.”

  Nazir opened his arms in a gesture of accepting whatever that might be.

  “There are many young people in America whose hearts are attached to ours. Their loyalty must be cultivated. We believe you are the one to help do that. We believe Allah has brought you to us for that purpose.”

  The imam raised his hand as if summoning. And from the kitchen Mariam brought in a tray of tea and sweets and served the two men.

  The imam took Nazir’
s hand, then Mariam’s, brought them together and said, “She will be your conduit to the young ones whom you will teach to serve.”

  Was the bringing of their hands together a marriage to the cause, or something else? There were multiple levels at play. Was the imam aware of Nazir’s new allegiance? Was this a trap to discern his loyalty?

  Nazir remained in the questions, as the scent of roses swirled. A scent no one else seemed to notice.

  “What about Hashim?” Nazir asked, sensing the imam still had questions.

  For the first time in the meeting, the imam smiled.

  “Yes. We will meet. But first, we need you to begin teaching Mariam’s young ones. And we know you will do it with much discretion.”

  Nazir felt another purpose within the imam’s order, and knew this was another level to gain his trust. He would need to stay in the skin of his former self to survive.

  It was another test. Allah gives to those who ask and are ready.

  Yet, as he watched the imam breathe in the air around him, he believed he smelled the roses, too. And maybe, his charge to teach the young ones had a purpose closer to his own.

  87

  Monday, October 19

  Nazir stood in front of Mariam’s class in the Islamic Mosque and Cultural Center. The boys who had been distracted by him standing in the hallway a few days before sat in rapt attention as he spoke of the Qur’an. But as the words came out his memory was in another place and time, for he saw himself in the young boys leaning into his authority.

  He’d thought much about the meeting with the imam, and made the choice to go with what he believed—that the imam had smelled the roses, too. He was gambling with his life.

  Nazir wouldn’t recruit and inspire these children as he had been taught. And, now that he was in the position of doing just that, he had no idea what role to play. It was one thing to believe in something, another to put it into practice, when the implementation could cost his life. How could he, on one level, seem to teach jihad…yet on another, get into their young minds and shift them out of wanting to become suicide bombers? What if his reading of the imam was wrong? It was a paradox for which he had no answer, and it terrified him.