by Jeff Oliver
“Yes he could, sir. Thank you, sir.”
“Good. Then it’s settled,” said the Sergeant Major, looking pleased. “You must have a bunch of questions for Lieutenant Safit here?”
Sara turned to the Israeli Commander. “When do we ship out?” she asked.
Three years of chasing dead-ends preceded by what appeared to be a final breakthrough. The MRS (his real name was Hasan Amami) had spent three years in Michigan, where he was wanted not just for suspected terrorist activity, but also for the alleged rape of a college girl, so Sara was called in to see if she could get anything out of the guy. The prisoner had already been through days of Israeli interrogation, so Sara took the good cop approach and brought him a cup of thick Turkish coffee and a plate of grhaybeh sugar cookies.
And he talked. Sara was surprised at how quickly. He described the scientists, their faces, the inside of their homes and lab. He knew the type of 3-quinuclidinyl benzilate nerve gas they were producing, that it was the kind of gas that literally melts your face off. All the info checked out with Intelligence. The MRS’ only request was to avoid super max so he could earn visits from his family. That request had been approved upon the confirmed kill of the scientists and the termination of their lab. “Kill the brains and the body will die. Is that the theory, Sergeant?” the prisoner said to Sara, as he ate the last cookie. “Makes good sense.”
The tank slowed next to a burnt-out warehouse near a residential street lined with apartment buildings. The war had taken its toll on the roads. Stray dogs darted between overturned cars with shattered windows. Sara flinched every time a black blob shot across her yellow screen, only to confirm that it was yet another mutt. “I swear to God, these dogs had better smarten up or they’re going to get shot.”
“We’ve arrived,” said Yuri as the tank came to a stop.
Sara poked out of the gunner’s hatch with her night vision goggles: a street away, a row of shabby apartment buildings. Candles lit a room on the third floor corner. Sara leaned down into the turret. “Describe it,” she said to the prisoner.
“The building has four stories,” he said. “There’s a rusty pipe along the middle. On top there are many television antennas.”
“Motherfucker just named every shitty apartment in Jabalia!” shouted Idan. “I’m telling you, if this is some bullshit, I will personally chop his nuts off.”
“The largest antenna has green spray paint on the wall behind it—SpongeBob SquarePants,” added the prisoner.
“Okay, his nuts are definitely coming off…”
Sara spotted the spray-painted cartoon character through her binoculars. She came down into the turret. “I’m going to lift you up with some binoculars. I need you to tell me exactly which apartment it is, okay?”
The terrorist nodded. Sara placed night-vision goggles on his head and pulled him up through the hatch. “That them?” Sara asked.
“The rain… makes it hard,” said the prisoner.
“I told you this MRS is full of shit. Let’s just kill him now and head back out of this hellhole.”
“The candles near the window,” Hasan said. “Three levels up. I see them there. Fullah, Zogby, and Khoury. I see them there. I swear to Allah.”
“How you can be sure?”
“Fullah is fat and is stuffing his face even now,” said the prisoner. “He has no beard. Zogby always wears that baseball cap. New York Mets.”
“He’s playing you, Sinek,” said Idan.
“Then Khoury. He wears an eye-patch even though he has twenty-twenty vision. Apparently, he thinks it makes him look tough, but he’s a total coward.”
Sara pulled the prisoner back into the turret. She stood up through the hatch and looked through her binoculars. “Hasan, who’s the fourth guy?” she asked.
“I do not know that man,” said the prisoner.
“He’s clean shaven as well. How many men in this area have no beard?”
“He is likely a new scientist. They tend to assimilate so they can travel.”
“Two for the price of one!” said Idan. “Let’s blast ’em.”
“Or he’s a national,” said Sara.
“No, he’s not one of us,” Idan said. “Why would an Israeli be here so deep in the shukarim hanging out with jihadists? That’s just stupid.”
But Idan had heard the same rumors as Sara. The Gaza border lockdown had caused chaos. Visiting Israelis rushed to get out, but there was danger at the border from both IDF and Hezbollah. Confusion made it impossible to pass. According to rumors, hundreds of Israelis were still within Gaza walls. But where?
“I’ll call it into base,” said Sara. “If there’s an Israeli in the building, mission’s off.”
“My stomach,” Yuri complained, and the tank again filled with his flatulence. “I have to shit. I’m not lying.”
“Yuri, shut the fuck up.”
“I held it long enough!” he protested. “It’s now or I shit in the tank.”
“Open the side hatch,” said Sara. “Could be a few minutes before base gets back to us on this.”
“You better hope you don’t shit on a land mine or the first thing that gets blown off is your beitsim,” said Dv’or.
Yuri opened the side hatch. He hung off the side of the tank, groaning. Sara looked again through her binoculars and saw one of the candles on the third floor being blown out. “They’re moving,” she said.
“Could be onto us,” said Dv’or.
“Or they could be going to sleep,” said Idan. “It’s past midnight.”
“It’s them. I swear to you,” the prisoner said. “You must do it now.”
“Shut him up, goddamnit! Yuri, get back in here.”
“A second.”
The rain started up again, this time harder than before. Sara got back into the tank and again radioed in. “Raim One to Base: Anything yet? They may be on the move.”
A flood of static accompanied a voice that came back over the radio. “We’ve determined low probability of an Israeli national in there. Your order is to proceed as planned.”
Sara dropped the radio. “Ninety-six meters close,” she said to Dv’or.
“Load up,” Dv’or instructed.
“Loaded,” said Idan. “Lock it.”
“Locked,” said Sara.
“Yuri, get in here now and shut the damn hatch!” shouted Dv’or. “We’re doing this.”
Base responded through the static: “Shoot to kill,” they said. Sara peered into the periscope, finger steady on the trigger. Blood pounded in her temples. She lined the target up in the crosshair. Being just half a millimeter off could mean the wrong apartment. She leaned in. “Yuri, get in here!”
A blast. But not from the cannon. Gunfire blasted the tank from across the road, bullets exploding off the hull. Sara pulled off her target, swiveling the periscope. Shooters behind the overturned cars. “We’re seen!”
“I’m shot!” Yuri yelled, pulling himself back into the tank. Blood spread across his pant leg. “They shot me in the fucking ass!” Yuri leaned back in to close the hatch. But before he could, the prisoner sprang up from the turret. He stumbled forward onto Yuri, and they both fell out of the side of the tank, hard onto the muck and rocks.
“Yuri! Goddamnit!”
The prisoner struggled to his knees, wrists held up in the air to show the attackers that he was one of them. Yuri scrambled up and tackled him, getting on top of the prisoner and holding him down with his knees as he went for his handgun. Then a bullet struck him in the neck. Yuri touched the hot blood there and collapsed face down in the muck. The terrorist clambered up again. “Brothers! Save me!” he called out. But the response came in bullets, blasting through the prisoner’s stomach. He collapsed.
Dv’or pulled the hatch closed. “Fire at the goddamn target, Sinek!” he yelled.
Sara shifted the gunner again. Through the periscope, she could see a second candle flickering on the third floor of the apartment building. Sara could still make them out.
Four men, not three, as weeks of intelligence had suggested. Four. But who? Who the fuck was in there and why? No time to find out. Sara leaned onto the trigger.
“Fire!”
The cannon erupted and the apartment lit up, the entire third floor exploding. Fire, debris, and dust obscured the view through the periscope. Sara swiveled the gunner back to the attackers and unloaded what ammo she had, spraying the blobs, which went black in her yellow screen.
When the incoming gunfire thinned, she waited. “C’mon, you fuckers…”
Two black blobs headed in different directions on her screen. Sara spun the gunner left and nailed the first runner, then shifted right, finger hard on the trigger, until she emptied her chamber. There was silence. No movement on her yellow screen.
“Is it clear?”
“Who the fuck knows?” said Sara. She lifted the side hatch, jumped out of the tank, and into the pounding rain and muck below. Yuri lay dead next to the prisoner. Sara checked Yuri’s pulse, but he was gone. She turned to the prisoner. He coughed blood onto his beard, his unibrow scrunched like a bat on his forehead. But he was alive.
“Be still, Hasan,” Sara said, tying a belt around his stomach to stem the bleeding. “I’m going to get you out of here.”
“I cannot move,” he said, weakly.
“You fulfilled your part of the deal. Now let me do mine.” Sara went to lift him, but the prisoner winced in pain and waved her off.
“A second. I must rest a second.”
“It’s all we’ve got,” Sara said. She rested the prisoner’s head on her lap.
“Did we get them?” the prisoner asked.
“You got them, Hasan. You did a good job.”
The prisoner grinned. “Then he is dead. My cousin is dead.”
“One of the scientists was a cousin? Why didn’t you tell me that?”
“Scientists?” the prisoner said, coughing more blood. “I don’t know any scientists.”
“Yes you do,” said Sara, uneasy. “Fullah, Zogby, Khoury. Dead. It’s why we’re here.”
“Probably friends from the Israeli hotel where my cousin works,” he said, “though I can’t imagine the man with the eye patch gets much front-desk work.” Managing a chuckle, he looked up at Sara. “Fat bastard stole my wife. Then he called the police on me. It’s why I fled to America. But I got him. Praise be, I got my revenge…” A sickly smile formed on the prisoner’s lips as Sara looked on in horror. He coughed a big gob of blood onto his beard. Then his face went slack.
“Sinek! We’ve got company!” yelled Dv’or.
Half a dozen men with machine guns appeared behind the overturned cars and stepped out into the open. Sara grabbed Yuri and dragged him back into the tank.
“We move!”
Sara got in just as bullets rained down on the tank and she slammed the hatch shut. Yuri’s body dropped into the turret, limp and soaked with blood, rain and muck. Idan jumped into the driver’s hatch. Sara got in the gunner hatch and the tank lurched forward, crushing the remains of the murderer/rapist/sonofabitch who had masterminded a genuine Gazan clusterfuck, and speeding out onto the road under heavy gunfire.
CHAPTER 13
In the back of a custom van, to the sounds of a terrorist alternately yawning and peeing off the roof, Warren and Sharon Lopez awoke sweaty and parched on a waterbed. Sharon had already been up for twenty-three minutes, per her internal clock, which paid no heed to international time zones. She held a finger to her lips after her husband rustled awake. She held up her iPhone: “We got 2 go.”
Lopez nodded. The terrorist jumped off the roof and headed back into the pavilion, his Uzi hanging loosely over a shoulder. He was met by another terrorist—the one who’d been tied up in the supply closet. He waved his arms dramatically and scolded the sleepy terrorist in rapid-fire Arabic. The two split up, hunting for the married couple they would surely kill if they discovered them.
“I miss Kale,” Lopez whispered and almost broke down in tears thinking of the boy.
Sharon hopped off the waterbed and scanned a small crack in the door. Guards were everywhere.
Their only chance was to get the van going and blow past them. Blow right out of the gate. Sharon grabbed the screwdriver.
“It’s time,” she said.
Lopez nodded. He was all in.
In the peaceful morning light, the cast of Natural Dish-aster awoke, their bellies full of deliciousness and their minds full of newfound enlightenment. There were no broken bottles anywhere, no overturned ashtrays or vomit piles, not even any cameras there to document cranky hangover wake-ups. Their sleep had been peaceful and deep. Several of the chefs and terrorists sat up on the balcony sipping cups of thick Turkish coffee and looking out at the hills. Ghana served persimmon lemonade with freshly picked mint.
The terrorists pointed out native birds, and Tarik did a perfect imitation of a Northern Gannet. Local radio played an entire album by Oum Kalthoum, the Nina Simone of the Middle East. A gentle hookah was packed and smoked, and soon terrorists and chefs alike were giggling and patting each other on the back. It was a slow morning.
“I’m going to miss you, dude,” Joaquim said to Sheik.
“I won’t forget you either,” replied Sheik.
“You guys on Facebook?”
“Facebook is for geezers,” said Sheik with a chuckle. “Check my Instagram for the good shit.”
Everyone laughed at that. #bestmorningever.
“Dude, I got the munchies like a mutherfucker,” said Joaquim.
“I hear that,” said Chrissy. “Any more of that dope hummus left from last night?”
“Dude, I licked that bowl clean ages ago.”
“My kingdom for something crunchy,” said Clora.
Etienne and LizZ emerged from the kitchen carrying a large platter covered with a napkin. The aroma emanating from therein was buttery and earthy and sweet, like brown sugar had French-kissed a field of cardamom. The room went silent. LizZ removed the napkin with a flourish, revealing a row of birdshaped pastries that were flaky and robust.
“We call it La Junk,” she said.
“You could call it Le Penis and I’d still eat the whole damn tray,” said Sheik.
“Ha, you crazy!” said Joaquim who patted Sheik on the back.
Everyone took a pastry, and the sound of layers of crust into sweet cream, and then back into crust, then jam/crust/spiced nuts/salty crust/sweet cream/savory crust materialized as heavenly sighs and lascivious moans.
“But… how?” Tarik said, eyes wet. “How were you able to get it so crunchy, then so creamy, then there’s like crunch underneath that, but then there’s … what? Is that jam and …?” Unable to finish his sentence, he pushed the crumbs at the corner of his mouth back onto his tongue.
“Cream/crunch/jam/crunch/nuts,” added Clora, like she was listing off the five wonders of the culinary world. “It’s like sufgayot did a three-way with baklava and Mom’s peach cobbler. And they all came at the same time.”
“You’re like a poet,” said Sheik. “You should, like, rap.”
“I want to,” Clora said, stuffing the rest of the pastry into her mouth and eyeing the platter for another.
Etienne and LizZ sat. They each took a pastry and bit in. The crunch/cream/crunch/jam/spice/crunch/nuts taste the others spoke of hit hard. Their eyes glazed over as if they’d slurped mercury water. Both sunk into their chairs, spreading oceans between their thighs.
LizZ managed a grin. “You are a very bad man,” she mouthed to Etienne.
“And you, my friend, are Anne Burrell,” said Etienne. Then their shoulders went slack.
Ramin emerged from Tanya’s room, the sweet exhaustion of post-coital bliss slowing his every step. He’d been drained of his essence (more than once, he was proud to admit), and yet was alight with poetic inspiration. Thanks to Tanya, he could see his entire future ahead, and it glimmered.
Two gloved fists grabbed Ramin’s shirt and threw him roughly against a wall. “Wha
t the—” A glove went over his mouth that smelled like wet leather. Ramin struggled. His attacker wore a mask, but it wasn’t one of the men from his group.
“Stop! Help!” Ramin said, straining through the glove. Then he bit down on the hand. Hard.
“Hot damn!” the attacker said. “Goddamnit! Really? You had to bite me?”
“I will tell you nothing,” said Ramin. “I will never talk. I will never betray my brothers. I will never betray Tanya!”
“Shut up, goddammit. And calm down. It’s me.” Cowboy pulled off his mask. He looked around, irritated that he might get caught.
“Cowboy?” Ramin asked.
“Yeah, goddamnit.”
“I thought you were going to kill me.”
“Dude, if I wanted to kill ya, I’d’a done that shit ages ago,” said Cowboy. “I just want to talk to you, dude. If you’ll just calm the hell down.”
Ramin calmed. Cowboy picked up his cowboy hat. He slid down the wall next to Ramin and chuckled. “You thought I was going to kill you, and first thing you say is you ain’t going to betray Tanya? Man, you fell deep.”
“My love is powerful. I do not hide that fact,” Ramin said.
“Well, that’s kinda what I was lookin’ to talk to ya about, if it’s all the same.”
“Tanya?” Ramin said, suddenly agitated. “You cannot have her. She is mine. My great love.”
“No, gawd, no! Not Tanya,” said Cowboy. “No offense, buddy, but she ain’t exactly my brand of hooch. What I want to talk about is like, how you feel about her.”
“You want me to talk about how I feel about Tanya?”
“More like that feeling, in general—that lovey-dovey feeling. Kind of gay but totally not gay, if you catch my drift? I’ve been having these kinds of feelings I ain’t never had before for my girl Clora, see? And it’s messing with my head. I don’t even like it when other girls look at her, let alone that slick bastard Joaquim. I want her to be my mine, you know? Not my property—I ain’t that old-fashioned, though I don’t see what’s so wrong with that…”
“You have fallen hard too,” said Ramin.
“S’ppose,” admitted Cowboy. “Problem is, I don’t know how to say what I feel for her. It all comes out club-footed. And seeing as you’re some kind of poet…”