The Mirage

by Matt Ruff

  Samir had not volunteered to be a spy. A report included in the file explained what had happened: After an unnamed source had accused him of meeting in secret with “subversive elements,” Samir had been placed under surveillance and followed on several late-night excursions to see whether the subversives in question were Kurds, Turks, Iranians, or dissident Iraqi Shia.

  The answer, as the accompanying photographs showed all too clearly, was none of the above. The report concluded there was no treason here, but recommended that Samir and his fellow “subversives” be conscripted into the Amn’s informant network. “To avoid public exposure of their vice, we expect they will be most obedient.”

  We expect they will be most obedient . . . Mustafa looked across the seatbacks to where Samir was once again tossing and turning in his sleep. He considered waking him, asking what his nightmare was about, asking some other questions too. Then he took another look at the photographs and decided that midair over the Atlantic wasn’t the right place to broach this subject.

  The last, and lengthiest, of the items in the packet was an August 2001 report by the Central Intelligence Agency’s Bin Laden Issue Station titled METHODS AND GOALS OF AL QAEDA. David Koresh had affixed a Post-it note to the cover reading, “Not my CIA! . . . But a wicked prince in one world is a wicked prince in all worlds.” Mustafa turned to the first page and began to make some notes of his own.

  At the Azores refueling stop, the harshly lit tarmac had the bleak look of a gas station after midnight. No one got on or off the plane. Mustafa used the lavatory in the passenger cabin, then went back to the cargo bay to check on how the interrogation was coming. He stayed out of sight at the top of the stairs and listened to the high whining voice of Donald Rumsfeld. The man’s accent was almost impenetrable; the only phrase Mustafa could make out was “majahil marufah”—“known unknowns”—which made no sense to him. But then Amal asked a follow-up question, her confident tone making it clear that she understood. Sensing he could only cause trouble by interrupting, Mustafa returned to his seat.

  As the cargolifter taxied back onto the runway, he opened his wallet and took out the 250-dinar note. He studied Saddam’s smiling face and saw, in his mind’s eye, a stoppered brass bottle.

  Known unknowns, Mustafa thought.

  The sun reappeared as the cargolifter approached the North African coast. Mustafa was dozing, but the pink light reflecting off the seatback in front of him invaded his sleep.

  In the dream, he was crossing the Sahara on foot. He had traveled a long way over a sea of sand dunes, but now the sea ended, giving way to a rocky plain that was pockmarked with blast craters. He knew without being told that this was Site Yarbu, the testing ground where the first atom bomb had been detonated, and where the military had continued setting off larger and more powerful devices throughout the 1950s and ’60s. Located in a remote part of southern Algeria, Yarbu was named for the hopping desert rodents that were, according to the government propaganda of the day, the only living things endangered by the bomb tests. Of course that hadn’t been true: Berber nomads occupied the fallout zone as well, as did a number of former French soldiers who’d remained in the Maghreb after the war. Comedians sometimes joked about this latter group, the gerboises françaises, Legionnaires who glowed in the dark.

  Mustafa walked to the lip of one of the blast craters and looked down into it. It was surprisingly deep, so deep that its bottom was hidden in shadow. He wondered what kept it from filling up with sand, and in answer a wind devil started on the crater’s far rim, vacuuming up loose grit as it moved. In the waking world, the cargolifter banked to change course and Mustafa’s lolling head turned away from the window; in the dream, the wind devil circled the crater, gaining size and substance until it blotted out the sun.

  Then Mustafa was walking again, through a haze of blowing sand. All about him was formlessness and void, but soon enough the sand began to condense into the trunks and crowns of eucalypti. He passed a sign: REALITY REORGANIZATION TEST PLOT #99.

  In a clearing beyond the trees lay a hybrid shrine, an amalgam of Cairo’s Nasser Memorial and one of the monuments Mustafa had visited on his tour of the Green Zone. Shallow steps mounted to a platform on which burned a guttering Flame of Unity. Behind this, a half-circle of fluted marble columns supported a curved slab chiseled with the words I TREMBLE FOR MY COUNTRY WHEN I REFLECT THAT GOD IS JUST.

  Another wind devil started, seizing hold of the Unity Flame and drawing it up into a twisting pillar of blue smokeless fire. Then the fire vanished, and in its place stood a figure in a white tunic whom Mustafa recognized from another dream.

  “Hello again,” the jinn greeted him. “Have you sorted out your time zones yet?”

  Mustafa held up the photo of the dig site. “Al Hillah,” he said. “I found your bottle.”

  “Not mine,” said the jinn. “It belonged to a prince of Babylon. So did I, for a time.”

  Mustafa heard a hiss of windblown sand and turned to find the eucalyptus forest transformed into a mighty metropolis, its skyline dominated by twin towers. New York, Mustafa thought, but already a second transformation had begun, changes cascading through the cityscape, turning it into Baghdad. And even though he watched it happen, once the transformation was complete and the Tigris and Euphrates towers were standing there so familiar, it was hard to imagine the scene had ever been different.

  “Did I do this?” Mustafa said. “Was this my wish?”

  The jinn seemed to ponder the question. “To remake the whole world would be an act of extraordinary pride. Does that sound like you?”

  Mustafa looked at the photograph in his hand. “No,” he said, surprised by his own answer. “No, it sounds like something an American would do . . .”

  “I must have a touch of American in me as well then,” the jinn said smiling. “To grant such a request. Ah, but I do love a challenge . . . And I was most grateful to be released from my confinement.”

  “What did I wish for, then? If not this . . .”

  “Smaller things,” the jinn said. “Harder things. Things I could not give you, grateful though I was.” He gestured towards the cityscape, and Mustafa saw, through windows that opened in the sides of the towers, Fadwa in two aspects. She was riding a crowded subway train; she was also, in a parallel reality, home alone, praying for the return of her husband, who had walked out after their latest argument. Then the planes flew in over Baghdad, and Fadwa looked up, and looked up, and was no more.

  “I could not bring her back to you,” the jinn told Mustafa, whose cheeks were wet now with tears. “I tried, but God wouldn’t permit it. Not her. Considering some of those He did allow back, perhaps that’s a good sign . . .”

  “And her misery?” Mustafa said. “If you could not spare Fadwa’s life, could you not at least have done something about that?”

  The jinn didn’t answer.

  “And Noor?”

  “Ah, Noor,” the jinn said, looking embarrassed. “A misguided attempt at consolation. I thought she would at least make you happier. But it appears I miscalculated.”

  “I would say so,” Mustafa agreed. “You should not have given me a second wife. You should have given Fadwa a better husband.”

  “That would not have been her wish,” the jinn said, “and I could not have granted it anyway. Look again at the city.”

  Mustafa looked. The skyline appeared to rush towards him, and the towers and skyscrapers which seemed so solid from a distance were revealed to be composed of tiny, discrete particles whirling through empty space.

  “Sand,” the jinn said. “So much of this world, sand, and easily reshaped, God willing. But not everything.”

  The city receded again. Mustafa, feeling as though he were reciting a line in a play, said: “Human beings from clay.”

  “Some parts softer than others,” said the jinn. He laid a hand against his own skull, beside the seat of memory. “Pliable enough with the right touch. But the characters of men and women—their strengt
hs and weaknesses, their passions and fears, the sins and vices they are prone to—those are made of iron, and steel, and brass. Those I cannot alter. Oh, perhaps a detail here and there . . . But at your core, you are who you are. I cannot make you someone else.”

  “Well,” Mustafa said, fresh tears starting. “Well, that’s wonderful then.”

  “You should not weep,” the jinn said. “I can’t make you a better person, but God, who gave you both life and free will, can help you try to become one. Try honestly, and when you stumble, ask His forgiveness and try again.”

  “If only it were that easy,” Mustafa said.

  “It isn’t easy. It is a struggle. But struggle is better than self-pity. You do not honor Fadwa by continuing to dwell on what cannot be undone. You only distract yourself from the good you still can do—and the evil you may still prevent. You are a sinner, Mustafa al Baghdadi, but you are not the only sinner. You are surely not the worst.”

  Something in his words made Mustafa look at the city again. Most of the skyline had faded away, leaving only the twin towers—two sets of them, side by side. Behind them loomed the shadow of a man, like a devil come to claim them. It was just a silhouette, but Mustafa thought he knew who it belonged to. How many other men were that tall?

  “Iron and steel and brass,” the jinn said. “A wicked prince in one world is a wicked prince in all worlds.”

  They landed at Al Kharj Air Force Base in late afternoon. The outside temperature was 121 degrees, and a curtain of heat haze made the hangars and control tower shimmer like protean objects that had yet to assume their final shape. Mustafa stepping out onto the tarmac wondered whether he might still be dreaming.

  Amal helped Salim into a wheelchair. Mustafa watched them together and was suddenly struck, as he had not been before, by the resemblance between them. And not just between them: Staring at Salim in profile he flashed back on a magazine article Abu Mustafa had shown him recently. The focus of the article had been Senator Al Maysani’s career, but there’d also been a sidebar about Amal’s father, Shamal, the corruption-fighting cop . . . Yes, Mustafa thought, I must still be dreaming.

  A bright flash of light drew his attention back to the heat curtain. He held up a hand to shield his eyes and the light resolved into an ambulance with sun glaring off its windshield and front grill. A man in civilian dress was leaning out the passenger window, and before the ambulance had come to a complete stop he leaped out onto the tarmac, dashed up to the wheelchair, threw his arms around the young Marine, and began showering him with kisses.

  “Father,” a red-faced Salim said, several moments later, “this is my new friend Amal. She saved my life.”

  “Thank you,” Anwar said, his eyes brimming with tears. He leaned forward as if he might embrace Amal too, but restrained himself. “Thank you.”

  Amal offered him a complicated smile. “It’s what we do in Homeland Security,” she said. Lowering her eyes, she added: “I’m sorry about the leg.”

  “What for, that wasn’t your fault,” Salim said, thinking this was addressed to him. “Anyway, I’ll be up in no time. Come visit me in a month and I’ll outrace you!”

  Amal said: “You should go home now and see your mother.”

  “Yes,” Anwar said nodding. “She is waiting for us.” He looked at Salim. “We have many things to talk about.”

  “I know,” Salim said. But then he smiled and handed Amal a slip of paper. “My email address is on there. Write to me!”

  “You just take care of yourself and be good to your parents,” Amal told him. She stepped back and Anwar got behind the wheelchair and pushed it towards the ambulance. He and the driver helped Salim into the back. Anwar waved solemnly at Amal and climbed in beside his son.

  Amal stood beside Mustafa watching the ambulance drive away. “The boy looks a lot like his grandfather,” Mustafa said—and then blinked, not having meant to speak the thought aloud.

  Amal took it in stride. “He really does,” she said. She looked at the slip of paper in her hand and then spread her fingers. An updraft caught the paper and carried it away into the sky.

  Boots tramped on the cargolifter’s loading ramp. An airman jumped down onto the tarmac and spoke into a radio: “All clear.” A squad of military policemen brought the prisoner out of the hold.

  The prisoner was hooded and shackled and still dressed in the bathrobe he’d been wearing when captured. He was also barefoot, and when Mustafa saw the MPs intended to march him onto the scorching hot concrete he called out: “Hey, what are you thinking? Get him some shoes!” The MPs hesitated. The airman, looking embarrassed, ducked back inside the plane and returned with a plastic pallet. He dropped this on the tarmac and the MPs sat the prisoner on it as though he were cargo.

  Wavering black shapes like patches of oil appeared in the heat curtain. These too resolved into vehicles: a fleet of black SUVs. Unlike the sparkling-clean ambulance they were covered in dust, as if they’d driven a long way across the desert; instead of reflecting the sunlight they absorbed it.

  Feeling eyes over his shoulder, Mustafa turned and looked up at the plane. He saw Samir, his face framed in one of the windows of the passenger cabin, staring nervously at the approaching vehicles. When Samir noticed Mustafa looking up at him, his face collapsed into shame and he vanished from the window.

  The SUVs pulled up to the cargolifter. Idris Abd al Qahhar got out of the lead vehicle; the others disgorged bearded mujahideen who, but for the dark suits they wore, might have stepped straight off a battlefield in Afghanistan.

  “Mustafa al Baghdadi,” Idris said. “You have something that belongs to me.”

  “You are mistaken,” said Mustafa, stepping forward to interpose himself between Idris’s men and the prisoner. “This man is coming back with me for a proper interrogation at Homeland Security headquarters.”

  “Ah, I’m afraid there’s been a change in plan.” Idris pulled out a folded sheet of letterhead and presented it with a flourish. “The president, in consultation with Senator Bin Laden and several other members of the Intelligence Committee, has decided to classify this prisoner as a high-value detainee. We will be transferring him directly to Chwaka Bay.”

  Mustafa scanned the document, which bore the president’s seal and his signature. “This isn’t right.”

  “You are welcome to take the matter up with the president yourself,” Idris said. “But I understand his schedule is quite busy today, so it may be some time before you are able to reach him. In the meantime . . .”

  He signaled to his men. A group of four advanced towards the prisoner. “Wait!” Mustafa shouted. He turned to the MPs: “Stop these men!”

  But before they could do anything, a man in an Army colonel’s uniform got out of Idris’s SUV. “Stand down,” he told the MPs. “Do not interfere!”

  The prisoner meanwhile seemed to have wilted in the heat. He was limp when the mujahideen seized hold of him. They hauled him up roughly and began dragging him, his bare feet trailing across the hot tarmac.

  Mustafa took a step towards them and Idris said, “Go ahead. It’s pointless, but if a beating will complete your day my men will be happy to supply it.” The good humor with which he said this, more than the words themselves, convinced Mustafa that there really was nothing he could do.

  The mujahideen bundled the prisoner’s limp body into the back of their SUV. “I suppose,” Idris said, disappointed that Mustafa had declined the beating, “there’s no point in my asking what this man already told you.”

  “Nothing. I haven’t interviewed him yet.”

  “Really.” Idris looked skeptical. “Well, I’ll know soon enough if that’s true . . . And don’t worry, I’ll copy you a full report of my interrogation.” Laughing at this joke, he signaled his men and they all got back in their vehicles and drove off.

  “They won’t get anything out of him,” Amal said.

  “You don’t think so?” Mustafa looked at her. “You were with him for most of the flight. You�
��re saying he didn’t tell you anything?”

  “No, he told me plenty: about America and Iraq, Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden . . . Strange stuff. Crazy stuff.”

  “Well if he told all that to you, why wouldn’t he tell Idris?”

  “Because I made a deal with him,” Amal said. “He knew Idris would be waiting here to take him. Not Idris specifically, but someone like him, someone from Al Qaeda. He said he wasn’t afraid to die, but he didn’t want to be tortured—something about how he didn’t feel the Golden Rule should apply to him . . . So I offered him a bargain. I told him if he talked to me, I’d make sure he wasn’t tortured.”

  “And he believed you?”

  Her hand was in her pocket. She brought it out and spread her fingers again. There was a green twist of cellophane in her palm: an empty candy wrapper. They both stared at it, and then the updraft caught it and carried it away as it had the paper.

  “Amal?” Mustafa said. “What have you done?”

  And Amal said: “That man tried to kill my son.”

  Book Four

  The Stone

  THE LIBRARY OF ALEXANDRIA

  A USER-EDITED REFERENCE SOURCE

  Truther

  A “Truther” is a skeptic who questions the official account of the events of November 9, 2001. Many Truthers belong to organizations such as the 11/9 Citizens Commission and Ulama for 11/9 Truth and Justice. They hold meetings and rallies, petition for the release of secret government documents, and use the Internet to publicize their alternative theories about the November 9 terror attacks.

  Almost all Truthers believe that the UAS government has suppressed important information about what really happened on 11/9, though they disagree about the nature and extent of the cover-up. Some Truthers claim that the intelligence community knew about the hijackings in advance, and some go even farther, positing that government agents participated in the planning and execution of the attacks.