Hunt the Viper

by Don Mann

  “Two and a half years, since my divorce from Alain. It feels like longer.…You live alone?” Séverine asked. “I’m sorry.…Am I being too forward? If I am I blame it on the rosé.”

  “I don’t mind.”

  “That I’m flirting? That I’m acting like a silly girl?”

  “I like talking to you,” he admitted. “I wish I was with you in Istanbul right now.”

  “Me, too.”

  “To answer your previous question, I’m not alone. I’m sharing a hut with four smelly teammates. Two of them are snoring. Why?”

  “I mean…when you’re in the States, do you live alone?”

  “Yes, but I’m not there much.”

  “You have family?”

  “A daughter who just turned twenty. My father’s still alive.”

  “My mother is alive, too. She lives in Paris. My father was from Aix-en-Provence in the south. You know France?”

  “Parts of it, yeah.”

  “Which parts?”

  “Paris, the Riviera, the Loire Valley.…”

  “The good ones.”

  “Yeah. Paris is one of my favorite cities.…” He remembered the terrorist attacks there in November 2015 and stopped.

  “I’m not pure French,” Séverine added. “Because my grandmother on my mother’s side was from Morocco.”

  “That explains your eyes. I’ve never thought of Moroccans as Arabs.”

  “Some are, some are Berbers. Maybe half and half. You think you’ll be returning to Kurdistan later?” she asked.

  “Probably, at some point.”

  “Then you must read Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T. E. Lawrence, if you haven’t already.”

  “T. E. Lawrence…Is he the same as Lawrence of Arabia?”

  “Yes. Yes. That was the first book that helped me understand something of the Arab mentality.”

  “I’ll read it. Thanks.”

  Chapter Ten

  This above all: To thine own self be true.

  —William Shakespeare, Hamlet

  Abu Samir al-Sufi completed his evening prayers and remained on his knees, entreating Allah to calm his unsettled mind, which roiled with confusion and anger. Foremost, he was searching for the best way to address what he considered a very troublesome situation that had resulted from the serious injury to Caliph Ibrahim Muhammad al-Badri (a.k.a. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi).

  Sheikh al-Sufi had been at al-Baghdadi’s side in a mosque in Mosul in 2014 when he announced The Promise of Allah, and said that the “long slumber in the darkness of neglect” had ended. “The sun of jihad has risen. The glad tidings of good are shining. Triumph looms on the horizon. Infidels are justifiably terrified for, as both East and West submit, Muslims will own the earth.”

  His friend al-Baghdadi was announcing the return of a single caliphate, like the one that had ruled all Muslims until the year 750, when provinces broke away to pursue their own political agendas.

  Naming himself Caliph Ibrahim, al-Baghdadi asked for the allegiance of Muslims everywhere, urging them to throw out “democracy, secularism, nationalism, as well as all the other garbage and ideas from the West.”

  It had been the most significant day in Sheikh al-Sufi’s political life. Now, three years later, he hadn’t had any communications from the caliph in more than three months. Even though al-Sufi was a member of the Islamic State’s Military Council, and therefore one of three top commanders appointed by the caliph himself, he wasn’t sure if his leader was alive or dead. And the military commanders below him in rank and rumored to be with Caliph Ibrahim in Mosul—including Abu Wahib, also a former officer in Saddam Hussein’s army and prisoner in Camp Bucca, Saddam Jamal, and red-bearded Omar al-Shishani (a.k.a. Omar the Chechen)—remained closemouthed.

  Why? What are they trying to hide from me?

  Although al-Sufi understood the need for vigilance and secrecy, he considered this a sign of disrespect. Part of him suspected a power play. None of those three commanders were members of the Military Council, whose role was to plan and supervise all military leaders and operations in the field. Instead, they were part of the lesser Defense, Security, and Intelligence Council responsible for the personal security and safety of the caliph, and the collection and dissemination of intelligence.

  A few days ago, Sheikh al-Sufi—a member of the Military Council—had ordered a new assault on the town of Qabusiye, only to learn that his units had been called away by Saddam Jamal—a former drug dealer and member of the Free Syrian Army who had only joined the movement in 2014—to help defend Mosul. Not only had the sheikh been countermanded by someone below him in the chain of command, the young Saddam Jamal didn’t even have the courtesy to call him and explain.

  This made him furious. To his mind, Saddam Jamal was an opportunist and unqualified to determine military strategy. Qabusiye should have been subdued while it was vulnerable.

  The Islamic State had to be feared to be effective. This was an important component of its central strategy established by the Military Council and approved by the caliph. If the Kurds in Iraq and Syria believed that the American Coalition would stand by them and protect them, ISIS’s objective to conquer all of Iraqi Kurdistan and make it part of the caliphate would be lost.

  The Silent Sheikh prided himself with being a ferocious warrior, learned military tactician, and sage advisor. He had been appointed to the Military Council in part because of his extensive studies of battlefield tactics.

  To prevail in this war against the powers of Satan, the forces of the Islamic State had to be disciplined and true to the word of God. In the battlefield, they had to keep the enemy guessing, and hit him on multiple fronts much the way the North Vietnamese and General Võ Nguyên Giáp had in the war against the American imperialists forty years ago.

  When he rose to call Saddam Jamal to tell him he had overstepped his authority, he saw the demon Ibah squatting naked in the corner, licking her lips with expectation. He interpreted this as a sign that excessive pride was goading him in a dangerous direction.

  Returning to his knees, he bowed his head and prayed: “In the name of Allah, the beneficent, the merciful. All praise is due to Allah. Thee do we serve and thee do we beseech for help. Keep us on the right path—the path of those upon whom you have bestowed favors. Not the path of those upon whom your wrath is brought down, nor of those who go astray.”

  The C-17 the SEALs flew in passed over the island of Crete. Almost a hundred years earlier, in June 1919, T. E. Lawrence had stopped in Crete on his way to Cairo. A month earlier, the Handley-Page bomber he had been flying in crash-landed in Rome. Two of his fellow passengers died, but Lawrence escaped with a broken arm.

  Earlier that year, Lawrence attended the Middle East Peace Conference in Paris as an independent delegate and lobbied for Arab independence.

  Lawrence of Lawrence of Arabia had fascinated Crocker since he watched the movie with his father in a cold theater in Methuen, Massachusetts. As a kid, he both admired Lawrence and was confused by the hints of masochism and homosexuality that ran through his story. He had no idea how active a life he had led as a British intelligence officer and liaison to Emir Faisal, who headed the Arab revolt against the Turkish Ottoman Empire.

  Lawrence, he read now, helped the Arabs plan their military strategy and had actively participated in numerous battles, including attacks on Ottoman military camps in Hejaz and Tafileh, and the liberation of Aqaba and Damascus—currently the capital of Syria.

  For his bravery, he was awarded the French Légion d’Honneur even though he was accused of stirring up the Syrians to revolt against French rule. And though he was considered one of Britain’s greatest military heroes, he declined an appointment to Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

  In Crocker’s opinion, he was an honest man and a visionary thinker. As Séverine said, he understood and admired the Arab character. Crocker underlined a passage in Lawrence’s book Seven Pillars of Wisdom, regarding Arabs: “Their mind was strange an
d dark, full of depressions and exaltations, lacking in rule, but with more of ardour and more fertile in belief than any other in the world. They were a people of starts, for whom the abstract was the strongest motive, the process of infinite courage and variety, and the end nothing. They were unstable as water, and like water would perhaps finally prevail.”

  It was raining when he arrived in Virginia Beach. From the airport, he called Jenny, who didn’t answer. Then hopped a cab to Dam Neck, found his truck in the ST-6 HQ parking lot, and drove to his apartment—a garden-variety mid-’70s one-bedroom off Grant Street. The place smelled moldy, and looked like it hadn’t been visited in months.

  Jenny had stacked his mail on the kitchen counter, in two piles—obvious solicitations and personal. The former stood four times taller than the latter. The electricity and cable still worked, which meant that she had paid his utilities. Aside from that, it appeared as though she hadn’t done much, or used the apartment herself.

  The first thing he did was open all the windows to air the place out.

  Then he checked his phone messages. Most were solicitations of some sort. One, from two months ago, was from his buddy Stevie, inviting him on a bicycling/camping trip to the Shenandoah Valley. Two were from his ex-wife Holly.

  Both messages simply said, “Tom, call me when you get back. I need to speak to you about something important.”

  Her words conveyed the gravity of a warning, and most warnings from her these days had to do with money. Between helping Cyndi with doctor bills and paying his and his dad’s rent, car payments, insurance, et cetera, he was pretty tapped out.

  Still, he called her cell and left a message. Then he telephoned his dad in Fairfax, Virginia, just outside DC.

  “Hey, Tommy boy, welcome home!”

  His father sounded chipper, in fact, the most energetic he had in years.

  “Thanks, Dad. How you doin’?”

  “Good, very good. Still getting around despite my sore hip. Doc says I probably need a new one. Don’t think I’m up for that. Haha.…Seeing a new lady…a younger woman…seventy-six-year-old divorcée with two grown girls. She’s hot.…”

  “Hot?”

  “The sex is great. The best.”

  “Good for you, Dad, but too much information.”

  It was hard to think of his father with a woman besides his mother. They’d been married for more than forty years before she died when their house was struck by lightning and caught fire. Crocker had left hours earlier, and his dad had been where he often was—hanging at the local VFA with his buddies.

  “Everything okay with you?” Crocker’s father asked. “You still in one piece? That legal difficulty you were involved in completely over?”

  He was referring to the breaking-and-entering and assault charge that had been filed against him in Fairfax County court. Involved a police officer and a young woman friend of his father’s who had been ripping him off. He’d found the two of them smoking crystal meth together, just after the woman had solicited money from his father to pay for rehab.

  “Yeah, Dad. Over and done with.…You still talk to Clara Ruiz?” That was the name of the female leech.

  “Nope, haven’t spoken to her in months,” his father answered. “Nancy doesn’t trust her.”

  “Nancy your new girlfriend?” Crocker asked.

  “Yes.”

  “I like her already.”

  Just before midnight, after a trip to the supermarket and Italian takeout from Luigi’s, he started to feel disoriented. Like he didn’t belong in this artificially ordered world, where actors on the late-night talk shows talked about themselves as though they were the center of the universe. As though their opinions about things like global warming and refugees made a difference.

  He stopped himself. He was already starting to get angry, and feel he belonged with the people of Qabusiye, who were just trying to survive, and humanitarian workers like Dr. Housani and Séverine, who really did help people and didn’t ask for anything in return.

  Over the years, he’d gotten better at making the transition from the battlefield to civilian life. No more getting drunk out of his mind and getting into stupid fights. Still, it was a challenge.

  Three hours past midnight and many hours since he left Raqqa, Abu Samir al-Sufi sat in the lead technical, his Kalashnikov AK-74 clutched between his knees, fingering the wooden beads at his waist, and praying to himself: “Oh, Allah, give victory to our brothers, the Muslims, the oppressed, the tyrannized, and the mujahedeen who fight the jihad throughout the world.”

  A dozen more Toyota trucks and captured Iraqi Army Humvees packed with ISIS militants followed, all at high speed, with their headlights off.

  No stars were visible tonight, and very little moonlight made it through the thick canopy of clouds. The growl of engines excited him as they approached their target. His purpose was clear and he imagined future battles—and victories—against the infidels. As always, Allah would lead the way.

  Pushing the button on the radio in his lap, he raised it to his mouth and said, “Brothers, now is the time to fight. Now is the time to put our fates in the hands of God! Repeat with me this prayer with courage, and belief:

  “A’uzu billahi minashaitanir rajim.

  [I seek refuge in Allah from the outcast Satan.]

  Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim.

  [In the name of Allah, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful.]

  Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar!

  [Allah is the Greatest, Allah is the Greatest, Allah is the Greatest!]

  Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar!

  [Allah is the Greatest, Allah is the Greatest, Allah is the Greatest!]

  Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar!

  [Allah is the Greatest, Allah is the Greatest, Allah is the Greatest!]

  Al-hamdu lillahi rabbil ’alamin.

  [Praise be to Allah, the Lord of the worlds! God calls us to this glory.]

  Inshallah!

  [If Allah is willing!]”

  Sheikh al-Sufi felt the words resound in his chest. He raised his right arm, and directed the trucks to peel off left and right, producing twin columns of dust. Like the armies of the Messenger during their liberation of the holy city Mecca, they attacked the town of Qabusiye simultaneously from all sides.

  Al-Sufi led the first group east to west like the great Az Zubayr had on Wednesday, November 29, 629, entering the town before its defenders knew what was happening. While the Messenger had commanded his followers to refrain from fighting until the enemy attacked, the Viper ordered his men to kill everyone—even in their sleep.

  It was time to punish those Muslims who didn’t adhere to Sharia law and served the infidels. It was time to show the power of Allah.

  They entered furiously, mowing down everything with their AKs and machine guns—Peshmerga soldiers, YPG militiamen, dogs barking, women shuttering the windows of their homes, half-dressed young men running for cover, even children. The speed of the assault exhilarated the sheikh. He imagined he felt the spirit of Allah coursing through his veins.

  His men went house to house, rousing all male residents from their sleep, beating them, and binding their wrists together with plastic ties. They led them at gunpoint into the central plaza, past buildings in flames.

  Al-Sufi stood in the bed of the Toyota, his beard and black robes blowing in the wind, counting the prisoners as they arrived. “Forty-eight…fifty-three…sixty apostates.”

  He shouted an order and his men lined up the prisoners and pushed them to their knees. Other soldiers held back the pleading women, some half-dressed, others clutching sheets and bedclothes, as they tried to enter the plaza.

  One of the sheikh’s men helped him down from the truck and led him over to a short, stocky man with a bushy gray mustache who waited on his knees with his wrists bound behind his back. Al-Sufi grabbed Mayor Sabri’s face by the chin and pulled his head up.

  “Where are the Americans?” he asked in Arabi
c, glaring into the mayor’s eyes.

  “They left days ago, you son of a whore,” Mayor Sabri spat back.

  “When you see them again, give them this message…Allahu akbar!” Al-Sufi pulled the trigger until the mayor’s face and head were almost completely obliterated.

  Terrible wails and screams echoed through the plaza.

  ISIS militants drowned them out with a chorus of Allahu akbars followed by the blasts from their rifles as they executed all the men. Then they turned and unleashed their fury on the women who had come to plea for their husbands’ lives. Then they killed the children hiding under their beds. Finally, they spread gasoline everywhere, and set what was left of the town on fire.

  Less than an hour after the assault began, it ended, and the Silent Sheikh and his men were back in their trucks racing toward the Syrian border. The words of Allah’s Apostle echoed in the sheikh’s head: “Know that paradise is under the shade of swords.”

  Crocker was dreaming of his stepson, a strong, athletic, good-looking twenty-year-old who had started hanging out with the wrong people in college and dealing drugs. He sat across from him pleading, “Christian, listen.…You need to turn your life around…go to the police and give them the names of the punks you’ve been hanging with. They’re not your friends. They don’t deserve to live in our society. Save yourself.”

  He heard the phone ring and sensed what was coming: news from the local hospital that Christian had been shot in the head and was dying.

  He picked it up and braced himself for the feelings of guilt and sadness that were about to overwhelm him.

  “Tom?” It was a woman’s voice.

  “Yes…”

  “Tom, did I wake you?”

  “Are you calling from the hospital?”

  “I’m sorry, Tom. I’ll call…later.”

  It took him a couple seconds to recognize Séverine’s voice. And another few seconds to realize where he was—in the bedroom of his apartment in Virginia Beach, surrounded by things his mother had left him.