Hunt the Viper

by Don Mann

  “Wait.”

  “Tom, if this is the wrong time…”

  “No. Séverine…It’s okay.” Christian’s framed high school graduation photo hung on the opposite wall. On the chest of drawers beneath it sat the alarm clock his grandfather had carried during World War II.

  “Tom, I don’t know if you heard the news.”

  “What news?”

  He heard a catch in her throat, then, “Qabusiye was overrun this morning. The mayor and lots of other people were killed.”

  He felt as though someone had kicked him in the chest. “Daesh?” he asked.

  “Yes.” He heard her weeping on the other end.

  The faces of Mayor Sabri, Dilshad, and other townspeople flashed before his mind’s eye. They felt close and at the same time very far away. Anger spread through his mind and body. Suddenly, he was completely awake and looking for his HK416.

  “Tom?”

  “Séverine, it’s awful. I don’t know what to say.” He’d left his 416 in his team locker at ST-6 headquarters. All he had with him was a Glock and two mags.

  “They were farmers, housewives, children…innocent people. How can other human beings, other Muslims, do something like that? I don’t understand.”

  “You can’t.…It’s sickness. Evil.”

  “Yes.”

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m still in Istanbul. I leave for Paris tomorrow to visit with my mother. Then maybe I’ll take a new assignment.”

  He didn’t catch all she had said. His mind was focused on Qabusiye and its residents, and calculating what he had to do to return there to punish the bastards who attacked them.

  “When did it happen?” Crocker asked.

  “The attack? This morning. Several hours ago.” Istanbul and Qabusiye were something like eight hours ahead. It was 0543 in Virginia Beach according to the clock on the dresser.

  “There was no one there to defend it?” asked Crocker.

  “What, Tom?”

  “It’s not important.”

  “I don’t know how to deal with this.…I’ll try.…I think of all those people…the ones who struggled to get by…and the wounded ones we tried to save. They slaughtered all of them.”

  “Séverine, don’t.” He knew what she was doing: drifting into guilt where reason was of no help.

  She didn’t hear him. “I think of that boy…Omar—the one we tried to save. I felt so bad about losing him. That means nothing now.…”

  “Séverine, stop.” The savagery of Daesh was hard for Crocker to comprehend, too. He understood killing enemy soldiers in battle. But slaughtering civilians just because they didn’t share your beliefs…

  “It’s strange, because I’ve been dreaming of him every night. Me and Omar.…We’re walking, or we’re sitting somewhere talking. There are people around. I ask for his forgiveness. He tells me he misses his family, but likes where he is now.”

  “Séverine, I’ve got to go. I have to call Colonel Rastan.”

  “What does it mean? I wake up trembling. You’re the first person I’ve told.…Then this.…Oh, Tom.…”

  “Séverine, forgiveness isn’t necessary. Wherever he is, he doesn’t blame you. You’re a good person. A beautiful angel. Go for a run; go visit friends. Find a way to clear this out of your head. Sometimes there’s no rational explanation. I’ve got to call Colonel Rastan now.”

  “Who is he?”

  “A friend. I’ll call you back, Séverine. I promise.”

  “Thank you, Tom.”

  Chapter Eleven

  One cannot step twice into the same river.

  —Herodotus

  Crocker sat in a red booth at Pocahontas Pancakes on Atlantic Avenue in Virginia with Jenny and her boyfriend Bogart, who also went by “BD.” Crocker stared at the large laminated menu, trying to decide between the multigrain pancakes and a California omelet, his head a muddle of confusion, anger, and guilt.

  His messages to Colonel Rastan hadn’t been returned. Like Séverine, he needed answers. He wanted to go back. He needed to clear his head.

  “So good to see you, Dad. Feels like you’ve been gone…forever.” Jenny gushed, her skin glowing in the morning light that filtered through sheer curtains. She wore sweatpants and a VIRGINIA IS FOR HATERS t-shirt.

  BD had tattoos of stars on his neck, and elaborate depictions of saints and historical figures like Poe and Lincoln on his arms.

  “Three months, yeah.…Almost four.” He wanted to be present, but was struggling. “You look beautiful…happy.” His words sounded hollow to him.

  “I am,” she responded, reaching over and draping an arm over BD’s shoulder.

  A product of his first marriage, she’d arrived at his doorstep six years ago, a confused, angry teenager who didn’t get along with her mother. Since then, she’d managed to adjust to a new environment, make friends, and graduate from high school with little help from Crocker or his second wife. Now she was on her way to making her own life.

  “I’m so proud of you,” he said. “I really am.”

  A Hispanic waitress in a tight skirt smiled at him as she passed, holding plates stacked with pancakes and French toast smothered in whipped cream.

  “Good morning, sir. I’ll be back.”

  “Take your time. We’re still deciding.” He couldn’t remember when he’d had his last meal, or what he had done yesterday.

  “We are?” Bogart asked.

  “I am.”

  Crocker didn’t know what he expected Rastan to do. He just wanted to talk to him and get more details.

  The pancake house was bustling like it always was on weekend mornings. The sounds of forks clanging, and chairs scraping against the floor echoed in his head.

  “People seem to like this place,” he said as he tried to calm his nerves and focus.

  Bogart agreed. “The blueberry cakes are total bliss.”

  Crocker had been living on hummus, falafel, salads, goat cheese, bread, and MREs for the last three months. He wasn’t sure if his stomach could accommodate a meal this rich. Not now; not first thing in the morning.

  “BD’s a talented artist,” Jenny announced, proudly. “He’s into all kinds of things. Tattoo art, auto detailing, murals, signs. Super versatile.” She squeezed BD’s forearm as if to prompt him.

  “Yeah, I’ve been building a clientele on the body art side of things. I’m like a hair away from opening my own place.”

  “Good.…”

  He seemed like a nice kid with big ambitions. As long as his daughter liked him and he treated her well, that’s all Crocker cared about. No way he was qualified to give advice about relationships.

  “I wish you luck.”

  “Thanks.”

  The rich, sweet smells and the chatter of the many customers crowded into the tight space started to make him feel uncomfortable. He couldn’t reconcile the tragedy in Qabusiye with the casual frivolity surrounding him. It was as though the scene he was seeing wasn’t real.

  “You okay, Dad?” Jenny asked. “You decide yet?”

  “Yeah. Yeah.”

  To his right sat a big family—father, two sons, and their wives, several young kids. All of them were enormous and self-satisfied, except for one boy of about six, confined to a wheelchair, his neck held in a metal brace.

  He was the only one who seemed to hold himself apart from the madness and to possess an inner life. The pained expression in the boy’s eyes spoke to Crocker, and sent him back to the wounded kid in the Qabusiye hospital. He caught a whiff of alcohol, decay, and desperation.

  His throat tightened to the point where he had trouble breathing.

  “Dad, you all right?” Jenny asked.

  “Excuse me,” he said, rising to his feet. “I’ll be right back.”

  A day and a half later, Séverine was still haunted by memories of Qabusiye. It had been difficult to discuss her feelings with her mother, or her Parisian friends. Most of them thought she was crazy to have been working in a war zon
e in the first place, and used her mention of the recent tragedy to remind her that she had no business being there and shouldn’t return.

  All that accomplished was to make Séverine feel that the place where she didn’t belong was Paris, surrounded with bourgeois comfort and staying in her mother’s one-bedroom apartment in the 3rd Arrondissement, near the Pompidou Center.

  For some reason, she felt closer to her Moroccan Jewish grandmother Zohra, who died when Séverine was seven. A kind woman with dark eyes who was constantly in the kitchen producing amazing treats like harira soup and b’stilla—a pie made with almonds, eggs, sugar, cinnamon, and layers of paper-thin pastry. In the old days, her grandmother said, the pie included pigeon meat.

  What had it been like for her, a Jewish Moroccan woman living in France right after World War II?

  Séverine contemplated this question as she walked through the light rain down Rue St. Denis to the Pont Neuf. The tourists she passed from all over the world provided no distraction. Nor did the self-satisfied hipsters sporting face jewelry and tats, and fashionable girls in tight, low-cut sweaters and form-fitting jackets—none of which would be appropriate in Erbil, Baghdad, or Amman.

  She was so occupied with thoughts of her grandmother that she almost forgot she was on her way to meet her university friends Axelle and Christine. They greeted her with hugs and kisses in front of Lapérouse, a landmark restaurant on the Left Bank with a view of the Seine.

  “So good to see you, Séverine!”

  “Wonderful to see you, too!”

  She was under-dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, sweater, and boots, with her hair pulled back in a simple ponytail as the hostess led them up a winding staircase to one of the private rooms on the second floor. Elegant and beautifully preserved with hunting pictures on the walls and lots of red velvet brocade that made it look like a high-end brothel, which it reputedly was at one time. Founded in 1766, the restaurant had hosted the French literary greats Victor Hugo, Émile Zola, and Guy de Maupassant.

  It was hard for Séverine to imagine that she had once felt comfortable here during romantic dinners with her ex-husband and friends. Only eight years had passed since her last time here, savoring the soupe de homard and côte de veau rôtie with a bottle of Côtes du Rhône. Yet it felt like another life.…

  She didn’t want to judge. That wasn’t the purpose of this lunch. She was here to spend time with Axelle and Christine, whom she’d met while studying at the Sorbonne during the difficult years after she separated from her husband and was waiting to get divorced.

  Trying years of self-doubt and guilt made worse by accusations from the Delage family lawyers and her despicable mother-in-law.

  “It’s so good to see both of you,” Séverine said as they settled into plush brocade chairs. “You look so glamorous. I’m afraid I haven’t had much time for myself.…”

  “You’re thin and tan,” Axelle said. “You spend a lot of time outdoors?”

  “Yes.”

  “Very healthy.”

  “Thanks.” Both friends were super thin and chicly dressed. She saw signs of strain under their eyes and along the sides of their mouths, but thought she must have looked appalling to them since she wasn’t wearing makeup and had barely slept.

  “Are you here long?” Axelle asked. She was a dark-haired beauty with high cheekbones and sparkling blue eyes. At the Sorbonne, she had studied Buddhism and human rights law. Now she was engaged to a twice-divorced man who ran a hedge fund and collected abstract art. Kandinsky and Rothko were her fiancé’s favorite painters, and their work hung in his penthouse apartment overlooking the Luxembourg Gardens and estate in Rémy.

  That meant that Axelle was soon to become a member of the bon chic, bon genre (Parisian upper class) and could no longer say de rien for you’re welcome, but had to use the much more formal je vous en prie. This was one of the many affectations of the classe supérieure. Séverine knew them well, and had always found they had an obnoxious way of creating barriers.

  “A week, maybe less,” Séverine answered, hiding her rough leather bag under the table. Axelle’s had been recently purchased at Fendi on Rue du Bac for $3,000. A dozen years ago she lived in a tiny flat on the Left Bank and dressed exclusively in sweaters and jeans purchased at one of the city’s flea markets.

  “You will be seeing Alain?” Christine asked. She was the more reserved of the two friends, with an aristocratic manner that lent her a certain formality even in the most casual circumstances. She possessed a bony face with a long nose, and dressed fashionably, but conservatively. Shorts to show off her toned legs, loose sweaters, and long coats.

  “I haven’t thought about it,” Séverine answered. Mention of her ex brought back memories, some pleasant, others not so much. She still admired his wit and intelligence, but had learned to despise his superior manner. They’d met in New York City when she was an undergrad and he was completing a training assignment at the Banque de France.

  “Alain never remarried,” Christine added. “I’m sure he’d love to see you and hear about your adventures.”

  Séverine smiled. She harbored no enmity toward her former husband, and wished him well. But she had no real interest in hearing him talk about his family coat of arms, or the people he had socialized with last summer at the Yacht Club de Monaco, or how much money he made last year, or the modern updates he was making to the family estate in Montpellier.

  None of this interested her anymore, and she knew him well enough to know that he hadn’t changed. Men like Alain dedicated themselves to preserving the manners and stations of the past.

  “Does Alain know you’re in Paris?”

  “Not as far as I know.”

  “Then we must tell him!”

  Axelle changed the subject. “Tell us about your life, the places you’ve been, the interesting people you’ve met.…”

  Constant threat had made Abu Samir al-Sufi a light sleeper. Now he drifted in and out of consciousness.

  He saw names and prayers scratched into the wall of his cell at Camp Bucca. He focused on one of them…Fatima—the name of one of his wives. He saw her smiling face.

  Then a white horse galloped past the jeep he rode in; a cloud of red dust parted and he saw a row of beautiful maidens washing clothes along the banks of a river. Doves fluttered overhead. One of the women slipped and fell. The others laughed. He ordered the driver to stop.

  Everything turned silent. Thick fog moved in. He thought he heard a woman weeping. Then realized something was moving in the courtyard outside. He opened his eyes suddenly, rose out of bed, and reached for the AK-74 propped against the wall, chambered a round, flipped off the safety, and hurried down the hallway and up three steps.

  The cold tiles stung his bare feet. Through a hole in the plywood over the window, he saw the silhouette of a figure in the moonlight.

  Looked to be a woman seated by the fountain with her head down. Like she was praying. As peaceful as she appeared to be, she startled him. Could be an illusion, or a demon, or a trap.

  Sheikh al-Sufi didn’t trust anyone. Not even his closest aide, Yasir Selah. He lived in a world of danger and treachery with enemies on all sides. There were savage, ambitious men in his ranks. He suspected some of them were psychopaths.

  The brutal dictator Bashir Assad waited to the south and west, the al-Qaeda allied Al-Nusra Front directly east, Free Syrian Army and Coalition units north and west. All poised to destroy him and the jihadists under his command. Deadly bombers and drones could strike him from the sky at any moment.

  Allah remained his sole guide. Caution, intelligence, and courage were his only weapons. Now they were pulling him in different directions, with some voices telling him to call his guards to arrest the woman, others urging him to confront her himself.

  Something about the delicate way she held her head, and her perfect stillness, drew him closer. He crossed the hallway to the door that would allow him to come up behind her. Quietly, on tiptoes, his heart humming in his che
st.

  His gums and feet sore; his mouth sour; yet filled with curiosity.

  He crossed to within six feet of her, the AK-74 pointed at her head. Heard her weeping softly as hard, cold air filled his lungs.

  “Woman, who are you? Where do you belong?”

  His voice sounded harsh, and he held his breath as she slowly turned toward him. Her weeping seemed to have stopped. He couldn’t see her features because of the shadow cast by her scarf. But he had the impression that she was older, maybe middle-aged.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked. “You should be inside.”

  “I came to grieve for my sons. Inshallah.”

  “Here? In the middle of the night? You’re not afraid?”

  She shook her head.

  “Don’t you know you should be indoors? That there are guards nearby with orders to shoot?”

  She remained still.

  “What’s your name, woman?”

  “Khadijah.”

  Khadijah was the name of the Prophet’s first wife—the most revered woman in Islam. The Prophet had been married to her for twenty-five years. About her, he wrote: “God Almighty never granted me anyone better in this life than her. She accepted me when people rejected me; she believed in me when people doubted me; she shared her wealth with me when people deprived me; and God granted me children only through her.”

  Twice a widow before she met the Prophet, she became a successful merchant, and fed and clothed the poor. In need of a new agent to travel with her trade caravan to Syria, she hired a young man who had been recommended to her, named Muhammad ibn Abdullah. They soon married and remained so monogamously for twenty-five years.

  “Why are you crying, Khadijah?” Sheikh al-Sufi asked.

  “Only you can answer that, Sheikh.”

  It was an odd answer from a mysterious woman, and delivered without insolence. It made him pause for a minute and remember his own wife, Fatima Sadir—named after the Prophet and Khadijah’s daughter—and the many sacrifices she had made on his behalf, and the tragedies she’d been forced to endure.