by Chuck Holton
“Annabelle, you have unexplored depths. Shall I get Charles?”
She raised her eyebrow. “Just because I choose not to be domestic doesn’t mean I can’t be.” Annabelle poured a cup and handed it to Nabila. “Go ahead. Drink. The heat will relax your insides.” She handed Liz a cup. “The fourth is for your sister, not your father. She said she would stop by if she found time.”
Liz settled back in the chair and let the beverage’s warmth relax her insides, too.
Abidjan, Ivory Coast
THE AFRICAN CHILDREN looked as terrified of the hulking American soldiers who had just burst into the room as they were of the terrorists intent on massacring them.
Major Williams spoke from the radio. “Valor One, this is Valor Six, over.”
What the.…? The fact that the radio still worked hit John like a physical blow, and he flinched involuntarily as it crackled in his ear.
If the radio still worked and the lights still worked, then that meant…
The headset came to life again. “Valor One, do you copy?”
“Whoa, hold up,” John said to himself, taking in the room. “We have a problem.”
Sweeney spoke from the corner of the large room. “I’ve got two enemy KIA here.”
Hogan sounded bored on the other side of the room. “One dead over here.”
John peered at the rumpled form of the terrorist he’d just dispatched. Unseeing eyes stared up at the ceiling from an unshaven black face that still registered surprise. The man lay on his back with his legs twisted unnaturally beneath him—exactly on top of a black rubber mat with a ten-inch square of sheet metal secured to its center. John saw wires running away from the mat and, turning, followed them until they disappeared into a large wooden box against the wall by the door.
The major’s voice spoke in John’s ear. “Valor One, if you copy, it appears that the e-bomb failed—I repeat—failed, over. Since the school is still standing, I assume you somehow disarmed the explosive yourself. If you can hear me, give me a status, over.”
Crack! Crack! Shots rang out somewhere inside the building. John sprinted out of the room and down the hall toward the sound. The major would have to wait.
Staff Sergeant Rubio stood at the end of the hall with his weapon pointed into what looked like a closet.
“What’ve you got, Rip?”
“One skinny, bro. Unarmed.”
John reached the place where Rubio stood. He didn’t need to look into the small room to know it wasn’t a closet. The smell told him it was the toilet even before he saw the filthy hole in the concrete floor. In the far corner crouched a boy who couldn’t have been more than thirteen, with skin so black he was almost invisible in the dimly lit privy. He was writhing in pain and bleeding from a gaping wound in his thigh, all the while sobbing and babbling something John couldn’t understand.
“Why’d you shoot him, Rip? He’s a kid.” They were here to rescue kids, not shoot them.
“Check the floor next to his left foot.”
John squinted. Then his blood ran cold.
A cellular phone.
“When I opened the door, he was dialing it. He might’ve been calling his novia, but I wasn’t taking any chances, you know?”
The major’s voice crackled more insistently in John’s ear. “Valor One, this is Valor Six. Give me a sitrep, over.”
John picked up the cell phone from the grimy concrete floor. During his three deployments to Iraq, he’d seen too many cell phones used to detonate land mines and other explosives to ever look at a cell phone again and not think initiator. And if that was what this phone was meant for, there could be more.
And not necessarily in this building!
“Good call, Rip. Now get this kid out of here before the place blows.”
John turned and charged back to the room where the other men were doing their best to calm the children, still staring wide-eyed at their new captors.
“Hogan! Sweeney! Get those kids out of here ASAP! There may be more bad guys off-site who could still blow the building!”
Immediately, a cacophony of voices erupted as his men began herding the children out of the cafeteria.
John snatched up his microphone. “Valor Six, this is Valor One. The building is secure, but the explosives may still be armed. We are evacuating the hostages and need a medic standing by. Do not, I say again, DO NOT send anyone else in, and if you see someone with a cellular phone, shoot first and ask questions later.”
It took about three minutes to get the children, their five teachers, and the wounded boy out of the building. Doc James got to work on the boy with the aid of a French peacekeeper acting as an interpreter.
John and Rip watched as Doc knelt over the boy’s freshly bandaged leg. He noticed the medic’s lips moving silently. Doc always did that when he was working on someone, and John knew he wasn’t talking to himself.
“You praying again, Doc?” Sweeney spit a stream of tobacco. “This guy’s a terrorist! A minute ago, he was tryin’ to blow you up!”
Vernon looked at John. “All the more reason to pray for him, right, Coop?” Doc was always trying to draw him into spiritual conversations. “We can’t complain about the evil men do if we act just like the bad guys. You don’t beat the terrorists by becoming one.”
“Hey, whatever works.” John didn’t begrudge the man his faith. Task Force Valor didn’t have a chaplain of their own, and Doc was often the one who filled that role whenever one of the men needed someone to talk to.
John used to pray quite a bit himself. Since he’d been in the Army, however, he’d begun to wonder if it really mattered. The sum total of the human suffering he’d seen undoubtedly colored his view of God’s nature. He’d started to see God more in terms of his own father—an important and semi-benevolent person who wasn’t around much, leaving him to fend for himself. It was hard to talk to a God like that.
The peacekeeper/interpreter turned to John. “The boy says that he lives in the north, that these men pay him to come and fight. He fought for them in Burkina Faso when he was a boy.”
John snorted. “When he was a boy?”
The peacekeeper continued. “He says he has been fighting for five years and is a good soldier. These people offered him a lot of money, but they didn’t give him a gun. They gave him a wireless telephone and said, ‘Call this number if things go bad.’”
John shook his head. “I bet the poor kid has no idea what he was about to do.”
“Master Sergeant Cooper!” Major Williams called.
John turned, expecting a tirade from the stocky commander. The only time he called John “Master Sergeant” was when John was in trouble. He was taken completely off guard when the major grabbed him in a giant bear hug and held him there.
Slightly embarrassed, John halfheartedly patted the back of his commander’s body armor. “Um, good to see you, too, sir.”
When the major pulled back, John was even more shocked to see a single tear escape the corner of the major’s eye. But Williams wore it proudly and didn’t wipe it away.
Instead, he quickly regained his composure and said, “Praise the good Lord in heaven. I never thought I’d see you guys again. When that gadget of Frank’s failed, I was sure it was game over. How did you neutralize the enemy without setting off the bomb?”
“We got lucky, sir. Plain and simple.” John shuddered inside even as he said it. “I somehow dropped the lead terrorist right on top of his prayer mat from hell.”
A wide smile split the major’s face. “There’s no such thing as luck, son.”
Beirut
Julie Fairchild Assan hurried down the stairs when she heard Khalil open the front door, announcing his return from work. She had tried hard to look just right for tonight’s dinner. The evening was important to her husband professionally, and she was determined to make him proud.
“Khalil! How was your day?” She leaned in and kissed his cheek, a soft, wifely peck. She was feeling very well, not even a
twinge of her rheumatoid arthritis. Ah, modern medicine was a wonderful thing. She was actually looking forward to the dinner.
She waited for him to return the kiss, but he took a step back and scowled at her. “That dress is indecent. Change it.”
No hello. No how are you. No my-day-was-fine-thank-you-how-about-you? Just “Change it.”
She looked down at herself in surprise. The black sequined dress had a modest scooped neck, and the hem fell below her knees. She frowned at Khalil. “But you bought this dress for me at Harrod’s.” Back when we lived in London. Back when you thought I was wonderful.
His lips tightened. “Too much leg. Too much bosom. And that pendant calls attention to you too much.”
Her hand went to the piece she wore around her neck on a slender gold chain. It was an old-fashioned miniature portrait of herself with upswept hair and a blue Regency-style gown. It was a gift her mother had painted and given her on her sixteenth birthday.
She was not taking it off. No other piece of jewelry was as precious to her, except for her engagement and wedding rings and the diamond studs in her ears that Khalil had given her as a wedding present.
After all the time she had spent trying to make certain she was perfect this evening, resentment burned. She glared at him, this man who was becoming more of a stranger every day.
“I’m afraid my formal burqa is at the cleaners, so you’re stuck with this.” She indicated the dress. “Besides, we’re already late. There isn’t time to change.”
She swept out the door, grabbing her black velvet stole as she went. She draped it over her shoulders. What was happening to him, to her, to them?
When she had gone to America for college, she missed Beirut and the culture she’d grown to love. American things didn’t sing a siren’s song to her like they did to Liz. Americans were too loud, too greedy, and, well, too American.
She decided to study a semester at Cambridge and see if she could be more comfortable in England. She found herself as lonely and uncertain there as at the University of Virginia, and in England there wasn’t Liz’s comforting presence.
Then she met Khalil at an international students gathering. She thought him incredibly handsome with his thick black hair, eyes so dark the irises and pupils merged, body slim but strong as he raced up and down the soccer field. She reveled in his fascination with her blond hair, blue eyes, and thoroughly American features.
They talked endlessly about Beirut, spoke Arabic together, shared a yearning for a walk on the Corniche, where the breezes of the Mediterranean blew gently to cool them, or for skiing at the Cedars in the Lebanon Mountains, where the crisp winter air turned their cheeks red.
Sadly, it was now becoming apparent that she had mistaken the comfort of the familiar for love. In turn, she was afraid that Khalil had mistaken her delight in his company and her overeager listening to anything and everything he said as evidence of a sweet, pliant spirit.
“My American Beauty rose,” he called her. Rather, he used to call her.
They had married in England after a very short courtship, then lived in London for three years as he went to work for the World Bank. Charles and Annabelle Fairchild saw Khalil’s religion as an interesting Lebanese/Middle Eastern custom, no more. To them whether you called the deity God or Allah made no difference. They were firm believers in the many paths to God theory, if, that is, someone was weak enough to need religion.
Khalil’s parents, Rafiq and Rena Assan, cultural Sunni Muslims, weren’t overly happy with their son’s Christian wife, but they smiled through gritted teeth. She was pleasant, she was pretty, and she was certainly less embarrassing than the wives some of their friends’ sons had picked.
Julie sighed as she and Khalil drove toward the Avenue du General de Gaulle and the hotel where the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development in cooperation with Middle East and North Africa Development Reform was hosting a dinner to open their conference. She hadn’t said a word to Khalil since they left the house, and she didn’t intend to until she had no choice. This afternoon during her brief visit with Annabelle and Liz, her mother had encouraged her to be gracious.
“You know Middle Eastern men can be overbearing upon occasion. Just smile and go your own way.” Annabelle grinned like a naughty child as she added, “It works with your father.”
She and Liz laughed until their sides hurt.
But Khalil’s critical attitude showed itself more than just “upon occasion,” and Julie was getting sick and tired of being treated like she had no mind or thoughts of her own.
Liz hadn’t said anything during the afternoon visit, but she knew her sister hadn’t thought she should marry Khalil in the first place.
“He’s not a Christian, Julie. You’re going to find both faith and cultural differences.”
Moonstruck, Julie hadn’t listened. After all, she had lived overseas all her life, in Lebanon since she was eleven. She understood cultural differences. With Liz she’d attended the American Community School in Beirut with students of all nationalities. Her parents frequently had students from all over the world at the house.
And on issues of faith, she wasn’t as radical as Liz had become. In fact, she had yet to admit to her parents that while in America she had attended a campus Christian organization with Liz and professed faith in Christ.
“Faith, if you have to have it, should be private, nonintrusive,” Charles always said. She agreed with him.
Liz didn’t. She’d created quite a storm when she confessed her newfound faith.
“What?” Charles bellowed.
“Now, dear,” Annabelle said. “Don’t worry. She’s too intelligent to stay caught in that web of lies. Give her time. It will wear off.”
But it hadn’t. Liz had built her whole life around her faith, and she wanted Julie to do the same. She probably thought Julie was getting what she deserved in her troubles with Khalil.
Julie caught herself. Such a thought was unfair to Liz. She had never been anything but nice to Khalil and his family, nor shown any sign she hoped the marriage failed.
Julie sighed as she and Khalil sped through the night toward the Hotel Rowena. She knew that at the dinner she’d have to speak to him, but that didn’t count. Her vow of silence applied to their private time.
When that moment of unavoidable social communication came, she’d be coolly elegant and cooperative, just to show him what a treasure he had. She would be oh-so-willing to work to make the evening a success for him. That’s what wives did, right? Even wives who were furious at their husbands.
Beirut
JAMAL KNEW that a martyr was granted instant access to Paradise, where dark-eyed virgins waited to cater to his every need.
He was already twenty-seven years old, and he accepted the fact that he had little chance of ever finding a bride in the refugee camp. His family’s poverty almost guaranteed that no self-respecting family would allow their daughter to marry him, even if he could find a girl who would agree.
A multitude of virgins caring for him in Paradise was certainly enticing, though he wasn’t exactly sure how that would work.
While the idea of a blessed Paradise eased his fears and caused his juices to flow, his real reasons for accepting his mission were more nebulous, though no less real. Daily since he said yes, a compelling feeling of purpose and destiny grew in him.
I will not be powerless again. Satisfaction raced through him. My life will count for something.
These last four days had only strengthened his resolve. The first night in the hotel he had turned on the television in his room. It was the first time in his life that he’d had a television all to himself, and he hadn’t known that there could be so many channels. Most of the ones being piped into the hotel were from Europe or America. From his bed he cycled slowly through nearly forty stations, staring bug-eyed, both astonished and sickened by the thinly-veiled pornography that oozed from the screen like untreated sewage.
America called itsel
f a Christian nation, and judging by the American shows he saw that night, he became convinced that Christianity was more perverse and decadent than even Imam Muhammed had said. At least Islam respected women enough not to allow its daughters and sisters to cavort about undressed like animals up for sale in the souks. Revolted, he unplugged the television and turned it around, its dark eye staring blankly at the wall.
Two days ago, Jamal had left the hotel dressed for business and carrying an empty briefcase, just as the man who hired him instructed. He passed the day strolling along the waterfront Corniche, spending some of the money his contact had given him on flat bread, hummos, and a liter of bottled water from a street vendor.
At five o’clock after a short, scripted conversation with another very specific vendor, he purchased three more bottles. These he deposited unopened in his well-padded briefcase. Back in his room at the hotel, he put the bottles into the small refrigerator in the corner by the window for safe keeping.
Yesterday he repeated the process twice, ending with a total of nine liter bottles chilling in the refrigerator. Today he didn’t leave the room. Instead, he had waited until evening and ordered in. When the waiter came, Jamal moved behind him as the man lifted the covers from the plates of food. Then he pulled a black plastic bag over the waiter’s head. Holding it there until the man stopped fighting for his life had been the most difficult thing Jamal had ever done.
Much more difficult than what would come next.
Quickly he changed into the clothes of the dead man. He walked into the marble-tiled bathroom and looked at himself in the mirror. The waiter’s uniform was much too short for his gangly arms and legs, but it would have to do. He ran a comb through his black hair and smoothed his thick eyebrows.
The man staring back at him looked different somehow, not beaten down, not hopeless. For the first time in his life Jamal looked confident. His old life had robbed him of energy, left him devoid of purpose. And he would always be powerless if he went back to living as he had. Powerless against the government of Lebanon, powerless against the soldiers who seemed to be everywhere, powerless against the Christians, powerless against the Israelis.