Operation Arcana

by John Joseph Adams

  Youth Empowerment.

  Pride.

  Take Charge.

  Grasp Your Future.

  Know Yourself.

  Love.

  Peace.

  All Western ideas for an Afghani mind. It looked as if the embassy woman was using skateboarding as a mechanism for social change. Easier to change the children than to change the adults. I could understand this.

  It was the third time back when I saw her again. She came and sat down beside me.

  “I know who you are.”

  I looked at her. “I doubt it,” I said finally.

  “Corporal Isaiah Drachman, formerly of the New Mexico National Guard. Your tour ended three months ago. You’re AWOL, soldier.”

  I glanced at her guards, who were in place and looking outward, then back to her. “You know me, but I don’t know you.”

  “Call me Sam,” she said, holding out a hand.

  I took it, felt the softness, and shook it. Part of me wanted to never let go, to perhaps take it with me. She made my decision easy by pulling her hand free.

  “Cold,” she said, smiling apologetically. “Your hands are so cold.”

  “It’s how I was made,” I said, telling her more truth than she knew.

  She rubbed her hands together as she spoke, watching the kids travel up and down the wooden ramps. “You have extraordinary eyes. I knew I’d seen them somewhere. We have a file on you at the embassy. Why didn’t you go back when your unit rotated home? Why stay here? I have to say, you’re one of the only people I’ve ever heard of who decided to stay. The others were at least Afghan-Americans.”

  “My mission isn’t complete.” That I said it surprised me a little. But I’d decided to be honest with her. After all, the worst that could happen would be she’d think I was crazy and not believe me.

  “Your file says you were a truck driver. Are you trying to tell me you’re on a secret mission for the government?” She flashed a smile.

  “Not for the government.”

  “You said before you were looking for someone. Is that your mission? Who is it?”

  “Mullah Vor Gul.”

  She stared at me. “Everyone’s looking for him. What makes you think you can find him?”

  “What makes you think I can’t?”

  “He’s only one of the most wanted men in all of Afghanistan.” Then her eyes narrowed. “I read in the report where your brother died in an incident a few years ago. That’s it, isn’t it? Vor Gul is a Haqqani leader. Did he claim credit?”

  “He did.”

  She stared at me for a long while, then shook her head. “Jesus. You’re going to kill him, aren’t you?”

  I nodded, but was beginning to feel uncomfortable. I started to stand, but she placed a hand on my arm.

  “Can I see your face?” she asked softly.

  I hesitated, then unwound the shemagh.

  She appraised me, tilting her head slightly as she did.

  Then I rewound the cloth around my head and face, stood, and hurried away. Now that she knew what I was about, I felt at risk. I kept my head down as I shuffled past the guards and into the gathering dusk.

  My maker sat with me for two weeks before I was ready to leave the sanctuary of my birthplace. The old woman fed us and kept fueling the fireplace with mesquite. His name was Yoram Drachman, and he’d been Isaac’s grandfather. He explained to me that I was a modern-day gingerbread man. A golem of sorts. Not the rough-hewn simulacrum which had protected Prague so many centuries ago, but a finely crafted reincarnation of his grandson.

  “I’ve spent my life working for the Israeli military, creating battalions of tools such as yourself, each one a little better than the rest. Until I decided it was time to make one for myself.

  “The art came to our people from China a thousand years ago,” he went on to tell me. “They’d been using golems for thousands of years, culminating in the creation of the Terracotta Army of the First Qin Emperor. But where the Chinese created their golems for defense, we create ours as hunters. And you, Isaiah, you will be my hunter.”

  Over the days and nights, he told me everything he knew of my not-brother and of his killer, Mullah Vor Gul. With the ability to never forget, the information built upon itself, until one day I was ready to leave. He’d had false papers made for me, showing I was a new transfer to the New Mexico National Guard.

  I heard the name mentioned two days after Sam and I last spoke. Mullah Vor Gul, whispered by one man to another as they shared a cigarette in an alley. I was two blocks away when they said it the first time, but they were in sight when they said it a second time. Never more than a whisper, that name rang loud as a mission bell to me.

  I followed them as they boarded a bus heading out to Shar-e-Now. When they disembarked, I did as well. They saw me, but I kept my eyes down and let them walk away. It took an hour, but I eventually found them again, homing in on their voices on the third floor of an old Soviet apartment building. I squatted with my back against the building and listened, my hearing so much more than any mere human could have.

  They spoke of American soldiers. They spoke of the need to cleanse the earth of our stink. They spoke of bombs. They spoke of vengeance. I couldn’t help but smile. I knew more about vengeance than they could ever hope to know.

  I was vengeance.

  The two men left the next morning. I followed them throughout the city, sometimes close enough to hear, sometimes too far away, until they returned once more. They spoke again of American soldiers and bombs. Then they mentioned Vor Gul. They said his name reverently. Then they said words which caused me concern. They spoke of skateboards, and they also spoke of bombs.

  I went to them.

  I broke the legs of the one and the arms of the other. I tied them to chairs and searched their meager place. I found maps taped to the wall of one room, along with a collection of prepaid cell phones-burners.

  “What is it you want?” they asked.

  “Vor Gul.”

  Their spines stiffened, despite their pain. “We won’t tell you.”

  Then I broke the rest of their arms and legs. One passed out. The other whimpered gently, too tired to continue screaming.

  “Tell me of skateboards,” I said, squatting between them, staring at a cockroach scuttling across the floor. “Tell me of skateboards and bombs.”

  This they told me.

  Then I killed them.

  On the final day of my creation, my maker brought Isaac’s parents in. Shira was in tears and threw herself at her father. Emil stood in the doorway, his face unreadable in shadow.

  “You mustn’t do this, Papa!” she cried.

  My maker gripped her by her shoulders and held her at arm’s length. “This is my choice. It must be done.”

  “Isaac wouldn’t want this,” she said.

  “Isaac would understand this better than either of you.” He stared hard at his son-in-law. “Take your wife.”

  Emil came over and put his arms around her shoulders. “Just let him do it, damn it.”

  My maker stood, towering over me as I lay on my back on the table. “Isaac understood the need to be a part of something greater than oneself. He knew the importance of protecting those things he loved.”

  “But this is America, Papa. Not Israel.”

  “We are not so different, our two countries. America is as surrounded by her enemies as Israel. Make no mistake that the oceans can protect her. They haven’t before, and they won’t now. The only way to protect is to find and kill your enemies.”

  Emil shook his head. “Enough of this, old man. Your daughter moved here with me to get away from such thinking.”

  My maker laughed. “And look what good it did.”

  “What is it you want of us?” Emil said.

  “To bear witness to your vengeance.” He placed his hand on my head. “Arise and introduce yourself, my American Golem.”

  I sat up and stared at the parents of the man from which I was made. My make
r had burned him and ground him up, then had mixed his remains with the land. I felt a connection to these two people before me. I had memories of them that came fractured and chaotic.

  “He lo-looks human,” Shira said.

  “He looks like him.” Tears gathered in Emil’s eyes. “Damn you.”

  “My greatest creation. He shall be Isaac’s brother.”

  “Hello. My name is Isaiah . . . Isaiah Drachman,” I said, for the first time speaking to someone other than my maker.

  “Dear God,” Emil whispered.

  “Not God. A golem,” my maker said.

  I held out my hand as Isaac’s memories swept through me like a storm. I couldn’t help myself as I said, “Oh, Mother . . .”

  Then she fainted.

  I was drawn back to the skateboarders both because of my worry for their safety and because of something insatiable about Sam. The two low-level Haqqani militants had known only that the park was a target. They hadn’t known when, but had believed the attack would happen soon. I felt the need to warn someone. I felt the need to save them, which felt strange, because I’d never felt the pull of something other than my singular mission. Even when I’d pretended to be a soldier, it had been in order to get here and find Vor Gul. Did I intrinsically know that this was something that Isaac would have wanted done, or was this me? Was there a difference?

  When I arrived, Sam was working with the girls, posing them and taking pictures. I sat in my usual place beneath the fig tree. I’d been sitting there for three or four minutes when a man came and sat down beside me. He wore a polo shirt beneath body armor and 5.11 pants. He wore Ray-Bans and had blond hair cut too short to comb. He had a 9mm pistol in a cross-draw holster attached to the front of his body armor.

  “I’m Scott,” he said. He neither shook my hand, nor did he look at me. Instead, he kept his gaze steadily focused on the skateboarders. “I hear you’re looking for Vor Gul.”

  Sam had told someone about me. Had my desire put my mission at risk? Was this what was meant to be human? I cursed myself.

  As if he could read my mind: “Don’t be nervous and don’t worry. We have no intention of stopping you.” He let that sink in for a moment, then added, “I work at the embassy, too.”

  “What is it you want?” I asked.

  “The same thing you want. We don’t care if you do it or if we get to him first. We just want to take him down.”

  Sam came over and sat on the other side of me. “I see you’ve met Scott.”

  I turned toward her. “Danger is coming.”

  Her smile fell. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I found two men talking about Vor Gul and this skate park.”

  “When? Where?” Scott demanded, looking at me for the first time.

  “No time frame. Soon, I think.” I saw him exchange a look with Sam, and then I knew the truth of it. “You knew it. No, you planned it. This place, these children, they’re a lure.”

  Embarrassment took root in Sam’s eyes. She couldn’t meet my steady challenging gaze. “We thought it might be too lucrative a target, especially after the Time magazine article that came out last week. But the children are safe. They were never in any danger.”

  “You’re kidding yourselves if you believe that.” Whatever it had been that had drawn me to Sam was now a phantom of what it was. She had commented about the coldness of my skin. That was no match for the empty cavern of her heart.

  “Where are these two militants?” Scott asked.

  I gave him the address. “They are no longer living,” I said.

  Sam’s eyes widened. “You killed them?”

  I watched as a girl of about twelve soared down a ramp, her knees slightly bent, her arms graceful as they caught air. “It’s what I do.”

  “Can you explain to me why there’s no record of you before last year?” Scott asked, his voice suddenly official.

  “I’d rather not say.”

  “You’re on record as being the brother of Isaac Drachman, but he never listed a sibling on any of his paperwork.”

  “I can’t help that,” I said.

  Scott persisted. “Who do you work for?”

  I laughed. He thought I was a spook. He’d never understand, so I just didn’t answer him.

  “You know we can bring you in if we want to,” he said.

  “I thought you said you had no intention of stopping me.”

  “That was before.”

  “Before what? Before I gave you a lead that might possibly help you find Vor Gul? Before I gave you information that would save lives?”

  They exchanged glances. This wasn’t going as they’d planned. So sad when reality intrudes on a well-planned idea. I decided to ask my own questions. “What do you know about Vor Gul? Do you know where he is?”

  “We have reports that he left his safe house in Waziristan and is heading into Kabul.” Scott reached out and grasped my wrist. “Let me see your face.”

  I pulled free of his grasp. “What is it you think you want to see?”

  He grabbed my wrist again, and once again I pulled free. “I just want to see . . . You’re not human, are you?”

  The question floored me.

  “What are you?” His eyes were fixed on me as he waited for the answer.

  “I am golem.”

  His face froze. “Holy shit,” he said finally. “You’re one of them. Why were you made?”

  “For Isaac Drachman.”

  “Are you free thinking?” he asked.

  I shrugged. “How can one know such a thing?”

  “Are you alone or are there more of you?”

  I decided it was my turn to ask a question. “How did you know?”

  He didn’t hesitate to respond. “Isaac’s grandfather is on our watch list. We know he traveled from Israel to America and stayed for several weeks. He’s part of a special division of the IDF we’ve been trying to figure out.”

  The fact that he knew this left little doubt what section of the embassy he worked for.

  “You’re not real,” Sam said, her voice filled with awe.

  I turned and placed a hand on her cheek, feeling the softness, the warmth of living flesh. “Does this feel real to you?”

  She pulled away from my hand. “I’m sorry, what I meant was you’re not human. I thought Scott was crazy when he came to me with his idea.”

  Scott interrupted. “What happened to Yoram Drachman? We have no record of him leaving America.”

  “He’s dead.”

  This gave him pause. “Did you kill him?”

  “That’s personal.”

  “Did he make more?”

  “That’s personal.”

  Now it was his turn to laugh. “A golem invoking personal privacy.”

  I shrugged. “Why not? I am as alive as you.”

  He shook his head. “We have souls.”

  “How do you know I don’t have one?”

  “Jesus,” was all he could say.

  I stood ready to leave.

  Scott didn’t say anything, but Sam stopped me and held out her hand. In it was a cell phone. “Here, take this.” When I hesitated she said, “It’ll let us track you and tell us where you are. We can also call and tell you if we have information about Vor Gul.”

  I took the phone and left. A mile later, I tossed it in the back of a donkey cart headed out of town.

  They came at me the next day. All their talk about letting me continue my mission meant nothing. I noticed them following me in an up-armored SUV just after noon. I’d passed two Friday food markets where farmers brought in their own fruits and vegetables, often by donkey cart. I moved through the crowd slowly, like I was browsing. But like always, I was listening for any mention of Vor Gul. I could hear it even when whispered.

  The SUV was at both locations. I decided to lead them to a place I knew. I acquired a limp as I shuffled down an alley and into a dead end that cul-de-saced between three four-story buildings. I waited until the SUV roared
into the space. Four men leaped out of the vehicle and took up distance around me. They were operators. Probably TF 310 or 240. From their helmets to their knee pads to their body armor almost hidden beneath their one-size-too-large black shirts to the way they held their HKs all spoke to these men being pros. They exuded confidence. They’d clearly encountered a lot.

  Too bad they’d never encountered a golem or they’d have known better.

  “What is it?” I asked, deciding not to feign anything.

  “Mr. Scott says you’re to come with us.” The speaker was a muscular black man who wore a scar down one cheek.

  “And where are you going?”

  “Some place where he can talk to you.”

  Study me was more like it. “Sounds like Parwan. I’ll take a pass.”

  They shifted uncomfortably on their feet. They weren’t prepared for my response. I wondered how much Scott had told them about me. I wonder how much he knew about golems.

  Their leader spoke again. “I’m not going to tell you again, sir. You need to come wit—”

  He never finished as I flowed toward him. Moving faster than any human, my limbs weren’t held back by the mechanism of joints and muscles. I was a single entity. I was a human-sized amoeba.

  I was death.

  I grabbed his rifle and twisted it so quickly it broke both his wrists. I snapped the weapon in half and jammed one piece through his face. I moved on the next man as they fired, dozens of 5.56 rounds piercing my flesh.

  I felt no pain. I barely felt the impacts. I reached the next man and broke him down. The others tried to run, but I wouldn’t let them. I ripped them apart and left their pieces in a pile inside the back of the SUV.

  When it was all over, I stripped and found where Sam or Scott had attached the tracking device to the back of my clothes. I left the device and my clothes in the SUV and walked naked for a time.