“Rashid,” I said loudly from the shadows where I stood near the door. “How is your throat?” The Machine was providing me the words in Pashto that I simply repeated.
The three men approaching the woman stopped. The woman stopped retreating from them, but kept her arms raised. The two other men stopped looking in the direction of the woman and her attackers. At the sound of my words, everyone in the room stopped, turned and looked in the direction from which my words came.
Rashid, standing with the other man a short distance away from the woman and her three attackers, involuntarily raised his left hand to his throat. He understood immediately who was speaking to him from the shadows. This was my perception.
I stepped a meter or so out of the shadows, my arms hanging at my sides. The headscarf still obscured my face. I had not brought the outside guards’ rifles with me into the building. I didn’t want a firefight that could be heard from a distance and bring unwanted attention or the death of the woman - and I needed her to believe in me.
Rashid stared at me intently, cautiously. He physically leaned in my direction. He looked me up and down, perhaps trying to discern what new threat I had brought to him. His hand was still at his throat. “How did you get into this building past my guards?” The Machine translated Rashid’s words for me.
Again, I repeated the words in Pashto that the Machine said to me. “I killed them.”
Rashid’s eyes sparkled and hardened as he made his decision immediately in response to my words. He yelled to the men near the woman – the Machine translating his words that told them to put a knife to her throat and be prepared to slice it at his command. He then glanced quickly at the man at his side, slanting and nodding his head in my direction, and spoke to him. The Machine translated again. “Kill him – use the Kalashnikov. Shoot him in the head. One shot.” He didn’t want a lot of gunfire.
The three men rushed the woman. Two of them grabbed and held her arms. She struggled against them, but they held her. The third man ran behind her, grabbed her hair and pulled her head to the rear. She yelled at him, calling him a pig and a dog. He placed a knife at her throat. It shone in the dim light. Frozen, she stared directly at me. To me, her eyes portrayed bewilderment, immense curiosity - and hope.
The man next to Rashid lifted his Kalashnikov, aimed it at me and walked toward me.
“Are you getting all of this?” I asked the Machine. “The technical people will be interested.”
“Yes.”
The man with the Kalashnikov stopped five meters in front of me. I glanced at the other players in this drama. All eyes were fixed on me. The woman looked very frightened, as she now saw my imminent death coming, here in front of her. Rashid was now holding a rifle. His expression was perplexed, as if he could not understand why I just stood there waiting to be killed. Why I wasn’t doing anything – anything at all - to try to prevent it.
I needed to convince her.
I stood there and waited.
After being one of its Operators for a time, you develop a deep sense of confidence in the Grid’s technology. Either that or you get out this line of work. It would drive you clinically insane.
The man standing in front of me smiled and pulled the trigger. The sound of the 7.62x41 mm cartridge being explosively propelled from the rifled barrel of the Kalashnikov erupted in the large room, reverberating off its walls and ceiling. The woman’s eyes went wide as she jerked at the unaccustomed sound. The cartridge hit me in the center of my forehead, propelling my head back a little more than the distance of the rifle’s recoil against my assassin’s shoulder. I staggered back into the shadows and fell to my knees, the sound of my fall audible in the room. My neck muscles were sore - the result of their involuntary reaction to counterbalance the force of the cartridge against the front of my skull. My head ached. Feeling only this discomfort, I marveled once again at the protection provided by the ultra-thin, highly flexible carbon nanotube composite body armor that I was wearing. As I said, you have to have confidence.
Everyone was staring in my direction, although they could not clearly see me in the darkness. The men began to look at one another for assurance. My assailant, still smiling, turned to Rashid and nodded. “He is finished,” he said. “Right between the eyes.” He was, of course, stating the obvious. At least, what all of his senses and expectations told him must be.
Rashid looked at him and then again in my direction. Without looking away from where I had disappeared into the darkness, he told the three men to put down the knife and begin with the woman. Perhaps he still doubted his own senses and expectations. Two of the men started to drag the woman toward the wall behind the table. She began again to struggle. Rashid began to walk in my direction.
I put my right hand into an outside pocket of my camera bag, where I had earlier placed five Devices, and removed them.
The woman struggled fiercely, whipping her body about, screaming, cursing them and spitting at them. The third man yelled at the man standing near Rashid to come and help him with her. The fourth man turned and walked back toward the table and the wall beyond. Rashid continued to walk toward me.
As Rashid neared the edge of darkness, I threw the five Devices high into the air, releasing the hounds of war. They immediately let off five small, bright lights. Rashid noticed my rapid movement and yelled, “He lives!” His eyes looked into the air, following the direction in which my hand had moved, his eyes widening and fixing on the five shining points of light moving upward in the semi-darkness.
At Rashid’s cry, the other four men standing near the woman immediately stopped their assault on her, looked in his direction, and in the same glance stared at the same shining points of light moving in the air above them. They were all staring at death but did not know it. They all stepped back from the woman. The woman froze her movements, looked at the retreating men, and then also began to turn her head upward.
“Now,” I said.
As if by magic, the five shining Devices independently accelerated at speeds the human eye could not follow. It was as if they disappeared. Four of the Devices – each containing a malleable, miniature core –impacted the heads of the four men near the woman. From her perspective, it appeared as if some unseen force simultaneously struck her four attackers – blood spewed from the impact areas – and nearly as one their bodies crumpled to the floor. In accordance with the plan earlier agreed with the Machine, the fifth Device, equipped with a malleable, miniature, explosive core, also accelerating at hyper-velocity for a split second, had targeted Rashid’s throat. As she watched in disbelief and visceral shock the carnage being created around her, she could not help but also witness Rashid’s neck blow apart, his decapitated head fall to the floor, and his lifeless body collapse beside it.
Silence.
A few moments later, I lifted back the hood of my body armor, re-stowed it at the nape of my neck under my shirt and walked out of the darkness into the dim light of the room now filled with the smell of blood. The woman, who moments before had been anticipating but never accepting violation, death and mutilation – would have fought it with her dying breath – stood there, eyes unnaturally wide, breathing very heavily, visibly shaking, terrified.
CHAPTER 8 – Aftermath
“I detect no one else in, near or approaching the building.” I tapped acknowledgement.
I walked out of the darkness and slowly approached the woman, stopped four or five meters away from her, picked up a chair that had fallen over in the tumult, set it right among the lifeless bodies and gore, and sat down. As I walked into the light, she simply stood there against the wall, her right hand at her throat. She did not move, perhaps afraid to do so. That is why I stopped well short of her and sat down.
She watched me, it seemed, with utter bewilderment and fear. She was still in shock. Her body continued to shake. Fully understandable.
“Are you all right?” I asked softly in English. She had studied in England.
No response. She ap
peared to be staring not at my eyes, but at my forehead.
“What is your name?” I asked.
No response. She continued to stare at my forehead, perhaps wondering how it was possible. Then she spoke in English, following my lead. “Who are you?” Her voice was low and a bit broken. As the rush of adrenalin faded, she would feel weak, drained. She didn’t like that and tried again. “Who are you?” This time her voice was a bit stronger, a little louder. She grimaced, still not happy with herself.
I tried to be of help. “A friend,” I responded.
She shifted her stare from my forehead to my eyes, shaking her head, as if trying to understand what had just happened. She looked at me intently. “How is it that you are alive? I saw that man …” She looked about, arm extended, trying to point to my would-be assassin among the bloodied corpses scattered around her. “… I saw you shot in the head. I heard him say that he shot you in the head with the rifle! He could not have missed. I saw you fall. How is it you are alive?”
I did not answer.
Her voice was higher now in tone. “How did these men die?!”
“I killed them.”
“How could you do that?” Her head was still shaking. “How could you do that, when you were dead in the darkness – shot in the head – and nowhere near them?!”
Still, I did not respond. I did not move. I sat there and returned her gaze, trying to look benign amid the carnage, giving her nerves more time to settle.
“Why do you not answer my questions? Are you an animal like them?” She looked at the blood and bodies around her, at Rashid’s headless corpse, not at all convinced of my friendly intentions. I could not fault her. “Do you intend to beat me and then kill me? Are you like them?!” She thrust her head in the direction of the mutilated bodies on the floor amid the blood.
“No.”
“How can I trust you?”
“You should sit down. You will be more comfortable.”
She continued to look at me, then slowly moved to the table and sat on its edge, never taking her eyes from me. She would feel less threatened sitting there than standing with her back to a wall. She tilted her head slightly to her right, as if trying to see me better. She continued her effort to understand. “After what you have done…” she again gestured about her, “…how do I know that you will not use your dead man’s magic on me?”
“These men had orders from your husband to beat, kill and mutilate you – as a message to Ibn Tarik, your father.”
“How could you know this?” she said in a low, slow voice.
“I stopped them from doing those things to you. You are alive and safe. I had hoped my actions would deserve consideration of your trust.”
She sat there and stared at me, looked about her again, and then returned her gaze to me, again looking at my forehead. She sat there shaking her head, still struggling with what she had seen and what I was telling her.
She moved her gaze back down to my eyes. “So you would have me believe that you appeared out of nowhere to rescue me; that you killed the two armed guards outside this building; that you were shot in the head, but survived; then killed these five armed men – all at the same moment – without touching them; and you know about my husband’s disregard for me and my father’s name?”
She had stopped shaking. The discussion was focusing and energizing her spirit. Her character was reasserting itself. I continued to admire who I saw.
I sat still and waited. She was biting her lower lip and briefly closed her eyes. She was still struggling with the fact that she had been saved, miraculously and at the very last moment, from the horrible ordeal that she knew her husband had intended for her and with the perplexing mystery and potential menace that I represented.
“Why will you not answer my questions?”
“If only I could,” I answered. “I can only tell you that the things you saw are things that I can do. They are within my power. I use them to fight enemies and help friends.”
Her face softened slightly, became less tense.
“And why did you help me, rescue me – one woman?”
“Because you were in great need of help. Your person and your dignity were in great peril.”
She looked more intently at me and then lowered her eyes. “Yes” was all she said.
“What Khan intends to do with his one atomic weapon places the persons and dignity of thousands, perhaps millions, at great peril. No less than was your own here tonight.” I said these words in an even tone, softly. I did not move.
She gasped, jerked her gaze back up to me and stood up from the table. She was staring hard into my eyes. “How can you know my husband’s name or of his intentions and this atomic weapon?” Her voice was much stronger now. “Who are you? You must tell me!”
“I am the person who saved your dignity and life tonight and who seeks to save the dignity and lives of those thousands or millions imperiled by your husband’s intentions.”
She stood there next to the table among the shadows in the weak light of the overhead lamps, motes of dust moving about her. Her shoulders now hunched over. She began to cry, softly at first, tears starting to run down her face. The stress of her ordeal of the past days and weeks finally overcame her.
“He must be stopped from doing this! He will kill my people by doing this. He will kill my children! I tried to stop him, to convince him that he must not. His answer to me – his wife – was them!” She spat these last words out and waved her arms, gesturing toward the bodies of the men lying about her. She was sobbing now. She turned her face from me. “I tried to stop him and them, but I could not. I hate him for his treatment of me and for what he intends to do. My husband is now my enemy.” She paused, then added, “I hate myself for my weakness.” She started to wipe the tears from her face.
I gave her a moment. “Will you help me stop him?”
She turned slowly back toward me and stared into my eyes. Silence. After several moments, she said, “When I was a little girl, my family had a woman servant, an Arab. This woman told me of the Djinns. You call them genies. She told me the Djinns are magical beings to be respected and feared. She would remind me of them when I misbehaved. ‘The Djinns will not be pleased with you,’ she would say. Or, when I did something especially good or well, she would tell me, ‘The Djinns will be pleased with you.’ The Djinns, she told me, were capable of magical acts.” As she said these words, she again looked at my forehead and the bloody mess around her, the smell of blood now thick in the air. “When I was a little girl, I believed what this woman told me, as all children would. When I went away to school in the West, in England, I learned that, of course, the Djinns are only a part of the Arab folklore.” She tilted her head to the side. She was still struggling with her dilemma, lost and seeking answers where she could. With hesitation, she asked, “Are you one of the Djinn?”
At her last words, I smiled softly and shook my head. “I am your friend. I have shown you here what can be done against your enemies to save your children. Help me stop Khan.”
She straightened her posture, her demeanor becoming harder. “I do not know the source of your power. But I have seen it and it is fearful. Khan must be stopped. To do that, inexplicable and violent acts - like those you have shown me here - will be needed. I am sure of this. He is a demon. I must save my children from him. Yes, I will help you, if I can.”
I sat there looking at her, admiring her great beauty and character. She averted her eyes from mine.
“Thank you. What is your name?” I asked.
“Jamila,” she said. The word means beautiful.
I nodded my head several times and said, “No better name could your father have chosen.” She jerked her eyes back to mine, startled. A look of worry crossed her face, then passed on – perhaps as she noted the stillness in my voice and my manner, the respect in my eyes as she looked back at me.
She asked, “What name do you use in the Djinn world?”
I noted her words. Deep
uncertainty and fear were still in her mind. I thought momentarily, and then said, “Call me Michael.”
She canted her head to her right side, a glint of intense curiosity, bordering – I thought – on something between disbelief and yearning, in her eyes. “Like the avenging angel,” she said. Her eyes locked onto mine.
I held her gaze. “Jamila, listen, we must leave here soon. Omar may have some of his men come here sooner than I anticipate.”
“You know Omar’s name also?! How can you know all of this?”
I continued to return her gaze. “Jamila, we must leave here soon. Do you have other clothes into which you can change? I intend to take you to a safe place, but it will be difficult if you are wearing your bloodied dress.”
She looked down at herself, for the first time seeing the blood of her attackers spattered on her dress. Her eyes grew wider and she held her arms and hands away from her body, not wanting to soil them also. She looked back up at me.
“Jamila, you are fine. You will feel much better when you are wearing some other clothing. Do you have other clothes here?”
She closed her eyes, trying – it seemed to me – to keep herself from going back into her earlier state of shock. I had seen such reactions before – elsewhere – in the eyes of others.
She opened her eyes, swallowed and said, “Yes. They let me keep one suitcase with some of my clothing.”
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