Screaming Eagles

by Michael Lawrence Kahn

  Our time has finally come. We are now ready for the righteous to re-attack, extract revenge, complete the wishes of Allah, and destroy the Infidels, every last one of them with no mercy. Blood will take the place of water flowing in mighty rivers around the world.

  To befriend, to associate, to live amongst these deceased carrion, as I have done for thirty-five years, will now end. The exile is over, now that I am free of the burden, and can take off this mask I needed to hide behind so that my Screaming Eagles could succeed. The Screaming Eagles who are training and ready to come to America will also succeed. The blessing of the Imam’s words stored away in my heart can finally be achieved. The beauty of his words are now my final release. The rivers here will flow with blood.

  Twelve days from now, Hudna can end and the final chapter will be written the beginning of the end of America as it now exists. The planning is now complete, Iran was first in the past ten years. Three-quarters of Africa is now Islamic. Now it is the turn of America. At long last, I can eliminate this scourge of a nation with the help of Saudi Arabia, and drive a dagger into its heart, this Satan that calls itself America.

  It is time for the Devil to die and re-emerge as the new hope for the world, with Sharia as its signpost and Islam as its true religion.

  The man known as Seymour continues making his way toward the exit, smiling, patting acquaintances on the back, and shaking hands. Gudjohn someone or other from Hanover, Pennsylvania shakes his hand, moving it up and down, not letting go. The man smiling hugely, shows his bad teeth, a smell of whisky exudes from his mouth with every word he speaks. Winking slyly, he starts telling a joke. Seymour excuses himself, tearing his hand away so vigorously that Gudjohn nearly falls forward.

  Seymour feels a hand squeezing his elbow, the pressure becoming painful. Annoyed that someone is deliberately hurting him, he turns, smiling tightly, expecting to see some drunk.

  The first thing he notices is that the man holding his elbow has a white patch of hair in the middle of his forehead.

  There is no smile on his face. The face seems vaguely familiar, but Seymour can’t place it for the moment.

  “Do I know you? Please let go of my arm. You’re hurting me.”

  Instead of releasing his grip, the man in the dark suit continues to apply pressure, expertly pinching the nerves along the bone of the elbow. “Sadegh Muzahedi…Seymour…it doesn’t matter. You hanged my father Dara. My name is Jalal. Do you remember me now?”

  Seymour reacts as if he’s been kicked. He bends as if to ward off blows. The man’s words, sledgehammers, each of them delivered with the force of a physical blow, dredge up wisps of memories. Involuntarily, he tries to pull away.

  Stomach churning, heart pounding, Seymour replies, “There must be some mistake. Excuse me please.” He tries to take a step backwards, but Jalal still holds his arm.

  The man puts his hand in his pocket and extracts a small piece of paper. He begins stuffing it slowly into Seymour’s jacket pocket, the expression on his olive-skinned face mocking, as if talking to a small child. “You will find a telephone number on that paper. I know all about your plans. Call me at midnight. I will not wait longer than one full minute at that telephone. We will talk further then. We will also talk about what guarantees my people, the Kurds, will receive, and who will guarantee the guarantors. For not only are you a killer, but you are also a liar, as is Abdel Amir. Do not be late with your call to me. The newspapers go to press at 2 a.m.

  The man holding Seymour’s elbow in a vice-like grip continues. “If you are late, you will read about yourself in tomorrow’s newspapers at your house in Highland Park. If you decide to fly out of O’Hare, police will be waiting for you. Like you, I do not play games. If you try to hide, I will come looking for you. You will not know where I am, but I have been following you for years and all this time, you, the head of SAVAK, were not aware he was being followed. You must be getting too old or too complacent or maybe you have forgotten what it is like to be hunted.”

  Flustered, unable to think coherently, Seymour tries to stall. “Excuse me, sir, but I cannot call you at midnight. You must have the wrong man.”

  The man smiles a fleeting hint of irony in his smile as he releases Seymour’s arm. He pats him on the shoulder. “I will expect your call, Sadegh Muzahedi. Oh, I nearly forgot. I also know about the Screaming Eagles. You see, you and I will have a lot to trade. I want the Kurdish nation to be independent, and receive its fair share of your grand scheme with the President of Iraq and the plans that you to have for the future. If your call is one minute late, Eagle One, I’ll bury you and your cousin, Abdel Amir, the same way he blew up the bunker that buried his son.”

  Turning, Jalal walks out of the room.

  As he watches the man walk out of the room, Seymour feels sweat trickling down through his eyebrows into his eyes. A thin feather of sweat slides down his back and ice churns in his belly. Mystified and unbelieving, momentarily dazed, not sure if he is correct, he realizes the dampness in his underpants is warm piss.

  For a few seconds, he stands, uncertain what to do. The man’s words crawl through his mind like a spider web, connecting and disconnecting. He tastes a hint of bile fluttering in his mouth. Ignoring the members wanting to shake his hand, he walks quickly out the same door through which the man has exited.

  Holding onto a banister, Sadegh runs down the steps two at a time, stopping at the swinging doors. Breathing heavily, he pulls out his wallet, glances down quickly, and extracts two $20 bills.

  Standing back slightly in case Jalal—he remembers now, that is the man’s name—turns around, Seymour sees a cab draw alongside and watches as the Kurd climbs in and closes the door. The cab starts to move, turning as it edges into the traffic. Seymour pulls the hotel door open and runs toward the taxi line, elbowing and pushing people out of his way, and jumps into the front cab.

  The driver doesn’t turn around, just looks into the mirror, cocking his head slightly and waiting for the address. Seymour touches the man’s shoulder with the hand that holds the twenties. “I want no talking, no questions. Just follow that cab. Concentrate on not losing him and you’ll get a few more of these as a tip.”

  The driver nods and takes the two twenties. He pulls away from the curb smoothly. Only then does Seymour settle back into the seat.

  It takes about fifteen minutes to get to Maxwell Street. Jalal’s taxi is crawling along, the driver unsure of where to turn.

  Seymour had cautioned his driver to stay well back. Suddenly, the front car turns down a side street and Seymour’s driver accelerates. Sitting forward, Seymour whispers to the driver, “Careful round the corner. If they’ve stopped, pull over, and turn off your lights.” As they turn into the side street, Seymour sees the cab in front has pulled up about a hundred yards away.

  Standing in the middle of the road, the cab’s exhaust sends clouds of smoke spiraling upwards, disappearing into the darkness. The interior light is on as Jalal completes paying the driver and waits for a receipt. Jalal gets out, steps quickly onto the sidewalk looking straight ahead, and merges into the darkness. From his taxi, parked on the side of the road, lights off, Seymour watches as the other taxi moves forward and the road swirls into a blanket of dust as the back lights fade away.

  “Slowly now, keep your lights off,” Seymour instructs his driver.

  They drive down the deserted street, coming parallel to the motel office. It is in darkness. Seymour sees the parking lot has no cars, and a solitary light is shining from a window at the far end of the lot, probably Jalal’s room. Looking around, he notes with satisfaction that the motel seems to be empty. No cars are parked anywhere nearby on either side of the street that he is on.

  A brief smile twitches on his mouth. He relaxes against the back seat. “Hilton Hotel, step on the gas.” He takes out his wallet, pulls out three twenties, and the smile flutters broadly on his face.

  * * *

  Seymour/Sadegh arrives at his home in Lake Forest 45 minutes
after the taxi dropped him in front of the Hilton. He hasn’t been to Lake Forest for nearly a year, so if the Kurd’s spies are watching his Highland Park home, they would have had nothing to report. He is confident that they are not aware of Lake Forest.

  He gloats silently. Lake Forest is my safe house, surrounded by a high fence, and surveillance cameras. Lake Forest is where I bring people to torture and kill. No one I have ever brought here has left alive. This is my favorite sanctuary I know exactly where I buried each body.

  He enters the massive brick house through the kitchen door, and immediately goes to the basement. There, he lays out instruments neatly in a row, making sure that they are in the correct order so that he can easily get to them when he tortures the Kurd. After so many years of perfecting his craft, Sadegh knows every pressure point in the body. He knows where to press to cause massive and excruciating pain, and enjoys searching and finding how far the victim’s mind and strength will allow him to go.

  Sadegh feels almost visceral pleasure when he thinks about denying his victim the luxury of fainting on the gurney. Tugging on each restraint strap to make sure it won’t break, he slides a sleeve of thick plastic over the gurney. The plastic has been tailored to fit snugly without any creases. No blood will stain the rubber mattress as it splatters all over while he works on the man. He checks that scrubs and tops are folded on the shelf in the closet. Pairs of rubber gloves and waterproof shoe covers are in a cupboard alongside the gurney, each stacked in a neat pile. Sadegh’s thoughts move toward his objective: to torture the Kurd into eventual madness, desecrate his body, and capture his soul to own him throughout eternity.

  Sadegh climbs a few stairs, pushes open the massive wooden doors that lead to the cellar, and emerges into the garden. The darkness surges with movements of birds and small animals. Branches creak and whisper. He listens to the muted sounds of the night with an occasional flutter of wings as birds call to one another, moving from one tree to another. He realizes how much he’ll miss this place. The first stars are out. The moon has yet to rise above the trees surrounding his yard. Looking at his watch, he anticipates returning in about four hours with the Kurd.

  Sadegh walks into the house, making his way to the master bedroom to turn down the covers of his bed. From past experience, he would undress in the basement each night until the man died, taking off his bloody clothing and dumping itinto a garbage bag before coming upstairs to shower and sleep. Picking up a bundle of bath towels, he places them near the shower, then checks to see if the TV is working. Satisfied, Sadegh opens the closet and changes his clothes.

  The Kurd will cause him to delay his departure for a few days. He will need to call Baghdad, Jeddah, and Zurich. Thoughts of the Kurd filter into his mind. He wonders how long it will take to break the Kurd. Torturing him is an unexpected bonus; killing him afterward will give Sadegh great satisfaction. The purity of the kill will be something to be savored.

  Humming to himself, Sadegh looks at his watch, it is time to go. The handcuffs are stuffed into his left trouser pocket, the gun and spare clip into his other pocket.

  Over the years, Sadegh has perfected his methods of breaking a person—man or woman didn’t matter, they were both the same.

  He calls it his “meal of three courses.” The first day was usually the day that all victims tried to resist and show how brave they were. That was the appetizer. The second day was the main course, his favorite, the day he most enjoyed. This was the day that all of his victims screamed the loudest, groveled, and begged. This would be the day the Kurd would divulge how he had found out about the Screaming Eagles and where his other Kurds were hiding in the USA.

  Sadegh is sure that his stupid cousin, Abdel Amir, has spoken to someone. Maybe he’ll need to kill Abdel Amir sooner than he’s planned.

  Time would tell. The third day was dessert, verifying if what they’d confessed to were lies or really the truth. But usually they died long before he wanted them to.

  An hour and a half later, Sadegh was driving along Maxwell Street. When he turned down the side street where the motel was located, he was still humming to himself and thinking about his “meal of three courses.” He is determined to find a way to prolong the dessert so the Kurd would last an extra day or two.

  * * *

  Sadegh looks through the narrow gap where the curtains don’t quite close against each other. Leaning up against the wall so that no light would fall on him in case someone walked past the entrance of the motel and looked at the lighted window, Sadegh waits. Dressed completely in black, wearing gloves, a ski mask covering his face, he’s been standing there for nearly ten minutes, carefully surveying the entire room and its contents, looking for anything out of the ordinary, wary in case it was a trap. He looks between the flypaper hanging from the ceiling to see if there is a trapdoor in the roof.

  Methodically, he checks to see if he’d overlooked anything. Nothing has changed. His ears cock waiting for any suspicious sound—he hears nothing. Silence is heavy all around him and he feels almost drunk and euphoric at the thought that his victim is within his grasp.

  Jalal, eating from a large packet of chips, sits on the bed with his feet up, wearing a pair of underwear and socks, is watching an old movie on television. He occasionally sips from a can of soda. A heavy chain is wrapped around the television mounted on a shelf fixed to the wall about two feet below the ceiling. Wallpaper, faded and peeling, bulges unevenly off the two far walls. The curtain in front of the wash basin and toilet is pulled to the side, revealing broken and chipped tiles surrounding a small mirror. A white metal bathtub standing on four legs is alongside the toilet, its faucets dripping water, the tub discolored and corroded by rust. No curtain surrounds the tub.

  The only other piece of furniture is a large, old-fashioned, carved wardrobe stained dark brown standing against the wall in the center of the room opposite the bed. Its door is ajar, open enough for Sadegh to see Jalal’s suit pants, jacket, and shirt piled one on top of the other hanging from the corner of the door. His necktie has fallen from the door and lies on the floor next to his shoes. Broken strips of linoleum cover most of the floor.

  Finally satisfied that there is no danger, Sadegh moves quietly to stand two paces away from the door. His palms sweat slightly he tightens his grip on the gun, checking once again, making sure that the silencer is screwed on tightly.

  Crouching, turning his left shoulder toward the door, taking a deep breath, Sadegh runs forward. The plywood door shatters as he comes hurtling through, slamming it with such force against the back wall that one of the hinges breaks away. Still in a crouch, he steadies himself, the gun pointing directly at Jalal’s chest. Jalal sits frozen, wide-eyed, staring at the gun, not breathing or attempting to move. He is still holding the packet of chips.

  Behind Sadegh, the door moves slightly, creaking quietly on the broken hinge.

  “If you jump at me or try to escape, Kurd, I will not kill you. I will shoot you in your balls, your knees, or ankles. I will immobilize you. It will be painful, and you will not escape from me. You said you would phone me later tonight and we would talk. We will talk, Kurd. We will have a two-way conversation, but I will ask the questions and you will answer each and every one of mine. Get off the bed. Lie down on your stomach on the floor and put your hands behind your back.”

  Jalal doesn’t move.

  “Get on the floor, you son of a Kurdish whore,” Sadegh shouts, taking aim with both hands at Jalal’s foot, “or I start by shooting your ankle. Hurry up now, I will not tell you again. I am taking you out of here in the next few minutes, Kurd. I don’t care if you walk or if I have to drag you because your ankles and knees are broken. Your choice.”

  He watches as Jalal gets off the bed and stretches out on the floor. “Hold your hands together behind your back. Bring your legs up and kneel on them. Keep your head and shoulders on the floor. Don’t look at me, you piece of shit. Keep your fucking forehead on the floor.”

  He moves forward
toward the side of the kneeling man, keeping a safe distance away from him, watchful for any surprise move. With his left hand, Sadegh pulls the handcuffs from his pants pocket. He moves closer, bending to cuff Jalal’s wrists, knowing that if Jalal would try anything, it will be now.

  “Keep your head down on the floor, you fucking piece of shit. Slowly move your right arm off your back and stretch it out toward me. Keep the other one on your back. Stretch it out now.”

  Extending his left arm to cuff Jalal’s wrist, Sadegh hears a noise. Instantly, he senses danger and glances over his shoulder just as the wardrobe door flies open. I explode out of my hiding place and land on top of Sadegh, who collapses under me. Arms still outstretched, Sadegh, holding the gun, tries to turn, aiming at Jalal and squeezes the trigger, firing two shots.

  Jalal anticipates Sadegh’s need to kill him first, before trying to fight off the person who’s jumped on his back. Jalal rolls over towards me and pushes himself out of the line of fire.

  Steadying himself, Jalal springs at Sadegh’s gun hand, viciously chopping down as hard as he can with the knuckles of his fist onto the back of the glove. He hears a bone crack, Sadegh moans, and the gun falls out of his hand.

  Using a wrestler’s hold, I lie crab-like on Sadegh’s back, legs outstretched on each side of him so that I can’t be thrown off. I maneuver both arms around Sadegh’s neck, holding him in a chokehold. Moving my grip millimeters each time, I continue to squeeze, using my knuckles to shut off the carotid artery and the flow of blood to the brain.

  Sadegh heaves and pushes, trying to dislodge me, his breath sucking in gasps as he tries to lift his hands. He is fighting to find my eyes, his nails scrabbling and tearing into my cheeks.

  Jalal picks up the gun and watches me applying pressure to Sadegh’s neck. The struggling suddenly stops. Sadegh grunts and goes limp. Both his arms tremble slightly and fall onto the floor. Two fingers of his left hand scratch feebly at the linoleum, then he is still. Small drops of saliva begin dribbling from the side of his mouth.