Jihadi

by Yusuf Toropov

  That ridiculous claw gesture, that dying howl, might not have raised his blood in quite the same way on any other occasion, but on this afternoon, the afternoon he learned of his brother’s death, and greased his throbbing head with tequila, her howl became the latest entry on the list of Things That Piss Mike Mazzoni Off, and clicked into place somewhere right at his foundation.

  He went back to the vehicle for Hajji, and for a grey steel container he had, the day before, filled with gasoline. They felt familiar and ready in his hands.

  85

  At 7:48, we return to the present day, to an American (!) football game. A metaphor (see next note) and also an in-joke, as Mother was and is a huge Redskins fan

  Walking what might have been the fourth mile away from BII on her numb legs, the late-afternoon traffic coursing all around her and hours to go before she reached home, Fatima’s debate about what she would and would not tell Mother was interrupted by a smell.

  The smell of that ripping thing.

  It hit her. The overpowering stench. Not sweat. Not steel. Not petrol. All three at once.

  She spent five minutes attempting to wave down a car. Any car. Finally one stopped. A black cab. The driver, a high-pitched fast-talker with sunglasses to fight the glare, demanded to see her cash before he let her in. She showed it to him. He nodded. She got in the back.

  She gave her address and promised him double if he made his way around the traffic somehow. He hung a right onto a side street that she otherwise wouldn’t have believed in. The cab rushed forward all at once, pushed her like a lover into the dark embrace of her path. She wept for Noura.

  86

  At 7:57, as the clock winds down and the players tense for the final snap, we are urged to block a kick. The metaphor of the football game. Defence = defence of White America, last remaining bastion of Western culture

  dark in here

  From the same discreet airstrip that had welcomed Thelonius into the Islamic Republic the month before, the five flying killer robots prepared to take off.

  Each was quite expensive. When you turned them on, they made a steady, unyielding, high-pitched whirr, precious metal birds gone insane.

  Sullivan Hand had recommended UAV strikes on the five insurgents Indelible had identified for him. Dick Unferth approved those UAV strikes.

  The acronym UAV stood either for Unmanned Attack Vehicle or Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, depending on the people you talked to. The dead guy telling this story wants you to know he used to call them Unanticipatable Airborne Vasectomies. They’re also known as drones. UAVs are flying killer robots. They’re all the rage these days.

  All five of the men the killer robots targeted were prepared to die. They each knew with certainty, and accuracy, that death was coming. They had each been talked into believing that their dying would hasten the arrival of the global Islamic Caliphate and ensure the forgiveness of their sins. And forgive the sins of their near relatives who had passed on. And forgive the sins of their children. And so forth.

  Dick Unferth believed that these kills, which were confirmed, proved the viability of Sullivan Hand’s new contact, Indelible, as a source of invaluable intel within the senior leadership of the terrorist network operating in the Islamic Republic. Dick Unferth told everyone that Sullivan Hand’s actions were the future of counterinsurgency. And so forth.

  87

  Stuck here at the desk for a bit. Hips bad. Need to make that phone call. The room darkening again, had to brighten the screen up to maximum. At 8:12, chaos recedes once and for all, and the longest track in the band’s oeuvre comes to an end.

  Dad was dead.

  Adelia, calling at just after midnight, refused to say anything more about it over the phone. Using a series of private codewords only she and Dad and Thelonius understood (the relevant words here being ‘rare water’, a phrase Thelonius never imagined he would hear her say) she went on to intimate that she had something she had to give Thelonius. (‘Improving’.) She wanted to give it to him in person. (‘Eyes’.) He had to come out to the Cloisters as soon as possible. (‘Sunny’.) She would wait for him. (‘Sleepy’.)

  After Adelia said these words, a deep sense of not knowing where he was predominated. For a long moment Thelonious could not establish his position. Wait. Carl’s apartment. Yes. Thelonius was in a bed there, at Carl’s place. That half-open door. Through it, there would be stairs leading down to Carl’s front door. Beyond that, to the right, there would be a kitchen, with a window that opened onto the street. Cats, two of them, one orange and small, one tortoiseshell and a bit larger, liked to sleep near the heat vents in Carl’s kitchen.

  Adelia hung up. Thelonius placed the cell phone on the bedside table.

  Assume the best. Assume the simplest. Assume the least twisted. Assume the normal. Old men, sick men, do die. Adelia, it was true, was not known for overreactions in emergency situations, but no one, not even Adelia, was incapable of overreacting. In all likelihood, she was overreacting now, having lost the man in her life. Loved ones do leave a hole in you when they die.

  Sleep was impossible. He would have to leave a note for Carl.

  Thelonius took the next available flight. Upon arrival at Dulles, he hustled himself and his two carry-ons off the plane, navigated a familiar maze and planted himself in front of what he knew to be the only open rental option at that hour, Budget. The sole unclaimed vehicle on the Budget lot was a green Siena.

  What the hell.

  The thought of driving it worsened the fluttery, empty feeling in his stomach. His heart pounding, he nevertheless told the acnecursed counter teen, Brace, that he wanted the Siena. It made no sense to waste any time fussing in order to avoid a Becky-related memory built into the structure of the moment.

  Brace was sorry the Siena was all that was available.

  He gave Brace, who reminded him of TV’s Eddie Haskell, his credit card. He signed the necessary paperwork, received a copy of the rental agreement, grabbed the keys, strode with five minutes of deep purpose to T-19 (the location scrawled helpfully on the agreement), and stared at the doppelganger Siena for a moment.

  He pushed thoughts of Child aside.

  The rental key in his hand, confirmation that there was actually nothing serious to worry about less than twenty minutes away, Thelonius made a point of edging out of spot T-19 slowly, checking both mirrors for oncoming vehicles as he did so.

  What kind of a name was Brace?

  He knew the route: muscle memory. He did not bother turning on the Siena’s GPS. He claimed his exit without cutting anyone off. Hardly any traffic. Cautious, careful, steady, he guided the Siena toward Dad’s house. Impossible to think of the Cloisters as anything but Dad’s house. Impossibility everywhere. He couldn’t seem to stop blinking.

  Focus now. No need to complicate things. Safe trip. Road ahead.

  He obeyed the speed limit. He stopped for traffic lights. He used his turn signals when changing lanes. His drive was uneventful.

  By the time he made it to the Cloisters, it was a little before dawn. He worried he might wake Adelia, but her text as he parked his car in the open garage read, Come to the back of the House.

  They both still knew to capitalize House.

  Not even a hello. A nod. Which was fine. It was time for him to pray. She said that was fine and pointed him toward a spot just outside the House. Level moss. Cool. Which way was northeast? Did she happen to know?

  She did. Did he need a carpet or anything?

  He did not.

  He prayed.

  ‘They’re flushing the town water system this morning,’ she said when he was done.

  ‘Okay.’ Good to speak of something other than Dad.

  ‘It’s not supposed to start for a half an hour. The old machinery bought by the city fathers back in the day had to be replaced. It collapsed and left every drop in the water tower contaminated with rust. We’ve been on bottled water in the House. They have to dump the whole thing this morning and then refill it. Don�
�t be surprised when you make your way back to your rental.’

  There was no more we to be on bottled water. But it seemed cruel to point that out.

  He looked at her, with an expression that asked, what happened? Adelia only nodded again, still all business, and said, ‘Let’s go in.’

  Like Dad, like Thelonius, she knew Glass to be a safe place to speak.

  She led him down the familiar pathway, which was lighted with the high-angled beams of the security lighting Dad had installed just after Thelonius entered the family. Those lights had lit many wanderings toward Glass. Once more, following the back of that graceful, tawny neck. That kinked, tightly bound hair. Adelia’s existence emerged as a sober, comforting reality he could cling to, the closest graspable fact in a sea of bobbing uncertainties. But he wasn’t really walking toward Glass, wasn’t really following Adelia at all. He was swimming through the waters bordering a bleak, cold shipwreck: Dad Gone.

  Adelia was both the last keeper of Dad’s secrets, and the culmination of a private theory that Thelonius had nursed for some years. All of Ryan’s known mistresses had been black. Thelonius had always wondered whether this sensual preference of his had been some kind of declaration of independence to Prudence, whose family boasted at least five generations of white supremacists from various South Carolina and Georgia elites.

  And after Prudence’s passing, was he also making some kind of statement to Becky?

  Who knew? Dad never brought it up. Thelonius never brought it up. There were many topics one never brought up with Becky. Her barefaced, apparently immovable refusal to accommodate herself to the dark, high-cheekboned women who always guarded Dad’s House, to the open secret of her father’s string of elegant, bronze concubines, was simply never discussed. This silence was non-negotiable.

  There were several jokes that had helped to make Becky a laughing stock within the Directorate. One of these, in which Thelonius never indulged, ran as follows: How do you end a conversation with Becky Firestone? Ask her whether or not Dad likes dark meat at Thanksgiving.

  The whisk of the doorway. They stepped into Glass. A warm embrace of moist air met them. Adelia closed the door and locked it behind her. Thelonius had never seen her in here.

  In the centre of the crystal-walled terrarium: Dad’s empty wheelchair. Tendrils and buds and leaves, too close to it already, surrounded it from every angle of the structure, gave every impression of being prepared to claim it as their own.

  ‘They collected the body late last night. You will want to stay in motion, I think.’

  ‘Stay in motion?’

  ‘The last official decision Dad made was to confirm your spot as the keynote speaker at the Freedom Banquet. The White House signed off on that last night, just after seven p.m. That’s not going to be revoked. But if I were you, I would skip the banquet.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You’ve had an adversary since before you left for the Republic. We both have. I suspected as much, but I couldn’t prove it to Dad’s satisfaction. And now Dick Unferth is interim Director. So. Leave the country for a while, I think. That’s what I’m going to do. Keep moving.’

  Thelonius’s heart folded into a tiny square.

  Steel in her eyes, Adelia handed him a thumb drive.

  ‘Becky killed him,’ she said. ‘He died around midnight. While I was sleeping. They had an argument in the House. This is the audio of it. You deserve to hear it. I would destroy it afterwards, though.’

  Impossible. All of it.

  The lush green tangle of the place had a familiar slow throb. It pulsed and edged out toward the empty wheelchair, toward them. She held the back of Thelonius’s head with both hands. She kissed him on the cheek. That was impossible, too. She opened the door to the greenhouse. The air changed again, chilled and collapsed. He followed her out. The sun was up now, somewhere behind those clouds.

  He left her, went back to the garage and stared at the Siena, wondered where on earth it would take him.

  Before he could bring himself to press the key-button that unlocked its doors, a gurgling and roaring sound from the street outside. He went down to investigate. As she had promised, the gutters were rushing, about to overflow their banks with red liquid.

  Everything impossible was happening now.

  88

  The dream past, the nightmare past, Prudence opens her eyes and sees Victory. A singer of lullabies approaches to soothe the Chosen One and rock her to her well-earned rest.

  The eyes had not been cool.

  It wasn’t like in the movies, where dead equals closed eyes.

  But not thinking about that anymore.

  Mike Mazzoni drove someplace else, he didn’t much care where, and he listened to a name circling in his head instead of music, which he didn’t feel like turning on. The name circling in his head was ‘Kelly Deane’. His mom’s maiden name.

  The house screamed smoke and ragged flames behind him. He saw the flames in the rear-view mirror and drove straight until it disappeared.

  He said his mother’s first name, ‘Kelly’, out loud, so he could hear what it sounded like. It sounded okay.

  The tank said he had four hours of fuel. Plenty of time. Eager to get that burning out of his mirror, he pulled a left, and then another, and then went for several miles on a road that admitted no turns.

  After a time he took a left anyway, found himself upon a broad stretch of desert, which worked well enough, hit the gas, grabbed the bottle of Cuervo and took a pull from it. The Cuervo was for survival. You couldn’t survive out here the way you survived in other places.

  He took a long pull on the bottle and started wondering what this was all coming to. Maybe the house would just burn everything to a crisp and that would be the end of it. Or maybe not.

  Hadn’t counted on the mother being there. That would complicate it. Mothers always complicate it.

  Mike Mazzoni pulled another hard left turn into nothing, hit some kind of sandrut, felt the gravity angling on him, saw the sharp and sudden arc of the moon spin by on his left and wasn’t anywhere at all.

  The Islamic City police reported that after her rape, the lower part of Noura A––’s body, from her navel down to her feet, had been set on fire. The flames eventually spread to a carpet that bordered the kitchen where she had been attacked, and the smoke and flame issuing from the kitchen window alerted neighbours to inspect the scene. One neighbour, an elderly woman, recalled: ‘That poor girl. I was close to her family. They brought me food. She was beautiful before this. To leave her there, with her one leg stretched too far and the other bent away, to expose her. Shameful.’

  Firefighters arrived, drew a crowd, doused the inferno, and made their way inside. They removed the bodies. After approximately three hours, personnel from a nearby U.S. checkpoint arrived to secure the location.

  The captain – Mike Mazzoni’s captain, as it happened – made a statement to the restless locals who had gathered. He insisted that Islamic extremists had perpetrated the tragic events that had taken place there, the arson, murder, rape and so forth.

  With a bullhorn, a paid translator relayed his words, but they were not well received. The captain waited in vain for the crowd to disperse.

  To the contrary, people accumulated.

  In the middle of the night, the captain called in heavy equipment. He planned to use it to flatten the remaining structure, which he deemed a safety hazard. Carrying out his orders proved difficult, however. Thirty or so of the locals, all men, most wearing white, linked arms and somehow got in front of the Caterpillar D8 in time to keep it from razing the house. The yellow monster rumbled and groaned and spat exhaust and did not retreat.

  A standoff.

  A tense half-hour passed. There were now something like fifty men with linked arms. One of the men in the middle of the link blocking the Caterpillar D8 shouted, ‘Barricade! Takbir!’

  His fellows responded, ‘Allahu Akbar!’

  Fatima watched all of this from her tree.<
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  89

  And back. Through the window, policemen talking. And what the hell is that beating on the door? Come in.

  The last page of the young imam’s letter read:

  I close by noting a disturbing trend of which I must assume you are unaware, the heretical tendency of certain of your followers to perform the prayer directly before your photograph. This practice violates every known ruling on the matter within the past fourteen centuries of Sunni jurisprudence. A public rebuke is in order, and may I assume you will deliver this in your next communiqué?

  Yours very truly,

  And here the youngish imam signed his name. Behind him, an intruder advanced.

  The intruder, a beefy zombie, followed Abu Islam’s orders verbatim, approaching the imam from behind and slitting his throat from ear to ear with a box-cutter.

  A moment later, the zombie encountered the youngish imam’s wife or daughter. He wasn’t sure which it was. She entered the room on soft, quiet feet. He looked her in the face, and, unmoved by the horror there, spun her around, following to the letter these instructions, too. He opened her throat without looking her in the eye.

  Fatima had climbed her tree on instinct’s orders, which she’d chosen not to disobey, after seeing smoke issue from her house. Just a few seconds later, the grey shadow of a U.S. soldier had flashed past what had once been her living-room window.

  There is a way certain people walk, a loose-limbed disregard for the prerogatives of others, that radiates danger. The arms flip about, the elbows flail, the arrogant hips command each other in turn, the feet stray into paths not designed for them. This had been the physical signature of the man who had walked from her burning house.