by Mike Bond
According to this friend, who had unfortunately died during a 2009 Iraqi interrogation, al-Baghdadi was seven when the first Gulf War began. “Don’t worry,” his father had admonished his wife at the dinner table. “Saddam knows what he is doing. The Americans won’t attack.”
But his brother Salim had been drafted and was now on a truck somewhere heading south to face the Americans.
He had not known this till one day he’d come home from school to find his three sisters wailing, his mother weeping, his father in the garden swearing and begging. Salim was dead.
According to the friend, al-Baghdadi never recovered from this loss. Salim stayed with him, a warm hand on his insecure and worried shoulder, a comforting strong voice, Follow your heart, little brother. Your heart knows what is best...”
Like Salim, so many other young men did not come home from Gulf One. The years ached on, each worse than the one before. The Americans tightened their sanctions, every business was dying, his mother lost her job and his father’s salary could not compete with escalating prices.
The years grew terrible. The markets half empty, fear in the streets. “We will persevere,” Saddam said.
“Give up your weapons of mass destruction,” the Americans said.
“We have none,” Saddam said. “We can barely feed our children.”
“The Americans know we have no weapons,” his father said. “They will not attack us.” His mother at the other end of the table, black-eyed and silent.
His eldest sister, a nursing student, died during the GW Bush invasion when a F-18 bombed the clinic where she worked. The middle one died three years later in the Bush surge. The youngest died the following year from a car bomb that killed nearly a hundred others, Shiite against Sunni or vice versa, different interpretations of the love of God.
His mother died of sorrow, and when Abu Bakr came home one day from the rudimentary school he found his father shot to death in the garden.
“Why?” he’d begged the neighbor, “who would hurt him?”
“Some Shiites came. They did it.”
“Why?” he shook the man. “Why?”
WHAT WOULD I have done? Jack wondered. If this had happened to me? If I’d been the one to survive all that? With all the hatred for their killers and the guilt of a survivor – wouldn’t I do anything I could to kill their killers? And who were their killers? Not just the faceless soldiers and inept politicians, but in al-Baghdadi’s eyes the entire country of America. The Great Satan.
There should have been another way.
MANY HOURS he spent remembering and writing down every detail. How al-Baghdadi stood when he spoke, how he walked with a slight swish to his hips, his thin, pale hands – he’d been an accountant, one prisoner revealed, before the GW Bush invasion; he was a man who spent his time with paper, not guns.
Everything they learned, everything Jack could remember, went into a computer program run by an Home Office psychiatrist named Saul, a chubby, cheery guy with thick glasses and a dense silvery beard. Piece by piece, memory by memory, they recreated al-Baghdadi on Saul’s computer. It was what Saul called a “reflexive profile”, meaning that it would hopefully respond to stimuli and incidents as the real al-Baghdadi might.
“I want you to be al-Baghdadi,” Saul told Jack one afternoon. “I will ask you questions, or challenge you, and you will answer as he would.” And then Saul hypnotized him.
Afterwards Jack had no memory of what he’d said, but Saul seemed happy. “Maybe,” he chuckled, “you really are al-Baghdadi.”
The Iranians and other Shias had spread the rumor that al-Baghdadi was really a Mossad agent named Elliot Shimon, supposedly from a statement by former US intelligence researcher Edward Snowden. However Home Office, having closely studied all of Snowden’s leaked data, and having had several intense “heart-to-heart” talks with its Mossad allies, decided this was pure Iranian obfuscation.
One thing was clear: al-Baghdadi understood public relations. He had taken his first names Abu Bakr from that of Mohammed’s father-in-law, the first “caliph” after Mohammed, and a name with deep resonance for Sunni believers. The same Abu Bakr who had spread Islam across the Middle East on the edge of a bloody sword, who had given his six-year-old daughter in marriage to Mohammed.
Though Mohammed reportedly had waited till the little girl was seven before he consummated the marriage.
From what they learned, al-Baghdadi didn’t believe that killing people would get him to Heaven; he didn’t believe in Heaven and didn’t care. He just loved killing.
It was said that every time he swung the sword down on another exposed human neck his loins exploded. He’d even boasted of it. And that every time he slid a well-honed blade across a human throat it spurted from him as quickly as blood from his dying victim.
What more did he need to prove these killings justified and right?
True, he’d also enjoyed shoving captive virgins down on the dirt and forcing himself inside them. Their screams, their tears and begging made it even more erotic.
After that he sold them. They were worth even more if pregnant, because Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi had had been the first to plow their field. Their new owners would boast of the child, a descendent from Abu Bakr the first caliph. Whose descendants became the Sunnis just as the descendants of Ali ibn Abi Talib became the Shiites.
But Saul’s virtual al-Baghdadi turned out to be gay.
“HOLY SHIT!” Jack said. “That would explain Omar al-Shishani.”
Omar was the man closest to al-Baghdadi, reportedly the only person who saw him “with a naked face” – without the mask al-Baghdadi wore even with his other associates. The same Omar who had taken his name from the deputy commander of the original Abu Bakr’s bloodthirsty armies.
And from what they could tell, Omar al-Shishani was very gay.
Although homosexuality is far more common in the Muslim world than the West, due to the intense restrictions put on boy-girl contact (a male and female teenager can be arrested in many Muslim countries simply for walking on the same side of the street), it is also severely repressed. Thousands of supposedly “gay” Shias had gone to their deaths at al-Baghdadi’s hands. “It’s homicidal repression of the self,” Saul said. “You saw it among the Nazis – Ernst Rohm and Rudolf Hess, in fact, most of the officer corps of the SA were homosexual thugs.”
And like Hitler al-Baghdadi was apparently a coprophile, someone who got turned on by human feces, as indicated by his behavior when a prisoner defecated, as was normal, after being hung or decapitated.
Just as Hitler’s Nazism had grown out of the intolerable poverty and despair of a defeated Germany after World War I, so had thirty-five years of war including two US invasions, the eight-year war with the Iranians that had caused additional millions of casualties, and decades of US sanctions, disabled the minds of many Iraqis, including al-Baghdadi.
Jack closed the file and shut down the computer. Sat pinching the bridge of his nose and massaging his eyes. By our continuous wars had we helped to make this Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi a mass murderer? Had the sorrow of twenty-five years of war and the loss of loved ones brutalized his mind?
Jack took a deep breath, put his hands on his knees and stood. Enough is enough.
In two days they would leave for Paris. That was all that mattered.
He’d done his best to help his country – there was nothing else he knew that Saul, Feist and the others now didn’t know. Isabelle was now over five months pregnant and starting to show, and he wanted her safe and comfortable.
“Ettabe’e Allah,” Feist had said when Jack told him they were leaving. Go with God.
A Russian Airbus had just exploded over the Sinai, Feist said. “The Russians refuse to say it’s a bomb.”
“No plane explodes at thirty thousand feet,” Jack had answered. “Except for that.”
“Of course,” Feist shrugged. “But Putin doesn’t want to bring it out in public. Doesn’t want the link with their attacks
on ISIS.”
“Like they say, the Russians never forgive. Never forget. At least Putin has the balls Obama doesn’t.”
Feist snickered. “Obama still wants to make our enemies love us.”
“God laughs, some French philosopher said, long ago,” Jack remembered, “at those who deplore the effects of the evils whose causes they have cherished.”
“Bossuet,” Max Ricard had answered. “A priest, no less.”
Isabelle had left early to shop in the markets for fresh vegetables. By the time he got to the apartment she’d be there.
He wouldn’t tell her about the Russian Airbus. No need.
A New Life
BUT ISABELLE WASN’T THERE when he got back to the apartment. He felt a sharp letdown, wanting to tell her what had happened, that he was finally free. Then realized that was silly and selfish: she was out looking for food, would return soon. Soon they’d leave this Godforsaken place and go home to Argentina or wherever home was. Wherever they loved best.
This made him think of Sophie, of being so in love with her and wanting to be free and happy with her, and how this had led to her death and the death of their children. Because Leo had been his too, genitally connected to him by the death of the Russian tank captain whom she’d loved before Jack had killed him and then found her.
He remembered Suze in her house trailer in the frigid Maine winter, the baby crying in the next room the morning she woke him to say his friend Cole and the other Marines in Beirut had been killed, and like a medieval warrior he’d left on a crusade to avenge them.
But no one can avenge anyone. Once you’re dead you’re past all that. It can’t bring you back to life. And if you’re the avenger you’re not doing it for the victim but in hatred for what your enemy has taken from you or those you love.
It was right to go home now. He’d helped to force the Soviets from Afghanistan. Had helped find who had killed the Marines in Beirut, though Home Office hadn’t listened. He’d helped destroy others who had done great harm. Had tried to stop GW’s Iraq catastrophe, but again they hadn’t listened. Had told them not to release al-Baghdadi, and three years later not to pull out of Iraq, but both times they hadn’t listened. Now he’d had helped them track the worst in a long string of Muslim mass murderers. And this time they were listening.
This brought him back to what he so often thought about, how wars start out small, then someone gets broken-hearted because someone they care about has been killed, and rises up in fury. Hadn’t he felt that fury, the white-hot anger of losing a friend and you no longer care, live or die, all you want is vengeance? To kill, to massacre those who have massacred the person you love?
All this was a long way from now. Tomorrow he and she could be on a plane to Paris and from there to Argentina and the little adobe hacienda in the shadow of the Andes.
To be free.
Free of war.
Free of pain and loss and sorrow.
Why do humans act this way?
In the kitchen he washed the few dishes – he would have undertaken the labors of Hercules gratefully just to see her smile when she came in the door, her knowing he’d done it for her, that he would always do whatever he could to show her how much he loved her.
She still wasn’t here, but no need to worry. Dressed in the hijab, speaking Iraqi, she could pass for local. “We get much better veggies outside in the markets than we do in here,” she’d said this morning, hands on hips to show she wasn’t taking no for an answer. Spinach, she wanted spinach.
A distant blast shook the windows. Fucking Shiites and Sunnis always killing each other – couldn’t they realize all you need is love? That that asshole “prophet” with his mealy-mouthed miseries about what he wanted the human race to undergo in the name of his fantasy of “God” was beyond comprehension. As the French say, risible.
She’d be home soon. He could see her walking through the door, wanted to sweep her in his arms, tell her how much he loved her and that they and the baby she was carrying were off tomorrow for Paris and a new life.
SHE STILL WASN’T there when he woke. He’d dozed on the couch, and the polluted gray Baghdad skies had faded to black, the smoke-tinged air cold through a bullet hole in the window. “Sophie!” he called out in half-sleep, suddenly embarrassed that he’d called Isabelle using the name of his dead wife.
Isabelle’s computer was not on the side table. Why would she have taken it if she was looking for food? She hadn’t mentioned an interview... had something come up? A sharp insecurity, a biting worry – where was she? He’d been here an hour – but maybe she’d left just before he came, would be back soon.
And yet.
Footsteps up the stairs but went past the door. He tucked aside a curtain to check the street where a few headlights snaked their way furtively as if endangered by the darkness, or by what hid there.
He changed into a long Iraqi shirt and jeans, clipped his gun into his shoulder holster, pulled on a black leather jacket, locked the door and went down the four flights and through the lobby past the sleepy old Sunni man at the desk and out the front door. The air had turned cold, brutal, empty, tarnished with burning plastic or rubber mixed with diesel smoke and spicy meat from the stand around the corner. He realized if she called the hotel he wouldn’t be in the room to answer, so ran back upstairs. The light on the phone wasn’t blinking, but maybe the light was broken or the message machine wouldn’t blink anyway.
He called the front desk. “No,” the old Sunni told him, “no person call.”
He went downstairs again and told him he’d be outside, and to get him if someone called.
Perhaps another hour passed, a few souls hustling along the sidewalk, face down. Three ragtag Iraqi Army trucks, a dying stream of cars. Another explosion in the east, maybe Sadr City, the distant moan of sirens. What fools, to think that killing changes anything.
He was standing outside the door when the old Sunni came out bowing and gesticulating. Jack had a terrible fear something had happened, that it was Isabelle and that’s why she was calling. But when he picked up the receiver it wasn’t Isabel.
“Since I’m stuck in Baghdad,” Timothy said, “thought I’d check to see if you’re doing something special your last night in town.”
Jack bit back his fear and the sallow burn in his stomach. “Staying in.”
“You and your girlfriend?” Ironic, almost offensive.
Jack didn’t know why, but couldn’t tell him the truth. “Yeah.”
“If I were you I’d be out partying. Anyway, if you change your mind there’s a big do at Colonel Anders’.”
“I’m not you, Timothy.”
A low chuckle. “Too bad for you.”
He paced the sidewalk, checking his phone. Nothing. Then nothing. Nothing.
“You didn’t see her leave?” he asked the old Sunni.
The old man looked away as if remembering. Shook his head. “Never see.” He had a rural accent Jack could barely understand.
“What time today you get here?” Jack said.
The old man looked up, thought a moment, pointed a spiny finger at the clock. “One hour. Yes, one hour. Unless a little after that. Perhaps one or two...”
“You never see her leave?”
The old man’s head went side to side. “Not ever.”
Sometimes it happened he could see the whole person. The insides, not the facade. The pulsing brain and the messages running on tiny axons back and forth, the curving esophagus, the throbbing heart and dirty lungs, the fat liver and striated muscles, the balls of shit forming their way down the intestine – he could see it all the way other people might just see a face and the camouflage of clothes.
And with this old Sunni Jack could see his brain and his interior as plainly as if dissected, the viscera, the truth. And he knew something terrible had happened to Isabelle.
HE CALLED MI6, Isabelle’s local contact Simon Mahaffey. “Isabelle’s gone.”
“What?” Simon chuckled, “s
he tired of you already?”
“She’s been kidnapped.”
“Oh fuck.”
He told Simon what he knew. Which was nothing. Isabelle’s recent stories to The Independent hadn’t been provocative, nor had she met recently with anyone unduly hated by one group or other. She hadn’t been out much, she’d told him – why now? And by whom?
Simon would do everything he could. “Question is, do we reveal this?”
“Once you tell your network then everybody knows. Then they get to reveal it.”
“They may anyway.” Simon thought a moment. “You tracking her phone?”
“I’m asking my guys.”
“What’s on her computer?”
“Gone.”
“She mention anything lately?”
“Nothing. Simon, we need to offer big money.”
“You know the new deal. No rewards –”
“What do you mean no rewards?”
“The word from the top is we don’t pay ransoms any more. It just leads to more kidnappings, they say.”
Jack muscled up the strength to say this: “If we don’t pay, Isabelle dies.”
“She may die anyway. You know the odds.”
“I’m offering a reward for any information. I don’t give a fuck what you say.”
“Then we don’t work with you anymore.”
“You’re saying a British citizen, a prominent journalist, has disappeared, and you’re not going to do anything?”
“I didn’t say that.” Simon’s tone gentled. “This is absolutely horrible. I want to get right on it. We’ll do everything we can. Everything. But it may be wiser to wait a day or two to reveal it, see what we can learn.”
“And no reward?”
Simon’s unshaven chin scratched the phone. “We’ll reach out to everyone we know, every contact we have. But let’s wait a few days, right?”
“The old Sunni, the desk clerk, he knows something.”
“You told me he wasn’t there till one something, maybe two. So it happened earlier?”
“No way. When I called her at 15:50 she hadn’t left yet.”