Don't Look Back (24 page)

Americans turned a blind eye to these atrocities visited upon innocents oceans away. They drove their SUVs and played their stock market and bellied up to their buffets. At last the massacre would be transferred to their own streets. At last they would reap the seeds of their foolish deeds. As long as they murdered with their bombs and sanctions, their mothers would become childless. Their fathers bled with a thousand cuts. Their economy brought wheezing to its knees. They would have no stomach for seeing such atrocities up close. No resilience. They would crumble as so many crusaders had crumbled under Bashir’s proficient hand. The vision was divine.

Except.

As Bashir’s time in Chiapas had stretched from days to weeks, he made few inroads. He moved among the former Zapatista territories where radicalization had taken hold. But it was radicalization of a different kind. There were Muslims, but few who understood their duty. Many of the contacts from al-Zawahiri had gone missing or been killed. Some of the leads led nowhere at all, to a house that had been razed or to a mailbox tilting from the dirt of an abandoned lot. Even in success Bashir found mostly ragtag rebels, not professionals. It quickly grew clear: To complete his mission, he would require men and resources from home.

Correspondence from al-Zawahiri was not promising. The Base was disintegrating even more rapidly. Drone missiles rocketed from the skies like lightning. Warriors were lost more quickly than they could be replaced. The new recruits were semiliterate, disenfranchised. Most couldn’t even place a land mine, let alone build a sophisticated bomb. The central command, too, had been gutted. The last seven chiefs of external operations had been captured or killed.

Bashir sent word to Usama, pleading with him to provide leadership. But Usama chose personal safety above all else. Though Bashir waited day after day, no communication came back.

By the end of 2008, it was over. A slow-dawning awareness that settled like a fog. There was no white flag. No formal announcement. No state capital over which to raise a new flag. No army to lay down arms. But it was plain that the Base was no more. The leaders were deep in hiding like Usama himself. The jihadis who remained were little more than roving bands on the run through the rugged border, bounties on their heads, hunted by warlords and crusaders alike.

But the Americans did not notice this victory. They had built a rich propaganda, comforting and familiar in its fearmongering. They had fallen in love with their own story. Politicians warned of jihadis penetrating every border, sneaking onto every airplane. There were magazines to sell. Airtime to be filled. Lucrative contracts to be awarded. Oil to be plundered. Holy lands to occupy.

By then Bashir had moved west to Oaxaca. A jungle that reminded him of his tiny village in the tangled wilds of southern Pakistan. The Mexican government had made a billion-dollar investment in the region. To protect that investment and to keep out the cartels, they had inserted a naval base. The military did its best to keep guns out of the region, and unlike in the rest of Mexico they had a good measure of success at it. It was peaceful and private here, with little crime and scant police presence.

The perfect place to get lost.

And so he had. He simply stepped off the map and disappeared.

Years later on one of his infrequent trips to the
pueblo
for supplies, Bashir had read news of Usama’s death. He’d studied grainy photographs of the compound in Abbottabad. All those intimate details laid bare. Tawdry reports of a pornography stash. The Avena syrup Usama kept at his bedside to stimulate sexual appetite. The dye for his beard. Standing there beneath the awning of a banana cart in the market, Bashir had felt a little part of himself wither away.

Worse yet were the stories of the so-called Arab awakening. Largely peaceful, the newspapers claimed. Even the Muslim Brotherhood had laid down their weapons and entered government. Hearts and minds had been lost. The people, they wanted social change. Economic change. Political change. They believed that the jihadis had nothing to offer them. No blueprint for the future. No vision for prosperity. How obscene these beliefs were. What was the future but with Allah? What was prosperity compared to the riches of Paradise?

These nation-states would not remain peaceful. They were built on compromise, corruption, impurity. Extremism would rear its head again, to be sure. Innovators like the Taliban would reemerge. Iran or Syria would keep a tight grip on the reins, perhaps even succeed in demolishing the Zionists and sparking a third world war. But one thing was clear: The Base would not be welcomed into the fray anytime soon.

Whatever the near future held, it would not be Allah’s way.

Bashir had returned home from the market that day and burned his coded phone numbers. He had smashed his laptop and satellite phone and cast them into the river. Usama had relied solely on one courier. And look where that had gotten him. So. Bashir would rely on nothing and nobody. He would remain here beneath the beautiful boughs. Apart from infidels with their endless distractions. Safe from the tentacles of modern communication. God willing, he would live out his life purely. In submission to the will of Allah and the traditions of the Prophet, peace be upon him. He would have a chance to clear his head. To breathe fresh air. To get out of range.

He believed still. This was a thousand-year war. In the end the word of God would triumph.
Insha’Allah
the crusaders would fold their flag and the banner of Islam would be hoisted above the White House, above Jerusalem. All states would be joined together under the caliphate, under an imam chosen by Allah from the Prophet’s purified progeny. The world would submit to Islamic authority.
Shari’a
would be named the high law of the land.

Someday this would be so. But not in Bashir’s lifetime.

He was tired. He was resigned. He had found peace in his daily prayers and his quiet obedience. He had found contentment. A spot to live out his final days. He had let go of his role in the jihad, leaving the End of Times Battle for future generations. The Bear of Bajaur had slumbered.

Until they came. Even here. Americans. With their clomping boots and short dresses and alcohol. First the journalist and now the others. Interfering once again, trying to pry their greedy Western fingers into his carved-out nook at the edge of the world.

They had awakened the Bear of Bajaur.

Bashir burst through a skein of thin branches onto the plain of elephant grass topping the mountain. The wrapped corpse caught in a bramble, then pulled suddenly free. For a moment Bashir was soaring, the body flying behind him. Then the soggy earth came up under his feet again, and he bulled through the chest-high grass, the resistance growing easier. A single light burned in the ranch house across the plain. The sled whispered behind him.

His feet sank deeper. The mud wallow opened up, a break in the tall grass. And embedded in the sludge, there was his old friend, as still as an upended canoe.

He loosed the straps from his body. Without the burden a sensation rose in him from the soles of his feet. The sensation of floating. Of being made weightless. He took stock. His flesh, rubbed raw at the outer shoulders. His shirt torn. A red line burned across his chest.

He rested a bare foot on the wrapped bundle and shoved. It rolled down the gentle slope and skidded in the sticky brown sheet, the bumps of the heels touching a clear puddle the rain had laid across the mud itself. The vibration registered in the wallow. Bashir tracked the ripple’s movement until it bumped against the upended canoe.

The crocodile did not move, but Bashir sensed a flicker of the black eyes.

“Eat,” he said.

El Puro bided his time. He knew there was no rush.

Bashir lifted his gaze to the house. Through the bedroom window, he saw Don Silverio moving hastily from dresser to bed.

Packing.

In a storm.

This was noteworthy.

Bashir left the crocodile and started for the house. Grass parted before him. Flicked at his throat. Tickled the soft flesh beneath his chin.

His stomach roiled. He had not eaten since this morning, and the past eighteen hours had been full of exertion.

He came softly through the garden. Passed a sheltered coop. He looked at the chicken inside, and his stomach leapt.

Since he’d taken Jay Rudwick at the cascade this morning, an electricity had entered his body. Jolted him alive again. Purpose had returned, keen and chill, flowing through his veins. It connected him with where he had come from and the pleasures of the fight ahead. His heart sang with love. He was connected with his brothers dead and those who would come. Desire flared like a sexual charge. He wanted the defeat of the crusaders and heretics and the return of the global Muslim caliphate. But right now?

He wanted a chicken.

He undid the latch. Groped inside. Came up with the legs. The bird flapped and squawked, loosing underfeathers.

He carried it squirming at his side to the front door.

He entered without knocking.

Don Silverio came into the doorway of the bedroom at the end of the hall and froze. As if waiting for someone to take his picture. His mouth was slightly ajar, his lower jaw sawing back and forth.

Fear.

The old man gathered himself. “Do you need help,
amigo
? Can I offer you something?”

Bashir did not answer. He walked toward the kitchen, leaving footprints of mud on the well-swept tile. A backpack lay against the base of the sink, stuffed and ready. A few sheets of paper rested on the blank wooden table. Votive candles burned in the infidel shrine in the corner.

Don Silverio rushed behind him. He reached for the papers.

Bashir said, “No.”

A simple word, and it hit the old man like a stone.

With his free hand, Bashir pulled a chair away from the table, set it in the center of the kitchen. He stared at Don Silverio. The chicken bucked and fluttered and then fell limp against Bashir’s leg.

The power leaked from Don Silverio’s body. He rounded the table and sat.

Bashir walked to the knife block and withdrew a lean, curved boning knife. It was suitable. It would be useful for slaughtering the chicken so the meat would be halal to eat.

He took his bearings. Set the chicken on the floor facing in the direction of the Ka’ba in Mecca. With his right foot, he pinned the claws. With his left, he pulled the wings gently back and held them down. He stroked the chicken’s head to soothe it. It was under stress and deserving of mercy and the love of Allah.

He plucked the feathers from the neck so the action of the blade would be swift and unimpeded. He picked up the knife where he had laid it on the tile. Murmured,
“Bismillah, Allahu Akbar,”
to bless the fowl. Sliced the neck to the bone, but no further.

In his chair Don Silverio made a soft sound of distress.

Bashir lifted the slack bird and held the head back to let the blood drain. The stream eventually slowed to a trickle and then to drops tapping the tile. This might have taken ten minutes. Or fifteen. Don Silverio lowered his eyes with respect, but never once did Bashir remove his gaze from his face. Though he kept the bird aloft, his arm did not ache. His muscles knew not to complain.

When the drops ceased, he finally turned. Brought the exsanguinated fowl to the counter. With several swift incisions, he freed one breast, then the other. He tossed the pink ovals into a pan. Watched them sizzle. Flipped them. Slid them onto a plate. The entire time he did not turn to watch Don Silverio.

But he listened. He heard nothing except fear coming off the old man.

He rinsed the boning knife beneath the tap and took a fork from the drawer. Sat at the wooden table. His plate beside those papers. Opposite, Don Silverio was pushed back far enough that his entire body was visible. A man sitting in a chair with no table. He looked silly. Reduced. His lips firmed, his mustache bristling. His weather-beaten face looked haggard, old flesh sliding off the bone beneath.

Bashir chewed. He picked up the top page. A feminine hand, voluptuous curves to each letter. He read. He took another bite. Chewed. Read some more.

“I did not do anything.” Don Silverio’s words came out bunched together, crowding his mouth. “This was brought to me. It is not my fault this was brought to me. I am the
alcalde,
and so it was my turn to receive news such as this. I did not choose to. It was my duty to be the
alcalde.
I do not want to make an enemy of a man such as yourself.”

Bashir let the sheet flutter to the table’s surface. He sawed another bite of chicken breast. The meat firm, the juice savory. He picked up the next page.

“I will burn that letter,” Don Silverio said. “Right now. With you here to see me do it.”

Bashir used the sheet of paper to wipe his lips. “Where is your shotgun?”

Don Silverio’s throat jerked once, twice. Fighting the words.

Bashir pointed to the empty rack above the shrine.

Don Silverio said, “Please.”

Bashir said, “I will not ask again.”

“I sent it with my mother. She knows nothing. I told her
nothing
in order to protect her.”

“I believe you,” Bashir said. “This was wise.”

Don Silverio exhaled. His body, slack with relief.

Bashir stood abruptly. The feet of the chair chirped against the floor. The fork was no longer in his hand.

But the boning knife was.

Don Silverio gave a little cry. He rose unsteadily. Dragged the chair before him. Gripped the top slat. His legs wobbly. He pulled the chair farther to the side so it could be swung like a weapon.

Bashir advanced.

The chair rose no more than a few inches off the floor. And stopped there, shaking.

“Please,” Don Silverio said as Bashir closed.

Bashir swatted the chair away. It clattered on the tile. Banged the stove.

His grip was sure. The old man arced backward from the points of contact like a hooked fish.

After, Bashir wiped the knife back and forth across his thigh. Don Silverio mattered less than the others. He was not American, and therefore an American fuss would not accompany his disappearance. But still. It would be wise for Bashir to obscure his tracks.