The Mirage: A Novel (10 page)

“Wait a minute!” Samir shouted. “Idris, you can’t— . . . Do you know who this woman is? She’s Anmar al Maysani’s daughter! Do you have any idea what kind of trouble—”

“Anmar al Maysani’s daughter. And whose daughter are you, eh?”

“That is a very rude thing to say,” a new voice spoke up. “Is this what passes for manners in the capital these days?”

“Farouk!” Samir said. “Mustafa! Thank God!”

“It’s all right, Samir,” Mustafa said. “Relax.”

“Yes, relax,” said Farouk. “We’ll discuss your disregard for protocol some other time.”

“Farouk.” Idris took a moment to hide his irritation before facing him. “We seem to have a misunderstanding here.”

“Indeed,” Farouk said. He nodded to where Amal was pinned to the floor. “Please tell your lackey to get off my agent.”

“Of course. Abu Asim, release her.” Freed, Amal got up slowly, rubbing the back of her neck. Idris asked: “What are you doing here, Farouk?”

“I’ve had a call from Riyadh.”

“Yes, I—”

“No, sorry,” Farouk corrected himself, “I’ve had
two
calls from Riyadh. It’s the second call that brings me out. There’s been a change in plan.”

“Senator Bin Laden hasn’t told
me
anything about a change in plan.”

“Senator Bin Laden’s wishes are no longer relevant, I’m afraid. The president has asked me to retake control of this investigation.”

“The president?”

“The commander in chief,” Farouk said. “Surely you’ve heard of him?”

“Why would the president—”

“That brings us back to the subject of disregard for protocol, and, oddly enough, to Senator Bin Laden.” Stepping forward to pluck the
New York Times
from Idris’s grasp, he continued: “Let’s discuss this back at my office, shall we?”

T
HE
L
IBRARY OF
A
LEXANDRIA

A USER-EDITED REFERENCE SOURCE

Al Qaeda

Al Qaeda
is an alleged
clandestine agency
of the
Arabian government
, supposedly specializing in
anti-terrorist operations
. Although Al Qaeda’s existence has never been officially confirmed, it is a popular subject of
Internet rumor and speculation
, particularly among
conspiracy theorists
.

CLAIMS MADE ABOUT AL QAEDA

·
Al Qaeda’s purported mission is to hunt down and destroy “the worst enemies of God and the state.” It is said to operate outside the bounds of
civil law
and to be answerable to only a handful of government officials.

·
It is claimed that Al Qaeda was founded by combat veterans of the
Afghan War
, and that service in that or another
holy war
is a prerequisite for membership. Another common claim is that members must be devout
Sunni Muslims
.

·
Most accounts hold that Al Qaeda was created as a direct response to the
11/9 attacks
, but there are a few stories that suggest it actually predates the
War on Terror
.

·
Public figures whose names have been linked to Al Qaeda include
Senator Osama bin Laden
(POG-Arabia), his chief of staff
Ayman al Zawahiri
, and his former campaign manager
Abu Yusuf Idris Abd al Qahhar
.

·
One popular Al Qaeda rumor holds that the group’s existence was first uncovered by a
Baghdad Post
reporter who died under suspicious circumstances after revealing what he had found. The
Post
’s publisher,
Tariq Aziz
, has denied this rumor, joking that “No one gets killed at my newspaper unless I order it.”

AL QAEDA IN POPULAR CULTURE

·
In the second season of
24/7 Jihad
, it was revealed that super-agent
Jafar Bashir
is a former Al Qaeda member expelled for being “too overzealous” in his pursuit of terrorists.

“H
e’s a Wahhabi fanatic,” Samir said.

“His family are Unitarians,” Mustafa demurred. “Idris always struck me as a member of the cult of Idris.”

“But who
is
he?” asked Amal.

They were on the roof of AHS headquarters, watching the moon rise over the Tigris. Inside, Farouk and Idris were in the second hour of a conference call with the powers that be in Riyadh. Mustafa and the others had come up here to get away from the shouting.

“An old schoolmate,” Mustafa told her. “Idris was an upperclassman at the boys’ academy where Samir and I first met. He was popular, but also a bully. Some of the other students called him ‘Iblis’ behind his back.”

“Satan?” Amal glanced at Samir, who was scowling at some private memory of humiliation.

“He dropped out of school a month before graduation, to go fight in Afghanistan—”

“Where he would have
died
, if there was any justice in the world,” Samir interjected.

“—and after that, we didn’t hear anything of him for years. Until one day he turned up on Al Jazeera as a spokesman for the Bin Laden campaign. He had a family by then, and went by ‘Abu Yusuf,’ but it was the same old Idris.”

“The Party of God political strategist?” Amal said. “
That
Abu Yusuf?”

“You’ve heard of him, then. Ah, of course . . .”

“When my mother ran for the Senate, Abu Yusuf Abd al Qahhar was in charge of the POG’s smear campaign against her.”

“The ‘Whore of Baghdad’ robocalls.” Mustafa nodded. “I remember the uproar over those. Didn’t one of your brothers threaten to kill whoever was responsible?”

“Not just one of my brothers . . . So this is the same guy? And what is he now, Bin Laden’s personal hatchet man?”

“Abu Yusuf’s current job description is a matter of some speculation. Officially he’s attached to Homeland Security as ‘special liaison’ to the Senate Intelligence Committee. Unofficially . . . I assume you’ve heard the stories about Bin Laden forming his own private anti-terrorism squad?”

“Al Qaeda? I’ve heard of it. It’s an urban legend.”

“No doubt,” said Mustafa. “But if Al Qaeda did exist, and if Bin Laden needed someone to run the day-to-day operations while he was busy in Congress, Abu Yusuf is the sort of man you’d expect him to pick.”

“That’s just great!” said Samir. “The acting head of Al Qaeda, and we’ve gone and gotten him pissed at us. At
me.
”

Half an hour later they were summoned back downstairs. As they filed into Farouk’s office, Idris regarded them coldly, his gaze lingering on Samir until Samir began to squirm.

“Now that the jurisdictional question is settled,” Farouk said, “let’s get down to business. Abu Yusuf, I understand you’re already acquainted with Mustafa and Samir. And you’ve met Amal, though I imagine there was no formal introduction—”

“I know who she is,” Idris said. “Are you certain the president would want you to involve a woman in this matter?”

“Amal is a fine agent.”

“Yes, I’m sure you employ the daughter of Anmar al Maysani for her
fine skills.
”

“No doubt Senator Bin Laden has a similar appreciation for the skills of Abu Yusuf,” Amal said.

“If I may, sir,” Mustafa spoke up, before another round of shouting could erupt. “What is all this about?”

“It’s about the mirage,” Farouk said. “Earlier tonight, the prisoner Costello told you a rather incredible story. What you don’t know is that the story is not unprecedented. Other interrogation subjects have been spouting the same legend: that this world we live in is false; that God loves America, not Arabia.”

“How many other interrogation subjects?”

“Many. I can’t give you a more precise answer because—as the president was disturbed to learn recently—there has apparently been an effort by certain elements of the intelligence community to conceal the existence of this legend.”

“There’s no cover-up!” Idris said. “This so-called legend is obviously propaganda dreamed up by Christian fanatics to inspire suicide bombers. If the president wasn’t informed about it, it’s because it isn’t important enough to merit his attention.”

“The president does not agree with Abu Yusuf’s assessment,” Farouk said. “He desires an independent investigation into the question of the mirage.”

“So he called you?” Amal said, immediately regretting it. “I’m sorry, sir, I don’t mean to imply—”

“No, it’s a fair point. I am a Christian, and as we all know, in the current environment Christians—even
Egyptian
Christians who have never had any connection with terrorism—are viewed with suspicion. But as one would expect of the leader of the Arab Unity Party, the president is a true ecumenist.”

“And he’s from Cairo,” Mustafa said, having gotten it at “Egyptian.” He turned to Amal and explained: “Farouk and the president come from the same neighborhood.”

“Yes,” Farouk said, with a small smile. “As it happens, my third cousin is married to the president’s half brother.”

“Sir,” said Samir, still casting nervous glances at Idris, “about this investigation, I don’t think I—”

“I know you are only too happy to do whatever your commander in chief asks of you, Samir,” Farouk said, “but please restrain your expressions of enthusiasm while I finish. The president has asked me to oversee a reexamination of all existing intelligence pertaining to the mirage legend. He wants to know where this story originated and how it’s being spread. He wants to know what it means. And he wants to know where
these
are coming from . . .” Farouk held up the newspaper Amal and Samir had found in Costello’s apartment. “Many of the most fervent believers in the legend have in their possession objects, like this one, that they claim are artifacts from the ‘real’ world. Forged props, obviously, but we need to find out who’s making them.”

“Does Homeland Security have any more of these artifacts?” Mustafa asked.

“Yes. In fact Abu Yusuf, in what I am sure will be a continuing spirit of cooperation, has just turned over a number of items that he obtained earlier today from the ABI office in Kufah. We have them down the hall, in Conference Room B.”

One of Idris’s thugs—the same one who had tackled Amal in the apartment—stood guard outside the conference room door. When he saw them coming he moved to bar the way, but Idris waved him aside.

There were four objects laid out on the table inside the room.

The first was a small flag. The red-and-white stripes were familiar, but in the upper left-hand corner, the golden cross and the
IESUS NAZARENUS REX IUDAEORUM
motto had been replaced by a blue field with a plain array of white stars.

Next were two maps, one of Iraq, the other a regional map of the entire Middle East. Mustafa studied the latter, feeling like a child working one of those puzzles in which the goal is to spot all the mistakes in a picture: The state of Arabia was, at least technically, misnamed. Persia had become Iran, “Land of the Aryans,” and Kurdistan had disappeared, its territory divided between the state of Iraq, “Iran,” and the sovereign nation of Turkey. Most curious of all—and impossible to ignore, once he’d noticed it—Palestine had also vanished, leaving in its stead a Christian fundamentalist prophecy come true. “I’m beginning to understand why the president is concerned,” said Mustafa.

The fourth and final artifact was the top half of a front page torn from another newspaper, the Paris
Le Monde.
It was dated September 13, 2001. The banner headline read “
L’Amérique frappée, le monde saisi d’effroi
”—“America attacked, the world seized by fear.” In a column to the right was a smaller headline: “
Nous sommes tous Américains.
”

He must have made a sound. Amal looked up from the Iraq state map and said, “What is it?” Mustafa didn’t answer, just shook his head, caught in a moment of vertigo.

Nous sommes tous Américains.

We are all Americans.

Book Two
The Republic of Nebuchadnezzar

A
sandstorm had blown through Baghdad overnight, leaving a thick layer of grit on the streets and rooftops. Clerks arriving at the state courthouse found that the filters on the building ventilation system had become clogged. Mindful of the celebrity trial that was scheduled to conclude today, they made an emergency call to maintenance; by 9 a.m. the filters had all been replaced, and the air-conditioning was once more functioning properly.

Nevertheless, when the judge in Part 14 gaveled court back into session shortly before noon, there were a dozen men in the room whose faces were sheened with sweat.

“Members of the jury,” the judge said. “Have you reached a verdict?”

“By the grace of God, your honor, we have.”

“Are you quite certain?” The judge didn’t try to keep the disgust out of his voice. “You’ve just heard five weeks of testimony, yet you deliberated for less than an hour. Wouldn’t you at least like to wait until after lunch?”

The lead defense attorney rose to object: “Your honor—”

“Shut up, you.” Glaring at the jury foreman: “Well?”

“We’re . . . We’re very sure, your honor.”

The judge signaled the bailiff, who stepped forward to take the folded verdict sheet from the foreman’s trembling hand. The judge examined the paper. “This is your unanimous decision?”

“It is, your honor.”

“And . . .” The judge let out a sigh. “ . . . you come to this decision freely?”

“We do, your honor.”

The judge passed the sheet back to his bailiff, who returned it to the jury box. “The defendant will rise.” Smiling confidently, the defendant did so. “Please read the verdict for the record.”

“Y-yes, your honor . . . On the charges of conspiracy to commit murder, conspiracy to transport and sell forbidden substances, conspiracy to promote and profit from immoral activities, usury, bribery of a public official, bribery of a police officer, and conspiracy to suborn perjury, we find the defendant, Saddam Hussein,
not
guilty.”