The Mirage: A Novel (3 page)

Arab Homeland Security knew all about him, or thought they did. His real name was James Travis. A citizen of Texas, he was in the UAS on a student visa that had expired nine months ago. During his last year of medical school, he had fallen in with a band of Protestant fanatics and was now working as their courier. Tomorrow he would meet with the leader of a sleeper cell to deliver the explosives.

AHS headquarters in Riyadh wanted to capture the whole cell, so rather than arrest Travis immediately, a plan had been hatched to disarm him. An agent dressed as a hotel maid waited down the hall from Travis’s room with a dummy munitions box filled with harmless clay. When Travis went to get dinner, the agent would swap out the real plastique and plant tracking devices in Travis’s other luggage.

It was a decent plan, but it did require Travis to leave the room, something that, as of 7 p.m., he showed no sign of doing. As the clock crept towards eight, one of the men staking out the lobby grew bored and began making prank radio calls to the eleventh-floor maid station.

“Amal, room 1169 needs fresh towels.”

“Very funny, Samir.”

“Amal, the gentleman in 1124 would like his pillows fluffed.”

“Very funny, Samir.”

“Amal—”

“Very funny, Samir.”

Silence for a bit. At quarter to eight, Mustafa asked: “Do we know if he’s awake?”

A member of the surveillance team watching the hotel room from across the street clicked in: “He’s still got the window shades drawn, but it looks like the lights are on.”

“His television’s on, too,” added Amal. “I can hear it from here.”

“You know what would be great?” Samir said. “If we had a working camera and microphone
inside
the room.”

“Very funny, Samir”—this time from the surveillance man. “I told you twice already, the equipment worked fine when we were testing it.”

“Do you want me to knock on the door?” Amal asked. “I could tell him the other guests are complaining about the TV noise.”

“No,” said Mustafa, “I just want him to get hungry. Abdullah? Anything?”

Abdullah was monitoring the hotel switchboard. “He hasn’t tried to call room service. No other landline calls in or out either, and e-comm unit
says
he hasn’t used a cell phone . . . What if he’s too nervous to eat?”

“A nervous terrorist, that’s just what we need.”

“Maybe his conscience is bothering him,” Samir suggested. “What kind of Christian did you say he was, Mustafa?”

“Methodist.”

“Are those the ones who handle snakes?”

“Hey,” Amal said. “The TV just switched off . . . He’s coming out.”

“All right, everyone check in,” said Mustafa. They were supposed to respond in sequence, but excited by the prospect of something finally happening, everyone spoke at once, and a confusion of voices filled the radio channel.

“He just stepped on the elevator,” Amal announced as the babble subsided. “I’m inside the room . . . Oh, damn it.”

“Amal?”

“Damn it, damn it, damn it . . .” Breathless now, as if she were running: “He’s not a courier.”

On the ground floor, Samir and three other agents made a dash for the elevator bank, arriving just in time to see the descending car pass the lobby without stopping. All the other cars were engaged on upper floors; Samir pounded the down button uselessly, then barked a warning into his radio as he and his companions scrambled to find the stairs.

The crusader, unaware of the flurry of activity above him, stepped out into the quiet of the hotel’s underground parking garage. Although it was a hot summer night, he wore a heavy, oversized sport jacket and kept his left hand tucked inside it.

As he walked across the garage, he recited under his breath: “I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible . . . And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of His Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God . . .”

A spark from the shadows to his right brought him up short. A thin man with a mustache, cigarette dangling from his lips, stood beside a black van, trying to coax a flame from an ancient brass lighter. The man looked up at the crusader staring at him. “My friend,” he said, “can you help me?”

The crusader didn’t answer. The man took a step towards him, gesturing with the cigarette: “Please, sir. Can I have a light?” He repeated this entreaty in Hebrew and French, and then, when the crusader still didn’t respond, in fractured English. At last the crusader’s left hand came out from inside his jacket. As the crusader reached into his front pants pocket, the man with the mustache took another step forward and punched him in the throat.

The crusader ended up belly-down on the ground, his left hand still trapped in his pocket, his right arm flung up and out, fingers splayed against the concrete. His assailant straddled him, pointing a gun at his sideways-turned head as he gasped for air.

“Easy, Mr. Travis,” Mustafa said, his English dramatically improved. “The only person you can kill now is yourself, and Jesus won’t reward you for that.”

The crusader finally caught his breath, but instead of relaxing he tensed, his face turning an even darker shade of red.

“Don’t . . . ” Mustafa warned, then hesitated, smelling something. Smoke? With a cry the crusader reared up underneath him. Mustafa pulled the trigger but the gun misfired, and then he was bucked off. He scrambled up into a crouch, but the crusader was up too, something shiny and bright appearing in his hand; as Mustafa wielded the gun like a brick, the crusader leaned in and drew a line along the side of Mustafa’s neck. The pain was sharp, simultaneously searing and cold, and Mustafa’s collarbone was suddenly wet. He dropped his gun and clapped both hands to the wound.

He swooned, falling onto his back. The crusader stood over him, arms raised, a wire trailing from his left hand into his jacket. Nearby voices were shouting orders—“Stop! Drop it!”—but the crusader began his recitation again, his own voice rising to drown them out: “And I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified, who spoke by the prophets. And I believe in one holy Christian and apostolic Church, I acknowledge one Baptism for the remission of sins, and I look for the resurrection of the—”

Two shots rang out, and something ugly happened to the back of the crusader’s head. Mustafa, his field of vision starting to narrow, watched fascinated as the dead man swayed a moment more on his feet, left thumb twitching spasmodically.

“God willing,” Mustafa whispered. Travis’s knees buckled and his corpse fell forward. The world grew dim but did not disappear, and then a woman in a maid’s uniform was leaning over Mustafa with a still-smoking pistol in her hand. She called his name.

The next Mustafa knew he was in a hospital bed, shading his eyes against the light from a window whose curtains had just been thrust open. A dark figure stood at the bed’s foot, and in the moment before his vision adjusted Mustafa had the fleeting thought that it might be Satan. Of course that was foolish. Satan doesn’t stand in the light; Satan comes from behind and whispers in your ear.

The figure spoke: “Have you been watching Al Jazeera?”

Not Satan, no. Just Mustafa’s boss. “Hello, Farouk,” he said, his voice a dry whisper. He raised a hand to his neck and felt a thick bandage covering the place where he’d been cut.

“The reason I ask,” Farouk continued, “is that Jazeera’s newscasters have picked up this habit, lately, of referring to our crusader friends as ‘homicide bombers.’ ” He shook his head. “
Homicide
bombers . . . What does that even mean? A man builds a bomb, of course he wants to kill someone. It’s the
suicide
part that makes them special.”

A water pitcher and two glasses sat on the bedside table. Mustafa took his time pouring himself a drink. “I thought I could take him alive,” he said finally.

“You say that as if it were a sane idea.”

“I had him on the ground with a gun to his head, Farouk. He should have surrendered.”

“Yes, that’s what a rational criminal would have done.” Farouk fished a small object from his suit jacket. “Here,” he said, offering it to Mustafa. “A souvenir.”

Mustafa turned the slender bit of polished steel over in his hands several times before recognizing it as a lighter.

“Taken from his pocket,” Farouk said.

“How did you know—”

“That you’d asked him for a light? I know all things. I gather the idea was to get his hand away from the bomb trigger. That would have been genuinely smart, if you’d followed up by shooting him in the face.”

Mustafa found the igniter button, and a focused jet of blue flame hissed from the side of the lighter. “He tried to set the explosive on fire?”

“No, himself. The autopsy found burns on his inner thigh and genitals.” Mustafa glanced up sharply at this, and Farouk shrugged. “Maybe he was fighting the temptation to surrender. Maybe he just wanted a burst of adrenaline. The point is, you were trying to reason with a man who’d sooner burn off his dick than be taken alive . . . Tell me this isn’t about Fadwa.”

“Farouk . . .”

“Because I know all things, I know the official declaration finally came through last month. In light of that, I could overlook a certain amount of idiocy. But a death wish is out of bounds.”

“I’m not trying to get myself killed because of Fadwa, Farouk.”

“No? What is it about then, the other wife?”

“You called Noor.”

“Of course I called Noor. Do you know what she said when I told her you were in the hospital?”

“She asked if I was dying. When you said no, she told you to call her back if that changed.”

“That’s it almost word for word. What kind of woman talks that way about her husband?”

“You said it yourself: the
other
wife.”

Farouk shook his head again. “The more I learn about plural marriage, the more I thank God for making me a Christian.”

Mustafa smiled gamely at the jest, but the reminder that Farouk belonged to the suspect class concerned him: “Is Riyadh giving you a hard time about the mission?”

“They’d like to,” Farouk said. “Unfortunately it was their bad information that screwed things up. The outcome was as good as could be expected, considering. Of course my report glossed over a few details.”

“If you need someone to blame—”

“What I need is the rest of that terror cell. And no more nonsense.” He sighed. “It appears you were right about Amal, at least.”

Amal, a recent transfer to Homeland Security, was the newest member of their team. As a politician’s daughter, she came with two strikes against her, and Farouk had only accepted her under protest. He’d wanted to keep her out of the field, but Mustafa, after reviewing her personnel file, had argued that she deserved a chance.

“How is she?” Mustafa asked. Because he’d seen her records, he knew she’d never killed a man before.

“Quite pleased with herself,” Farouk said. “As she should be. Two head shots from fifteen meters is impressive.” He studied Mustafa’s expression as he said this and didn’t like what he saw. “You’d rather she’d just wounded him? Shot the detonator out of his hand, maybe, like on TV?”

“I’m happy to be alive.”

“You’re lucky to be alive. For that matter so is Amal. Fifteen meters is still well within the lethal radius of a suicide vest. And in case you were too busy bleeding to notice, there were four other agents within blast range as well.”

“You’ve made your point, Farouk. Next time I’ll shoot him in the face.”

The comment only seemed to irritate Farouk more. He brought out another souvenir: Mustafa’s pistol. “Next time,” he said, tossing the gun on the bed, “try loading the fucking thing.”

T
HE
L
IBRARY OF
A
LEXANDRIA

A USER-EDITED REFERENCE SOURCE

Baghdad

The city of
Baghdad
, population 6.5 million, is the largest city in
Iraq
and the second-largest city (after
Cairo
) in the
United Arab States
. Founded in the year 762 by
Abu Jafar al Mansour
, it was the capital of the
Abbasid Caliphate
until its sack by the
Mongol
Hulagu Khan
in 1258. Under the
Ottoman Turks
, who ruled the city from the 16th through the 19th centuries, Baghdad went into decline, but its role in the founding of the UAS helped restore its fortunes. Today it is once again an important commercial and cultural center.

Baghdad has many nicknames, among them “The City of Peace,” “The City of the Future,” and “The City That Never Sleeps.” Less flattering nicknames include “The Crime Capital of Mesopotamia” and “The Modern Babylon.”

Since the
11/9 attacks
, Baghdad and its residents have become symbols of Arab resistance to
Western terrorism
 . . .

BAGHDAD IN POPULAR CULTURE

The diversity of its population has made Baghdad a popular setting for films and TV series—like the children’s program
Open Sesame!
—that seek to promote greater religious and ethnic tolerance. One of the high-water marks of televised ecumenism was surely
Baghdad Police Story
, which debuted on the
Arabian Broadcast Company
in 1971 with the tagline “Shafiq: he’s
Sunni
. Hassan: he’s Shia. They fight crime.” Part cop drama, part soap opera, part morality play, the series concerned the lives of two undercover detectives on Baghdad’s east side. The recurring cast included characters who were
Sufis
,
Christians
, and
Jews
; there was even a
Zoroastrian
, a Persian counterfeiter named Qaisar. Episodes typically offered one or more moral lessons, the most common of which was “Respect the other
People of the Book
—even if you don’t like them very much.”