The Mirage: A Novel (42 page)

“And her misery?” Mustafa said. “If you could not spare Fadwa’s life, could you not at least have done something about that?”

The jinn didn’t answer.

“And Noor?”

“Ah, Noor,” the jinn said, looking embarrassed. “A misguided attempt at consolation. I thought she would at least make
you
happier. But it appears I miscalculated.”

“I would say so,” Mustafa agreed. “You should not have given me a second wife. You should have given Fadwa a better husband.”

“That would not have been her wish,” the jinn said, “and I could not have granted it anyway. Look again at the city.”

Mustafa looked. The skyline appeared to rush towards him, and the towers and skyscrapers which seemed so solid from a distance were revealed to be composed of tiny, discrete particles whirling through empty space.

“Sand,” the jinn said. “So much of this world, sand, and easily reshaped, God willing. But not everything.”

The city receded again. Mustafa, feeling as though he were reciting a line in a play, said: “Human beings from clay.”

“Some parts softer than others,” said the jinn. He laid a hand against his own skull, beside the seat of memory. “Pliable enough with the right touch. But the characters of men and women—their strengths and weaknesses, their passions and fears, the sins and vices they are prone to—those are made of iron, and steel, and brass. Those I cannot alter. Oh, perhaps a detail here and there . . . But at your core, you are who you are. I cannot make you someone else.”

“Well,” Mustafa said, fresh tears starting. “Well, that’s wonderful then.”

“You should not weep,” the jinn said. “I can’t make you a better person, but God, who gave you both life and free will, can help you try to become one. Try honestly, and when you stumble, ask His forgiveness and try again.”

“If only it were that easy,” Mustafa said.

“It isn’t easy. It is a struggle. But struggle is better than self-pity. You do not honor Fadwa by continuing to dwell on what cannot be undone. You only distract yourself from the good you still can do—and the evil you may still prevent. You are a sinner, Mustafa al Baghdadi, but you are not the only sinner. You are surely not the worst.”

Something in his words made Mustafa look at the city again. Most of the skyline had faded away, leaving only the twin towers—two sets of them, side by side. Behind them loomed the shadow of a man, like a devil come to claim them. It was just a silhouette, but Mustafa thought he knew who it belonged to. How many other men were that tall?

“Iron and steel and brass,” the jinn said. “A wicked prince in one world is a wicked prince in all worlds.”

They landed at Al Kharj Air Force Base in late afternoon. The outside temperature was 121 degrees, and a curtain of heat haze made the hangars and control tower shimmer like protean objects that had yet to assume their final shape. Mustafa stepping out onto the tarmac wondered whether he might still be dreaming.

Amal helped Salim into a wheelchair. Mustafa watched them together and was suddenly struck, as he had not been before, by the resemblance between them. And not just between them: Staring at Salim in profile he flashed back on a magazine article Abu Mustafa had shown him recently. The focus of the article had been Senator Al Maysani’s career, but there’d also been a sidebar about Amal’s father, Shamal, the corruption-fighting cop . . . Yes, Mustafa thought, I must still be dreaming.

A bright flash of light drew his attention back to the heat curtain. He held up a hand to shield his eyes and the light resolved into an ambulance with sun glaring off its windshield and front grill. A man in civilian dress was leaning out the passenger window, and before the ambulance had come to a complete stop he leaped out onto the tarmac, dashed up to the wheelchair, threw his arms around the young Marine, and began showering him with kisses.

“Father,” a red-faced Salim said, several moments later, “this is my new friend Amal. She saved my life.”

“Thank you,” Anwar said, his eyes brimming with tears. He leaned forward as if he might embrace Amal too, but restrained himself. “Thank you.”

Amal offered him a complicated smile. “It’s what we do in Homeland Security,” she said. Lowering her eyes, she added: “I’m sorry about the leg.”

“What for, that wasn’t your fault,” Salim said, thinking this was addressed to him. “Anyway, I’ll be up in no time. Come visit me in a month and I’ll outrace you!”

Amal said: “You should go home now and see your mother.”

“Yes,” Anwar said nodding. “She is waiting for us.” He looked at Salim. “We have many things to talk about.”

“I know,” Salim said. But then he smiled and handed Amal a slip of paper. “My email address is on there. Write to me!”

“You just take care of yourself and be good to your parents,” Amal told him. She stepped back and Anwar got behind the wheelchair and pushed it towards the ambulance. He and the driver helped Salim into the back. Anwar waved solemnly at Amal and climbed in beside his son.

Amal stood beside Mustafa watching the ambulance drive away. “The boy looks a lot like his grandfather,” Mustafa said—and then blinked, not having meant to speak the thought aloud.

Amal took it in stride. “He really does,” she said. She looked at the slip of paper in her hand and then spread her fingers. An updraft caught the paper and carried it away into the sky.

Boots tramped on the cargolifter’s loading ramp. An airman jumped down onto the tarmac and spoke into a radio: “All clear.” A squad of military policemen brought the prisoner out of the hold.

The prisoner was hooded and shackled and still dressed in the bathrobe he’d been wearing when captured. He was also barefoot, and when Mustafa saw the MPs intended to march him onto the scorching hot concrete he called out: “Hey, what are you thinking? Get him some shoes!” The MPs hesitated. The airman, looking embarrassed, ducked back inside the plane and returned with a plastic pallet. He dropped this on the tarmac and the MPs sat the prisoner on it as though he were cargo.

Wavering black shapes like patches of oil appeared in the heat curtain. These too resolved into vehicles: a fleet of black SUVs. Unlike the sparkling-clean ambulance they were covered in dust, as if they’d driven a long way across the desert; instead of reflecting the sunlight they absorbed it.

Feeling eyes over his shoulder, Mustafa turned and looked up at the plane. He saw Samir, his face framed in one of the windows of the passenger cabin, staring nervously at the approaching vehicles. When Samir noticed Mustafa looking up at him, his face collapsed into shame and he vanished from the window.

The SUVs pulled up to the cargolifter. Idris Abd al Qahhar got out of the lead vehicle; the others disgorged bearded mujahideen who, but for the dark suits they wore, might have stepped straight off a battlefield in Afghanistan.

“Mustafa al Baghdadi,” Idris said. “You have something that belongs to me.”

“You are mistaken,” said Mustafa, stepping forward to interpose himself between Idris’s men and the prisoner. “This man is coming back with me for a proper interrogation at Homeland Security headquarters.”

“Ah, I’m afraid there’s been a change in plan.” Idris pulled out a folded sheet of letterhead and presented it with a flourish. “The president, in consultation with Senator Bin Laden and several other members of the Intelligence Committee, has decided to classify this prisoner as a high-value detainee. We will be transferring him directly to Chwaka Bay.”

Mustafa scanned the document, which bore the president’s seal and his signature. “This isn’t right.”

“You are welcome to take the matter up with the president yourself,” Idris said. “But I understand his schedule is quite busy today, so it may be some time before you are able to reach him. In the meantime . . .”

He signaled to his men. A group of four advanced towards the prisoner. “Wait!” Mustafa shouted. He turned to the MPs: “Stop these men!”

But before they could do anything, a man in an Army colonel’s uniform got out of Idris’s SUV. “Stand down,” he told the MPs. “Do not interfere!”

The prisoner meanwhile seemed to have wilted in the heat. He was limp when the mujahideen seized hold of him. They hauled him up roughly and began dragging him, his bare feet trailing across the hot tarmac.

Mustafa took a step towards them and Idris said, “Go ahead. It’s pointless, but if a beating will complete your day my men will be happy to supply it.” The good humor with which he said this, more than the words themselves, convinced Mustafa that there really was nothing he could do.

The mujahideen bundled the prisoner’s limp body into the back of their SUV. “I suppose,” Idris said, disappointed that Mustafa had declined the beating, “there’s no point in my asking what this man already told you.”

“Nothing. I haven’t interviewed him yet.”

“Really.” Idris looked skeptical. “Well, I’ll know soon enough if that’s true . . . And don’t worry, I’ll copy you a full report of my interrogation.” Laughing at this joke, he signaled his men and they all got back in their vehicles and drove off.

“They won’t get anything out of him,” Amal said.

“You don’t think so?” Mustafa looked at her. “You were with him for most of the flight. You’re saying he didn’t tell you anything?”

“No, he told me plenty: about America and Iraq, Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden . . . Strange stuff. Crazy stuff.”

“Well if he told all that to you, why wouldn’t he tell Idris?”

“Because I made a deal with him,” Amal said. “He knew Idris would be waiting here to take him. Not Idris specifically, but someone like him, someone from Al Qaeda. He said he wasn’t afraid to die, but he didn’t want to be tortured—something about how he didn’t feel the Golden Rule should apply to him . . . So I offered him a bargain. I told him if he talked to me, I’d make sure he wasn’t tortured.”

“And he believed you?”

Her hand was in her pocket. She brought it out and spread her fingers again. There was a green twist of cellophane in her palm: an empty candy wrapper. They both stared at it, and then the updraft caught it and carried it away as it had the paper.

“Amal?” Mustafa said. “What have you done?”

And Amal said: “That man tried to kill my son.”

Book Four
The Stone

T
HE
L
IBRARY OF
A
LEXANDRIA

A USER-EDITED REFERENCE SOURCE

Truther

A
“Truther”
is a
skeptic
who questions the official account of
the events of November 9, 2001
. Many Truthers belong to organizations such as the
11/9 Citizens Commission
and
Ulama for 11/9 Truth and Justice
. They hold meetings and rallies, petition for the release of secret government documents, and use the
Internet
to publicize their alternative theories about the November 9 terror attacks.

Almost all Truthers believe that the
UAS government
has suppressed important information about what really happened on 11/9, though they disagree about the nature and extent of the cover-up. Some Truthers claim that the
intelligence community
knew about the hijackings in advance, and some go even farther, positing that
government agents
participated in the planning and execution of the attacks.

Suggested motives for such government involvement in 11/9 include:

· To justify massive increases in military and intelligence spending.

· To create a pretext for the
War on Terror
and the invasion of America.

· To undermine the popularity of the
Party of God
and the
House of Saud
by making them appear weak.

· To halt the “
secularization
” of Arabian society and frighten people into embracing a new
Islamic Awakening
.

Government officials have been generally dismissive of the Truthers’ claims, when they bother to acknowledge them at all.
11/9 Commission
spokesman
Mohammed Atta
called theories of government involvement in the attacks “offensive,” adding: “There is no cover-up. No one denies that pre-11/9 anti-terror efforts were inadequate, but people need to accept that there’s no deeper mystery here . . .”

Regarding the suggestion that the 11/9 attacks were an attempt to literally “put the fear of God” into people, the
President’s United Arab Fiqh Council
has released a fatwa stating that the use of
terrorism
to spread belief in
Islam
would be a clear violation of
God’s law
, citing as evidence
Holy Quran
chapter 2, verse 256 (“Let there be no compulsion in religion . . .”) and chapter 5, verse 32 (“If any one slew a person—unless it be for murder or for spreading mischief in the land—it would be as if he slew the whole people”) and also chapter 6, verse 151 (“Take not life, which God hath made sacred, except by way of justice and law”). “While we obviously cannot say that no one in government would do such a terrible thing,” the Council concluded, “we can say that no true
Muslim
would.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, such statements have done little to dampen Truthers’ enthusiasm for their theories. They continue to seek “the reality behind the
mirage
.”

T
he crusader was staying on the ninth floor of the Zawra Park Hotel. His name was Joseph Simeon and he was the last surviving member of a five-man cell that had left Heidelberg two weeks ago.

Following a route common to both legal and illegal immigrants, the members of the cell had traveled by bus to Istanbul. There they’d met with a forger who was supposed to supply them with guest-worker ID cards and other documents, but when the cell leader insulted the man’s Orthodox faith and tried to convert him to a more proper form of Christianity, he threw them out of his house. They were forced to turn to another counterfeiter, who charged three times as much for inferior work.