In reality, he was Palestinian. He’d had the religious indoctrination as a boy, the feeble mullahs and their nonsense. There is no God but Allah, and Mohammad is his prophet, the United States is the Great Satan, all the rest of it. But Husam believed that reality was the best teacher.
And reality was this: Any time Israel wanted, the jets came and bombed the camps, and the Palestinians had to hide in the rubble like roaches. If Israel decided to destroy Beirut, they destroyed Beirut. If there was no God but Allah, why then did Yahweh get the F-16s and Abrams battle tanks, leaving Allah’s people to fight them with AK-47s and stones? Husam had no more faith in gods than he had in names.
But he had a talent for killing. He had been a very bright student, the brightest boy in any of the classes in the camp. And so the men in the keffiyehs had taught him as well. Pistols, rifles, explosives. How to fight with his hands and with knives. A Kalashnikov – this was a god he could believe in.
When he was fourteen, he had his first exam. He remembered crawling forward in the dark toward the Israeli roadblock. Watching for a long time to be sure. Two soldiers outside the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, the armored personnel carrier that was another gift to Yahweh from America, Israel’s real god. After an hour, the doors to the Bradley opened, and the two soldiers traded places with two others inside. Four soldiers in all.
The instructions for this initiation were simple: Leave the camp, kill at least one Israeli, and return alive. The other boys had all chosen civilians, random killings of unsuspecting targets. And when they had returned to the camp after emptying a clip into some old woman driving back to some kibbutz, he would join in the celebration of their heroic acts. In truth, these cowards disgusted him with their weakness. He was determined to do better.
At any time, he could kill the two outside the Bradley, but the muzzle flash would give away his position. He was not interested in learning how good the soldiers inside the Bradley were with the 20mm cannon and 50mm machine gun. But these Israelis were complacent. It was a quiet sector, routine duty. He watched for an opportunity. It took him more than three hours to move to a slightly elevated position behind the Bradley, giving him a clear line of sight into the vehicle when the doors opened. At the next shift change, all four soldiers were within a narrow field of fire, the door to the vehicle directly in front of him. Ahmad was calm. Many of those he trained with would have cut loose with a long burst of automatic fire, sweeping the weapon back and forth. But Ahmad flicked the selector switch to semi-automatic. Three-round bursts, twenty rounds in the magazine, one spare magazine. Ahmad knew that if he had to switch magazines before the Israelis were down, he was as good as dead. Ahmad sighted on the Israeli standing in the door of the Bradley. If he could drop him in the doorway, the others might trip over him trying to get inside.
Ahmad fired, all three rounds hitting the Israeli in the torso, the soldier falling on the ramp. Ahmad swung the rifle a couple inches left and hit the second Israeli with a burst. The target went down, still moving, but down. The Israelis were well trained. The other two both dove to the ground, rolling apart so that they were separate targets. They had seen the muzzle flash. Both brought their Galils to bear, first one, then the other, raking the ground in front of Ahmad’s position with controlled bursts. Each moved further out as the other fired – fire and maneuver, looking to flank. Ahmad slid slowly down the small embankment and rolled to his left, timing his movements with the firing by the Israelis to cover the noise. As one of the Israelis fired at the spot where Ahmad had been, the other got up to run further right. Ahmad hit him in the back with a burst. The final Israeli turned his fire to Ahmad’s new position, but Ahmad still had the advantage of elevation. When he heard the Israeli stop to change clips, Ahmad sighted carefully, hitting the Israeli in the face and helmet.
Ahmad had fired four bursts – twelve rounds. He knew he still had eight rounds in his clip, but he swapped in his full clip and watched the scene for a moment. The second Israeli was still moving, trying to crawl toward the APC. Ahmad put a three-round burst into the soldier’s head. He then put a single round into the heads of each of the other Israelis, just to be sure. He walked down to the Bradley and looked inside. He knew he couldn’t loiter, but he wanted his first mission to cement his reputation. There were two large fuel cans in a rack on the outside of the APC. He moved them inside the vehicle. He cut both pant legs from the uniform of one of the dead Israelis, sliced them in sections, and tied the sections together to make a fuse. He opened the first fuel can, shoved the fabric inside, let it soak a moment, and then pulled most of it out, wadding the end of the fuse in the opening to the fuel can. He set the fuel can in the ammunition storage area inside the APC. He opened the second fuel can, pouring the fuel over the ammunition first, and then splashing it around the inside of the machine. He backed out of the vehicle, trailing the soaked cloth behind him until it ended a meter or two past the end of the ramp. He lit the cloth and ran. Ahmad knew the flame would race up the fuel-soaked cloth and that the fuel can at least would explode and ignite the rest of the fuel within the APC.
He was one hundred meters away when he heard the whomp of the fuel can and saw his shadow flash in front of him from the sudden light. Within another hundred meters, he heard the first of the 20mm shells go off, then another, then a staccato cacophony of exploding ordinance; then he was staggered by the force of the blast as the vehicles main fuel storage tanks blew.
Ahmad knew the Israeli combat patrols and helicopters would saturate the area between him and the camps. He ran south, toward Israel.
For two days, Ahmad dodged patrols, slowly making his way back to the camp. By the time he returned, he was a legend. The fourteen year-old boy sent out to kill a single Israeli who had instead wiped out an entire Bradley crew and their machine. And he had a new name, this one of his own choosing: Husam al Din – the sword of faith.
Just because he didn’t believe in names did not mean one could not serve his legend.
And his legend grew. As a youth, he became the most feared operative the PLO had. As the power of the PLO faded and Palestinian allegiance shifted to Hezbollah and to Iran, al Din shifted as well. But the movement’s increasing penchant for suicide bombings and the attendant promise of heavenly virgins held no attraction for al Din. He had, by then, sampled the earthly variety, and preferred them.
And so al Din struck out on his own. Sometimes, what was needed was a bus full of dead Jews – any bus, any Jews. But sometimes someone – Hezbollah, the Syrians, Iran – wanted one man dead. A well-guarded man. Or they wanted a secure, high-value target destroyed. And when they did, they hired al Din. And they paid al Din. When the New Mexico plan was designed, al Din had been the clear choice.
“Legend?” al Din said. “The Koran also says that he who has in his heart the weight of an atom of pride shall not enter Paradise. In the wisdom of my age, I now reject the legend of my youth and would be only Allah’s anonymous servant, who works for his wage alone, not his pride.”
Javadi shook his head. “The infidels claim that the devil can quote their Bible for his own purposes. I fear you do the same with our Holy Koran.”
“Payment within twenty-four hours to the account designated,” said al Din. “Those were the terms. Those always have been the terms. I cannot bring Stein back to life, or Heinz, but I have your devices, and I will not deploy them until I have been paid.”