"Who will lead us now, Akil?"
Karim's voice brought Akil back from his speculations. He raised his palms with a shrug. "Allah will dispose."
Karim was not to be so diverted. "It should be you, Akil. You walked beside him for the last seven years. You were his first recruit after he was released from prison."
"I am not Jordanian, Karim."
"It should not matter. You were with him when he made bay'ah to bin Laden, both times you swore allegiance side by side."
"But they thought we were killing the wrong people, Karim. They said so, time and again."
"You were killing the enemy!"
Faces turned at Karim's raised voice. "Gently," Akil said, "gently, my friend. Allah shall dispose of me as he sees fit."
"God helps those who help themselves," Karim said tartly.
AMI regarded him with a steady eye. "And where is that written, Karim? I am not familiar with the verse."
Karim ducked his head. "Ay, Akil, you catch me out." He looked up, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "I heard it on an American television program."
In spite of his grief, Akil felt his lips twitch in response.
The next day Akil gave orders for the cell to disperse. "Stay on the move," he told them. "Travel no more than two together. Rest no more than one night in a single place. Work toward the Syrian border. Trust no one. No one," he repeated firmly. "Our leader was betrayed. Who knows who else has been betrayed? Check your email as often as you can." He raised an admonitory finger. "Never from the same computer twice." There were nods all around. They were well drilled in security protocol. Still, he knew there would be lapses. People grew tired, or lazy, and careless. It didn't matter, now, but he was expected to say it, so he did. "You will hear from me soon." They were expecting to hear that, too. "Inshallah."
"Inshallah," they echoed, and by ones and twos, dispersed.
He and Karim set out on foot, with the clothes on their backs and a thick wad of American dollars. Any border, no matter how well guarded, was susceptible to bribes. This was especially true of the Syrian border. They were stopped many times, and each time either their identity papers passed muster or the cash smoothed their passage.
They spoke but little, both concentrating on escape. There had been much opportunity in Iraq, their way in opened by the invasion and occupation. The country they left behind was in shambles, and the invader, bent on crusade, was on the verge of being utterly routed instead.
He had had a part in that, Akil thought, and not a small one. He smiled to himself.
It was a long way from Pakistan, and not only in distance.
After Adara's death he had wandered across Pakistan, his only goal getting as far away from his tiny village as possible. Eventually he settled in Hayatabad. With his fluency in English it was easy for him to get a job answering the 800 number for an international banking firm. He rented a room from a Hindu family who, while they shunned the Muslim socially,
were only marginally solvent and were more than happy to cash his rent checks. He made no friends, although at work he was appreciated for his willingness to trade shifts with anyone wanting a day off to celebrate a birthday or a wedding or a high holy day.
For years he did not pray, and when after years of turning his shoulder to God he began praying again, he did not go to the mosque. Never again would he tolerate intercession, interpretation, guidance. His appeals were simple and direct, from him to God. He prayed for strength. He prayed for wisdom.
He prayed for vengeance.
The years passed. God did not answer his prayers.
He did not hate God, though. He hated the mullahs who held his people by the throat. Even more did he hate the Western powers who supported them. After his years in America, he understood the rationale behind it, that the pursuit of capitalism required a stable base. That stable base was provided by a strong leader, whose absolute authority was made possible by allowing the mullahs and the imams free rein to enlighten the faithful as to the will of Allah and the laws of the Koran. They would not foment rebellion if left alone to practice-and enforce-Islam as they saw fit. Akil had never dreamed of questioning the source of that dual and complementary authority. Truthfully, he had never really paid much attention to it.
Clearly not as much as his parents had. The memory of the closed door of what had been until that moment his home still burned redly in his mind.
Adara had been his only sibling, a bright-eyed, mischievous child grown into a beautiful woman, the light of their family's life. And now she was gone, and he would never see or speak to his parents again. He had, essentially, orphaned himself that night.
In the lonely years that followed, he had time to reflect on the forces that had worked such havoc on his life. He read a great deal-histories, the Koran, newsmagazines-finding nothing adequate in any of them to explain why he was where he was now. He did, however, believe that he had achieved a better understanding of why the world was where it was. That understanding did nothing to alleviate his anger.
Quite the contrary.
They had burned witches once for sleeping with the devil. It was easy to see America as the devil in bed with his own nation, made even easier by the memory of Adara's body hanging from the neem tree. That memory was the last thing he saw before he went to sleep at night, and the last thing he dreamed before he woke again the next morning. It never varied. In a way, he was glad of it. The memory and the dream nourished his anger, kept it alive.
One day in the summer of 1999, he met a man. The man was not in his first youth, with slightly stooped shoulders and a hard round belly, although his stubby-fingered hands were strong and calloused. He had dark eyes, a long strong nose, and a wide upper lip edged with a thick black mustache, a description that could have fit almost any man in the Middle East, but unlike them, once seen this man was not forgotten. His bright eyes snapped with interest, his speech was rough but decisive and ultimately spellbinding, and his whole attitude was one of purpose and resolution.
The first time AMI met him was at a coffeehouse near where he worked. The man who occupied the desk next to his introduced them.
"Ah, Akil," the man said, examining the young man with those bright eyes. "A good name. It means 'intelligent,' and 'thoughtful,'" he told the others around the table.
There was a bobbing of heads. In another group there might have been some fun poked at Akil, but no one felt they had the right to take liberties with the sober young man, especially without invitation from their host, of whom they were all slightly in awe.
They would become more so.
"And where do you come from, Akil?" the man said.