All this was true. But how many people outside Gaza Station, the PLC, and the White House knew, understood, or were focused on these truths? Not many. Not at the moment. Hardly anyone understood their significance, or how they might be interrelated. So Sa'id had a point. If Palestinians and the world were really going to follow his lead, they would have to see the situation as he saw it, and draw the same conclusions he was drawing. And perhaps the only way for that to happen in such a compressed time frame was for the White House to participate in the kabuki dance Sa'id was now choreographing.
"I'm getting there," the president confided. "Erin, what's your sense of it?"
"It's a solid plan, Mr. President," she said without hesitation. "And I think the prime minister is right. It's really our best option at this point."
"How about you, Mr. President?" Bennett asked.
"I need to confer again with Prime Minister Doron. But yes, I'm on-board."
Bennett looked over at Sa'id and saw something in his face. It wasn't quite a smile. There was a long way to go before any of them would be ready for smiles. But there was something in the crinkles around the eyes of his Pal estinian friend that suggested an ever-so-slight glimmer of hope.
Certainly no one in Albuquerque knew the Viper.
He'd never been there before. He'd never be there again. He just needed a cheap motel, four or five hours of sleep, a shower, and some breakfast, Then he'd be back on the road, racing eastward. The road sign said thirty-five more miles. He'd already driven nearly eight hundred over the past fourteen hours. At least he'd be there in less than a half hour. He'd be in bed in less than an hour, and that would suit him just fine.
Hour upon hour of country music were all that kept Nadir Sarukhi Hash-emi company. He'd much rather listen to music of his youth, of course, or the Koran on tape or CD. But his training had been explicit. In the pursuit of jihad, do nothing to draw attention to one's self or one's religion.
He could still hear the voice of his instructors and his classmates as they chanted the Code morning after morning. First, "have a general appearance that does not indicate Islamic orientation (beard, toothpick, book, long shirt, small Koran)." Second, "be careful not to mention the brother's common expressions or show their behaviors (special praying appearance, 'may Allah reward you,' 'peace be on you,' while arriving and departing, etc.)'" Third, "avoid visiting Islamic places (mosques, libraries, Islamic fairs, etc.)." Fourth, "avoid outward signs of Islamic or Arabic belief or behavior or traditions in public (speaking in Arabic, singing in Arabic, praying five times a day, reading the Koran or anything in Arabic or about the Middle East or Islam, listening to the Koran or Islamic/Arabic music, etc.)." And fifth, "blend into the local culture as much as possible to deceive the enemy and appear as one of them (wear modern Western clothing, cut your hair short, be clean shaven, frequent bars and nightclubs, wear a crucifix or Star of David or hang one on the wall of your home, have a Bible among your possessions, etc.) — these are not violations of the Koran, they are not forbidden if you are in faithful pursuit of jihad against the infidels."
The Code followed the hourly recitation of the holy fatwa, the orders they had received from the Al-Nakbah high command: "In compliance with God's order, we issue the following fatwa to all Muslims: The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies — civilians and military — is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque in Mecca from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim. This is in accordance with the words of Almighty God—'and fight the pagans all together as they fight you all together,' and 'fight them until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in God.' We — with God's help — call on every Muslim who believes in God and wishes to be rewarded to comply with God's order to kill the Americans and plunder their money wherever and whenever they find it."
It felt good to say those words again. They were soothing and familiar. But there were times he missed those drill sessions, their sense of mission and comradery, the feelings of brotherhood with fellow warriors, each willing to sacrifice his very life for such a high calling. But human contact wasn't something that he missed tonight more than usual. He'd spent most of his thirty-nine years alone or on the run, looking over his shoulder and listening for the sounds of footsteps coming up fast.
The son of Palestinian refugees who fled to Iraq from Jericho on the West Bank during the Six Day War of 1967—Al-Nakbah, "the Disaster" — Nadir grew up in Saddam City, a Ba'ath party stronghold inside greater Baghdad. He'd not grown up in poverty or squalor. His parents were actually quite well off. His father had been a banker for a Jordanian branch office until the war, and he'd looted close to $37,000 before taking his family and fleeing into the night, bound for the Persian Gulf.
But neither he nor his mother nor his four older brothers had known that his father had stolen the money until many years later. After he had gotten a job as a teller in the National Bank of Iraq, main branch. After he'd worked his way up to branch manager. After Nadir's brothers had all grown up, served in the army, gone to college, and were now serving in various respected capacities throughout the country. After Nadir had served fifteen years in a Republican Guard Special Forces unit as a demolitions expert and twice-decorated instructor in the use of explosives for terrorist and tactical battlefield operations. After his mother had passed away four years ago from a brain hemorrhage.
One night, three weeks after his mother's funeral, Nadir and his father were alone in their top-floor apartment overlooking Baghdad. It was one of those August nights when the daytime temperatures have topped 120 degrees, and still haven't dropped below 100, and the humidity is near 85 to 90 percent, and the air is still and there is simply no wind or breeze at all.
The two men just sat completely still in the shadowy living room, lights off, the ceiling fan was set on high. Both men were stripped down to their boxer shorts, and covered with sweat. Both held towels soaked in ice-cold water with which they wiped their faces and necks as they sipped bottled water stuffed with ice chips, and tried not to talk. Nadir's father was not a man who liked to talk. No one in Saddam Hussein's Iraq was much of a conversationalist. Especially not if he worked for the government, not if he handled the government's money, as all money in Iraq ultimately was.
But on this sweltering, oppressive night, Nadir's father began to talk. For the first time in Nadir's life, his father began telling him stories about growing up in Jericho, about life on the West Bank, about summers hiking through the Judean Hills with his friends, picking olives and begging for scraps of pita bread from owners of Arab cafes dotted along the Jordan River. He told stories of sneaking past Jordanian soldiers, into the Old City of Jerusalem, as a teenager without his parents, and winding his way through the aromatic alleyways of the Muslim Quarter. He could still remember breathing in the colorful spices, most of which he'd never heard of, and the smell of lamb roasting on spits in every restaurant and on every corner. And he remembered meeting a beautiful young teenage girl named Rania who would soon become his wife, and bear him five beautiful sons, and make a life with him far away from the city she grew up in, the city she loved.