Is it true Mommy? Is this a new chapter? Yes Timmy; now shut up and keep scrubbing.
Salat: refers to the five daily ritual prayers that Muslims offer to Allah.
Jinni: In pre-Islamic Arabian mythology and in Islam they are members of the jinn, a race of creatures that can be good or bad but are thought to be invisible.
"What the fuck is this about?" SSgt. Silas yelled into Lt. Benally's ear. What he had to say about her orders and their sudden focus on one man whose existence was news to everyone but the Lieutenant as well as how much profanity he'd need to get it all out, had to be kept in check due to circumstances; the hail of bullets made by the lowest bidder now nicking hunks of concrete off the single officer barracks across the street was hardly encouragement for heart to hearts.
"You don't need to know that Sergeant!" Lt. Benally shouted back. She was half a foot shorter and a good fifty pounds of muscle off of SSgt. Silas' weight class but she matched him word for word in the tone and bark department which proved irrelevant as her words faded into the noise made when Sgt. Murphy decimated the station's door.
The lights overhead flickered and died seconds removed from the loud boom of grenade meeting generator. Dumphy's aim was getting good enough to pee with the lights off. The fuel tank feeding the generator ignited an orange fireball, making the building tremble, the windows rattle and break and night vision goggles get clipped to helmets like someone somewhere had turned on a switch. Nine men and their female counterpart split in the large intake room by the entrance and took a side each, heading in fives towards the lounge-cum-prayer room –complete with sinks low on the walls to facilitate foot washing before salat, and the stairs to the basement jail on the opposite side.
Heavily accented cries of 'Ihna askar Amriiki' –we are American Military, and its equally useless cousin 'put down your weapons' rang through the air while rooms were cleared with systematic haste. Dumphy and Tariq were working together, laying waste to flimsy cubby doors, tying Flex-Cufs ™ tight enough to cut off circulation with just that idea in mind and kicking AKs and their magazines in opposite directions before moving on, through the greenish filter of NVGs.
Two miles away, out of range and safely tucked behind enough sandbags to rebuild New Orleans, Sgt. Glick was screaming into his radio in a rapid, high pitched tone that made him sound like a contralto castrato. He had two days left in Iraq and his sense of duty at the moment was far outweighed by the utterly terrifying thought that he might die with a little over 48 hours to go. He couldn't reach anyone in town. He had no idea what they were up against. He called in reinforcements and air support anyway.
-X-
The barrels of their M4s peeked into the tiny room before them flanking the steady stream of bullets coming out of it. Night vision goggles were an undeniable plus but the man they'd pinned down, if the epithet fit someone who probably didn't shave more than once a month; still managed to empty his magazine and graze Tariq's right arm before he faltered long enough to give Dumphy his chance. The Private was screaming angrily as he rammed the butt of his rifle into the teen's face and he was still yelling when he finished securing the plastic cuffs and disabling the AK. They joined Privates Chang and O'Hare and Sgt. Murphy in the equally reactive prayer room where the situation was definitely hairier, NVGs or not.
Rashid, in his usurped office, was beginning to accept that he had made a big mistake. His mind was racing as he struggled to retrieve his computer, still hidden in the concave portion of Colonel Ghazi's desk. It was clear it'd been too easy to plan his trip into Iraq and the subsequent coup de grâce he hoped would streamline the transit of Afghani heroin into Jordan and from there to any number of ports in the thirsty West.
He kicked the computer when he realized its hard drive was gone. He knew better than to believe the Americans were as stupid as he painted them for the benefit of the more ignorant followers of his hole-ridden dogma and even though the information was heavily encrypted, the man who'd devised all his safety measures –before he put a bullet through his head, had gone to the same elite school in southern California as any of an endless number of men and women in the American's employ who'd love a crack at his hard drive if for no other reason than a chance to defeat its code.
Who knew about his computer? Who knew that he was coming? Who was it that was keeping such great tabs on his progress that he wasn't able to notice any mistakes until Asad's lifeless arm had tumbled out from behind Colonel Ghazi's desk? He had an idea, a name that popped into his head but left just as quickly, shaken by the resonant rat tat tat that seemed to wax and wane in half minute gusts. Besides, no one could possibly survive such obscene amounts of C4 in a trunk. Rashid patted the bulletproof vest weighing him down and got down on all fours to dash through the hallway.
If he wasn't going to be murdered on national television, Rashid needed the Minister of the Interior alive and kicking for the show to go on and he was hoping that the motley crew of worshippers who moonlighted as his own personal army of mujahedeen back in the opposite wing, held down the fort long enough for them to make it out to the patio and through the alley to the far more expensive but proportionately more able soldiers he had had the presence of mind to position two buildings over just in case. If only they kept shooting long enough, all was not yet lost.
A boot landing squarely on the spot between his ass and his balls interrupted his train of thought. The moment was painful and anticlimactic and his fall undignified. His AK poked him as he fell and tried, uselessly, to reach through his clothes and the groin protector in his body armor to cradle the pain. That he would be brought down quite literally because there was no such animal as a bulletproof diaper was just too much.
Even through the pain Rashid couldn't understand how he had not seen his attacker in the hallway despite having looked both ways but through the pain he didn't think that Lieutenant. Benally had been in the office with him, simply biding her time until the right moment presented itself. She brought Rashid's arms close together and tied them at the wrists then hooked two sets of cuffs together to restrain his feet. She knelt down and straddled his back, caressed his hair and grabbed a handful of the thick curls.
"The Pakis have a giant hard-on for you baby. Do you think it'll fit?" She asked softly, in a voice too sweet to fit the question being asked.
Two bones in Rashid's face cracked when she slammed his head back down against the irregular body of the rifle instead of the floor. Lt. Benally listened intently trying to decide what was happening in the opposite end of the building and used her M16 for balance to get back on her feet. She didn't hear Rashid's faint voice.
"Marie? Est il vous?" It asked in French.
-X-
The decision to head for the holding cells where SSgt. Silas had gone to secure Thamir and the missing Colonel was made quickly. The good of the platoon, even if they were a capable, likable bunch, was the last thing on Lt. Benally's mind. She rolled Rashid back into Ghazi's office and cut enough fabric off his long robe to make it impossible for him to spit out the gag if he were conscious and able to try. She peeked out before exiting back into the hallway and ran past the vulnerable middle as if no one was trying to shoot around corners from the opposite side.
In the basement, the underground circus was in full swing. Sans Colonel Hassan Ghazi.
The reporter had shed his camera, choosing instead to live to buy a new one when he made it back to Qatar and Thamir had done the same, knowing he'd have a better chance of being taken alive if he was unarmed, taking cover in the cell closest to the wall. Vents that circulated rank hot air from the basement to the patio and back allowed enough brightness to filter into the room for the NVGs to work and the holy grail of Bina looked particularly pathetic being guarded by a gangly sixteen year old kid praying effusively. His speech was all monotonous recitation of the same three phrases. Get out. God is great. Leave us be. Get out. God is great. Leave us be. Rinse and repeat.
"Put down that grenade Sadik." Lt. Benally said in the same soft, lovely tone she'd used a minute earlier with Rashid. Sadik stopped mid sentence when he heard his name. Five heads, including the incredulous ones belonging to SSgt. Silas and Pvt. Williams turned towards source and recognized the lieutenant. "Your sister needs you darling."
"Kadija is safe," he muttered as if remembering that he should respond. "I will be given a martyr's welcome in paradise."
"You are the only one she has left Sadik. She's just a little girl."
"Don't come any closer," he yelled when Kai took several steps towards him. "You are an evil jinni. Allah sent you again just to test my faith."
"You know that's not true Sadik. I'm a sinner just like you," she said setting her weapon on the floor before taking two more steps into his domain.
"I will be given a martyr's welcome in paradise. I will be given a martyr's welcome in paradise. I will be given a martyr's welcome in paradise."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes," Sadik said sobbing. "The least reward for the people of Heaven is 80,000 servants and 72 wives, over which stands a dome of pearls, aquamarine and ruby. For the righteous, there will be a paradise; gardens and grape yards; and young full-breasted maidens of equal age; and a full cup of wine. Wine delicious to those who drink it will neither dull their senses nor will they become drunk."
"Are you sure?" Kai asked getting even closer.
He repeated the memorized perks of martyrdom, in the same order, at the same pace looking so intently at Lt. Benally, so close so their outstretched hands might touch, that he didn't notice the reporter for Al-Jazeera or the Minister of the Interior creeping along each open cell with M4s trained on them, towards the stairwell where the Americans were gathered.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes," he yelled. His voice was full of anger and despair but he stuttered when he tried to remember the perks.
"Are you sure?" Kai asked caressing his face with the back of her hand. Sadik nodded his response this time; a clear, undeniable no.
He pulled the pin and released the spoon.
Since I don't know Arabic you need to pretend italics and Arabic are one and the same and since I sure as hell don't know how to say anything in French that one should repeat in polite company, if est il vous doesn't mean is it you as Altavista Babel Fish Translation led me to believe then by all means let me know.
Thy Author & Ze Editor.
PS: I might actually finish this some time this decade. I actually have a clear end in sight.