The figure spoke: “Have you been watching Al Jazeera?”
Not Satan, no. Just Mustafa’s boss. “Hello, Farouk,” he said, his voice a dry whisper. He raised a hand to his neck and felt a thick bandage covering the place where he’d been cut.
“The reason I ask,” Farouk continued, “is that Jazeera’s newscasters have picked up this habit, lately, of referring to our crusader friends as ‘homicide bombers.’ ” He shook his head. “Homicide bombers . . . What does that even mean? A man builds a bomb, of course he wants to kill someone. It’s the suicide part that makes them special.”
A water pitcher and two glasses sat on the bedside table. Mustafa took his time pouring himself a drink. “I thought I could take him alive,” he said finally.
“You say that as if it were a sane idea.”
“I had him on the ground with a gun to his head, Farouk. He should have surrendered.”
“Yes, that’s what a rational criminal would have done.” Farouk fished a small object from his suit jacket. “Here,” he said, offering it to Mustafa. “A souvenir.”
Mustafa turned the slender bit of polished steel over in his hands several times before recognizing it as a lighter.
“Taken from his pocket,” Farouk said.
“How did you know—”
“That you’d asked him for a light? I know all things. I gather the idea was to get his hand away from the bomb trigger. That would have been genuinely smart, if you’d followed up by shooting him in the face.”
Mustafa found the igniter button, and a focused jet of blue flame hissed from the side of the lighter. “He tried to set the explosive on fire?”
“No, himself. The autopsy found burns on his inner thigh and genitals.” Mustafa glanced up sharply at this, and Farouk shrugged. “Maybe he was fighting the temptation to surrender. Maybe he just wanted a burst of adrenaline. The point is, you were trying to reason with a man who’d sooner burn off his dick than be taken alive . . . Tell me this isn’t about Fadwa.”
“Farouk . . .”
“Because I know all things, I know the official declaration finally came through last month. In light of that, I could overlook a certain amount of idiocy. But a death wish is out of bounds.”
“I’m not trying to get myself killed because of Fadwa, Farouk.”
“No? What is it about then, the other wife?”
“You called Noor.”
“Of course I called Noor. Do you know what she said when I told her you were in the hospital?”
“She asked if I was dying. When you said no, she told you to call her back if that changed.”
“That’s it almost word for word. What kind of woman talks that way about her husband?”
“You said it yourself: the other wife.”
Farouk shook his head again. “The more I learn about plural marriage, the more I thank God for making me a Christian.”
Mustafa smiled gamely at the jest, but the reminder that Farouk belonged to the suspect class concerned him: “Is Riyadh giving you a hard time about the mission?”
“They’d like to,” Farouk said. “Unfortunately it was their bad information that screwed things up. The outcome was as good as could be expected, considering. Of course my report glossed over a few details.”
“If you need someone to blame—”
“What I need is the rest of that terror cell. And no more nonsense.” He sighed. “It appears you were right about Amal, at least.”
Amal, a recent transfer to Homeland Security, was the newest member of their team. As a politician’s daughter, she came with two strikes against her, and Farouk had only accepted her under protest. He’d wanted to keep her out of the field, but Mustafa, after reviewing her personnel file, had argued that she deserved a chance.
“How is she?” Mustafa asked. Because he’d seen her records, he knew she’d never killed a man before.
“Quite pleased with herself,” Farouk said. “As she should be. Two head shots from fifteen meters is impressive.” He studied Mustafa’s expression as he said this and didn’t like what he saw. “You’d rather she’d just wounded him? Shot the detonator out of his hand, maybe, like on TV?”
“I’m happy to be alive.”
“You’re lucky to be alive. For that matter so is Amal. Fifteen meters is still well within the lethal radius of a suicide vest. And in case you were too busy bleeding to notice, there were four other agents within blast range as well.”
“You’ve made your point, Farouk. Next time I’ll shoot him in the face.”
The comment only seemed to irritate Farouk more. He brought out another souvenir: Mustafa’s pistol. “Next time,” he said, tossing the gun on the bed, “try loading the fucking thing.”
THE LIBRARY OF ALEXANDRIA
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Baghdad
The city of Baghdad, population 6.5 million, is the largest city in Iraq and the second-largest city (after Cairo) in the United Arab States. Founded in the year 762 by Abu Jafar al Mansour, it was the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate until its sack by the Mongol Hulagu Khan in 1258. Under the Ottoman Turks, who ruled the city from the 16th through the 19th centuries, Baghdad went into decline, but its role in the founding of the UAS helped restore its fortunes. Today it is once again an important commercial and cultural center.
Baghdad has many nicknames, among them “The City of Peace,” “The City of the Future,” and “The City That Never Sleeps.” Less flattering nicknames include “The Crime Capital of Mesopotamia” and “The Modern Babylon.”
Since the 11/9 attacks, Baghdad and its residents have become symbols of Arab resistance to Western terrorism . . .
BAGHDAD IN POPULAR CULTURE
The diversity of its population has made Baghdad a popular setting for films and TV series—like the children’s program Open Sesame!—that seek to promote greater religious and ethnic tolerance. One of the high-water marks of televised ecumenism was surely Baghdad Police Story, which debuted on the Arabian Broadcast Company in 1971 with the tagline “Shafiq: he’s Sunni. Hassan: he’s Shia. They fight crime.” Part cop drama, part soap opera, part morality play, the series concerned the lives of two undercover detectives on Baghdad’s east side. The recurring cast included characters who were Sufis, Christians, and Jews; there was even a Zoroastrian, a Persian counterfeiter named Qaisar. Episodes typically offered one or more moral lessons, the most common of which was “Respect the other People of the Book—even if you don’t like them very much.”
A very different Baghdad—one sadly more representative of the post–November 9 ethos—is seen in the contemporary hit series 24/7 Jihad, each season of which chronicles a single day in the life of anti-terrorist Jafar Bashir. Bashir is a Unitarian Sunni, a portrayal that has drawn criticism from religious authorities who feel that his casual use of violence and torture is un-Islamic. Still greater controversy surrounds Jihad’s depiction of Shia. Although the series’ main villains are Christian fundamentalists, Bashir must also cope with double agents within his own organization. Of the six identifiably Shia characters who have appeared on Jihad to date, all have been traitors (and all have died horrific deaths). In a 2007 interview on Al Manar, Jihad executive producer Jamal Sur insisted that this was a coincidence, and that the show in no way intended to suggest that Shia Muslims as a group were disloyal to the state. He added, “I think certain people are a little too in love with the idea of being martyrs.” This prompted Omar Karim of the anti-defamation group Shia in Media to respond, “Chapter 25, verse 63 of Holy Quran instructs us to meet the taunts of the ignorant with the blessing of peace. Mr. Sur: Peace be unto you.”