Excerpt from The Sabra

Amad looked at himself in the mirror. Living here had put 20 pounds on his frame, and though he knew it was necessary, it disgusted him. These people were hideous in the eyes of God, he mused, a frown on his face, and having to eat their food was the hardest thing he had ever done. But, he had to fit in to accomplish his mission. He had to be one of them. The girls were the easy part, though. After the one called “Tina” from last night, he was a little sorry his reward later today would be 72 virgins. They wouldn’t be as good as she’d been. He doubted they’d be blonde like Tina, either. He smiled at his image in the mirror at that thought.

Amad’s almost black eyes strayed down to the tattoo on his chest. The small scimitar, with “Servant” in the language of his fathers below. It had been painful, having the ink injected into his skin, but it had been a joyous occasion, too. Usama had put his hand on that very spot, and said the words “anta hal khadim. Thahir al Alam.” You are my servant. Purify the world. Tina had loved the tattoo when she first saw it last night. She’d said she loved tattoos and showed her the one on her ankle, a butterfly. How silly, Amad thought. Such a typical Westerner. So foolish.

He wished he could have shown his tattoo to his mother and father, but he knew they would have been horrified, not at what it meant, but that he had defied the Qu’ran and had his body marked. But, soon that wouldn’t matter. Would they even know it had been their son who had struck the first blow? He knew they would probably soon follow him to paradise. He could always tell them there, he supposed.

Amad looked at the cheap watch on his wrist. It read 8:03. Just under six hours to go, he mused. He’d better get busy. There wasn’t too much to do, but everything had to be perfect.

“Hey stud, what’s up?” Tina said, appearing in the mirror behind him. She was wearing the same mini-skirt and tank top she’d had on the night before. Amad’s mood changed though, the American had gone from a pleasant diversion to an annoying distraction.

“You have to leave,” Amad said, brusquely. “I have things I must do.”

“So do I,” she replied.

The change in her voice, from girlish to older struck him as odd, but as he looked at her in the mirror, he could see she was holding something in her hand. Something black. Curiosity was the last thought that his brain processed.

* * *

Though he didn’t know he was doing it, Hassan rocked rhythmically back and forth. He had made his way in the dark to a point where one of the walls of this little jahannum, this hell, was pressed against his back. He fervently hoped this place would prove to be just a waiting room he must spend some time in before entering ganah, the paradise promised. He chuckled at that thought, thinking about his brother Faruq, already in paradise, enjoying his virgins.

Hassan didn’t believe in the virgins, of course. To himself, he admitted that he was only about 50% on the subject of ganah at all. One of the dangers the organizers of violent jihad faced was sending the wrong young man among the infidels, one who was too smart, too questioning, and who, when faced with science, education and the life the West offered, would give themselves over to it all. Many did. Rather than admit that these intelligent young men who came to America and Britain and saw that the world wasn’t as black and white as the mullahs taught, the old, white-bearded men came up with the story that Science, and the illusion of false reason it fostered was the work of Iblis, the confuser, who the Christians and Jews call Satan. Hassan didn’t think he believed in Iblis, either. He turned out to possess one of the open, flexible minds the mullahs tried to filter out of the operational ranks. Hassan saw the wisdom of Einstein’s work, even if that work supported the creation of Israel. If it had been in their power, the mullahs would travel to the past to kill Einstein’s mother along with the mothers of all the Zionists who defiled Palestine, even though it was Einstein who helped humanity understand the nature of time. Hassan saw those contradictions and shades of gray, and sometimes he envied those who saw only black and white. Good and evil. Believer and infidel. Yes, he sometimes envied them, but his education in the West showed him the true beauty of creation and of life and civilization. Science had truly opened his eyes, even if Islam wanted them closed.

But, here he was, slowly dying with dozens of others, some already gone, some in a state of delirium, most quietly going to their fate. Hassan may not have believed in the promises the mullahs made when he agreed to give his death to jihad, but his motivation was as strong as any who fully expected to press the trigger of their explosive-packed vest and materialize in paradise with 72 virgins waiting for them. He had actually read the Koran, and knew there nowhere in the text were 72 virgins promised. There wasn’t even a single virgin mentioned. The Koran did say that everyone in ganah will be looked after by servants who are pure, but that’s about it. The 72 virgins are simply a baiia’s promise, one that particularly resonates with the young men who the old men need to agree to wear the vests.

But, Hassan didn’t need these promises to agree to be part of this operation. He only needed to remember the anguish on the face of his mother when she found out the Americans had killed her husband, and the fierce pride that shone there when the news of her oldest son’s martyrdom reached her. The Americans had killed Hassan’s father and older brother. Faruq had died for jihad, striking a blow for Allah and for his own father, and Hassan’s mother lived for the vengeance jihad offered. Toward that end, she decided that she would spend all her children’s lives in that cause. It wasn’t that Hassan didn’t believe in jihad, or even this particularly violent version of it. He did, because the Americans had started this war on Islam, on the Muslim way of life. They had come to Arab lands like the British before them, this time not seeking advantage over the Germans as in World War Two, but the cheap petroleum that powered their society and created their wealth. Their lives were built on the backs of Arabs, just as they railroads had been built on the backs of the Chinese immigrants. Americans were great users of people, liars, and Hassan might not believe that his efforts would earn him an eternal stay in paradise and 72 virgins, but he did believe America was the Al-Shaytan Al-Akbar, the Great Satan. And so, he would gladly be an instrument of its destruction. He would play his part.

Hassan knew the end must be near. A quiet had now descended upon the darkness, the screaming, crying and then later, whimpering, and Christian prayers in Spanish had all gone. He couldn’t even smell the stench that had emptied his stomach several hours before. Small pinpoints of light that had filtered in from the outside were gone now, which meant that night had fallen. Hassan knew he wouldn’t see them illuminated again.

“Allah alim,” he whispered to himself as he stopped rocking back and forth, his body unconsciously conserving its fading energy. “Allah alim.” As Hassan slipped into a fevered dream, his dry, cracked lips tasting the water of the oasis that he suddenly found himself in, he was startled to see a smiling Faruq standing in front of him, wearing a blindingly white mishlah, trimmed in gold.

*     *     *

Michael Gilligan sat in the office’s guest chair, trying unsuccessfully to avoid the late afternoon soon as it cut through the cheap window tinting. The room was to be the office of the new Captain of the Phoenix Police Departments “Special Investigations Team,” a broad catch-all title meant to imply the men and women of the team would participate in a wide variety of investigations. But in reality, it was cover for what they were really going to be working on, a problem the new Mayor of Phoenix, Arizona didn’t believe the Federal Government was doing a good enough job with, terrorism. That opinion didn’t make Raymond Miller popular with the Feds, but in this region that was a campaign strategy. In many ways, for all its progressive, high-tech ways, the Valley of the Sun was still very much the Wild West, worshiping at the altar of freedom, and mistrusting much of what passed as “Federal.”

Gilligan had been born and raised in the Valley, and had returned to work for the man who would inhabit this office, enticed by the interesting job offered. Despite being a little uncomfortable in the glare of the sun pounding through the office window, Gilligan was at ease in the chair, seemingly relaxed but with both feet flat on the floor. He was just a shade over 6 feet tall, muscular in a way that could be downplayed, depending on the clothes he was wearing. His time as a Navy Seal created habits that persisted to this day. Early morning runs, and daily high-exertion swims that kept his muscles toned and helped him avoid gyms were his regimen. He had learned in the Navy that running and swimming were all you needed, if you were diligent enough about it. At 42, Gilligan had started to fill out a little, the lean muscle mass harder to maintain, but he was still way ahead of the curve. Most people, if they thought about it, guessed his age at no more than 35. He was blessed with genes that gave him a perpetually youthful appearance, his hairline full with no hint recession, his face unlined. Gilligan had been gone from Phoenix long enough that the sun hadn’t damaged his skin like so many residents of the desert, and his dark complexion, just on the anglo side of “olive” didn’t easily burn. The most startling thing about his appearance were striking aqua-blue eyes. They were a physical feature that he had learned in his early days as a police officer that he could use to his advantage. They were so out of place in the design of his face, they were sometimes distracting to suspects he was questioning. Michael Gilligan’s eyes weren’t the blue eyes of a movie star, they were much colder than that.

His life was a testament to American irony and contradiction. While many married couples were attracted by similarities, his parents couldn’t have been more different. Thomas Gilligan had been tall, thin, fair-haired and blue-eyed, his cheeks perpetually flushed. As Irish as his name, he befriended the world, lived for St. Patrick’s Day and its celebrations and saw his duty in life to make everyone he met enjoy their life as much as he enjoyed his. To say that he surprised everyone with his marriage to Sophia Gold was a gross understatement. As small as he was tall, Sophia was as serious and rational as her husband was eccentric. Tom was the lawyer, a skilled litigator, Sophia the bookkeeper, and it all seemed to work. He plotted and planned ways to get laughter and surprise out of her, and she constantly looked for ways to turn his energy and exuberance into good things, rather than bad. They were both famously successful, and somehow seemed to know that without the other, their lives would never have been complete. Tom Gilligan’s law partner Hugh Tazsarek, who Michael knew all his life as “Taz” always called the Gilligans “poster children for the sweet art of compromise.”

There was probably a 50/50 chance that the Gilligans’ only child would carry the best of both worlds, but it didn’t turn out that way. Quite the opposite. Michael Gilligan was his mother’s son. Preparation, effort and rationality ruled his life, even though he appreciated the joy in being like his father. Without really realizing it, he yearned for a life like Tom’s, jumping into things he didn’t always understand that looked interesting and fun, but living that way wasn’t in Michael’s nature. His life was about never entering a room that he didn’t know three ways to walk out of. In many ways, he was Sophie without Tom.

So, on this hot Friday afternoon in September, Michael Gilligan sat opposite the desk of his new boss.

The desk itself was standard issue, cheap particle board construction with a faux woodgrain laminate surface. The chair though, was out of place. It was an expensive Herman Miller Aeron, probably supplied by its owner himself. That probably meant two things, Gilligan mused. He spent a lot of time in it, and he probably had some sort of back problem. Those chairs weren’t cheap, so he’d spent some serious money, unless of course, he’d gotten it from the property room, part of a drug bust haul. The man who sat in the chair appeared in quite good shape, so the back injury probably made sense. If the Aeron had been for style’s sake, he wouldn’t have such a cheap desk.

Gilligan’s gaze shifted to the two cardboard boxes that sat in the corner of the office, and then the six-inch stack of paperwork near the middle of the desk. A dark gray laptop sat next to the paperwork, plugged into a power cord that disappeared over the right side of the desk. Something was missing, he thought, then immediately got his answer. No file cabinet. Did that mean the job was short-term? Temporary? Or were the files generated by the investigations of this team to be kept elsewhere? Nothing on the walls yet, either, but then that could be because the office’s new resident had just recently gotten the job, and hadn’t yet had time to hang anything on them.

A lot of questions, Gilligan mused, as Captain Tim Reeder swept into the office, pulling the door shut behind him. Gilligan stood up quickly, his military reflexes kicking in as a superior officer entered the room.

“Sit down, sit down, Mike,” Reeder said, motioning to the chair Gilligan had just stood from, while he slid into his own Aeron. Definitely his chair, Gilligan thought, the way he sat down. He’s had that chair for quite a while.

Reeder, ignoring the papers and laptop on his desk, immediately put all his attention on Gilligan, leaning his left elbow on the chair’s arm, his chin in the hand. “You get settled in? Everything ok?”

“Just fine, Captain,” Gilligan replied. “Got here day before yesterday, pretty much all moved in. Ready to go to work.”

That seemed to surprise Reeder, who nodded his approval. “Wow, that’s fast. How long did it take you to drive from Chicago?”

“Two and half days. Easy trip, this time of year,” was the reply.

Reeder again nodded. “Well, two of the team members are still finishing up previous assignments, and one is on vacation through the end of the week, so I thought I’d show you around a little today, and then you should take off, get reacquainted with the Valley, relax and we’ll get started on Monday.”

“Sounds fine, sir.”

Reeder, his chin still in hand, sat for a moment looking at Gilligan, who returned the gaze unblinking. Finally, he broke the silence by saying, his voice lowered a bit, despite the fact that the office door was closed, “We didn’t really cover this in the interview in Chicago, Mike, but I need to ask you something.”

Gilligan nodded, then shrugged. “Yes, sir?”

“You had 15 years with Chicago PD,” Reeder began. “Your record was excellent, not a black mark on it. Why come back here? As you know, I tried really hard to get your seniority credited, but in this budget climate…” At this point, the Captain leaned back and spread his arms demonstrating he was powerless in that regard.

“I know,” Gilligan replied. “It’s not about the retirement. But, I appreciate your trying.”

Reeder nodded. “The weather?” he asked, smiling.

Gilligan smiled a small smile back. “Sure. I grew up here. Missed it, I guess. Needed a change of scenery.”

Reeder, still nodding, then answered “Bullshit. Come on, Mike. We need to work together, so off the record, why did you toss Chicago PD for 115 degrees? I mean, at least in the winter in Chicago, you can put some more clothes on. Here, in the summer, you can only take off so much.”

Gilligan’s smile was gone, but his tone stayed respectful. “Not about the weather, either, Captain. I got divorced a couple years ago. It wasn’t pretty, and it wasn’t sudden. Chicago had been home, but it wasn’t… home.”

That seemed to satisfy Reeder, at least for the moment. “Okay, Mike. Well, look…I’m not going to lie to you, you’re a great catch for us. I’m happy to have you. We have our share of ex-military in the department, but not many Special Forces, and we need that. Not to get into firefights, but you guys have a singular ability to recognize the potential for that stuff and keep us out of shit we don’t want to be in.”

The Captain paused then, letting that sink in before continuing. “But I need to know what’s going on with my team members. The Mayor and Chief want the City of Phoenix to have a better handle on what terrorist threats face us, and be in a position to do something about it, if we need to. That means having the kinds of skills and experience in our inventory that departments like ours usually don’t have.”

Gilligan nodded his understanding.

The Mayor, Chief and I are all out on a limb on this, and so I need to know this team better than I’ve known any team before. I need to know it all.”

“You got it, Captain.” Gilligan replied.

“Good,” Reeder said immediately, signally and end to this conversation, but not an end to the issue being discussed. Standing up, his tone lighter, he said “Let’s go look around a little.”

45 minutes later, Gilligan was walking back to his faded red Jeep Cherokee, fishing the keys out of his pocket. The keys were fewer in number these days than they’d been since Desert Storm, he thought, as he unlocked the Jeep, opened the door and slid in, adjusting his Beretta 92FS on his belt as he settled into the seat. As he did so, the heat hit him, almost taking his breath away. “Gotta get one of those windshield screens,” he said aloud. The heat was brutal. It was early September in Phoenix, and as Gilligan started the car, and the electronics came on, the outside temperature gauge showed 132 degrees. It wasn’t that hot, of course, the Jeep had just been sitting in the sun, the reflected heat from the concrete island Phoenix had begun created the false reading. But, it didn’t really feel that false, and actually seemed pretty accurate. “But, it’s a dry heat,” non-Phoenicians would say. The standard response to that was “Put your head in an oven. That’s a dry heat, too.”