"Neither the mullahs nor pharaoh could arrest me. What makes you think you can accomplish this impossible task?"
"Because if you don't have a visa, you're an illegal alien and subject to deportation," Dimmock said patiently.
"Arrest me. See if I care that you do this," Abeer Ghula spat.
"You to be arrested?"
She set her black-nailed hands on her dusky, lyre- like hips defiantly. "It does not matter. I have succeeded in entering America, where I am free to proselytize in the name of Um Allaha."
"Look, for the last time, do you have a visa or not?"
The woman spun in place, her arms outflung, firm breasts lifting to rubbery bullets as if in reply.
"Do you see a visa?"
"No," Dimmock admitted as an interested crowd gathered. "I guess I have no choice but to detain you for attempting to enter the U.S. illegally."
Abruptly the woman hopped up on the counter and spread her long legs.
"I come to America with my visa firmly clutched in my womanhood. Dare you pluck it out, godless unbeliever?"
"I believe in God," said Dimmock, trying to find a safe place to rest his eyes.
"Do you believe in Um Allaha, Mother of Mothers?"
"Not enough to stick my fingers where they don't belong," said Agent Dimmock as he signaled for INS backup.
Abeer Ghula to a detention cell, where the problem of the visa was discussed vigorously.
"She says it's in there," Dimmock told his supervisor.
"Get a matron," his supervisor said.
"We're not sure if we can legally go in, the matron or not."
"She won't cough it up—so to speak?"
"Refused. Dares us to fish around for it."
"What did she say her name was?" "I didn't catch it. Last name Goola or something like that."
"Goola. Goola. Hold on. Let me call up the watch list of undesirables."
The watch list was checked on a terminal, and the supervisor asked, "First name 'Abeer' by any chance?"
"Yeah, that was it."
"Woman's a flake. Fundamentalist in Egypt want to hang her ass from the highest date palm."
"I'd pay to see that. She's a royal pain in the Allah."
"Let's kick this tarbaby upstairs."
"How far upstairs?"
"Far enough we don't have to mess with it."
The sticky matter of the Muslim heretic Abeer Ghula was kicked up to the head of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, then to the attorney general, who told INS, "I'd like to bring the executive branch into this."
"Fine," said INS, knowing there was no chance of getting a decision on political problems out of that permanent bottleneck.
The INS head was astonished less than an hour later when the attorney general's gravelly woman's voice came back and said, "Release her. We're granting emergency political-prisoner status."
"The President told you to say that?" the INS head sputtered.
"No. The First Lady. I went to the very top."
When she was first informed that she had been granted-sexual-refugee-immigrant-victim status, Abeer Ghula had one question: "Does the press know of this?"
her first press conference in the nude, with the black wound around her waist for decorative purposes at the New York headquarters of the National Organization for Women, with a full-court press contingent in attendance.
"Cast down your male gods, your false prophets and your brazen phallic idols. I call upon all American women to embrace Um Allaha, the Mother of Us All, and compel their menfolk to take up the veil and kneel at her gold-painted toes."
A reporter asked, "Are you renouncing Allah?"
"No. I spit in his false face. There is no Allah. He is only a stern stone mask the imams and mullahs cower behind because they are too old to hide behind the skirts of their mother's
the fatwa?"
"Up here with the said Abeer Ghula, pointing to her naked buttocks.
"Aren't you afraid?" a reporter from asked.
"I am in America now. What can the mullahs do to me now that I enjoy the protection of the Second Commandment?"
"That's 'Thou shalt not take the Lord's name in vain.' "
"No, the other thing."
"That's the right to bear arms. You probably mean the First Amendment of the Constitution."
"I intend to wallow in all amendments as I prosecute my religious freedoms upon all Americans of every faith."
"Have you heard about the Muslim attacks in New York City?"
"I hear about them all the time. I left them behind in Cairo. Such male thunderings are behind me now."
"A jihad group calling itself the Messengers of Muhammad has infiltrated the post office. They're wreaking havoc everywhere."
Abeer Ghula didn't skip a beat. "I demand protection, then. If I am killed, a terrible blow will be struck against freedom of worship, not only here but in other countries where women are repressed by masculine oppression."
"This group has called for you to be sent back to Cairo in irons."
"They cannot compel me to go," Abeer sneered.
"They've made the demand on the White House."
"The Very First Lady has cast the iron shadow of her womanly protection over my mission."
"What happens if she's voted out of office next month?"
"They would not dare!" Abeer flared, gold eyes flashing.
"Happens almost every four years like clockwork," a reporter said dryly.
And before the eyes of the assembled press, Abeer Ghula paled from her shiny forehead to her ebony toenails.
Without another word, she unwound herand dropped it over her body, covering her face with her trembling hands.
"I am not afraid," she quavered.
By 9:00 p.m. the postmaster general thought the worst was over.
There had been no more explosions up in Manhattan. The Oklahoma City situation had died down. They were still looking for the assailant, but no one was reporting his capture, and with luck the SOB would hold out until the New York story had blown over.
Best of all, the President had not called back. He would be easy to wait out. The man was at the endhis term of office, and he still hadn't filled some empty cabinet posts.
Post offices over the nation were on emergency sanity-maintenance programs. That would bring the mail stream to a near-halt for at least a week, but these days people expected sluggish mail delivery. After all, what did the American public expect for a lousy thirty- two-cent stamp? Personalized service?
The postmaster general was filling his briefcase with rolls of stamps intended as Christmas presents for immediate relatives when his executive secretary buzzed him.
"Boston postmaster on the line."
"Find out what it's about."
The secretary was not long. "A postal worker committed suicide."
"What's with these nervous nellies? I have a huge operation to run. Employees self-destruct every damn week."
"He's saying the man died fleeing FBI custody."
"Find out if he's the shooter from Oklahoma City."