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“Amazing,” Hunter said. He couldn’t bring himself to choke out a few more words to praise their god, even though he knew he should have added them.

Several small rugs were rolled up in a pile along the wall. One of the twins passed them out.

“Give our guest Amir’s prayer rug. He no longer needs it. May Allah bless his soul,” Fazul said, his countenance suddenly dropping.

Each tango carried his AK along with his prayer rug to the barren courtyard behind the house and Hunter followed them. A goat gnawed at the sparse scrub and heat rose from the sun-scorched sand. He squinted, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the blinding light. As he had feared, they were in the middle of the desert with no other structures in sight. He could forget about slipping away quietly in the night.

Hunter walked over to a well and picked up the bucket to fetch water for the pre-prayer purification ritual. Fazul grabbed his arm. “No, my friend. It’s nearly dry. We have little water. We must use sand.”

To confirm his suspicions that they were Sunni like most of al Qaeda, Hunter paused for a second to see if they washed their hands rather than their faces first in the cleansing. He did the same, first rubbing his hands with sand, then his face, ears, arms and feet. During the first Gulf War when he was in the desert for days with Task Force Ripper, he had used the coarser Saudi sand for a dirt bath, but the powdery Iraqi sand left a dusty coating where the Saudi sand had come away clean. Next he only pretended to rub it on his teeth.

The four mujahedin turned toward Mecca, put their arms in the air and declared Allah’s greatness. Hunter listened for other insurgents as he said the prayers along with them, but he heard no other voices. The four to one ratio wasn’t great, but he could work with it. All he needed was one opportunity.

His teammates at Force Zulu had thought he was insane, practicing the Muslim prayers over and over until they became second nature. Those drills in both Sunni and Shi’a prayer customs were all that was preventing him from looking like the new guy at a dance class, struggling to mimic the others while tripping over his own feet. He folded his hands over his chest and recited the first verse of the Koran in Arabic.

He bowed.

He stood.

He prostrated himself.

He recited the prayers all the while watching for any opening to take them out. Fazul’s rifle was within reach, but the others were slightly off in their timing so that at every moment during the ritual one of them was on a prayer mat within reach of his AK. He could probably take out one or two, but not all of them and not before they got him. He stood, turned to the twin on his right, then Fazul on his left and exchanged the last prayer with each of them. “Peace be unto you and Allah’s blessings.”

Yeah, right.

Chapter Fourteen

“But DIA [the Defense Intelligence Agency] is now engaged in doing far grander things with regard to trying to penetrate foreign organizations,” said [Col. W. Patrick] Lang, the former DIA official. “They’re trying to penetrate jihadi organizations… It’s happening all over the Islamic world.”

– The Los Angeles Times, March 24, 2005, as reported by Mark Mazzetti and Greg Miller

Anbar Province

Fazul ordered the teenage boy to fetch food and drink for Hunter. He returned after a few minutes carrying a plate mounded over with white cheese, olives and flatbread. He handed it to Hunter who stood near the table, eyeing the AK underneath near Fazul’s feet. Fazul was becoming more and more focused upon the bomb he was cobbling together.

“Rubbish.” Fazul studied the markings on a blasting cap, then tossed it onto the floor. “This is useless rubbish. Amir, my bomb-maker, killed himself in an accident a few days ago. We’re supposed to be ready for a wedding this afternoon, insh’allah-Allah willing.”

“Thoughtful wedding present.” Hunter balanced the plate with his left hand and ate. The cheese was mild and very salty. So were the olives.

“Here. Sit with us.” Fazul pushed aside some tools, clearing a space for Hunter’s plate. He picked up the sidearm from the table and set it on his lap.

Hunter sat at the head of the table where Fazul had indicated. He would’ve preferred a spot beside the ringleader since it would’ve made an assault easier. “Why strike a wedding and not the American infidels?”

“The families are prominent and they both came out in support of Abdullah. You know the teachings of al-Zahrani, may the Prophet bless him. We first have to clean our own house. Those who follow Abdullah are a pox on us all. Tell me, Sergei, do you know anything about bombs?”

“Enough not to wear one.” He chewed on an olive, taking care not to chomp down on the pit and hurt another tooth.

One of the cell phones was in pieces and Fazul attached blasting cap wires to a circuit board. Then he crimped a wire to the end of a cap and taped the wire to a small battery. Fazul looked up at Hunter. “Where were you trained?”

“I was in camps in Afghanistan.” Where I killed fuckers like you.

“Those days must have been glorious. Had I only been born earlier, insh’allah.”

“Where did you train?” Hunter said.

“Uzbekistan.”

Hunter had never heard of al Qaeda bases in the former Soviet Republic. During the early Afghan campaign, the Uzbeks allowed the US to take over former Soviet bases, but the arrangement dissolved after their government massacred a few hundred protesters and the US objected. Radical Islam scared the crap out the Uzbek leaders, but it wouldn’t be the first time a dictatorship played both sides. Pakistan had it down to a fine art.

“Uzbekistan? The Uzbek government sleeps with the Americans and prohibits teaching of true Islam,” Hunter said.

“Not anymore. Al-Zahrani has an arrangement. As long as we keep to ourselves, we are most welcome-for a price, I’m sure.”

“Keep your friends close and your enemies closer,” Hunter said and grinned. “Where is the Uzbek camp?”

Fazul laughed. “If you showed me a map, I could not find Uzbekistan. The camp was a hole in the desert. I saw nothing but sand and voles.” Fazul took the slab of plastic explosive and sunk the cap into the Semtex.

Hunter hoped Fazul really did know what he was doing, but his trembling hands hinted otherwise. He set the bomb down and looked into Hunter’s eyes. “You ask many questions, my friend.”

Hunter felt his body tense up and forced a deep breath to relax himself. “I was in Uzbekistan as a child, when it was part of the Soviet Union. I remember standing with my Young Pioneer group in Samarqand. The turquoise domes of the mosques, they were like nothing I had ever seen. At that moment, I realized that Islam had a glorious past and the communists were lying to us. I wanted to go in and pray, but I was told it was forbidden. The mosques were museums.”

“Patience. The Russians will pay one day, along with the Americans.” Fazul looked intensely at Hunter for a little too long.

A few minutes later the boy returned with a tray carrying glasses of tea and a bowl of sugar. The sugar had ants crawling in it, but the muj didn’t seem to mind. Fazul stopped playing with the explosives to scoop up a teaspoon of sugar and drop it into Hunter’s tea glass.

Hunter could never figure out why Iraqis didn’t use cups with handles for hot beverages. The tea glass burned his fingers, but he knew better than to show weakness and set it down-or to fish out the ants now swimming in the brew. The first sip was hot enough to scorch the hide off a camel and it singed his taste buds. He smiled and complimented them on the excellent tea.