The imam bade them rest. He knew the travel had been overlong and uncomfortable, and he himself was quite agitated as, unblooded, martrydom was not something a certain part of him welcomed, the part that had turned him into a chronic masturbator (three times last night!), secret imbiber, and occasional whoremonger.
What sustained him was not his faith in Allah or his love of fallen Osama but his belief in Andrew. Andrew knew everything, had foreseen everything, was calm, decisive, kind, just, decent, and sensitive to the iron mandates of Islamic culture, particularly as regarding infidels, though he himself was an infidel. That fact could be overlooked: such a gifted boy, such a committed warrior. He loved Andrew in a way that was almost unhealthy, though of course he was not a deviant-the holy text is quite explicit on the fate of men who love men-but he saw now how such a thing was at least possible. He loved him, then, as the Arab leaders had loved Lawrence in the Great War decades ago and could give themselves to the care of an infidel, knowing that in his heart, this white man rode with the Bedu.
Andrew’s theory was to keep the boys occupied in these last few hours and far away from bigger questions of fate and duty and faith. Too much thinking was inappropriate now, so late, so close. Thus, through the stern guidance of the imam, he had three of them drag out the eleven crates of Soviet 5.45?39 ammunition, knife open the tins, rip the ammo out of the cheesy Russian military cardboard boxes, and all gather about to load the orange magazines. This was no easy task, and the boys didn’t enjoy it, but Maahir, the oldest, was rough on the loafers and commanded them to their task, even though fingers soon grew sore forcing the cartridges into the narrow slots in the magazines, through the sharp lips that abraded or even cut their skin and stiffened in resistance as the boys loaded more and thereby increased the spring pressure against which they worked. All, of course, had loaded Kalash mags before, but never in such abundance. They usually carried but two or three with them and, barring conflict, they could have those tucked into pouches for days, sometimes weeks. Now, suddenly, they were loading twenty magazines apiece, and it was not enjoyable duty, even if it portended a big killing and much glory ahead. Then, to break the misery, Saalim told a funny story about the time his goat had been hit by a lorry and he had defrauded the driver out of three times the animal’s worth. Punch-line: it wasn’t even Saalim’s goat!
Through all this, not a word was said about plans. The actualities of what lay ahead were as mysterious as ever. And time was passing. Finally, at around two o’clock, when the last of the mags had been topped off, each boy had made sure his shoes were tied tight and had visited the pail in the little room to the left and made an ablative contribution, when prayers had been said again, finally, it was time.
The imam asked the boys to separate into self-selected twosomes, and there was some unanticipated difficulty here, as Ashkir was irritated because Saalim had already teamed with Asad. For Urgaas, the idea of spending the last hours of his life on earth with Ashkir was especially annoying, but finally Maahir grabbed Ashkir as his partner, which left Urgaas to buddy up with Madino, whom, though he had nothing in common with him, Urgaas at least did not actively despise.
That done, the imam walked among them, handing out tribal scarves, which he demanded they wrap about their necks but stuff low, inside the collars of their shirts, the idea being to pull them out at the moment of action, making each boy easy to identify by the others. He also gave them radio headsets with little throat microphones, through which, during the operation, he would address them.
He bade them sit. He nodded to Andrew, who slid a blackboard in front of them and spun it on pivots to reveal a map. The smartest among them recognized it instantly as a cross section of the very structure in which they were present, as viewed from the top down. It revealed a somewhat lopsided pentagon, with the two bottom sides slightly concave. The center of this odd structure appeared to be open, though it was latticed with walkways and at each corner, a larger box bore an odd name, in English, which some could sound out as Nordstrom, Sears, Macy’s, and Bloomingdale’s. Four corridors-strangely marked Colorado, Rio Grande, Mississippi, and Hudson-led from the outermost ring to the center area.
He spoke in Somali.
“Today, my brother pilgrims, is the day we strike the beast of the West in his lair. In a few short minutes, I will release you. You will be fully armed with your guns, your knives, warriors of the Faith, here to slay and ravage and rampage as is commanded by the holy text. You will rest tonight in paradise, my pilgrims, attended by a fleet of win-some virgins, who will bring you wine and dates and carnal pleasure and glory unto eternity. Let me show you the path to glory.
“But first let me warn you. We have shielded you thus far from the seductions of the West. You were chosen for your purity, your innocence, your devotion to faith. As you move along, you will see wondrous things that only a decadent civilization can conjure, clothes and toys and foods and other trivial but colorful delights. You must be strong. You must resist. This is a day of jihad, not vacation! Moreover, you must not be tempted by the shameless flesh of the West. You will see it everywhere, and in its beguiling licentiousness, it has brought many a true believer to ruin. I have chosen you because you are strong in the mind and in the heart. You can look upon such filth and spit in disgust. You will not be tempted, swayed, weakened, or in any way turned from duty.
“And that is as follows: You will smartly progress to the elevators as marked. Your rifles, hidden under your coats, will not be visible. Your earphones are common in America and the infidels will take them for the cell phones that dominate their lives. Each team of two will take the elevator to the first level. There, each team will progress to the corridors marked by the names of rivers, Colorado, Mississippi, Hudson, and Rio Grande”-he pointed them out-“and at the given hour, as I signal, Maahir will shoot the king of the infidels atop his throne, here, and you will hear the shot, pull your scarves up over your heads, shout ‘Allahu akbar’ so that the infidels will know who has come to slay them in their sanctuary, and you will open fire, moving down the corridors toward this.”
He pointed to the intricate pattern of roadways in the center.
“This is a Western playland, full of absurd contrivances that give them the safe joy of speed. You will drive them into this area by gunfire, killing as you see fit, drive them forward into the playland, where all will commingle and halt in progress. Maahir and his three will receive them. There you will command them to sit and you will commence to guard them.
“An hour, perhaps two, will pass, while I and my friend here make demands upon the infidels to help our cause. We mean to order them to free our three brothers unjustly imprisoned, so that they too will return to glory and the West will know our unquenchable will and that no bars can ever truly imprison a jihadi warrior prince.”
At last it was time for the guns.
Andrew had checked each for functionality and distributed them with confidence. For the young men, new guns were like an aphrodisiac to the sex of violence. They crowded in, hungrily, to touch, to hold, to caress, to possess a new weapon. The usual orgy of rifle love took place, as each newly equipped and wide-eyed gunman tested bolt and trigger pull and sight alignment and heft and feel and pointability. Some of the more immature aimed, issued copious, phlegmy machine-gun sounds, and mimed the shaking of the instrument on full automatic, as deployed in fantasy genocide against Jews or, if Jews weren’t available, mere infidels, equally worthy of death but somehow lacking in the pizzazz of a Jewish kill.