All three of Daoud's brothers died in combat operations that spring. So had his mother. So had his father. Suddenly, Daoud was an orphan in a firestorm. In time he would search out the history of those days, trying to learn more details, trying to make some sense of it all. It had taken some ten thousand personnel from forty countries more than nine months and $1.5 billion to fight and extinguish all those fires. It was an enormous, ex pensive, exhausting challenge. But left alone, those fires could have raged on undiminished for another hundred years.
No amount of time or money or historical perspective could bring back his mother or father or three older brothers. Nothing could bring back the innocent life he'd once known. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, they were gone forever.
Never again would he hear his father regale him with colorful tales of his parents and grandparents and ancestors battling the Israelites and the Per sians, the Greeks and the Egyptians, the Ottomans and the British. Never again would he hear his mother tell him bedtime stories of growing up in Palestine, running through the olive groves, hiking through the rugged hills, napping under the cool breezes sweeping in off the sparkling Mediterranean, sparkling like the most brilliant diamonds in Hammurabi's vaults. Never again would he hear his brothers' infectious laughter, or wrestle with them in the yard, or play pranks together on the neighbors across the street. Never again would he hear his mother's voice, singing him to sleep on hot summer nights with songs of the Great Revolution, while she scratched his back and gently stroked the perspiration away from his eyes and forehead.
The more he thought about his mother the more Daoud Juma wept. She'd been born in Jericho. Her family had escaped through Transjordan and made their way to central Iraq during the 1948 war, when the Jews announced their new State of Israel. So, while they were ethnically and legally Iraqis because of their father, the Juma family sympathized with the plight of their brothers and sisters in Palestine, and the Juma boys grew up hearing stories of a Holy Land they longed to see one day, hearing stories of a holy war they someday longed to win.
Daoud refused to blame Saddam Hussein for the death of his parents. He blamed the Great Satan. He blamed the Zionists. He certainly did not blame the man who'd given his family a home and a heritage.
Tariq hustled Sa'id and Galishnikov into the back entrance.
Bennett and McCoy grabbed the luggage and supplies and followed them inside. Then they went back for Mancuso's body and set it down in a corner of the lobby. The whole transaction only took a few minutes but Tariq insisted they move faster. If they were seen, if they were caught, he couldn't guarantee their safety, or his own.
Once everyone and their things were safely inside, Tariq shut and bolted the door behind them. He'd worry about the VW liter. He'd stolen it the day before. No one could trace it to him or his team, and with chaos engulfing the Strip, it wasn't likely the police would be tracking down stolen goods for the next several weeks, if ever. If the van was gone in a few hours, who would really care? Tariq would just steal another and dub that the new Batmobile and it could certainly serve as his new mode of transportation, for a while anyway. That was the first law of Gaza — there was no law in Gaza. The sooner Bennett and his team understood that, die better off they'd be.
Daoud remembered his father as a proud, gregarious man.
A native-born Iraqi, he constantly boasted of being able to trace his family's roots back to the days of King Nebuchadnezzar and the glories of ancient Babylon, though as Daoud grew older he doubted this could literally be true.
His father was not a Tikriti. He'd grown up in j small, dusty town not far from Tikrit. He loved his country and he worshipped Saddam. Literally. Every morning, early, before daybreak, before he left for the oil fields, Daoud's father would face Mecca, kneel down on his small rug, bow his forehead to the ground and say his prayers. Then he would kiss Daoud and his brothers and his mother good-bye, and then kiss the framed black-and-white photo of Saddam that hung in their living room. Every day, year after year. It was a ritual, a way of life, and it made an impression on Daoud.
Once, in the marketplace, a shopkeeper — the man sold bread, or maybe meat, Daoud was only seven at the time so couldn't remember for sure— anyway, the shopkeeper cursed Saddam for the food shortages their town was experiencing. Daoud's father was not a large man, maybe five foot seven, maybe five foot eight. He weighed only about a hundred fifty pounds. But Daoud would never forget how enraged his father became. His face had turned deep red, almost purple. He'd shouted at the man. He cursed him to his face. He said the man was a Zionist, a lover of Israel. He demanded the man recant or die.
The shouting match came to blows. A crowd was gathering, chanting and shouting. The scene was getting uglier by the minute. Daoud feared for his father's life. Then a shot rang out. People screamed and scattered. Daoud ran to his father. He saw the blood on his father's hands and face and started sobbing uncontrollably. But after what seemed like a few minutes, he wiped the tears from his eyes and realized his father was not wounded. His father was holding a smoking pistol. The shopkeeper was lying in a pool of his own blood. His father had killed him, and Daoud now feared for his father's safety.
But he needn't have worried. Three days later, his father received a signed letter of commendation from President Hussein himself, a promotion to foreman, and a sixty-dollar-a-month raise. Daoud couldn't believe it. Neither could his father. That night they slaughtered a lamb, roasted it over a spit, invited the entire neighborhood over, and celebrated throughout the night. It was one of the happiest days of Daoud's life. Then the war came. Four days later his brothers left for the front. Two weeks later, his entire family was dead.
What made Daoud — the baby of the family — so loyal to Saddam and his regime was not simply that the Iraqi leader had been a great friend of the Palestinian people, though he certainly was. He'd given them jobs and op portunities in the oil fields and in his paramilitary forces. He'd funded their war against the Jews, and given them weapons and training. But it was more than that. Saddam Hussein had given the Juma boys the chance to wage jihad against the Jews and against the Americans. He'd shown favor to Daoud's father, he'd honored them — kept them from public humiliation and shame — and in so doing he had won the allegiance of the Juma boys forever.
To Daoud, Saddam was an Arab savior. It was the sheikhs of the Gulf who were ruthless and corrupt. At best, the Kuwaiti and Saudi elites treated Palestinians like second-rate citizens. At worst, his relatives working in the Gulf states were treated like slaves, like the Jews under the pharaohs. The Palestinians built the sheikhs kingdoms of splendor by the sweat of their brows, but never tasted the fruit of their endless labor. Why should such despots be rewarded in this life? Why shouldn't Saddam have been allowed to claim what was rightfully his — the oil fields of Kuwait? Why should such wealth and power remain in the hands of the thieves and prostitutes?
Daoud grew up listening to the preachers in the Sunni mosques and to Saddam Hussein on Iraqi state radio. He loved the fiery speeches, the unflinching resolve to liberate Palestine and create a great, unified, prosperous Arab nation from the Persian Gulf and the Euphrates River to the shores of the Mediterranean. From the earliest days he could remember, he'd been inspired by the Great Revolution led by Saddam and Yasser Arafat and the imams of his youth. And from the time his parents were killed, he'd been ready to give his life for a cause greater than himself, He was willing to pay whatever it took to avenge his parent's death and see Palestine rise again like a Phoenix from the ashes. This was Allah's will, his eternal destiny, and he was ready.