Salim was not the worst of it. The worst was Amal, the expression on her face as she tied her headscarf around Salim’s leg to try to stanch the bleeding. From her fear and her rage, one might think the Marine were family, rather than just some guy she happened to be riding with. Watching her, Samir felt a horrified pang in his heart. I’m sorry, he thought. I’m so sorry, Amal, but my sons, I had no choice . . .
Mustafa and the corpsman both got out of the lead Humvee to help Amal. An RPG round flew by too close for comfort, punching through the plate glass of a minimart in the strip mall and making everybody duck. Samir, suddenly sure he was about to see his friends get killed, looked away. Looked up. His gaze lit on the sign above the minimart, which to his tear-blurred vision appeared to read 9/11. He turned his head to the right, towards the roof of the Chinese restaurant next door.
There was another Minuteman up there. He had crept in a crouch to the corner of the roof, unnoticed by the Marines. He was holding a bottle filled with amber fluid and trying to use a balky lighter to ignite the rag stuffed in the bottle’s neck.
“No,” Samir said. And once more he was in freefall, but this time the fear was galvanizing rather than paralyzing. Like an acrobat in midair, he twisted and reached, drawing the .45 automatic from the leg holster of Private Dimashqi beside him, turned again, shoved his door open, stepped out, and aimed up. Samir’s first three shots missed, but the fourth hit the bottle even as the Minuteman got the rag alight. The Minuteman became a burning man with a blazing three-cornered crown.
Samir fired the pistol until it was empty. Then he ducked down beside Mustafa and Amal and Salim and the startled corpsman. “I’m sorry,” he said, weeping. “I’m sor—”
The ground shook. All the windows in the Piggly Wiggly blew out, and the roof, suddenly fluid, bulged upwards, flinging Minutemen into the air. “Shaitan!” one of the Marines cried, thinking that the helicopter gunship had returned. But this was no missile strike; it was another bomb, detonating inside the store—or rather, in the parking level below it.
The roof fell back in and with a long rumble the outer walls collapsed, spilling a last few screaming Christians into the rubble. After that a stillness fell, a stretch of calm during which even the roar of the gas station blaze seemed muted. When half a minute had passed with no more shots being fired, the Marines began to relax.
A voice called out: “Mustafa al Baghdadi!”
Heads—and guns—turned towards the sound. Forty meters back along the parking lot from where the Humvees were stopped, a pale man had appeared, standing out front of a greeting-card store with his arms in the air. His hands were open and empty, and he’d unbuttoned his shirt to reveal a scrawny chest to which no bombs or weapon holsters were strapped.
The unarmored Humvee drove up beside him. Marines jumped out and shoved the pale man to his knees.
Mustafa stood up. “Hey!” Umm Husam said. “Your helmet!” Mustafa nodded and got his helmet and then walked down the parking lot to the unarmored Humvee. When he got there, one of the Marines was staring through the open door of the greeting-card store; just inside, another Minuteman lay dead with a loaded RPG launcher beside him.
Mustafa turned his attention to the pale man. “I am Mustafa al Baghdadi,” he said. “Who are you and what do you want with me?”
“My name is Timothy McVeigh,” the pale man replied. “I’m an agent of the Texas CIA and I was sent here to find you—to protect you.” His eyes flicked briefly to the dead man, and then to the pile of rubble across the pike, before returning to Mustafa. “The director would like to see you, sir.”
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Christian Intelligence Agency
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The Christian Intelligence Agency, or CIA (sometimes also referred to by its members as “Christ in Action”), is the primary espionage arm of the government of the Evangelical Republic of Texas. According to the public version of its charter, the CIA’s function is to collect and analyze intelligence on foreign governments, organizations, and individuals. However, it is believed that the agency also engages in domestic spying and acts as a secret police force, detaining, torturing, and assassinating political dissidents.
The CIA’s headquarters are located in Crawford, about 15 kilometers west of the city of Waco . . .
“No,” Umm Husam said firmly. “I cannot permit this.”
They were standing in the parking lot of another strip mall on the far side of the crossroads. More Humvees and a tank had arrived, and the road was now blocked off in all four directions. The only nonmilitary vehicles that had been allowed through were a couple of fire engines, whose crews, under the watchful eye of Marine riflemen, were working to put out the gas station. Two helicopter gunships now circled overhead, and a medevac chopper had just landed. With Lieutenant Fahd heading back to base still unconscious, Umm Husam was the senior officer on site.
“I understand your reluctance to allow me to go with this man,” Mustafa said. “But if he wanted to kill me, I think he would have done so already.”
“If he kills you he cannot kidnap you,” said Umm Husam. “Do you know the term Verschärfte Vernehmung?”
“ ‘Sharpened interrogation.’ It’s a Lutheran euphemism for torture.”
“American Protestants call it enhanced interrogation. The latest version is what’s known as crucifixion: The victim is tied spread-eagle to the hood of a car and driven around at high speed. Road debris pelts the front of the body, while heat from the engine block causes burns to the back.”
“I don’t believe he intends to crucify me, either.”
“If you are wrong, you won’t be the only one who pays.” Umm Husam shook her head. “I am sorry, but I don’t wish to risk more Marines on a rescue mission.”
Mustafa looked at McVeigh, standing just out of earshot with a pair of Marine guards. “He predicted this would be your reaction.”
“That hardly makes him a seer.”
“He asked me to give you this.” Mustafa held up a gas station map of the county, backfolded to show a portion of Herndon village. “A gesture of good faith, he says. He’s marked the location of a house that he claims is the current headquarters of the leader of the militia that attacked us.”
Umm Husam chuckled. “You want to know who really lives there? Someone this man has a grudge against. Perhaps someone he owes money to.”
“Here I would be inclined to agree,” said Mustafa, “except for one thing . . .” He showed her what was written on the map beside the circled address. “Do you recognize this name?”
“No.”
“So it’s no one famous, then?”
“Not that I am aware of. Why?”
“Before I left Baghdad, I was shown a list of people who were in some way connected to my investigation here. This name was on that list.”
Umm Husam remained skeptical. “What list is this? Who showed it to you?”
Before he could answer, Amal appeared beside him. She’d been helping load Salim into the medevac chopper, and the hand she grabbed the map with was still sticky with her son’s blood.
She said to Mustafa: “Find out what the house looks like.”