“She believed Arabs to be evil because they’re Arabs? Deluded woman.”
“Look at it through her eyes. Arabs caught Africans and sold them to British and American slavers. The freed descendents of those slaves joined the US Army and became cavalry soldiers on the western frontier. The Anglo Bilagana and the Zhini buffalo soldiers fought against my mother’s relatives’ ancestors.” Gordon grinned. “So those Arabs and all of their sons, daughters, and countrymen until the end of time, according to my mother, are evil and should be exterminated.”
“And this is how you believe?” asked Harith, his expression testimony to the ridiculousness of the proposition.
“No,” Gordon answered. He took a deep breath and let it escape from his lungs slowly, as he looked out from beneath the rolled-up edge of the small tent to the endless dunes of the sand sea. “I do not believe in evil.”
“What an astonishing thing to say. You don’t believe in evil? In this world? Have you spent your life with your head beneath a rock?”
Dr. Taleghani began to rebuke his assistant, but Gordon stopped him with a look and a slow shake of his head. He faced Harith. “I used to hate evil when I was a child living with my mother, Mr. Fayadh. I now consider such a belief a childish superstition.”
“Why should you not fly in the teeth of thousands of years of God’s words?” said the young anthropologist. “Hear me, Allah. Gordon Redcliff doesn’t believe in evil. Your work is done.” Harith laughed at his own joke until his spine bit a little more deeply into an inflamed nerve. When he was finished wincing he said, “So, if you don’t believe in evil, Mr. Redcliff, in what do you believe?”
Gordon closed his eyes then reopened them a moment later. “I believe in ignorance, stupidity, laziness, fear, greed, cruelty, insanity, cowardice, corruption, indifference, and disease. I don’t believe you and your descendents should be exterminated unless and until they raise a hand against me or those I want to protect.” He looked back at the boy and there was a smirk on Harith’s face.
“If I might borrow a good old Yankee American expression,” Harith said in English, “so what?”
Gordon nodded and continued in English. “I’ll tell you what, kid. It is advice I got from a very wise man many years ago. He said it doesn’t matter what kind of family, racial, tribal, national, political, or religious bullshit your head is filled with or how long it’s been there, you can still pick your own path.”
“And now my faith is insane? What I believe is bullshit?” Harith spat back, wincing as his passion plucked the strings of his abused spine.
“I didn’t say that. I’ve read the Quran, however, and nowhere in it does it say that Americans are evil.”
“When it was written, there were no Americans.”
Gordon grinned widely, held up a finger, and wagged it back and forth. “Not according to my mother.”
A tiny smile fought its way through Harith’s self-imposed outrage, then he nodded. “Very well. I will give your mother that one.”
Dr. Taleghani said to his assistant, “Harith, enemies are not enemies forever unless you choose to make them so.”
Harith glanced at Gordon. “Tell me, Mr. Redcliff, do you really want to go on this expedition?”
“Very much.” Gordon faced Dr. Taleghani. “It sounds much more interesting than sifting sand or drilling holes in rocks with Dr. Hussein.” He looked back at Harith. “Your boss is quite an adventurer.”
“Possibly I’m a bit jealous of you.”
“Possibly,” agreed Gordon with a grin. “I imagine we’ll bring back a wealth of images and information for you, though.” He glanced at Taleghani and the archeologist nodded back. “And something else, as well.”
Harith glanced around to make certain no one had overheard the American. Satisfied they were the only ones within earshot, he lowered his head back to his pillow and said, “Take care of our adventurer, then, Mr. Redcliff. I truly envy you what you will find.” Harith frowned as he stared at nothing for a moment then focused on Gordon’s face. “You do not believe in evil. Do you not, then, believe in good?”
“Opposing moral forces stalking me, urging me on and off some other-imposed path of righteousness like the old Goofy cartoon?” asked Gordon.
“Goofy? I do not understand.”
“A Disney character, a cartoon dog. In this old cartoon I saw as a child, Goofy constantly has a good little Goofy on one shoulder and a bad little Goofy on the other. One Goofy is dressed like an angel, the other dressed like Satan, each little Goofy counseling big Goofy to do things good or bad according to their respective agendas. No, I don’t believe in that.”
“You reduce human morality to a Goofy cartoon?”
“No. The animators did that. I just happened to find the rendering insightful.”
“Then why are you here? I mean, in the world—in life? What is your mission?”
“Aside from protecting your boss?” Gordon thought for a moment. “Making my way between the bombs, doing what I can do.”
“Toward what end?”
“To find out what happens next.” As soon as he said it, Gordon knew his answer to be facile. There were a few details for Harith and Dr. Taleghani to sort out. While they sorted them, Gordon rested his gaze upon the escarpment, turned the conversation in his thoughts, prodding at the young man’s question.
Mission. Reason for being. What was the mission of Gordon Redcliff’s life?
He had taken on many missions during his life. His longest mission had been to help his mother raise the sun, kill evil, and carry her overwhelmingly insane burden of historical hatred. When she died, although he thought her insanity died with her, he’d lifted the burden to his own shoulders. That lasted, twisting his own life and outlook, until the middle of his first tour in the most recent war and the aftermath of the bloody fall of Esfahan.
In the mountains south of the former Persian capital, Gordon and his new spotter, a twenty-three-year-old kid from Long Island named Phil Andreakos, had been temporarily detailed to keep an eye on a captured IRI army captain. Andreakos and Gordon had a solid business relationship that had racked up an impressive record of kills, but they had never become close. Watching the Iranian captain, however, was a way to structure a bit of time before being sent out on their next mission. A soldier was a soldier to Andreakos, hence he felt obligated to make the IRI captain’s time with them as pleasant as possible. The three of them sat outside the intelligence officer’s headquarters in the shade of a hill. Andreakos and Gordon were both sitting on empty ammo boxes. The captain was in his early thirties, his hair prematurely touched with gray at the temples, his uniform touched with the dust and wear of an infantry officer. He sat on the ground leaning against a weary-looking juniper. After a few minutes Andreakos asked the captain in Farsi if he could get him some water or something to eat.
“Never from the hand of a Greek,” spat back the captain, turning away his head. Andreakos stared back, his mouth slowly opening.
From a Greek? he mouthed to Gordon, a big grin starting on his face. He turned to the Iranian officer. “I can get you tea, some falafel, a bagel, maybe one of the guys has a birthday cake.”
“Are you deaf as well as ignorant? Never! Never from the hand of a Greek!” The captain held out a shaking hand at the surrounding mountains. “Don’t you know where you are? Have you no clue?”
Andreakos couldn’t let it be. He could understand why the Iranian captain might hate Americans, Brits, Iraqis, Israelis, Indians, Turkmen, Pakistanis, Lebanese, or Kurds. But what did he have against Greeks? Greece had even sat out the past four Middle East wars.