Prism - By Rachel Moschell Page 0,75
try anything on the way, ok? Do I have to cuff you so you’re not tempted? I know you could take me out like a fly.”
“Let’s go,” Alejo ground out, stalking to the passenger side of the truck and ripping open the door. He slid inside and closed it, waiting for Gabriel to come around and stick the key in the ignition. Without a word, Gabriel revved up the truck, guided it around the corners of the peaceful neighborhood, then circled a round-about to merge onto a main avenue.
“I didn’t want to leave all of you, che.” Alejo decided to start the conversation. There was probably not much time until they got to wherever the Khan and the rest had hidden themselves, and there was so much he wanted to say. “I always did what I believed was the right thing, what God would want. So have you. Well this time, I couldn’t let her die.” Alejo knew Gabriel understood who he was talking about. “It was an accident that she was there. The right thing was to let her live.”
“That’s where I think you are wrong,” Gabriel stated firmly. “When we were up there, I told you there could be people on-site who were unrelated to Salazar, and you said, and I quote, ‘Then let them be collateral.’ Unquote.” Gabriel cleared his throat and jerked the steering wheel to the right, leading them along a less traveled road towards the outskirts of town. “I kind of freaked out a little, too at the idea of slitting her throat—not a pleasant idea for me, you understand. But there was no other acceptable option, che! You know what you’ve done.” Gabriel’s voice turned dark and Alejo saw that he was gripping the wheel with white knuckles. “She knows everything. If she’s not dead, she’ll tell. We don’t even know if you have already tattled and gotten us in a heap of trouble.”
“I don’t want all of you to get into trouble,” Alejo said quietly.
“Yeah, well, then you should have not let your emotions get away with you and let Ishmael take care of her. Now he’s mad as a hornet. He can’t trust you—and you’re the most important cog in the Prism in the continent! I don’t even think I could trust you anymore.”
Gabriel turned his eyes on Alejo for a moment, and they flashed the anger of betrayal.
“Gabo, there’s a lot I have to tell you, and since this seems like it could be my last chance, knowing the Khan, let me talk, ok?” Alejo sank back into the vinyl of the seat and waved one hand as he said, “I assume you still remember our trip to the Tribal Area? All the Bolivian guys, huddled up there near the skirmish zone?”
“Yeah,” Gabriel nodded, “With all that… happened before I came home from Pakistan, we never really talked about that. I thought it was amazing, so many guys ready to follow God.”
“Well I thought it was just plain wrong. The Khan is offering these poor guys scholarships to study, and then they’re just being used as fodder for religious wars. They’re being blown to pieces, and their families will never even know where they went! Allah loves the poor, so don’t you think it’s wrong to offer the poor a version of Islam that will only get them fired up so that someone can send them off to be mujahedeen?”
Gabriel frowned, opened his mouth, then snapped it shut. Finally he said, “I can’t criticize the men who know a whole lot more about our religion and pleasing God than I do, che. Besides, what could be more pleasing to God then doing what those poor guys from the countryside are doing? If they stayed here, they’d live out their lives in poverty, never making a difference at all, not knowing God. But now they’re getting a chance to make their lives really count. God’s going to reward them for that. What’s the big deal if they die? They’re going to paradise.”
Alejo glanced sharply at his friend and then back at the road. “Well, I can’t just accept what others tell me about religion, because I’m responsible to God for what I do. Me. The last few months I’ve been reading the Bible, and I’ve decided it’s not corrupted. I’m going to live like what it says is true, and that means following the teachings of Jesus.”
Gabriel hit a pothole in the worn gravel road they were following and swore, not