it would blow up, Parvez would wait until the rescue workers arrived, counting down the last minutes of his life before he’d have to walk into their midst, yell “God is great,” or something like that—he was so disheartened he’d forgotten his exit line—and blow them all to hell.
Is God really great? he heard that little voice ask, and that’s when he knew Satan was warring for his soul. The Great Satan had made him a target, so he would have to fight back with a bomb.
He buckled down and returned to his task. In a few hours the van would turn the hotel into a huge cloud of dust and smoke, like the towers in New York. On 9/11, jihad had struck the heart of the Western financial world. Soon, Parvez would see the heart of media darkness die. And you, too, Parvez.
The holy war for his prized soul was cut short when the man named Rafan stepped from the airport van and hugged the beautiful woman with light hair. Consorting with Westerners. With media whores. Telling them about this country. As if he could know its true Islamic heart. Only a martyr like me—Parvez tried on the title for size, and it still didn’t fit—could know such a truth. Parvez refocused, immediately rebuking himself for his surprise at seeing Rafan betraying his people. Of course he would do all that and much, much worse—a man who would scrape dirt from a sinking island would turn on people of faith in every way possible.
Parvez opened another file and watched the second plane crash into the tower.
The work of martyrs is never done, he told himself. And now you can join them in paradise.
He saw the flames and this gave him strength—for about two seconds.
No, this can’t be. Me? A martyr? Oh, but it was. He could not avoid the irreducible truth. Do your job, he admonished himself. Wiser men have spoken.
Wiser than me?
He hardly found that credible.
* * *
Adnan watched the captain of the Dick Cheney struggle to breathe. The Waziristani had duct taped his mouth shut, and the man sounded like a big dog Adnan had once seen snorting horribly on the street. Adnan had watched helplessly as the animal’s chest heaved violently, and then the dog had collapsed in the dust and died.
The captain’s complexion looked drained of blood, and he drew his knees toward his chest, like a man huddling over his last breath, protecting it from the greed of his own flesh.
Adnan didn’t dare touch him. The Waziristani had killed so many men and chopped off the African’s hand. The jihadist was a scary man.
At the sound of footsteps, Adnan looked up and saw the old prisoner being pushed along by the Waziristani, moving past the windows of the wheelhouse. The prisoner leaned against the door, barely able to open it, then stumbled inside. He was filthy, clothes soiled by sweat and dirt from the deck and engine room.
Kneeling, the jihadist tugged gently on the tape across the captain’s mouth, tormenting the man with the tantalizing prospect of breath. The captain’s eyes grew huge, and his nostrils hollowed from his pained efforts to breathe, cutting off any air. Adnan couldn’t help himself; he started to reach down to rip off the tape. The Waziristani looked up at him and shook his head, and Adnan froze.
The captain also stared at Adnan, and his eyes pleaded for help. For life.
What am I afraid of? Adnan asked himself. I’m ready to die.
He ripped the tape from the captain’s mouth, tearing hair from his beard and mustache. The captain cried out his thanks between suffering gasps. The old man with the white hair watched, shaking so badly that Adnan thought he might collapse.
The Waziristani stood and stared at Adnan, who put his hand on the bomb in his vest. He’d kill all of them before he’d let the jihadist murder him or chop off his hand.
* * *
Birk watched Suicide Sam finger the bomb, not knowing if these would be his final seconds.
At least it’ll be fast. He hadn’t had a drink all goddamn day, and if this shit kept up much longer, he’d rather be dead anyway. He hoped a camera somewhere would catch the big bang.
But the standoff, if that’s what it was, ended when Raggedy Ass grabbed his arm and shoved him into what looked like the tanker’s large communications room. Screens, computers, radar, sonar, every electronic device Birk had ever heard of lit up the