“You are the soul of your father,” murmured Rostam, catching the coins.
“You had better go now,” said Jan Muhammad. He was suddenly in a hurry to see the old man on his way back down the hill. “If the Mohajeran should return while you’re here, I can’t guarantee that you’ll be safe.”
Rostam’s eyes opened wide. He got slowly to his feet. “You are right, my son. Thank you. Praise be to Allah for your kindness.”
“May you go in peace, O my uncle.” He watched as the old man hurried as fast as he could out of the bunker and down the hill. Rostam picked up a heavy stick and began beating his mule, which didn’t seem to pay any attention to the blows; it neither quickened its pace nor strayed from its path. Jan Muhammad waited until both man and animal were out of sight, then he took the water off the stove and dropped a healthy pinch of tea into the pot.
When he’d finished his refreshment and began stowing his supplies, the data deck interrupted him with a recorded call of a muezzin. Jan Muhammad immediately let a bag of flour he held fall onto his cot. He went to the deck and made a quick security check of the area outside. Then he went to the goatskin and let out a little water into his hands. He thought, “I perform the ablutions to prepare myself for prayer and seeking the nearness of Allah.” He drew his moist right hand briskly down from his hairline to his chin. He removed a ring on his right hand and quickly washed his right arm from elbow to fingertips. He did the same with his left arm. He drew the wet fingers of his right hand from the middle of his head forward to the hairline. He put the heel of his right hand on the toes of his right foot, and brought his fingers up to the ankle, then washed his left foot. He took his prayer rug and went outside, where he stood facing the southwest, toward the Kaaba in Makkah. While he prayed, all thoughts of his bloody battle that morning vanished. As usual, he murmured a prayer for the health of the Mahdi, and for his quick victory over the unbelievers. Jan Muhammad also added a prayer for the Muslims — like those he fought now in Mazanderan — who were in error, who had gone astray and did not recognize the Messiah who had come out of what had once been Algeria.
After his devotions, he couldn’t put off the unpleasant task of tending to the slain Mohajeran any longer. He returned the prayer rug to its place, made another security check, then decided to chip in a personality module to take his mind off his work. He chose a blue plastic moddy manufactured in Riyadh, and settled it in place on his posterior plug. He chipped in three add-ons as well, one that would override his fatigue, one to override thirst, and a third that contained the entire text of the noble Qur’an.
The moddy took possession of his consciousness and transported him from the barren Persian landscape to a fully-realized fantasy of Paradise. He wasn’t aware of the morbid labor he was performing. It was as if Jan Muhammad’s soul had left his body, or as if he had been lifted physically, still alive, into Heaven. Wonder and reverence enthralled him. Here was his reward for a lifetime of faithfulness. Here was ample payment for all the hardships he had endured for the sake of his love of Allah. He was refreshed, and the pleasures of Paradise were far greater than any his earthly imagination could have invented. What he had forsaken in life was now his to enjoy. The most delicious wine gurgled from exquisite fountains. Houris more beautiful than any mortal woman smiled at him and made him welcome. Above everything else, though, was the joy of his union with God. He felt a terrible sadness when he thought of the unbelievers, how they had scorned the Straight Path and would never know this peace.
Still marveling at everything he witnessed, Jan Muhammad slowly lifted a hand to his head and popped the moddy out. He stood squinting in the bright glare of the sun for a few seconds, confused, as the real world claimed him once again. He let out a deep sigh. It was good to be able to carry a bit of Paradise with him, but it was always a painful jolt to be thrust back into his own mind, faced again with his worldly troubles. The lingering effect of the moddy was that he knew that Paradise, when he was accepted into it in truth, would be inexpressibly more blessed than what the moddy designers had offered him. “Praise be to the Lord of the Worlds,” said Jan Muhammad.
He stood a few yards from his observation post, looking down into the Tang-e-Kuffar, the Pass of the Infidels; many feet below, the broken bodies of the Mohajeran men and women lay on the craggy floor of the defile. Their worthless automatic rifles, pistols, and grenades were now piled in a heap at the edge of the cliff. Jan Muhammad frowned, then turned and went back into the bunker.
Toward nightfall, while making another scheduled security check, he noticed movement at the northeast end of the pass. He called for greater magnification. Now he was certain; a small party, maybe twenty-five or thirty people, was moving slowly and carefully among the rocks. He watched as they stopped and knelt beside the corpses. Some of the Mohajeran glanced upward. Jan Muhammad could see the hatred on their faces. A few of them unslung their rifles and held them ready, as if Jan Muhammad might suddenly appear, alone and vulnerable, from behind a pile of red boulders. At last the refugees left their dead fellows and continued their cautious way through the pass. Through the data deck, Jan Muhammad could hear their low murmurs, but could not make out any of their words.
He trained his guns on the rebels in the front of the column, fed the position and distance information from the data deck to the firing control, and watched as the Mohajeran crept silently out of his field of vision. One by one, they disappeared from view through the ragged southern cut of the Tang-e-Kuffar.
He felt a helpless rage build in him, then a swift, cold fear. He hadn’t fired a shot. He’d permitted every one of the enemy to escape unscathed. How could that be? “By the life of my eyes,” he swore. He was no traitor, no coward. He knew the significance of what had happened: The Mohajeran had slipped through his guard to the desolate valley beyond. They were free now to join others of the growing refugee mob, to attack the Mahdi’s Persian Conciliatory Army where it was weakest. Every rebel that got by Jan Muhammad meant injury to the Mahdi, an obstacle to the victory of orthodox Islam.
Jan Muhammad slammed the data deck with a fist in frustration. He had to find out what had prevented him from destroying these Mohajeran.
He tapped the diagnostic key on the data deck. Again all the test lights lit green. His deck was in perfect condition, both hardware and software. The problem was not with the deck or the weapons systems; it was with himself. That would be more difficult to deal with. He popped the military personality moddy. His anger and dread intensified, for Jan Muhammad was less able to confront this crisis than the electronic mind built into the moddy. With the command moddy still chipped in, he picked a spot high on the walls of the mountain pass and swung his machine guns and rocket launchers to bear on it. He wanted to let loose a few shots, but somehow the desire to fire wasn’t translated into a mental command. Nothing happened. No sound disturbed the chilly stillness of the twilight.
With a trembling hand, Jan Muhammad popped the command moddy out. The terrible truth was that he was now helpless and defenseless. He had a mighty arsenal linked to his data deck; but if he was somehow blocked from using it, he might as well be sitting on the hilltop with nothing more deadly than a slingshot. If the Mohajeran learned the truth, he could be overwhelmed and murdered before the next day was out.
The thing to do now was contact his platoon sergeant. He used the portable transmitter. It took a few minutes to calculate the proper frequency for the day, tune the scrambler, identify himself to his headquarters and be recognized, and get patched through to Sergeant Abadani. He had to wait a long while. Finally, he heard the sergeant’s grumbling, cheerless voice. “Listen, sarbaaz, I’m going to tell you why you called me. Let me know if I’m right. You saw some goddamn Mohajeran mucks and you proceeded to set up your attack by the numbers. Everything was fine until it was time to fire. Then you couldn’t. You didn’t stop a single one of the bastards. Right?”
Jan Muhammad was startled. “Right, Sarge. How — ?”
“You’re not the only one that’s happened to today. Now, where are you?”
“The Tang-e-Kuffar.”
“Yeah. Well, seven of your buddies have called in with the same story. What we’ve figured is that somebody has entered your station and fed a baggie to your data deck. That’s what happened to the other seven posts.”
“But nobody has access to my deck but me.”
“That’s what they all said. But in every case, they could think of some Persian who had been permitted inside the bunker.”
Jan Muhammad opened his mouth to protest, then closed it again. “There’s an old man from Ashnistan who brings me my food. He’s such a feeble old son of a bitch that I usually make him tea and let him rest inside my bunker.”
“And you like talking to him, too, right? Against orders?”
“Yes,” Jan Muhammad admitted. “I don’t get to see anyone else.”
