One Rough Man

I tried hard to maintain my annoyance, but it was a losing battle. Running through what had happened, I broke down with an embarrassed grin.

“Who in the hell puts an alarm on a vehicle like that? Who would steal that piece of shit out here?”

“Maybe there’s a huge market for twenty-year-old American-made cars in Guatemala. Or maybe a lot of commandos come through here after blowing the hell out of Guatemala City and he’s sick of them taking his cars for a getaway.”

“Okay, okay. Let’s find another car.”

“Are you sure? Maybe we should stick with the Suburban while we’re ahead. I’m not saying you can’t do it. If you say you can, then I’m sure you can. I just don’t want you to be forced to kill half the village to prove it.”

She looked at me mischievously. “I’ll bet you never ask anyone for directions, either, huh?”

She saw me grimace and said, “I’m just teasing. We’ll do whatever you think we need to.”

“We need it, and I won’t kill anyone to get it. I have done this before. Trust me.”

She lightly touched my arm. “I do trust you.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. I was completely unused to being on the receiving end of someone’s trust, and it did nothing but embarrass me. Before the silence could grow uncomfortable, I saw a Chevy Cutlass ahead on the left side of the road, circa 1984.

“All right, mission number two. Same plan. This time, if an alarm goes off, wait for me to get inside the vehicle before you act like Dale Earnhardt, okay?”

“You got it. You want me to honk when we pass it? See if I can save us some time with the alarm?”

Man, she’s got some balls.

“Please just pull up a hundred meters.”

I exited the vehicle and cautiously moved up to the Cutlass. The doors were unlocked. This was more like what I expected from the back-woods of Guatemala. Opening the door, I sat down behind the wheel. I took out the hammer and began smashing at the base of the turn indicator on the left side of the steering wheel stalk, attempting to get at the mechanism underneath the sheath of alloy steel. I opened up the steering column, with the cheap alloy coming off in quarter-inch flakes. I jammed a screwdriver into the mechanism usually rotated by the key and yanked backward. The car sputtered, coughed, finally catching itself as it warmed up. Satisfied that the vehicle would run, I took the wheel and began forcefully yanking it left and right, breaking the lock holding the steering wheel in place.

I hit the lights to warn Jennifer I was on the way, pulled onto the deserted highway and picked her up, and transferred the weapons and assault kit to the Cutlass. Within seconds we were back on the road to Puerto Barrios, leaving the Suburban abandoned on the side of the road.

* * *

Jennifer spent the next couple of hours staring out the window, savoring the fact that she was still among the living. She couldn’t control the thoughts and images flying through her head — her kidnapping, how close she was to being violently gang-raped by a bunch of savages, the vivid punishment Pike had brought to those same savages, the murder of her uncle — all competing for attention in her conscious mind. She turned on the radio of the Cutlass, looking for an outside diversion. She got nothing but static or Spanish music. That figures. What I wouldn’t give for an iPod right now. Wait a minute…

“Hey, you still have my MP3 player? I’d like to use it if it’s handy.”

She saw Pike look out the window and waited for him to answer. After a few seconds, she thought maybe she’d said something wrong, but couldn’t figure out why.

He finally said, “I don’t have it. I’ll buy you a new one.”

“Huh? Where is it?

“Man, who gives a shit about the MP3 player? In the end, it didn’t matter what was on that thing. I said I’ll buy you a new one, for Christ’s sake.”

“You don’t have it? Seriously? What happened to it? Did you sell it or something?”

Pike sighed. “I was mugged, okay? It was stolen. I don’t want to talk about it.”

What? That’s absolute bullshit… There’s another story here. She waited to hear it. After a moment of silence, she said, “Really? Are you telling the truth? You got mugged?”

“More like an attempted mugging. A couple of Arabs attacked me at the central market. Probably trying to get enough money to pay for some flight lessons. I chased them off pretty quickly, and they didn’t get my wallet or watch or anything else valuable. All they got was the MP3 player. Let it go. I’m pissed off enough.”

Jennifer started to ask another question, then thought better of it. “Hey, I don’t care. I wasn’t trying to get you mad. Let’s drop it.”

A lost thought tickled the back of her brain. Something about the theft of the MP3 that she wanted to follow up on, but hadn’t. Like a person who just set her keys down and now can’t find them, it tugged at her subconscious, an itch begging to be scratched.

45

Exiting the bus in Flores, Sayyidd was anxious to start looking for the temple. After checking in, he set about cataloging the belongings that Bakr had packed. He began to search at a faster past, clearly upset about something.

Bakr said, “What’s wrong? What’re you looking for?”

“I’m missing a shirt and a pair of American workout pants. Didn’t you pack them?”

“I didn’t have time to search the entire room. I took what was in front of me. I didn’t see any other clothes, but they might’ve been there. I myself couldn’t find my sandals. Don’t worry about your Western disguises. We can replace them.”

Sayyidd debated telling Bakr why he was concerned. In the end, Allah would either protect them or not. Did it matter whether he said anything? Insha’Allah guided his life. If God wasn’t willing, then He wasn’t willing. Nothing Sayyidd could do would alter that. Even so, it wasn’t in his nature to hide things.

“I understand that I can purchase more clothing, but there’s something in the shirt that we’ll need. I had a scrap of paper in the pocket with the emergency e-mail addresses on it.”

Abu Bakr’s face contorted in anger.

“You wrote down the e-mail addresses? What were you thinking?”

“I know — it was stupid, but we aren’t in the Land of Two Rivers, and nobody is actively hunting us. I did memorize them, but this mission was too important to rely on memory. I knew we wouldn’t have the opportunity to conduct a meeting if we forgot them. They were our lifeline! Either way, didn’t you say everyone was dead at Miguel’s? It shouldn’t matter. Allah has guided us to this point, and He will still guide us.”

“You’re proving to be an idiot. One of the dumb little neophytes who believe everything told them, driving a truck full of TNT because they’re told they’re delivering groceries. They make good martyrs but are not of Allah’s chosen. Allah guides those who show they are worthy, not those who spit on his favor. Please tell me you didn’t have the passwords with them.”

Sayyidd couldn’t bring himself to tell the truth. He thought Bakr was acting like an old woman, afraid of his own shadow, but didn’t want to cause him to question the mission. He didn’t believe he had the strength or courage to succeed by himself. Years ago, before giving himself to the jihad, he might have been up to the task, but his experiences in Iraq had paradoxically given him an Achilles’ heel — his complete trust in Allah had left him with no faith in himself. He longed to be like men such as Bakr, but in his heart knew he wasn’t. He held a secret shame that tore at the fabric of his being, an individual weakness that corroded the essence of his capability: He didn’t believe he had the courage to be a shahid.

A suicide bomber’s detonator wasn’t pressed by Allah. It was pressed by the man wearing the bomb. A man who executed Allah’s will by his own action. A man like Bakr. Deep inside, Sayyidd questioned whether he had that same strength, afraid of the answer he would find when put to the test. He told Bakr a small white lie to protect the larger one festering in his soul.