One Rough Man

“Hang on, let me check the other accounts.”

She did so but found nothing else. Every other account was empty. Okay. Maybe she’ll let this go now.

She began typing on the computer, pulling up the Google search engine.

“What’re you doing now?”

“I’m going to try and translate the Arabic. I have to do this kind of research all the time at school. I’ve never translated anything before, but trust me, there’s a Web site that’ll tell us what this says.”

Jesus Christ. Stick a fork in it and call it done. “Come on. This is getting ridiculous.”

“Just a second. We paid for five minutes. Let’s use it.”

She found a dozen translation sites and clicked on the first one that came up. Copying the Arabic from the Yahoo! mail, she pasted it into the translation box, then clicked on the “GO” button. We sat and waited for the slow Internet connection to work. Eventually, it timed out. She went back to the Google search page and clicked on the next one, trying again. Before this one timed out, it presented the translation of the Arabic text.

Jennifer, clearly disappointed, said, “Looks like you’re right. A drunk must’ve sent this message. Let’s go.”

The pasted Arabic had turned into a translation in English, reading:

Praise be to Allah, peace and prayers be upon the Prophet of God. Trip took our rotary [for good]. We have sight to the enemy hits far in country his. We established weapon that the Zionist inside the searching will wipe the poison he causes the enemy far to the Persians destroy. In Allah’s name, the Merciful, the Compassionate, we will rejoice in the destruction from all [[‘iynfydls]], Hope responds with blessing to new task, or says us the path to takes.

I stared at the screen. I’ll be damned. She found something.

49

Jennifer said, “What? What’re you looking at?”

“We need to print this and the original Arabic. Don’t say anything else in here. We’ll talk back at the room.”

Jennifer was about to respond when I cut her off, looking at the woman manning the trinket counter. “Please, I know it sounds paranoid, but I’d rather do this somewhere else.”

She printed both pages and we left, returning to the hotel. Along the way, I told Jennifer what I thought.

“It looked like a drunk had written the passage because it’s a free Internet translation. Basically, it’s a cheap-ass computer giving you exactly what it sees. The point of those things is to get you to buy a better translation. It’s like you said, ‘Last one home is a rotten egg,’ and that was translated into Arabic as ‘The long dead dropping from the bird is owned by the man who has the last house.’ We don’t know what idioms they used that the computer doesn’t understand, but the direct translation says some things that support the fact that those guys are up to no good.”

“Really?” Jennifer looked at me in surprise. “What did you see?”

“Let’s get back to the hotel and I’ll show you.”

Twenty minutes later we sat at the cheap desk in our room, the translated printout in front of us. I pointed at what I had seen. “Look, ignoring the bad grammar, you find the following words: weapon, Zionist, Persians, destroy, and infidels. On top of that, you’ve got all the “Praise Allah” stuff. I’m starting to believe your crazy theory. At the least, I’m starting to believe that there might be some terrorists, and they believe your theory.”

“Terrorists? Seriously? What do you make of the translation? Can you figure anything out from it?”

“Well, taking it at face value, I can make some assumptions. Rearranging it a little bit we get something that appears a little clearer.” Working with the translation, I ended up with:

Trip took our rotary [for good] (No Idea). We have sight to the enemy hits far in country his. (We have the sight to hit the far enemy in his country). We established weapon that the Zionist inside the searching will wipe the poison he causes the enemy far to the Persians destroy. (We have a poison weapon that the Zionists were searching for which will cause the far enemy to destroy the Persians.) In Allah’s name, the Merciful, the Compassionate, we will rejoice in the destruction from all [[‘iynfydls]., (Praise Allah, we will rejoice in the destruction of all infidels.) Hope responds with blessing to new task, or says us the path to takes. (We hope you respond blessing our new task, or tell us the path to take.)

Putting it together, I came up with:

Praise be to Allah, peace and prayers be upon the Prophet of God. We have the sight to hit the far enemy in his country. We have a poison weapon that the Zionists were searching for which will cause the far enemy to destroy the Persians. In Allah’s name, the Merciful, the Compassionate, we will rejoice in the destruction of all infidels. We hope you respond blessing our new task, or tell us the path to take.

Jennifer read it, asking, “I don’t get it. Who’s the far enemy? Jewish people?”

“We’re the far enemy. It’s what Al Qaeda calls the United States and anyone who supports us. Basically, the West.”

“So this is saying that they’re going to attack us? What’s the Zionist-Persian thing?”

“Zionists in Arabic would translate into Israelis. Persians are Iranians. Looking at what I came up with, I’m sure it’s not right. There’s no way that the Israelis are looking for a Mayan poison weapon.” I paused, thinking, “Unless your uncle was Jewish. They could mean that he was looking for it. Was he Jewish?”

Jennifer shook her head. “No. If anything, he was atheist. I don’t have any Jewish relatives as far as I know. What’s up with all the ‘Praise Allah’ stuff? It sounds fake, like someone stereotyping an Arab. Do they really talk like that?”

“Not every Arab, but devout Muslims do — which by definition, a jihadist is. All those guys use about ten sentences for every one that means anything. You can’t ask them the time of day without them spouting off four sentences kissing Allah’s ass before they look at their watch.”

I pushed back from the table. “Okay. I think we ought to stick with what we know out of the message. The fact that they mention kicking Persian ass means they’re probably not supported by Iran. That knocks out Hezbollah and the Shiites, and since they talk about the far enemy, they probably believe in the doctrine of Al Qaeda. So… I’d say they’re Sunni Arabs affiliated with Al Qaeda. They’re also asking for a blessing on the mission, so whatever they’re doing is not what they were sent to do. They’re basically asking permission.”

I leaned back, putting my hands behind my head. “So, we have a couple of AQ terrorists sent to Guatemala to do some sort of evil activity, who then got sidetracked by the story of the weapon, and are now trying to get the weapon to do something horrible against the U.S., the Israelis, the Iranians, or all three.”

Jennifer halfway nodded. “Okay. What do we do now? Go to the embassy or wait until we get to the U.S.?”

“Well, I think we should try the embassy. I think I can get us in to the CIA. If not, we can always fly home. The key will be talking to the Agency. They’ll be the only shop that won’t care about the path of destruction we’ve left in our wake. Sound good?”

“I thought you said we couldn’t find the CIA.”

“I’m not saying it’ll work. But I know how embassies operate, and how to find the CIA in the maze. If we get to the right guy, and I can get him to send a cable to headquarters, I can guarantee that the cable will be read.”

“Okay. If you say so. What do we do now?”

“We take the first bus out of here to Belmopan. That’s where the embassy is. I’ve been there a few times.”

The shadows created by the dropping sun told me we weren’t going anywhere today. I looked at my watch.