Counterplay

motion, martyrdom assured.

She was sneeringly aware that the two bodyguards poised at the door ahead couldn’t take their eyes off her bouncing breasts and the promising swing of her hips wrapped as they were in tight blue jeans. She knew that fundamentalist Islamic men like the two at the door viewed women dressed like she was as whores-to be used, perhaps, but not respected. But these two also knew to keep their mouths shut as she drew close; Samira Azzam was a dangerous woman to insult.

As a modern Palestinian woman, she believed that the traditional roles between Muslim men and women were outdated and would have to change someday. But not until the Zionists and their puppets, the Americans, had been cast out of Palestine, and one Islamic State, a caliphate, established to rule the world. In sha’ Allah, she murmured to herself…God willing. Not that she planned to be around for either the cultural revolution in the Muslim world or the final defeat of the enemy. She sought istish-haad, heroic martyrdom, and she’d been promised that the moment was near at hand.

She was well aware of her effect on men and used it to full advantage as an al Qaeda field leader and assassin. Personally, she preferred women in bed-they were so much more civilized in their sexual desires than the gruntings and groanings of men. She especially despised it when men made their infantile inquiries as to whether they had “pleased” her. Depending on her mission, she might coo, “Oh yes, like no other,” and ply them for information. Or, her preference, she’d snarl “no” and kill them. Her current love, Ajmaani, a Chechen, was a strong woman like herself; tall, beautiful, and blond, the result of some holdover DNA from ancient Thracian incursions into the area. She’d also proven to be invaluable as a strategist, a Russian translator, and a guide who had led Azzam into and out of the sieges of the theater and the school. They’d sworn their eternal love for one another and promised to die in martyrdom by each other’s side so that they could enter paradise together. Their sexual appetite for each other had made them stronger, more impassioned for their work.

Sex, however, weakened the men she dealt with. They were all molding clay in her hands, even those of her masters who had used her for their own pleasure without realizing that she was using them as well. She could manipulate any man, except for him, the man in the room beyond the guarded door. He never asked whether he had pleased her, he knew he had not, nor did he care. Sex was a brutal, savage way to please himself, anyone else be damned.

Still, Azzam pretended to enjoy his attentions. His narcissism demanded it, and her al Qaeda masters seemed to consider him an important asset in the struggle and, therefore, she had been ordered to do whatever he wanted.

Of course, he’d been more beneficial before being exposed by the Jew Karp and his rabble of family and friends…the targets. That al Qaeda’s ally Kane might otherwise have become the next mayor of New York had been so very Arabic in its irony. It was disappointing that it had not come to pass, but the man was still valuable. He had a network of arms dealers and banking institutions that had survived his fall. And, more importantly, he’d conceived the plan that would at once satisfy his requirements, as well as strike a blow that would make the infidels tremble.

It had been up to her and Ajmaani to plan and carry out the operation to free Andrew Kane. Since then, she hadn’t given the murdered children or other victims a second thought, any more than she had the schoolchildren at Beslan. If ever she had been troubled by such embers of a dying conscience, it was long before and short-lived, giving way to the mantra, There are casualties in every war.

The subterfuge with her “lover” Kane was not difficult. Even her name, Samira Azzam, was not her own. She had been born Nathalie Habibi, the child of Palestinians living on the West Bank. Her father had driven a taxi- an ancient, dilapidated Volkswagen van he kept running with scavenged parts, curses, and constant prayers to Allah-while her mother crossed to the Israeli side every day to work in a factory that made parts for irrigation machines. They didn’t own much, just their simple cinderblock home, a few changes of clothing, and family heirlooms, like the old and somewhat tattered Quran that had been handed down for generations. But there’d been food on the table, as well as love and laughter, especially if the laughter came at the expense of the “damned Israelis” as the butt of some joke.

However, her eldest brother, Jamal, had joined the Palestinian Liberation Organization, promising his worried parents that he was working for a “political solution” to create a Palestinian state and wouldn’t get involved in the violence. Ten years older, strong and handsome, he’d been his little sister’s hero, carrying her around on his shoulders whenever he came home, saying it was practice for the celebration on the day of liberation. But then there’d been the terrible night when a man from Arafat’s office arrived to tell the family that Jamal had been killed by Israeli soldiers near the border with Syria.

The Israelis claimed that Jamal had been part of a team that had tried to ambush one of their patrols and had been killed in the fire-fight. The family was sure the Zionists were lying; Jamal had promised them that he was working for a peaceful resolution. Nevertheless, the next day the tanks with the blue Star of David on their turrets had roared into the Palestinian enclave accompanying a bulldozer. The family was allowed only ten minutes to pack up their meager belongings before their home was razed as punishment for Jamal.

Suddenly, the family found themselves out on the streets-sometimes living in the van, other times with friends for a day or two. The situation grew worse when Nathalie’s mother was fired from her job by her Israeli employer because of her dead son’s activities. Humiliated that without his wife’s income, he was unable to support his family, her father loaded them into the van one night and left for a refugee camp just inside the Jordanian border. He was sure that the taxi business would be better and they would not have to live humiliated among their former neighbors.

Nathalie was twelve years old when Jamal died and she went with her family-her father, mother, and younger brother, Ishmael-to live in the rat’s maze of the refugee camp. They were fortunate to get an apartment in one of the insect-and-rat infested cinder-block government housing projects-the four of them crowded into a single room with blankets strung up for privacy. But they were lucky; many others lived under whatever roof of wood or tin they could scrounge up.

The taxi business wasn’t much better, but somehow they managed to survive for the next six years. Yet, fate was not through kicking the Habibi family. On a visit back to the West Bank to visit friends and relatives, Ishmael was arrested when an inspection at the border of the VW van-which had been loaned for the trip- uncovered a box of detonators packed inside a crate of oranges.

Though Ishmael denied knowing the detonators were in the crate, he was taken to an Israeli prison to await trial. But he’d died before he ever saw a judge. A virulent strain of pneumonia, the Israelis said. Another lie, thought the distraught family. Adding insult to injury, the Israelis had confiscated the van. The taxi business was no more.

It had been too much for her mother, who could not get over the deaths of her sons and the loss of her home. She lay down to sleep one night complaining of a headache and didn’t wake up the next morning. A stroke, said the doctor. But her family knew that her death was due to a broken heart.

Upon the death of his wife, Nathalie’s father had essentially given up as well. He spent his days begging for money to buy hashish to deaden his pain and railing against the “Zionist pigs.” He paid little attention to the comings and goings of his remaining child, until one evening, while crossing the street in a daze, he was struck by, ironically, a speeding taxi and killed.

Just nineteen years old, Nathalie burned with a desire for vengeance against the Israelis. As she got older, she became enamored with the poetry and writings of Samira Azzam that exposed the “liar claims” of the Jews to Palestine. She swore that she would carry on her hero’s struggle, but with guns and bombs, not words. Soon after her father’s death, when a recruiter from Hamas came to the camp looking for young people willing to kill and die for Allah, she’d eagerly signed up.

Nathalie, who took the name Samira Azzam when she swore to give her life to jihad, grew into a beautiful woman on the outside. Only a large mole on her right cheek marred her perfection, but even that seemed only to make her other attributes-the green eyes, olive skin, thick dark hair, and perfect body-stand out all the more. But inside there was little room for anything but hatred. Early on, she hoped to be granted the honor of blowing herself up in the middle of a crowd of Jews. However, a Hamas leader had taken a fancy to her and, under the guise of “training” for important missions, also took her virginity. He