more and more muffled. The Shiek closed his eyes.
Out in the room, Chet finished pouring the water into Achmed’s throat as he gave a final gurgling gasp then spit up into a pillow to muffle his coughs as he ran from the room. Chet then pretended he was holding his victim’s head by the hair.
“This will be the fate of all who believe that America has lost its way, and that we don’t also celebrate death.” He took a hammer and started battering a watermelon. The sound that came through the door was unmistakable.
The Sheik imagined them smashing the severed head with a hammer live onto the videotape. He turned and vomited onto the floor.
Chet stood up as Bob punctured the top of a plastic pouch of pig blood. He then squirted the blood onto Bob’s body in the manner consistent with that of a severed, carotid artery. For extra measure, he hit Chet’s hands twice and one nice spray pattern across his ski mask. Then he bloodied the end of the hammer and placed a patch of skin from pigs’ feet on it. The crowning touch was the lock of Achmed’s hair, which was glued onto pigskin. The result was a very convincing piece of scalp that any Apache warrior would have proudly waved in victory.
The door opened and the man wielding a hammer, covered in blood, entered. The Sheik watched him with great caution as he approached.
“You killed him?”
“Nah, Sheik. Your fellow ragheads killed him when they decapitated our marine. They did this! This death is on their hands, not ours.” His yelling became more intense. “You want to fuck with us…. We’ll fuck you right up the ass.”
He raised the hammer and started in towards the Sheik, who put up his hands in a defensive manner.
But another man from the room grabbed the hammer. “No, not that way, we need to kill him on camera or he is wasted.”
Slowly, the crazed one released his grip on the bloody hammer. He kicked the cot and left.
Aliz’s temporary savior leaned over and spoke softly. “Pray to your Allah that they don’t hurt a hair on the head of his Excellency, the Ambassador.” Then he left as well.
The Sheik’s heart rate and nerves combined to make him shake again. This was a new breed of American, outlaws against their own laws and government, yet seemingly more protective of an American ethic, than those laws or the government.
When Chet entered the control room, Brooke went to high-five him, but he demurred holding up his pig- blood-stained hands. “You didn’t just take up space minoring in theater at Princeton,” she said, patting his non- bloodied back.
“Yes, very good, Chet. Reminiscent of a young, raw, Brando.”
“Really?”
“No. But good enough to sell the Sheik.”
“Achmed, what can I say? You sold the whole scenario. The proof of your performance is that you had him almost ready to spill, but he got conscious of his surroundings.”
“Talk about Academy Award, Achmed, you rock!” Chet said, punching him collegially on the shoulder.
The smile on Achmed’s face flattened out when Brooke added, “And now that showtime’s over, Ach, please wash that smell out of your hair.” She said this laughing as she handed him a wet towel.
“Great preparation, Achmed. He would have seen through any theatrical attempt to make you look like you’ve been held prisoner for a while,” Fusco said, giving the thumbs up to one of the best of the new breed of Muslim F.B.I. agents.
Rubbing a towel into his caked and matted hair, Achmed said, “He’s very smart, sir, like an engineer or scientist — his manner of speech and his demeanor.”
“Well, thanks to all of you, we’ve given him a paradigm shift that will take his preconceived defenses out of the equation.”
They looked at the monitor to see the Sheik shuddering in a fetal position on his cot.
“We’ll move to stage four soon,” Dr, Fusco said.
The Sheik was hustled from his bed into the other room. He was forced to his knees, hogtied, and blindfolded.
“What’s going on?”
“Bad news, Sheik. Your asshole buddies killed the ambassador and now we are going to show them that they took him for nothing.”
The Sheik felt the heat of the TV light on his face and started saying his prayers under his breath. Then suddenly all hell broke lose. Gunshots rang out and he was knocked to the floor. After the yelling ceased, he was stood up and the blindfold lifted as they swept him out of the room. He briefly saw one of them in the mask down with blood pouring from his head and two more crumpled in the corner by a fallen camera.
Out in the hall, a man in an FBI windbreaker grabbed him and said, “Do you want to live?” The man shook him roughly. “Do you want to live?”
“Yes… yes…” Aliz said in exhausted rasps.
“Then tell us your network. Where did you base your operation out of? Tell us, or we will shoot you right now as if you were killed by the Brotherhood.”
The Sheik spoke without thought. “Philadelphia. The Al Alaxa safe house…”
“Good, good choice Aliz. You will live. Now tell us more.”
Based on the information supplied by Sheik Alzir El Benhan, the FBI monitored and unraveled the Al Alaxa support network. First observing and learning the depth of its tentacles, then in one fell swoop, arresting and detaining 143 known operatives. That haul became a secondary treasure trove of other contacts that led to other networks. All this made Brooke’s star shine brighter than any other agent. The little show Dr. Fusco’s Psy-Ops division put on for the benefit of the Sheik garnered more funding and personnel for itself. The agents chipped in and had a phony Oscar done up and engraved with the name Chet Ballard. It stated, “Best Actor in a Crime Drama.”
Happy to be back in an American prison with its culturally correct food menus and proper prayer mats, Alzir’s last iota of self-dignity arose from the fact that he remained true to the sacred oath they made to each other as they ran for their lives through the Hungarian forests. Alzir never betrayed his brother and never revealed the existence or location of “the key.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The Redrock Delta team was on strip alert at Prince Sultan AFB in Saudi Arabia. 20 operators, 4 pilots, 2 crew chiefs were at “Jump Ready 1.” The support personnel, mobile air conditioning units, and food trucks would not go on the rescue mission, should the call come. But while they were on the tarmac under the boiling sun, it made the men’s lives easier.
Every man on the team was capable of not only finishing but also winning a triathlon with 40 pounds of field equipment strapped to his frame. Every one was an expert-marksman who shoots rounds everyday. All had medic, explosive, munitions, and communications training. In short, one of these guys, by himself, was a wrecking crew of enormous proportions. Twenty of them were an unstoppable force. Yet they were helpless without knowing the location of the ambassador. The Deltas were as forward deployed as they could be without starting a small war. All except for two of them.
