with Haddad. While he preferred women who obeyed men and acted in the way Allah had intended, he found himself unable to resist the charms of Sabrina and Jennifer.
Most of the students and professors he encountered in those days were far to the left of the average American, and he had difficulty hiding his contempt for them. In fact, he despised everything about them but pretended to share their views in order to get to know them and understand their thinking. Most of these radical leftists were Jews, which reconfirmed his inherent beliefs about all Jews: they were “chosen” by God to spread disorder across the globe.
On occasion, however, he would notice the ultrareligious Lubavitch Chasidic Jews as they walked to prayer with their children on Saturdays. He couldn’t help but admire their family solidarity, their piety, but most significantly their dignity.
He hated to admit, even to himself, that they reminded him of his own people, especially the most pious. He could not afford to feel charity toward a people who were oppressing so many Muslims. He rejected the argument that the Jews were just protecting their homeland. All they had to do was return to the Diaspora that God had intended and all would be well He remembered the Friday night when his life’s work crystallized. Sabrina (or was it Jennifer?) took him to the Chabad house near the campus. She kept telling him how much he was going to love the people there because they reminded her of him.
How stupid could these American girls be, comparing him, a son of Allah, with these pathetic children of Yahweh? But he needed to play his role so he went. As he entered the room he was enveloped within the loud singing. He noticed the women were on one side of the room and on the other there was a large circle of men dancing, with one hand on the shoulder of the man in front. Some had their small children with their legs around their necks, riding their shoulders.
Haddad was stunned when a very tall man with red hair and a full red beard reached from the circle and pulled him in. He recalled the man’s piercing blue eyes as he was drawn into the whirl of dancing men. He was momentarily swept up in the intoxicating mixture of the loud voices singing in unison in the cousin-language of Hebrew, the feel of the old wooden floors swaying beneath his feet.
For a fleeting instant he felt he was back in Pakistan, among his own kind.
And then he remembered who he was, and who they were. He felt revulsion by their proximity, by their smiles, by their revelry. He wanted to transform it all to still, bloody sorrow. He endured their presence so he could study their weaknesses. So he could protect those Muslims in Pakistan and elsewhere whom these “Chosen People” had chosen to persecute.
Haddad felt that same hatred now. For the Jews, for their American allies, for the sluts like Tally who corrupted all of womanhood.
She wanted to be used? Haddad would oblige. When the time was right he would show this aggressive bitch what few American men would ever dare. She would be tamed and dominated. She would understand what true aggression was.
But he had no time for such things right now. He needed her to be fully on his side until he got from her the information he needed, so he let her have her way with him, right there on her living room floor.
It wasn’t, he supposed, the worst compromise he could make.
“You read all the newspaper columns I wrote,” Tally said, “but they really only touch on the surface of San Francisco’s underground.”
“I am eager to hear more,” Haddad told her truthfully.
“I’m so glad!” she enthused. “So few people know about it, even those who live here. But there’s an entire secret history beneath the city that’s largely ignored or forgotten.”
It was the next day, and they were driving in Tally’s Toyota. Her aggressiveness behind the wheel matched her sexual aggressiveness.
“Educate me,” he said, as he watched the road. It would be absurd for him to die in a car crash after all the effort it had taken to get to this point.
“Well, first there’s Chinatown,” she told him. “During the gold rush, hundreds of thousands of Chinese immigrants came to the city and were forced to live in slums. By the late eighteen hundreds that area was a network of underground sewer tunnels and passageways topped by crowded tenement buildings. It was one of the most dangerous places in San Francisco.”
Haddad laughed inside. He had seen his share of slums in his time, and knew quite well how dangerous they could be.
“Most of the immigrants were destitute, and many of them were sold as slaves to work in kitchens and laundries. Young girls would be forced into prostitution, and those who tried to protect them used the underground tunnels to hide them away.”
Heathen behavior, Haddad thought, but typical of a country run by infidels whose greed and base interests knew no bounds.
She babbled on. But it wasn’t that part of the city’s underground that he was interested in. He had done enough research on his own to know that there was something far more useful to him than a Chinese history lesson. Bloggers had announced the general area of the entrance; she had saved him having to search for it. Fault line maps created by the U.S. Geological Survey-charts showing dip, azimuth, depth, and other data used by San Andreas Geophysical Operations for threat assessment-had unwittingly delineated the tunnels themselves. The route for the assault was planned. Haddad merely had to see the tunnels for himself, make sure they were clear.
Finally, trying not to show his impatience, he directed her towards his needs.
“What about the bunker you referred to in one of your articles?”
“Ah,” she said. “Even fewer people know about that, maybe some old-timers and a handful of urban explorers like me.”
“When were they built?”
“During the Second World War,” she said. “San Francisco was considered a very vulnerable target if the war were ever to come to our shores, so the military built a massive underground bunker in preparation for an attack.”
“How could people not know about this?”
“Because it was a military secret to begin with. After the war ended the place was completely sealed up so that nobody would find it.”
“That seems a waste. Surely they’ve utilized it-say, for storage?”
She shook her head. “Some cities did things like that. New York, for instance. Stocked them with canned goods in case of a nuclear attack. It scared people so they stopped. It was easier just to pretend the bunkers didn’t exist.”
“And you’ve managed to find a way inside the bunker?”
She smiled. “Yep.”
“And it truly leads to this place you told me about?”
She gave him a sly smile.
Haddad felt a sudden flash of anger and wanted to slap the smile from her face. Why couldn’t she just answer the question? He did not have time for games.
“When can we go there?” he asked. “This-this is too exciting.”
The smile widened. “That’s where we’re headed right now. Normally, I’d have to blindfold you.”
“Are you serious?”
“Sort of,” she admitted. “Only a few people know about this spot and we don’t want it to become common knowledge. But I can trust you, right?”
“Of course,” Haddad said. “With your life.”
They took a gently winding road along the bay.
Haddad looked out at its clear blue waters, marveling at its beauty as he watched the distant sailboats bob along its surface. He had always loved this view, with the Cliff House Restaurant, the Marin coastline beyond, and
