“Few that are of use to us.”
“He is an American,” Qati pointed out. “How many of those have we had?”
Ghosn nodded. “That is true, Commander.”
“The chance that he could be an infiltrator?”
“I would say slim, but we must be careful.”
“In any case, I have something I need you to do.” Qati explained about the bomb.
“Another one?” Ghosn was an expert at this task, but he was not exactly excited about being stuck with it. “I know the farm — that foolish old man. I know, I know, his son fought against the Israelis, and you like the cripple.”
“That cripple saved the life of a comrade. Fazi would have bled to death had he not received shelter in that little shop. He didn't have to do that. That was at a time when the Syrians were angry with us.”
“All right. I have nothing to do for the rest of the day. I need a truck and a few men.”
“This new friend is strong, you say. Take him with you.”
“As you say, Commander.”
“And be careful!”
“Insh'Allah.” Ghosn was almost a graduate of the American University of Beirut — almost because one of his teachers had been kidnapped, and two others had used that as an excuse to leave the country. That had denied Ghosn the last nine credit hours needed for a degree in engineering. Not that he really needed it. He'd been at the top of his class, and learned well enough from the textbooks without having to listen to the explanations of instructors. He'd spent quite a bit of time in labs of his own making. Ghosn had never been a frontline soldier of the movement. Though he knew how to use small arms, his skills with explosives and electronic devices were too valuable to be risked. He was also youthful in appearance, handsome, and quite fair-skinned, as a result of which he traveled a lot. An advance-man of sorts, he often surveyed sites for future operations, using his engineer's eye and memory to sketch maps, determine equipment needs, and provide technical support for the actual operations people, who treated him with far more respect than an outsider might have expected. Of his courage there was no doubt. He'd proven his bravery more than once, defusing unexploded bombs and shells that the Israelis had left in Lebanon, then reworking the explosives recovered into bombs of his own. Ibrahim Ghosn would have been a welcome addition to any one of a dozen professional organizations anywhere in the world. A gifted, if largely self- taught engineer, he was also a Palestinian whose family had evacuated Israel at the time of the country's founding, confidently expecting to return as soon as the Arab armies of the time erased the invaders quickly and easily. But that happy circumstance had not come about, and his childhood memories were of crowded, insanitary camps where antipathy for Israel had been a creed as important as Islam. It could not have been otherwise. Disregarded by the Israelis as people who had voluntarily left their country, largely ignored by other Arab nations who might have made their lot easier but had not, Ghosn and those like him were mere pawns in a great game whose players had never agreed upon the rules. Hatred of Israel and its friends came as naturally as breathing, and finding ways to end the lives of such people was his task in life. It had never occurred to him to wonder why.
Ghosn got the keys for a Czech-built GAZ-66 truck. It wasn't as reliable as a Mercedes, but a lot easier to obtain — in this case it had been funnelled to his organization through the Syrians years before. On the back was a home-built A-frame. Ghosn loaded the American in the cab with himself and the driver. Two other men rode on the loadbed as the truck pulled out of the camp.
Marvin Russell examined the terrain with the interest of a hunter in a new territory. The heat was oppressive, but really no worse than the Badlands during a bad summer wind, and the vegetation — or lack of it — wasn't all that different from the reservation of his youth. What appeared to others as bleak was just another dusty place to an American raised in one. Except here they didn't have the towering thunderstorms — and the tornados they spawned — of the American Plains. The hills were also higher than the rolling Badlands. Russell had never seen mountains before. Here he saw them, high and dry and hot enough to make a climber gasp. Most climbers, Marvin Russell thought. He could hack it. He was in shape, better shape than these Arabs.
The Arabs, on the other hand, seemed to be believers in guns. So many guns, mostly Russian AK-47s at first, but soon he was seeing heavy anti-aircraft guns, and the odd battery of surface-to-air missiles, tanks, and self- propelled field guns belonging to the Syrian army. Ghosn noted his guest's interest, and started explaining things.
These are here to keep the Israelis out,“ he said, casting his explanation in accordance with his own beliefs. ”Your country arms the Israelis, and the Russians arm us.' He didn't add that this was becoming increasingly tenuous.
“Ibrahim, have you been attacked?”
“Many times, Marvin. They send their aircraft. They send commando teams. They have killed thousands of my people. They drove us from our land, you see. We are forced to live in camps that—”
“Yeah, man. They're called reservations where I come from.” That was something Ghosn didn't know about. “They came to our land, the land of our ancestors, killed off the buffalo, sent in their army, and massacred us. Mainly they attacked camps of women and children. We tried to fight back. We killed a whole regiment under General Custer at a place called the Little Big Horn — that's the name of a river — under a leader named Crazy Horse. But they didn't stop coming. Just too many of them, too many soldiers, too many guns, and they took the best of our land, and left us shit, man. They make us live like beggars. No, that's not right. Like animals, like we're not people, even, 'cause we were in a place they wanted to have, and they just moved us out, like sweepin' away the garbage.”
“I didn't know about that,” Ghosn said, amazed that his were not the only people to be treated that way by the Americans and their Israeli vassals. “When did it happen?”
“Hundred years ago. Actually started around 1865. We fought, man, we did the best we could, but we didn't have much of a chance. We didn't have friends, see? Didn't have friends like you got. Nobody gave us guns and tanks. So they killed off the bravest. Mainly they trapped the leaders and murdered them — Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull died like that. Then they squeezed us and starved us until we had to surrender. Left us dusty, shitty places to live, sent us enough food to keep us alive, but not enough to be strong. When some of us try to fight back, try to be men — well, I told you what they did to my brother. Shot him from ambush like he was an animal. Did it on television, even, so's people would know what happened when an Indian got too big for his britches.”
The man was a comrade, Ghosn realized. This was no infiltrator, and his story was no different from the story of a Palestinian. Amazing.
“So, why did you come here, Marvin?”
“I had to leave before they got me, man. I ain't proud of it, but what else could I do — you want me to wait till they could ambush me?” Russell shrugged. “I figured I'd come someplace, find people like me, maybe learn a few things, learn how I could go back, maybe, teach my people how to fight back some.” Russell shook his head. “Hell, maybe it's all hopeless, but I ain't gonna give in — you understand that?”
“Yes, my friend, I understand. It has been so with my people since before I was born. But you, too, must understand: it is not hopeless. So long as you stand up and fight back, there is always hope. That is why they hunt you — because they fear you!”
“Hope you're right, man.” Russell stared out the open window, and the dust stung his eyes, 7,000 miles from home. “So, what are we doing?”
“When you fought the Americans, how did your warriors get weapons?”
“Mainly we took what they left behind.”
“So it is with us, Marvin.”
Fowler woke up about halfway across the Atlantic. Well, that was a first, he told himself. He'd never managed to do it in an airplane before. He wondered if any US President had, or done it on the way to see the Pope, or with his National Security Advisor. He looked out the windows. It was bright this far north — the aircraft was close to Greenland — and he wondered for a moment if it were morning or still night. That was almost a metaphysical question on an airplane, of course, which changed the time far faster than a watch could.
Also metaphysical was his mission. This would be remembered. Fowler knew his history. This was something unique. It had never happened before. Perhaps it was the beginning of the process, perhaps the end of it, but what he was up to was simply expressed. He would put an end to war. J. Robert Fowler's name would be associated with this treaty. It was the initiative of his Presidential administration. His speech at the UN had called the nations of the world to the Vatican. His subordinates had run the negotiations. His name would be the first on the treaty
