The Godless One (31 page)

"Chicago Bears," Ahmad
sulked.

"Tough guys, I'm sure. Why aren't you
as tough as them? You only like to sit back and watch? It's not
even a proper game, this kickball. Now, Usood Al-Rafidain, that's a
team!"

"The Lions of Mesopotamia?" Ahmad
said.

"Congratulations, you still know your
own language!" Abu Jasim struck his new steering wheel, then
apologized to the van by giving the dash a gentle massage. "Usood
Al-Rafidain smacked down Malaysia, smacked down Bahrain, smacked
down Myanmar—"

"
Turn right
," said the
TomTom.

Some of Abu Jasim's bombast drained
away as they slid onto Sugar Loaf Road. He looked at Ari in the
rearview mirror, now sitting up on the deep cushion bench and
watching eagerly outside the tinted window that ran the length of
the cargo bay.

"Yes, I'm sure I want to go on," Ari
said without waiting for Abu Jasim to ask.

"
Arriving at destination
."

They had passed few houses, most of
them scruffy affairs hardly big enough to hold a family. But at
least they had been visible from the road. The address the TomTom
had brought them to was no more than a narrow dirt drive bracketed
by a pair of huge forsythias, looking like fat, shaggy spiders in
their winter dishabille.

Abu Jasim slowed the van. "I don't
see—"

"There's a man with a rifle!" Ahmad
cringed. "Keep going!"

"Yes," Ari agreed, spotting the guard
huddled in a lawn chair that was half-hidden in the dark shade of
an evergreen. "You don't want holes in your new van. Good eyes,
Ahmad."

Fifty yards further on was a forest
road. "Here," said Ari.

"
Make a U-turn and turn right
," said
the persistent TomTom.

"Shut your filthy mouth." Abu Jasim
yanked the adapter out of the cigarette lighter.

As soon as they turned off the main
road the tires flung gravel against the perfect Sprinter
flanks.

"No!" Abu Jasim moaned. He shot a glare
at Ahmad. "Did I hear laughter?"

"Not from me!" the young man lied,
fearful of another slap.

"Pull off here." Ari pointed at a cut
in the undergrowth. It was another fire road, less well maintained,
with a pole barrier erected by the Department of Forestry and a
sign forbidding motor vehicle traffic. Briars and branches scraped
against the van as Abu Jasim parked. He jumped out and stared at
the damaged paint. Panting hard, he reached for Ahmad as he
emerged. Ahmad skipped out of reach. "I hate that hair of yours,"
he fumed.

Emerging like a resident from a nursing
home, Ari stiffly planted his feet on the stony ground. He looked
at the weeds spicing the ruts.

"Get your gun out."

"My Magnum?"

"Something a little more prolific." He
nodded at his feet. "Someone has driven here."

"Not today," said Abu Jasim, studying
the half-frozen slush. "But I see what you mean. Broken branches,
and it’s near the house. A gun for the kid, too?"

"Him, too."

"And you?"

"I don't feel like shooting anyone
right now."

Abu Jasim shook his head in near
disbelief. Ari waited patiently while he went through his armory in
the bench chest. He had broken down the inner panels of the
Astrovan and transferred his cargo the night before. He came out of
the Sprinter with an Uzi. He handed Ahmad a Glock and gave him
quick instructions on how to use it. Ahmad wore the expression of
someone holding a porcupine. Abu Jasim gave Ari a pair of Steiner
marine binoculars.

They scooted between the barrier and
some prickly bushes and moved cautiously through ankle-deep grass.
The deeper the stiff, half-frozen grass, the more obvious it became
that someone had driven through it at least a few days
ago.

"It goes on forever," Ahmad complained
after three minutes of walking. His uncle threatened him with a
raised fist.

Two minutes more, and they found the
Lexus.

"Who would park a car like this out
here?" Abu Jasim was rocked by what he saw. "This is a LS 600!
Worth a hundred grand! Truly, we’re dealing with
monsters."

"It hasn't been driven for a few days,"
Ari commented on seeing small branches on the hood. Abu Jasim
reached out to pluck them off. "Don't," said Ari. Abu Jasim
flinched, not at the colonel's command, but at the offense against
fine car-flesh. He noted the look on Ari's face and asked, "Why are
you so happy?"

"This is the escape hatch. I have
prayed for something like this, and here it is."

"You? Pray? That'll be the
day."

"Some things are worth praying for,
fervently."

The fire road ended at this point, but
a path led away from the car, overgrown but clearly visible. Ari
nodded towards it and Abu Jasim forged into the bushes. Wearing a
look of disgust and doing his best to keep the Glock as far away
from his body as possible, Ahmad half closed his eyes and followed,
Ari limping along behind him. They had gone only a couple dozen
yards when they came to a clearing. Abu Jasim crouched and pointed
at a white clapboard house on a small rise. He grinned tensely at
Ari.

"If you were thinking of taking them on
all by yourself, forget it," he whispered.

There were about twenty
cars parked around the house. Ari's heart sank. The opportunity to
charge ahead and eliminate his enemy in a hail of gunfire was
removed with a hard thump. His second prayer would not be answered.
The two-story house was much larger than others they had seen on
Sugar Loaf Road. Pregnant with adversaries. Several men were
walking across the yard to a dilapidated barn. The house was in
fine shape, the barn was practically a ruin. Ari lifted the
binoculars. Immediately, Sid Overstreet, formerly if the
101
^st
Airborne, filled his eyepiece.

"Yes, you hate Arabs so much you lick
the shit off their ass," he muttered.

"Which one?" Abu Jasim
asked.

"The bald one, without a jacket. He was
in the Army, one of the elite. Now he's an elite piece of
shit."

Ahmad touched Ari on the shoulder and
pointed to their left. A man with a rifle slung over his shoulder
was sauntering across broken cornstalks, coming towards
them.

"Why don't they
protect
me
like
this," he complained lowly. With a nod he ordered the other two
back, but when he glanced at the man again he stopped and squinted
through his bruised eyes. "I know that one. I can't think of his
name..."

"Really?" said Abu Jasim.

"He's Iraqi, though. Our brothers are
here. If only..." Ari kicked at the dirt.

"If only what?"

"If only I had the Hammurabi Division
with me!"

The guard was too insouciant, too
comfortable with the fact that Iraq and all its troubles were far
away. He had a dreamy look, as though marveling at the events that
had brought him here.

"Come on!" Ahmad insisted frantically.
They retreated into the woods. Halfway to the van Ari bent over,
gasping. Abu Jasim and Ahmad took him by the arms and helped him
back. When they laid him on the Sprinter's cushioned bench, the
smell of new vinyl overwhelmed him. He forced himself to sit up and
just managed not to vomit.

"No doctor?" Abu Jasim
asked.

"No."

"Well I should at least get you back to
the motel."

"After coming all this way? Go up this
road a little more."

Knowing better than to argue when Ari
was in this kind of mood, Abu Jasim obeyed. Like a man forcing his
beloved’s face to a grindstone, he drove deeper into the woods. The
stony caroling of his undercarriage drew furtive murmurs through
his lips. Ari did not ask him to speak more clearly.

A little further ahead they came to
another secondary fire road. Like the first, it had a barrier and a
sign that welcomed foot travel but forbade motor
vehicles.

"Here," said Ari.

"But it’s going away from the
house."

"I see that."

Abu Jasim locked the van and they
proceeded down the lane, which soon petered out in a wall of
toppled trees. Ari nodded in satisfaction and they returned to the
van.

"Get out your bolt cutters and snap the
padlock on that pole," he ordered. "Make it messy, but don’t open
it up, yet. We’ll do that when we get back."

Abu Jasim hauled out a 24-inch cutter
and thrust it into Ahmad’s hands.

"I’ve never used one of these before,"
the young man bleated.

"Stick your finger in here and I’ll
show you."

"All right…" Ahmad spent nearly five
minutes gnawing at the lock with the cutters. When he finally
managed to cut through, Abu Jasim looked at Ari.

"There, that’s about as messy as it
gets. Anyone would spot it right off."

"Excellent," Ari agreed. "Now let’s get
the van."

Abu Jasim turned the Sprinter around
and drove slowly back to Sugar Loaf Road. It took less than ten
minutes to reach Route 60. Turning east, they returned to the heavy
equipment dealership.

"You stay here and wait for our call,"
Abu Jasim told Ahmad as he and Ari got out of the
Sprinter.

"Fine," Ahmad answered, wearing a long
face and a longer slouch. Then he suddenly bolted up. "Aren’t you
going to leave the keys?"

Abu Jasim made a skeptical noise, but
Ari said, "Give him the keys. He’s going to have to drive your
precious toy. I’m sure he won’t run away." He gave Ahmad a friendly
look.

Shunting himself painfully into the old
Astrovan, Ari forced a shout back into his throat as he sore knees
banged on the glove compartment. Abu Jasim gave a worried glance at
the Sprinter as he pulled out, as though he would never see it
again. He could not trust a boy with purple streaks in his hair.
Maybe it was a wound. Maybe Ahmad was brain-damaged.

Joe’s Stop-N was on the eastern edge of
town. The old house-and-canopy architecture was, to Ari’s thinking,
pleasantly similar to the mud plaster houses of the Ubaid period, a
style used to this day. Only a few handwritten signs in the window
suggested that it was a Semitic island in the American
sea.

Abgousht! - Gauss! -
Maqluba!

Fresh burek & kadaif!

Fried Chicken! - 10 Piece Bucket
$5.99

Special on Frozen Halal
Lamb!

Halal Pizza!

Joe was obviously very
excited about his cuisine. In Ari's experience, country folk were
noticeably lax when it came to welcoming foreigners into their
communities. As often as not, odd-sounding faces and names
attracted midnight raids, smashed windows, at the very least rude
graffiti. But the gradual absorption of traditional Mom and Pops by
waves of Vietnamese, Koreans, Indians, Syrians and others had
inured Americans to small-time commercial conquest, as well as to
strange variations in roadside gastronomy. The day was not far off
when hot
ghormeh sabzi
would be as common as the tacos and huaraches that had
introduced America to the reverse side of globalization, with
jalapenos scorching the unwary.

Ari scanned the immediate vicinity.
Joe’s Stop-N was tucked away in the far corner of a town that was
historically significant but verged on non-existence, its primary
commerce consisting of gas stations and antique shops—most of
traffic was of the passing-through kind. The side of Joe’s Stop-N
facing the down was bordered by a line of oak trees, like a veil
protecting a Believer from the eyes of blasphemers.

"I don't think anyone will notice if
you park around the side," Ari told Abu Jasim. "You don't need to
change. Just keep your coat on. But the rest..."

Abu Jasim nodded, grunting.

"You remember what to say?"

"Colonel, there was a time
I had to recite entire speeches to the National Congress. They
weren't
my
speeches, but it was still a tough audience. I think I can
remember a few lines for a little girl."

"Forgive me, Maestro." Ari gave him a
wry grin. He got out and waited for Abu Jasim to circle around out
of sight before entering the shop.

A customer was standing at the counter
in heated discussion with the proprietor, a dark-skinned man Ari
presumed was Joe himself. The man had unfolded a map on the glass
top.

"Cm'on, you must know what I'm talking
about," the man complained. 'Farmville'. Like farm with a 'ville'
after it. I know it's in spitting distance from here. Haven't you
lived in Cumberland for a few years? That's what the guy down the
street told me."

Joe looked up and saw an obvious
derelict, a man beaten to within an inch of his life, the kind of
beating only convicted thieves were subjected to.

"Can I help you?" he asked Ari in a
demanding tone.