A Gentleman's Game

47

Saudi Arabia-Tabuk Province, the Wadi-as-Sirhan 22 September 0248 Local (GMT+3.00)

Matteen stopped the car.

"What are you doing?" Sinan demanded.

Matteen grinned at him, opening the door and dropping out of the vehicle. "Relieving myself, if you don't mind."

Sinan groaned inwardly, closed his eyes, wanting nothing more than to be back in the safety and sanity of the camp, where the world was ordered, where doubt could not exist. He remembered Nia's head in his lap, felt a pang of guilt.

Outside the car, he could hear the sound of Matteen passing water.

"Come on."

Matteen climbed back behind the wheel, started the car once more. He drove carefully and slowly, and when at last they entered the wadi proper, their progress, it seemed, slowed to a crawl.

"It would be faster if we walked," Sinan complained.

"You are too impatient, Sinan. You must learn to take things as they come."

"And what has that gotten us? Patience, what has it brought?" Sinan gestured angrily. "This is holy land, Matteen, and it has been defiled time and time again by those kufr who would destroy everything we believe. Patience! Did patience remove the American air bases?"

Matteen just shook his head, concentrating on negotiating the wadi.

"Action," Sinan said. "Action, not patience. We act, that Allah, praise His name, acts through us."

"There is a time for action and a time for planning. The unseen knife cuts cleanest, Sinan, and your way would shout out to all who would hear what it is we do, what it is we are planning."

"They should know! They should know, and they should be afraid!"

"They already are. They live in fear, haven't you seen it? The West awakens every morning, anxious for news, nervous and scared, wondering where we will strike next. That is terror, Sinan. And when they talk about a war against terror, they don't understand that they have already lost, because they are already afraid. And they will never sleep safe again, no matter how many missiles they drop on our camps, no matter how many of our brothers they capture and torture and murder. They fear us already, and thus we have already won. It will just take time for the victory to be complete."

Sinan looked out the window at the rough terrain bathed in the headlights. He could hear the truth in Matteen's words, and it soothed the heat in his blood.

He thought about Nia again, wondered again if she had been afraid. He hoped not; he didn't want her to have entered Paradise afraid.

He wondered if she would be happy to see him when his time came.