Abuse of Power

Prologue

If the others knew what Abdal al-Fida was up to they would kill him. Not fast, not pleasantly, and not just to make him suffer. These people killed the way others tweeted, to let people know they weren’t happy. To discourage dissent.

To them he was simply a foot soldier, an expendable observer sent out to study the enemy, report, and await further instructions. Any deviation from that would be met with swift and brutal punishment.

But after three long weeks sitting in a cramped office cubicle doing routine computer repairs, Abdal was tired of waiting, tired of hoping the phone would ring. His beard was growing longer as the others busied themselves with endless debates and hand-wringing and second-guessing.

It’s all in the hands of Allah anyway, he thought. Why not be bold and trust in Him?

He didn’t want to believe it was a lack of nerve. That would be too discouraging. To have committed his life and energy to a cause, only to find out he was alone I refuse to believe that. But the thought was equally stubborn.

His mother once told him that he came into this world a squawking bird, violently flapping his spindly little wings as if his cage were too small to contain him. Maybe that was Allah sending a message as well, for he was no different now.

Abdal’s faith in Allah’s plan was absolute, and that was what gave him the courage to undertake what he was doing now. After that, proactivity became its own motor. Actions drove other actions and soon there was no changing course, no desire to reverse direction.

What would he tell them later? That contacting someone he knew here in America-someone who was well connected with the black market and was far under the radar-he had used his own money to procure the things he needed.

Building the device, as he’d been trained to do, had been simple. He was afraid he’d forget steps, have to improvise, but once he was focused everything came back to him. It was all he could do to keep his fingers from trembling with excitement as he dismantled the disposable cell phone he’d bought at a nearby Walgreens. He laid out the components, rewired connections, recalled with an almost rhapsodic joy the tart smell of the solder as he worked And as he sat in his small apartment he thought of Sara. He wondered if he should call her.

While he had no intention of taking his own life-unlike so many of his naive brethren he was in no hurry to get to Paradise-he was aware that he might not survive the week. The only thing certain in war was that nothing was certain.

He smiled as he thought of the girl he had managed to grow so fond of. Not that he’d fought it. Every soldier needs a distraction, and they didn’t come prettier than this one. But then something happened. It wasn’t even part of his cover, an effort to blend in; it was genuine. Surprisingly, unexpectedly real. So real that he had broken other rules, had told her who he was and what he was about. She already knew what had happened to his family before he relocated from Karachi, and she understood the rage he carried with him every single moment of his life. Maybe that was one of the things he found so attractive: Sara shared much of that rage herself.

In the end, he decided it was best not to call her. Not until the deed was done. Not until she couldn’t do the one thing no one else on earth could possibly have done: talk him out of giving San Francisco its very own ground zero.