Capitol Conspiracy

13

Shohreh’s hands trembled even as she completed her salat, but it was not due to her fear of God. It was due to her fear of what she had to do next.

Like every good Muslim, she recited her morning prayers, but on this particular morning, she did so with a sense of both conviction and desire that exceeded the norm. She needed God’s help. She would never be able to do this alone. But it had to be done. She had sworn an oath to God, and she had made a promise to Djamila. So she performed the usual ritual cleansing, removed her shoes, draped her head, and placed herself on her prayer rug, standing, then sitting, then bowing and prostrating herself as she performed the invocations of faith.

“La ilaha illa’Llah,” she recited. There is no god but God. That was the shahada, the fundamental statement of her religion. She recited from memory the opening sura from the Qur’an. As always, she recited silently, moving her lips but not speaking aloud. These words were for God and no one else, and He did not need to hear the words to know they were being said. When at last she finished, she changed her clothes and left the shabby apartment to do what had to be done.

She hated this neighborhood. She had left as soon as she extracted herself from the cell and promised never to return. Rockville was actually one of the better suburbs in the D.C. area: population of only about sixty thousand, good schools, clean streets. The pride of Montgomery County, favored by many politicians, staff members, and even lobbyists-the people with the real money. But like every other town in this dramatically divided country, there was a dark underbelly, the slum neighborhood that provided housing affordable to low-income workers who made it possible for the rest of the town to live in the manner that they did. Even given her circumstances, she knew she could do better.

And she had not been gone a week when she received that fateful call, the one she should never have answered. The one that took her to Oklahoma City.

Damn Yaseen. The General, as he was so fond of being called. He knew she would not be able to say no. He had been a Shiite general, back before he was forced to leave Iraq. He knew how to lead. And he knew how to manipulate. He knew how to make sure she would not be able to refuse.

She had gone to Oklahoma City, done as he asked, and regretted it ever since. Before, she had been almost invisible. Now she lived in fear of discovery, a discovery that would not only end her own short life, but make it impossible to honor her commitment to Djamila. She knew that every law enforcement official in the country was poring over the footage that had been taken by the media in Oklahoma City. It didn’t matter that she had disguised herself, changed her name, traveled under false papers. Eventually someone would remember seeing her there. They would link her to the cell. And given the current sentiment in the country, she would be lucky if she were not lynched in the street.

Americans were so easily led. She remembered the first Oklahoma City incident, the bombing that cost so many lives. In the immediate aftermath, all the experts and commentators attributed the attack to Middle Eastern terrorists. Several of her friends were beaten mercilessly that night by rednecks for no reason other than the color of their skin. And the next day the truth was revealed. The bombing had nothing to do with Middle Eastern terrorists. It was a homegrown crazy, an antigovernment zealot just as white as the stars on the American flag.

And now, once again, most people had no idea what had really happened a little over a week ago in Oklahoma City. But she did, at least somewhat. That information alone made her a keenly sought target by both American law enforcement and the members of her former cell. One wanted to question her; the other to kill her.

Shohreh was five foot three, petite, barely a hundred pounds. What chance did she have, a woman alone against powers so great? But what chance had she ever had? What choice did she ever have?

None. None at all.

Her identity papers said she was Saudi Arabian, a deceit practiced so commonly in the aftermath of President Bush’s invasion of her homeland that it was barely worth the trouble. In truth, she was Iraqi, a Sunni Muslim. Globally, more than eighty percent of all Muslims were Sunnis. Only in Iraq were they in the minority. The division was almost as old as Islam itself, dating back to the seventh century. The Shiites believed that Muhammad had selected his son-in-law and cousin, Ali ibn Abi Talib to be his successor prophet. Shiites traditionally performed a hajj to the Blue Mosque in Mazari-Sharif where Ali was buried. Sunnis believed that Muhammad had not chosen a successor so the church leaders, the caliphates, should guide the church. The differences were trivial compared to the doctrinal distinctions that divided the hundreds of Christian denominations. But the differences had proved great enough to produce incalculable bloodshed, leading to the loss of millions of lives. Sunnis and Shiites were impossible to distinguish by appearance, but their names were often a clear indicator to the knowledgeable elite, and all Iraqis were required to carry a national identification card. Omar, Marwan, and Othman were popular Sunni given names; Ali, Abbas, and Hussein were equally popular among Shiites. So those in the minority often changed their birth names, even though to do so was considered shameful and abhorrent-but not enough so as to inspire many to reveal a name that in the wrong circle could be an instant death sentence. During the Gulf War, when Iraqi civilians were often stopped at military checkpoints or even randomly on the streets, a name or hometown suggesting affiliation with the rival sect could lead to summary execution. Identification forgery became a boom business.

Shohreh was a “Saudi Arabian” name she adopted when she came to America, although her associates knew her only as 355. She resisted both changes. What was wrong with her original name?

A good deal, as it turned out.

She heard something move behind her and froze. She hated these streets. She might as well be walking through a war zone in her home country, waiting for another American bomb dropped from thirty thousand feet to kill anonymous targets.

Someone was moving back there. She was certain of it.

A cold sweat broke out all over her body. She felt paralyzed, afraid or unable to move. She was breathing fast and shallow, making noise at just the moment she knew she most needed to remain silent. The people looking for her were trained to kill instantly, efficiently, in so many ways that there was always some means available. They could kill with a pencil, a matchstick, a spoon. They could kill with their bare hands and it would take only slightly longer. They were the deadliest people on the face of the earth.

Had they found her at last?

Her knees trembling, she turned slowly to face whatever lurked in the darkness.

A cat jumped off a trash can and scampered away.

She would’ve laughed if she hadn’t been so terrified. This was only a temporary reprieve, not a release. The General had said he would come alone, but she knew better. He would not come at all. He would send someone else; he would take no risks, not even with a tiny woman with no friends or resources. Not even with a former ally.

Shohreh had lived a privileged life, once upon a time, far from the cliche American view of life for a woman in the Middle East. In Iraq, even while Saddam Hussein ruled, Shohreh’s mother could drive a car, she could vote, she could leave home without a note from her husband, and she didn’t have to be completely covered from head to foot-unlike Saudi women. Shohreh had been well educated. She wore clothes she chose herself. She welcomed the American invasion.

And then one day she came back and found her entire affluent neighborhood was gone. Flattened by an off-target American air strike. It was the last day she saw her parents.

It was the last day she saw Djamila.

She initially lived with relatives in Tikrit, thought to be much safer than Baghdad. They died in a car bombing. She found work as a servant in Mosul, demeaning for a person of her background, but still, a way of living. But the war followed her there, too. All at once, this privileged well-educated woman was homeless, caught in the crossfire between the rapidly growing army of the insurgents and the Americans. What was she to do?

The General had the answers she sought. And she would regret that every day thereafter.

General Yaseen Daraji hated the Americans for, he claimed, philosophical and political reasons. They cared nothing about human rights for Iraqis, or freedom or self-governance. They didn’t even care about the supposed weapons of mass destruction or catching the perpetrators of 9/11. All they cared about was oil, he preached. This was a war of aggression carried out not by political ideologues, but by businessmen.

As she would later realize to her great dismay, the General was a businessman, too. In the most horrible business imaginable.

As all good Muslims knew, the greater jihad was the internal struggle to obey the teachings of Muhammad. In time, thanks to the General, she was allowed to join the lesser jihad, the holy war, the struggle against the invaders who had divided her country. She should have known better-but what choice did she have, really?

She arrived at the appointed rendezvous and, although it went against her every instinct, she turned down the alley that bisected the Dove Avenue and Second Street block and plunged in. If it had been dark before, it was black now, an absolute Stygian nothingness. The stench was tremendous. Even without vision, she knew she was plunging into a sea of mud and grime and human waste.

She could not see anything. She did not hear anything. And she knew they were there. Three of them.

She slid on her glasses and waited for them to make the first move.

“355?” one of them said, in their native tongue.

“I’m here, Ahmed.” She recognized his voice. They had been associates, companions. They had worked together on many occasions. “Where is the General?”

“He has unfortunately been detained. And please do not use my other name. You know how this is done.”

“Sorry, 111. The General said he would come alone.”

“He thought it unwise to leave the safe house. Given the current state of national security.”

“I’m sure the current state of affairs has not prevented him from conducting his business. I was not anxious to leave safety, either.” She could sense that the two men behind her were moving closer. “And yet I came.”

A long pause ensued. She waited. Even at this point, she held out hope that she would be honored by those with whom she had worked so long and done so much.

“Please follow me,” the one she called 111 instructed.

The other two silent men inched even closer. They were near enough now that she had a sense of them. They were huge men, bulky, both at least a foot taller than she. And she knew from experience how formidable Ahmed was.

“Please, 355. Follow me.”

Again the two associates stepped closer. She did not move at all.

“If you planned to take me to the General,” she said, her voice calm and even, “you would blindfold me. You have not come to escort me. You have come to kill me.”

Ahmed was silent; then he gave a quick gesture to his companions that they heard more than saw. “I told the General you would be wary.”

“But he did not really care, since he was planning to have you kill me anyway.”

Ahmed did not bother to respond. “You are a woman, vastly outnumbered. Our strength far exceeds yours. It would be better if you did not struggle.”

“Better for you, at any rate,” Shohreh said, and a moment later, she felt one of the men behind her wrap his arms around her body while the other crept toward her from the front, his arms outstretched to strangle her.

She knew she must act in seconds, or she would lose the opportunity forever. She recognized the Thai clinch; she knew how to break it and she knew how to make it work to her favor. Bracing her arms back against the man holding her, she used him as a fulcrum and flung both feet forward in a frontal teep, or foot jab. She caught the man in front of her just under the chin, knocking him backward. Before the other man could react, she rammed her elbow back with a diagonal thrust. Because he was so much taller, she caught him in the side of his rib cage, but that was enough to loosen his grip. She swung around and delivered an uppercut elbow to his eyebrow. The blow ripped open the skin and the wound bled profusely, blinding him almost instantaneously. He fell to his knees, clutching his face and crying out.

Shohreh whirled around. The other attacker had recovered and was almost upon her. She knew he, too, was trained in the Muay Thai, and given his greater strength, it would be a mistake to let him get close again. She might surprise him once, but this time he would be more careful. She would use the kao loi; it was the only maneuver that would give her a chance in such close quarters. While he was still several feet away, she sprang forward, leaped off one knee, but while in midair switched to the other knee and smashed the side of his head. Before he could recover, she followed with a roundhouse kick, slamming her shin into his neck. Like all trained in the Muay Thai, she knew the foot had many bones and was fragile, the knee was easily broken, but a trained and muscled shin was almost invulnerable. She delivered another blow with her other shin and he fell to the pavement, motionless.

The man behind her was still struggling to stand and see. She used a simple kao tone to the chin to finish him. He reeled backward, writhing in pain.

Ahmed was still out there, somewhere in the darkness. She executed a 360-degree turn, her hands raised in the traditional “wall of defense” that prepared her for any attack from any direction. Nothing came.

“Will you not fight, Ahmed?” she shouted into the black emptiness. “Or are you so weak now, you leave that only to your clumsy assistants?”

He was, at first, understandably reluctant to speak. Then, finally: “Night-vision goggles?”

“It seemed a prudent precaution.”

“It would appear that since your retirement from our cause, 355, you have acquired some new skills.”

“Or perhaps I had them all along, and you and your masters were too ignorant to realize it.”

“You have lost none of your skill for self-preservation.”

“It would be foolish to do so, while men such as you still walk the face of the earth.”

“You cannot win, Shohreh.”

“I do not wish to win anything. Tell the General I want him to abandon his filthy enterprise. For Djamila’s sake. Tell him that unless he gives me what I want, I will expose him.”

“That would be very foolish of you.”

“But I will do it, just the same. Tell him.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Shohreh saw two figures at the end of the alley. Police? No, they were younger. But they were watching, apparently not so frightened as entertained. That was life here on Dove Avenue. Only a thin line separated entertainment from near death. But then, that had been the case for her for so long, for as long as she could remember.

She could not afford to remain there any longer. “This is not over, Ahmed. Tell your master to give me what I want. Or I will come and take it from him!”

She ran down the other end of the alley, staying clear of Ahmed’s approximate position, disappearing into the darkness.

Her fears had been justified. The General had not come. Perhaps she had accomplished nothing. But she had to try. She owed Djamila that much. And this debt would be paid. No matter what they tried to do to her. No matter what the consequences-and she knew they would be great, if she were linked to the horror of Oklahoma City. But that did not matter.

She would have her satisfaction. They would pay in blood. Just as Djamila had done for them.