Contract with God aka The Moses Expedition

32

AL MUDAWWARA DESERT, JORDAN

Friday, 14 July 2006. 1:18 a.m.

The tall man was named O and he was crying. He had to get away from the other men. He didn’t want them to see him showing his feelings, much less talk about it. And it would have been very dangerous to reveal why he was crying.

It was really because of the girl. She had reminded him too much of his own daughter. He had hated having to kill her. Killing Tahir had been simple, a relief, in fact. He had to admit that he’d even enjoyed playing with him – giving him a preview of hell, but here on earth.

The girl was another story. She was only sixteen years old.

And yet, D and W had agreed with him: the mission was too important. Not only were the lives of the other brothers crowded in the cave at stake, but all of Dar Al-Islam. The mother and daughter knew too much. There could be no exceptions.

‘Meaningless shitty war,’ he said.

‘So you’re talking to yourself now?’

It was W, who had come crawling over. He didn’t like running risks and always talked in whispers, even inside the cave.

‘I was praying.’

‘We have to go back into the hole. They might see us.’

‘There’s only one sentry on the western wall, and he has no direct line of vision over here. Don’t worry.’

‘What if he changes position? They have night-vision goggles.’

‘I said don’t worry. The big black one is on duty. He smokes the whole time and the light from the cigarette stops him seeing anything,’ O said, annoyed that he had to talk when he had wanted to enjoy the silence.

‘Let’s go back inside the cave. We’ll play chess.’

That W… O hadn’t fooled him for a moment. W knew he was feeling down. Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen. They had gone through a lot together. He was a good comrade. As clumsy as his efforts were, he was attempting to cheer him up.

O stretched out the length of his body on the sand. They were in a hollow area at the foot of a rock formation. The cave, which was at its base, was only about one hundred feet square. O was the one who had found it three months earlier, when he was planning the operation. There was hardly enough room for them all, but even if the cave had been a hundred times bigger, O would have preferred being outside. He felt trapped in that noisy hole, attacked by the snores and farting of his brothers.

‘I think I’ll stay out here a while longer. I like the cold.’

‘Are you waiting for Huqan’s signal?’

‘It’ll be a while before that comes. The infidels haven’t found anything yet.’

‘I hope they hurry up. I’m tired of being holed up, eating out of tins and pissing into a can.’

O didn’t answer. He closed his eyes and concentrated on the breeze on his skin. Waiting was fine with him.

‘Why are we sitting around here doing nothing? We’re well-armed. I say we go in there and kill them all,’ W insisted.

‘We’ll follow Huqan’s orders.’

‘Huqan takes too many chances.’

‘I know. But he’s clever. He told me a story. Do you know how a bushman finds water in the Kalahari when he’s far from home? He finds a monkey and watches it all day. He can’t let the monkey see him or the game’s over. If the bushman is patient, the monkey ends up showing him where to find water. A crack in the rock, a little pool… places a bushman would never have found.’

‘And what does he do then?’

‘He drinks the water and eats the monkey.’