Shepherd One

CHAPTER SEVEN

Al-Khatib Hakam graduated from Columbia University with honors at the age of nineteen. He stood five six, was willow thin, and possessed the face of a child, but the mind of a leading academic. Subdued in manner and usually in control of his emotions, Hakam spoke little but walked with the air and confidence of a man twice his size.

He is also a natural born citizen of the United States — from Dearborn, Michigan.

And he is al-Qaeda.

Growing up in Dearborn held little reprisal since the community in general was of Arab ethnicity. However, having been accepted into Columbia University proved difficult, even for an emancipated child prodigy whose life changed dramatically by the age of seventeen.

Less than a week after his seventeenth birthday, and standing on the southeast corner of 42^nd and Madison Avenue in New York City, al-Khatib Hakam had a reawakening. Across the street he observed a food vendor, an Arab, who was taking a quick respite from his duties by paying homage to his god. The man was bowing and kneeling over a prayer rug, his hands held out before him in reverence, his eyes closed and lips moving in silence as he raised and lowered himself over the carpet in constant motion.

And in a land that preaches tolerance as a virtue, al-Khatib Hakam beheld the intolerable.

In a city that was alive with throngs of people crowding every inch of walking pavement, al-Khatib Hakam watched as three powerfully built males surrounded the Arab as he prayed, the men chiding and laughing until one of them hauled the Arab to his feet by the collar of his shirt. From a distance al-Khatib Hakam could hear the crude remarks regarding the man’s religion and his ‘apparent’ audacity to pray with Ground Zero just a few miles away. He heard the word ‘disrespect,’ which was quickly followed by a racist slur and a tirade of spewing profanity.

And nobody appeared to take care, as smartly dressed people from every direction took a wide berth and ignored the situation completely, moving on as if the norm was to close their eyes to things that did not affect them.

And then al-Khatib Hakam understood, his epiphany striking him as if a door suddenly opened to a room of wondrous secrets: Although he was born American, he would never truly be American because of the vilification of his people.

Raising a hand before him, the young Arab examined it, turning it over and noticing the pigmentation on his palm was lighter than the rest of his flesh — still white, but different. When he lowered his hand he noticed the three men gone, leaving the vendor on his knees weeping into the fabric of his carpet, which he pressed close to him as if it was an ailing child. It was at this standstill moment of time when something clicked inside of Hakam.

For nights and weeks and months he never forgot that moment of persecution as a wicker slowly burned inside him, working its way to igniting the time bomb he had become. What he needed was something more than what the world of academia could offer him, something that would make him whole and responsive and utterly complete.

What he found was faith.

In New York City mosques were everywhere. However, Hakam found his true calling when he was introduced and infused with fundamentalist Muslim rhetoric. The cleric’s words were powerful and pulling, drawing young Hakam into the clutches of obsession for which he desperately needed to know his true fate in the eyes of his new-found god, Allah. And like many others like him he was anointed as a soldier in the eyes of his god, for which there was no greater honor. Al-Khatib Hakam was now complete.

His mantra: Allahu Akbar. Allah is the greatest.

In the pursuing years young Hakam had an affinity for learning foreign languages and excelled in International Studies, becoming fluent in nine languages by the time he graduated from Columbia. By twenty-one he was a reigning member of al-Qaeda, his intelligence serving him well on the American front.

Now his fate as a soldier was about to commence.

Leaning over the lip of the bathtub filled to capacity, Hakam carefully shaved his chest, arms and face, preparing and purifying himself for Paradise. After dabbing his face with a cloth, he sprinkled himself with rosewater and closed his eyes, his lips moving silently as he rubbed the perfume along his torso in gentle, circular sweeps.

Six months ago he met with Yorgi Perchenko in a land that was constantly cold, gray and depressing. The Russian and an Arab sitting across from each other in a wasted barn seemed an unlikely scenario given the Afghan war. But when Perchenko had the opportunity to conclude a deal for the sum of thirty million dollars, he didn’t care who the client was and no longer held the one-time prejudices that once bound him. He even told this to Hakam who responded with stares of indifference. But when Hakam had to speak he did so in perfect Russian without accent or dialect, making sure his answers were brief and to the point. His mission was simply to move the weapons into al-Qaeda hands as fast as he could.

Six months after that transaction he was in Rome, securing the leverage necessary for the next step of his operation by acquiring the Italian woman and her children, and immediately had them transported to an abandoned warehouse in Perugia, Italy, which was within eyeshot of the Ponte Felcino Mosque.

Now, back in the States after his brief spell in Italy, Hakam had just been informed by his contacts that the Arizona-Mexico team failed in its run to get their device across the border. The other two teams, however, succeeded, which in itself was good news.

Putting on a newly ironed shirt, Hakam stared at his image in the mirror as he dressed. When he moved his right hand to button his shirt, the mirror image moved its left. When the corner of his left lip curled into a semblance of a smile, the mirror image lifted the right. Everything — motions, tics and expressions — reflected the opposite. When he gazed upon his appearance one last time, the image staring back at him was the reflection of youthful innocence.

All around them shadows not their own seemed to ebb and flow inside a room choked with free floating dust and sepulchral dampness. Somewhere water dripped from a pipe or aged spigot, creating rancid-smelling puddles teeming with bacteria Vittoria Pastore didn’t even want to consider.

For three days she and her children were holed up in this room where cold, blue light filtered in through the marginal seams surrounding the boarded up windows. The walls that held them were made of corrugated tin, which were firmly riveted in place to steel framing. And the door was stalwartly solid with a small access door at its base that opened and closed for the proffering of food, water and the occasional clean blanket.

For days she remained strong, huddling the girls close together on the bunk bed stroking their hair softly, her eyes staring at nothing in particular as she sat there with all the fortitude of a machine, each day wondering if this was the day her children would breathe their last.

But Basilio wanted none of this motherly action, considering himself too old and manly to be stroked endearingly by his mother, even at the age of fifteen.

But she was proud of him.

When she wasn’t staring at a fixed point on the opposite wall, she would watch him pace from one side of the room to the other, noticing the striking similarities to his father, such as the way he kept his shoulders straight when he walked in a gait synonymous with confidence and strength, the gait of a leader. Yet she couldn’t help notice the worry and uncertainty regarding their fate in the young features on his face. And if her eyes could readily adapt to darkness, she might have seen the hairs on his arms stand out like the hackles of an animal sensing great danger.

Once the girls were asleep she would carefully set them aside so as not to wake them, and with Basilio by her side, they would search for a small opening around the window’s seam that would offer a minimal view of their captors.

In the three days held captive, they were able to conclude there were no more than six captors, all the same faces, same voices, always speaking Arab. Dressed in camouflaged military fatigues, they also wore the red-and-white checkered keffiyeh, an attire of their faith, and noted the weapons they carried.

Although she knew nothing of weapons in general, she knew without a doubt the weapons they possessed looked powerful enough to obliterate whatever target they were aiming at.

The outlook was not good.

Grabbing the fabric of her shirt, Basilio tugged at it to get her attention. When she faced him she could see the forced calm on his face, the way it belied his underlying and true sense of agitation… Just like his father would if he was in the same predicament.

“It’s been three days,” he whispered. “Nobody’s coming. Nobody even knows where we are.”

Unlike his father who had patience, Basilio did not.

“And what do you propose we do, Basilio? Take on soldiers fully armed?”

“Would you rather we wait and be slaughtered?”

“Basilio.” She reached out and placed a warm hand against his cheek. “Your father will figure this out. And when he does, everything will be fine.”

“Papa is in America. And we are… wherever this place is. Papa cannot do anything, and you know it.”

Vittoria knew he was right. Her husband was halfway around the world flying the pontiff from one destination to another for the Papal Symposiums. Even she didn’t know where they were, which was duly pointed out by her son. Nevertheless, she was not about to let Basilio make any propositions that would put them all in jeopardy.

“We have to find a way out of here. Perhaps when the guards fall asleep we can—”

“Basilio, no!” Her words came out harsher than expected. “There is always one guard awake, you know that. There is no way out. The walls are solid. We looked.”

He stood erect, his chest pumped out in macho pomposity. “Then we will die like cowards,” he said, moving away. But Vittoria knew better — knowing her son was simply venting because underneath he was scared like the rest of them. If one of the captors pointed a weapon at his face, she knew Basilio would break in a heartbeat.

Vittoria stood away from the slight aperture in the window frame that granted her a view of the world beyond tin walls and closed her eyes. After taking a long breath into her lungs, she then exhaled in an equally long sigh.

It wasn’t so much as dying like cowards as her son had suggested. It was the fact of dying period.

Why are they keeping us alive? she asked herself. And for how much longer?