Jihadi

This is no love story, though the late author would have had it so. A sad tale, a tale of treason,
Jihadi
, an encrypted memoir posing as a novel, is the work of the terrorist Ali Liddell, upon whom the justice of God descended on July 3, 2006. This date marked both his forty-fifth birthday and the fourteenth anniversary of the star-cursed day that I recommended we hire him. I here seek formal immunity against prosecution for his death.

Although my detractors never fail to note that the terrorist’s last name rhymes with ‘riddle’, the case against him could not be clearer cut. Much has been made of the imagined legal and moral dilemmas presented by Liddell’s American citizenship. Yet the three facts driving his case remain indisputable.

• First, that Liddell received briefings on classified material of the most sensitive kind on an almost daily basis.
  
• Second, that he suffered a nervous breakdown prior to writing
  Jihadi
  .
  
• And third, that he was the first and only senior staffer in our history to convert to Islam. This travesty occurred after his final overseas mission, during which a series of unpardonable security breaches resulted in his being targeted, seduced, renamed, and reprogrammed by a female jihadi, now in custody: Fatima Adara.
  

We may expect more such attempts at subversion, not only from overseas operatives, but from stateside religious extremists as well – see my essay
The Liddell Syndrome
.

Thelonius Liddell drafted
Jihadi
during his final months, in the demented script of a masochist, using an ink of water and charcoal, and occasional specks of his own blood (minute amounts of which served as some kind of thickening agent). The work is thus attributable solely to him via DNA, graphological and forensic evidence.

The facsimiles from which I work correlate precisely with Liddell’s original pages, each now encased in Lucite and held within a temperature-controlled basement at Directorate headquarters in Langley, Virginia. The sheets were impounded by Operations only minutes after I discovered them in Liddell’s cell.

A full embargo on this material has been set in place, and for good reason, yet my detractors – emboldened, perhaps, by the recent resignation of Mr. Unferth – now debate, with apparent seriousness, whether this should be lifted. In so doing, these misguided simpletons aid and comfort the (obvious and unseen, late and living) enemies of our nation. And enemies is indeed the proper word.

Why does the manuscript even exist? A difficult question. Enemy combatant Liddell, under surveillance at Bright Light, a technically nonexistent resort for violent religious extremists, was, per our protocols, forbidden writing implements. He somehow obtained several reams of letterhead from an unauthorized source. Post-mortem, a syringe, repurposed to create his book, was found in his quarters. Such was his arsenal.

To date, the manuscript has been seen by less than a half-dozen persons, all senior members of the Directorate. Some argue that we are this book’s only intended audience, or that its message is merely an extended, largely incoherent insult, not worthy of deep classification. I offer, with this commentary, my respectful dissent.

The reasons for this dissent begin with the work’s now-infamous opening page: Liddell’s dedication. It has attracted almost as much attention as the similarly obscure reference within the work to a mythical ‘hundredth chapter’. Is the dedication a call to action – or some harmless literary ruse? Until we can answer such questions with certainty, we must not risk compromising our assets or our nation’s security. For the sake of the innocents, not to mention the ideals of democracy, free enterprise, and good sportsmanship that we are sworn to protect, Liddell’s hidden fatwas, his paranoid ravings, his absurd accusations, must never reach their intended audience: terrorists in training.

A few more words are in order before I close this prefatory note. This commentary is not merely a personal defence, but also a labour of love. It is dedicated to the nation and the Directorate to which I have sacrificed more than can be recounted here. I hope and pray that that nation, that Directorate, may yet see fit to show me some compassion.

It pains me to ask for this. I feel entitled to do so because I took a stand. By dedicating my expertise to the cause of freedom – I was the only official assigned to interrogate Liddell privately – I did my duty. Not always perfectly, but always out of a profound love for our country and its values.

I saved lives. I do not deserve prosecution for having done so. Those who claim I do, those who challenge my love for America or for the Directorate because a terrorist died, are wrong.

You who accuse me of murder and torture (hateful, hateful words!), know that I did all of this for you, too, even though positions such as yours are unlikely to be softened by appeals
such as mine. Know that the terrorists count on our uncertainty, on our wasting time on debates like these before we take action.

A question for you. You must choose between: A) flying on a plane whose route and security procedures benefit from intelligence gathered by means of ‘torture’; or B) flying on a plane whose crew have no such intelligence.

Would you ever choose the latter? You clear your throat. You turn the page. You press the button and summon the stewardess for another coffee.

We who cared for you, who risked our lives for you, and who occasionally erred in the service of your journey’s sacred tedium, who put your well-being before our own, we selected for you the sweet boring (A) that we knew you would select for yourself, over the potentially more eventful (B). We seek absolution now because we did our duty. Because we took care of you. Took Care Of You.

We ask now only for the same security and respect that our detractors within the Directorate enjoy each day, and barely notice.

A final housekeeping note: Our condition appears to have occasioned some intermittent loss of short-term memory. (Never, as far as we can tell, long-term.) This has complicated the project somewhat and necessitated multiple careful inspections of the material. We apologize for the delay in forwarding this.

R.L Firestone

DEDICATED TO KHADIJAH – You know I limp now, and move slower than I once did. One way or another I will get out of here. Get home.

I am the dead guy telling you this story. Stories are all I have left. Stories will get me out of here, get me back where I belong. Once upon a time, you believed that man who said, ‘Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought.’ Justice will have to do for this story, because none of what follows is true. It is all one long lie. If you come across something seemingly true in these pages, remember this: Only the Word of Allah is true. I pray that Word guides us.

This story begins with a prayer and ends with a prayer, Khadijah. I pray our destinies may yet intertwine to our benefit. I pray we may forgive each other. I pray our trials in this world may benefit us in this life and the next. And despite my falsehood, my guilt, I pray the Lord liberates us both, guides us to His Straight Path and spares us the fires of Hell.