The Good Son (62 page)

“He’s joking,” Sonia says, looking at her son, wrenching a false smile onto her face.

“Are you?” Theo asks. He draws his terrible pistol and rises, changing his position, moving slightly on the charpoy so that his mother is not blocking a potential shot at Wazir.

Wazir seems unconcerned. “Of course not. Do you want to see one? I have it here.”

He goes to the corner of the room, draws aside the tarp, and reveals a packing case. Theo’s pistol comes up to cover him.

From the packing case Wazir takes a large stainless steel box, the kind mechanics use to store their valuable tools. It is obviously quite heavy, and Wazir has to strain at the handle with both hands to lift it out onto the table. He opens it with a key.

Theo rises and looks inside the box. It contains a steel cylinder eighteen inches wide by about thirty long that fills nearly the whole of the interior. The rest of the space is taken up by a small green plastic container the size of a lunch box, on top of which is a keypad and several small LED lights.

“It’s based on the W-82/XM-785 artillery shell from the sixties,” Wazir says, “but it’s a little more advanced. My own design, really. Fifteen kilograms of fissionable material, beryllium reflector, weighs less than a hundred pounds. It’s a linear implosion device. The fissile material is formed into an egg shape and it’s surrounded by a cylinder of high explosive rigged for simultaneous detonation at each end. An inert wave-shaper channels the shock wave so as to compress the egg into a spheroid to achieve supercriticality. The calculated yield, best case, would be over two kilotons, but I’d be happy with one point five or even one. Of course I haven’t tested it, but the math is right and the people I used for the assembly were all Dara artisans. I figured anyone who could
manufacture a perfect working replica of a Beretta nine-millimeter out of an old crankshaft could do the job. The firing sequence runs off IGBT transistors rather than krytron tubes, not as efficient but a lot more available. I had the boards custom made in Malaysia and wrote the software myself. This is one of six.”

He smiles like a schoolboy who has given the right answer. Then he sees that Theo is pointing the pistol at him and he frowns a little.

“Why are you pointing that at me, Theo?” he asks.

“Why? Fuck it, Wazir, you’re my brother, but I’m not going to let you blow up an American city with that thing.”

Wazir looks stunned; he gapes. “An American city? Why on earth would I do such a thing? That’s crazy!”

“Thank you. That’s a good description of al-Qaeda.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Theo! There’s no such thing as al-Qaeda. Was there such a thing as
the
jihad? You were there. It’s just different factions. Sometimes they cooperate; sometimes they fight. Some of them are maniacs; some of them are perfectly reasonable people trying to fix an intolerable situation, which is the oppression and humiliation of the umma. Sure there are some who’d love to destroy New York or Tel Aviv, but I’d be a maniac myself if I listened to them. You saw what happened when those idiots knocked down two office buildings on 9/11. Can you imagine what America would do, what Israel would do, if we blew up one of their
cities
? They have
thousands
of nuclear missiles. They’d massacre every Muslim in the world.”

“So what are you going to do with them?”

Sonia says, “He’s going to blow up Ras Tanura.”

“What?” says Theo.

“It’s the Saudi oil terminal. Ten percent of the world’s oil supply flows through it,” she says.

“Yes,” says Wazir, “and we will also take out the Khor-el-Amaya terminal in Iraq and Kharg Island in Iran. The other bombs will go to the giant Saudi fields, Ghawar and either Khurais or Manita, I haven’t decided. All at once, of course. The world oil supply will be reduced for a period of several years by about forty percent. Yes, they can rebuild, but it’s going to be hard to do in radiation suits in eighty centigrade heat.”

Theo looks at his mother, remembering her television interview.

“This was your idea.”

“I was speaking theoretically,” she says. “I had no idea he was going to put it into actual practice. He’s going to kill thousands of people. Do you think I wanted
that
?”

Theo realizes that his gun is pointing at her and he moves it away. He says, “Mother, just once I wish you’d tell me the truth.”

“That
is
the truth,” she says. “Ask him.”

Theo turns to Wazir. “Well?”

“Does it matter?” Wazir says. “Really? Ideas cause events. That’s the story of the twentieth century. Do you think that the theoretical anti-Semites, respectable people all of them, all the intellectual race theorists, ever imagined Auschwitz? Or earnest European communists ever imagined the Gulag or Katyn Forest? What did I learn from her in all those years, Theo, when she was more my mother than she was yours? That oil is the curse of the umma; that it is inherently corrupting, worse than slavery; that Wahabi puritanism funded by oil is essentially a fraud, a fig leaf the Saudis use to salve their consciences while they live like emperors; that what the umma needs more than anything is to be left alone to find its way back to God; and that it will never be left alone as long as the oil flows smoothly out of the terminals. So that’s one reason why I am going to turn off the taps.”

“What’s the other reason?” asks Theo, after a pause.

Wazir’s face changes, and Sonia sees the mujahid boy flash out again, a startling resurrection, and in thick Pashto he says, “Revenge, of course. I am a Pashtun, after all.”

“Revenge for what?”

“For
everything
!” cries Wazir. “Against being manipulated. Against being treated like a tool. Against the arrogance that believed I could be treated so. Against the arrogance that allows a tenth of the world to live in peace, comfort, and security, ignoring the miseries of the rest. Against the idea of collateral damage. Against the lazy stupidity of the Americans and the diligent hypocrisy of the oil sheikhs. That world has to be smashed. It can’t go on. But I am only one man and that’s all I could think of. Is that enough?”

“It’s enough,” says Theo. “But I can’t let you do it, brother.”

“Why not? Don’t you feel the same way?”

“It doesn’t matter what I feel. I’m a soldier and you’re an enemy. It’s an honor thing. Where are the other bombs?”

“What if I don’t tell you? Will you torture me?”

“Don’t be stupid, Wazir!”

“She knows,” says Wazir, pointing at Sonia. “She helped me set up the networks under the noses of her CIA masters, and it was easy because none of them could imagine blowback on this scale. You could torture her as well.”

Theo looks at his mother, and she thinks it is the same look he wore when he was a little boy and she came home from her long journeys, a look that said,
Why did you leave me? What did I do wrong
? A look that is a window into a heart that can never be healed.

“Is he right, Mom?” Theo asks. “Is he telling the truth?”

She says, “Why did you come, Theo? You’re not supposed to be involved in this.”

“Well, I’m sure as hell involved now. So tell me! He’s blowing smoke, isn’t he? I get the CIA connection, I get the whole Trojan horse thing. But you didn’t know about the bombs, did you? You didn’t help him plan this?”

Sonia remains silent. She can hear her own breathing and Theo’s and the faint sounds of the village night, someone coughing, the distant rumble of a truck, a night creature calling, the wind. It goes on, this silence, for a long while, it is almost a contemplative silence, she thinks, waiting for God to speak, but at last it is Wazir who speaks.

“You know, Theo, I’m not sure you understand your mother. She’s a very strange person, and I say this as someone who has met some very strange people indeed. Did you know she followed a Sufi pir all through the trip to Central Asia? She didn’t put that into the book. An odd brand of Islam, really. They believe that everything written about God is in some sense wrong, because if you propose a complete picture of God, it’s not God by definition, because God is beyond all human description. And it follows that Saint Paul was somewhat wrong and the Gospels are somewhat wrong and the Prophet, peace be on him, was somewhat wrong too. God doesn’t make deals with His creatures. He’s always a surprise, and trying to chain Him to a human religion is folly. That’s what she taught me and I believe it, because otherwise the world does not make a bit of sense.”

He laughs, a little hysterically, Sonia thinks, but Theo doesn’t even smile. Grimly, still covering Wazir with his pistol, he rummages in his pack and pulls out a coil of rope and what looks like a cheap portable radio.

“What are you doing, Theo?” she asks.

“I’m going to tie up Wazir, Mom. And then I’m going to call my control and tell them I’ve located the nuke and for them to come and get it. And us. Wazir, put your hands behind you.”

Theo moves behind the chair with his rope, and the moment he is thus distracted, Sonia stands, snatches up the AK, and points it at her son.

“Let him go, Theo.”

He looks at her blankly. “What’re you doing?”

“I’m letting Wazir escape. The Americans will lock him up forever. They’ll torture him.”

Again she sees the emotions wash across the screen of his face. He really is a sweet boy at heart, she thinks; there is no real guile in him, or meanness. He says, calmly enough, “And if not, what are you going to do, shoot me?”

“I will certainly disable you. I’m a very good shot, as you know, and I am not going to have Wazir rot in an American prison. I would do exactly the same if the situation were reversed.”

Theo nods and backs away. Wazir rises and speaks a few words to Theo, so softly that Sonia cannot hear them, and then he picks up the duffel bag.

To Sonia he says, grinning again, “I presume I can’t take my bomb.”

“Just go, Wazir,” she says, “and may God protect you.”

“And you also,” he says and goes to the window. He tosses the duffel bag through it and climbs out.

Sonia watches her son raise his pistol and point it at Wazir. She puts the front sight of the AK on her son and her finger on the trigger.

They stand that way for a second or two, like a diorama of some awful historical event, and then Wazir is gone. They can hear his feet scrabbling as he descends the rough wall and the thump as he lands.

Theo clicks his pistol to safe and tosses it on the table.

“Would you really have shot me?” he asks.

“Of course not,” she says. “Would you have shot Wazir?”

“No,” he says, and shrugs helplessly. “Then what the hell was all that about?”

“Reflexes to satisfy our various codes of honor. Insect responses. What will you do now?”

“Like I just said, get on the radio, tell them I’ve secured the nuke, and call in the Rangers. They’ll be here before dawn.”

“They’ll do a lot of damage.”

“That’s what they’re for,” he says, and fiddles with his fake Chinese radio. In a few moments it crackles with voices and Theo speaks cryptic words and numbers into it. He signs off and leaves the thing on the table, a green light glowing on its face.

He says, “This is the safest house in town as long as that beacon is on. They’re going to be very, very careful with our gadget here.”

They both look at the metal case. Sonia shudders and turns her eyes away from it. Theo says, “Yeah, the mind can’t quite grasp it. Two thousand tons of TNT, did he say? It’s like something from another universe. It shouldn’t exist, but there it is. And he built it. I can hardly
look
at the fucking thing, and Wazir
built
it! Tell me, do you think he really has five other bombs out there somewhere?”

“I have no idea. I was astounded that he had even one.”

“Uh-huh,” he grunts: an unbelieving noise.

She sits on the charpoy. Suddenly, in the afterwash of violent emotion, she is exhausted. She would like to be far away from people now, even people she loves. Especially people she loves. Her son, who has done prodigies to rescue her, now leans against the wall, looking out the window from time to time, like a man waiting for a bus. He doesn’t look at her. She knows he is thinking about Wazir, and what Wazir has done, and how she arranged for him to do it. It is a lot to take in; she sympathizes, she hurts with her boy, but her therapeutic skills do not help her now, the wonderful gearing of her empathic faculty will not turn in the thick gel of familial love. Still, there is the instinct to reach out.

“Theo,” she says, “come sit by me. I want to talk with you.”

He clumps over and sits, sullen.

“What are you thinking about?”

A shrug. He has regressed to sixteen.

“No, really, Theo,” she presses.

“Really? Okay, I was thinking about Hughes.”

“Who?”

“Wally Hughes. You know, from Special Forces. We went through jump school at Benning together and all through SFQC at Bragg. There was me and Buck Claiborne and Billy Olin and Hughes. I think you met him once, at Benning that time you came down, when I graduated.”

“Oh, yes?”

“Yeah. Anyway, Hughes had a wife, Laura, and two little girls, one of them three years old and the other just a baby, and he was crazy about them: he had the picture in the helmet, he e-mailed every day when he could, the whole nine yards. This was in the early part of Iraq, the goat fuck. He kept getting extended. They’d give him fifteen-day leaves, but they wouldn’t let him rotate home, because they were so short they were using Special Forces joes as regular line infantry, just to keep the lid on. Well, in the early part of ’05, I think it was, Laura cracked. She wrote him a dear john, sorry and all that, but she’d met someone and she was moving away. She was frightened of him, frightened about the way he was when he came home. She was scared he was turning into one of the guys she’d heard about, who comes home and kills his family and himself. Hughes didn’t say shit to any of us, just kept on trooping, except he started to volunteer for dangerous stuff. He was always on point, always the first one through the door. He got a Silver Star and a DSC.”

“He was trying to commit suicide?”