The Religion War (12 page)

"Screw you."

"I will be back for your answer in two days."

Al-Zee enjoyed the daylight of Qadum, knowing it could be his last chance to feel the sun. His bodyguards cut a wide swath through the outdoor marketplace, staring down anyone who dared to look directly at their leader. Al-Zee made a point to stop at every other merchant's stand and examine the goods. The bodyguards purchased merchandise on his behalf, as a show of respect. It was good public relations. His mood was somber, weighed down by thoughts of the upcoming war. He replayed in his mind the path of his life and wondered what he could have done differently.

Al-Zee was educated in a madrassa, where he learned to be a believer. He was an exceptional student who had memorized every line of the Koran by the time he was eight years old. When he was a teen he was already active in the underground efforts to destroy Israel and overthrow the pro-Western dictators of the Arab countries. By the age of nineteen he had become a protege of the most successful planner in Al Qaeda and soon found himself running operations of his own with spectacular success. He wanted to become a martyr, but his partners in Jihad recognized him as too valuable to waste.

His most notable early success was the simultaneous assassination of President Kendal of the United States and Prime Minister Kent of the United Kingdom in 2010. It took three years of planning to place the tons of explosives under city blocks in both Washington, D.C., and London. And it took another year to create fake political fund-raising events that would lure his targets to the traps at precisely the same times.

After American Special Forces, operating on a tip, located and killed the leader of Al Qaeda, al-Zee was the logical successor— young, brilliant, completely dedicated to the cause. He immediately put into place the "Israel Strategy," which was to become his springboard to complete control of the Middle East.

The Israel Strategy involved convincing the Palestinians to accept a disingenuous peace in return for international promises of massive reconstruction aid. They would wait, letting prosperity accomplish what terrorist attacks could not. Al-Zee was the first Muslim leader to realize that the only way they could lose the fight with Israel was to continue fighting. Peace meant inevitable victory; it just required patience. Al-Zee's reputation allowed him to preach patience to an impatient people. His credibility was unapproachable. So they made peace, and they waited.

Demographics favored the Muslims, who were having children at three times the rate of the Jewish population, thanks to financial inducements arranged by al-Zee. By 2035, it was clear that Muslims were heading toward a voting majority in Israel. The Israeli government hoped to solve the problem by restricting voting rights for non-Jews. This was exactly what al-Zee had foreseen. Israel was filled with, and surrounded by, a massive population of angry young men who preferred death to the apartheid and humiliation they were being asked to accept. After years of lying low, al-Zee focused the anger of the majority, who were by then universally armed, and working and living amongst the Jewishminority.

The overrun lasted less than two days. It was mostly hand-to-hand fighting with knives, small arms, and homemade explosives. The military was helpless because the violence was everywhere at the same time, in every block, every street, every housing development. Human waves of martyrs stormed military bases. Over a million Muslims died that day, eventually exhausting the ammunition of the Israeli army and the armed Jewish civilians. With their superior numbers, the element of surprise, and a willingness to die as martyrs, al-Zee's citizen Jihadists prevailed. The Jewish Israeli men stayed and fought to the last, along with most of the fighting age women. The older women and children were allowed to escape on foot, streaming out of the cities and towns and eventually ending up in refugee camps.

To the rest of the world it became known as the Second Holocaust, an unfathomable and black moment in history, dwarfing the First Holocaust in both scope and savagery. It happened so quickly that the world didn't know how to respond. By the end of the second day there were so few Jews left in Israel that military intervention seemed useless. Countries condemned the atrocities in the strongest words, but they were only words. Some countries threatened embargoes but needed the oil and so found reasons to back off. A feeling of shame and helplessness gripped the Judeo-Christian world, plunging it into a collective mental depression, and making it ripe for the rise of a man like General Horatio Cruz.

Al-Zee's status as the architect of the victory over Israel grew to enormous heights. He turned his influence against the pro-Western governments of the Arab countries.The "corrupt leaders," as he called them, were soon deposed and replaced by al-Zee's people. Al-Zee believed that his success was proof that Allah was on his side. He found it harder and harder to distinguish between his own opinions and those that were coming directly from Allah.

Now the endgame was approaching. Peace with the Christian Affiance was impossible because his own citizens would kill him if he even suggested peace. The Muslims felt like winners, and they couldn't imagine that God would let them lose after letting them win for so long. Al-Zee couldn't win a conventional war against Cruz's military superiority, but he knew he would survive underground while the world above him was annihilated. That was his plan, should the war become unstoppable.Two billion of his followers would perish aboveground. But in the end, in a few decades, after all civilization aboveground was killed, starved, or died of disease, only Muslims from belowground would be left to repopulate the world as Allah intended. It would be the dawn of the Final Age, when Islam would rule the world for the rest of time.

The sounds and colors of the marketplace began to melt together for al-Zee as he walked, captured by his own thoughts. His arms and legs were heavy with fatigue, and his breathing was shallow, but he tried not to show it. He even managed a smile now and then. He walked past merchants hawking vegetables, clothing, guns, and herbs. There were street performers too, ever since al-Zee had passed a law allowing more forms of entertainment. He stood and watched a juggler manipulate a ball, a clay pot, and a flaming torch. His bodyguards dropped some coins in the entertainers bowl.

And then al-Zee saw him. A chill ran the length of his spine, an odd sensation in hundred-degree heat. His bodyguards noticed al-Zee's sudden distress and looked around to see if there was a threat. Noticing nothing unusual, they turned to examine more closely where al-Zee was looking, at a street magician.

The magician recognized al-Zee by his distinctive clothing and the cluster ofbodyguards, and bowed respectfully before offering a show. "Would you like to see this camel disappear?" he asked, motioning to a raggedy-looking beast behind him. The bodyguards laughed. They knew a camel couldn't disappear, but they appreciated the magician's sense of humor and anticipated the punch line.

Al-Zee said nothing. He just stared at the magician, trying to remember exactly what the Avatar had said. Al-Zee figured it was a coincidence that he'd noticed this magician today, nothing more. There was probably a magician on every street corner, although he had never noticed one in Qadum.

"I'll take that as a yes," said the magician as he guided the camel to his side and started his act. "This simple camel of flesh and blood and bone," he began, until a worried-looking messenger on foot interrupted the show.

"I have an important message for al-Zee," exhaled the messenger toward a bodyguard before gulping more oxygen. "The old man, the one named Avatar, has escaped."

"Escaped?"
asked al-Zee.

"Yes," said the messenger, heart beating and eye twitching. "Both guards are dead. We found them today. It looks like they shot each other. We think it happened yesterday or the day before. No one knows."

Al-Zee looked at the ground, trying to process the news.The Avatar must have had help.There was no other explanation.

"We must return now," he said to his bodyguards before taking a step and stopping. "Wait." Al-Zee turned to the magician, only to see him standing alone, the camel already gone. "Where is the camel?"

"It disappeared," said the magician with undisguised pride.

"To where?" al-Zee asked, impatiently.

"I...urn...am not at liberty to tell you. It's against the magicians' code."

Al-Zee glared at the magician. He didn't need to repeat the question. His look was enough. The magician's knees started to shake, and he felt asthmatic. As much as he didn't want to violate the magicians' code, he also wanted to live. He hoped there was a middle ground. Maybe al-Zee would be satisfied with seeing the camel return.

"You will see him again soon," the magician stuttered. "When you least expect it." Indeed, that was how the illusion was designed. The magician would normally make a few more things disappear: a hat, an olive branch, and a colorful scarf. When the camel returned, it would be wearing the scarf and hat, with the olive branch in its teeth. The whole act would be ruined if he brought back the camel now, already adorned with items that hadn't yet disappeared.

Several thoughts flooded al-Zee's mind. He wanted to punish the magician, but it would be bad for his image, and he would regret it later. Al-Zee decided that it didn't matter. It was just a magic trick, and he didn't want the Avatar or the magician to get in his head. He had more important things to do. Al-Zee grumbled and turned to leave.The magician's words stuck in his mind.
You will see him again soon.

Not likely,
thought al-Zee, exiting the market.

Al-Zee's anger subsided as he passed through the extensive security layers to Lower Qadum. By the time he reached his living quarters he was almost calm. He didn't like mysteries, especially on the precipice of war. Why had the Avatar risked his life to ask a trivial question? How had he escaped? How did the Avatar know that al-Zee would meet a magician, given that al-Zee's walk in the city hadn't been planned?

Al-Zee, alone in his private quarters, arranged a prayer mat on the floor and prepared to kneel. He looked forward to being alone, a rarity lately. A hard sound interrupted him, echoing off the marble walls from a source unknown. Perhaps a bodyguard was resting his gun against the door. Al-Zee knelt, then succumbed to the temptation to investigate. He opened his door to see the bodyguards standing twenty feet away, guns over their shoulders.They assured him that no one had been near the door. Al-Zee closed the door and considered that maybe something in the washroom had fallen over, or perhaps the ventilation system was expanding from the heat; sometimes it did that. Strange sounds weren't the only intrusion. Now he could smell something. Something familiar—an odor he recognized from childhood. Wet camel hair.

Al-Zee walked cautiously toward his washroom, not sure if he could still smell the wet camel hair or not. It felt as much a memory as a smell. He heard another noise similar to the first, this time clearly from the interior of his quarters.There was only one place from which both the sound and the smell could be originating— inside his washroom. Suddenly al-Zee recognized the noises. They were hooves on stone, like a camel shifting its weight. The magician's words floated back into al-Zee's mind.
You will see him again soon.
Apparently this was part of the trick. Obviously the bodyguards were in on it, mistakenly thinking that al-Zee would appreciate the humor of a camel appearing in his washroom. He was not amused.There would be consequences.

The hallway to the washroom was dark. Al-Zee approached cautiously, angrily. He could see shapes through the open washroom door. Darkness took form, morphing in his mind until the shapes had substance and purpose. There it was: the silhouette of a camel's neck, head, and ears, mostly obscured by dark.

Al-Zee turned and stormed to the main door, yanked it open, and lit into his body guards.They had no idea what he was yelling about, but it soon became clear that he wanted something removed from his washroom and he wasn't amused. They ran in that direction, hoping to figure it out on the way. They had never seen their leader so angry, and they had seen all of his moods. Incandescent lights flooded the washroom and illuminated the corners.The bodyguards looked around, then exchanged nervous glances. Someone would have to tell al-Zee that there was nothing unusual in his washroom. No one wanted thatjob.

General Cruz told Waters to enter his office and close the door behind him. Cruz opened a cabinet and took out a bottle of whiskey and two glasses.

"Sit down, Lieutenant," he ordered in a softer
voice
than normal.

Waters pulled out a chair and sat. Cruz placed a glass of whiskey in front of him, then settled in the big chair behind the desk before downing a mouthful.

"Drink it," Cruz ordered.

"I don't drink, sir," answered Waters.

"Why not? Do you have alcoholics in your family?" asked Cruz.

"Not anymore, sir," said Waters, looking away.

"Right. Sorry." Cruz took another drink and plunked the glass on the desk, leaned forward on his elbows, and looked into Waters' eyes. "Tell me what you think of this whole thing, Lieutenant."

"What whole thing, sir?"

"You know what I mean, damn it. The war. Tell me what you think of the war."

"I'm just one opinion, sir."

"You're also the only person who isn't afraid of me. Hell, you're not afraid of anything.You're dead inside, Waters. And that makes you useful to me. You're the only one who won't lie."

"I doubt that is true, sir."

"See that?You're the only person to tell me I'm wrong in five years, except for that old fool with the blanket. By the way, where is he?"

"We followed him to one of al-Zee's sleeper cells.That's how we confirmed that al-Zee has biological weapons. The whole basement was full of the stuff, and enough GPS-guided microplanes to spread them over the entire city."

"Where's the old coot now?"

"We lost him in Qadum.We think he went to see al-Zee."