Blue Warrior

“But you had the best weapons. Did your technology fail you?” Mossa asked.

Pearce shook his head. “No. The technology worked fine. We killed many, many more of them than they killed of us.”

“And yet you are the ones who quit the war. You, yourself, left. So your technology did fail.” Mossa pointed at Moctar, head devoutly touching his prayer rug. Mossa whispered. “Moctar loves his people, but he loves Allah even more. Such men are more dangerous than drones.”

“Even to you?” Pearce asked.

“Yes. Even to me. He is al-Qaeda Sahara.”

“What?” Early couldn’t believe it. “Then why is he here?”

“Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.” Mossa winked. “He will only put a bullet in me if he is ordered to. He loves me like a father, and his people. He is a good man, as well as devout. Besides, even the prophet Jesus had his Judas, did he not? Not that I am a prophet or even the son of a prophet.”

“The muj always knew that they would win simply by not losing,” Pearce said, using the pejorative slang word for mujahideen. “They were willing to die by the tens of thousands. They bought time with their blood. But I agree. Technology is never a substitute for the will to win.”

“So many needless deaths,” Cella added. “On both sides.”

“They started it,” Early said. “I’m just sorry we didn’t finish it.”

“And how would you finish it?” Cella demanded.

“Kill every last motherfucking one of them,” Early said.

“‘Them’?” she asked.

Early’s eyes narrowed. “The muj. The crazy bastards. The terrorists.”

“They call us terrorists,” Cella said. She meant Mossa and her adopted family.

“I don’t know who ‘they’ are. But I know you. You’re the good guys.”

“And if you didn’t know us?”

“But I do. I’m here, aren’t I?”

“Imbecilli!” She flipped a dismissive hand in the air.

“Daughter, please.” Mossa raised his head. “These are our guests.”

“I’m sorry.” Cella wrapped her arms around her raised knees and buried her face, hiding from the conversation.

Mossa turned back to Pearce. “So you stopped fighting the war, and yet you are still a warrior. Both of you.”

“Not for America.”

“Why not?”

“You don’t understand. Our politicians are corrupt.”

“You Americans. You are so quick to change everyone else’s government. Perhaps you should change your own.”

“That’s called treason where we come from,” Early said.

Mossa smiled. “Truth is always treason to the wicked. Was not George Washington a traitor to the British Crown?”

“I’m no politician,” Pearce said. “And the country is divided.”

“Ha!” Mossa laughed. “You don’t know the Imohar, do you? We have a little unity now because everyone else is trying to kill us. When the outside threat is gone, watch what my people will do to each other again.”

“What do you mean?”

“The MNLA wants Azawad — a separate Tuareg nation. But Ansar Dine wants sharia law, not Tuareg law, al-Murabitoun wants to wage jihad against foreigners, and AQS wants a West African caliphate. But worst of all, most of our people have settled in the cities driving trucks or in the villages raising sheep and selling tires and tobacco, and are forgetting our ways altogether.”

“So why do you still fight? Every government around here wants the Tuareg fighters to surrender, and want you dead.”

Mossa ran his fingers along the takouba blade, his fingertips gliding over carved images in the metal.

“The men who make our swords are called Ineden. Do you know this term?”

“Blacksmith?” Pearce offered.

“Yes, that is what they do, but Ineden are also a separate caste of people. They have their own special language and, it is said, their own magical powers, which they breathe into these swords as they make them. Do you understand?”

“No.”

“The Ineden are forged, by God, to make swords. I am Ihaggaren, forged in God’s furnace to wield the sword. Like you, I am a warrior. Do you not see? The warrior is given by God to serve his people. I win my war by being faithful to God and to my people. What they do with their victory, inshallah, is up to them. That is why you are miserable, Troy. You are a ronin, a masterless warrior. You know this term?”

“I’m surprised you do, but I don’t know why I’m surprised by anything you say anymore,” Early said.

“When a samurai no longer had a master, he sold his services or turned to crime,” Pearce said. “Or killed himself.”

“No. When a samurai no longer had a master, he was no longer a samurai. He lost his purpose.” Mossa turned to Early. “A samurai is devoted to his master, not to war. Serving his master was his true purpose. Did you know this? Or have you not read The Hagakure?”

“When did you read it?” Pearce asked. He had been assigned it as a text at The Farm years ago.

“When I was a young man, younger than you. It meant nothing to me at the time. But my Russian instructor had insisted on it, despite its being a ‘remnant of bourgeois classism,’ or some such nonsense.”

Pearce couldn’t help but smile. Had the Soviets copied the CIA curriculum, or the other way around?

“How long were you in the Soviet Union?” Pearce asked.