True Allegiance

Mohammed looked down at his cheap Casio watch. Andrei was already twenty minutes late. Wild thoughts ran through Mohammed’s head. Had Andrei been followed by the Americans? Had he been taken out of play by the Israelis? What if every minute he stayed here, the Zionists were drawing closer? He had heard the stories about the Jewish devils, about how they had blown the heads off of nuclear scientists with their headrest bombs, about how their computer specialists had stifled the Iranian nuclear program. If they knew what he was planning, the sons of pigs and monkeys would surely take him out of play.

Even as the panicked thoughts played with Mohammed’s mind, a short, balding man in khaki pants and a white button-down shirt walked into the café. He was sweating profusely, and his shirt was stained through already. In his right hand, he rolled a small suitcase. He was struggling with its weight, cursing softly as he rolled it over his own feet.

A waiter approached him and asked if he wanted to store his bag. “No,” the man said in fluent Persian. “I have just checked out of the hotel, and I wish to keep it with me. But I do have a bad back. Could you wheel it to my table?”

The waiter bowed, smiled, scraped—good tips were hard to come by. He ushered the man to Mohammed’s table; the short man handed him a five-euro note and waved him away. He sat down across from Mohammed silently. Mohammed looked him up and down. “You’re Andrei?”

The man nodded, amused. “You expected Dolph Lundgren, perhaps?”

A puzzled expression crossed Mohammed’s face. “Who?”

The Russian guffawed, rolled his eyes. “But of course.” He motioned for the waiter and ordered a few pieces of gaz. The waiter complied immediately.

“I love the service here,” said Andrei. He scarfed down one of the pieces of white pastry. “Delicious.”

Mohammed shifted in his seat uneasily. “Can we get this over with?”

“Nonsense,” said the Russian. “It’s not often I get to eat this well in this country. Besides, if we get up now, we’ll only look rushed and suspicious. What’s your hurry?”

Andrei took his time with the pastries, then ordered a cup of coffee. By the time he’d completed his meal, another twenty minutes were gone. Mohammed kept glancing at his watch. Finally, he’d had enough. “Sir,” he said, his coal-bright eyes burning, “I wish to consummate our business.”

Andrei sighed. “Ah, well. Speed is for the young. Let us walk outside.”

Mohammed paid. Andrei thanked him, then got up. They walked outside, and Andrei hailed a taxi. After a few blocks, Andrei told the driver to pull over and let him out. He left the suitcase in the trunk.

As the taxi was about to drive away, the short Russian tapped on Mohammed’s window. Mohammed rolled it down. “Good luck,” he said in English. Mohammed nodded.

Mohammed watched him walk down a bright alleyway and lose himself in a local marketplace. Then he turned to the driver again.

“Take me to the airport,” he said.

Part 2 COLLAPSE

Brett

Tehran, Iran

“TOMORROW.”

The word hung in the air for a moment. Spoken in Arabic. Not meant for his ears. Brett was sure of that. He couldn’t see a thing—the blindfold over his eyes prevented him from seeing the room. But the next words confirmed Brett’s worst fears; he recognized the voice.

“Welcome, General Hawthorne,” said Ibrahim Ashammi, in a clipped accent.

Brett’s captors forced him to his knees. He felt them hit stone. Then he felt a sweaty hand remove the blindfold. Before him stood the world’s most well-known terrorist since Osama bin Laden. Smiling.

“I hope you weren’t too mistreated on your journey here,” Ashammi said, turning his back to him. “We wouldn’t want a famous war hero victimized by—how did you put it in your interviews—‘barbarians’?”

Brett kept his mouth shut. He knew how this would go, and he knew that the taunting presaged something far more frightening. Instead of listening to Ashammi’s monologue, Brett quietly scanned the room for tools, anything he could use. He almost didn’t notice when Ashammi turned back around, thrust his face just inches from his own. Brett could smell his breath, the faint vestiges of chelo khoresh still on it. “General Hawthorne,” Ashammi said, “I know you, and that you are a resourceful man. I also know that your country is a paper tiger, and that your president is a weakling. Weaklings watch as the world burns around them, thinking they are safe because they have a mirror, and they are lost in the reflection. That is why your country will lose.”

Finally, Brett spoke. “America doesn’t lose. We just convince ourselves not to win. You’re the ones who will lose. We don’t have to tape beheadings to frighten people into joining us.”