Against All Enemies mm-1 Page 8

  While Jorge often had a few days’ growth of stubble on his chin, which he’d explained away by saying he’d been too busy to shave (and that always drew a frown, because one of the richest men in the world couldn’t find the time to shave?), on this evening he was clean-shaven, with the sharp jaw of a movie star. He grinned and waved to the crowd as he literally jogged away from the bar and ran up to the lectern to give Arturo a big hug.

  But then he pulled back and began to wring his brother-in-law’s neck, drawing more laughter from the crowd. He released Arturo and went to the microphone.

  “I asked him to never talk about me crying over the homework, but it’s true, ladies and gentlemen, it’s true. I guess I’ve always been passionate about school — in one way or another!”

  Miguel glanced over at Sonia, who sat there, rapt. Jorge had that effect on everyone, and while it sometimes made Miguel jealous, he couldn’t have been more proud of his father, and he knew Sonia would find him utterly amazing, as most people did.

  For the next fifteen minutes they sat, listened, and watched the guided tour of the work the foundation had done to build new schools, to equip classrooms with state-of-the-art technology, to hire the best teachers available from both Mexico and neighboring countries. Jorge even provided statistics and test scores to validate the work they were doing. But the most convincing argument came from the students themselves.

  Jorge shifted aside and allowed an entire fourth-grade class to line up behind the lectern, and three of the students, two boys and a girl, spoke articulately about the improvements at their school. They were the cutest kids Miguel had ever seen, and they no doubt tugged heavily on the heartstrings of everyone present.

  And when they were finished, Jorge concluded by urging everyone to make further donations before they left. He gestured to the kids. “We must invest in our future,” he told them, lifting his voice. “And that continues tonight. Enjoy your dinner, everyone! And thank you!”

  As he left the lectern, Jorge was joined by his girlfriend, Alexsi, a stunning blonde who’d been standing by at the bar with him. He’d met her while on a business trip to Uzbekistan, and it was clear to all why he’d been so attracted to her. She had eyes as bright and green as Gula, the Afghan girl who’d famously appeared on the cover of National Geographic magazine. Her father was a Supreme Court judge who’d been nominated by the president of the country, and she was an attorney herself who didn’t look a day over thirty. Miguel knew his father could not abide a woman with whom he could not have an intelligent conversation. She spoke English, Spanish, and Russian quite proficiently, and she was a student of world affairs. Most surprisingly, she had outlasted all of his father’s other female friends. They’d been dating for nearly a year now.

  Miguel had been wondering about a collection of seats on the far left-hand side of the yard, and when he looked again, those seats had been filled by a live orchestra, which began to play a subtle Jobim bossa nova.

  Alexsi glided over to her chair, which was drawn from the table by Jorge, and she took her seat and grinned at everyone.

  “Well, I see the world travelers are finally back from Spain,” said Rojas, beaming at Sonia. “And it’s very good to see you again, Ms. Batista.”

  “And good to see you, too, sir. Thank you for the presentation. That was incredible.”

  “We can’t do enough for those kids, can we?” He drifted into a thought. “Oh, forgive my terrible manners,” he added quickly, turning to Alexsi. “This is my friend Alexsi Gorbotova. Alexsi, this is my son’s friend Sonia Batista.”

  As the pleasantries were exchanged, Miguel recoiled a bit while waiters came around and filled their wineglasses. He stole a glance at the label: Château Mouton Rothschild Pauillac, bottled in 1986. Miguel loved the wine and knew each bottle sold for more than five hundred dollars. Again, he wouldn’t share the price with Sonia, but she lifted the glass to her nose and her eyes grew wide.

  Jorge lifted his glass. “A toast to the future of our great country, Mexico! Viva México!”

  Later, Miguel and Sonia slipped away from the table before dessert was served. His father was in an intense conversation with both his uncle and several other local politicians from the area. They had lit up their cigars, and Sonia had found the stench too powerful, the smoke burning her eyes. They retreated to an empty table not far from the orchestra and listened to a surprisingly good rendition of “Samba de Uma Nota Só.” She was impressed that he knew the title of the song. His music education classes weren’t just electives; they were intense. She put her hand over his and said, “Thank you for bringing me here.”

  He laughed. “Do you want the grand tour?”

  “Not now, if that’s okay. I’d just like to sit here and talk.”

  In the distance a siren blared, followed by more sirens. A car accident, perhaps, but not the violence that his uncle had mentioned, the violence that had settled on the city of Juárez like a fog clouding men’s vision and driving them to kill one another. No, it was just a car accident …

  Sonia lifted her chin and stared across the deck. “Alexsi seems nice.”

  “She’s good for my father, but he’ll never marry her.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because he’s never stopped loving my mother. These girls can never compete with her.”

  “It’s okay if you don’t want to answer, but you still haven’t told me how she died.”

  He frowned. “I thought I did.”

  “That was your other girlfriend.”

  He grinned and pretended to punch her arm; then his expression turned serious. “She died of breast cancer. All the money in the world couldn’t save her.”

  “I’m so sorry. How old were you?”

  “Eleven.”

  She nudged in closer, draped her arm over his shoulder. “I’m sure that was very difficult, especially at that age.”

  “Yes. I just wish my father had …I don’t know …learned how to deal with it better. He assumed I would freak out. He thought if I hung around I wouldn’t be able to deal with the pain. So he rushed me off to Le Rosey.”

  “But you told me you liked it there.”

  “I did. But it didn’t have him.”

  She nodded. “I have to be honest. After you told me you went there, I looked it up online. It’s one of the most expensive boarding schools …I mean, anywhere. And you got to go to school in Switzerland. That’s fantastic.”

  “I guess so. I just …I really missed my father, and we were never the same after that. He didn’t know how to deal with losing her or with raising me, so off I went. I saw him only three or four times a year, and it wasn’t like meeting your dad, more like meeting your boss. I don’t resent him for it. He only wanted the best for me. I just wish, sometimes, I don’t know what I’m saying …Sometimes I think he’s trying to help all these schoolkids because he feels guilty for what happened to me …”

  “Maybe you need to talk to him. I mean, really talk. You keep traveling everywhere. Maybe you need to stay home and get to know each other again.”

  “You’re right. But I don’t know if he’d want to do that. He’s all over the place, too. When you own most of Mexico, you need to keep an eye on things, I guess.”

  “Your father seems like an honest man. I think he’d be honest with you. You just have to talk.”

  “I’m a little apprehensive about that. He’s already got my life planned out for me, and if we get into a conversation, he’s going to hand me a road map. Really, I’m hoping to take off at least the rest of this summer before he puts me to work. Then in the fall it’s off to graduate school.”

  “You didn’t tell me that.”

  “I haven’t told you a lot of things. Remember how you said you wanted to move to California?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, in the fall, we can move there together. I’ll be going to school, and you can be with me, maybe find a job at one of the studios, like you said.”

  She gasped. “
That would be amazing! Oh, wow, I could really find something that—”

  She broke off suddenly, and her expression soured.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “You know my father will never let me do any of this.”

  “I’ll talk to him.”

  “That won’t work.” She lowered her voice to mimic her dad. “His ‘stubborn dedication to quality’ is what made him successful — at least that’s the way he phrases it. And his stubborn dedication to his daughter is the same.”

  “Then I’ll have my father talk to him.”

  “What are you saying, Miguel?” She hoisted her perfectly tweezed eyebrows.

  “I’m saying that your father wants to make you happy. And trust me — I can do that. I can make you very happy. Well, at least I’ll try my best.”

  “You already have…” She leaned toward him, and their kiss was deep and passionate, and it quickened Miguel’s pulse.

  When they finished, he turned away and found his father staring at them from across the deck. Jorge waved them over.

  “Here we go,” Miguel said with a sigh. “He’s going to ask my opinion on every global crisis — and God help me if I don’t have one …”

  “No worries,” said Sonia. “I’ll offer mine if you don’t.”

  He grinned and took Sonia’s hand. “Excellent.”

  6 VERSE OF THE SWORD

  Shawal Area

  North Waziristan

  The chief of the Shawal tribes had called an important meeting to be held at his mud-brick fort down in the Mana Valley, but Mullah Abdul Samad had no intentions of attending. Instead, while the chief’s misharans began to gather outside the fort, he remained on the hilltop, crouched beside a stand of trees, along with his two most trusted lieutenants, Atif Talwar and Wajid Niazi.

  Samad had detected movement on the opposite hillside, and on closer inspection with his binoculars, he marked two men, one dark-haired and bearded, the other much younger and leaner, his beard thin and short. They were dressed like tribesmen, but one consulted a satellite phone and what Samad assumed was a portable GPS unit.

  Talwar and Niazi studied the men themselves, and while both were still in their twenties, nearly half Samad’s age, he’d spent the last two years training them, and they both offered the same assessment of their visitors: They were advance scouts for American intelligence, for the Pakistan Army, or even for an American Special Forces unit. The chief’s foolish and poorly trained men had not picked up these two, and so his forces would pay the price for their ineptitude.

  The chief liked to throw the tribal code of conduct into the faces of government officials. He liked to threaten the Army and point out its losses in South Waziristan as an example of what would happen if they attacked him. He said the government should know that his people would use the tribal codes and councils like the jirgas to find answers to their problems and needed the government’s help with only the basic necessities of life, not with how to rule their people. He assured them that his people would never harbor criminals, that there were no “foreigners” in Shawal, and that bringing harm to his people and their land was the farthest thing from his mind. But the chief wasn’t a very good liar, and Samad would make sure he died for that …perhaps not today …or tomorrow …but soon.

  The scouts did not move as they surveyed the surrounding valleys with their own binoculars. They seemed particularly interested in the long lines of apple trees that curved down the hill, toward more rows of apricots. Fields had been hewn into some of the steepest hills overlooking the village, and the trees did make for good cover. These men had indeed spotted a few of the chief’s guards posted on the perimeter. But they were hardly paying attention to the spies behind them, and once more Samad could only shake his head in disgust.

  The American and Pakistani governments had good reason to believe that the tribes here were sheltering Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters; the Datta Khail and Zakka Khail tribesmen had been known for hundreds of years for their deep bonds of loyalty and for their land being a natural sanctuary for rebels. The current chief was no exception, except that he’d been receiving a lot of pressure from the Americans now, and Samad thought it was only a matter of time before he succumbed to their force and betrayed him and the forty other men training here on the Pakistan side of Shawal and about ten kilometers away, within the Afghan side of the area.

  After September 11, 2001, the Pakistan Army entered the area with a mission to secure the border against Northern Alliance soldiers pushing eastward from Afghanistan. While there could have (and in Samad’s opinion, should have) been a confrontation, the local tribes welcomed them, and check posts were established. In the years to follow, the tribal leaders would regret that mistake, as many near and dear to them were killed by American drones and daisy cutter bombs because the Americans suspected there were terrorists in the area. The Americans would offer an apology and pathetic reparations, even as they murdered civilians in the name of justice.

  In recent months, however, the tribesmen had come to their senses and had been refusing requests from both the Americans and the Pakistani government. There had been, for a few years, a tribal lashkar formed, and it was this group’s mission to arrest all fugitives and resistance fighters within the Shawal area. Only a few days prior, the chief had received word from Islamabad that officials were not pleased with the lashkar’s performance and that the Army might need to return in great numbers to the area to weed out the fugitives. Samad and his people, along with their leader, Mullah Omar Rahmani, who was presently in the Afghan area, had struck a deal: If the Army returned, the Taliban and Al-Qaeda forces would equip and reinforce the tribesmen against any attacks. Moreover, Rahmani had assured the chief that he would be paid handsomely for his assistance. Rahmani had no shortage of funds so long as the poppies continued to grow and the opium bricks continued shipping overseas. Their most recent deal with the Juárez Cartel of Mexico would make them the major provider of opium into that country if the cartel was able to crush its enemies. While Mexico had never been one of the major buyers of Afghan-produced opium, Rahmani planned to change that and have his product better compete with South America’s cocaine and crystal-meth industries, which provided massive quantities of those drugs to the cartels, who in turn got them into the hands of Americans.

  Samad lowered his binoculars. “They’ll come for us this evening,” he told his lieutenants.

  “How do you know?” asked Talwar.

  “Mark my words. The scouts are always a few hours ahead. That’s all. Never more. Rahmani will call to warn us.”

  “What should we do? Can we get all the others out in time? Can we run?” Niazi asked.

  Samad shook his head and lifted an index finger to the sky. “They’re watching us, as always.” He stroked his long beard in thought, and within a minute, a plan congealed. He gestured that they move back and away, keeping closely to the fruit trees and using the ridge to shield themselves from the spies.

  On the other side of the hill lay a small house and large fenced-in pens for goats, sheep, and a half-dozen cows. The farmer who lived there had repeatedly cast an evil eye at Samad when he brought his troops into the valley nearby for target practice. This was a Taliban training ground, and the farmer was well aware of that. He’d been ordered by the tribal chief to assist Samad in any way he could; he had reluctantly agreed. Samad had never spoken to the man, but Rahmani had and had warned Samad that this farmer could not be trusted.

  In times of war, men must be sacrificed. Samad’s father, a mujahideen fighter who had battled the Russians, told him that on the last night he’d seen the man alive. His father had gone off to war carrying an AK-47 rifle and a small, tattered backpack. His sandals were falling apart. He’d looked back at Samad and smiled. There was a gleam in his eye. Samad was an only child. And soon only he and his mother were left in the world.

  Men must be sacrificed. Samad still carried a photo of his father protected by a yellowing plastic film, and when
the nights grew most lonely, he’d stare at the picture and talk to the man, asking if his father was proud of all Samad had accomplished.

  With the help of several world-aid organizations, Samad had managed to finish school in Afghanistan, and he’d been handpicked by yet another aid group so he could enroll at Middlesex University in the UK on a full scholarship. He’d attended their Dubai regional campus, where he’d earned an undergraduate degree in Information Technology and further honed his political interests. It was there at Middlesex that he’d met young members of the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, and Hezbollah. These rebellious spirits helped ignite his naive soul.

  After graduating, he’d traveled with a few friends to Zahedan, a city in southeastern Iran and strategically located in the tri-border region of Pakistan, Iran, and Afghanistan. With finances from the drug trade and the audacious hiring of demolitions experts from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, they created a bomb-making facility. Samad had been placed in charge of building and servicing the facility’s computer network system. They manufactured bombs within cinder bricks, and the bombs were smuggled across the borders into Afghanistan and Pakistan, with all of the deliveries timed, marked, and tracked electronically by the software Samad had created. That was Samad’s first foray into the world of terrorism.

  Jihad was a central duty of all Muslims, but the definition of that word was widely misunderstood, and even Samad had been unsure about it until he’d been taught its true meaning while working at the bomb factory. Some theologians referred to jihad as the struggle within the soul or the defending of the faith from critics, or even migrating to non-Muslim lands for the purpose of spreading Islam. You were striving in the way of Allah. But was there really any form other than violent jihad? The infidels must be purged from the holy lands. They must be destroyed. They were the leaders of injustice and oppression. They were the rejecters of truth, even after it had been made clear to them. They were already destroying themselves and would bring down the rest of the world if they were not stopped.