Cowboy Jihad, Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3

Another double-tap hit the side of the SUV, near the gas tank.

Pete grabbed the mike on the PA system and squeezed the talk button.

“Salaam alaikum,” Pete said. His amplified voice startled him. The PA was obviously still working fine. Another shot hit the driver’s window, impacting next to another fracture, the spider webs joining each other.

“Shit, that window is going to blow out in another round or two,” Dalton shouted. When the windows were blown out the gunmen could circle around, creep up on them and throw a grenade in. Pete hoped that someone would come along the highway and help. But more than likely they wouldn’t want to risk their lives, wouldn’t know what the hell was going on and would keep on driving past.

A thought seized Pete. There was a verse in the Koran that was calming and pacifying. Just reciting it would make Pete feel better and accept death, if that was to be his fate today.

The former Catholic choir boy pushed the talk button again and in a strong, clear voice, began singing The Verse of the Throne, in Arabic.

“Allah, there is no object worthy of worship but Him. The ever-living, the self-subsisting and all-sustaining,” Pete sang.

There was silence. The men had fired no shots since he began singing. Dalton looked over at Pete, astonishment written on his face.

“Don’t shoot,” Pete murmured after letting go of the button on the mike. He drew a breath, pushed the mike button again and continued, his voice drawing out the final syllables of the words, changing the pitch and adding melodious notes.

“Unto Him belongs whatsoever is in the heavens and whatsoever is in the Earth. Who can intercede with Him except by His permission? His throne extends over the heavens and the Earth, and the care of them burdens Him not.”

“Good God,” whispered Dalton.

Pete had been so focused on producing a beautifully sung verse, perhaps his last singing ever, that he had been staring fixedly at the mike and was not watching what was going on outside the car. He peered over the edge of the bullet-scarred window.

The gunmen were leaving.

They had abandoned the cover of the boulder and were walking back to their Mercedes, their AK-47s dangling casually at their sides. They had realized they were firing at at least one Muslim. Not merely one of the faithful but one so devout that he sang The Verse of the Throne from memory, and beautifully.

Pete and Dalton watched the men get in their car, do a U-turn and drive the way they had come.

“You saved us, mate,” Dalton said, his eyes moist. “I thought we were well and truly done for.”

Reaching over from the rear seat, he clapped Pete on the shoulder and gave him a squeeze.

Pete had to urgently take a leak, realizing, now that the extreme tension was over, that his bladder was very full. If the men came back or some other hostiles arrived, he didn’t want his corpse soiled with piss as his involuntary muscles relaxed at the moment of death. He jumped out of the Land Rover and let a stream into the sand, turning it dark.

He walked a few paces, knelt down and pushed his hands into some clean sand. He rubbed two fistfuls of it over his arms and hands, then over his face, performing ablution with no water.

As Roger and Pete were sliding rocks and dry brush under the tires to gain some traction, Pete explained what he had been singing and told Roger the words in English.

“That’s beautiful,” Dalton, brushing his dirty hands on his jeans, said almost reverently. “I will write down and memorize those words. They saved our lives.

“You know,” Dalton said. “Those men may have been bandits, but they respect their religion and they hold in high regard people who are religious, at least those who follow Islam. There are so many religions, but the goal of most religions is that men and women themselves be pure and good. And the religions, most of them anyway, assure mankind that there is an afterlife. That it doesn’t all end when we die.

“The problems happen when someone comes around and twists things, gets all exclusionary and all that. Says unless you do such and such or kneel down before my particular brand of religion you won’t get into heaven because you’re an infidel. Whether it’s Mullah Omar here in Afghanistan or Pat Robertson in your own country, that’s where things get mucked up.”

Pete, kneeling with a rock in his fist, stared dumbfounded at Dalton. Here was a fireplug of a man, buzz-cut red hair with weight-lifter’s biceps, pretty much a mercenary waxing philosophical and showing an open mind.

“Don’t let the accent fool ya, mate,” Dalton said smiling. “I may not have gone to Eton or Oxford but I’ve spent plenty of time in foxholes, waiting for dawn and for the end of my watch. Gives a bloke plenty of time to think.”

They both burst out laughing. The tension of the last hour melted away. They sat in the dust next to their bullet-scarred Land Rover, their laughter so clear in the desolate valley that it rang off the far mountainsides. They were either the craziest, or the sanest, two men in the whole valley.

It was twilight. A full moon had risen, giving the snowy peaks an amber glow as if they possessed their own light, held deep in the granite. The great orb seemed to smile down on them with benevolence.

Pete felt more alive than ever. And more determined than ever to fuck up America’s war machine.