One Rough Man (23 page)

Abu Bakr’s face contorted in anger.

“You
wrote down
the e-mail addresses? What were you thinking?”

“I know—it was stupid, but we aren’t in the Land of Two Rivers, and nobody is actively hunting us. I did memorize them, but this mission was too important to rely on memory. I knew we wouldn’t have the opportunity to conduct a meeting if we forgot them. They were our lifeline! Either way, didn’t you say everyone was dead at Miguel’s? It shouldn’t matter. Allah has guided us to this point, and He will still guide us.”

“You’re proving to be an idiot. One of the dumb little neophytes who believe everything told them, driving a truck full of TNT because they’re told they’re delivering groceries. They make good martyrs but are not of Allah’s chosen. Allah guides those who show they are worthy, not those who spit on his favor. Please tell me you didn’t have the passwords with them.”

Sayyidd couldn’t bring himself to tell the truth. He thought Bakr was acting like an old woman, afraid of his own shadow, but didn’t want to cause him to question the mission. He didn’t believe he had the strength or courage to succeed by himself. Years ago, before giving himself to the jihad, he might have been up to the task, but his experiences in Iraq had paradoxically given him an Achilles’ heel—his complete trust in Allah had left him with no faith in himself. He longed to be like men such as Bakr, but in his heart knew he wasn’t. He held a secret shame that tore at the fabric of his being, an individual weakness that corroded the essence of his capability: He didn’t believe he had the courage to be a
shahid
.

A suicide bomber’s detonator wasn’t pressed by Allah. It was pressed by the man wearing the bomb. A man who executed Allah’s will by his own action. A man like Bakr. Deep inside, Sayyidd questioned whether he had that same strength, afraid of the answer he would find when put to the test. He told Bakr a small white lie to protect the larger one festering in his soul.

“Of course I didn’t keep the addresses with the passwords. I’m not that stupid. They’re just e-mail addresses. They won’t mean anything to anyone at Miguel’s estate. Even if someone goes to them, they’ll get nothing.”

Bakr appeared to be mollified and let it go.

“We need to figure out how we’re going to get to the temple and package the weapon. From Eduardo’s description, it sounded like anthrax or ricin, only it acts instantly. Judging by the way Eduardo described the victim’s distress, I’m almost positive it must be drawn into the respiratory tract and doesn’t act on contact with the skin. Since it’s not made by modern man, it should have particles large enough to be filtered by the 3M masks we brought.”

Sayyidd had some training on WMD, but very little. Bakr had specialized in them at training camps in the Bekaa Valley of Lebanon, and thus Sayyidd deferred to him.

“If you say so.”

Bakr smiled at Sayyidd’s trusting ways. “I said I
believe
it must get into the respiratory tract, but I’m not sure. It could just as easily be some sort of nerve toxin that kills on contact. Are you willing to risk that?”

“If it’s Allah’s will that we die, then we die. I don’t believe He would get us this far only to kill us deep in the jungle. I’m willing to risk it. Are you having second thoughts?”

Bakr internally cringed. Sayyidd’s blind faith left him wondering how Sayyidd had lived for three days in Iraq, much less three years.

“No. This path isn’t any more dangerous than what I’ve done in the past. I believe I’m correct. We should be protected.”

Sayyidd pulled out the GPS.

“It looks like the temple’s only twenty kilometers from here. We should be able to rent a four-wheel drive and get within ten kilometers before traveling on foot. If all goes well, we should have the weapon within a day. The only thing we’re missing is food for the trip.”

“We need more than simply food,” Bakr said. “We need to purchase some equipment that will allow me to decontaminate whatever we find. Start thinking about what we’re trying to do. We aren’t going out to pick flowers. You don’t follow my instructions exactly, we’ll both be killed.”

I
woke early the next morning, while it was still dark. I was disoriented for a minute before remembering where I was. I snapped completely awake. I hadn’t thought I was in my own bed, at my old house. I hadn’t thought my family was still alive
.
I had no split second of happiness. I also had no gut-wrenching letdown.
I’ve lost my happiness
. I wasn’t sure what to make of the trade-off. I didn’t want to lose Heather, and that split second was all I had left.

I lay in bed thinking about the shift that had just occurred. Before I could get too melancholy, the last twenty-four hours of my life came back with a vengeance. I thought about the absolute insanity of what I had done, and the fact that I was still walking. It made no sense to me. How I had been allowed to live when I had practically begged God to kill me in the maelstrom of Machete’s compound? Why had my family been taken when they’d done nothing more than go about their daily lives? It wasn’t fair.
I should be dead.
I looked over at the other bed, watching Jennifer snoring softly.
We should both be dead.
I watched her roll over and felt a weird twinge, an unfamiliar pang.
Maybe it’s payback for Heather.

Dawn was starting to break. I slipped silently out of bed and went to our small bathroom. I splashed water on my face and stared in the mirror for a half minute.
Well, I’m up now. What to do?

I went to the door and looked at Jennifer’s slumbering form again. The twinge came back, making me feel uncomfortable. Making me think about Heather. Like a magnet repulsed, I wanted out of the room, away from the feeling. I went through the sliding door to our little outside courtyard, watching the sun break the horizon.

I sat down, enjoying the view for no other reason than it allowed me to focus on something else. I lost track of time and was startled out of my reverie by the sliding glass door opening. Jennifer came out, still dressed in the long-sleeved cotton shirt and sweatpants. She’d cleaned up the blood but still looked pretty ragged.

“How’re you feeling?” I said.

“Better than I would have been, I’m sure.”

She stood there for a moment, then said, “I’ve got something I want to talk to you about.”

“Okay . . .”

She said nothing, clearly wrestling with the issue in her mind.

“Well? You have to speak if you want to talk to me.”

She hesitated a second more, then said, “I think something bigger is going on than just us running from El Machete. I meant to bring it up last night on the drive, but it slipped my mind.”

I walked to the door of our room. “What do you mean?”

She said, “Uh, well, how do you know that Arabs took the MP3 player?”

Please. Not this again. She must have really loved that thing.
“I thought we were dropping that. I’ll buy you a new one.”

“No, no. It’s not that. I just think that something’s going on. I don’t want you to think I’m crazy, and maybe it’s nothing.”

I shrugged. “I heard them talking. They spoke Arabic. No doubt in my mind. Now, what’s the big secret?”

Jennifer hesitated, like she was embarrassed to say what was on her mind.

“Come on. Spit it out. What’s up?”

“Well, don’t laugh, but I don’t think it was a random mugging. I think those guys attacked you for the MP3 player so they could find the temple. So they could ransack it and steal what my uncle rightfully discovered.”

I looked at her like she had a second head. I figured she was going to have some stupid theory on how her uncle had survived and was now being held by terrorists in Beirut.

“Huh? What’re you talking about?”

“While I was held, Miguel—El Machete—told me the story of my uncle finding the temple. He said that a native entered first, but died from being exposed to the contents of some type of sack protecting the entrance. This fits my uncle’s theory exactly. The story had to have come from my uncle, because Miguel wouldn’t know to make that up.”

I didn’t hide my disdain, forcing her to race to get the rest out. “Wait, I know it sounds crazy, but the room where I got my clothes had a Quran and two different passports for the same guy. One passport was from Saudi Arabia with an Arabic name, and one was issued by the United States to some guy named Carlos. Now, you tell me that you were mugged by Arabs in Guatemala. What are the odds of that?”

I considered that. I had thought it just about as strange as getting mugged by a couple of Girl Scouts but put it into the category of “strange things happen.” I knew there was no way that WMD had been created by the Mayans, and even if it had, it wouldn’t have lasted for a thousand years.

“Look, I don’t know why I was mugged by Arabs. Maybe they got stranded and needed some cash. Maybe they thought they were doing their part for the jihad. It really doesn’t matter. We have no proof whatsoever of a giant plot, and even if it’s true, there’s nothing we can do about it.”

“Why would Machete lie to me? He was about to kill me. There was no reason to lie. Why did the Arabs quit as soon as they got the MP3 player?”

“They didn’t quit because they wanted to, they quit because I was about to rip their heads off. As for Machete, he may believe what your uncle told him, but we have no idea what yarns your uncle was spinning. He lied about the FedEx package for starters, he may have lied about some mythical protection simply to keep Machete from going after the temple. Don’t build this up into some giant terrorist conspiracy. Our first priority is to get back to the U.S.”

“I’m
not
saying they’re terrorists, but those guys are up to no good. Staying as guests of Machete is proof enough of that. Just think about it some, okay? All I want to do is tell someone. My uncle spent his entire life looking for that temple, only to get murdered when he succeeded. I don’t want a couple of thieves to steal what he found. It’s not fair. If I’m wrong, we only look like kooks, but if I’m right, we might be preventing something bad from happening.”

“Stop. I know you want your uncle’s death to mean something— trust me, I’ve been there—but sometimes bad shit just happens. He got killed by a sick fuck, and we dealt with that. End of story. Let it go.”

She jerked like I had slapped her. “That’s not it. That’s not what I think. Nobody but my uncle believed the temple even existed. Now he’s found it, and it’s probably full of archaeological treasures. People have been trying to determine what happened to the Mayans forever.
I’ve
had to study about it with two different professors who both had different theories. That temple may hold the truth. It would be priceless, but now that history’s going to be lost to a couple of grave-robbers who’ll destroy the find for some paltry money. I can’t let that happen. All I’m asking is that we consider how we could get the information to the right people.”

I really didn’t give a shit about the Mayans, but a part of me did identify with her determination.

“All right, I’ll mull it over. In the meantime, let’s go get you some normal clothes, get our passports stamped, and get on a ferry. We can’t do anything on the run anyway.”

Two hours later we were on the first ferry headed to Belize and safety. Once under way, I felt a huge weight leave my shoulders. I didn’t want to scare Jennifer, but I had felt we were in very real danger every minute we were in Guatemala. Now that there was nothing to stop us from entering Belize, I felt our chances of survival had gone from about 60 percent to almost 100 percent. I relaxed for the first time in over thirty-six hours, enjoying the sun and balmy weather.

My mind began to drift, thinking about what Jennifer had said earlier in the morning. I still thought the entire WMD scenario was crazy, but I had to admit that the Arabs’ attempt to rob me inside Guatemala City, and the fact that they only took the MP3 player, was a coincidence that didn’t stand the light of day. Coupled with the passports and Quran, I began to think Jennifer was onto something. She simply thought someone was going to rob her uncle of what he had dedicated his life to find, but maybe there was something more.

I hadn’t said anything to Jennifer about what she had seen inside Miguel’s compound, not wanting to build up the conspiracy theory, but the items in the box at the back of the room had all of the hallmarks of terrorist equipment. The 3M respirators were used to protect first responders against inhaled threats, but could be used just as easily to protect terrorists from harming themselves while constructing nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons. The garage door opener was benign on the surface, but I had seen it used plenty of times as a triggering device for improvised explosive devices. Put together with everything else, I began to think that Jennifer’s instincts might be right. There was no way that the two guys who ambushed me were on the way to finding a thousand-year-old WMD, but I was beginning to believe that Machete was helping a terrorist enterprise, and that this enterprise was still on the loose.
Maybe I’ve destroyed more than a simple criminal syndicate.
The only question was whether the two Arabs still had the capability and the will to do anything now that El Machete was dead.

A
bu Bakr opened the door to their hotel room in Flores, completely spent from their ordeal. It had taken two days to get in and out of the jungle, much more time than he had thought. He was dehydrated, hungry, sliced up, and sore, but still felt a sense of urgency. He didn’t know how long they had before Miguel’s men found them. Being inside Guatemala was downright dangerous, with the risk increasing every minute.

They packed up hurriedly, checking out and taking a cab to the airport. Inside one of their pieces of luggage was the fruits of their jungle trek: a Tupperware container secured with duct tape and plastic sheeting. It protected the material they’d found next to a dead native boy deep in the jungle; something bad had happened out there, Bakr was certain. Something that might be the result of the weapon they dreamed of, and Bakr was looking forward to finding out.