Rick Mofina - Six Seconds

His old friend would be pleased.

He had found a potentially powerful soldier.

A perfect soldier.

Old Walled City of Shibam, Wadi Hadramaut, Yemen

I am dead.

Samara was lying in the bed of a darkened room and discerned two figures watching her. Seated in chairs, they were silhouetted against the brilliant sun that bled through the huge wooden shutters.

Was this the next stage of death?

The torment of the tomb?

The old women had told her the stories-how after a believer’s death, after the mourners had left, two angels would appear and question the dead, to judge their entry into paradise.

“Where am I?”

“With friends, who wish to help you.”

“Help me?”

“Into the next life.”

Nausea surged through her and she vomited into the pan at her bedside.

Her head throbbed with pain. She was disoriented, groggy from sedation.

But alive.

An IV drip was taped to her arm, her body sore as fragments of memory strobed.

The bandits attacking the camp.

She’d hid for days under the corpses; how they twitched as the vultures fed on them.

Then the horror of Baghdad.

The blinding thunder flashes, the earth splitting open.

Carrying her son in her arms.

As she recovered, she saw vials for drugs at her bedside.

A cup of water was handed to her.

“Samara, we’ve learned much about you in the few days you’ve been here after we found you in the desert.” The man’s voice was soft, sympathetic, as he looked over her papers. “Through our contacts, we know of the injustices that have been inflicted upon you. We know of the tragedies of Baghdad months ago, that forced you back to your people, your distant Bedouin relatives, to aid them.”

“Who are you?”

“Your brothers.”

“My brothers?”

“We will help you.”

“What of the others? Did any of the others in the camp survive, the children? The mothers? There was an old man, he tried to help me.”

“There is only you.”

“Oh!”

“Pray with us and you will understand.”

Samara wept.

“How can I pray? My faith has been destroyed.”

“This will change, you have been called to your destiny.”

My destiny?

Something was taking shape.

It had been five months since the deaths of Ahmed and Muhammad. Five months since Samara began her search and now, here, the answers Samara had sought were emerging. As if rising from a shimmering mirage, something illusory was coming into view, as foretold by the old woman.

Although hesitant and unsure at the outset, Samara soon found herself echoing the men in prayer, like so many others who prayed at the appointed times of the day throughout Shibam.

The city, with its red and orange clay buildings towering over each other from the narrow terraced streets, was the city where frankincense traders had gathered for the great camel caravans that had jour neyed along the ancient spice route.

It was the city where her ancestors had prayed and honored the old ways.

In the weeks that followed, as Samara’s injuries healed, the shadow men emerged as patient teachers. Day after day, they filled her with the knowledge she needed to devote herself to that which they said was pre ordained.

During that time, pieces of the woman Samara had been broke away from her, turned to dust and disap peared into the desert.

Samara was reborn.

Transformed in the consuming drug-hazed winds of prayer and fanaticism.

The teachers enlightened her to their truths.

That her bloodline reached back for generations to an ancient Bedouin tribe. That according to ancient Bedouin belief, a person in Samara’s circumstance was required to adhere to a somber custom. That the family of those who have been murdered must exact vengeance on those responsible.

In an act of blood revenge.

“Deep within you, Samara, your heart thirsts for ven geance. Embrace it. ”

Over several days of more medication and prayer, she came to accept that her anger was the fuel for the action she must take, until one day she said aloud, “I hate them. I hate them for what they’ve done.”

Then her teachers enlightened her to a metaphysical nightmare as they placed her cherished photographs of her family in her hands. Samara’s broken heart warmed as she touched her fingertips to their faces.

“When the unbelievers murdered Muhammad, Ahmed, your husband and your son did not go to paradise as your heart believed.”

Samara looked toward the speaker.

“Where are they?”

“They are at the door to eternal hellfire.”

“No.”

“The same is true for your mother and father, who died in Greece. The same is true for your relatives who were slaughtered in the camp.”

Samara wept for the beautiful children, their kind mothers, their gentle fathers.

“They remain in agony because you have not yet acted. You are the sole survivor. Only you can deliver

Six Seconds 165 them. When you complete your transition and become a willing warrior and carry out the action, Samara, you will join them in eternal paradise.”

If you become a willing warrior.

After weeks of medicated recovery and indoctrina tion, Samara accepted their teachings.

“What is my action?”

“It is simplistic to say you must exchange pain for pain, but for you, Samara, a greater role, one of monu mental significance, awaits. Are you prepared to accept the greatest sacrifice?”

The old woman’s prophecy had come true. Samara had found her answer in the desert-she must rescue her family and join them in paradise.

Even if it meant the greatest sacrifice.

“Yes. I accept.”

Karachi, Pakistan

Lights of the megalopolis glittered against the Arabian Sea as Samara’s jet from Yemen landed at Jinnah Inter national Airport.

A forger from Istanbul had been well-paid by Samara’s sponsors to produce the required travel documents. The caliber of his work allowed her to pass easily through im migration as a British nurse with a global relief agency.

The next morning, before dawn, two men from the agency arrived at Samara’s hotel-room door. They were Egyptian chemistry engineers who’d studied in Ger many. They loaded her bags into their four-by-four, saying little as they began their long drive without re vealing the destination to her.

After leaving Karachi’s sprawl, Samara noted the cities they passed-Uthal, Bela, and Khuzdar.

As the road descended into the plains to Surab, Samara scanned the vistas that stretched for miles, as if searching for herself. The vastness underscored her sense of emptiness. She confirmed her vow to accept whatever they set before her.

Samara knew from maps she’d studied on the flight that their northern route paralleled the porous border with Afghanistan to the west. Its rugged terrain was threaded with hidden roads used by smugglers, drug dealers and refugees.

By sundown they had arrived at a camp of outbuild ings hidden in the hills close to the Urak Valley over looking Quetta.

The city twinkled at her feet.

She was taken to her private quarters in a small clay house, to a room no bigger than a cell consisting of a sleeping mat, gas lamp and footlocker. Exhausted, Samara slept for a few hours before she was called to predawn prayers.

Apart from armed guards and instructors, a dozen people were in her group, including three other women. One from Oman, one from Syria, another from the Philippines. While Samara’s face bore her loss, the faces of the women burned with righteous devotion. However, it would not be long before Samara’s face was indistinguishable from the others.

After prayers, they were led in training exercises. “For your protection as relief workers in dangerous zones.” An instructor smiled.