Tom Avitabile - The Hammer of God

The blue-eyed devil appeared at the door in her business suit and walked in. “Gooooood morning, Sheik. Good morning, Imam. Frank.”

The Sheik became instantly self-conscious and averted eye contact with Brooke.

“My son, are you saying these men…”

“No not the men…” He felt her eyes on him. “The food! It is lousy and as good as torture.”

“I will speak to the director of this prison and see if they can arrange for a proper meal. Are you ready to start?” the man of religion said as he opened the Koran.

State Department Diplomatic Security, or “DS,” was a consolation prize for Jamal El Azam. He tried for the ATF, FBI, and Secret Service, but his college GPA index being 3.2 and his one little brush with the law closed those doors. It was patently unfair for his record to still carry the police report stemming from when, as a 17-year old, he and two friends were jumped by some lunkheads who blamed anyone with a middle-eastern look or name for the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993. He was released and ultimately found innocent of all charges. But the red flag remained. If his Grade Point Average was 3.7 or above, it would have been overlooked, but things being as they were gave any federal administrator an excuse to say no.

The State Department, however, under Madeline Albright and the Clinton Administration, wanted to put the best face on America’s image to the world, so they sought out ethnic types for the Foreign Service. Jamal’s fluency in both Eastern and Western Arabic languages also helped in his chances of being assigned to Ambassador’s Protection Service in Egypt. Since his posting with diplomatic security, however, he had not advanced as he should have, being passed over three times for promotion within the DS. True, he had some attendance and lateness issues, but no more than would have been overlooked had he been promoted on schedule.

Deep down inside, however, Jamal knew it was because of her. She distracted and delayed him all the time. But he was in love and decided that she came first.

His mother would curse him if she knew of Salinda. She was a descendant of a nomadic tribe that was also the tribe of Libya’s former dictator, Mohamar Kadaffi. She was beautiful, her body was perfection itself, and, with it, she made him feel like no other woman had ever made him feel. They took up together, but kept a low profile among the embassy’s circle of influence. Jamal had two residences. One near the embassy for appearances and the other across town in a very Egyptian neighborhood where no Americans or Brits would dare go.

It was there that he brushed up against the Brotherhood. Salinda had brought him to a meeting. They spoke of the true call of Islam. They led him to the Prophet’s own words. At first, because of the fraternizing aspect of his relationship, he made no contact report, as any FSO at his grade was duty-bound to make. Later, the reason was not as benign as covering up a sexual affair. Jamal had acclimated to and then wholly embraced the notion that the only hope for mankind was through the words of the Koran. That America, his America, was imposing its Judeo-Christian ethic of freedom on the children of Allah. Forcing freedom on Muslims was, in a sense, blasphemy, equal to forcing an Arab to take communion from a priest. This enlightenment came to Jamal from many parts of the Koran but the one that still resonated within him was Qur’an 33:36 “It is not fitting for a Muslim man or woman to have any choice in their affairs when a matter has been decided for them by Allah and His Messenger. They have no option. If anyone disobeys Allah and His Messenger, he is indeed on a wrong Path.”

What he was about to do, what needed to be done, he did for the Brotherhood and on a deeper level, to honor his love for Salinda.

“The Ambassador is moving,” his radio crackled, breaking this stream of thought.

He keyed his mic. “Front gate, all clear.” Jamal’s post this morning was at the front gate. He barely took notice of the two white vans parked on each side of the street adjacent to the embassy’s gate. As the Cadillac limo pulled through the gate, on time as Jamal had indicated, twelve men each emerged from both vans with weapons and one with a video camera. They immediately opened fire. There was a lead car and a chase car, each with three security officers inside. The lead car was pummeled by Kalashnikov fire and two of the three men inside managed to get out and return fire. Jamal watched and did nothing as two assailants came around and fired on the men from behind, eliminating them. The limo and chase car were under a hail of bullets. An RPG hit the chase car and it exploded, flipping over on its side. A former Mujahedeen ran up to it and sprayed the car and its inhabitants with three full clips of ammunition. The limo’s bulletproof windshield eventually caved in from the unrelenting torrent of lead coming from ten automatic weapons. The instant it was breeched, the driver and the bodyguard disappeared in a blood red plume. The Ambassador was inside the “cage,” a reinforced armored compartment behind the driver’s seat. This survival space could take a dead hit from a mortar round and keep its occupant alive.

Jamal walked over to the smoking limo as five of the assailants approached it. One tried the door on the far side. Frustrated he then fired his weapon into the lock. The door would not give. Five guards from the embassy were running down the driveway firing as they approached. Jamal hitched his head in their direction and six other men started laying down a curtain of lead that decimated the reinforcements coming to the Ambassador’s aid. Jamal reached into his pocket and simply removed a duplicate set of keys. He pressed the remote and, with a click, the door of the Ambassador’s compartment was unlocked. The diplomat was unceremoniously shoved into the back of one of the vans. Jamal rode with him and was the last person the Ambassador, the embodiment of American foreign policy, saw as one of the men jabbed him with a needle that would knock him out for an hour or so. The two vans then sped off in opposite directions leaving 13 security officers, all co-workers and associates of Jamal, dead or seriously wounded.

The men in the truck shouted, “Allah Akbar.” God is great.

At 7:30, Bill entered his office. The big news of the day was a videotape of a captured U.S. Ambassador kneeling before an Islamo-fascist flag as a hooded man held a gun to his head. In a halting, clouded voice, the armed man spouted a string of invectives against the country his captive represented. Obvious to anyone, except the anti-American crowd watching on Al Jazeera, was the fact that he was drugged, beaten, and under some duress. The Americans were threatened with the usual time limit to stop doing something that this group thought violated the sanctity of their beliefs, or the Ambassador would be beheaded. Unfortunately, everyone in the world except the “true believers” and the family and loved ones of the captive, were already bored with this brutal, theatrical bloodletting.

Like millions of Americans, Bill placed the horror of the man’s plight in a corner of his mind and made way for the challenges of the day. Today that meant three staff-level meetings and a presentation to the Department of Transportation on the impact magneto-electric hover technology for high-speed trains would have on the environment and U.S. energy supplies. Real exciting stuff… but at least someone wasn’t holding an AK-47 to his soon-to-be-severed head.

Bill remembered that, in his or her country of assignment, an ambassador outranks any other American official, resident, or visiting government types, even outranking the Secretary of State or Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, everyone, except the President himself. Move on, Bill commanded the little committee meeting of all the voices in his head.