Greg Rucka: A gentleman_s game

A rivalry that justly took a backseat in light of the day's events.

"Well, let's see it," Barclay said impatiently.

All four men turned in their seats to face the screen hanging on the far wall, above the sidebar. Rayburn targeted the screen with the remote in his hand, and a still frame of a young Pakistani male-Crocker didn't put him a day over twenty-flickered to life, standing in front of a bare white plaster wall. The man wore khakis and a blue short-sleeved button-up shirt, and dirty white sneakers. Behind him, resting against the wall, was a well-used backpack, navy blue with black straps, and beside it what appeared to be a shallow stack of cardboard sheets, propped upright.

"I'm not hearing anything," Barclay said. "Why am I not hearing anything?"

"No audio, sir," Rayburn answered. "Only the video. If you'll note, they've done an exceptionally good job staging this. The background tells us almost nothing about where this was shot, or even when."

"They? How many?"

"At least two, sir-the man we're watching, and someone behind the camera. Here, you'll see."

Rayburn moved his thumb, and the image went into motion, the young man kneeling to open the backpack, turning it toward the camera, demonstrating that it was empty. Then he rose and reached with both hands for something off screen. He returned to the backpack and set two clear glass liter bottles on the floor, then reached toward the camera a second time. A hand, presumably the cameraman's, entered the frame and handed the young man a metal funnel. The hand had a similar skin tone, and Crocker supposed it was another Pakistani, perhaps, but that was only a guess. If it was the Harakat ul-Mujihadin, their ranks were filled with Kashmiri refugees as well as Arab elements. Composition of the Abdul Aziz faction was less known, but Crocker suspected that it drew recruits from many of the same locations.

On the screen, the young man was now filling the bottles, using a red jerry can and the funnel.

"Petrol?" Barclay asked.

"Presumably," Rayburn said. "There aren't many liquids more flammable, and it's easy enough to acquire. Which may be the point in showing us this."

The young man set the jerry can aside, then screwed a cap onto each bottle. Finished, he placed the bottles upright into the backpack, then rose again and reached in the direction of the camera. The same hand presented him with a pistol, then with a clip, and then with a box of ammunition.

"The gun is an FN P-35, for the record," Rayburn said softly.

"Thank you, Simon," Barclay said drily.

Crocker frowned, looked toward Rayburn, and saw that the Director of Intelligence was glancing to him in turn. It made Crocker's frown deepen. The FN P-35 was known more commonly as the Browning Hi-Power, a popular enough firearm to those who used it, and in and of itself, nothing more needed to be noted. Except the fact that the Browning was the sidearm of choice for the Special Air Service, and while the gun itself was produced by Fabrique Nationale, a Belgian concern, and named after an American gunmaker-John M. Browning-there were many who thought of the weapon as Very British Indeed.

The young man was very deliberately loading the clip, one round at a time, to capacity. When he finished, he closed the box of ammunition, slid it away, and seated the clip into the pistol. Then he racked the slide, chambering the first round, and set the safety.

"Interesting," Crocker said.

"Yes," Rayburn murmured.

Weldon turned in his chair, looking first to Crocker, then to Rayburn, confused. Opposite him, Rayburn tapped on the desk.

"Explain."

"Very practiced, sir," Crocker said. "He knows just what he's doing with that weapon."

"One would expect as much."

"No one wouldn't, not necessarily." Crocker tried to keep his tone civil. "A suicide bomber doesn't need training, sir, he needs indoctrination. You put him in a madrassa and fill his head as full of Wahhabism as it can hold. You tell him he's got Allah and infinite virgins waiting for him on the other side. But you don't worry about training him as a fighter, because it's a waste of both your time and his. His job is to wear a bomb and die in the name of God, and your job is to make sure he does just that and doesn't have second thoughts along the way. You don't worry about training him in the proper usage of a firearm."

"You're reaching, Paul," Barclay objected. "That boy isn't older than twenty, and God knows there are plenty of ten-year-olds on the Subcontinent who know their way around guns. Pakistani, from the looks of him, too. Probably fought in Kashmir."

"I agree, sir," Crocker said.

"Then you see my point."

"And you've made mine. If he's a Kashmiri veteran, why waste him on a suicide run?"

"You'll want to pay attention to this next bit," Rayburn said, gently enough that Crocker wasn't certain who was being admonished.

The young man had finished loading the backpack, leaving it open, and now was taking up the cardboard that had remained propped against the wall. He got to his feet once more and, holding the cardboard sheets against his chest, began showing them, one at a time, to the camera. The writing on each sheet was clear, all caps, written in black marker.

The first read:

"No, it isn't," Weldon muttered, annoyed. "There is no Sixth Pillar of Islam."

"Wahhabism at its best," Rayburn agreed.

The young man let the first card drop, turning the second to the camera. The man's expression, Crocker noted with some alarm, wasn't much different from the look his wife, Jenny, wore when she was teaching preschoolers.

The card dropped, and the third was turned.

"Mushrikun?" Barclay asked.

"Polytheists," Rayburn said.

"Since when has C of E been polytheism?"

"Since God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost entered Christian dogma, sir. But it's not the C of E that's being targeted here. Wahhabist doctrine indicts capitalism as a form of polytheism, the love of money being akin to worship, etc., etc. The wealth of the West, namely the First World, versus the poverty everywhere else."

The fourth card was presented:

"Veiled reference to Israel, perhaps," Rayburn said. "Perhaps an oil reference as well, possibly directed at our presence in Iraq specifically, the Middle East generally."

The man raised the fifth card.

"The English translation of Harakat ul-Mujihadin," Rayburn said. "Also can be the 'movement' of holy warriors."

The last card was raised to the camera.

The young man turned the card and kissed it, then folded it along the middle and slid it into the backpack, between the bottles of petrol. He zipped the backpack closed, then settled it onto his shoulders before walking out of the frame. The camera remained focused on the empty wall, then went to static.

Rayburn switched off the monitor, and Crocker and Weldon turned with him to face Barclay once more. Barclay remained focused on the dead monitor, brow furrowed, and Crocker wondered what, exactly, his C was thinking. Much as he detested Barclay, Crocker couldn't-and wouldn't-deny the man's intelligence.

"Why no audio?" Barclay asked after a moment. "Why not simply tell us who they are and what they're doing? Why the signs?"

"No clues," Crocker said.

Barclay looked at him sharply. "Are you editorializing, or is that an answer?"

"They didn't want to leave us anything we could use, sir."