they pay no attention to the fanaticism. Religion is not a factor in this crucible. But one day. After ideology comes religion. Those who were our friends will become our enemies.
At last my crime has been atoned for, or perhaps just forgotten. Five years in Langley before they even let me serve as a courier. Endless days of paperwork and the freeway. The pool and TV. The endless, insurmountable boredom of daily life. It is my punishment for allowing the bonds to grow. It is my punishment for losing focus for a moment. As if I hadn’t been punished enough.
I thought I’d be free from it someday. The thought of what I had given up, not once but twice. I told myself that I was free from it when I met Annie, when we got married after a year of fumbling but ever more convincing dinner dates, movies, evenings at home, and at last weekend trips to see her parents in Connecticut. But it was all just a facade. Putty and plaster. Colored lights and mirrors.
At last there was Susan standing in the doorway. As I knew she would be eventually. In her well-pressed, dark blue suit, with her tired eyes, and her barely manageable, badly dyed hair. Oh, how my heart raced in that moment. How my hands started shaking when I opened the gray folder stamped with impressive secret seals. How the room disappeared around me, how reality shifted as I read page after page of circumstantial evidence and gossip, and agitated, misspelled field reports from Amman and Cairo, Beirut, Paris, London. How I closed my eyes before flipping to the photograph that my hand had already felt was there. I turned it over slowly. And looked your murderer straight in the eyes.
Annie just stared at me when I told her about my new post, careful to hide both the details and my delight, my gaping hunger for escape and revenge. I knew she wouldn’t cry, it’s not how she works, it wasn’t how our relationship worked. She said nothing at all, just stood up and cleared what was left of our pitiful dinner from McDonald’s. Her footsteps were silent on the thick carpeting.
And me, I wanted nothing more than to feel the adrenaline pump as I approached Beirut in a low-flying Blackhawk. Nothing more than to wake up every morning to the violence, the snipers, the explosions, instead of continuing this endless journey further into emptiness, further into regret. I wanted nothing more than to bide my time, waiting for the final piece of information that would open the window, the little rip in time. Dollar upon dollar. Threat upon threat. Flattery upon flattery, promise upon promise, drink upon endless drink. The registration number of the car, where it’s parked at night, when it’ll be driven the next time, by whom, where.
And then the calculations and rough estimates. Risk minimization and assessments of explosive power. The patient, laborious work that results in a bomb for a bomb. An eye for an eye. A meaningless exchange of pawns.
Up over the mountains. All we see are more mountains. I dream of mountains and open, snow-covered fields. Ice in pale sunshine. Winters that never end. I drink tea with the local warriors, who call themselves ‘students’, the Taliban. The interpreter tells me that they’ve been studying at the Islamic schools in Pakistan and are deeply religious. Wahhabis, as in Saudi Arabia.
But here they’re rebels, not intellectuals. Their religion is simple and filled with rules. There is no authority beyond Allah. No writing beyond the Koran. And above all: no religion beyond Islam. They tolerate me because I give them the arms and ammunition to destroy the Soviet occupation. The war seems to allow them to compromise. Their faces are masks of hardened leather, their kaftans haven’t changed in a thousand years, and they’re about to defeat the world’s largest army with small arms and a few rocket launchers.
And then? When the Russians have left, when the images of Lenin have been burned and only the ruins and the dead remain? Will these
At last my crime has been atoned for, or perhaps just forgotten. Five years in Langley before they even let me serve as a courier. Endless days of paperwork and the freeway. The pool and TV. The endless, insurmountable boredom of daily life. It is my punishment for allowing the bonds to grow. It is my punishment for losing focus for a moment. As if I hadn’t been punished enough.
I thought I’d be free from it someday. The thought of what I had given up, not once but twice. I told myself that I was free from it when I met Annie, when we got married after a year of fumbling but ever more convincing dinner dates, movies, evenings at home, and at last weekend trips to see her parents in Connecticut. But it was all just a facade. Putty and plaster. Colored lights and mirrors.
At last there was Susan standing in the doorway. As I knew she would be eventually. In her well-pressed, dark blue suit, with her tired eyes, and her barely manageable, badly dyed hair. Oh, how my heart raced in that moment. How my hands started shaking when I opened the gray folder stamped with impressive secret seals. How the room disappeared around me, how reality shifted as I read page after page of circumstantial evidence and gossip, and agitated, misspelled field reports from Amman and Cairo, Beirut, Paris, London. How I closed my eyes before flipping to the photograph that my hand had already felt was there. I turned it over slowly. And looked your murderer straight in the eyes.
Annie just stared at me when I told her about my new post, careful to hide both the details and my delight, my gaping hunger for escape and revenge. I knew she wouldn’t cry, it’s not how she works, it wasn’t how our relationship worked. She said nothing at all, just stood up and cleared what was left of our pitiful dinner from McDonald’s. Her footsteps were silent on the thick carpeting.
And me, I wanted nothing more than to feel the adrenaline pump as I approached Beirut in a low-flying Blackhawk. Nothing more than to wake up every morning to the violence, the snipers, the explosions, instead of continuing this endless journey further into emptiness, further into regret. I wanted nothing more than to bide my time, waiting for the final piece of information that would open the window, the little rip in time. Dollar upon dollar. Threat upon threat. Flattery upon flattery, promise upon promise, drink upon endless drink. The registration number of the car, where it’s parked at night, when it’ll be driven the next time, by whom, where.
And then the calculations and rough estimates. Risk minimization and assessments of explosive power. The patient, laborious work that results in a bomb for a bomb. An eye for an eye. A meaningless exchange of pawns.
Up over the mountains. All we see are more mountains. I dream of mountains and open, snow-covered fields. Ice in pale sunshine. Winters that never end. I drink tea with the local warriors, who call themselves ‘students’, the Taliban. The interpreter tells me that they’ve been studying at the Islamic schools in Pakistan and are deeply religious. Wahhabis, as in Saudi Arabia.
But here they’re rebels, not intellectuals. Their religion is simple and filled with rules. There is no authority beyond Allah. No writing beyond the Koran. And above all: no religion beyond Islam. They tolerate me because I give them the arms and ammunition to destroy the Soviet occupation. The war seems to allow them to compromise. Their faces are masks of hardened leather, their kaftans haven’t changed in a thousand years, and they’re about to defeat the world’s largest army with small arms and a few rocket launchers.
And then? When the Russians have left, when the images of Lenin have been burned and only the ruins and the dead remain? Will these
Similar Books
