The Blood of Lambs: A Former Terrorist's Memoir of Death and Redemption (26 page)

“That is brilliant,” Tariq said. “I will go with you. Who else will come?”

But before anyone could speak, Abu Fox quietly raised his right
hand. He then turned to me and dipped his chin slightly, a gesture of respect. “Your plan is a courageous one,” he said. “But why do you want to throw a rock at someone who is bigger than you, then run away and hope everything will be alright?”

My skin bristled but I remained silent.
I knew it. I knew he would try to be in control.

A chill wind ruffled my
keffiyeh
as I wrestled down my pride and resolved to hear this infidel out. I had learned that listening to your adversary gives at least the appearance of wisdom. You can always shoot his ideas full of holes once he has spoken.

Abu Fox smiled at me with his eyes, then laid out a plan in which my
fedayeen
would advance within SAM range as I had suggested, but in two teams—one with two men and one with three, five rockets split between us. Meanwhile, a large
mujahadeen
force would establish three anti-air-craft artillery emplacements, setting a multisided trap. This had been tried before and easily defeated by the Soviets, who could simply pick off triple-A gunners from their superior range. But now the
mujahadeen
had rockets. When the Soviets saw their own aircraft tumbling from the sky in flames, Abu Fox theorized, their reaction would be panic.

“The Soviets always come first with helos acting as scouts, taking out any
mujahadeen
that fire on them,” he continued. “They believe they know the range of all weapons currently in use by the
mujahadeen
. They believe they can come within three hundred meters without fear and hold an area. This time, we will let them come.”

According to Abu Fox’s plan, my
fedayeen
would let the choppers pass, allowing them to advance close to the mountains where the
mujahadeen
would lie in wait, holding their fire. While the Soviets grew comfortable that no attack was coming, we would wait for other, larger prey to fly into the valley.

“When the bomber comes, the
fedayeen
will let it advance past the SAM positions, then fire their rockets,” the American continued. “Take out the first aircraft in range and the last, then take out one more. The second the helos try to return fire, the
mujahadeen
will hit them with DShKs and Quad 50 to create a diversion allowing the
fedayeen
to withdraw before the Soviets detect their positions.”

Abu Fox then turned and addressed me directly. “Again, your plan is
very courageous. But let us consider this plan, in which our enemies are the only ones to die.”

5

The American’s logic hit me in the face like a brick, demolishing everything I had ever learned. It was my first encounter with western military strategy, and I instantly saw a stark difference:

The jihadist thinks “me.” A man used to liberty thinks “us.”

The jihadist thinks about avenging a village. A man used to liberty thinks about saving a country.

The jihadist counts his own death as a given, even as an integral part of the plan. The western strategist plans to kill the other guy, then go home and smoke a cigar.

I could not argue with this thinking. Still, my testosterone screamed at me to trump the American’s plan with a better one. But as Abu Fox regarded me over his
keffiyeh,
I thought for a moment that I saw in his eyes an olive branch.

Using blue flashlights to illuminate the grooves beneath the worm-wood, the recon group made its way back to the cave. Night sounds now skittered and whispered along our path. In the distance, the yip and whine of some kind of wild dog. The wind felt pregnant with snow, but I ignored the cold and trudged silently along behind Aassun and Zeid. Alternately, I berated myself for not having topped Abu Fox’s plan—and for having shown myself such a small thinker and poor tactician.

Soon, the cave came into view, but as I walked toward it, I felt an arm fall across my shoulder.

“I need to talk to you.” It was Abu Fox.

I stiffened, instantly on guard. “What about?”

Aassun and Zeid stopped and turned around, but I could not see their eyes in the thick darkness.

“Let’s walk over here,” he said, indicating a high stone outcropping that overlooked the valley. “It will be more private.”

I stepped away from Abu Fox and toward Aassun, placing my left hand on his left shoulder. “Wait here,” I said, hoping he would catch my serious tone even though he could not see my eyes. Then, keeping my right hand poised near my knife sheath, I walked with Abu Fox into the winter darkness.

The American lit our path with a blue beam. We reached the edge of a cliff fortified by tall, vertical rock formations that stood like stone sentinels. Abu Fox stopped abruptly, turned, and sat down on the ground in front of me. It was a gesture of submission and it surprised me. Warily, I lowered myself into a squat—not sitting, ready to spring in any direction. Then Abu Fox surprised me again: he laid the flashlight on the dirt between us, lifted his right hand, and uncovered his face.

In the Muslim world, if a woman unveils her face to a man, it is an invitation to greater intimacy. Among warriors, if a man unveils his face, it is either a step toward mutual trust or he is showing he is not afraid of you.

Which is this?

A sharp wind whistled around the rock formations, blowing Abu Fox’s
keffiyeh
forward so that it framed his face. In the blue light, I could not see much except that he wore a moustache and beard—and that he was smiling.

I did not return the favor. “What do you want?”

“How deep are you stuck in all this?” he said.

My mind flipped through possible meanings of
all this
: The Afghans. Armed struggle.
Jihad.
It did not matter; the answer to all was the same.

“All the way,” I said.

In the darkness, Abu Fox peered at me for a long moment. “Are you sure about that?”

It was as though this American had somehow seen into my heart to the moments of weakness when I wished I could lay
all this
down. Quickly I looked away at the wind-whipped chasm below us, afraid that if I kept looking at this man, he could somehow pull my secrets out through my eyes.

“There is a life out there for a man like you,” the American said. “You are so young. You haven’t even tasted life yet. In my country, people like you are highly regarded. You speak many languages, understand many cultures. You bring something that people born in America don’t have—something my government would pay well for.”

Looking away into the valley, I kept my face perfectly still. But my heart took up a terrible pounding. This infidel was proposing the outrageous, asking me to cross over. I would be an apostate, on every faction’s most wanted list. I would lose my home, my country, my safety.

And yet, I was seized by a searing, overwhelming desire to say yes.

It was a secret longing and not just of mine, but of many young Middle Eastern men. To stretch toward freedom, to enjoy life outside the suffocating bondage of government and rules and family taboos. To pursue a career. Learn for learning’s sake. Take a woman to dinner.

I had done all these things, but not in pureness of heart. Always with an agenda: my jobs were a front. I learned but only to advance
jihad.
Except for Fatima, I lured women so that I could later use them as party favors. I had been raised to hate America and had hated her all my life. But I had also seen the freedom Americans enjoyed and now burned to taste it.

Abu Fox did not move or speak. If he could see into my mind enough to be so bold, I wondered, could he now see the battle raging inside me?

I opened my mouth to speak, but closed it again as, suddenly, the teaching I was weaned on rose up inside me like a cyclone. The pull of Islam was stronger than my storm of desire, purer than the lure of freedom. Since my boyhood, I had breathed it, drunk it, dreamed it. My faith was all I knew, and I also knew I was naked without it. A hundred
sura
now exploded through my mind, filling every secret niche of doubt, cutting off my shameful desire as though shearing off a rotting limb.

Abruptly, I stood and looked down at Abu Fox. “This conversation is over. I have nothing to say to you.”

The American gazed up at me. “I understand,” he said, his eyes glinting faintly in the blue light. “Maybe before you leave this place, you’ll let me know what you really want in life.”

I turned my back on him and walked toward
al-qa’idah.

6

That night, I lied to my men about Abu Fox, saying the American only wanted to make clear his country’s commitment to aiding the
mujahadeen.
If they knew the American sensed in me someone who might be turned, they themselves might begin to doubt me.

The next morning, we gathered in the cave and finalized the plan. The
mujahadeen
would carry the rockets and other weapons in the grooves. From that point on, we would have to carry them by ourselves in the open. Aassun, Samir, Zeid, Hassan, and I would travel by night to set up the rocket positions, guided by an American team who would monitor us with long-range night vision devices and, with their bird’s eye view into the valley, guide our progress with voiceless radio signals. Finger-tapping meant “keep moving.” Whistling meant “stop.” Scratching noises in the transmitter meant “hold your position until advised.”

We would make most of the trek to the rocket positions through the night, then stop and make camp, before completing the final leg of the journey before first light. Meanwhile, the
mujahadeen
would receive separate guidance to set up their triple-A positions around the pass. From
al-qa’idah,
the Americans would monitor incoming Soviet aircraft and coordinate the attack by radio.

Our action signals during the attack would be verses recited aloud from the Koran:

We made behind them a dam and before them a dam:
Incoming aircraft. Stand by.

We have given you the victory:
Fire.

He crossed his eyes and retreated:
Retreat.

As the day progressed, my anticipation grew. In Lebanon, the swamp of the civil war had obscured my objective—
jihad
and the global advancement of Islam. Here the lines of battle were clear-cut. The Communist infidels were murdering Muslims, marauding over Muslim lands. Despite Abu Fox’s western cigar strategy, I was again ready to die. I was not alone. Near sunset, Aassun, Zeid, and our other men gathered in a corner of the cave and we submitted ourselves to Allah. Because the
mujahadeen
’s water supply was limited and precious, we performed the ritual cleansing for
al-shaheed,
the martyrs, with sand, as prescribed by Muhammad in the
hadith.
Then we knelt facing east and recited the
salat al-akhra,
the final prayer.

When I finished, I felt again the bore of eyes and glanced up to see Abu Fox atop the radar platform, looking at me and shaking his head.

Soon after, the sun slipped behind the mountains and its light bled away, leaving an indigo twilight. Loaded with five rockets and three launchers, my
fedayeen
and a
mujahadeen
support unit of five men stepped out of
al-qa’idah,
along with two of the Americans. This time, we were dressed in black clothing and
keffiyeh,
the better to melt into the night. An hour later, we had retraced our route through the grooves, emerged beyond their safety, and begun our slow descent into the valley.

Four hours later, we made camp, sleeping in the open, crowded around a mimosa tree. We lit no light or fire of any kind that might give away our position. During the long night, we rotated guard shifts, always with two men staying awake and three men sleeping. Our sleep was interrupted, however: late into the night,
mujahadeen
in the villages set off several explosions—bait for the Soviets to investigate the next day.

Two hours before dawn, we heard finger-tapping on the radio:
Move out.

Two hours after that, the scratching came:
Stop, this is your position.

The sun rose, flooding the valley with light. In the distance, beyond the pass, we heard the thudding beat of the Hinds. We lay low, eyes on
the pass, until a chopper formation appeared over the peaks on our right, painted in camouflage, bristling with rockets. The Hinds over-flew us, sniffing the valley for
mujahadeen.

The Americans kept absolute radio silence.

Next, a MiG fighter seared in over the mountains and took up a high racetrack pattern, circling like a hawk. Minutes later, the target appeared: a Sikhoi bomber.

The choppers had roamed to the other end of the valley. And now a fire rose inside me, the fire of victory before victory has happened. As I rose from my cover, I felt as if the whole world was watching me, even Allah, cheering me on from
jannah.

The signal came:
We have given you the victory.

Adrenaline charged through my veins. I felt as if I alone could cut down an entire Soviet battalion. The Sikhoi flew directly toward me, then banked slightly right, creating a wider target. I shouldered my SAM launcher, took aim, fired, and dove for cover again.

The missile locked instantly onto the Sikhoi’s heat. It streaked up through the sky and pierced the plane where its left wing joined the fuselage. The SAM exploded, severing the bomber’s wing, launching it up and back, away from the aircraft. The Sikhoi then detonated in a series of rapid booms, fire ripping forward and aft through the fuselage as the bomber continued in forward flight. As I watched, the Sikhoi’s right wing spiraled away, then the plane disintegrated, debris bursting out across the valley.

A single Hind helicopter came roaring back, but Aassun rose beside me and blew it out of the sky. From two hundred meters away, Zeid’s position, I saw another missile rocket skyward, narrowly missing the circling MiG. Now I heard triple-A fire erupt from
mujahadeen
ground positions, the sound echoing in the gorge like thunder.