The Last Infidel (12 page)

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“You must be Mr. Marshall, I presume.”

Cody looked at the tall, light-skinned man and nodded.  He must have been one of Bashar’s army cooks, the one Jadhari called Nabeeb.  Cody said, “I want you to know how much we appreciate the dinner tonight.  Seems like a year since we had fresh meat.”

“It is my pleasure,” Nabeeb said, looking around suspiciously.  “My wife Marwa and I cannot help but think that we are at the right place at the right time.”

The door to the hardware store opened, and two Muslim women, each with their faces covered, each of them carrying large cardboard boxes covered in foil, came inside.  They set the two boxes down on the floor in the dining hall.  Nabeeb waited a second or two, looking back towards the door, and then he waved for the two women to join him.

“I hear you are the man who can get things done around here,” Nabeeb said softly.

“No, that would be Jose.  He’s the guy making the deals these days.”

“No, that’s not what I hear,” Nabeeb said.  “You never came to our restaurant, you know, back in the day, but you might remember it.  Nabob’s Kabobs?”

“Seems like I remember something by that name, back in the day.  Seems like you know the local southern dialect.”

“My wife and I were born and raised here.  We don’t even know Arabic – and so we don’t even read the Koran in the original language like we’re supposed to do.  Heck, we never read it.  When we go to prayers?  We don’t even have a clue what we’re saying.”

Jose came down the stairs.  He and another man picked up the boxes, set them up on the table, and uncovered them.  The smell of hickory-smoked goat, sweet and fresh, steamed up into the air.  They began setting the long table.

Nabeeb pulled Cody up close to him and said, “Mohammed – may he burn in hell where he belongs.”  He stood back, smiled, and held his palms up, apparently pleased with himself.  “Would a real Muslim say that?” he asked with a smile stretching from ear to ear.

“I don’t believe in Mohammed, but I draw the line when it comes to blasphemy,” Cody said.  “Why are you telling me all this?  Make it fast because I have a long night ahead of me.”

“My daughter and her boyfriend – they need out,” Nabeeb said.  “We’ve been hiding him now for the last two years, and he and my daughter, they have been playing hide the salami.”

Cody scrunched up his eyes and tilted his head.

“Anyway, they – well, you know, they’re both sixteen and the world is going to hell – they’re both alive so, you know the rest.  She’s pregnant.  I can always say I did it – that’s accepted in Islam. You know, we can screw our daughters.  But I don’t know how that even works.”

“Eww,” one of the women said.  “That’s really gross, you know that?”

“But her boyfriend has the blondest hair and bluest eyes you’ve ever seen – my wife says he makes her wish she was single, and that she could be in his harem.”

“Can’t you ever be serious?” the other woman said, only with a low, suspicious, masculine voice.

“So, when this baby is born, our grandson, he, or she, will not look like your typical Muslim devil.  And you know what will happen after that.”

“You’re kidding me, right?” Cody said after a moment’s thought, eyeing the two burka-clad women.  “You . . . you brought them here?”

“A certain Tracy tells me that you can fix this,” Nabeeb said.  “If you can at least hide them until the troops start moving, I might be able to lose some---” He looked around the room one more time.  “I might manage to lose some guns and food, if you know what I mean.”

Cody rolled his eyes.  “I swear I’m going to end up getting myself killed one of these days.  Follow me, all of you.”

Cody led Nabeeb and the two women up the steps.  The sleeping quarters were empty.  He stopped at the top of the steps.  “Okay, Nabeeb, which one is your daughter?”

“That would be this one,” he said, as he tugged on one of the burkas.  “No, not this one.  The other.”

Cody leaned forward and looked into the eye slits of one of the burkas.  “Aw, heck. I can’t tell.”  He knelt down and started to lift the hem of the burka.

“Hey!” the young girl said.  “You can’t do that!”

“Then you can go back to where you came from,” Cody said.

“Alright, you two,” the girl said to her father and her boyfriend.  “Turn around.”

Nabeeb closed his eyes and shook his head.  He and the burka-clad boy turned around.

The girl lifted up her dress, starting from the hem at her feet, and lifted it up well over her head.  “Are you satisfied yet?”

Cody laughed.  “It takes a lot more than that to satisfy me.”

The girl dropped her burka.  “Like, I’m not good enough for you to look at?”

“I’ve got stuff on under my burka,” the boy said as he turned back around. 

“I’ll bet you do,” Cody said, impatiently.  “Just make it fast.”

The young man pulled up his burka, revealing a nice pair of blue jeans and an even nicer short sleeved button down.  He wore better stuff than even Jose could get.

“Yep, bluest and blondest,” Cody said.  “You two are in real trouble.  What were you thinking?”

“What did you think about when you were our age, mister?” the girl asked.

“I had a job.”

“If you can hide them, or better, get them away from here, I can feed you and arm you,” Nabeeb said.  “But that’s all I can do.  I have nothing else.”

Cody looked at Nabeeb closely, looking at his facial expressions and his eyes.  Then he asked him, “How long have you been cooking for Bashar’s soldiers?”

“Not all of them,” Nabeeb said.  “Just for a couple hundred men, that’s all.”

“Would you be willing to poison them?”

“But it would look strange if everybody sat down to eat and never got back up again.”

“I don’t mean kill them.  I’m talking about making them sick enough to make them weak.”

“What do you have in mind?”

“Just be here early Tuesday morning,” Cody said, his voice barely audible.  “Three o’clock.  Right here.”

Jose came hurrying up the steps and saw Cody.  “Time to eat – and everybody’s waiting.”

“Jose, take these two kids down to Tracy.  But make sure nobody sees you.  Can you do that?”

“Sure, boss,” Jose said. 

“And you, Mr. Nabeeb, need to hold up your end of the bargain.  Food, guns and, well . . . the food prep we talked about for Tuesday morning, the morning meal before the last day of Ramadan.”

Mr. Nabeeb smiled and bowed.  He said goodbye to his daughter and her boyfriend, hugging each one with tears in his eyes, and left.

Cody looked over at Jose and said, “Blindfold them and take them down.  Then meet me at the table.”

Ten minutes later – Cody held up the evening’s meal until Jose returned – everyone sat down and enjoyed the meal.  Nabeeb, under orders from Jadhari, had prepared an exceptional menu, one not even allowed to Bashar’s men.  Not only was there goat meat, perfectly grilled and smoked with hickory, seasoned to perfection, but potatoes and gravy to go with it.

“You know Cody,” Jose said.  “You’ve been saying all these years that you don’t care about this war.  Like you’ve just given up.  And I’ve seen you throw away people, too.”

Cody wiped his mouth on his shirt sleeve and said, “What of it?”

“What you just did was incredible!  Right?  I mean, it’s now like you’re running the Underground Railroad here and helping people.”

“Just as long as they help us, Jose.  You know and I know that there’s nothing free in Murfreesboro.”

“Now you’re starting to sound like me,” Jose said, with a mouthful of meat.  “And there’s only room in this town for one profiteer.”

“While we’re on the subject – what’s the going thing right now with the guards?”  Cody asked.

“Jadhari wants your truck – that’s all I know,” Jose said.  “I told him if he wants it, he should just take it and be done with it.”

“There isn’t another one like it Tennessee,” Cody said, looking across the room with a grin forming behind his stubbly, soon-to-be beard.  “He asked me about it today after our little discussion about the parking lot.”

“He always asks you about it.”

Cody started lining up some of the dominoes scattered in the center of the table, dominoes left there by some of the guys. 

“But I guess in a few days, your truck will have no owner,” Jose said.  “And Jadhari will just take it.”

Cody pursed his lips and nodded while he continued with the dominoes, and said, “Do you think we can steal three or four of those pick axes and shovels from the worksite tomorrow?”

“Easy.  Or we could just buy them.  Maybe Jadhari would just give them to you.”

“No, we need to steal them – just make sure you get the count wrong when they’re issued.  And see if you can’t manage a pair of wheel barrows.  Hide them in the back of my truck.”

“What do you have in mind, boss?”

Cody tipped the domino nearest him, and he watched the row he’d just set up go down, one domino after another.  “We need to give Tracy what she wants and make sure she stays busy down there in the tunnels.”

“What’s up with that?  I thought she was busy already?”

“No, she has too much time on her hands.  And when she gets too much time on her hands, she starts doing things.  She wants the explosives.  Maybe we should hand them over – fifty pounds ought to be enough.  And one detonator, preferably one with a time delay.”

“Fifty pounds?  You’ve got that much?  Heck, it only takes four pounds to destroy a bus full of Muslims – I took one out about three years ago up in Bowling Green – hell of mess, amigo.  Blood, guts, and everything.  But fifty pounds?  That’s enough to take out a building.”

“Exactly.”

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The secret door leading from the hardware store to the tunnel slid open quickly and quietly, revealing the dirty face of Marcus lit up behind the glow of an oil lamp.  Jose, followed by two men, each one carrying a wooden crate, stepped inside the opening and descended into the dark, musty passageway.  Marcus walked in front.  Jose, with his flashlight on, brought up the rear.

Cody was sitting with Tracy in the basement of the Greenspan building, and both of them jumped up like hunted animals when they heard Marcus’s metal lamp scraping along the wall of the passage just outside the sliding panel door.

“Just a present for you,” Cody said, running his hand through his hair.

“You know I don’t like surprises,” Tracy replied as she stood up.  She looked with interest at the two men struggling into the room carrying the two wooden boxes.  She scrunched her brows and looked at Cody.

“These are the explosives you wanted, all I could find,” Cody said.  “Fifty pounds.  Are you happy now?”

“Just set it down by the table,” Jose told the two men. 

The men did as they were asked, and Marcus led them back the way they’d come.

Cody looked at Jose and nodded over towards an empty chair.

“There’s a lot we can do with this,” Tracy said, lifting the lid on the first box and then on the second.  “But not without detonators and wire.  You do have detonators, don’t you?”

“You’ll get one on Monday night,” Cody said.

“One?  And why are we waiting until Monday?”

“Because Jose needs to repair it and you need to start digging.  You do this my way, or we’ll just forget the whole thing.”

Tracy paused for a few seconds, perhaps reflecting on the surprise delivery – a real prize to be sure – or maybe wondering why Cody would tell her to start digging.  She sat back down.  Cody settled a little lower in his chair and stretched his legs. 

Jose folded his arms, slumped forward, and closed his eyes, tired and worn out.  “You know I’m listening, so just keep talking,” he said.

Maybe it was Cody’s demeanor – demanding and unrelenting – that made Tracy lean forward with her hands on the table and insist that she be free to do with the explosives as she saw fit.  “Cody,” she said politely, patronizing him.

“I’m all ears.”

“There are two ammo dumps, one at the Salvation Army building and another at Stones River Battlefield.  Zafar says they’re guarded, but not impregnable.  We have to take them out,” she insisted.

Playing his usual unconcerned self, Cody, with his eyes on the table top, shook his head and said no.  Not because the targets weren’t good targets; but because they were small targets, tiny and insignificant, in view of what he had in mind.  He hesitated a second, then he said, “Did Zafar by any chance tell you
who
is going to be in town for the mosque dedication?”

Tracy settled back down into her chair, composing herself with a look that said she didn’t care.  “He never mentioned it.”

“Of course he wouldn’t tell you because we’re practically sitting beneath the courthouse,” Cody interrupted.  “Frankly, it’s a miracle Lisa shot the bastard when she did, before he finally decided which side he was on.  He’d have turned the whole lot of us in – sooner, not later.”

“What do you know?  Get to the point,” Tracy demanded.

“All of ISA’s top generals, the imam, and the President of the United States – everybody who is anybody in ISA – will be in the courthouse on Monday night.”

Jose raised his head up and said, “All you will have to do is dig up to the foundation of the courthouse, plant the C-4, and that’s that.  Kaboom!  Or something like that.”

“That’s your problem over in Chattanooga,” Cody said to Tracy.  “You lack vision.  All you can see are the small targets.  Go ahead and take out the ammo dumps – not a bad idea.  But I’m giving you only one detonator.  You seem particularly good at putting an end to dreams so, naturally, I thought of you and the dream team that’ll be in town at the courthouse shortly.”

Tracy’s face turned red.  “If we were back in Chattanooga, I’d have you thrown into the stockade so fast you’d be only a blur.  You, Cody Marshall, are still a soldier in the Army of Tennessee and I outrank you.”

“But you’re in my town now, Tracy,” Cody said, leaning into Tracy’s space.  “Do you see any Army of Tennessee anywhere near here?  We fight in my town the way I say we fight.  If you don’t like it, feel free to turn yourself in.  But tomorrow night, you’re in charge of Marcus, Katrina, and two of my guys.  You’re going to dig upwards until you hit the foundation of the courthouse, and then you’re going to plant the C-4.  On Tuesday morning, dark and early, I’ll hand you the detonator.  Are we clear on this?”

Tracy scowled at him like a purposely-starved cat the day after a rough spaying and de-clawing.

Cody, with a smile on his face, slapped his hands down on the table. “Then it’s done.”  He leaned forward one more time, stretching his arms out across the table, looking straight into Tracy’s eyes.  “You know my target is the right one.  You just don’t want to admit it.”

“Actually, you’re wrong,” Tracy said.  “It just so happens that ISA’s real talent isn’t in her generals.  They’re all political appointments – the imam’s yes men.  The real talent lies with the field officers.  Once they’re promoted, we’ll have a much stronger enemy to fight.  And you, Cody Marshall, will be to blame for that.”

Jose looked at Cody and, after a short moment of reflection, said, “I don’t know, Cody.  Maybe she’s right about that.”

“She is right,” Cody snapped.  “Every one of the imam’s top guys are lackeys, stuffed shirts, or whatever you want to call them.  But they do implement policy.  The ammo dumps?  If you hit those, Bashar will kill every infidel in a ten-mile radius.”

“So we settle then,” Tracy offered.  “Give me three detonators – what kind are they?”

Cody raised his eyebrows.  “What do you have in mind?”

“We take out the courthouse and the two dumps at exactly the same time.  That is, if you have timers.”

“But not a minute before five in the evening on Tuesday,” Cody said.  “I know you’re a lot of things these days, half of which I don’t want to think about, but I know you aren’t a liar.  I’ll give you the detonators.  But I want you to promise me you’ll do this on my time schedule.”

Tracy looked down at the table, rubbed her hands through the dirt sitting on it, and said, “The last day of Ramadan it is – actually a good choice.  Bashar’s men, and whoever else, they’ll be feasting and partying at nightfall.  They’ll never know what hit them.”

“And that will give our people the time they need to get as far away as they can before anybody comes looking,” Cody said.  “Do we have a deal?  I want to hear you say it.”

Tracy took a deep breath and said, “We have a deal.”

Sunday morning, hot and muggy even for July, came with a vengeance.  Even the trees, with their leaves motionless in the predawn hours, seemed defeated and resigned long before the sun cleared the horizon.

Cody and Jose arrived at the mosque in time to see two hundred of Bashar’s men marching into the gravel parking lot of the mosque.  Every man came equipped.  Either he carried a shovel or a pick axe, or he pushed a wheel barrow.  Where Cody was feeling in high spirits, laughing at the site of ISA’s battle-hardened troops being reduced to slaves for one day, Jose was having his usual doubts.  The two men sat in the truck with the air conditioning on high.

“I don’t know, man,” Jose said.  “I just know some of these bastards are gonna rough me up today.  Why are they always messing with me?”

“Just stay close to me,” Cody said with a laugh.  “I’m going to give four of these guys an inside job right off.  You’re going to load their tools into the back of my truck and haul them back to the hardware store.  You know what to do when you arrive.  Just make sure nobody is paying any attention when you pull up around back.  But you just get back here as fast as you can.”

“You do have to give Jadhari some credit, right?”  Jose said, nodding towards Jadhari as he stood in front of the mosque with his hands on his hips.  “He always arrives on time – and so do his men.”

Cody turned and smirked at Jose and said, “You’re getting the hang of things.  Jadhari, for all the evil he’s done, is the most dependable guy I know.  Even more than you.  His word’s as good as gold or, in his case, a small boy.”

Jose laughed and said, “You think?”

Cody, laughing, pulled the truck up in front of the glass doors and waved at Jadhari.  He and Jose climbed out.  The troops, every last one of them hot, sweaty, and dusty, began assembling in the parking lot close to the mosque.  More than one of them eyed the shade longingly.

“Give me a second, Jadhari, if you don’t mind,” Cody said.  He walked over to the assembled troops and confronted an officer.  “I need four good men for some inside work.”

The officer’s eyes lit up.  “Then that would be me and three others – if you don’t choose me, I will see that you suffer, and very soon.”

“Like I’m not already?” Cody said, and he smiled.  “Okay, pick three others.  Just throw your tools into the back of the truck and meet me inside the mosque.  Be sure to include at least one of the wheel barrows because we need it for another project.  You’re dismissed.”

“Dismissed?”  the officer said.  “Who are you, infidel, to dismiss me?”             

“You’re under my orders today,” Cody said with an air of detached superiority.  “Or you can go and complain to the imam.  Sheesh.  Aren’t you guys ever happy about anything?  Or is being pissed off all the time something that’s inbred?”

Cody stepped back, clicked his heels, and saluted like a Nazi.  He hurried onto the porch of the mosque and spoke to Jadhari.  “We’ll have this driveway and parking lot levelled out by tonight.  It’s a shame it’s Ramadan and these guys won’t be able to eat until sundown.”

“It’s hot, I know,” Jadhari said.  “But for most of the men, they are used to the temperatures in the middle east.  Of course, they have grown lazy here in the more temperate weather.”

“It’s a hundred degrees, Jadhari,” Cody said, wiping the sweat from his brow.  “Which reminds me.  I know you’ve always wanted my Ford F-150 aluminum body truck, baby blue, with exceptionally cold-running air conditioning, which runs like no other truck you’ve ever seen.  And I know you could’ve taken it from me long ago, but you didn’t.”

“I helped get you that truck,” Jadhari said.  “We raised fifty-six thousand dollars to get it – of course I would never take it from you.  It was a gift!”

“Jose!” Cody yelled.  “Get the men to work like we talked about – starting at the entrance.”

“Yes, boss,” Jose yelled back.

“Let’s sit in my truck, Jadhari,” Cody said, motioning for Jadhari to follow him.  “I’ve got a surprise for you.”  Cody walked over to the driver’s side of the truck and opened the door for his old friend.  Then he ran around to the passenger side and slipped into the passenger seat.  He reached over and turned on the ignition, then flipped on the air conditioning, and then he returned to an upright position.

Jadhari turned the vents towards his face, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath.  “I haven’t felt cold air like this since spring.”

Cody smiled.  “All of that’s going to change.”

“Yeah, in October,” Jadhari said.

“Tuesday night at five, actually,” Cody said.

“Why at five?”

“Well, I for one can’t very well escape from Murfreesboro in this truck, something you’ve given me permission to do on a few occasions, so I’m turning this baby over to you.  Better you than anybody.”

“How much do I pay?”

“It’s a gift, Jadhari – for old time’s sake,” Cody said, hitting Jadhari on the back.  “Unless that’s a problem for you.  In which case I can always give it to---”

“Oh no!  That’s not a problem!  You mean, it’s mine right now?”

“Technically, yes.  But I’m going to need it until the mosque is finished, if that’s okay.  I will turn it over to you Tuesday night at five, right here at the mosque.  How does that sound?”

Jadhari’s eyes looked mesmerized as he stared at the digital gauges in the dash.  He stepped on the brake, put the truck into reverse, and stepped gently on the gas, moving the truck back ten feet.  He stopped, put it into forward, and returned it to where Cody had parked it.  “I don’t know what to say.”

“You’re just going to keep your men away from me, that’s all,” Cody said.  “You’ll go your way, I’ll go mine.”

Jadhari looked up and, without a moment’s hesitation, said, “Sounds like a deal!”