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Hakim saw it all happen in slow motion. Karim drew his .45-caliber Glock from his waistband. A stubby four-inch suppressor had been screwed onto the end. Karim placed the tip of the suppressor no more than a few inches from the back of the young man’s head and squeezed the trigger. The heavy round left the gun with a clank and then a pink mist of flesh, blood, and bone exploded from the other side of Mohammad’s head. In a strange way Hakim thought it looked as if Mohammad had vomited off his own face.
With the gun still extended, and the lifeless body tumbling to the ground, Karim asked, “What were you thinking?”
The words seemed distant, like someone was talking to him from the other side of a heavy fabric. Hakim slowly lifted his head and looked at his childhood friend. For the first in his life, he felt like he didn’t know the man he considered a brother. Slowly he turned away from the contorted body and addressed his friend with near disgust, “What is wrong with you?” Hakim asked.
Karim ignored the question and said, “You should have never recruited him.”
“How would you know? You never asked him a single question.”
“It doesn’t matter. He is an outsider. We cannot trust him.”
“You think he’s working for the FBI?” Hakim pointed at his own head.
“You never know. That is the problem.”
“The problem is that you have become a paranoid, angry zealot.”
“Do not speak to me in such a manner.”
“Or what? Are you going to shoot me like you shot him? Like you shot Zachariah?”
“I just might.”
Hakim scoffed at him. “Think about this! You were always the better student. If he was working for the FBI don’t you think they would be swooping down out of the sky right now?”
“They might want to see where we are going first.”
“Look at you…you don’t even believe yourself. You think they would let four dark-skinned men shoot down one of their helicopters and then begin driving north toward Washington and New York?”
“That is not the point.”
“Then what is the point?”
“No one can be trusted.” Karim matched his volume. “I have told you this from the very beginning. Only the people we have fought alongside in Afghanistan can be trusted.”
“And how many of those people are here in America?”
“That is my point!” Karim yelled. “I gave you specific orders. You are the advance element. Your job was to go in first and pave the way for us.”
“And what in Allah’s name do you think I’ve done?”
“You have compromised our entire operation by recruiting a student.” Karim looked down at the dead body with disgust. “If you were not my friend I don’t know what I would do.”
“And if you weren’t like my brother, I would beat your brains out.” Hakim balled his fists in anger.
“I will not warn you again. Do not speak to me in such a tone.”
Hakim brought his nose to within inches of Karim’s and in an angry whisper said, “I think you are the one who should be warned. I think you believe a little too much in your destiny. I think it has gone to your head.”
Karim shoved his friend. “I am ordering you to get in the van…right now.”
Hakim didn’t move. “No one has been more loyal to you. No one has more faith in you than me and this is how you repay me.” Hakim pointed at the lifeless body.
“You are a fool.”
“Careful what you say, Karim. I am not one of your robots who you have brainwashed for the last six months in the jungle.”
“These men are elite warriors.”
