Chapter Forty-Two
Al Ghaydah, Yemen
Omar did not like what he was hearing, and it made his blood boil with rage.
He attempted to calm down, telling himself that he needed to ensure that the information was true before he acted.
There were few in the village who would dare challenge him, but if he pushed things too far the people might band together, and that would be a significant problem.
His brother gave him the news, having heard it from his son, who was friends with the son of a local fisherman named Mohammad.
The boy said he overheard his father talking to his mother about a boat he had seen come ashore that morning.
Several white men got off the boat with backpacks and were driven away in a van.
The van, he said, belonged to another fisherman in the village named Amir.
Both men were known to Omar, though he couldn’t for the life of him imagine why Amir would help outsiders intrude upon his territory.
And why hadn’t Mohammad come to him with the information?
Omar was the local Al Qaeda cell leader.
He maintained the network in Al Ghaydah, helping to coordinate attacks in the region and ferry supplies out west to Sana’a for the big fight.
But he had always been fair to the people of the city.
He was born here and grew up here. These people were like a big family to him, and it hurt that they didn’t trust him enough to come to him with information like this.
Had they forgotten what had happened the last time the Americans had come with the Arab apostates?
It had been terrible for the city. Omar lost many friends to their operations out in the desert, and worse, he had lost family.
His younger brother had died in the assault on the American base, and Omar himself had barely made it out alive.
The Americans couldn’t be allowed to return.
If they had, it was surely to target him or his operations.
There was a knock on the door and then Mohammad shuffled in, one of Omar’s men behind him with a rifle in the man’s back. Mohammad looked scared and his eyes shifted back and forth across the room as if searching for some evidence as to why he was brought here at gunpoint.
“Mohammad, as-salamu alaykum.”
“Wa alaykum assalam,” Mohammad responded.
“Do you know why you’ve been brought here?”
“No,” Mohammad replied too quickly. “I’ve done nothing wrong.”
Omar brandished a Glock 19 and set it on the table.
It was an Austrian weapon that was used by the American Special Forces.
He had taken it as a trophy of their attack, finding it in the rubble after the infidels had withdrawn two years ago.
Though the cost had been great, the operation had caused the base to close and the remaining Americans to leave the city.
The pistol was his reminder of both the victory as well as the consequences suffered by a foreign presence in their land.
At seeing the pistol, Mohammad’s eyes widened. “Please” was all the fisherman said.
“Please what?” Omar quipped. “Please don’t kill me for not reporting the Westerners I saw on our shores this morning?” Mohammad cowered and said nothing. “Well? Have you nothing to say for yourself?”
“I don’t know who they were,” Mohammad replied, his hands clasped together. “I did not get a good look or hear anything.”
“Did you see weapons?” Omar couldn’t be certain, but he believed the fisherman was telling the truth.
“No. I swear. Just men and bags.”
Omar pondered the response. It didn’t mean anything. The man’s old eyes could have missed critical details. “How many?”
“Four… or five. I’m… not sure.”
“And where did they go?” Mohammad shrank back again. Omar placed his hand on the pistol. “You will tell me who met them.”
“Amir.” He hung his head in shame. “Into Amir’s van.”
“And you saw Amir with them?” Mohammad feebly nodded. Omar looked over Mohammad’s shoulder to one of his men.
“Bring me the other fisherman.”