ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

BY DAVID LAWRENCE CADE

CHAPTER EIGHT

The next morning, Sunday July 20, Omar went out early to visit some of the bazaars in An-Nasiriyah. His white mid-size rental truck had long sienna racing stripes along the two doors stretching back to the cab. It had black-wall tires, radio, and hub cabs that were covered with a film of dust from his drives in the desert on Saturday. He had promised to have it washed before returning it to Abu Shubaa Dalyell on Monday and was looking forward to the use of Habib’s rental truck, if he could find one in Baghdad.

He turned on the radio to the BBC and drove to an area of outdoor shops several blocks from his hotel.

He pulled over and parked at a crowded street with ancient buildings on either side and in front of which merchants and vendors had set out stacks of wares so varied that Omar wondered for a moment at all the shortages that were reported to be so common in Iraq.

He passed one stall with bright robes and women’s dresses with roses, others with solid colors in bright yellow, pink, blue, almost all full length with only a few blouses on hangers. Going through them was a woman in black chador with only her eyes showing through, apparently a customer.

He greeted an Iraqi man of thirty-one years dressed in a white galabiyya with white pants, holding out bowls of spices, with old wooden shelves painted black filled with foods such as self-rising flour, nuts, cans of olives, cherries, and peas, bottles of cooking oil, small containers of shrimp and other seafood. There was an old metal scale for weighing the goods, sacks of lentils and corn, and dried beans in a box.

"Spices from Turkey, Indonesia, and Egypt," the vendor said.

Omar asked about the prices of the canned vegetables and fish. He reached in his money belt and took out what must have been the largest purchase the grocer had ever seen given his reaction of pure joy. They loaded about two hundred cans and several bottles of spices into the bed of Omar’s truck.

There were hundreds of booths and outdoor displays of merchandise along the street. It was all under large umbrellas that touched at the tops and provided a canopy. His shopping continued at a weavers, where he bought several cloaks. Each vendor helped him load the goods in the bed of his truck or inside the cab. He bought twenty children’s sandals from one man, about fifty plastic bowls and buckets from another, and a wooden chest and cradle at another stall.

"Hand-carved," the furniture maker said. "It took the best wood I had, and it is worthy of the best homes in Baghdad."

"I’m sure it is," Omar said, negotiating down a bit in price. "I’ll take it. Could you load it with the others?"

Before ninety minutes had passed, he had spent over one thousand American dollars, half of what he had taken from his letter of credit at the Bank of Baghdad.

He had met another former Iraqi émigré at the Palestine Hotel who had lived in Britain for over thirty years and had just returned to see how he could help his former homeland. They had talked about the critical need for repairing the infrastructure, their concerns about safety when venturing out into the countryside.

His acquaintance, who happened to be on the same floor during Omar’s first three days in Iraq, worked out of his hotel room, using a computer, choosing not to leave the hotel any more than necessary. Omar had said that now he was back, he simply could not resist travelling out in the cities and in the valleys.

That Sunday morning, as Omar headed back out onto the highway to the northeast of An-Nasiriyah, he saw what appeared to be a caravan of four large chartered buses coming from the south. Each had blue siding and signs indicating they had come from Saudi Arabia. They were filled with former Iraqis who had fled the country some ten years earlier after the failed Shiia uprising in the south and who were returning under the auspices of the United Nations Humanitarian Relief Organization.

He turned off just a few miles from Senkeret and headed into the marsh area back to his childhood village.

There on a side road was a flatbed truck that he had noticed the day before. Ten local men who were angry that the cargo was intended for a distant city and not for their nearby village had looted it after chasing off the driver, and then threw stones in defiance at the cases and wheels until it caught fire due to some gasoline filled bottles tossed in with the other debris. The trailer of the truck had been abandoned.

Omar drove back to his village within another twenty minutes, on roads growing more or less indistinguishable from the desert sand with a median of brush between where tire wheels had run from time to time.

Then as he approached the rivers, he noticed the vegetation changing with the arid conditions turning to more flora and fauna. He could see from several hundred yards away that there were also some man-made changes in the landscape around the village. There were ten or more blue outdoor tents on poles set up around the perimeter of the village. And there were crates stacked as high as eight feet in places.

He peered through the dusty windshield as he neared the closest place where he could park and realized that since the previous afternoon when he left the marshes there had been several large truckloads of goods delivered to his village friends.

As he slowed to a stop, a crowd including the elders began walking toward him with arms outstretched waving as warm a welcoming as any returning hero ever received.

"Omar Hammad Aboudi," voices called out. "They say you did this."

Omar stepped out and asked who had brought all these things.

"There are medicines for the children, and for the elderly," one man said excitedly.

"It was the Americans," an elder said, "and the United Nations."

"Tents, as you can see, a generator. We have an electric generator and a supply of gasoline to operate it. The children are watching television, some for the first time in their lives. We have a small storage hut with electric cords, and they left a refrigerator for storing medicines." The men would point things out hurriedly as they escorted Omar toward the banks of the marsh which was now dotted with rows of crates and boxes marked U.S. Government and UNHRC.

One of the elders looked at Omar with tears in his eyes and said that the officials who had brought these things just before dark the previous night and stayed until midnight and in one case until dawn helping unload and set them up had told him that it was due to an appeal Omar had made to his American contacts.

"You can thank whoever it was you called," the elder said. "And we thank you."

"This is beyond belief," Omar said. He sat down on the ground in his slacks, wearing a white cotton t-shirt with a peace message in Hindi, something he had bought at the university during the March peace protests, several of which he had helped to organize in Ann Arbor.

He held his hands up to his eyes while he cried for a few moments as the men stood at his side thanking him.

"We have come forward overnight and can at last knock on the door to the twenty-first century, and we were not sure we would ever leave the previous century, and now we have many of these things for our people," another elder said.

When the village men saw what Omar had bought on his own that morning, and realized that he had not been told of the equipment, food, and provisions left by the Americans the night before, they all began to embrace and came to realize quickly what Omar had tried to do on his own that morning at the bazaars. Several of the men began to cry.

They helped unload and carry his gifts to the village, with some men holding the clothes he had bought like sacred priestly robes for one of the Sumerian temples.

It was their honor to invite Omar to a special luncheon that had been prepared for the senior men of the tribe and to be held in the guesthouse, the large mudhif that was used for village meetings. There they could talk with Omar about what it meant to them to have so much suddenly bestowed upon them as if by the will of Allah.

They talked about how some of their young men had been forced to fight in the Second War, "because Saddam hanged insubordinates." There had been a twenty-six year old teacher who visited several of the villages who was popular with the children who had been inducted and who had been killed in March in the attacks near Al-Basrah. "That day will be a day of mourning here from now on," an older man said.

"We are all for a free Iraq," an elder said.

"Before and after, before and after the wars, and Saddam, and we were so drained of the life-force," another man said.

On the ground sat several children watching the older men across the lagoon that they had all fished at one time or another.

Despite their isolation from the urban areas of Iraq, the men had all heard, sometimes via radio, or during visits to Senkeret and An-Nasiriyah, of the enormous outpouring of world opinion against the war.

"Now the Iraqi people are drawing a line in the sand, and the U.S. soldiers keep daring us, and it keeps heating up. They should be booted out," an elder said, drawing many nods of approval.

Omar felt he could at last unburden himself of his concerns about the war and that it had been a source of such chaos. "It is good that Saddam and his supporters were ousted," he told them.

"But this lawlessness," an elder said, "the chaos, it could become worse in many ways. What a price freedom."

"We all heard about the deck of fifty-five playing cards printed by the military to help identify their most wanted," Omar said. "And then our Secretary of Defense says on television in May how proud he is of the forbearance shown by soldiers, unprecedented compassion for the enemy."

A few men called out what they had heard about acts of cruelty by some of the Americans, including holding one captured Iraqi soldier tied in a bundle aloft with a forklift to scare him. "And they have mistreated our P.O.W’s, and where is the world outrage? And American soldiers are throwing rocks at the orphans who huddle near them at their outposts and checkpoints."

Omar wanted to hear more about this.

"Many orphanages have been closed," an elder said. "There are no funds, or they were bombed or looted. We are a nation of orphans, and the cities and countryside are overrun now by thousands, over five thousand helpless children who have been thrown out of orphanages because the Americans cannot even operate a place for helpless kids. Troops who grow tired of them lurking around their posts asking for food chase them off with rocks, and worse, have beaten them."

Omar said that such behavior would be considered child abuse in the states, and anyone who did such could be arrested. He told them that there are an estimated 1,300,000 homeless and runaway children in America, many of them forced into lives of prostitution.

The elders listened in astonishment as Omar told them what he knew from published reports about the plight of abandoned boys and girls in the states.

"I have heard from many of my college students what they see in the big cities," Omar said. "Kids victimized by gangs, malnourished, many without hope, a social welfare system that cannot account for let alone provide for so many.

"They have their deck of cards," he said. "Bush and the others. Now America is living in a house of cards. Iraq is living in a house of cards. We will see which is blown over first by all this."

One of the elders was impressed by what Omar had said and asked him to explain what he meant by "America is living in a house of cards."

He said there was an old popular song from the sixties in America once sung by a duo who had been through marital troubles, and it was all likely to fall apart around them, all their efforts to stay together doomed to be in vain. "And they eventually parted ways, just as their song said they would."

"If America is living in a house of cards," an elder said, "Allah will play the last hand."

They thanked Omar profusely for all he had done.

Out on the open desert, past the tranquil fluid marsh streams and ponds, was the out-stretched blue of the Arabian horizon, rock and sand and the mounds fading in the haze.

"I will be meeting some professors tomorrow and the next day at Uruk, possibly at Eridu, and some of the other sites," Omar said.

"One of our men was at Babylon last week," an elder said, "checking out rumors that there had been vandalism of the temples and gates there. It was unfounded, no cause for alarm, but it caused such dismay to think anyone had damaged the entry portal, as one person had been told."

"Babylon," Omar said. "We must also try there."

"There were men from a neighboring town, and at least one or two young men from our village, who were out last week attacking vehicles on the highway around sunset," another elder said.

Omar told them about the burnt-out trailer of a truck he had seen on the side of a road near the main highway.

"We believe that was also their work," the first elder said.

"They are suspected of looting," another elder said, "by the police in An-Nasiriyah, but there is no evidence. We have a huge desert in which they can hide things."

"What did they take?" Omar asked.

"More than just the office bulletin boards and old chairs some took from the clinic. These men have been at it since April, when several left in the middle of the night. They were seen in Baghdad, gone for several weeks, their wives and children afraid they had been arrested or shot. They returned also in the dead of night. They do not speak of what they did, but we believe from something that was overheard they were among the looters at the Baghdad Museum."

Omar asked for the names of the young men suspected of thievery.

"Taha Ali Umar is one. You knew his father," an elder said. "He died in the First Gulf War."

"I got a taxi ride from the border to Al-Basrah with his brother Othman Pasha," Omar said. "He said his brother-in-law is with SCIRI in Mosul."

"Yes, we have heard something of his family in Mosul. Taha Ali is a good man and helps with everything we do in the village."

Omar asked if there were any way the elders and other men in the tribe could ascertain where the suspected looters had hidden their ill-gotten gains, and if they would be willing to let him initiate contact with the Americans so as to keep the village men out of trouble.

"I cannot promise you," Omar said, "but I met three men with the U.S. government before leaving America, and on the way to Europe, who tried to recruit me to help with the recovery effort if I learned of any significant items of art that had been stolen."

The elders agreed to consider among themselves if there were means to learn more about the suspected pilferage from the Baghdad Museum without tipping off the looters that they were being watched, and without causing them needless trouble with the police, "As half of Baghdad was guilty of this sort of thing after the war," one elder said, "and the other half looked the other way."

Such was the tribe-centered view of Iraq in the minds of the elders in the village near Senkeret. Omar recalled the enormous turquoise-grey of the arches and half domes of Hagia Sophia as his plane flew over it with a golden morning light gleaming over Istanbul, and the sentinel-like minarets that dotted the metropolis on the Bosphorus. His own concerns had been so focused on the museums, such as the Iraq National Museum, and monuments to culture and art such as Hagia Sophia, that he had overlooked the fact that to many desperate Iraqis the fight for survival made antiquities and ancient sculptures merely things to help them survive if they could be sold.

On the drive back to An-Nasiriyah that Sunday afternoon, he passed a brigade of the 2^nd Battalion 70^th Armor unit out to the right of the road, playing catch with their protective masks, deemed no longer necessary now that the major conflicts of the war appeared over.

He had meant to phone Phillip Goransson’s office in Baghdad to tell him about the deliveries the government had made to the village, and to thank him as it was surely through Goransson’s efforts that the generosity had been effected.

His satellite phone hookup did not take at first. He tried several times, wondering if the battery was low, or if he were somehow out of satellite range. Then he connected. Goransson himself answered.

Omar began lavishing praise on the act of kindness to his village and asked if Goransson was trying to make it one world, "a world of peace."

Goransson sounded unsure just what had happened at the village on Saturday.

"What happened is that Americans, whom many in my tribe believe have been behaving like barbarians, and UN employees, whom I believe are having like saints, suddenly have this mandate to bring necessities to a village that has been struggling one hundred years in the past," Omar said. "You have done this. You must admit it was my call and your kindness."

"It was your call indeed, Omar," Goransson said. "I had to ask around, and it turned out there was an army supply depot in that area, at a base outside Al-Amarah, with a directive from L. Paul Bremer to expedite distribution of supplies to the outlying areas, and there were United Nations relief workers and some other aid workers from Human Rights Watch."

Omar asked why it had been done in such a way, "and so quickly. How could this have been organized in one afternoon?"

"We at State like to cut through the labyrinthine rules and military procedures that bog down everything waiting for the golden lions of Babylon to give their opinion."

"Good, and now I am sitting so elevated in my seat I could touch the top of that ziggurat I see to the southwest with open mouth thanking you and the people who did this for my village."

"It was a moonlit night, Omar," Goransson said. "The aid workers felt like Santa Claus."

"I have asked about this matter of looting at my village, as Mister Lyeforth and Mister Beltmann asked," Omar said, now nearing his hotel. "I will let you know when and if I have any leads."

"Thank you, friend Omar."

"Thank you, friend Goransson."

The preceding week, when Omar was at the al-Awadi home learning that he had a college-age son, the other two Iraqi-American scholars who had been recruited at other airports on Friday, July 11^th, and who had been en route to Iraq via Damascus, had arrived at the Central Railway Station in Baghdad.

Abul Rama Ibrahim, who taught at Boston University, and Muyyad al-Bara, who was an attorney with an Arab-American consulting group and who had worked with Amnesty International, had by chance ended up on the same train bound for Iraq, out of Damascus, and in the same car.

After meeting and sharing a few professional words, it had taken only a matter of ten minutes seated in their first class private compartment, which they shared with a two other returning émigrés who apparently had nothing to do with the U.S. government, before Abul Rama Ibrahim and Muyyad al-Bara had come to realize they had both been approached by NSA officials giving similar stories, and most intriguing, giving the same names: Lyeforth and Beltmann.

Their suspicions that there was something far more cunning intended than soliciting help for the recovery of looted art treasures were so strong that they decided to make inquiries with their personal and professional contacts both in Baghdad and in the Arab-American community in Boston, New York, and Washington, by satellite phone and via e-mail, as to what could be the source of the deception by the NSA agents they had met, both of whom had given the names Tony Lyeforth and Paul Beltmann during their briefings just before takeout.

Having changed their plans and itineraries several times so as to distance themselves from any further contact with the two other NSA officers who had been working their cases since early July, Ibrahim and al-Bara had come into contact with Mamad al-Shawaf and his internet associate Shabib Abu Mardam while visiting one of the few Internet cafes in Baghdad on Friday July 18^th.

Their chance meeting at the café soon turned to the topic of al-Shawaf’s flight from Istanbul on Tuesday. When he told them about his fellow passenger, Omar Hammad Aboudi, that he was staying at the Paradise Hotel until Saturday, and that Omar was a professor of Arabic studies, Ibrahim and al-Bara latched onto the likelihood that "Aboudi is also an unwitting participant in this scheme." Ibrahim knew of Omar’s academic reputation and had met the head of CMENAS at the University of Michigan.

The two air travelers from the states again met with the two journalists at the Al-Zahawi Tea House on Sunday, July 20^th.

Al-Shawaf detected in Ibrahim’s and al-Bara’s descriptions of their separate meetings with NSA officials at different U.S. airports on the preceding Friday, elements of a plot that loomed "…like a great canyon, and yet that points to the highest mountains in the Iraqi desert."

Since Omar had not responded to al-Shawaf’s request for an interview, al-Shawaf obtained extensive interviews with both Ibrahim and al-Bara, although they asked him not to mention the NSA matter, confining his article instead to their hopes of finding ways to help in the rebuilding of Iraq.

However, as al-Shawaf and Mardam were both active in feeding stories to other Arabic Internet sites, to Iraqi chat rooms, as well as to the Al-Arabiya satellite television network, they later disclosed rather indiscriminately to the Arab news media what Ibrahim and al-Bara had said about the NSA officials’ requests, that in itself not appearing to betray any top secret plans or to endanger either the professor or the lawyer, both of whom were staying on separate floors in the Mansour Millia Hotel on the Tigris in Baghdad.

Among the societal changes that Ibrahim and al-Bara had both detected in Iraq since April were the murmurs, little more than whispers in some of the more exotic tea rooms and among the younger generation particularly, and confined to the north of Iraq as far as they could tell, to the effect that an array of the ancient gods of Sumer were attracting devotion, "…devotion, quite literally, an effort by those familiar with the legends of Ur and Sumer and Babylon to revive the old paganism," al-Bara told Ibrahim, al-Shawaf, and Mardam over some bitter cups of Turkish coffee.

"When there is a vacuum, something has to fill it," Ibrahim said.

The two investigative reporters gave their words to check out the story, which concerned a new cult just beginning to flourish in the areas to the far north near the ruins of Nineveh and Nimrud. "A cult," al-Shawaf said. "This Iraq is indecipherable."

"Yes, cult worshippers close to Mosul," al-Bara said. "We have it firsthand from one of these acolytes that they are avidly studying photographs of the old idols, the use of metals to engrave charms, to incant the god of the sky and the moon goddess."

"Incantations?" Mardam said. "What you say is suggestive of spells, the worship of many gods, something that Islam forbids. These novices of this cult you refer to could be in grave danger. You could be in grave danger if it became known to the imams and the radicals that you are venturing too close to such matters, long dead as far as anyone knows."

"There is freedom of the press in Iraq at long last," Ibrahim said. "We are counting on freedom of religion to come next. We are well aware of the heretical nature of the cult. There are always cults."

"But there are always reactionaries who will not hesitate to declare this a sacrilege," Mardam said. "You could be declared apostate."

"Then we will see if the cult can survive a confrontation with the holy Quran without being rooted out," Ibrahim said. "As we see now that this man Aboudi has already been arousing sympathy, no, acclamation among the Muslims who hear of his daily miracles and his growing influence."

"We want to protect Aboudi," al-Bara said. "We are his doubles, just as Saddam had doubles. We do as he does. We enjoy the fine restaurants at our hotel and then drive to the slums of Baghdad to give money to the parents of sick children. We will go to the ruins near Mosul to revisit our birthplace, our hometowns."

"I thought you were from elsewhere than Mosul," Mardam said to al-Bara.

"We are both, it turns out, from Mosul, as I have checked with sources who say I was not born where I thought, but outside Mosul, not far from Nimrud, at a small village of Kurdish shepherds," al-Bara said, casting a nervous glance at Ibrahim.

"When do you plan to leave Baghdad," al-Shawaf asked.

"Wednesday morning, July twenty-third," Ibrahim said.

"This last thing, to acquaint ourselves with the new cults, is to be our ace in reserve. We will play this trump only when the Omar forces us."

"The Omar?" al-Shawaf said.

"Surely you know that he is known by those who feel he cannot be stopped from becoming a great Iraqi leader," al-Bara said, "if he so wishes now, as the Omar."

"The Omar," Mardam said. "I had not heard until now."

"The cults are a diversion, we are sure of this, for some of the young, dissatisfied, disillusioned Iraqi men and women. This will be a backdrop, something we can save in reserve until the right moment," Ibrahim said. "This will bring us the disciples we need, as I have made extensive study of the ancient mythology and have books now out-of-print in my home library in Sudbury on the most obscure esoteria of the old pagan beliefs."

"Sudbury," Mardam said.

"Upscale suburb of Boston where I and my wife of thirty years made our home after the last downturn in real estate prices," Ibrahim said, "and I can tell you if I wanted to sell and move back to Iraq, our real estate agent says we could make a killing."

"A killing?" al-Shawaf said.

"Over six hundred thousand profit."

"Enough money to fund a small revolution," Mardam said.

"We are headed for Mosul on Wednesday the twenty-third," al-Bara said. "As scholars we feel it our duty to make subtle inquiries, among those we have known for many years when we grew up in the north, as to the nature of these cults, and how we can observe and even consult with them."

"I’m sure you have much to offer them," al-Shawaf said.

After Omar checked back into his hotel room in An-Nasiriyah that Sunday afternoon, he first called Habib. When there was no answer at his son’s apartment, Omar called Ahmad’s and Aminah’s home. Ahmad answered. He had been told by Habib about Omar’s warning and began sobbing, "This is not possible to have such a brush with fate and suffer no harm. Allah was guiding your steps to that man Bohanar, and He put it in the man’s mind to confide in you the story of Ocalan and his sons."

Habib had found several young Iraqi friends who were willing to help him move his furniture and belongings, and they were making their last trip back to the apartment. "We are glad to have him here again. Habib has always been a good student and this will limit the distractions of living with a couple of young men who have little interest other than having a good time, and as is the case with the Ocalan boy, of ruining our son. And all along we thought Habib was at least safe in his apartment away from the violence on the streets of Baghdad."

"Thank you for all the care you give him," Omar said.

"I can tell you, Omar, he is quite excited about archeology, and he can hardly wait to be getting away from Baghdad for a few days to see the ziggurats."

"Thank you. Until next week," Omar said.

"’Til the next time," Ahmad said.

Omar then decided to make a satellite phone call to Nabih Hunarfar, who was back in Detroit.

Nabih was at home and answered saying that it was around nine a.m. and that he had been on the Internet.

"Can I tell you about what has been happening here in Iraq?" Omar asked.

"And then you must listen to what I have heard and have been finding out on the web," Nabih said.

Omar described his call to Goransson on Saturday after a reunion at his village and how that morning he had returned to discover the bounty left by the U.S. authorities and aid agencies, "…outright gifts to my tribe, Marsh Arabs, and they thought the outside world cared nothing for them."

"That is almost miraculous," Nabih said.

"And the sight of so much beautiful land now barren," Omar said, "drained, just like we knew had been done under Saddam, but so tragic, all of it just deserted, turned to desert, where many thousands lived before."

"They wreaked havoc on the Marsh Arabs," Nabih said. "Someday the world will know to preserve such endangered habitats."

Omar mentioned that for the first time, the dry heavy desert air was causing him chest pain, "When I am out in the heat too long."

"Be careful, Omar."

Nabih then said that he had learned more about Omar’s accident driving on the Long Island Expressway. "The woman who was so kind and picked you up."

"Mrs. Hernandez, yes. She is a wonderful woman."

"She also heard about the Tom Brokaw report that aired on Wednesday. Friends of hers saw it and told her, since she had told them about the man she picked up with the flat tire at that exact time," Nabih said.

"You found this out?"

"Omar, this may seem incredible, but there are now rumors swirling about the Islamic community in New York that it was an attempted assassination of an imam," Nabih said. "And there are eyewitnesses to the accident who have reported to the New York police that they saw a gun pointed at your car from an SUV in the left lane, and these people, the witnesses, have disappeared, and that the rental car manager who talked with you is missing."

"Yes, what about him? I should have reported him to the company," Omar said. "Has he disappeared?"

"He’s been transferred to another airport, only no one knows which one. Omar, you have known for some time that my brother has been involved with the anti-globalization movement, as well as working actively for Islamic causes and the Palestinians."

"Yes, how is Akbar?" Omar asked.

"He still lives in Chicago, has a man living with him named Ramesh, and they have been following on his computer much of what is developing," Nabih said.

"Developing? What do you mean? Is Akbar aware of something about the accident?"

"He is. He has sent me encrypted e-mails repeating the growing suspicions in the Islamic community in New York and Detroit, and others in foreign countries on the Immigration watch list, about why the NSA talked to you at all, and from here on I can only allude to the sort of groups Akbar talks with, the Muslim men he knows of, because he would not identify them specifically."

"I understand. I would never want to arouse suspicions for him."

"Thank you. And Akbar knows, but only via the web, computer hackers, secret anonymous individuals who can get inside almost anyone’s PC anywhere in the world. Akbar says that there are Islamic fundamentalists in Iraq who are very interested in you, Omar."

"Why?"

"Because the Arab web sites are filled with postings that this Islamic leader who was rumored to be in line to come forth, through the will of Allah, is you."

Omar sat quietly for a moment. "You’re kidding."

"No."

"But I have heard nothing of this," Omar said.

"The people of Iraq who have heard of you, since yesterday when it became known you had stood up to the soldiers in front of the prison and arranged the release of the two clerics, and that you were in a car headed south right under the two Blackhawk attack helicopters shot down by guerillas Friday evening, are not sure if they should believe it themselves. But it is as the prophecy said, that the man who will come forth and be raised up by Allah does not even know himself that he is the man chosen."

"How could the Iraqi people know my taxi was in the path of those helicopters?" Omar asked.

"Because you are being followed everywhere you go in Iraq," Nabih said.

"By the American intelligence services?"

"Most likely," Nabih said, "and even more so by Islamics who first heard about your car tire being shot out last Monday. And by guerillas who want to keep you alive at all costs. There are even rumors that Saddam himself has heard of you from his hiding places and has vowed to protect you, and asked his remaining followers to protect you, in the belief that you will eventually bring him back to power."

"Never," Omar said. "Saddam should be brought to justice in court."

"Omar, there are people in the Mideast who have heard about what happened last night at your old village," Nabih said.

"How is that possible?"

"Because one of the aid workers with Refugees International has wireless Internet access, and she was told your name by your tribal elders. She posted it on her blog, and on the Refugees International official site, with photographs of the marshes that survive at your village and the many items distributed by the government."

"I thought it was all from the United States military, or most of it, and some from the U.N.," Omar said.

"They initiated it. The U.S. initiated it. And they had much of it stored near An-Nasiriyah. But they also wanted the international aid community to know, for publicity. The aid worker I mentioned is quite well known throughout the anti-globalization movement and is also believed by some in the CIA and NSA to have ties to terrorists."

"Who is this woman?" Omar asked.

"Everyone loves her, and she has been to countless protests and especially for environmental issues. She’s over sixty years old and lives in America." Nabih gave her name as, "Rebecca Lindsey."

"And so I am being credited with all these things?" Omar asked.

"Omar, there were two men, reliable Islamic clerics, who were also on the road south from Baghdad in another car on Friday evening and they have sworn to Imam Ramiz and others that they saw angels pushing the first helicopter out of the way, just as it was hit and plummeting to the highway."

"How is this possible?"

"How indeed," Nabih said. "Omar, that helicopter was directly over your car when it was hit and by the laws of physics it should have come down right on top of your taxi. How do you explain that?"

"I can’t explain it. It was so close I thought I was going to die when I realized it was out of control."

"The clerics believe you are," Nabih said, "and I quote from one of the Iraqi Islamic sites, ‘an emanation from Allah himself and cannot be understood.’"

"But Nabih," Omar said, "you know as well as I that Mohammed is considered the greatest and final prophet, and that he was the final revelation from Allah with the Quran. It would be blasphemy for me to believe any of these claims. The whole of Iraq is filled with so much incredible rumor, and this is the same. Surely it is the imagination of those men and not angels."

"But how do you explain the disappearance of the people who saw your car tire blow out?"

"Is this certain?"

"There are reporters from NBC who have talked with Mrs. Hernandez, and they told her to be careful, that some of the other witnesses have gone away or disappeared."

"I do hope she is safe. It’s summer, Nabih. Perhaps they have all gone on vacation?"

"Perhaps. Do you feel safe?"

"Safety is relative in Iraq. A touch worried, but that is all the same. I thank you for telling me. You’re sure it is my name mentioned on the web sites?"

"That part is certain." And Nabih read off ten Internet sites where Omar’s name was included in reports and accounts similar to what Nabih had described.

"And there have now been documented reports in some of the Arab papers about this phenomenon of Muslims who truly believe a great leader will arise any day now to lead a revolt against the Americans," Nabih said.

"Which papers?"

"The Gulf Times in Qatar, Al Fateh in Palestine," Nabih said.

"This is all happening so fast," Omar said.

"Al Ayyam in Bahrain also had a column about all the rumors. As fast as I am typing and talking with you, new developments are posted. I’m at my computer. The Yemen News Agency has reported there are Iraqis planning another mass protest during the coming weeks, modeled on the peaceful non-violent resistance of Gandhi, and that their organizers hope to have two hundred thousand Iraqis marching through Baghdad. Imam Ramiz is among those planning it."

"I wish I could be there. I plan to return to Baghdad late this week, for the weekend, and then on to Mosul."

"How is your sister and family?" Nabih asked.

"They sounded quite happy I am here when I called. And when I told them yesterday about the helicopter crash, they said they had seen video of the site and the burnt-out wreckage on Al-Jazeera."

"The Syrian Arab News Agency had a piece about Imam Ramiz yesterday and his plans to mount a massive rally and speculated it could come as soon as next week. You should contact the Imam and let him know if you wish to be there."

"I’m not sure I can postpone my visit to Mosul," Omar said. "I would be lost in a crowd so great. But I would like to attend." He then told Nabih about having learned about the Ocalan family and that his son Habib had been in the ironic position of rooming with the grandson, who also did not know Habib was the son of a man whom the Ocalan clan have sworn to ruin.

"You manage to avoid catastrophe at every step now," Nabih said. "You will become a legend even without this other thing, of taking on the mantle of Islamic leader.

"And did you know there are two other men the NSA pressured the same day we flew from Detroit, two Iraqi-American men who are now in Iraq and who are setting themselves up as rivals to you?" Nabih asked.

"Rivals? No."

"Yes, Omar. The NSA wanted to hedge its bets, and so had two other Arab men pulled from the passenger blue line at Boston, and Reagan International, I believe, and told them the same story, about needing their help in finding looted art treasures."

"The NSA needs all the help it can get," Omar said. "I’ve been had."

"You’ve been had," Nabih said, "and these two men are now drawing media attention as well, and are rumored to be copying everything you do, to deceive the public into thinking that they are you."

"That they are me?" Omar asked.

"That one of them is you. That one of them is like you, is really doing what you are said to be doing, to grab credit for anything you do, to steal the limelight, to relegate you to obscurity," Nabih said.

"How could you know this?"

"Because Akbar has contacts all over Iraq, in the insurgents, among the clerics, and they have sophisticated young Islamic computer hackers who can monitor anything in Baghdad for him," Nabih said.

"And these associates of Akbar have learned all this?" Omar asked.

"Some of it is in the press already and online at al-Babil.com," Nabih said.

"The names of these men, and I feel I owe you my life, Nabih, for helping me like this."

"Their names are Abul Rama Ibrahim and Muyyad al-Bara," Nabih said.

"I know of a professor at Boston University by that name, Ibrahim," Omar said.

"It’s the same man," Nabih said. "The NSA wanted experts in Arabic and Middle Eastern culture as their ploys to fool the Iraqi people, all the time planning to pull the strings on all three of you, using you like puppets."

"Then I shall have to keep up my guard," Omar said.

"You do that," Nabih said.

"Thank you and again thanks," Omar said.

They decided to stay in touch via encrypted e-mail thereafter every day.

"You are my faithful friend," Omar said as they completed their call.

"Thank you, friend Omar."

Omar wondered how would he greet the next day. Start again, he thought. I pray Allah help me to start again, whatever comes, telling me that it will be all right.

He would stay the whole three weeks allowed by his visa and more if possible. He wondered if angels of Allah had actually descended over him, bringing two rescues from near disasters.

He dined alone in the hotel restaurant, drawing more than a few stares from Iraqi men who nodded from their seats. One of them murmured "Aboudi," while looking at Omar from a few tables away, but he was not sure it referred to him or another man by that name.

He went back to his room, trying to forget the heat. He wished for a tropical night, similar to those he had known on two trips to the Bahamas several years earlier.

Outside on the An-Nasiriyah street, insects were chirping.

Welcome to aloneness, he thought. There’s really nothing to fear, if you turn on the light.

He then remembered the words of Quran 113. "Say: I seek refuge in the Lord of the dawn, from the evil of everything that He has created, and from the evil of the darkness of night when it over-spreads, and from the evil of the blowers into knots, and from the evil of the envious when he envies."

David Lawrence Cade Copyright 2003 by

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