Dangerous Science

Chapter 7
The Wrong Hands...

Issam checked his rear view mirror every two seconds, expecting to see flashing lights there any moment. His pulse was racing and he was sweating profusely, so much so he thought he might need to change his shirt before he continued. Months of planning had led him to this moment, but somehow he still didn’t feel ready for it. How could he ever feel prepared enough to do this? He just had to trust in Allah that things would proceed according to the plan.

He turned the corner onto Michigan Avenue and his headlights illuminated the gates of the Catholic University of America. He was so close now, so close to making his greatest contribution history. Soon everyone in America would know his name. But he pushed such thoughts aside. He did not do this for personal glory, pride was a sin. He acted for the glory of Allah, not his own. He glanced at the car radio clock, there were only minutes to go now.

Issam knew what they would call him when this was over, but that was only because of their petty, small minds. He thought of himself as a freedom-fighter, a warrior for Allah. They would call him a home-grown terrorist of course. But what did it matter what the infidels thought of him? Nothing! It mattered nothing what they thought! He was an agent of God, nothing more than a vessel for carrying out His will. It had been a bumpy road to get to this point, but he had made it and soon he would be at peace.

The setting for Issam’s youth was not a squalid refugee camp or a hovel in some god forsaken land. He had been raised in comfortable suburban affluence, growing up in wealthy Irvine, California. His father owned a gas station and worked incredible hours. He preached the virtues of capitalism, the American dream and its basis on hard work. Later Issam had come to realise his father was not a real Muslim. He called himself one, but he did not act like it, he not submit himself to the will of his God. Issam only wished he’d realised how corrupted his father was back then.

Instead he had done exactly as his dad taught him. He’d studied hard and worked all his spare time at the gas station. His mother left when he was ten and his father did nothing to stop her. That was the way of America, women were allowed to simply walk out on their men and their children. He never forgave the bitch for doing that to him, nor his father for allowing her to.

Issam hadn’t let his anger show at the time. His father was driving him to study more and more and he put his energy there. It paid off when he was accepted to Stanford, studying engineering. It was in his sophomore year there that Issam’s life changed forever. It was nothing but a simple misunderstanding, but the perverted culture of America had to make it into so much more. They called it sexual harassment! How could it be when she had invited him up to her room? Couldn’t they see what a harlot she was? They had no right to expel him! But they did, and with his record thus marred he found it impossible to transfer to any other colleges. They had ruined his life.

The next couple years were still nothing but a haze in Issam’s memory, a period of self-loathing fuelled by binge drinking and drugs. When his father cut him off and sent him to live with his cousins overseas Issam hated him for it. But soon he came to see that this time his father was right. He had corrupted his body, fallen away from Allah. It was the only way to save him from being ruined by the decadence of America, by sending him far away.

His cousins lived in the West Bank of Palestine. It was there that he saw the true nature of the world. The Israelis led repeated reprisal attacks on civilian target every time a bus or cafe was bombed in Tel Aviv. They always killed and wounded far more than suffered in the initial attack on their people. At least that was how Issam saw it. He went to countless martyrs’ funerals, listened to his cousins’ stories of a lifetime under Israeli rule and it changed him. But unlike his cousins Issam never came to blame the Jews. They believed this was their land just as much as his people. They were wrong of course, but if he were in their position he’d do the same thing. No, Issam had a different target for his hatred, the Christians.

Issam explained to his family how evangelical Christians in America were some of the largest financial backers of Jewish settlements in the West Bank. He’d seen them fundraising on campus at Stanford. The Christians were meddling in affairs that had nothing to do with them. They were paying the Jews to steal the holy land. It was a crusade by proxy! After all, Muslims and Jews had lived peacefully side by side in the Middle East for centuries under the benevolent rule of the Ottomans. What had changed now? The intervention of the Christian West! As the months passed, Issam had become more and more radical.

He’d been approached by a group with ties to the struggle in Somalia. They came to him because he was an American citizen, educated, middle class. They thought he could be very useful to them in expanding their fight to America. They taught him of the Qutb school of thought, the belief system behind Al-Qaeda. It taught that the vast majority of people who called themselves Muslim were in fact infidels because they didn’t adhere to true Islamic beliefs. Therefore the Koranic edict to do no hard to Muslims didn’t apply to them. As they explained their beliefs one really stuck out to Issam, their anger at the way women were treated in the West. Women all acted like harlots, controlling their men when it should be the other way around. The more he heard, the more Issam knew he had found a cause to fight for.

After two years in Palestine, Issam returned to California. He was now a sleeper agent, waiting for his chance to strike back at the Christian imperialists. Outwardly he acted as if all were well. He attended the same moderate mosque as his father, nodded obediently as the imam preached tolerance and love, but all the while plotted their destruction. He had to be patient, but as it turned out not that patient. It was only a year and half later that he received the coded e-mail activating him.

And so it was that two weeks later he found himself driving through the gates of Catholic University, ready to meet his destiny. The part of him that was still a twenty-five year old man was excited by all the cloak and dagger stuff. He hadn’t even met his handler, only been directed to a luggage locker at Union Station and found the device and instructions for it there. When he’d read his directions he knew exactly what he would do with it.

Issam parked his rental car right in front of the university’s library. It was getting late in the evening now and at a small college like this one the library wasn’t too busy. Issam sat in his car watching people go in and out, gauging how often someone passed the front desk. He took a few long deep breaths and quietly said a prayer for warriors about to go into battle. It helped to control his shaking hands at least. He reached into the back seat, throwing off a blanket to reveal the device. It was time.