Scimitar's Edge

Copyright © 2006 by Marvin Olasky All rights reservered. Printed in the United States of America Ten-digit ISBN: 0-8054-4183-2 Thirteen-digit ISBN: 978-0-8054-4183-3 Published by Broadman & Holman Publishers Nashville, Tennessee Dewey Decimal Classification: F Subject Heading: GANGS—FICTION\CHURCH SHOOTINGS—FICTION/FAITH—FICTION 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 10 09 08 07 06 ote: All present-day characters are fictional except for the Nmedia and political personalities in chapter sixteen and one character in chapter twenty-one: There really is a Metropolitan Ozmen at the Deur-ul Zaferan Monastery near the Turkish- Syrian border. Descriptions of historical characters are factual. Suleyman Mahmudi did build Castle Hosap in southeastern Turkey in 1643. The chess game in chapter fourteen derives from one played by Gustav Richard Neumann and Adolf Anderssen in Berlin in 1864, but then it was not a matter of life or death. PROLOGUE eliha Kuris sat in her living room in Konya, scarcely believ- Zing what she was watching on TRT1, the major government- run channel in Turkey. The second of the twin towers of New York was crumpling. She cried, thinking of the horrible way so many were dying. Then came a knock on her door. She peered out cautiously. Ever since her last book, threats from Hezbollah terrorists had come as fast as the sewage ran after heavy rains. One fatwa against her read, “She has confused and poisoned Muslims with her Western ideas. She deserves death.” But it was only a man, Trafik Kurban, whose ailing mother she had helped. They had met in the room at the hospital where the old woman was dying of lung cancer. Trafik’s hollow cheeks and chain-smoking habits made generational continuity likely, but he had seemed friendly enough as he joked about his favorite American film, The Wizard of Oz. Zeliha opened the door to him. “I have a present for you in my car,” he said, taking her hand in his own—it was sticky soft—and pointing to a white Mitsubishi that sat at the curb. “You showed yourself a true daughter of Turkey during my mother’s duress, and I want to thank you.” Zeliha looked up and down the street but saw no danger signs. She smiled and followed him to the vehicle. Trafik reached in, pulled out a three-foot-tall scarecrow stuffed with straw, and handed it to her. She gave it a puzzled look before smiling and saying, “It’s lovely.” v i i Then Trafik stuck a needle in her arm and shoved her into the car. Zeliha came to in a dank basement. At first all she could sense was the overpowering smell of onions. The odor hung in the air and left her struggling for breath. Her hands were bound behind her back, her legs tethered to a pillar. All was quiet, but then she heard movement and conversation on the floor above. She strained to catch what was being said. A man with a booming voice. He sounded joyous. “Passed the initiation . Trafik, one of us . member of Hezbollah.” Hezbollah! So Trafik was not just a petty criminal. Hezbollah! Instantly she knew what would happen, though her tormentors made her wait. She lost track of the time and must have dozed because when she awoke her throat was parched and a glass of water sat just beyond her reach. She often heard the man with the loud, harsh voice talking and then laughing outside the door. When the door opened, the smell of fresh bread wafted into the room. Only when her mouth was as dry as Saudi sand and her stomach cramped from hunger did the loud man enter. Even then he was patient, stand- ing for a time just staring at her. Finally he leaned close, smelling of garlic, his thick black mustache tickling her cheek. Spit from his mouth sprayed her face. “You wanted to be Turkey’s Salman Rushdie or Taslima Nasrin, eh? They deserve to die, and you will.” On the first day he beat her. On the second day he dripped burning nylon on her, all the time complaining that he had to use primitive torture devices because her Western allies kept him from getting modern electroshock devices. He demanded infor- mation about the members of her conspiracy. She explained that there was no conspiracy, that she had only written what was true. He became furious. Upstairs she could hear The Wizard of Oz playing nonstop, with the Munchkins’ song turned up loud to cover up her vIII SCIMITAR’Sscreams. EDGE She imagined Trafik was watching the film, and her one hope was that he would come to see her so she could ask him how he felt betraying the woman who had been his dying mother’s only friend. Trafik did not descend, but she heard him chortle as the Wicked Witch screamed, “I’m melting, melting.” Finally Trafik did stand in front of her, but instead of dis- playing remorse he held a camera. As the loud man did his work, Trafik silently recorded the ravages of torture. Summoning her remaining strength, Zeliha spat at him. “How could you do this?” But before he answered, if he answered, she lost con- sciousness and never returned to life. MARVIN OLASKY iX PART ONE INNOCENTS ABROAD CHAPTER ONE rovidence Community Church in South Philadelphia Pwas hosting its end-of-the-school-year rally. Five hundred members of church youth groups from the Philadelphia and Wilmington areas came to hear a rock band and enjoy a cook- out, with a skit about the danger of growing gang violence sandwiched in between. The band was hammering at high decibels in the low-lit sanctuary. Teens stood on the pews, swaying and clapping to the music. No one noticed a young man entering through the dou- ble doors at the back. A white and blue bandanna covered his head and an obscenity-laden T-shirt hung nearly to his knees, still not far enough to reach the crotch of his baggy blue jeans. His right arm was tattooed with spiderwebs, “laugh now, cry later” clown faces, and the name “Luis.” His right hand held a .38. Before a greeter could offer a welcome, Luis sent a bullet through one guitar and another clanging into a microphone stand. As the band members froze in confusion, teens in the audi- ence laughed and applauded the clever opening to the skit. A third 3 bullet tore into the bass drum and sent the band members scurry- ing. A lone voice yelled, “He’s shooting at us! Duck down!” The skinny youth pastor, looking not much older than the kids who packed the dark sanctuary, stood up and waved his arms wildly. “This is not the gang skit. This is for real.” His voice cracked, sending the crowd into fits of laughter. Suddenly his left arm jerked wildly and a red stain spread over the sleeve of his white shirt. “Get down in the pews!” he screamed. Kids close to him began to yell and duck under their pews. Those on the other side still thought they were part of an inter- active skit. “Paintball!” one boy yelled. ”Awesome!” Luis was outraged. “Shut up! All of you just shut up! Enough of this Jesus nonsense!” One girl whispered, “Can he say that in church?” The boy next to her shouted, “Wash your mouth out with soap!” His friends gave him high fives. The shooter turned and glowered at them, cursing in a com- bination of Spanish and English, swinging the gun from side to side as he sidled away from the doors and snarled, “Where’s Carlos?” He snapped off two shots, hitting a girl. She screamed, moved her hand to her shoulder, looked at her red-stained fin- gers, and screamed again: “He shot me!” Her voice reflected shock and betrayal. That’s when panic set in. ! Across the parking lot in the church manse the old air condi- tioner rat-a-tatted as Washington Post national security corre- spondent Halop Bogikian finished his interview of pastor David Carrillo, known for his work with gangs. This was an unusual assignment for Hal, but reports of Al-Qaeda connections with a Hispanic gang, Mara Salvatrucha—MS-13 for short—were sur- facing. His editor had thought he should learn about the gang and the possibility that it could smuggle a nuclear bomb across 4 SCIMITAR’Sthe EDGE border. The journalist and the pastor sat across from each other at a round oak table in the book-lined study. Carrillo leaned back in his chair, a smile playing around his lips. Hal thought the pastor too relaxed, too comfortable in his own skin, so it was time to pounce. Leaning forward, pen poised above his reporter’s notebook, thin and wiry Hal searched the pastor’s face. “You’re saying that hard-core gang members, even members of MS-13, get religion and turn from their wicked ways?” “I know you don’t believe it, but that’s what often happens.” Hal shook his head as though dealing with an imaginative six-year-old. “Church and state issues aside, why should anyone believe that gang members will give up power—and what seems to them an efficient way to get money—for God?” Carrillo smiled. “I’m not expecting you to take my word for it. A young man, Carlos, is waiting in the living room. He has a remarkable story to tell you if you’ve got the time.” Hal glanced at his watch.

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