We Are Holding the President Hostage Read Free

tension and it annoyed him to know that he could not
control the visible throbbing. It gave him away, telegraphed to others his
anxiety, exposed his nakedness. He sat in the front seat beside the driver,
sweat pouring down his cheeks and back, his eyes, behind dark glasses, alert to
everything that moved near the entrance of the museum. His moist muscular
thighs gripped the AK47, like a giant phallus.
    At thirty-five he had become a veteran of urban warfare,
skilled in hostage-taking and violent harassment. As he evolved into a
professional, the need for his services had grown considerably in this long
winter of discontent.
    Indeed, he had never known any other season. Born in
southern Lebanon of a poor Shiite family, he was barely able to read before he
found himself in a PLO training camp learning the rudiments of killing. He had
joined a tiny Shiite militia recruited by the PLO as an ally against Israeli
attempts to control southern Lebanon. In those days, he believed the political
rhetoric. He could be stirred by the rousing call of Jihad, Holy War. The lure
of paradise was tantalizing.
    Then the Shiites in Lebanon, buoyed by the remarkable
revolution of the Ayatollah Khomeini, switched gears and the political logic
was recalibrated. Paranoid over any kind of domination and authority, they
began to fight the PLO. Survival considerably enhanced Ahmed's professional
credentials. Soon he was fighting the hated Christians, then the Druse, then
recalcitrant Shiites, depending on the ebb and flow of politics, clashing egos
among the leadership, and the latest betrayal and double double cross.
    Because of these spinning changes and floating alliances,
Ahmed, like many others before him, concluded that the only sure loyalty was to
himself. The Jihad, the driving force of Holy War, had become a matter of
dubious fervor. The prospect of paradise was now seen more as a lure for young
chickens than a possibility for an old fox like himself. He had discovered
profit in terror.
    But killing and kidnapping for profit alone, given the
absence of ideology, possessed the stigma of shame. Ahmed was a man who needed
the anchor of honorable intentions. He had obeyed earlier familial injunctions,
had taken a wife and fathered a child. He was eighteen then and had not yet
come to grips with the true nature of his sexuality. The child, who had nearly
died at birth, was afflicted with a congenital heart disorder.
    It was only a short journey for Ahmed to reorient his
commitments. He had a new justification. Something to kill for. He had
purchased the boy and his wife a villa in Jordan, with servants and the best
medical care available. He did not visit him more than once or twice a year.
Often, he assured himself, the boy was the only thing he truly loved. Such
thoughts left him cleansed and justified.
    Three scrawny men, their beards replicas of Arafat's, sat
tense in the back seat of the Mercedes. The metal of their AK47's glistened
with their sweat. Ahmed sat between the driver and the clean-shaven Jaber. He
turned in his seat, patted his head, and gave him a reassuring wink. Sweet
Jaber. A tingle in his crotch reminded him of the boy's ivory smooth body.
Another easy conquest made possible by the knowledge of Arafat's predilections.
A pederast, the man remained, whatever the whim of the moment, the enduring
role model for disenfranchised Arab youth.
    He would not, of course, have picked Jaber to be with them
if he had not been absolutely assured of both his skill and his commitment. It
could be said that he had handpicked the five of them primarily for their
blindness, their absolute faith in the joys of martyrdom.
    For this mission, the planning had been impeccable. Bigelow
was an Assistant Secretary of State for the American Government, a
troubleshooter on the Middle East, an emissary of the American President. The
purpose of the mission, Ahmed knew, was to embarrass the Egyptian Government
and its so-called moderate lackeys and illustrate