Sunday, June 26, 2005

Hot Tip

I may not be military or police, but I do my part to fight the war on terror--and not always on secret ops with guns blazing, either. Take the other day, for instance.
It was 1100 hours, and I was woken from my second combat nap of the day by the sound of the landscaping guys mowing the perimeter of the McFab compound. I'd slept only sixteen hours the night before, so I wasn't too happy about my "wake-up call." I had given the property manager orders to never mow before 1300, and one thing I don't tolerate is willful disobedience. Someone was about to get a size-8 combat boot in the ass.
I rolled out of bed and threw back the camo curtains at my window, ready to hurl some verbal grenades at the lawn-mowing puke outside--and then I stopped cold. This wasn't just some innocent landscaper. He was clearly an FN (that's Foreign National, to you pansies), and by the look of him, an Arab. He was mowing like a pro, obviously having been trained to blend in with real, less sinister landscapers, and he was making a point of not being too obvious in his surveillance of my quarters. Smart, but not smart enough. I grabbed the Crossman Wankmaster 5000 air-pistol I keep by my bed, tucked it in my belt, and headed outside.
I wouldn't waste him right away. First, I'd have to interrogate him. Was he Al-Quaeda? PLO? Al-Jazeera? And how had they found me? My ad in the back of Soldier of Fortune, or had someone tipped them off? I wouldn't know until I had my Vietnam-era field telephone wired to his jewels and dialed "T" for "talk."
"Just going out for a sec, Mom," I shouted over my shoulder as I exfil'd our double-wide. I didn't hear her response, as I was re-checking the Wankmaster, making sure there was a BB in the chamber. I was ready to confront this bastard.
He was small, only a few inches taller than me, but stockier. A look of surprise crossed his swarthy features as I placed a boot on his lawnmower and signalled him to shut it down. He was sweating, I noticed, his thin mustache wet with fear. Good. I like 'em scared. I decided to speak to him in Arabic to let him know who he was dealing with.
"Aloha, Admiral Ackbar," I said, using the traditional Muslim greeting.
"Que?" I wasn't sure what that meant, but it sure wasn't American.
"Mirbat tahini--falafel!" I shouted. "You will talk--now!" He tried the confused act.
"No...no ingles...no comprende..."
"It's your mother tongue, you bastard! Now, peshiwar! Urdu! Islamabad!" Unless my Arabic isn't what it used to be, I'd told him to give me answers, and quick.
"Tu loco...Chingas tu madre," he said. He was speaking an Arabic dialect I wasn't familiar with, probably something tribal, but his meaning was clear. I had broken him. He was ready to talk.
"Hummus baksheesh?" I asked (who do you work for?).
He took a deep breath. I could see he was weighing his loyalty to his terrorist handlers against his desire to survive this encounter with a real American. He leveled his gaze at me.
"Chupa Me Verga," he said.
"Are you sure," I asked, though I knew he was too frightened to lie to me. "Arafat couscous?"
"Me Verga," he repeated. "Chupa Me Verga."
I decided to let him live. He was young, probably recruited as an orphan by one of the Wasabi schools of strict Islam that poison the minds of the children of the middle east. Besides, I had what I wanted, the name of his terrorist leader. I let the kid go, and with any luck, he's now working at a convenience store as the real, peaceful Islam would have him do.
I went back inside and speed-dialed the local FBI office. "Chupa Me Verga," I said, and gave them my address. Soon, the Feds will show up and debrief me, then they'll go out and catch that bastard, wherever he is.
As you can see, fighting terrorists doesn't always require shooting them down like dogs (though of course that's how I usually do it). Gather your intel, and share it with the proper authorities. Together we can lick terrorism just like we've licked Me Verga.