CHAPTER 38

“MR. DONOVAN, I FEAR if I do not know the nature of your mission, I will not be able to assist as readily as I might. ”

“Sorry, Maajid, I think the initial idea was to get me trained up enough to pass off as a disgruntled veteran who converted to Islam, but Freddy mentioned that now I might go in as an aspiring novelist doing research, so I’m not really sure. I did my best to study the enemy while in the military, but I fear I fell short, uh. . . I don’t mean that all Muslims are the enemy. . . it just came out that way. ”

Maajid smiled, his wise professor’s eyes betraying the fact that he genuinely liked his new pupil.

“Mr. Donovan, I. . . ”

“Maajid, how many times do I have to tell you that it’s okay to call me James? ”

“Ah, yes, James. Part of this training is also to familiarize you with your new last name. Mr. Donovan it is. ”

Reece smiled. They’d had this conversation before. He’d come to thoroughly enjoy his time spent with Maajid and never tired of hearing him speak. Maajid had been put through the wringer by his native country of Great Britain and a foreign one: Egypt. After what Reece had suffered from elements of his own government, he felt a certain kinship with Maajid. If Maajid could forgive, maybe Reece could, too.

“As I was saying, Mr. Donovan, if you could tell me the country in which you were going to attempt this foolish stunt, I could be of more use. ”

“I honestly don’t know exactly where I’m going. I need to make contact with an old friend through the Muslim community, somewhere in Europe I think. ”

Reece smiled at the man he now considered a friend.

“Maajid, I wish we’d had you around a few years back. Maybe we wouldn’t be in this mess of a global insurgency. ”

“Unfortunately, I was on the other side then, Mr. Donovan, as you well know. ”

They had discussed this many times, but Reece kept coming back to it. How someone who had been through what Maajid had experienced could be so positive and energetic was inspiring beyond words.

“I guess we are all on our own path, huh? ”

“I can certainly affirm that, Mr. Donovan. It took more years than I care to remember, but I am at that stage in life where I have taken accountability for my past actions. My only desire is to pass along my experience so that others can make more informed decisions that influence the narrative and counternarrative by extremists on both sides, though you know I dislike characterizing things in such polarizing terms. It’s not as easy as a clash of civilizations; it’s more nuanced than that, as we’ve discussed before. This is not about destroying infrastructure or assassinating various so-called leaders. This is a war of ideology, and it won’t be won or lost on the battlefield. ”

“Agreed, ” Reece said, shaking his head. “We can hit them every night where they sleep in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Syria, wherever they seek refuge, and still not defeat the idea that is militant Islam. ”

“Have I ever told you what Dr. Muhammad Badee’ told me when we were imprisoned together in Mazrah Tora prison? ” Maajid asked his student, referring to Cairo’s infamous prison where he had spent considerable time. “He said, ‘Ideas are bulletproof. ’& #8201; ”

“Yeah, I’ve heard something similar before. I think it was ‘You can’t kill an ideology. ’ Kind of reminds me of our response to that same ideology with a ‘War on Terror. ’ We declared war on a tactic, while what we are really doing is countering an idea. Politicians thought we could kill our way out of it. Maybe they thought we’d kill our way to their next election victory. ”

“Perhaps, Mr. Donovan, perhaps, but I urge you not to be too hard on them. To borrow and paraphrase from your Bible, ‘They know not what they do. ’& #8201; ”

“I understand, but we trusted our leaders both elected and uniformed to study and understand the conflict. We had let things fester for so long that any other response wasn’t even on the radar. It was war. ”

“Yes, and that is why after all these years, I wish to share my journey with those who can make a difference for future generations. My son in London will be on his way to college soon. I missed most of his life and he’s never forgiven me. I let my hate of ‘the West’ guide my every move. From the fights with skinheads in Essex to my recruitment by Hizb al-Tahrir. I bought into the us versus them narrative and truly believed that a global caliphate would right the wrongs I felt from the bullying and beatings by the white fascists who roamed Essex looking for smaller groups of ‘Pakis’ to torment and harass. Today I feel sorry for them, but more important, I understand them. They fell for the same narrative, albeit the other side, but the same narrative nonetheless. ”

“How did prison not turn you into a more hardened jihadi like we always hear about on the news? ”

“I’m not saying that never happens, Mr. Donovan. I’m saying that it didn’t happen in my case. And, strangely enough, had I not been imprisoned in Egypt in the same cell block as Dr. Badee’, I might either still be in there or I might be planning the next 9/11. ”

“Well, I guess I’m glad? ” Reece said with a semi-confused look on his face.

“Ha! As strange as it sounds to say, I would not change a thing. It was just happenstance that I ended up in Mazrah Tora. I picked the wrong day to fly to Egypt to start my graduate-level Islamic studies program. July 7, 2005. Of course, I knew nothing of the attacks, though at the time I was so consumed by hate that I would have gladly assisted. As fate and Allah would have it, I was known to authorities for my outspoken criticism of the British government for its treatment of the Muslim community, unlike the bombers that day who were clean, as they say in intelligence circles. ”

That July day was one Reece knew well. Four al-Qaeda operatives wearing s-vests killed fifty-two people and wounded more than seven hundred in coordinated bombings across London. It was the first suicide bombing to target Great Britain and their deadliest terrorist attack up to that point since Pan Am Flight 103 was brought down over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988.

“Departing on a flight to Egypt hours prior to the attack put me on the MI5 and MI6 radar. When I landed in Cairo I was immediately arrested by the state security apparatus, Aman al-Dawlah. I was handcuffed, blindfolded, stripped naked, and thrown into a van with a few other unfortunate souls whose only crime that day was flying to Egypt. ”

Reece was enthralled. In the SEAL Teams, the old and often-quoted Sun Tzu saying “Know thy enemy” was usually followed by a class on Islam, thereby grouping “enemy” and “Islam” together for a platoon or troop of young, hard-charging frogmen who would rather be out training than stuck in a classroom, listening to a lecture from the intel shop by someone who had probably looked up most of the brief on Wikipedia. He had made so many Muslim friends in his travels over the years, he always found it hard to listen to the intelligence briefings focused on Islam.

“Do you know the difference between Islam and Islamism, Mr. Donovan? ”

“I thought Islamism is the same as Islamic fundamentalism. ”

“Not precisely. I know we’ve discussed the basics over the past weeks, like the difference between Sunni and Shia, the various calls to prayer, and the Five Pillars of Islam. It is important to understand this next point, Mr. Donovan, and it took me seven years in an Egyptian prison to grasp it. Islam is a religion, just as Christianity is a religion. Islamism is the idea that a certain interpretation, any interpretation, of Islam must be imposed on society at large. It’s a political movement, a totalitarian movement, with Islam as its vehicle, with the goal of eventually creating the Khilafah. Submit to Islam and join the movement or be put to the sword. The minority has hijacked the narrative and is gaining momentum and followers. I was one of those followers, Mr. Donovan. I recruited impressionable young men just like me to the movement. I hijacked their lives. This is how I atone. I share my story with the younger minds coming up through the ranks at MI5 and MI6, and have been fortunate enough to do the same at your CIA, FBI, and occasionally the Department of State. ”

“And it was Dr. Badee’ that changed your outlook and understanding of your religion. ”

“Not of my religion, Mr. Donovan, but of the movement. Though he is very old now and has accepted that he will die in his prison cell, Dr. Badee’ is the current leader of the Muslim Brotherhood. It was he who smuggled Sayyid Qutb’s Islamist manifesto out of Mazrah Tora in the early sixties. It is ironic that that very text ignited an already simmering movement of militant Islamism and inspired Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri to form al-Qaeda. ”

“So, how did you get out? How did anyone even find out where you were? ” Reece asked, fascinated by the story.

Maajid looked at his watch. “That, Mr. Donovan, is a tale for another day, ” he said with a twinkle in his eye. “I fear we have gone too late as it is, and it is almost time for evening prayer. ”

“Thank you, Maajid. I’d like to meet your son one day. ”

Maajid paused. “Yes, I’d like to meet him again, too, ” he said, his voice trailing off with more than a tinge of sadness.

“And, Mr. Donovan, I sense our time here is coming to a close. Remember, the United States is the most powerful nation on earth, just as Great Britain was before her. Rome and the Mongols held that title as well, but more formidable than the dominance of those empires has always been the power of an idea. As those great powers rose and fell, ideas remained. Never forget that, Mr. Donovan. And now it is time for prayer. ”

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