Death, Taxes, and Peach Sangria Read Online Free PDF Page B

and Chung, the federal government’s answer
     to Harold and Kumar, a particular restaurant came to mind.
    Eddie held up a hand. “Don’t you dare say ‘White Castle.’”
    Sheez. The guy could read my mind.
    “Dallas doesn’t have White Castle,” I shot back. “How about Twisted Root?” The place
     had an awesome black bean burger, not to mention their yummy sweet potato chips and
     fried pickles.
    “Is that the place that serves kangaroo?” Wang asked.
    “Only when it’s in season.” I replied. They also served alligator, venison, boar,
     and ostrich, not that there were many takers from what I’d seen. The downtown crowd
     didn’t want to chow down on a Bambi or Big Bird burger.
    “Let’s hit it,” Zardooz said.
    We loaded our new files in our briefcases and headed out.
    *   *   *
    Over lunch, Zardooz shared some intriguing bits of information. In his younger days,
     he’d infiltrated an Al-Qaeda training camp and learned some of their techniques firsthand.
     He showed us a photo of himself from a decade earlier. With his turban, full beard,
     and machine gun he looked nothing like the nerdy agent who sat before us sipping a
     Coke and dipping his French fries in ketchup.
    “Those camps are crazy places,” he said. He went on to explain that the strategy of
     the camp leaders was to visit poor villages where they could easily recruit young
     men and boys who had little or no prospects for the future. They’d move the recruits
     to remote camps in wilderness areas. Once at the camps, the recruits were deprived
     of sleep, exercised to the point of exhaustion, and fed a steady diet of lies to incite
     them against the rest of the world.
    The tactics were similar to those used by cults. Isolation. Sleep deprivation. Brainwashing.
     I had to admit there were some eerie similarities to a summer church camp I’d once
     attended in Louisiana. Whatever spell the staff had cast over us campers was broken,
     however, when we caught the head counselor in the woods with a copy of Playboy in one hand and his ding-dong in the other.
    Zardooz continued. “The leaders convince the recruits they’re doing something worthy
     and heroic when they’re only being used to further a horribly warped interpretation
     of Islam.” Sadly, many volunteered for suicide missions, hoping to become martyrs.
     “These extremists haven’t just given Islam a bad name,” he said. “They’ve made life
     very hard for mainstream Muslims. A man once ripped off my wife’s hijab when she was
     shopping in Walmart.”
    No man had a right to touch any woman without her permission, especially to do something
     as heinous as tearing off her head scarf. I wish I could say the reprehensible act
     surprised me, but alas it did not. For a country founded on religious freedom, America
     was full of ignorance, intolerance, and distrust. I felt bad for Zardooz and other
     Muslims who’d suffered prejudice due to the acts of a small faction of extremists.
     It was no different from judging all Christians based on the radical few who murdered
     abortion doctors or judging all Jewish people based on the bombings carried out by
     the Jewish Defense League.
    Zardooz reached into his back pocket and removed a small envelope. Inside the envelope
     were wallet-sized photos of the three men who’d been arrested here in Dallas. Zardooz
     handed one set to me, another to Eddie.
    I spread the photos out on the table in front of me and looked them over. I wasn’t
     sure what I had expected to see, but it certainly wasn’t the ordinary-looking men
     in the photos. All three were clean shaven, with short dark hair and light brown skin.
     They appeared to be in their late twenties, around my age. One wore a business suit
     and tie in his photo; the other two wore dress shirts. Though none smiled, their expressions
     were in no way threatening. Had I not known these benign-looking men were terrorists,
     I would’ve assumed they were no different