Reggae Jihad

By Caleb H. Smith

When ex-navy SEAL and former Homeland Security agent Cody Sargent sails his 45 foot sloop into Admiralty Bay on the Caribbean island of Bequia, he expects to pass a few pleasant days and nights with Emma Stevenson, a local boutique owner he met the previous spring on his way south to Venezuela to lay up his boat for the hurricane season. Over dinner the first night, Emma tells him island gossip has it that a group of Muslims have taken up residence on the adjacent island of St. Vincent with the intention of converting the local Rastafarians to Islam. Knowing Muslims from his tours of duty in Afghanistan, Cody doubts they would even attempt such a conversion. With the whole winter ahead to cruise the Caribbean, Cody decides to take a few days and sail over to St. Vincent and investigate.
He discovers that the Muslims on St Vincent are operating a terrorist training camp in preparation for a strike against the United States mainland. Soon Cody and Emma find themselves targets of Islamic assassins, even as Cody struggles to thwart the Islamic militants’ planned strike against America.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Caleb H. Smith
• Release date: Jan 2, 2012
• ISBN: 9781466042162

Caleb H. Smith

Caleb H. Smith graduated from the University of Virginia with a BA in English. He has worked in the financial industry, most recently as a managing director of a regional brokerage firm which has now been sold to a large bank. Over the years, Caleb has cruised the Caribbean extensively on his forty-four foot sailboat. Currently he is dividing my time between Pennsylvania and Florida, working full time on writing novels. He is divorced with three grown daughters and two small grandsons.

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PROLOGUE

Hussein glowered across the beat-up desk, fixing his piercing dark eyes on the man standing at attention before him. The makeshift office, perhaps ten feet by ten feet, filled the small building, which was little more than a shack, a hovel that until recently had been home to one of the Caribbean island’s many poverty-stricken natives. There were three windows, one to a wall, while a door occupied the center of the fourth. This rough-built wood door stood open, as did the windows, whose top-hinged storm shutters opened out and upward to bar direct sunlight from entering the sparsely furnished room. The wing like shutters allowed the cooling Caribbean trade winds to pass continuously through the small building.

Hussein glared unrelentingly, letting the tension build. He sat on a rickety chair his squat, powerful body threatened to overwhelm, to smash to the floor. Of Saudi descent, Hussein’s skin bore a dark complexion that had been handed down by hundreds of generations of Bedouin ancestors, tribal peoples who had wandered the Arabian deserts for millennia. Even though Hussein sat below the prisoner, his eyes, indeed his whole demeanor, projected a sense of powerful malice that made the standing man shrink visibly into his lanky body.

Hussein continued staring for nearly a minute, then asked almost kindly in his recently acquired singsong Caribbean accent, Why don’t you tell me who you really are?

You already know, the man pleaded. Your people checked me out thoroughly before you brought me here.

We thought we did. We’re no longer sure we got it right.

You got it right. You know everything there is to know about me.

Maybe. Maybe not. Why don’t you humor me and run through it again?

If it will make you feel better. The man relaxed slightly as he began his story. "I grew up in Oklahoma, the oldest of six children. My father never held a decent job. My family was poor. There was never enough of anything. Fortunately I excelled in school, and after I graduated from high school, I was able to enroll at the Colorado School of Mines. Using money I earned from summer jobs in the Oklahoma oil fields as a roughneck, as well as the money I borrowed from the government, I earned a petroleum engineering degree in three and a half years.

"After graduation, I signed on for a two-year stint with Aramco in Saudi Arabia. During those two years, I managed to save enough money to pay back my educational loans to the government. As you know, I converted to Islam while working for Aramco.

When my contract with Aramco was up, I returned to the States and was hired by Chevron out in California. That’s all there is. I’ve been with Chevron’s refining division ever since. Reciting his resume, the man appeared to gain confidence, relaxing visibly.

That’s what you told us when we recruited you. Now our people have turned up some new facts about your background, which has raised some fresh questions. Hussein’s dark eyes bore into the man, waiting.

What sort of questions? The man tensed again.

There is the money you borrowed for your education. It didn’t come through the normal student loan channels. Hussein paused to let this sink in. Why don’t you tell me where it did come from?

That’s easy. It was a federal program for gifted students who came from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Perhaps it was. But it was also run by the CIA.

That’s impossible. You’d better check again. The man glanced over his shoulder at the two large men behind him who lounged on either side of the doorway. They had escorted him here. Now they were standing guard over him.

We’ve done enough checking. In addition to studying petroleum engineering, you studied Arabic. I suppose that was so you could go to Saudi Arabia and obtain an excellent job with no previous experience, as you apparently did.

It helped.

I’m sure it did, although nowhere near as much as the CIA making arrangements for you. Everybody who works for Aramco speaks English. There is no need to speak Arabic.

I have never had anything to do with the CIA.

Hussein ignored this comment. And what about your conversion to Islam? How convenient that was. You’re in Saudi Arabia, and you suddenly decide being a Muslim is for you. It also helped you get closer to the Saudis at Aramco who worked alongside you. In fact, it was your entrée to the Saudi Islamic militant movement.

I was thinking about converting to Islam long before I went to Saudi Arabia. While I was there, the time seemed right.

Perhaps it was. Up until this moment, converting has served you well. Hussein looked down at his powerful hands resting on the tabletop before him, then looked quickly back up at the prisoner. Tell me who you are. Who sent you?

Nobody sent me. You recruited me. You people came to me and asked if I would be willing to come down here to St. Vincent and instruct a group of men on where oil refineries are vulnerable. I agreed because, as a convert to Islam, I want to serve in your jihad against the Great Satan.

Perhaps instead, you serve the Great Satan. Perhaps you have come to sabotage our jihad.

That’s a lie. Anyone who says I work for America is a liar.

Hussein fell silent, but continued to stare at the man standing before him. Finally he said, I’ll give you one more chance to tell me who you are.

I am who I’ve told you I am.

It saddens me that you insist on lying to me. If there was time, I would break you, reduce you to a miserable cripple begging to tell me the truth. Hussein briefly looked away, as if relishing the thought. However, there is no time. We’re close to completing our jihad, so close there won’t be enough time before we strike for you to be missed by whoever sent you. Perhaps someday I’ll learn who you are. Now I have a mission to complete. My curiosity will have to wait.

Without a word, Hussein slid open the shallow desk drawer in front of him. He removed an automatic pistol and raised it toward the standing man. When he’d steadied the muzzle on the man’s forehead, Hussein pulled the trigger, still without speaking. A small hole blossomed on the man’s forehead, even as the back of his head exploded, spraying the two men standing inside the door with blood and bits of brain. The petroleum engineer’s already dead body dropped to the floor in a heap before Hussein’s desk.

Take him out and bury him, Hussein ordered. And get a couple of the other recruits in here to clean up the mess. It will be a good lesson for the others.

~ ~ ~

Chapter 1

As the forty-five-foot sailboat cleared the West Cay Light on the leeward tip of Bequia, the wind funneling out of Admiralty Bay picked up to over thirty knots, causing the cutter to heel severely to port. Cody Sargent, who single-handed the boat, eased the main sheet, started the engine, and set the autopilot on a course close enough to the wind that the Genoa jib began luffing. Grasping the end of the roller furling line, he started the jenny sheet and hauled in the sail until it was tightly wound around the forestay. He then disengaged the autopilot and brought the boat into the wind, simultaneously pulling the main boom amidships. It was nearly four o’clock on a day in late October, and he had been sailing since early that morning, when he had taken his departure from Union Island, the southernmost island of the West Indies associate state known as St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

Soon the hills surrounding Bequia’s Admiralty Bay broke the trade winds’ velocity, and the breeze fell to a bare three knots. Now the mainsail flapped gently as the boat motored the final distance into the bay. Near the head of the harbor, Cody picked up a mooring. He shut down the diesel auxiliary engine and furled the mainsail. When he finished this, he stood in the boat’s cockpit for a moment and admired the peaceful Caribbean harbor. Then he went below to take a hot shower and wash the salt from his deeply tanned body.

Cody Sargent was beginning the second winter of his sabbatical from Wall Street. Two years before, in a windfall, he had amassed a considerable sum of money participating in a private financing. The investment company that employed him had bought a publicly traded company and taken it private. Cody had been cut in on the deal in return for certain services he’d performed for a small Washington group appointed by the president and charged with connecting the dots in order to interrupt and prevent terrorist plots.

The chairman of this group, known as the National Counterterrorism Committee, chose not to put Cody on the government payroll, for deniability in the event the delicate task Cody executed for him went awry. Out of patriotism, and perhaps because it cost them little, Winston & Co., the investment firm Cody worked for, had offered him a piece of the private deal, which almost immediately resulted in Cody receiving a payoff of close to a million dollars.

The partners at Winston & Co. had counted on him returning to their Wall Street offices when he completed his project for the Counterterrorism Committee, but Cody had looked at all that money and measured it against four years at the Naval Academy followed by five years fighting and killing in the cold moonscape of Afghanistan. It had taken less than ten seconds for Cody to decide on a mental health break. He would spend a couple winters cruising the Caribbean on a sailboat while he sorted out how he intended to live the rest of his life. He’d continued to work summers filling in for Winston & Co. executives on vacation, but that had failed to restock the larder sufficiently, and now he was faced with the reality that his savings were running low. By the end of the coming winter, he would have to choose between returning to a full-time job on Wall Street or becoming a full-time boat bum, with all the paucity and pointlessness that such a life entailed.

After his years with the Navy SEALs in Afghanistan, a country of grinding poverty whose tribal people still lived somewhere in the seventh or eighth centuries, Cody had seen enough of wasted lives. Still, he was not anxious to return to the modern-day struggles, whether that was killing Islamic extremists in near Asia or fighting for success among the more civilized tribes of Wall Street.

Cody shaved, showered, and pulled on a pair of clean Bermuda shorts and a golf shirt. This outfit would put him on the local sartorial scale somewhere between wealthy tourist and everyday Caribbean sailing bum. In fact, he was taller and better muscled than the average tourist. His now permanent suntan also set him off from the one-week-a-winter visitors.

He used a halyard to launch the rubber dinghy he had lashed to the foredeck for the sail up from Union Island. When he had it tied alongside, he lowered the eight-horsepower outboard engine onto the dinghy’s stern bracket, tightened the clasps, and attached the fuel line from the two-gallon gas can. Satisfied, he started the motor and cast off for the small village on the shore of Admiralty Bay. He did not bother to lock the boat. Nobody with any sense would go aboard a strange boat that obviously had someone living aboard. In any case, if there was anyone crazy enough to do so, they would have little difficulty defeating the simple locks found on most sailing yachts.

The dinghy dock, located at the southwestern edge of the town, was nearly bereft of dinghies. This late in October, the hurricane season was ending, but another month would pass before most yachts arrived from the States or Europe. Boats that had passed the storm season in Trinidad, south of the hurricane belt, of which Cody’s was one, would start working their way up the island chain in the next few weeks. Cody had grown impatient with life in New York City and had flown south to Trinidad in early October to commission his boat, the Island Woman. He knew he was pushing the season by sailing up the Windward Islands before they became totally safe from hurricanes, but four months spent in the canyons of lower Manhattan had made him anxious to regain his freedom.

Cody tied the dinghy’s painter to the horizontal two-by-four that served as the low dock’s tie-up. Ashore for the first time in twenty-four hours, he stretched his legs, strolling down the walkway that ringed the harbor. Soon he came to a small boutique selling resort wear and costume jewelry that was owned by Emma Stevenson, a charming young woman from England whose acquaintance he had made on his June trip south to Trinidad. A small bell above the door jingled as he entered the shop, and Emma, who was seated on a stool behind the small counter, looked up without interest, a look that quickly changed to smiling surprise.

Cody, she cried. You’re back. She bounced off the stool and came around the counter to hug him. Why didn’t you write to tell me you were coming?

I wasn’t sure when I’d get here. Besides, I thought you liked surprises.

Oh, I do. She hugged him tightly before looking up at him with a pixyish grin. Emma was a small, birdlike woman whose movements were quick, filled with enthusiasm. How long will you be staying?

I don’t know. I don’t have any particular schedule. Cody kissed her lightly on her upturned forehead. I thought we might have dinner tonight and discuss it.

And what makes you think I’m not already engaged this evening? She pulled her body back from his, but continued to hold on with her hands.

I just took a chance. For all I know, you may have gotten married in the four months since I was here last. Cody looked down at her with mock seriousness. Tell me, have you gotten married in my absence?

To somebody on this tiny island? There aren’t even any interesting tourists passing through here in the summertime.

I take it that’s a no.

I’ve been saving all my love for you, Cody. She hugged him tightly again and then stepped back and looked him up and down.

Don’t get carried away, Cody teased.

And don’t you get a swelled head, she replied. Emma had sailed into Bequia on a sailboat captained by her significant other, a forty-two-year-old London attorney who, in a midlife crisis, had left his wife and taken up with Emma, a rising young star in his law firm. They had sold all their possessions and used the proceeds to purchase a thirty-six-foot sailboat on which they planned to circle the globe. They reached Bequia by sailing down to the Canary Islands, crossing the Atlantic to Barbados, and working their way up the islands from Granada. The passages had not been quite as idyllic as they had anticipated, and by the time they arrived at the northern end of the Grenadines, Emma’s significant other was drinking heavily, and she was ready to swear off a life at sea. After a few weeks’ negotiation, it was decided he would hit up his aging parents for a loan and buy out her half of the sailboat. When the money arrived, he sailed on toward his dream, and Emma bought the boutique she and Cody were standing in.

Then you’re free for dinner?

I might be. Do I get to go back to my apartment and shower first?

You’re fine just the way you are. You’re dressed perfectly, and I’m sure you don’t need a shower.

If you say so. Give me a few minutes to close the shop and we’ll be off. Emma started toward the back of the counter. Before she reached it, she turned back to Cody and looked him up and down. Her pixie face wore a coy look. Maybe before bed we can take a shower together. It’s been a long time since I had a handsome man scrub my back.

Then I’m your one, though I’m not too sure about the handsome part.

They walked back along the harbor walkway in the gathering dusk. There were few sailboats besides Cody’s in the harbor. The majority of the moorings were empty. He thought vaguely of returning to his boat and closing it up for the night, then discarded the idea.

They came to a restaurant located in a building set back some hundred feet from the water. The sparse lawn that surrounded it was interspersed with coconut palms whose fronds rustled softly in the evening breeze. The dining room was on the second floor, open to the cooling air. The native hostess led them to a table along the railing that looked out on the harbor. Very romantic, Cody thought as he sat down opposite Emma.

When they had rum punches in front of them, Cody said, So tell me what’s been happening in Bequia’s version of paradise.

Let me see. I guess things have been quiet. No hurricanes. The natives didn’t even kill a whale this summer.

That’s something, at least.

Way before the tourists landed in the Caribbean with their dollars, the men of Bequia had shipped out on sailing vessels in order to provide for their families. Many of them had found berths on whaling vessels and had brought their killing skills home to retirement. Today the citizens of Bequia made a sport of hunting the whales that played off their island, a practice Cody, who had seen more than enough killing, despised. He believed many humans deserved to be killed for their actions, but this tenet did not extend to innocent animals.

The men of Bequia hunted the whales in the old-fashioned way, harpooning them from longboats in the manner of the old Nantucket whalers. However, other than the thrill of the chase, Cody could not see much of a point. Sure, the killing resulted in a big beach party and everybody got to taste whale meat, but killing such a magnificent animal was senseless. Last spring the islanders had succeeded in killing two whales, a cow and her calf. They had harpooned the calf first, knowing the mother would not leave it to die alone. When they had finished off the calf, they killed the mother. Cody had refused to attend the celebration party on the beach, choosing to sit alone on the Island Woman and polish off a bottle of rum in memory of the two magnificent mammals.

Something exciting must have happened over the summer. These islands are never that peaceful.

Bequia is. That’s what I love about it. Emma took a pensive sip of her rum punch. When she looked up, she said, There’s an election coming up over in St. Vincent, though. You know what that means.

Revolution? Political murders?

It’s not that bad.

Yet.

The political process on Caribbean islands was more often than not fraught with violence. The wars between England and France for control of the islands were a couple hundred years in the past, and the fierce Carib Indians had been mostly killed off, but evolution had not had enough time to erase the local penchant for settling matters with guns and knives.

You could be right about ‘yet.’ There’s a new political party making waves in St. Vincent.

What sort of political party?

Islamic.

Muslim? Don’t tell me Islamic militants have landed in the Caribbean.

Not really. But you know there’s always been a small minority of Muslims here. Remember that bunch from Trinidad who planned to blow up the fuel pipelines at JFK airport a couple years ago?

That was a pipe dream. No pun intended.

Maybe, but those Muslims came from Trinidad. Anyway, a group of Muslims living on St. Vincent somehow got the idea they could convert the Rastafarians to Islam because their god was Haile Selassie from Ethiopia.

Haile Selassie was a Christian.

That fact seems to have eluded them. Emma took another sip of her drink while she composed her thoughts. In any case, the Muslims on St. Vincent have formed their own political party and have brought a delegation over from Mogadishu to work on the Rastafarians.

An interesting proposition. I don’t imagine they’re having much success.

No, so far they haven’t. And events haven’t turned violent yet either.

Perhaps they won’t.

Emma ignored this platitude and said, Tell me about your summer in New York.

Well it was hot, and dirty, and everyone was running around chasing dollars during the day and alcohol at night.

And women?

Nobody in New York has time for women. They’re too busy either working or drowning their problems with booze.

Others may have been doing that. I don’t believe for a minute that you were, Cody.

Cody took a slow sip of his rum swizzle and asked, Shall we order dinner?

~ ~ ~

Chapter 2

In the morning, Cody left Emma readying herself for another day running her boutique. He let himself out of her second-floor apartment, descended the rickety stairs, and stepped out into a Windward Islands morning. The day was tropical, warm, with the usual morning cumulus clouds hanging low overhead and threatening rain. They would dissipate during the morning, revealing the clear blue Caribbean sky in its entirety.

Cody strolled slowly down the street to the waterside walkway that led to the dinghy dock. When he reached it, he undid the dinghy’s painter, climbed aboard, and pushed away from the low dock. The Japanese outboard started on the first pull, and shortly Cody was back aboard the Island Woman. Cody had never liked the boat’s name, but the boat’s transom had carried that name when Cody bought it from a man whose plans to sail the world were cut short by a heart attack. The name probably carried the dreams of the original owner, dreams of exotic women on tropic islands. These weren’t Cody’s dreams, but he believed the old sailors’ superstition that changing a boat’s original name brings bad luck, and thinking he did not need any bad luck, he had kept the name Island Woman. Whenever someone commented on the name’s tackiness, he told them that a man who had built such a fine boat should be forgiven a single indiscretion in naming it.

As he had expected, the Island Woman was undisturbed. He grabbed a bucket out of the lazaret, filled it half full with freshwater and proceeded to chamois off the cushions and bright work which were still crusty with salt from the previous day’s sail. When he finished these tasks, he went below and made himself a cup of instant coffee and brought it topside. With the whole day lying empty ahead of him, he took a few minutes to admire the harbor slowly coming to life. Small boats ferried people back and forth between the land and moored vessels, sailors visiting other sailors. Sweeping the harbor with the binoculars he’d taken from the cockpit locker, he did not recognize any of other boats. It was still too early in the season.

Cody sipped his coffee slowly, content to have a beautiful tropic day without the concern of making a living, or worse, being shot by some crazed Islamic militant as he had been during his tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. He had the whole winter to sail the Island Woman north to the British Virgin Islands, where he intended make up his mind whether to continue on to the East Coast of the United States or return to Trinidad to lay the boat up for another hurricane season. For the present, he thought he would dally for a while with Emma Stevenson. Since few tourists, like yachts, had arrived yet for the season, perhaps she would close the shop for a few days and sail with him over to Mustique and on down to the Tobago Cays. Round trip to those two places would make for a pleasant seven-day cruise.

When he had finished his coffee and washed the cup, he climbed back into the dinghy and motored back to shore. A fruit-and-vegetable stand run by three competing Rastafarians was located just off the beach at the head of the harbor. Cody thought he would walk there and buy some fresh vegetables. The Rastafarians’ sales patter was always good for a laugh, as each tried to outdo the other in describing his wares, explaining volubly why they were obviously better than those of the other two. The joke was that the three Rastafarians grew all their produce together on the same farm up on St. Vincent. Cody thought that, after passing some time with them, he would swing back past Emma’s shop and see what she thought of the idea of a short cruise aboard the Island Woman.

As he walked along, he remembered Emma’s tale of Muslims on St. Vincent trying to convert the Rastafarians there. Not very likely, he thought, at least not of meeting with any success. The Rastafarians had their own self-developed religion. It was based loosely on the Old Testament, with certain predictions being cherry-picked to authenticate their beliefs. One was that a black king would arrive as a savior. The Rastafarians believed Haile Selassie from Ethiopia had been that king, and they worshiped him as their savior. Other passages told them what they should eat and drink, as well as smoke. Several passages recommended an herb that the Rastafarians took to be ganja, their name for marijuana. The Rastafarians believed that smoking ganja gave them religious insight. For lack of proof one way or another, Cody kept an open mind on the subject.

The three Rastafarians stood in the shade of the tin roof that covered their vegetable-and-fruit stand. Both the open-sided shelter and the vegetable vendors inside looked much like they had four months earlier, when Cody had last passed through Bequia. The three Rastafarians wore dusty sandals, shabby dark canvas shorts, T-shirts, and large knit hats that held their long, bulky dreadlocks. The three were of average height but quite thin, a reflection of their mostly vegetarian diet. What distinguished one from the other was the different T-shirt each sported. One wore a new-looking sky blue shirt with the symbol of the Lion of Judea emblazoned across the front. Another wore a shirt that was a patchwork of red, green, and black, the colors of Africa. The third wore a tattered black T-shirt with the words Free At Last below a picture of Nelson Mandela.

Good morning, men, Cody greeted them as he moved from the bright sunshine into the shade of the open-sided building. How goes it?

Cody expected them to push away from the vegetable stands they leaned against and mob him en masse, each explaining the virtues of their produce. Instead they stood silently studying him. Finally, the Rasta wearing the Lion of Judea T-shirt said, It goes, mon.

Cody was taken aback. In his travels, he had encountered natives who were quiet and reserved out of shyness. But this trio had never behaved that way. The last time he provisioned his boat here, the three had been outgoing, volatile salesmen.

You act more like it’s gone, Cody said. What’s come over you three? Have you decided you no longer like growing and selling produce?

The three continued lounging beside their individual produce tables. After several seconds the Mandela T-shirt said, We like what we’re doing.

Then don’t you want to try to sell me something?

If you want to buy something, you’ll buy it, the third man chimed in.

Cody turned away and began to examine the produce they were selling. It looked as fresh as it always had. The avocados were much larger than those sold in the States, and the oranges, green on the outside, would be far sweeter than the orange-colored ones grown in California and Florida. There were tomatoes and melons, lettuce and onions, all of which looked fresh. Then Cody came to the bananas and stopped. They were the large bananas of the variety shipped to the States, not the small, sweet bananas native to the islands.

What happened to the good bananas you used to sell?

We don’t sell those any longer. The tourists prefer these.

What tourists? I would think any tourist who managed to find Bequia would be knowledgeable enough to know good bananas from bad.

Those are good bananas, the Lion of Judea insisted.

Did you grow these bananas? You used to grow the smaller, sweeter ones. Cody sensed the three becoming agitated. They were no longer leaning against their produce tables, but were standing, almost leaning in his direction.

We don’t grow the small bananas any longer. The Rastafarian dressed in the red, black, and green shirt finally spoke up. We don’t grow any produce now.

You don’t? This truly surprised Cody, because part of their former sales pitch had been that their produce was superior because they grew it themselves, uncontaminated by unnatural chemicals. I thought the reason your produce was superior was because you grew it yourself.

We don’t grow it anymore. The Nelson Mandela T-shirt stepped forward.

Do you mind my asking why?

Because we don’t own our own land any longer. A man from Babylon stole it from under us.

Cody was about to question Babylon, then remembered the Rastafarians referred to all modern civilizations as Babylon. They considered modern nations decadent and enslavers of blacks. I heard some Muslims have shown up in St. Vincent with the intention of converting you Rastafarians.

These men came with the intention of stealing our land. They are very rich, and they bribed the parish elders. We were told that they had bought our land. We did not want to sell, and after we were forced to, we did not see any of the money. The politicians that run the parish said we were merely squatters.

You mean they just took your land?

Somebody got paid. But not us. Now the men crowded close around Cody, not malevolently, but from eagerness to have somebody hear their story.

Cody said, I don’t see how that’s possible. Aren’t there any laws on St. Vincent?

There are laws, but these men don’t obey them. They take what they want and pay off whoever they have to.

But what did they want your land for? If they have all that money, why do they want to grow vegetables and fruit?

They don’t want to grow produce. Our soil was very rich, and the ground is level, not on the side of some mountain like most farms on St. Vincent. But the men who stole our land don’t care. They use it for some sort of camp.

You mean for tourists?

Not for tourists. We don’t know what the visitors do there, but we never see any tourists.

Perhaps your farm is being used as a religious retreat.

Not these people. They may be Muslims, but they look more like soldiers than missionaries. They hired some of our people to build a meeting house, but I don’t think it’s for worshiping. More it resembles a schoolhouse, with desks facing a blackboard.

Are you sure they’re Muslims? Cody’s curiosity was rising. Whenever Muslims surfaced in strange places, which the island of St. Vincent definitely was, it often involved terrorism.

The men working on the meeting house told us they saw them praying on small rugs, all facing the mountains where the sun rises. And they speak a strange language that sounds like the same language the Muslims who have attempted to convert the other Rastafarians speak. The Muslims trying to convert us have stayed mostly in Kingstown and a couple other villages along the coast. The men who took over our land keep to themselves, away from the others.

Do you know what language they speak?

The three men considered this for a moment. Then the man wearing the Nelson Mandela T-shirt, who, if not the leader, appeared to be the oldest, said, It’s not English, or French, or Spanish, all of which are mixed into our local island language. Being as they’re Muslim, I would guess they’re speaking Arabic.

Why would a bunch of Arabic-speaking men set up a school in the wilds of St. Vincent?

Certainly not to grow fruits and vegetables. The Lion of Judea showed a flash of his old humor.

Where do you get the produce you sell? Cody asked.

We buy it and mark it up, the shirt of African colors said. We’re trying to find new land to grow our own.

Have you complained to the government in Kingstown?

We did in the beginning, but they told us we had to speak with the parish elders. Those men had already been bought. Maybe the politicians in Kingstown had been too.

I wish I could help you guys, but I’m not sure there’s anything I can do. Cody had enough experience with Muslims to neither like nor trust them. He felt the Islamic militants he’d encountered while fighting in Afghanistan were no better than animals. Worse, Cody believed that even the moderates he had come into contact with secretly sympathized with these radical elements. As for the Muslims with fortunes from oil, they believed they were gods on Earth who should be provided with whatever they desired

Your sympathy is greatly appreciated, the Lion of Judea said with only a hint of irony. Perhaps if you purchase some of our produce, we will both feel better.

Twenty minutes later Cody left the produce stand carrying a heavy plastic bag in each hand. The moment he had agreed to buy something, the trio had reverted to their old style of high-pressure sales. Cody had bought avocados, tomatoes, carrots, lettuce, onions, yams, and a melon. He had passed on the commercial bananas. It was more fresh produce than he could possibly eat before it spoiled, and he stopped by Emma’s boutique and invited her to dinner. She readily accepted. He did