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should have been manning his stall when this all went down, but it turns out he paid one of his cousins, and not a small amount of money, to man it for him.”
    “Why would he do that?”
    “Because somebody paid him even more money to take the day off and hang out a couple of blocks from the al-Karim bazaar.”
    “Who? And why?”
    “The Iraqi Security Forces have been trying to get that out of him, but the man claims he doesn’t know,” said Anderson. “And before you make any remarks about the effectiveness of the Iraqi Security Forces, keep in mind that they were almost immediately on the scene at al-Karim and shut the al-Jazeera crew down before they could get our soldier’s face on tape. We’re lucky that it was all shot from behind.”
    “Who cares if they got his face? They got that little two-by-three-inch patch with the stars and stripes on his upper arm,” said the president, not at all convinced there was anything positive about this catastrophe. “That’s all they needed to get.”
    “True,” said Anderson, “but the fact that his face wasn’t shown will definitely help buy us a little more time.”
    “Time? Time for what? Time to hope this story will just fade away, because that’s not going to happen. This isn’t something we can claim ignorance of and quietly sweep under the rug. People are incensed, Chuck. The entire Muslim world is up in arms. They see this as a direct attack on Islam and are literally out for blood. I’ve been asked by no less than four governments in the region to hand the soldier over once he’s been ID’d so he can stand trial under Islamic law. Not only has every two-bit imam across the region issued a fatwa against him, the U.S. Military, and the United States in general, but some of these people are calling for a war crimes tribunal in the Hague.”
    “Well, if the Muslims want to try our soldier, they’ll have to take a number, because the Democrats on the Hill are already calling for their own hearings.”
    The president sat back down in his chair and massaged his temples with the heels of his hands. “Why doesn’t that surprise me?”
    “We are in an election year.”
    “Even if it weren’t an election year, it wouldn’t matter. Our side would be all over this as well if the situation was reversed. This is just too juicy to pass up. “Looking up, he asked, “Who’s leading the charge?”
    “Helen Carmichael,” replied Anderson. “And here’s the kicker-she wants the hearings televised.”
    “Why doesn’t that surprise me either?”
    “It shouldn’t. She’s looking to score major points with her party before Governor Farnsworth’s campaign team and the DNC nail down who the number two person on their ticket is going to be. What’s surprising, though, is that she’s launching the hearings from her own seat on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.”
    That did surprise Rutledge. “The Intelligence Committee? What the hell for? This doesn’t have anything to do with them. Why isn’t she giving it to Armed Services?”
    “We think it’s because she smells blood in the water.”
    “Of course she smells blood in the water. We’re hemorrhaging. Islamic fundamentalists are going to use that al-Jazeera footage as a perpetual recruiting tool, and it’s going to work. Thousands of Muslim youth who might not otherwise have signed up are going to be asking themselves, What if that was someone I loved or cared about being beaten by an American soldier? We handed them this one on a silver platter. It’s going to take us decades to recover. But that still doesn’t explain what possible interest the Intelligence Committee could have in holding hearings on this.”
    “You might change your mind about the committee’s interest once you know who the American in the al-Jazeera footage is,” said Anderson.
    The president leaned forward in his chair. “Who’s got him? The Army? Do they know who he is?”
    “The Army doesn’t have him,