Piss Christ? Piss Koran! — Part Four

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This is the final installment of a story by Matthew Bracken, which has been serialized here in four parts.

Previously: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.

Update: All four parts of this story are now available as a single document, in two formats:

Piss Christ? Piss Koran!

Part Four: Resolution

by Matthew Bracken

“Your call, smart guy.” The phone connection made a click and the line went dead.

Mike wasn’t a kid. He knew that he wouldn’t live forever. He’d had enough brushes with death to understand that a healthy old age was not guaranteed in the contract. He’d been standing next to men who had stepped the wrong way, and fallen. He’d helped pull a man’s body off a concrete footer where he’d been impaled on an uncapped rebar stake. Just two stories down, and dead as a nail. Laughing and joking the minute before. A paragraph in the back of the paper, if that. There but by the grace of God.

Before he’d climbed the tower, Mike hadn’t planned out how the stunt would finish up. He figured that at the very least, he’d be arrested for trespassing. In fact, he didn’t even have a bottle of piss. It was apple juice, in case he spent the whole day up there and ran out of bottled water. He just wanted BCA News to be forced to publicly account for how casually they accepted Serrano’s Piss Christ as “art,” showing it on their website for years, when they were too cowardly to ever show a single peep of an unpixilated Mohammed cartoon. But finishing the morning by crawling down the twenty ladders, and hoping that some police officers would arrive to protect him from the gathering crowd of enraged Muslims?

No way. Not even if he had believed Vic Del Rio about the police escort, and he didn’t believe that lying weasel for a second. Not after Del Rio set him up for the mayor’s phone call, and the coordinated SWAT helicopter assault. Now there was only a single thin line of police barricades across the middle of 53rd Street, but there were no police officers standing behind it. Frank Salerno had said that the mayor wanted him dead. That, he believed. Some kind of a deal had been struck, but it wasn’t with him. It was between the mayor and the leaders of the local Muslim community.

So even if he wanted to go, to slip away quietly, the mob now unrolling their prayer rugs on 53rd — already angry enough to chew rebar and spit bullets — would see him coming before he was halfway down the twenty ladders. In their minds, he had already desecrated their Holy Koran by tearing up Sura 9:5, the Verse of the Sword.

So the die was cast. Well, nothing lasts forever. It had been a great life, and he’d had a wonderful wife. At least it was a gorgeous August morning in Midtown Manhattan, the rising sun casting beams and shadows down the length of 53rd. If this was his day to go, he thought he might as well make the best of it. He looked at his watch. It was 8:33, so he had just under a half hour. That is, if the mob was going to wait until after their morning prayers to stop the two blasphemies.

He picked up his iPhone to see what they were covering on BCA. A reporter was standing in front of a wave-pounded marina in Cabo San Lucas while Hurricane Eliza swept through. He selected his other television network preset buttons, and saw that none of them were covering the events around 6th Avenue and 53rd Street in Midtown Manhattan. Vic Del Rio had been right. The plug had been pulled on his stunt. He put the ear bud from his little Sony radio back in. On WNYR, he was surprised to hear Jerry Conroy’s voice, but it only took him a moment to understand that it was a pre-recorded “best of” show.

Meanwhile, beyond the puny little barricade just to the west of the crane, 53rd Street was rapidly filling up with devout Muslims who had heard the imam’s call to action. While he watched, he saw something glint in the sunlight. A man in a tan robe unrolled his prayer rug, revealing a sword, which he waved in circles over his head. Then the sword went against the pavement, his prayer rug concealing it.

Mike tried calling the WNYR studio office line again, but got a busy signal. He knew it would be useless to call the other radio and television stations on his list. But he also knew that there must still be cameras on him, even from across 53rd in the Grand Hotel. He found his spiral notebook and his Sharpie, and was considering which sticky-noted verse advocating the murder, plunder and rape of the infidels to tear out of the Koran next, when he heard an insistent rapping behind him. He looked around his poncho lean-to shanty toward the corner office of the bank building, and saw a crowd of people, at least half of them in police uniforms.

The woman from the other office was there again, holding another file folder message against the window. It read >call this number< followed by nine digits. He didn’t recognize the area code; it wasn’t from New York. It was hard to see around the shanty, so he unclipped the bungee cords from the corners, rolled it up, and put it away in his pack. With the BCA cameras a hundred yards across 6th Avenue turned off, it no longer made sense to hide from the eyewitnesses who were nearest to him, police or not.

He still had a zip-lock bag with unused prepaid flip phones, so he used a fresh one to call the number. It was picked up and answered on the second ring. He heard “Hello?” It was a woman this time.

“Do you know who this is?” asked Mike.

“Of course, silly, the whole world knows! I’m glad you called. The show must go on, right?” She had a hillbilly accent. Middle-aged and gravelly, like she was a smoker.

“How? BCA is back to showing the hurricane.”

“Oh, we don’t care about BCA. If you’ll take another caller, we’ll make sure it gets on the radio. And it’ll get on the internet too.”

“How?”

“To tell the truth, I don’t rightly know how. Somebody else is handling that side of it. But they seem pretty sure that they can keep you on the air, if you want to be. So, do you want to be?”

“Of course I do. That’s why I’m up here.”

“That’s the spirit, Mike! Well, I just got the high-sign, and they say we’re live on a Ko-rean radio station in Newark, New Jersey right now, if you can believe it. Ko-rean!”

“Korean? But that means —”

“Don’t worry, it’ll be in English today. We just put out the station information by text message. All the union guys in New York City are getting them as we speak, at least, that’s what I’m told. And it’s going on the internet, too, somehow. Audios and videos; it’s being filmed from every which way, that’s what I’m told. I don’t really understand how it all works, but they say that if that creepy mayor of yours takes that Ko-rean radio station off the air, they have more stations lined up right behind it. All right?”

“I guess so.” If it was over her head, it was way over Mike’s. But he could see that on the other side of the window walls of the corner office, several people were holding up smart phones, so for sure, he was on video.

The Southern lady said, “Now, you look for another number, and use another phone. You have a very special caller. Good luck, and God bless.”

“Wait a minute —” But the line had gone dead.

He looked back to the building. The woman with the file folder was showing another number. He chose a new flip phone, and called it. It rang once and was picked up.

“Is this Brooklyn Mike?” It was a girl’s voice, or a young lady’s, speaking in unaccented American English.

“Yes, it’s me, who is this?”

“For today, my name is Amina. Some people that I trust said that I can talk to you, and that everybody will hear my story.”

“They tell me the same thing, Amina, so go ahead, I guess.” Mike looked at his watch. Twenty minutes to nine. It wasn’t his plan at this point to take another caller, but really, what plan did he have left?

“Thank you. I wanted to do this for a long time. Mike, have you ever heard of a lady named Ayaan Hirsi Ali?”

“Sure, I know about her. She’s from Somalia, and she wrote a book called Infidel, and another book called Nomad.” Both had come highly recommended, and Mike had read them while he was doing his own research on Islam. They were amazingly insightful. Brilliant, really.

In a soft voice, the girl said, “Ayaan Hirsi Ali is from Somalia, as you said, and she escaped from Islam. So today, she has to live in hiding, because she is an apostate Muslim. Well, I too have escaped from Islam, and I too am in hiding, but I was born in America. I was born in America, and I’m in hiding!” Amina paused to catch her breath, and gather her thoughts. “I was only allowed to go to a normal American high school for two years, tenth and eleventh grades. I had to wear the hijab, and I was watched for every minute I was out of our house. And the hijab had to be tight around my face, and I had to wear long clothes, almost like a burka, so that just my hands and my face would show.”

She said, “Maybe you have heard that some Muslim girls like to dress that way, but what about the girls who hate it? What about them? When I unwrapped my hijab and wore it loose like a scarf, and my hair would show, I was beaten for it by my father at home. No matter where I went, I was spied on, even by my own brothers. If I was seen talking to regular American kids, not Muslims, just talking, like friends, I was beaten. I was never allowed to make any friends on my own, never. No sports, no drama club, just straight home. My father checked my phone every night, and he told me that if I ever had an American boyfriend, he would kill me. Kill me! And I believed him, because he already beat me all the time. But never on my face, so the marks wouldn’t show. I tried to find just a little freedom in my life, and he found every little piece, and smashed it flat. He thought I was becoming Americanized — that’s what he called it — but I was born in America! Why shouldn’t I be Americanized? I was an American, but I was a slave.

“I tried to resist, but what could I do? He checked my phone, I was watched everywhere I went. When I should have been getting ready for my senior year, I was pulled out of school. He told me that I was going to be home-schooled, but only in Koranic studies. I had to become a better Muslima, and stop being Americanized. My soul was at risk of eternal hellfire, and I was putting our family honor at risk. So I was made a prisoner in our own house. I was literally locked inside, and guarded every minute. I was too free, that’s what he said! Too free! He was afraid I would be ‘ruined,’ and his family honor would be destroyed. That lasted for three months; our house was my prison.

“And then he announced that I was going to be married to a cousin from his old country, a man of thirty, a man who could speak almost no English. I had no say in the matter — none. My mother was terrified of my father, but my brothers supported him. I had no place to turn. I had no friends outside of our home. I was never allowed to make friends. So I had nobody. I was going to be married to a man twice my age — a first cousin! A man I had never met! My father said that he was a very pious Muslim, and he would teach me to be a good Muslim wife. But all I wanted was to be free, like the regular American girls.

“So I had to pretend to accept my fate, to become submissive to my father’s will. I was going to be sent to my father’s country, so then I knew I was out of time, and then I escaped. I was still only sixteen, and I took a little money from my mother, enough to take a bus to another city, and I found a shelter for battered women. I had no idea what I should do next. I had no money, and no friends. I had nothing outside of my family, nothing! I didn’t know anything, then. I was still a fool about those things. I believed anybody who said they would to help me. So I was introduced to Family Protective Services by the ladies at the shelter.

“The social workers who came to the shelter convinced me to meet my mother at a restaurant. I was such a naïve fool! By then, I was dressing like a normal girl, blue jeans, like that, and no hijab. I swore I would never wear the hijab again, never! So when I arrived at the restaurant I looked for my mother, but instead, there were my brothers, lying in wait for me, and friends of my brothers from the mosque. They tried to catch me in the parking lot and push me into a car, but I screamed that I was being kidnapped, and an American, some old man like a cowboy, he had a big gun, and he pointed it at them, and I ran away again.

“After that, I had to hitchhike to another town. I was at the mercy of anybody, anybody, and then God sent me the first of my angels. The first car that picked me up was driven by an old couple. Through my tears, they heard my whole story, and they promised not to turn me in, not even to tell the Family Protective Services, and that was the first time in my life that I felt safe. I felt safe, but I was still not free. In America!”

“What about the FBI?” Mike asked her. “If they tried to kidnap you, that’s a federal offense. Even if it’s your family, I think.”

“The FBI? Oh, my God, the FBI? Yes, the old couple had the same idea. The people who sheltered me, the first people that picked me up. They said I should call the FBI, so I spoke with them on the phone, but I was too afraid to let them know where I was. I called them when I was in somebody else’s car, with somebody else’s phone. The FBI person I spoke to arranged to have a meeting with me, but this time, I chose the location. It was a Waffle House with glass walls. We had another girl wear a hijab and pretend to be me, a Christian girl, a friend, just to be sure. But instead of the FBI, it was my brothers and their friends, coming to catch me again! Somebody from the FBI had to have told my father about the meeting. The FBI! I saw my brothers coming to catch me again, but I was hiding in a car across the parking lot. So please, don’t tell me about the FBI.”

She had to pause and catch her breath. “You need to understand something, Brooklyn Mike. My father is not just some ordinary Muslim man. He is very important. He belongs to important Muslim associations. He has even been to the White House. I have seen him on television, but when he is on television, I don’t recognize the same man who would beat me with a cane for showing my hair. On television, he’s so smooth and gentle. Oh, on television, he’s a very peaceful man, a gentle moderate Muslim! The same man who beat me with a cane so hard that I would bleed. That’s why they want to catch me, and if they catch me, they will kill me. My story would be too much of an embarrassment, oh, the shame and the dishonor it would bring!”

Amina took a deep breath, and continued. “When I was in high school, we read Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Everybody knows the story. Everybody in America talks about slavery, about how horrible it was, and how evil men like Simon Legree would try to catch the runaway slaves, to take them back to the South, to take them back to the slave plantation. Why? Because the black slaves were just another man’s property, and nothing more.

“But today, the FBI is helping the slave masters to catch the runaway slaves! What has happened? I can’t believe it! I was born in America, and I should be free, but I was born on a Sharia Law slave plantation. I was going to be sold by my father to be the property of another man, a stranger, a cousin, for him to rape me as he pleases, because that is his right under Sharia Law. I was just property, a slave, without a word to say about my own life. And I was told to accept my fate, to submit, because I am only the property of my father, and I must obey him. I was told to accept my fate, like any slave. To be sold to another man like a sheep or a goat.”

She paused, seething with fear and anger. “If my brothers find me again, they’ll kill me, and nobody will ever find my body. And my father will be proud of them, and they will be proud of themselves, and after I am dead, my father will go back to the White House, and he will pretend to be a gentle and wise imam, and stupid Americans will believe him. And I will be dead and forgotten, just a runaway slave that nobody ever heard of. And this is in America — under American Sharia. What happened to the America that stands for freedom? What happened to it? And now, after this phone call, I’ll have to move again, to another family of Christians who will hide me in another state. My bags are already packed. I live in fear that the next time I see my brothers, there will be nobody around to save me, and I will be killed. But if I die, I tell this to my father: I have written everything down, Baba, and if anything happens to me, people will know who you really are. Brooklyn Mike, how can this happen in America? How?”

Mike was hushed by the passionate sadness of her tragic story, but he was also in awe of her hunger for freedom. “I don’t know what happened to our country, Amina. I don’t even recognize it anymore. I wish I could give you some hope, but I don’t know what to say. Just that I’m sorry.” Mike was sixty, and he’d lived every day of his life as a free man, free even to make crazy choices like climbing up the tower crane. But Amina’s freedom, her American birthright, had been stolen from her before it had even begun.

She was weeping, and then she was gone. And Mike was weeping too. He looked away from the building, to wipe his tears with the back of his hand. His watch said that it was ten minutes before nine. West of the line of barricades, 53rd street was densely packed with more and more Muslims walking in from 7th Avenue. When he looked back at the corner office, the woman was holding up another number. He called it with his next phone. This time a man answered. Mike said, “I’m almost out of time, and I don’t know what to do next.”

The man said, “Don’t quit, Mike. Help is on the way.”

His voice sounded familiar, but he couldn’t place it. Mike asked, “Who is this?”

The voice said, “Look over here, Mike.”

He turned back toward the corner office, then stood up on his platform, leaning against a strut. It took him a moment to recognize Frank Salerno, because he’d only seen the bottom half of his face before, but there he was, holding a phone. Frank was still wearing his black uniform, but without all of the tactical gear or the climbing harness. This was the first time that he had seen Frank’s entire face, without the goggles or the helmet.

“I’m not telling you what to do, Mike, but time is getting a little short. Nine o’clock is the witching hour, that’s what we’re told.”

“How did you — what are you doing up here, Frank?”

“Tactical command post. You’re a popular man with the beat cops, a popular man, and especially with the ESU. Not so much with the brass, but we’re keeping them out of the TCP. See the fancy RV down by the MAM? The brass-hats are all down there. Nice ball cap, by the way. Everybody thinks I slipped it to you on the crane. Doesn’t matter. Let them think what they think. And if you want to dunk your Koran in piss, you go right ahead. Won’t bother us a bit. The mayor told us to keep the hell out of 53rd between 6th and 7th Avenues. He ordered us to stand down, like San Jose. Well, that’s what we’re doing. We’re standing down.”

Mike looked straight below him again. There were hard hats and other civilians packing the sidewalks along 6th Avenue. At ten minutes before nine, the construction workers simply pushed over the police barricades blocking off the end of 53rd, and began to pour into the previously empty space beside the base of the tower crane. Within moments there were hundreds of hard hats on the street below him, red, yellow, blue and green dots seen from above. And on the other side of the mid-block barricades, not fifty yards past the base of the crane, there were thousands of Muslims lining up for prayer. And just a thin gray line of police barricades separating them.

A loudspeaker came on, tinny, with feedback. A small platform had been erected at the front of the crowd of Muslims, at the middle of the barricades, so Mike grabbed his binoculars. The platform was a small rolling dumpster that had been hauled into place and turned over to make a stage. Among the men at the very front was Imam Qutb, in the flesh, wearing a man-dress, and a Muslim skull cap. A speaker the size of a guitar amplifier was lifted onto the dumpster-stage, and Qutb was being helped onto the top, presumably to lead the call to prayer.

On the other side of the barricade from Qutb and the thousands of Muslims there were hundreds of hard hats, and more coming from up and down 6th Avenue. He looked at his watch. Nine minutes to go, but he wasn’t sure exactly when the call to prayer would begin. Judging by the loud rumble of voices floating up from the street, the Muslims were already in a foul mood, and they would be in an even worse mood after Imam Sayyid Qutb whipped them into a frenzy to stop the two great blasphemies ‘by any means necessary.’

Mike scanned the crowd, holding his binoculars in one hand, his phone in the other, leaning against a diagonal strut. The crowd of Muslims was separating as pairs of men were allowed through holding big two-handled baskets between them. He focused in and could see that these baskets were being dropped off at intervals through out the crowd. And the baskets and tubs were full of what looked like bricks or stones.

Stones, and swords: they were going medieval. And in the crowd, Mike saw a man waving a Kalashnikov rifle above his head. Time for the phone. “Frank, there’s a guy down there with an AK.”

There was a pause, while Frank Salerno conferred with some of the other officers in the corner office suite. Some were in tactical gear, some in regulation uniforms, and some in plain clothes. “We see him, Mike. Don’t worry. We’ll take care of that guy if he becomes a problem. We already have him dialed in.”

“They’re bringing in bushel baskets full of rocks, have you seen that?”

“We’re tracking them too, Mike. But have you seen what’s coming from the other way?”

“Yeah, I’m watching. It feels a lot better not being alone.” The linked steel barricades at the end of 53rd had been pushed over or taken apart, but the only police to be seen were still on the other side of 6th Avenue, guarding the Modern Art Museum. This could not have been what the mayor had been anticipating, when he had ordered his police force to stand down on the long city block east and west of the tower crane, and Brooklyn Mike.

A north-bound dump truck slowly turned left off 6th Avenue. When it stopped, it dumped the load in its bed, and then turned back onto 6th and continued north. Mike used his binoculars to check out the pile of debris, and he recognized it at once. It was a mountain of rebar cutoffs, the short pieces of iron that were left over when the long reinforcing rods were cut to length. The rod-busters produced mountains of the stuff at any good-sized construction site; it went into dumpsters for recycling. Somebody had used a front-end loader and filled the back of the dump truck with rebar, or maybe they had used a crane with an electromagnet. Either way would work.

A big white SUV like a Suburban pulled in next, and backed up toward the barricade in the middle of the block while the hard hats opened a lane for it. Some hard hats opened the rear cargo hatch and pulled out what looked like a pair of black refrigerators, but a closer look showed them to be concert-sized loudspeakers. And all the while, from north and south on 6th Avenue, a still-growing crowd of hard hats was arriving on foot, each man selecting a nice piece of rebar, averaging about a yard long.

Imam Qutb was standing on his dumpster stage, his back to the American hard hats. His own amplifier and speaker were being pushed too hard, and his voice was cracking and full of static as he exhorted his own crowd in what was presumably Arabic. Mike looked at his watch. Three minutes until nine. The Muslim crowd, numbering in the thousands now, extended from the mid-block barricade all the way back to 7th Avenue. Then suddenly, the disorderly mob lined up in neat ranks and files, one man for each of the thousands of prayer rugs. How many of the rugs had swords or Kalashnikovs beneath them, wondered Mike? They still outnumbered the hard hats on the shorter end of the block toward 6th Avenue by at least three to one. He wondered if there would be enough construction workers to hold the mob back from the tower, once they were sent forward en masse on their mission to stop the two great blasphemies by any means necessary.

One minute until nine.

Mike was still on his feet, nervously bouncing, watching the two crowds that were facing one another across the single line of police barricades, but without a single police officer between them. Then a long, clear note cut the morning air, it had to be the beginning of the call to prayer. It began with a prolonged Allahu Akbar, a slow yodeling, wavering up and down in tone. The Muslims all immediately put their heads down, the entire crowd aligning like electrically charged iron particles sharing a single connecting hive-mind. But then the slow, high-pitched yodeling call to prayer slowed, the voice lowering and growing distorted, and then it began, somehow, to play backwards! Then it stopped again, and played normally. Mike scanned the crowd with his binos, they seemed restive, looking about, unsure. Perhaps the Brother in charge of the sound system had made a mistake, or the recording machinery was defective? The prayer began playing again normally, but this time it was accompanied by the sound of a man screaming, and of other men yelling out Allahu Akbar. Not yodeling it slowly, but barking it out excitedly, over another man’s blood-curdling screams.

Mike had heard it before, not long after 9-11. It was the audio from the Nick Berg beheading tape, and he remembered forcing himself to watch the video as the American was slowly beheaded on camera with a knife. Mike remembered it well, because he’d felt a connection to Berg, a bold young man who had gone over to Iraq to put up cell phone towers. Berg wasn’t an Ironworker, but he was something close, a tower erector. He’d gone over in the hopeful early days after the fall of the Saddam regime, and he’d been kidnapped and executed in a truly horrible fashion.

And now his final screams were playing over the call to prayer. Mike looked across the single thin barricade, the mob was growing agitated, turning to one another, literally seized by mass confusion. And then the first rocks began to fly over the barricade toward the American hard hats. Mike turned to the building, Frank Salerno was mouthing phone and holding his against the window. Mike put his phone to his ear and heard, “Mike, now’s your chance to get out. We have some undercovers who are going to pop smoke for cover when you come down. Now’s your best chance, buddy.”

More stones began to fly over the barricade. Mike took the Koran, and threw it far off the platform onto the street, found his gloves in his pack and quickly put them on, then sidestepped back across the crane’s jib toward the tower. A sound buzzed and snapped past him, shots ricocheted off the pipes around him, but they ceased as quickly as they had started. And then, improbably, amazingly, the call to prayer was replaced by, of all things, a big-band swing orchestra, and a female singer began to belt out The Hokey Pokey Song in high-fidelity sound at rock-concert decibels! Despite the danger of his literally precarious situation, Mike couldn’t help but laugh.

You put your right foot in,
You put your right foot out,
You put your right foot in,
And you shake it all about.
You do the Hokey Pokey
and you turn yourself around,
That’s what it’s all about.

In a minute Mike was back at the tower, and climbing past the crane operator’s box, and the slewing ring gear. No more shots had been fired at him after that first and only volley. Somewhere out there, an ESU sniper was his guardian angel, and that made him feel a lot better about his exposed position. He was able to speed his way down the tower using gravity, hooking his feet around the outsides of the ladder rails, grabbing them with his gloved hands, and sliding down each floor in just a second or two. By the time he reached the base of the tower his gloves were smoking hot, and a protective screen of yellow and red smoke was drifting around him.

A half-dozen hard hats surrounded him. In the cloud of smoke one of them said, “Here, put this on,” and handed him a blue t-shirt with the logo of the Electrical Workers, and a yellow hard hat, a sun beater with the brim that went all the way around. Once he’d put these on, he effectively disappeared into the swirling crowd. Behind him, hundreds of construction workers swinging iron rebar cutoffs were engaging a much greater number of rock-throwing Muslims, but he had no sense of how the battle was going, only that a scrum of men was pulling and guiding him the other way, around the Bank of Europe building, and down 6th Avenue on the packed sidewalk. Men and some women were running in both directions, some heading to the fight, and others with bleeding wounds who were being helped or even carried in the other direction, away from it.

At some point the Hokey Pokey song had ended, and of all songs, the English punk classic Rock the Casbah by the Clash had taken its place. By the order of the prophet, we ban that boogie sound, degenerate the faithful, with that crazy casbah sound! The Mohammedan rock-throwers must not have overrun the hard hats at the end of 53rd Street, or the music would have been cut off. Otherwise, Mike had no sense for the battle, only for the mass confusion of it as a half-dozen strangers, young men in hard hats in tight formation around him, hands on his shoulders, guided him along through torrents of frenzied humanity. And through it all, there were no uniformed police to be seen on the west side of 6th Avenue, as the mayor’s stand-down order was scrupulously obeyed.

In spite of himself, while being swept along through the crowds, Mike couldn’t help but to laugh again. He was escaping from a riot, no, a street battle, a street battle with its own sound track. The shareef don’t like it — rockin’ the casbah! Around the next corner of the Bank of Europe building, he was led though a vehicle gate into a utility service area, then to a steel door that was opened with a key. Then down a cement staircase, and into a dimly-lit underground parking garage.

“Slow down, fellas, I’m an old man,” said Mike.

One of them replied, “No, you’re not an old man, you’re Brooklyn Mike!”

“Where are we going?” he asked them.

“You’re getting a ride out of here, that’s all we know. Come on, just a little more.”

Down another ramp, onto another level. A black Mercedes-Benz limousine was waiting. The back passenger door opened as they approached.

“Who are these guys?” Mike asked.

The oldest of the hard hats, who was maybe forty, said, “I don’t have a clue, but they’re your ride out. That’s all we know.”

So Mike got in the back seat of the big sedan, closed the door, took off the yellow hard hat, and put it on his lap. There were three guys already in the car, they were all dressed in dark pants and white dress shirts, open at the neck. They could have been bartenders or waiters, except that they were the size of professional wrestlers, or NFL linemen. The driver had enormous hands on the wheel, gold rings on his fingers, and tattoos on his knuckles. In Russian letters. Cyrillic. Oh, boy, thought Mike. The Russian mafia.

The car pulled forward, twisted up a pair of ramps, a garage door lifted, and they shot out into the daylight on 7th Avenue, southbound. Men in skullcaps were running on the sidewalks, the hems of their robes held up high for more speed. The other back seat passenger said, with a thick Russian accent, “Look at Arabs running, oh, is so beautiful thing to see. So, you are famous Brooklyn Mike? Is good to finally meet an American with balls. You can play with Russian friends anytime. Things not working out in USA, you are coming to Russia, everything be good for you there.”

Mike was exhausted, drained, sinking into the creamy leather. “Thanks, I, uh, appreciate the offer. Where are we going?”

“Only short ride to New Jersey, not to Russia. Not this time. Then another ride for you. You have no cell phone, no radio?”

“No, I left them all back there.”

“Good. This is very important thing, no radios.”

In a minute they were coming out of the Holland Tunnel, and a few minutes after that they passed through a fenced gate that rolled aside for them, drove past containers and rail sidings and abandoned box cars and straight into a cavernous warehouse and across its empty cement floor.

“You go out, across tracks is red truck. Where you go after, I don’t know. Good luck to you, big American hero. Am proud to being your taxi cab today.”

The Russian in the front passenger seat spoke to the man in back in his language, then he picked something up from between his feet, and handed it to his compatriot in the rear. They exchanged a few more words, and the English speaker in the back said, “In box is good Russian lunch, like big Russian sandwich. You are getting out of car now, okay?” He handed the shoebox-sized package to Mike, it was inside of a brown paper grocery bag with the top folded down. “Now, you go. Red truck, across tracks. Okay?”

Mike reached across the backseat and shook the Russian’s hand. Blue tattoos, the lettering in Cyrillic. He had no gift to give them in return, so he left the yellow hard hat as a keepsake. He opened the door and walked away from the black Mercedes, out of the warehouse into bright sunlight, across a loading dock and down rusty stairs. He crossed some old railroad tracks to a parking area where, indeed, a tractor trailer with a gleaming red cab was idling. The passenger-side door opened as he approached, and a female voice beckoned him to climb up.

There was a woman in the passenger seat, and a big man who was leaning all the way across to greet him. They broke into grins and shook his hand hard as he climbed aboard, almost pulling him up and inside. The man said, “Brooklyn Mike, I knew it! Hey, there’s a jump seat in the middle back there. Sit down, we need to haul ass.”

Mike was scarcely seated when the truck lurched and rolled forward. The driver was at least as old as Mike, but thicker in the middle, the typical commercial driver spread. He said, “I’m Jordan, and this is my wife, Fran. Jesus Christ — Brooklyn Mike! But hey, don’t worry, I know all about operational security. I’m not a jerk that’s going to take selfies or blab his mouth.”

“Where are we going?” In a minute, the eighteen-wheeler was pulling onto a highway and getting up to speed.

Jordan said, “We’re going to Chattanooga; I just know that we’re dropping you off at a truck stop this side of Knoxville. After that, I don’t know where you’re going, and I don’t want to know.”

“You look parched,” said Fran. “There’s a case of water on the floor behind Jordan.”

“Thanks.” Mike pulled a plastic bottle from the crate, opened it, and drank half right away. The package the Russians had given him was on his lap. “How did you know about this, I mean, how did you find out where to be?”

“I got a call this morning, the guy just said I should be in Union City at such and such place, and I should wait for an important passenger. That’s all.”

Fran said, “And we never pick up riders, never. But it wasn’t just some guy that called.”

“Yeah. An old friend called me this morning. He just said I needed to do it, that’s all. And if I say I will, I will — put it in the bank. We go way back, me and him, and we owe each other too many favors to keep track of, so when we got a problem, we just help each other out. That’s all. We were up in Connecticut, running south, so no problem. Like they say: things happen for a reason.”

“What’s happening back in Manhattan?”

Fran said, “You were just there, Mike, you tell us.”

“No, I mean now. It was like a huge riot when I got out of there.”

“What’s happening,” said Jordan, “Is our guys are beating the holy hell out of their guys, at least, that’s what I’m hearing.” He pointed to the blue-tooth attached to his left ear, with a small microphone on a stick. “Beating them up and down 53rd Street, the ones who didn’t run away. For some reason, there’s no police around. Too dangerous, or something.” Jordan turned around and winked. “Apparently, a thousand hard hats swingin’ rebar can do a lot of damage when they’re royally pissed off. You want I should put on the radio, so you can hear it?”

“No, not yet. I like the quiet in here.”

“Turns out they have no sense of humor.” Jordan began to laugh. “The ragheads, I mean. We watched it on YouTube while we were waiting. YouTube, and that Korean radio station. The YouTube don’t work so good when we’re rolling, but Fran can check it for you if you want to watch.” He began to sing “You do the Hokey Pokey, and you turn yourself around. That really cracked us up. Thousands of them ragheads all lined up to shove their butts up in the air, and The Hokey Pokey Song playing. Whoever dreamed that up, that was inspired. Yep, they got no sense of humor at all. Dead serious, all the time. That’s their problem — no sense of humor. Well, one of their problems.”

Fran said, “Brooklyn Mike, in our cab, and we can’t even tell anybody.”

“Opsec, Franny, Opsec,” said Jordan, scanning the road ahead, two big hands on the wheel, keeping exactly to the speed limit in the right-hand lane. “Operational security. If he couldn’t trust us to keep our yaps shut, he wouldn’t have called us.”

Fran replied, “I know. I know. Hey, Mike, have you eaten? Of course not. We have lasagna in the fridge, you can zap it in the microwave there. Or, if you’re tired, you can catch some Z’s in the bunk behind you. But if you just want some snacks, we have some cookies, potato chips, anything you want.”

He was hungry, and that made Mike think of the box lunch that was still lying unopened on his lap. He unfolded the paper bag and pulled out a cardboard box, and opened its flaps. On top was a cigar box, and he lifted its lid. Inside was big pistol, it said Glock 21 — Austria — .45 Auto on the slide. Two spare magazines, loaded. He looked at the ends of the bullets on top, fat copper and lead hollow points. He remembered the Colt .45s from his Army days, same caliber of ammo. A very thoughtful gift from the Russians. They knew that he was far from being in the clear, and that he’d be on the run from the Muslim radicals, and probably the FBI too, so they’d provided him with a major-league blaster.

There was more below the cigar box, so he lifted it out and set it aside. Next in the bigger cardboard box was a fine white linen napkin, carefully folded up to fit neatly. He pulled it off, and saw four stacks of currency side by side, fifty dollar bills on top. Each stack was as thick as they were wide, with a brown rubber band around each. On top was a note that read, “Half for Brooklyn Mike, half for Amina. Good luck.”

Mike stared out at the highway ahead, between the two high-backed bucket seats. A little wooden cross on a string swung below the GPS unit in the middle of the windshield. They were on I-95, southbound. Somewhere, he had a Russian godfather, or maybe it was a guardian angel, or maybe it was something else entirely, something that would always remain a mystery. He pulled up a corner of a stack of the bills and riffled it. It was all fifties, right through. Easier to spend than C-notes. Safer. Again, very thoughtful of the Russians.

Fran asked, “What do you got there, Mike?”

“A present from some friends.”

“Oh, that’s nice. Not food?”

“No, not food.”

“Well, I can fix you something, or we can heat up some lasagna.”

“Thanks. I will, in a little while. But maybe I’ll take a nap first — it’s been a long day. Say, Jordan, what time did you get the call to pick me up?”

“Geez, Mike, let me think. Right after six? Six-fifteen? Franny, check the phone log.”

Six-fifteen? At six-fifteen, he had only just started taking calls with Jerry Conroy, so that wasn’t possible. It had to be a mistake.

Fran said, “It’s not in the phone, Jordan, it’s not in here at all.” She was scrolling through all of their incoming numbers. “There’s nothing here. That’s strange.”

“Not to me,” said Jordan. “Crazy shit like that has happened all my life. If I told stories, nobody would believe them, so I just keep my big yap shut. I been through some real shit, Mike, some real shit. Fran could tell you stories, but she don’t tell stories neither, do you honey?”

“No way. Our lips are sealed, Mike. Opsec. It’s better that way. We don’t spend a lot of time looking in the rear view mirrors. We like the road ahead a lot better.”

Jordan said, “But we come through it all, and here we are, free and alive, and pretty healthy for a couple of old farts. I never thought I’d see fifty, much less sixty-five. And now here we are, rolling down the highway with Brooklyn Mike, free as the wind, on our way back to Tennessee.”

“The Lord works in mysterious ways,” said Fran, without a trace of irony

He surely does, thought Brooklyn Mike Dolan. He surely does.

This story is dedicated to the memory of Amina and Sarah Said, who deserved much better in the Land of the Free.

Matthew Bracken was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1957, and attended the University of Virginia, where he received a BA in Russian Studies and was commissioned as a naval officer in 1979. Later in that year he graduated from Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training, and in 1983 he led a Naval Special Warfare detachment to Beirut, Lebanon. Since then he’s been a welder, boat builder, charter captain, ocean sailor, essayist and novelist. He lives in Florida. Links to his short stories and essays may be found at EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com. For his previous essays, see the Matthew Bracken Archives.

140 thoughts on “Piss Christ? Piss Koran! — Part Four”

  1. Thank you for your amazing courage in writing & posting this and thank you for your inspiration in your many wonderful books!

    • You’re welcome, I write to try to inspire. That’s my goal. Thank you.

  4. Thank you for a great read. I have been nervously awaiting this last installment, fearing the worst for Brooklyn Mike.
    But then I reminded myself that you never leave us without hope in any of your writings. For that, I thank you.
    Also, it was touching to include Amina. Being in TX, I remember the honor killing of Sarah and Amina Said, May their souls be eternally free from the Curse of Islam.

  7. Thanks Matt. A great story! I’ll have to go and read some of your other work. I’d almost forgotten about those girls. They were the ones from Texas?

    • Yes! I think of them often. I also wonder how Rifqa Bary is doing. Here’s an update on her:

      http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2015/05/19/rifqa-bary-book.html

      When she was being returned to Ohio (which I still see as hostile to her situation) I discussed with Phyllis Chesler the idea of her writing a letter to the court explaining why she thought Ms. Bary was at risk. I had at one time been certified to testify in court about battered women, and so I asked Phyllis if she had a similar certification re the risk for women and young girls in Islam. Turned out she did and immediately saw the wisdom in writing to the Florida court before the girl was returned to Ohio – Florida wanted her out of their hair. Foster kids are expensive.

      The Columbus Dispatch is the usual leftist p.c. correctness medium, covertly anti-Christian (though they would deny it) so they wrote thinly veiled hostile “news” about the girl. It wouldn’t be hard to take their point of view if you know nothing about Islam. Besides, teenagers with that level of anxiety sound like drama queens even when they’re not (I’ve had them in foster care supervision and didn’t envy either Social Services system).

      Her new lawyers in Ohio were careful to keep her out of the media. VERY smart move as she would have been eaten up by both sides. It was obvious she need calm and quiet out of the limelight she’d come to hate. She eventually graduated from high school and has gone on to college. It’s not clear that she’s progressing academically, but that wouldn’t be surprising. She still has healing to do and schooling can come later as long as she has funds to live or has a job.

      BTW, her parents came here under the pretext of seeking medical care for her eye. It was obvious she’d never gotten it, even though Dad had employment.

      As for parents, their reaction is understandable. They seem to love their child, but America is a whole ‘nother ball of wax compared to Sri Lanka…iirc, Patrick Poole looked into the mosque the family attended and found it to be less-than-moderate, though I’ve forgotten the details now.

      Hard to believe Rifqa is in her mid-20s now. What a circus that was!!

      • Pamela can be a bit of an elitist but through her I learned of Sarah and Amina, Rifqa, and Aqsa. It was through Atlas that I was able to give a few bucks. I’m near the top of the list for Aqsa, but unfortunately all we bought was a few olive trees in Israel.

        Incredible how cruel Muslim parents can be toward their daughters. A western man would spend his life defending his daughter, a Muslim would spend his daughter defending his ‘honor’.

        They call them shame quotes for a reason.

        • Islam is a religion of SLAVERY, and Hillary is cool with it.
          Democrats, once again supporting slavery.

          • Just finished your Enemies trilogy and the stories where incredibly insightful and scary prescient. After so many years however, I had expected that you of all people would be denouncing the charade of the left/right scam?

            Really enjoyed the Pocasts of Alas, Brave New Babylon and The Alienork Way. Anyway, well done, hope you make it out.

      • If I recall, her eye was injured by her brother when he threw a coffee cup at her head. Pamela did very much for that young lady.

      • Ah, yes. Thank you for the update. I’m surprised the newspaper would print the story in the present climate of fear. How ominous; “Ohio is an unsafe place” It makes one think, just how many other children are at risk.

  8. 100% Killer story. Matt knows his audience, and he knows we like a little hope, a little glory, and a little comeuppance. How we really write the real thing, only G*d knows, the Christian One that is.

    • There are more religious varieties at GoV, so cutting them out of the special Christian herd, as if only the Christian God counted, is an insult to others. Perhaps not meant as such, but the effect is the same.

      For the atheists who have to put up with our God-talk, it’s hard enough – I’m sure their eyes glaze over and they move on to the next comment – but for all those readers who believe in a Higher Power not limited to the one you mention here, any reserving of God to “the Christian One” is divisive. Please, please, save such specificity for the sanctuary. When you’re out here in this semi-public place, it’s simply not appropriate (or as Jesus said, go into your prayer room).

      • Sean,

        Did you read the story? Did you miss Lenny? Do you think that all the hard hats are Christians? The Russian mafia guys?

        Get over yourself. Write your own story, and put it out there. You got a keyboard? Start typing. That’s how you do it. You write one word, and then another. And see if anybody gives a damn enough to read it.

        Sorry you felt excluded. It’s a big world out there, with lots of stories to be written. Stop bitchin’ and start typin’.

        • Hear hear! I’ve been listening to the Clash all afternoon after reading this. Rock the casbah, f%#& the aaahlah, rock the casbah, the Sharif don’t like it! rock the casbah, rock the casbah, the Sharia don’t like it! … Lovin’ it! Great story. Thanks.

          I’m dying to write a ‘Cut to-‘ scene back at the Plaza de Rebar involving 105’s, Dusters and Big Thumpers singing out their war songs, 81 mm mortars pumping out HE rounds …

          Mount up, people!

          • Watch this one. It’s Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros, not the Clash, on the Black Hawk Down soundtrack. It’s called “Minstrel Boy” and this version has the lyrics and moving scenes of selfless heroism from the movie. Never forget, we went to Somalia to feed starving Muslims who were being intentionally starved by their Muslim warlords.

            Like Brooklyn Mike, we go to save lives, not to take them.

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mj2j7R1NL-s&list=RDmj2j7R1NL-s#t=0

        • Mr. Bracken,

          Thank you, once again, for another thought provoking addition to the dialogue.

          The followers of Islam will never get the part of “we” as beings on this planet. The apostates are an interesting lot. Many have this tiny part of the brain that can be triggered when the conditions are correct. Much like the Manchurian candidate, but far more dangerous.

          • Their anti-Christ false religion promises rewards for murder, including sanctioned rape and plunder. It’s a very appealing formula, and that is why it continues to spread. The worst of men do very well under it.

        • Indeed. I’m quite sure that this story is not about singing the praises of any particular religion, but merely pointing out the hypocrisy of what is happening right now in Western nations vis-a-vis what “narrative” is allowed. Personally, I wholly believe in the separation of church and state. If we can mock Christ, why not Allah?

          • Exactly. Goose-Gander, right?

            Everything else is obfuscation and rationalization for abject surrender by cowards.

            And history teaches us that people who believe in nothing (secularists) won’t fight hard when all they have to do to survive is repeat a silly little ten-word ditty in front of witnesses.

            Very easy for the original coward. Much worse on the coward’s daughters.

  10. Good story.
    My prayers go up that we all remember the promises of our Lord and Savior: Jesus said, “And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. – Matthew 16:18

    • I don’t see where this fits into the story. Please save OT Scripture quotes for speaking in the sanctuary. Or, as Jesus said (to paraphrase), don’t throw pearls before us swine. Please.

      • Dymphna,
        I appreciate the place you and The Baron furnish for us to read things like this wonderful serial, and I have to say that we should beware the spiritual vacuum that comes after the supression of Christianity. Into that vacuum comes islam. stealthily at first, but once it feels it’s strengthening, it’s too late. The only thing that will combat militant islam is donning the full armour of God. Along with that I trust that He will give us superior firepower.

  13. “All that is required for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing”

    Mike did something.

    We all should in time.

  14. Great story Matt, and wonderful ending!
    But I’m confused man, (a little sarc. here) the MSM, the whole Obama gang and even FOX NEWS tell us the Russians are our enemy!

    Yet that nasty (?) man Putin has been doing in Syria what Obama SHOULD have been doing, seems to me….

    • The Russian mob guys don’t necessarily give a damn about Putin, or not. They are their own world, always have been. Even in the Gulags. The white linen napkin in the “lunch” box is a reference to one of their codes/signals. Read the short non-fiction work “Alexander Dolgun: An American in the Gulag” sometime.

      In the camps, the political prisoners all thought “it had to be a mistake” (in their own cases). The Russian mafia guys, even in the camps, had their own code. And they saved Alexander Dolgun’s life, it’s a truly remarkable story.

      In a similar way, all of the think-tank “Conservatism Inc” wonks in MD, DC and VA are not worth a handful of those kinds of guys in a hard spot. Or hard hats. If this country is saved, it will come up from the blue collar world, the Mr. Bowties on TV and in NRO will all be in deep hiding if it gets tough. Or they’ll convert.

      • A stunningly good short story, Matt. Thank you very much for once again serving your country, This time by putting into words what a lot of people are thinking. You are correct that the reaction to the attempted Islamic takeover of this nation will come from the blue collar people. These are the people who are supporting Trump, not the effete snobs inside the DC Beltway who profess to be conservative and who profess to love their country. What they love is their place in it, and in reality they don’t give a damn about what is really good for this country. Trump, whether one likes him and all of his policies or not, is speaking from the heart. This is a man whose family has benefited enormously from what this country has had to offer, and he deals with blue collar workers all the time on his job sites. He is, as one of his sons said, a blue-collar billionaire. We have needed someone like him to speak for the real people of this country, not some polished, Harvard- or Yale-educated lawyer who only cares about manipulating the system for his own benefit.

        Thanks also for so prominently mentioning the plight of the Said girls. People really have to assimilate what animals the Muslims can be toward half the population of the planet. Maybe, maybe if enough women finally understand that Hillary Clinton only cares about their votes, she won’t get many of them and will lose in a humiliating landslide.

        • That’s really important, the virtual chattel slavery of women born into Islam, even in the USA. I plan to join the new Democrats and the old Democrats at the hip as being solidly on the side of the slave masters, over the female slaves. Starting with Hillary, and her $25 million in bloody hush money.

          • I remember you once said that as a writer you came to it from the ‘freedom’ side, writing novels to illustrate what the nation faces, vs. writing purely as entertainment. Your 3 novels have probably done more to persuade people of what’s on the horizon than ten conservative activists writing hundreds of articles.

            So I urge you to write a new series on the Islamic threat. I’d say a majority of Americans really believe attacks by Muslim jihadists are somehow the fault of conservatives. It’s quite cheap to publish in print via Amazon ‘Createspace’ … Your books are like Clancy thrillers, and create a world each time. Or in serial format, in 30K-word installments. I’m reading a lot of William Johnstone books now, his post-collapse ‘Ashes’ series. He had written Westerns for years, then in the 90’s started this series. It’s clear he was shocked at the direction the West had taken, and wanted to see a change.

            Your writing is like Mike on his crane, doing what he could to bring sanity to a world spiraling into a new Dark Ages.

            I personally don’t believe it’s possible to reverse the damage the Left has done. It’s gone too far. But doing nothing is not a viable option.

            All the best!

          • Of all the stories about the horrors and abuse these girls go through, the worst thing, in my mind, is the many millions that have to live after their Female Genital Mutilation rituals. THAT has to be the absolute depth of barbarism!!!

        • Blue collar people in general have much patience, but there are limits. I find that in general, blue collar people have a much better grasp of reality than the university-educated, on average.

          What still saves the U.S., compared to Europe, is that it still has a “live” blue collar culture that is relatively unaffected by the BS.

          As an aside, I have two university degrees myself, which I’ve largely “recovered” from :-).

  15. Fantastic story and revetting to the end! Matt Bracken is getting better all the time. May the heavens continue to smile upon him and he live a long and full life. The story reminds me of another which I read some time ago, one by Tom Kratman “Caliphate” about a fictional tale about a girl in Germany rescued by an american sent over to assassinate a couple of deviant “scientists” who were employed by the caliphate. Another riveting novel if a little frightening about how close Germany is to this future.

    This site is always a revelation and a great and thoughtful read. Many thanks to Dymphna and the Baron.

    • The great Tom Kratman has set the price for “Caliphate” to $0.00 for years, as a service to civilization. It has a lot of very adult situations, but nobody has ever nailed a future Eurabian dystopia like Kratman did in that novel. Highly recommended, even if you might skim a few very graphic pages.

      • I was waiting to comment until the end of the story, at least this phase perhaps. Thank you, Mr. Bracken, for such an excellent short story. Fiction like this is so important. I was resistant for so many years to the true nature of Mohammedans and their ideology but through the works of the aforementioned LtC Tom Kratman, I was shown the errors of my beliefs. “Caliphate” and the Carrera series make excellent mind changing material for ignorant Westerners. Concepts like abrogation or Mohammed’s Medina switcheroo are never discussed. The fun part is when one goes online in righteous indignation to disprove those horrid “bigots” wrong only to have one’s face rubbed in the veiled truth.

        • My next novel has a counter-jihad theme, I posted a synopsis down the thread.

      • I enjoyed that book very much, “adult” situations notwithstanding. I would love to read a sequel and find out how the main characters continued their lives. Do you know if Mr. Kratman has plans to write more about this particular universe and its people?

        • Kratman, probably not, I really have no idea, but my next novel has a counter-jihad theme, you can find a synopsis down the thread.

        • He may at some future point. At this point I do not believe that there are any plans. He’s really far along in his Terra Nova series (Carrera novels). Kratman may also be collaborating with John Ringo as the characters from “The Tuloriad” will be making an appearance in the next book of the Legacy of the Aldenata series

          Mr. Bracken, I will be looking forward to the announcement of the publication of your next novel!

  16. What a great read! Spellbinding and also frightening for the hideous Islam zombies are real and present in ever-increasing numbers . . . everywhere !

    Thank you for creating the fascinating story.

    • Thanks for giving me more writing spirit. It really is “bleeding onto the page.” I’m not a natural writer, I’m an idea guy, but the “craft” does not come easily. I hope everybody overlooks my earlier lesser writing craft, because I stand behind the plots, themes and characters.

      • Matt, thank you for this excellent story.

        When I read your earlier works, I didn’t notice your “lesser writing craft.” Your earlier works captivated me by teaching me things and making me think.

  17. It was a nice touch to dedicate the story to Amina and Sarah Said. Those two girls were so sweet and their father, mother and brother were evil personified. They did not even stand a chance. I will bet that the Lewisville, TX police does not consider the two murders as a Muslim honor killing. Especially after our Muslim-in-Chief has purged the government language from any mention of Islam and jihad together in the same story.

    • I saw a John Walsh “Manhunt” show about Amina and Sarah Said, there was not one mention of Islam, or that it even might have ever been considered an “honor killing.” Not a word. Totally sanitized. Disgusting PC. That’s why I went out on a limb with the rather nasty title of this story, PC-PK. In my own messaging, I’m referring to it as Piss Koran from here on. The title is meant to goad the MSM into responding to their flagrant double standard between Christianity and Islam. I’d like to plaster giant posters of that TV split screen meme right across the front doors of ABCNNBCBS and the NYT, WaPo, etc.

      • It strikes me that Muslims can turn their rage off and on, much as the Left does. It’s a tactic to convey authenticity. They’ll pretend to be offended by ‘Piss Koran’ b/c the West accepts the con at face value. The Mo cartoons were floating around for months before Muslims decided to switch on the offended performance. And that fits if Islam is primarily a political and supremacist project using religious faith as taqiya against the kafir.

        The Left also thinks Christian faith is regressive and supremacist and deserves to be offended, whereas they’re ready to make allowances for Islam, and probably even see no inconsistency in that. They hope their Muslim brothers will come to share their ‘sophisticated’ Marxist take on all religion post-collapse.

  19. Thanks for a terrific story. I loved/hated how you let it out Part-by-Part, very old-school. Also, thanks for the homage to (memorializing) those beautiful teen sisters, Amina and Sarah Said. I was just saying how their murderer/father will NEVER be brought to justice for executing them in cold blood.

    Next…

    • I just found out the other day that Uncle Tom’s Cabin was first released as a newspaper series before it was collected into a complete novel, which became the best selling book of the 19th Century after the Bible.

      Today, no publisher would touch an UTC such as Piss Koran. The establishment is firmly on the side of Sharia gender slavery. I won’t call it apartheid, it’s much worse. Fathers literally lock up and then sell their daughters to much older strangers, or cousins, and the girls have ZERO to say about their fates. If that’s not slavery, what is?

      And Hillary takes millions from those evil slave masters.

  20. Excellent story, Matt. Entertaining and instructive at the same time. It was like a high protein meal! This country is facing a crisis. The battlefield is shaping up. We cannot avoid this crisis. In many ways it produces fear, but in other ways it requires stout hearts, minds and spirits. We as a country will never be the same, but we do have to go through this. Brooklyn Mike, the main character in this story, was the archetype of the one with the stout heart, mind, and spirit. A most sincere thanks for your fine story—and lessons.

    • If there is a Brooklyn Mike out there, he sure won’t be a Conservatism Inc. pansy wearing a bowtie on TV.

      He’ll be a farmer or a hard hat, is my guess.

      • I agree. Like in the last two world wars, the world will be “fixed” by “good ole boys” from places like Kansas. People who are generally peaceful and have no desire to harm others, but only to be left alone.

        It will be them, and once again, Russians. Although coming at it from a different angle, and for different reasons, when the excrement really hits the ventilator hard, it will once again be found that Russians will be on the same side and do much of the heavy lifting.

        • And they will both be picking up the rebar, and then they will be merciless, as the Nazis and Imperial Japanese both learned the hard way.

          • One of the top things on my bucket list is seeing the Left meet up with the rebar solution some fine day. I don’t know how they can believe their con won’t come back to bite them. It’s a spiritual law, Emerson’s law of compensation.

  22. Outstanding ending! Many clever twists. More, please. And remember, as the FBI told us today, “[the Orlando attack] had nothing to do with Islam”.

    • And rightly so, too. After all, the Nothingtodowithislamic State has nothing to do with Islam either, does it? (Gripping story, by the way. It greatly brightened my morning train ride, and I have a new appreciation for cranes.)

  23. After greatly enjoying and appreciating the first three episodes, I regret to have to say that the fourth was very disappointing. It struck me as if the author weaved a rather elaborate web and found it difficult to extricate a befitting conclusion from it. Nevertheless, I am looking forward to further offerings from Matt Bracken.

    • I disagree: he wove an ever-tightening noose that the elites thought would permit them to hang him high…the Russian Clause was a wonderful Houdini move. And the small narrative tweak that lets you know there are people out there, everywhere, connected and ready to help. It was smooth.

      Do you not see the chance for sequels?

      • I have to finish my Ireland-Morocco sea-jihad novel.
        It takes a great deal of optimism on my part to dedicate myself to another novel, because I don’t expect a smooth transfer of power post-Obama, or a normal economy.
        But I’m going to finish it, just because I finish things.
        The rest of the PK story has to be within the reader’s mind.

        Same with Alas, Brave New Babylon. In normal times, that’s the opening of a novel, or series of novels. I don’t feel we have that kind of time. I wish that I did feel that way. I’d love to be a long-lasting genre novelist. I just don’t see it. It’s hard to be motivated to write something that will be finished in, say, six months. I’m very worried for the next year. Very worried.

        • Yes, exactly so. Not a whole lot of what we now take for granted will survive as viable parts of the economy. I live in Thailand. I’ll likely never move back to the West. There is no ‘left’ here, in any of the Asian countries, except of course the authoritarian post-Marxist nations. But there’s no leftist discourse subverting and destroying from within as in the West. I write now b/c going to those imaginary worlds is a reward in itself, not always but sometimes.

          Meanwhile I’m shocked that the Remain campaign in Britain will now win. Tragic when you consider the Leave side was winning. I fully expect now an outlier event in the US election that’ll be tagged to Trump.

          That’s likely how the civil insurrection will unfold, when the people intuitively sense the false flag manipulation and reject the measures taken. Dozens of such possibilities exist. The only thing I can’t imagine happening is everything just proceeding quietly.

    • Great story, but a bit too overtly didactic about Islam. Actually, this works better as a screenplay than as literature (e.g., most of the characters speak in the same “voice” as the narrator). Hopefully, someone with money ($oro$?) will want to make a movie of this, and fortunately, the protagonist escaped into sequel-land.

      • If you think there is even a 1% chance of my stories becoming films in PC America, I call you 100% naïve.

        • Matt: It’s only a hypothetical question, but would you refuse if someone offered you money to write a half-true screenplay like Kingdom (the story of the FBI agents in Saudi) which conveys an accurate impression of the pervasive menace and malevolence in Islamic society but couples this with a fantastic, inaccurate portrayal of the “good Muslim” (the Saudi cop who works with them and saves the day).

          Glass half full, or half empty?

          • I have to finish the novel I have 80% completed.

            And I have been pitched many times from NY and CA, it’s always the same initial enthusiasm. Big build up, great excitement, then the coven of Leftist PC witches and brujos meets, and I’m blackballed yet again.

            It’s happened so often, I can only laugh. Sign of the times.

            If there is still a book-selling market in 2017, I’ll be happily surprised. My hope is to be out sailing when the SHTF.

          • Any writer like Bracken would be pressured by the producers of any mainstream movie to “tone down” any implications that Muslims and Islam are somehow to blame; and they’d butcher his script with rewrites that sanitize Islam (and put plenty of Muslim Moderate characters in the plot who show the “moderate” and “sensitive” and “patriotic” side of Muslims).

        • That is what I imagined. I remember thinking as I read the trilogy how this would simply never be published by any commercial publisher. Maybe a small conservative imprint, but it would be a risk for them. Even that was unlikely. Many writers in China and Russia faced worse, though, and had their lives literally destroyed. The Left is the West’s nemesis.

  25. Mike: another AMAZING chapter.

    I like the little touches. For example, I’ve always been of the opinion that when the excrement hits the ventilator, Bubba with his pickup truck is the guy you want to be with…

    Again MOVIE WORTHY. A right-wing movie, for a change…

    • I long ago resigned myself to the fact that none of my books or movies will ever become a film. It won’t happen, they are PC-kryptonite. The movies will only exist in the theaters of the readers’ minds.

  27. It was a very good story. Thank’s to Mr. Bracken for publishing it…

    but I’m a little sad to see him wasting his talents on this instead of on the Castigo Cay sequels I’m eager to buy!!!

    • Reading this inspired me to order Castigo Cay on Amazon tonight.

      Until this story was published I though Matt Bracken was simply one of us commenters. Now that I know he’s Irish like me, drinks hard, and writes well and is published, I want to read more of his stuff.

    • I’m 80% finished writing the follow on to Castigo Cay. It’s set between Ireland and Morocco with a sea-jihad and kidnapping theme. Look up “the sack of Baltimore, Ireland, 1631, and slide the time bar forward four centuries. When the West is weak, Islam moves into the vacuum.

      In my new novel, 80 Irish and English schoolgirls are kidnapped from an elite (“safe”) boarding academy in SW Ireland. They are taken in a fishing vessel to Morocco, for ransom or sale as sex-slaves. One of the parents finances a rescue operation, instead of paying to ransom only is grand daughter. A mixed English/Irish team is put together, ex-SAS and ex-IRA.

      The SAS have the know-how and skills, but can’t get hold of any guns. They are far outside the official lines, the UK government would stop their rogue mission if they could. So they must turn to the IRA to get access to the required weaponry.

      The vessel that was going to carry the team to Morocco was seized by HM govt in Wales just days before their launch, as the UK govt is getting wind of the operation. So they must come up with a replacement vessel right away, and get going. The slave auction will take place in only two weeks, after the Sharia-compliant three-month waiting period is over. (This is to ensure that none of the girls are pregnant. I’m not making this up.)

      Dan Kilmer and his old schooner are in SW Ireland, selling off a cargo of drums of diesel fuel that they “recovered” from an abandoned USAF air base in the Arctic. The SAS/IRA team make him an offer he can’t refuse to carry the team to the Canaries. That’s the setup . I’m 80% finished.

      • It sounds excellent, timely, eye-opening! If you have research articles and notes, consider compiling that as an appendix of real people who met similar fates. I was amazed how Cussler published dozens of NUMA novels set at sea, and then he published a non-fiction on the dozens of shipwrecks that were found and restored, and that sold better than the novels. So I guess serious fiction readers equally enjoy the non-fiction background the story is based on.

        You probably know all about the wasteland of ebook ‘promotion’. I wish I knew of a guaranteed method to suggest. I spent all of 2015 focused on that, and concluded that none of the conventional approaches for ebooks are very reliable. So I’ve set that aside and just focus on writing now.

        Another writer I greatly admire is Max Alexander who brought out ‘Patriot Rising: The Unbroken’ this year. His books are like yours, detailed, realistic, fast-paced, on conservative themes. He should have much higher sales too!

        Good luck with the Castigo Cay sequel! Oh, consider changing to a thriller-themed series cover for the series that reflects the taut, fast-paced, real-deal, topical, headline-grabbing, thriller writing.

        All the best!

        • Start with this book, order it used on Amazon marketplace for a couple bucks:

          White Gold: The Extraordinary Story of Thomas Pellow and Islam’s One Million White Slaves by Giles Milton

          • What a coincidence: I just acquired a copy of White Gold last weekend. The paperback version’s cover art really makes you want to break stuff.

      • It was just this time of year, the longest day in 1631, that the menfolk of Baltimore, Ireland, were out for the whole long day’s fishing. When they returned they found the village empty, all their womenfolk and girls gone – taken as slaves by raiding muslim jihadis.

        Baltimore: it deserves to be remembered.

  28. Matt, you did a pretty good job of getting yourself out of that corner you had painted yourself into. You also left the story open for a fifth and possibly sixth installment. Where is Brooklyn Mike going? Kentucky, of all places! Sharia south, then it is on to Florida. how about “Travels with Mike in search of a lost America,” to borrow from John Steinbeck.

      • such as being used as a courier by the Russian mob. The truck drivers drop Mike off in Chattanooga and tell him to drive “their” car to Dallas. unbeknownst to Mike the trunk is loaded with illicit computer hardware and software. As Mike is leaving town he stops at a truck stop to gas up and get final directions from the truck driver’s contact. He leaves the car unlocked as he goes inside the coffee shop lobby to talk to the contact. Two young girls sneak into the back seat and hide on the floor under the blankets Mike will use to sleep in. They recognized Mike from his five minutes of fame in New York. They are Islami and fleeing parent who are just as evil as Amini’s were. Our hero crosses into Tennessee and then down into Alabama before he is picked up by the FBI as the result of being ratted on by a disgruntled underling of the Russian mob who will later pay for that bit of indiscretion. Meanwhile, back on the Interstate, our hero finds his accelerator and a redneck who likes nothing better than to give the revenuers a hard time and together they make the FBI’s life miserable and also make it safely to Dallas.
        How dat?

        • Anything could happen, but I kind of thought they’d spend some time in a nice rural retreat in the Southern Appalachians.

          • I had Mike ending up in Mexico working as sort of a James Bond for the Russian Mob helping to ferret out the ISIS infiltrators, but then Mike never learned Spanish, so I left him in Dallas to catch them as they were heading north from Texas to Minnesota and Ohio.

  30. That was riveting, exciting, stressful, and entertaining. it brought me to tears when the swat cop was in the high rise and coordinated Brooklyn mikes Escape
    along with the !! Caution !! Politically Correct Typing is about to occur !!! “****’S”
    [Have carnal knowledge of] that
    With Jesus’s Help
    You Have done an amazing job of illustrating what a Violent despicable religion that Islam Is.
    Granted Christianity has in the past performed despicable acts as well
    and so have other religions.
    any time an evil despicable dirtbag has arose to the throne of a country, a land, a religion… that deceit has wreaked havoc on the world
    and as you yourself have said,
    “history rhymes ”
    we are dealing with this horror again, and again, and…..

    when will we finally be rid of the evil
    will we vanquish it in a epic final battle
    or will it hide in our loins
    until we set it free to corrupt our soul again

    we are weak
    we must fight to be strong
    we must fight against our own human nature
    to become more than mere men and women
    we must become as the creator
    pure love
    and truly free

    Good [obscene intensifier] luck!!

    Good JOB on the story
    I am truly impressed
    it reminds me
    that i am not alone in the belief
    that good can prevail

    • The Lord works in mysterious ways.
      For 1,400 years, good men battled against this evil scourge, and most of them died not knowing if it would sweep the globe.
      The fight must go on.

  31. Bravo Matt. The dedication to Sarah and Amina makes it perfect.

    The story of Brooklyn Mike will go on and on in the minds of your readers, but now I’m inspired to read what other things you’ve written. You drunk Mick. Oops, don’t stop too quickly, I’m right behind you.

  32. Terrific story, but the ending is far from a happy one. Mike is now hunted by law enforcement and by Muslims, a refugee in his own country, like that poor cartoonist after her Draw Muhamad day. Hardhats won a battle against the enemy in the streets of Manhattan, but the war is only just heating up.

    The story is a realistic scenario for our very near future. Given that our own governments are siding against us with the enemy, it’s going to be an uphill fight. Beware of snitches and traitors who are everywhere.

    • By George, Anonymous, you have GOT it. That is exactly where I wanted the reader to be at the end. Perfect. You nailed it. Thanks.

  33. Awesome short story and on point with the message. Thanks for writing it, Matt, and giving us solid food to chew on. The only problem with it so far is that it stopped… must read more! I figure these have to be the first four chapters of at least a 30+ chapter book in your head that is just begging to be typed.

    Our country can continue to slide into a morass of complacency, political correctness, immorality, weakness, and kowtowing to those who want to kill us OR the salt of the earth people can finally…(enter Matthew Bracken’s new novel)

    • The comments here are giving me a lot of spirit to finish up my overdue 5th novel, the synopsis is on this thread somewhere.

  34. Dear Baron and Dymphna,
    You have outdone yourselves with the Matt Bracken story. I’ve been nailed to my chair every morning since it started!

    Our government lies to us every day (especially this particular government under “The One”) so it is really comforting to know that we can still have some freedoms, especially the freedom to read such a great story.

    Huzzah to Matt Bracken and to the two of you — outstanding! (I wish I were more eloquent — words — I can’t find enough of them to give adequate praise).

  35. I really was wishing Brooklyn Mike was going to get into the crane operator cab and drop a piece of I-beam before his escape. He needed to “iron” some things out with those muslims.

  36. Oh, I just googled Matt Bracken — he’s a handsome man, to boot! Brains, smarts, looks — what more could anyone want?

    Thank you so much, Baron and Dymphna. I will be contributing to Matt by virtue of buying his books. . .

  37. I’m so moved by this story I have tears in my eyes– and I’m a 205lb tough guy who doesn’t cry.

    I read the Enemies trilogy a couple years ago and loved it. Even then, Matt’s writing has come a long way.

    • I think the stories in my trilogy hold up, but I like to think my craft has improved. I’m not a “natural” who can crank out a book a year. I wish I was. I have to bleed for every page.

      • For sure! I actually have 4 copies of the first Enemies book that I give as gifts to young men that I meet, guy that I think will be inspired by it.

  38. [Posterior anatomical crevice] of the Year: Baron Bodissey driven his victim; Anders Behring Breivik to kill Muslims not Israelis. Breivik killed Christians, Jews, Hindus but Muslims.

      • P.S. Mohammed was a criminal and a pedophile, a liar and the worst example upon which to found a totalitarian political system (not a religion) that one could possibly imagine. I suppose one good thing could have been said about him, and that is that he wasn’t a drunk, although that may have improved his disposition.

      • Obaid, if you’d been following the plot, you’d know Breivik (apart from bring insane) is a white supremacist. The MSM didn’t (so far as I’m aware) pick up on the fact that the Norwegian Labour Party youth rally he attacked was in support of the “Palestinians”. We’re obliged to “Gates” for the report of his statement, written in prison, that he intended discrediting the CJ movement (Robert Spencer in particular) because he doesn’t think it’s sufficiently extreme!

        • I still think he was being weaponized by our 3-letter agents who populated the U.S. Embassy in Oslo, posing as foreign service personnel.

          They planned to star him in an aborted “lonerightwingextremist” take down (see Hillary’s pronoucements back then). He’d roll into Oslo with his truck bomb and they roll HIM up before he could set it off.

          It might have worked, but again, when Wikileaks broke they quickly scattered out of the country. Did they notify Norway’s PET? Maybe, maybe not. The leave-taking was a bit precipitous, didn’t even have time to leave him with a decent supply of more steroids.

          ABB was delusional but crafty. He’d always had every intention of getting to Utoya (note his police uniform) and obtaining revenge against the elites’ children, a group of future leaders his abusive step-father had pointed out repeatedly, telling him he was too stupid to ever gain admittance to the cool kids’ crew.

          I will believe he wrote that entire manifesto when an expert forensic linguist tells us that his “Manifesto” shows absolutely no evidence of having had any sections written by a native English speaker. We’d also need a culture expert to explain how he had so much insider baseball info on American conservatism – not just Robert Spencer, but the whole list of those thousand emails he sent out before he climbed in his truck.

          I also believe he allowed himself to be arrested bec his ‘pals’ told him he was the true leader of a secret group who would rise up when he was arrested (as far as his handlers knew, he was only going to be arrested for a “failed” bomb attempt).

          It smelled even more when he sent a letter from prison to major MSM outlets telling them he used the counterjihad movement as a cover for his neo-Nazi beliefs. He’d had plans to come out of that closet when he was rescued by his underground group. After a period in the hoosegow, ol’ Breivik knew no one was coming so he attempted to tell the world about the real plan. Only NONE of the media outlets would touch his letter. IIRC, someone in Sweden did, but that was it.

          Norway is so thoroughly riddled through with real traitors it’s probably not salvageable. At least America is big enough to contain “pockets of resistance” – that’s what the folks at DHS call any place that tries to refuse refugees…it’s a “p.o.r.” A title that those so labelled have taken to heart with delight.

          If there are sequels to “Piss”, I hope Matt Bracken grabs that idea – Pockets of Resistance – and develops it.

          • As a former FSO, I do not think that Breivik was put up to anything by our CIA, nor was he weaponized by them. What would the US gain by such a move? Besides, as a former official of the US government, I would be very happy if the CIA had a mere tithe of the power attributed to it.

            I can see why a lot of Europeans are fed up with Islam and socialism. As being weaponized by the Unmentionable Brigade, the experience of “gun free zones” in the USA shows that someone determined to get a firearm even under the most stringent “gun free” regime will find a way. Even ordinary European criminals can get guns if they want them.

            I suspect that Breivik was simply someone fed up–only to a wrong and murderous extent. Perhaps an “Oslo Anders” instead of a “Brooklyn Mike” (and, BTW, while I do not sympathize with what Breivik did, I loved Mr. Bracken’s story).

          • Kepha, I suggest that you read our lengthy investigation from five years ago of the tangled web surrounding Anders Behring Breivik, “The Breivik Portfolio”:

            Part One: The American Connection
            Part Two: The Chechen Connection
            Part Three: The OIC Connection
            Part Four: The Dot-Connection

            It is not a far-fetched idea that Breivik was a narcissistic psychopath who was deliberately weaponized by an agency or agencies unknown, and who then escaped their direct control.

            As for what the US would gain from this: it was exactly coterminous with then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s public announcement of the “Istanbul Process”, in which she vowed to implement UN Resolution 16/18 in the USA, by one means or another.

            Having an “Islamophobic” “right-wing extremist” terrorist appear at that particular moment was very much in the interest of the United States Government — or rather, the Obama-Clinton regime.

        • If memory serves, ABB had intended to “visit” the camp when Norway’s Prime Minister was there, but he was off by a day.

          • Please note the odd appearances of the lunatic assassin in London who killed the MP, and the lunatic with the guns who was supposed to be heading to the gay pride parade on the same day as Orlando.

            The Cali lunatic is saying that he needs the local PD to protect him from his CIA “handlers.” Now, I take it as a given that any such handlers will use a false flag for attribution against enemies. But the Cali lunatic is insistent that he needs protection from his “handlers.”

            My own take is that sometimes lunatics are channeled and directed by very careful cutouts.

            I wrote a short story about this process titled: “Professor Raoul X.”
            http://westernrifleshooters.blogspot.com/2011/01/bracken-professor-raoul-x.html

            There is also an old but still plausible novel on the subject called “The Parallax View.” It was even made into a film in 1974. Since the villains behind the Parallax Corporation were shadowy right-wingers, Hollywood was willing to tread on this ground.

  39. What a wonderful piece to find upon my return to GV. As the threat of islam is now here in our country, I had moved onto sites that focused more on the U.S. I forgot how much there is here for me. Please forgive me Baron and Dymphna.
    Matt-Consider making your protagonist(s) younger. Being in my fifties, my heroes are bloggers, authors and orators that fight the good fight. My children and their peers need to read your work.

      • While I’m here, thanks a load for Brooklyn Mike. I’m pretty fed up with the EmCeePeeCee crowd (even if I’d like to call my polyglott self “multi cultural”, had the term not been hijacked by “anti-cultural” illiterates) myself. BTW, it was a hard read for me, because I am a first-class acrophobe ;).

    • Nothing wrong with Mike of Brooklyn being 60 years old. He could be 40, or 20, years old and it would still be a great story but Mike’s backstory would be different. Have no doubt it would work equally well in every case.

      • And I think there are many quite rational older men, without wives or families to consider, who would be more willing to climb a tower or do something similar.

        A 30-year-old family man would have many more reasons not to take such a risk to his future, and the future of his family.

  40. Thank you for a delightful and inspiring tale, Mr. Bracken. I am passing it around to my friends and family, who will probably enjoy it as much as I did.

    • Thank you. Many people can’t read from a screen, it will only take 51 sheets of printer paper and some ink to make a hard copy and staple it together. (Thanks to the fine folks at GoV for all the formatting and editing work.)

  42. The ending of the story was depressingly realistic; Brooklyn Mike must go into hiding because of the dual fatwas on his head from the muzzies and the duplicitous, gutless and hypocritical mayor and his minions. I guess any resemblances to actual persons (DeBlasio?) are purely coincidental?)

    • Del Rio is meant to be an allusion to DeBlasio, yes.

      But I think it’s a pretty happy ending. He’s got a Glock .45 and a bunch of money, and a new mission to protect Amina. It can go lots of ways. Not that it is. I’m finished with it.

  43. Good story, Matt, but it’s incomplete. In Part 5, the HNIC gets the word that his most-favored faith is not only being insulted but assaulted. He declares a state of emergency in New York City and his minions assemble a task force of federal agents who descend on Manhattan and round up the hard hats. Those who don’t drop their rebar quickly enough are shot dead. The rest are flown to federal prisons around the country, where they are held incommunicado. With the help of NSA monitors, Brooklyn Mike is quickly tracked down and destroyed with a Hellfire missile. NPR, CNN, the New York Times, and the Washington Post loudly hail the grand federal triumph over right-wing domestic terrorism – which, they remind us, was the real threat all along.

    • HNIC

      I’m ashamed of myself for being able to decode that acronym in under 5 seconds though not having seen it before.

      Maybe it would happen the way you suggest. Then again, it could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. An insurrection by parts of the police, active military and the National Guard could follow.

    • We have to live on some hope, somewhere. And I liked the chance to point out that police stand-down orders like San Jose can have unintended consequences.

  45. Two well written books of note that really get the point across about Islam and population replacement are by Jean Raspail ‘Camp des Saints’,1973, (The Camp of the Saints), probably well known by most of us, and Michel Houellebecq ‘Soumission’ (Submission). I believe they are both available in English.

    The Camp of the Saints is free online. Raspail imagines a racial invasion coming by sea, of rafts and boats taking off from the Indian subcontinent and heading slowly, inexorably for Europe. Written in 1973 it anticipates the notion of population replacement in Europe.

    In Houellebecq’s ‘Submission’ ,published in 2015, tells the story of a somewhat decadent professor of the decadent movement in French literature. When an ostensibly moderate Muslim politician unexpectedly becomes president of France in 2022, radical changes to French life follow quickly. The like Saints, the book doesn’t preach to the choir, and is a great way to get more people not already convinced, that Islam is definitely a problem for Western society.

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