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Prologue

I was a s that held no value to rew into adulthood Money, oil, land, power, prestige, the right religion, the proper beliefsthey were just words They were the battle cry that tore from my lips before I even kne to speak in full sentences

I was a er, in a place that fed on those very things Her cause becaht was never ood son, so I let the things that filled her up and burst out of her bleed ontoit was all I knew I took her cause as my own Only none of it led to my mother’s approval or adoration I was never nurtured or coddled Instead I was honed andthat barely had any scraps of hue and vengeance To her, that was how I honored her and my deceased father It was how she forced me to honor a cause that was never mine

My ht between cultures and seeking revenge for deeds that I had no concept of I was nothing more than an instrus I didn’t understand, things thatto a boy, to any child Mother knew best, and I followed blindly I was never allowed a childhood or any semblance of a happy healthy home life We lived in a war zone and our home was part of the battlefield We were soldiers, not a fae I learned war tactics and how to handle explosives before I kne to read and write

Before I grew facial hair or reached ht, I had already done and seen more than any child—any person—should And with each new and increasingly violent and dangerous act I coht I would finallyand untried ht that once she was proud, once her burning need for revenge was sated, I would be set free Once the on, I could go back to being a normal boy It was naive to think like this in a place that was historically unstable and soaked with the blood of the innocent

There was no end in sight, and as I grew, as I became more skilled, my mother becareedier and o after the people, the overnment they represented that had taken my father away No, she wanted the entire infrastructure to collapse She wanted to ar on an ancient land, which had conflict soaked into every grain of sand that filled its hostile desert landscape It was futile, but she wouldn’t listen to reason or to the pleas of her scared and scarred son She handed me off to men who continued to use me to kill and destroy, all before I had even kissed ood-bye or explained where I was going She never once let me believe that I had lived up to her expectations of ed to honor the memory of my late father

The rest of the world hears words like “holy war,” “the Gaza Strip,” “the proenocide,” and can turn on CNN or click on a link to see shaky footage of bo in the desert, but for me it was my day-to-day I wasn’t just part of a warI was the war A man with an American mother and an Arab father and no place that was mine The men whom I was handed over to, basically a trained child solider already with bodies and blood on his hands, tried to stoke the blind rage inside of nited at birth They tried to take all of the hostile and horrific teachings I learned at my mother’s side and turn ht for customs and country They tried to fill me up with the same kind of fury that my mother had inside of her because of the loss offor the supposedly right side Always the causeit was everything to these people, and nothing but words toside There was no proht to the sand that blew everywhere and stung hest body count and the side inflicting theon what day it was By the ti to do with any of it and h that I was starting to see the world beyond it

I wanted to be a man, not a weapon

I was over it all, soul-sick and exhausted fro my mother’s approval, and then the acceptance and praise of the ht at the ive up myself for the only kind of peace I would ever know after all the horror I had created, the govern

More accurately, I fell into their hands when they stopped the loaded-down truck I was supposed to be protecting A truck full of explosives and headed for a primary school in a UN compound I didn’t want to protect the truck I didn’t want to be where I was I didn’t want to be anything or anyone I couldn’t see any more people die in a war they had never asked to be part of If Mossad hadn’t intercepted us, the truck would have blown long before it arrived at the school grounds, taking me and the actual devotees to the cause with it I had un and was beyond ready to use it Kids were innocent in all of this and there were lines, even then, that I would not cross I couldn’t—wouldn’t—be used anymore, and I was finally ready to make a final and drastic stand

My plan was to die by my own hand and to take as many of the bastards that had used me, handled me, and controlled ht I would be free of the godda albatross, but then Mossad ambushed us, snatched me up from death’s door, and offered me a chance to vanish if I stayed with the cell I was eent for five more years I took theht I had no loyalty left, except toup all the intel and turn it over with no qual oal

That was ht for, my new objective, and I didn’t care that it was entirely self-serving