Nadia Khan looked at the tall, dark and handsome African-American man who lay next to her. Hard to believe that a year ago, her husband Omar Jackson considered himself an atheist and a soldier of the United States of America. Now he was a practicing Muslim and a hard-working herdsman and farmer living in the woods outside Multan, one of the largest cities of Pakistan. Gently she kissed him on the lips, and rested her head on his hairy chest as he slept. The miracles of Allah will never cease, the young woman smiled to herself. Anything is possible to the Most High, she said with contentment. How else could one explain how a Godless black American soldier who slaughtered Muslims for fun came to embrace Islam and take a Pakistani Muslim wife?
Omar Jackson was born on February 7, 1987 in the City of Savannah, Georgia, to Shamika Jackson, an African-American mother and Italian-American father, Michael Tartaglia. He never knew his parents, for his father never had anything to do with his upbringing and his mother died he was a few months old. He grew up in the foster care system. At the age of eighteen, he joined the United States Army. He went to fight for Uncle Sam in Afghanistan and Pakistan after the events of September 11, 2001. The U.S. Army gave the young man something he never had, a family of sorts and a place where he belonged. He fought the Taliban in the Desert countries where they hid, and also took on the evil minions of Al Qaeda wherever they dwelled. Protecting America was his priority.
Omar Jackson had a singular hatred of Muslims, whom he viewed as subhuman and good only when dead. He killed so many throughout his time in the Army that his fellow soldiers nicknamed him the Crusader. Once, his fervent hatred of Muslims got him in trouble for he shot and killed five Pakistani soldiers who had been helping the U.S. Mission in Pakistan and when a fellow U.S. soldier intervened, Omar Jackson shot private Katherine Beaumont in the head. Immediately he was arrested, and the incident was heard around the world. The Pakistani government demanded justice, as did the United States Military Command. Loose cannons like Omar Jackson couldn't and wouldn't be tolerated in today's U.S. Army. They threw the book at him and wanted to make an example out of him.
Omar Jackson knew what awaited him. Under the Barack Hussein Obama administration, the most pro-Arab administration in recent times, he'd face the death penalty for sure. He couldn't let the U.S. Army take him back to America. So when they came to transport him from the U.S. Army base in Peshawar to the States, he escaped, leaving three dead U.S. servicemen in his wake. The six-foot-five, caramel-skinned and green-eyed Omar Jackson had always been an exceptional athlete and when he joined the U.S. Army he basically became a super soldier. Growing up in the foster care system he encountered all kinds of creeps, from sexually abusive foster parents to racist bozos and the like. He also dealt with gangs in the rough neighborhoods where he was forced to live. That's where he learned to be brutal and ruthless. In the cutthroat environment where he grew up, the strong survived and the weak died. That was the law of the jungle, applied to the concrete jungle that was Savannah, Georgia.
Omar Jackson escaped from U.S. custody in Pakistan and when the news hit CNN, he became the most wanted man in the world since the death of Saudi terrorist leader Osama Bin Laden. The Pakistani national police force helped the U.S. Army Special Forces team when they scoured Pakistan to find the most dangerous man in the world. Yeah, just like in his youth, Omar Jackson had made a lot of enemies but fortunately, he was one step ahead of them all. Even though he hated the Muslims with a passion, Omar wasn't stupid. In his time in the Middle East he became fluent in Arabic, Farsi and Urdu. Due to his mixed heritage, he could pass for one of the darker skinned members of Pakistani society, especially after letting his beard grow. The guy was born for infiltration, and that's exactly what he did.
For over a year the U.S. and Pakistan tracked him across one of the most populous countries in the Muslim world, and couldn't find him. How could that be? Omar Jackson knew how to stay one step ahead of his enemies. He never stayed in one place too long. Still, even the most wanted man in the world needs a moment of respite from time to time. He is human, after all. That's how Omar Jackson ended up, hungry and thirsty, exhausted beyond belief, and half-naked, in the woods outside of Multan. He'd been wandering for a long time, moving from place to place, until he ran out of money and passed out in the woods. The starving, weakened ex-U.S. soldier was found by a tall, slender Pakistani herdswoman, eighteen-year-old orphan Nadia Khan.
The young Pakistani herdswoman led her goats down the hill near the woods just like she had a thousand times. The life of a goat herder was simple, and boring. Ever since her parents Ali and Rabia Khan died in a car accident in Hyderabad ten years ago, Nadia had been living with her senile grandmother Fatima Khan. The old woman didn't know what year it was most of the time, and this left Nadia with the double duty of taking care of her while running the farm, tending to the fields and herding the hundred or so goats they had. Yeah, Nadia Khan was a busy young woman.
The farming communities at the edge of the woods near Multan City, Pakistan, were among the poorest of the poor. The Khan farm sat in a valley, approximately three and a half kilometers from the nearest human dwelling. Sometimes Nadia spent weeks without talking to another human being. The young Pakistani farm gal was quite lonely. Had she been born into a wealthier family, she would have been married by now. Some young man would have approached her Baba, her father, and asked for her hand in marriage. A dowry would have been agreed upon, then a wedding date would have been set. Instead of being happily wedded to a young man of means, she was alone in the woods, with goats for company. Some life she had.
Given her dreary existence, the excitement Nadia Khan felt when she saw a young man lying half naked in the bushes, unconscious and looking damn near death, could be understandable. Kneeling beside him, she tried to revive him but to no avail. She half-carried, half-dragged him back to her grandmother's farm, her goats dutifully following her through the fields. Upon seeing the stranger, her Nana declared that he was not of Pakistan. He looked like he could be from the Tamil Nadu region of India by the looks of him. Tamil Muslims did occasionally come to Pakistan, but Nadia Khan knew in her heart that the man she rescued came from the other side of the world. As she administered to his injuries, he came awake and mumbled something about America. Grandmother and granddaughter exchanged an alarmed look. Could this stranger be from the States?
Three days later, Omar Jackson woke up, and found himself in unfamiliar surroundings. The last thing he remembered was stumbling, famished and thirsty, exhausted beyond belief, in the woods. He never expected to wake up when he collapsed that day, having narrowly evaded the U.S. Army troopers who followed him. Where was he? Had he been captured? He leapt to his feet, and took a look around. The place he was in didn't look like a prison, a hospital or any military base he'd ever been in. He was in a house, there were family pictures all over the walls. A Pakistani couple and their tall daughter. So, these were his captors. Okay. He'd make short work of them. Snatching a ceremonial Kirpan blade from the wall, he looked for an escape route...and ran smack into a small, short old lady who carried a tray.
