Any chance you dance?

Fatima bin Laden, 21, arrived in America as too many terrorists still did, on a commercial jetliner, carrying a student visa. Flying in from Manilla -- part of her cover, utilizing her Filipino heritage -- Fatima was supposed to be met by a Chinese agent. That's what her Uncle Osama said before sending her off on this death mission, showing her a black-and-white image of the agent.

But now that she was in Honolulu, just about everyone looked Chinese -- except for all the Baraka. She'd never seen so many white people in all her life! That's what happens when you grow up in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. She herself was half-Filipino, half-Saudi, daughter of Uncle Osama's brother. He'd taken a Filipina wife when the two were in Mindanao meeting with Abu Sayaf and Muhammed Resurreccion. Uncle Osama married her sister, and later brought her friend over and married her too.

Physically, she was tall like Uncle Osama, and there was a resemblance, but his sharp Arabic features had been softened by Malay-Chinese-Spanish influences. Like her mother, her lips were full, and by the Saudi way of looking at things meant to be veiled, so luscious were they. And if lips should be covered, more so the enticing feminine curves she'd also inherited from her mother. She was taught that the abaya (long black robe) gave a Muslim woman freedom by removing her from the leering eyes of men, and Fatima had no reason to believe otherwise.

So standing there outside the terminal after passing through immigration without incident -- checking her passport and student visa in the name of Fatima San Marcos was a formality -- Fatima practically felt naked in a loose-fitting black velour track suit. But Allah be praised, at least her head was covered -- with a gold stocking cap that bore the embroidered San Miguel beer logo over a basketball.

She glanced at her watch. The Chinese agent was late. Half an hour. Forty-five minutes. After an hour, she was the only passenger left, but one of two young women looking slightly jilted at the curb. The other was dressed, if you could call it that, with coconuts tied together with string covering her breasts, and a skirt made of nothing but swaying grass that revealed knees and thighs as she walked toward Fatima! What a harlot! At least her head was covered with a garland of flowers.

"You look lost," she said. "You get stood up too?"

"Stood up? You mean my, um, ride hasn't arrived? Yes."

"Well, the businessman I was supposed to greet with this lei apparently missed the flight, so here ... " She placed a strand of fragrant yellow ginger around Fatima's neck, kissed her cheek. "Aloha, welcome."

A cell phone rang, the young woman pulled it from her skirt. She listened, swore softly, turned to Fatima. "By any chance, you dance?"

Was that a trick question?