It’s a sign!

Fatima bin Laden had been in America barely an hour and already things were going wrong. Her Uncle Osama, who personally planned this death mission to avenge his jailed colleague Muhammed Resurreccion, said she'd be picked up by a Chinaman. But he was a no-show. It wouldn't be until she saw on the late news that the entire office of the Chinese secret police had been rounded up and arrested earlier in the day that she'd understand why.

At the moment, though, all she knew was that she was quite alone and the only person she knew in Hawaii was this beautiful young harlot wearing coconuts tied together with string to cover her breasts, and a skirt made of nothing but swaying grass revealing knees and thighs when the wind blew.

Fatima did have two local contacts, but she was to call one number only when her attack was planned and she needed weapons, the other only as an emergency bail-out if she thought she'd been compromised. She wasn't going to call either after barely an hour. She had a mission to fulfill, out of devotion to Allah, out of love for her uncle. She would not disappoint them.

"Excuse me," Fatima said as a smoking tour bus roared away, "what did you say?"

"By any chance, do you dance?"

Was that a trick question? But Fatima saw no harm in answering truthfully. In Muslim society, women danced -- behind closed doors with other women, while also learning to dance for their future husbands. A very select and trusted few of them gathered secretly to learn the clandestine martial art She Kat based on belly dance moves. "Of course, all women dance."

The harlot raised her eyebrows. "And where do you come from?"

Fatima was well-coached for this question. "The Philippines."

"Ah, sure." She'd heard about the bars of Manila and Angeles. "So how'd you get the English accent?"

"A teacher I admired very much." That was also true, the London-educated Iranian woman her uncle employed to teach her English so that she could carry out this mission against America.

"Hi," the harlot said, "I'm Jennifer Hira."

Surely it was a sign! Was it not on Mt. Hira where Prophet Muhammed first received verses of the Koran delivered by the angel Gabriel direct from Allah?! Yes, a sign! And didn't Uncle Osama say after they'd recited the Al-Fatiha, as Muslims always did at the beginning of a journey, that to fulfill this mission she might have to temporarily set aside some of her normal virtue in the name of Allah?

"Hi, I'm Fatima San Marcos."

"Ho, it's like a sign or something! My grandpa's Portuguese, and I just got a postcard from his pilgrimage to the Shrine of Fatima!"

So it was that Fatima went with Jennifer to her second job, dancing at the private gambling house Club Le Boing Boing.