Tarik

"The youngest child in that ward is eight and a half!"

- Tarik displays his sociopathic side

Tarik is an antagonist in The Power of Five novel Oblivion. He is the commander of Egypt's rebel forces, he at first seems like a good man, and one that everyone admires. But then, although he is not a servant of the Old Ones, he becomes an antagonist through his war crimes, which are just as bad as those of the enemy.

Tarik is not his real name - his name is unknown but "Tarik" is Arabic for "hero."

When Richard Cole and Gatekeeper Scarlett Adams come through an interdimensional door from a temple in Hong Kong, they arrive in Egypt. A member of the secret organization, the Nexus, formed to fight the Old Ones is present (his name Albert Remy) and he takes them to a hospital. He explains the destruction the Old Ones have wrought in ten years on the world. Richard and Scarlett recover, Scarlett being cured of a bullet to the brain, and they meet Tarik, the leader. He introduces himself as a hero, seeing himself as such because of his people's view of him, and in their view he is a flawless man who can do no evil.

But his sadistic side is shown minutes into his appearence when he shows Richard and Scarlett children of eight and nine who he claims are innocent vicitms of the crossfire between Field Marshal Akkad and Tarik's men. Tarik then asks Scarlett to do a cruel thing and, because she can control the weather, rain fire down on Akkad or block his palace in a sand storm to suffocate him. Scarlett isn't cruel so she refuses to kill anyone, even an evil man. Tarik then says that perhaps they think of him as a monster for suggesting this but he says Akkad is the monster and he should be killed for genocide. But something about the children ward doesn't add to Richard.

When Tarik learns Scarlett cannot kill, he glares at her in fury and doubts her claim as a Gatekeeper, saying that she must be a liar. Tarik then storms out. But he has a plan to kill Scarlett because a) men don't like girls in the Army and b) he has no need for her. He sends shape changers and human soldiers out to kill Richard and Scarlett, but when this fails he pretneds he is an ally and drives them off. But Richard had looked through the cars the night before, and, surrpise, he saw a bomb which Tarik had put in their car. So, Richard, in a cunning move, switched the bomb into Tarik's car, knowing that Tarik was mad, and he visited the ward just to be sure. He got his evidence - there were child Army uniforms in the place and weapons; the children weren't injured innocents; they were trained soldiers. Tarik was worse than Akkad for using children as soldiers. So, when Richard and Scarlett left Cairo, the bomb went off under Tarik's car, killing him.