Authors: Randy Singer
21
It was dusk when Hassan arrived at the Sandbridge beach house. The sun painted pastels over the small bay that bordered the two-mile-wide strip of land covered with vacation homes. He parked in the carport, checked in all directions, and duct-taped Ja’dah’s mouth before he moved her into the ground floor of the house. He dragged her into a corner of the rec room and shoved her to the floor, then pulled out another thick plastic tie and cinched it around her ankles. He left the duct tape over her mouth for the time being and avoided looking into her eyes.
Hassan had already moved all of the furniture to one side of the room, stacking the barstools next to the pool table and wicker furniture, and had covered the floor and the bottom half of the wall with heavy plastic. He had pulled the blinds and turned on an overhead light. The room was now quiet except for Ja’dah’s ragged breathing.
He squatted in front of her. “I am about to perform the evening salat,” he said softly. “Will you join me?”
Ja’dah’s eyes were rimmed with tears and wide with fright. She shook her head quickly. Decisively.
Hassan rose without speaking and headed to the wet bar at the far end of the room. He washed quickly. First his hands—right, then left. Then his face three times. His mouth. His nose. A dash of water to his hair and beard. Next his arms, wrists to elbows. Last, he washed his feet.
He pulled a prayer mat from a nearby bedroom and unrolled it on the plastic in the middle of the floor, facing east, toward the ocean. His melodic chants echoed off the walls, and soon he lost himself in the rhythmic worship of Allah. The prayers calmed his nerves. Strengthened his resolve. Deepened his convictions. At first, he was cognizant of Ja’dah watching his every move, trembling in fear. But soon enough, he became oblivious to her and lost himself in reverence.
He concluded his prayers, prostrate before Allah, and rose to his feet. Without speaking, he returned the prayer mat to the bedroom and knelt to face Ja’dah again. She had stopped sobbing and trembling. She regarded him with a mixture of curiosity and terror, her eyes locked on his.
“You have dishonored Allah,” he said, his voice low but firm. “You have dishonored your family.”
She shook her head again, and rage welled up in him. He grabbed her chin and squeezed, holding her head still. Her eyes popped open with a new wave of fear.
“You have become a prostitute,” he sneered. “A whore of the West.”
She didn’t move, frozen by fear.
He let go of her chin, took a breath, and relaxed. “You must renounce the Christian faith and return to your family.” His voice was again soft, a plea of reason. “Perhaps Allah will have mercy on your soul.” Slowly, he reached out and stripped the duct tape from Ja’dah’s mouth.
To her credit, she didn’t try to scream or curse or otherwise lash out. Her lips shook, and when she spoke, her voice was barely audible. “I cannot,” she stammered. “I am no longer a Muslim.”
As she said these words, Ja’dah looked past Hassan, but then she gathered the strength to again look him in the eye. “Nor are you. The Holy Qur’an teaches submission, not the sword.”
Enraged, Hassan slapped her. “‘I will cast dread into the hearts of the unbelievers,’” he said, his voice staccato. “‘Strike off their heads, and strike off all of their fingertips.’” He was quoting Sura 8:12, the words of the Prophet.
“That is not what that Sura means,” Ja’dah responded, her voice soft but certain. “I can quote Suras on mercy and forgiveness. Islam is submission to Allah. I have submitted to the God I hear.”
Hassan did not react emotionally to the blasphemy. He would not avenge the name of Allah in a fit of rage. His convictions were grounded in the certainty of the Prophet’s words and the faithfulness of a warrior’s heart. He was an instrument for Allah, nothing more.
“Renounce,” he said simply.
“I cannot.”
He shook his head in pity. She was a beautiful woman, full of courage and conviction. He could understand why Fatih Mahdi had chosen her. He had to protect his own heart from desiring her even now.
“Then you must pay.”
Ja’dah Fatima Mahdi did not respond.
Hassan rose and went into the adjacent bedroom to retrieve his sword. Returning to the rec room, in plain sight of Ja’dah, he removed the weapon from its sheath and placed it on the floor. Light reflected from the polished metal. Hassan studied his captive. Staring at the sword, her eyes glistened with tears.
He dragged her to the middle of the room and raised her into a kneeling position. He picked up the sword.
He had expected her to collapse in fear. She had been shaking almost uncontrollably as he pulled her to the middle of the room. But now, she seemed to find a new resolve. She looked straight ahead and closed her eyes. The trembling stopped. She held her head high, her hands still tied behind her back, her neck an easy target.
Somehow, in these last few moments, she had found the courage to accept her fate with dignity. She was still wrong. Still an infidel. Still destined for Allah’s wrath. But in that moment, Hassan couldn’t help but admire her.
He took a breath, whispered a quick prayer, then swung the sword in a giant arc, its swoosh filling the room as it sliced through the air. Ja’dah kept her eyes closed, her head held high, and let out a muffled shriek of terror.
He stopped the sword—inches from her neck.
She froze for a second in a state of shock, then collapsed to the floor. She curled into the fetal position, her knees tight to her chest.
Hassan knelt next to her.
“Renounce,” he whispered into her ear.
Ja’dah lay trembling for a moment, as if enduring a seizure that his words could not penetrate. After a few seconds, she grew still.
“Renounce,” he insisted.
She opened her eyes and tilted her head slightly to face him. Her eyes hardened, and she gave him a small shake of the head.
Hassan shook his own head in sadness and disappeared once more into the ground-floor bedroom. This time, he returned with a black hood and placed it over Ja’dah’s head. He pulled her back to her knees, held her there with one hand, and said a final prayer.
Was this truly what Allah required?
Hearing nothing, he stepped back to swing the sword again. Just as he did in his dreams, this time he would swing with all his might. There could be no mercy. The sword would complete its deadly arc, and Mahdi’s honor would be restored.
“Allahu akbar,”
he said as the sword sliced through the air.
22
Following the execution, Hassan did not allow himself the luxury of emotion. There was nothing to celebrate, nothing to mourn. He was only following Allah’s will. There was still much to be done.
The marriage between Ja’dah and Fatih Mahdi could now be expunged. It would be as if she had never existed. The gruesome manner of her death would strike fear into the hearts of other Muslim women who were considering dishonoring their families. At the same time, it would repulse and terrorize Americans, reminding them that there were jihadists among them, here on American soil.
Beheadings were commonplace in parts of the Middle East, an accepted form of capital punishment. But in America, they were regarded as a grotesque novelty, one that would have the media chattering for months. Muslim scholars and moderate imams would condemn the brutality and claim Islam was a religion of peace.
But radicals like Hassan would be energized by it. A personal attack deep in the heart of the enemy’s territory. A clinical strike. One that would frustrate millions because the agents of the Great Satan would never find the responsible party. On the other hand, Hassan would make sure the bodies were found, even though they would never be traced back to him.
Though Ja’dah’s death would be repulsive to Americans, in truth she did not suffer. Hassan hadn’t wanted her to. She was courageous, though misguided. He understood her resolve and commitment, a reflection of his own. She was in many ways a victim. The one who shouldered the greater part of the blame was this man named Martin Burns, an infidel who had lusted after a Muslim woman and led her astray.
For him, death would not come so easily. Ja’dah’s beheading would deter other Muslim women, but Hassan needed something just as strong to deter American men. Martin Burns had to suffer. He needed to die in a way that would play on the fears of Americans, something that would command the attention of even those who gorged themselves on Hollywood horror movies. And Hassan wanted to create some religious symbolism as well. It would be a shame that the irony would be lost on most.
Using Ja’dah’s cell phone, Hassan sent a text message at about 8:30 p.m., timed to coincide with the ending of the Beach Bible worship service. Ja’dah had not programmed Martin Burns’s cell number into her contact list, but Hassan had done his homework. Burns was a real estate broker, and Hassan had called his place of business earlier that week, pretending to be a new client anxious to talk. It had not been hard to get Burns’s cell number. Greed was a handy tool in dealing with Americans.
The text message was simple.
We need 2 talk privately. It’s important. Can we meet?
He didn’t sign Ja’dah’s name. The call history on her phone showed several calls to Burns’s number. Burns would recognize the source.
A few seconds later, Ja’dah’s phone rang. Hassan let the call from Burns kick into voice mail. He waited a few seconds and then sent another text.
Can’t talk on my cell. Can u meet with me? Please?
This time, Burns sent an immediate reply.
Sure. Where are you?
Hassan responded.
I needed to get away. Very confused. Can u meet at the parking lot at the far end of Sandbridge—by the Pavilion?
Hassan assumed this might throw Burns a little. He was prepared to meet the man anyplace private, but Sandbridge would make things easier. Hassan also knew that every word of these text messages would eventually be discovered by the authorities and would, in turn, help them narrow their search for the bodies. It would be better if they found the bodies before a great deal of decomposition.
Sandbridge?
It’s a long story. I’ll tell u when u get here.
Hassan waited. The phone vibrated.
On my way.
Hassan smiled. One more text message. This one, the most important of all.
Don’t tell anyone, ok? I need this to be just u and me.
The response was exactly what Hassan had expected.
Of course.
23
After a weekend of preparing and delivering a sermon, Alex found it hard to get out of bed on Monday mornings. This week it didn’t help that he was facing a mountain of paperwork to review, pleadings to draft, and phone calls to return. He arrived at the office at 9:30, only to find the doors still locked. It could only mean that Sylvia Brunswick had called in sick.
Again.
Alex unlocked the office, turned on the lights, and started a pot of coffee. As he expected, Sylvia had left a message on his voice mail, groaning as she told him about her incredibly painful migraine. She promised to try and come in tomorrow but said there was nothing she could do about it today.
She couldn’t have picked a worse day to stay home. Alex had pleadings to file, including some answers to requests for admissions that absolutely had to be served that day. He would normally dictate the answers and let Sylvia worry about the details of typing them up and hand-delivering them to the other side. Now, that wasn’t an option.
For the next hour and a half, Alex ignored his phone calls, resisted the urge to look at his e-mails, and typed away on his computer. When he finished and tried to print out the pleading, he discovered that the printer was low on toner. Just like Sylvia not to change the cartridge before she left Friday.
Alex replaced the toner, printed out the document, made some corrections, printed it again, and tried to run off duplicate copies. The copy machine jammed, and Alex spent ten minutes trying to get it back online. Eventually, he conceded defeat and resorted to copying each page on a small copier without an automatic feeder. A five-page pleading. Four copies. Twelve minutes.
He called Shannon’s cell phone as he ran the copies one at a time, placing each page facedown on the glass.
“Sylvia called in sick,” he told Shannon.
“I know. Migraine.”
“Where are you?”
“Our branch office.”
“Which is?”
“In my car on North Landing Road, near the site of the accident. I’m coming out here every morning I can this week, just to see if a truck fitting the description Ghaniyah gave us makes routine deliveries on this route.”
Alex was stacking and stapling documents. The idea of a stakeout sounded like a long shot to him, a needle in a haystack. Even for Shannon, who sweated over every detail of a case, this was a little obsessive.
“So let me get this straight,” Alex said. “You’re sitting out there on North Landing Road, waiting for a white produce truck with a red cab to come along so you can follow it to wherever and question the driver about a hit-and-run accident?”
“I’m not really going to question anyone,” Shannon said without sounding the least bit defensive. “I’m just going to take a few pictures and copy down the license plate.”
Alex’s BlackBerry buzzed with a different call. He didn’t recognize the number and ignored it.
“I’ll show the pictures to Ghaniyah,” Shannon continued. “If that doesn’t trigger anything, I’ll subpoena the manifests from the truck company after we file our John Doe lawsuit. Maybe we’ll get lucky and find some deliveries that would place the truck on North Landing Road at the time of Ghaniyah’s accident.”
“To be honest, it seems like a waste of time to me,” said Alex, though he actually hoped she would prove him wrong. “Can’t we hire somebody to do that?”
“One, we don’t have the money. And two, I’m working on other files and making phone calls while I’m out here. I’ll probably bill more than you today.”
On that point, Alex couldn’t argue. He talked to Shannon for a few more minutes while he assembled the pleadings. After ending the call, he tried to find labels that would work on manila envelopes. He searched his desk drawers, then Sylvia’s. There were labels for file folders but no labels for large manila envelopes. He wanted to punch something. He had been working for nearly two hours on a simple task that should have taken thirty minutes. Sylvia’s migraine was spreading.
Alex’s BlackBerry buzzed again—the same unknown number as before. It had to be some kind of crisis. Reluctantly, he picked it up.
“Alex Madison.”
“Mr. Madison, this is Khalid Mobassar. Thank you for answering my call.”
“No problem,” Alex said, still searching for the labels. The imam sounded a little tense. Maybe something had happened to Ghaniyah.
“There are two detectives from the Virginia Beach Police Department at my front door,” Khalid said, his voice nearly a whisper. “They want to question me about a woman in our mosque who disappeared over the weekend. I told them I needed to call my lawyer first.”
Alex stopped searching and focused on the phone call. It always made him nervous when the police wanted to question a client. “What do you know about this woman?”
“Her name is Ja’dah Fatima Mahdi. She is the wife of one of our leaders at the Islamic Learning Center. She has been missing since Saturday night.”
“Are you a suspect or a person of interest?”
“I do not know.”
Alex looked at his envelopes and second-guessed his decision to pick up the phone. It would probably be fine for Khalid to talk with the detectives. They probably just wanted information about the victim’s family. But what if there was more to it? What if Khalid
was
a person of interest?
“Do you know anything about why she’s missing?” Alex asked.
Khalid hesitated for a moment. “Not really.” His voice became softer. “Nothing other than what I might have learned in confidence from Ja’dah or her husband.”
“Which is what?”
“As their spiritual advisor, should I not keep that confidential?” Khalid asked.
Now it was getting complicated. “Maybe,” Alex said. “Would it help them locate the woman?”
Khalid hesitated again. “I don’t think so. But I don’t actually know.”
Alex sighed into the phone. This was not what he needed. Khalid might have information that would help the police. But there were issues of priest-penitent privilege involved, or whatever you call that privilege when it’s a Muslim imam. And those issues tended to get messy. “Tell them you can’t speak to them without your attorney present. Ask them to wait outside until I get there.”
The next call, which came less than three minutes later, was not from Khalid but from a man who identified himself as Detective Sanderson. “Is this Mr. Madison?”
“Yes.”
“Do you represent Mr. Mobassar?”
Not really,
Alex thought. But this was no time for technicalities. “Yes.”
“Good,” Sanderson said, as if that would solve everything. “We’re in the critical first forty-eight hours of a missing person investigation. We have reason to believe that the potential victim was taken against her will. And we think your client might have valuable information to help us find her kidnapper, but he says he can’t talk to us—”
“Is he a person of interest?” Alex interrupted.
“At this stage, Mr. Madison, most everyone who knows the victim is a person of interest. But we’d like the opportunity to clear your client. And more importantly, we think he can help us find her before it’s too late.”
Alex thought about this for a moment. The line about clearing Khalid was something the cops said every time . . . just before they finagled a confession and slapped on the cuffs. But the part about helping them find this woman might be legit. Could he really sit by and tell his client to withhold information that would help the police find a kidnapped woman?
“I’ll be there in half an hour,” Alex said. “I’ll want to talk with my client first. And I’ll stop the questioning if I sense that you’re trying to set him up.”
“Time is of the essence, Mr. Madison. We really need to talk with him right away.”
“What do you want to ask him?”
“I’d rather not say over the phone.”
“Half an hour, then,” Alex said. “It’s the best I can do. And wait outside. I don’t want you talking to him until I get there.”
“We’ll be in our squad car.”
Alex pulled a pen out of his desk drawer and addressed the manila envelopes by hand. He would leave the documents on Sylvia’s desk and call a courier service on his way to Khalid’s house. He had a bad feeling about Khalid’s “interview.” In a kidnapping, the cops didn’t usually question a family’s spiritual advisor. They had something. And there was only one way to find out what it was.