A Deceit to Die For (53 page)

For Shelly, the ordeal might as well have been a torture chamber. Two years ago, she had married a young broker who worked with her father. They had a yacht, a home in the Caribbean and a villa in Italy, their European base. For Shelly, hardship meant a New Year’s celebration without Dom Perignon White Gold Jeroboam. Ginger had met her two years ago on a tour with Gilbert. Later, they learned that they lived only a couple of miles from each other. Shelly had latched on to Ginger like the older sister she had never had. Ginger liked to believe that she was a good influence on the young woman.

Ginger could hear the men talking outside and tried to determine how many there were.
Three? Four?
She couldn’t be sure, of this or anything. Suddenly, one of them burst out laughing, and the emotion she had experienced so little of in her life sunk its icy claws into her soul once again. Fear. Something she had known nothing about until now. It was a debilitating paralysis. She had never experienced fear on this level. Since the first day, Ginger had tried to keep the children preoccupied with stories from her childhood. When she ran out of these, she started telling them about every hero she could remember from Moses to Martin Luther. But, the story the children kept asking for in the cavernous darkness of the container was the story of Daniel’s deliverance from the lion’s den. It was in the telling of the stories that she found the antidote to fear. It was faith.

The kids were all fast-asleep, fatigued from the stress. Ginger gently pried Shelly’s hand off of her arm and stood up carefully. First, she felt for the wall and then began shuffling her feet slowly forward.

“What are you doing?” asked Shelly, her voice trembling.

“If they open that door, I’m going to ask them to change out these buckets.”

“Please do. I feel like I’m going to puke with every breath.”

“Do you believe the stuff you were telling the kids last night?” asked Shelly, trying to sound nonchalant, but failing horribly at hiding her earnestness.

Ginger didn’t answer right away. She continued inching down the wall towards the buckets, wondering to herself,
Do I believe these stories? Do angels really shut up the mouths of lions? Is it only prophets like Daniel that get special attention? Where were the angels when the Romans were feeding the followers of Christ to lions in the coliseum?
Yes, she had been asking herself these same questions as she told the story to her children. Her foot bumped against the plastic bucket.

“Yes,” replied Ginger, “I do believe, now more than ever.”

“I thought you did,” replied Shelly. “I wish I could say the same thing. You’ve been so strong. I could never have faced down a man who did to me what they did to you.”

The memory struck Ginger like a whip. Unconsciously, she felt down the front of her shirt to make sure the twine was still in place. It was. It had taken her and Shelly almost two hours working in the pitch black with a small nail they found on the floor of the container to make tears in the cloth where the buttons had been and then run a length of twine through the holes to keep her shirt closed.

It had happened on the boat. Her oldest son Garret had fought the men twice after being put on board. She was proud of the eleven-year-old boy. He was a fighter, a boy who shared his father’s passion for justice and honor, but he had paid dearly for it. On the boat, he had rushed one of the men, jumped on his back and tried to choke him. It had taken two men to peel him away. The man he had tried to choke had spun around in a rage and slapped Garret across the face so hard it knocked the boy to the ground. Then, he kicked him several times in the ribs before the other men pulled him away. In less than an hour, Garret’s eye had swollen shut.

One of the men, a tall fellow with dark hair and striking looks, spoke English. So well, in fact, that Ginger had a hard time believing he could be a foreigner. There was no discernible accent. His sentences were perfectly formed. The other men deferred to him and spoke only English with him, but among themselves, they spoke another language she did not recognize. He seemed to be the leader. He warned Garret that he would not tolerate any more misbehavior. Ginger tried to calm the boy down, but the harsh treatment had enraged him.

Later, Garret apparently found a screwdriver under the seat he was sitting on. He said nothing to any of them, but when he saw they were slowing down and approaching land, he attacked the man who had hit him earlier. A warning shout from one of the other men at the last second was the only thing that stopped Garret from burying the screwdriver in the middle of the man’s back. He still managed to connect with the man’s shoulder, giving him a nasty puncture wound. The man removed the screwdriver, whipped out a switchblade and lunged for Garret, who raised his arms to block the man’s attack and received a deep cut to his forearm.

Again, the other men kept their companion from doing further harm to Garret, and the tall, dark-haired fellow grabbed Garret by the waist and started pulling the boy away. Garret kicked and flailed his arms like a mad man. He finally managed to twist Garret’s arm behind his back and seemed about to say something, when suddenly he just let him go. He turned to Ginger, grabbed her by the hair and ripped her shirt open to reveal a black lace bra.

“Now,” he had said to the boy, “I will not tell you again. Any more trouble from you and your mother and I will be going out on the deck.” In response, Ginger had slapped the man in the face as hard as she could. The man had responded with a right hook to her jaw, which cut her chin to the bone. Still, she put herself between him and her son, blood streaming off her perfect chin onto the floor and glared at him defiantly. The man only spat on the floor and walked out.

Garret had been broken from that moment on. He had hardly said a word since. Just once, after they were put into the container, when his brother and sister were asleep, he had begun sobbing on his mother’s shoulder and said over and over again, “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

The sound of someone fumbling with the lock on the door brought Ginger back to reality and away from the painful memory. Ten seconds later, bright, strong sunlight was streaming through the crack in the door. She shielded her eyes with her hand as her retina screamed in pain at the sudden overstimulation.

CHAPTER
43

O
REGON 
 
Fatih Gülben stood on the shore gazing over the heads of ten bearded men dressed in white robes and watching the moon set on the lake. They had eaten the pre-dawn meal together, and then he had taken them down to the water for a teaching on the peace of God. It was a beautiful cloudless sky with the moon just past full. The stillness was eerie. It was almost as if Allah wanted to drive the point of the morning devotion home. Peace was something one had to cultivate and experience in their soul, but the environment certainly helped. It was time to wrap up his discussion.

“Sometimes I am astounded by the fact that Allah did not allow our fathers to discover the New World and instead let the blood-thirsty Spanish and the cold-hearted English imperialists settle this continent. In my childhood, I grieved over the darkness that had engulfed this continent for centuries. Yet, now I have lived to see the faithful sowing the seeds of freedom in every corner of this great land. Allah has given to us the honor of conquest. It is our generation, the chosen generation, which is building the mosques that will sound the call to prayer from sea to shining sea over purple mountains’ majesty. And that is indeed a great honor. Our generation is the second beginning. The
hadith
makes it clear that in the last days a chosen generation will accomplish the same feats as the Prophet and His esteemed companions. You are that generation!

“Remember brothers, final victory is assured. This is not in question. It is not a matter of
if
but
when
. Allah
will
make us prosper. It is ours to submit and keep faith, the sign of which is our abiding inner peace. Peace in the struggle for our faith, peace in the face of persecution and opposition, peace in setbacks and seeming defeat. Peace is the testimony of our faith, and it will ensure our victory. Islam will cover the earth like water blankets the depths of the sea. Let’s spend the rest of the day reciting the holy Qur’an and preparing ourselves to be ambassadors of the kingdom of Allah. It will overwhelm this continent from both coasts like a tsunami. We will meet again at sunset to break the fast.”

He watched as this hand-picked group of young men born in America to successful Muslim families began to wander off in different directions, looking for a spot of solitude on the three hundred beautifully forested acres of his ranch. He began walking back to the mansion. Oregon reminded him of his home on the Black Sea. The facilities here were perfect for his ambassador program which sponsored young men interested in business or politics. Here, they were thoroughly grounded in the Qur’an, their loyalty was cultivated and they were taught the principles of community-building and organization.

Generous support from Muslim businessmen had enabled him to take these young men and form a network of non-profit organizations and charter schools in over twenty states. Once trained, these ambassadors would transform the network into an effective tool for recruiting and evangelism. The short-term goal was to make these seemingly disconnected groups a powerful voice for Muslim rights here in America. The intermediate goal was to secure the right for American Muslims to live accordingly to sharia law. It was an uphill battle, especially when it came to provisions regarding the family, but family values in America were in free fall. It was only a matter of time. Men would eventually realize that the provision for multiple wives was better than the serial polygamy currently being practiced.

Fatih looked down at his watch and then up towards the mansion sitting on a knoll overlooking the lake. His assistant was standing on the porch to make sure he didn’t forget about the early morning teleconference, which was scheduled to begin in less than five minutes. He quickened his pace. When he stepped onto the porch, he saw that his assistant was holding a folded piece of paper.

“I thought you might want to see this before the conference call.”

“Who is it from?” asked Fatih.

“It was dictated to me less than an hour ago by our liaison in DC.”

Fatih unfolded the note and read it with a furrowed brow.

Initiative on track. US pressuring Europe. ICSID case against Libya likely resolved due to NSC pressure on Finch and Moreland. Asset freeze may be lifted as early as next month.

“How much would that free up?” asked Fatih.

“About ten billion dollars, sir.”

“When was the last time we talked to the Senator from Minnesota?”

“At the banquet hosted by the Association for the Advancement of American Muslims last week. It was well-attended by members of Congress who support a multicultural society unfettered by the chains of Western civilization.”

Fatih wondered how the man managed to say that without a smile.

“The upcoming vote on implementation of the Tolerance and Unity in a Multicultural World initiative is a crucial first step in securing more broad-based support here in the US,” said Fatih. “It will give us a platform with global recognition. Did Tom indicate how much headway he has made with the US Permanent Resident to the United Nations?”

His assistant cleared his throat and said, “Your excellent reputation in interfaith dialogue has convinced the committee to give our Association for the Advancement of American Muslims in Atlanta a leading role in the project. Let’s talk about it on the way to the teleconference room. We don’t want to be late for the call from Cairo.”

He opened the massive white French doors for his master, and once they were inside, he continued, “At the AAAM meeting, Tom was very positive about US support for the initiative. The American government has made repairing its image in the Middle East a top priority. He sees American support for this initiative as a chance to communicate American sensitivities.”

Fatih smiled. “If that is Tom’s report, then it shouldn’t be hard for them to get results from the Brits and Germans.”

His assistant looked uncomfortable.

“There have been some unforeseen developments, sir. This morning, there were three separate terrorist attacks in Turkey, all targeting foreigners or banks who do business with foreigners. The loss of life was extremely high, but this is not what concerns us most. Casualty reports are just numbers to most people. It is the visual impact that worries us. The international press is beaming images of the carnage around the globe—buildings full of innocent civilians all brought down by powerful explosives. These grim pictures will only add fuel to the fire of anti-Muslim sentiment and provoke greater ground roots opposition to Muslim integration in Europe. Policy-makers have been able to squelch most of the disquiet by appealing to tolerance, but this latest incident in Turkey will make their job extremely difficult. The initiative could be in danger.”