Leave No Child Behind

  Jerod placed his hand on my arm, lightly this time, and urged me forward and we joined the throng. As we took our places near the back of the large group, he leaned down and whispered to me, “When we get out there, we need to find your gang.” I nodded.

  Even with his touch light on my arm, I could feel his tension, a spring ready to uncoil. I said quietly without even turning my head, “You’re not going to try anything crazy, are you?”

  Taking my cue, he kept his face straight ahead and whispered just loud enough for me to hear, “Just trying t’ keep us alive.”

  We made the rest of our way out into the freezing wind and snow along with the other five hundred captives. Thurber, like most school buildings, even newer buildings, can’t seem to get the temperature right. It’s either too hot and we all suffocate or it’s way too cold and we have to walk around bundled up like Eskimos--okay Inuits--all day. Today was one of the too hot days and, since coats and wraps were securely stored in lockers and closets, no one, student or teacher, wore more than a sweater, a sweatshirt or blazer. In addition, huddling together in the cafeteria, we had been too terrified to notice, but the cafeteria had been even warmer, the additional heat generated by hundreds of bodies, adrenalin pumping and metabolism burning, the heat showing in the beads of perspiration on our faces.

  But, when forced through the open doors and out onto the deck, we were immediately buffeted by the freezing temperatures--I thought I remembered hearing that the thermometer was supposed to stay in the teens--along with the whipping wind off the lake. The horrendous shift in temperatures leached our reserves. As I searched for the journalism group in the crowd, I noticed every person--teen and adult--had begun to shiver, exposed on the deck. Some of the students tried to bunch up even more tightly together and others knelt and curled down on the floor of the deck, trying to avoid the angry wind.

  Jerod and I were two of the last ones through the glass doors. When Jesus recognized us moving through the opening, he flashed that smirk again and I tried to ignore it, to show nothing. The last of the group came through a few seconds after us and I heard Jesus and Fadi slam the doors so hard the glass rattled. Then Jesus left Fadi at the doors and he strutted to the edge of the deck near the water. Peering across the lake, through the mist of the gray cloud cover, I could just make out the outlines of HBE prison, its lights blinking in the winter dimness. Looking from the prison to Jesus, it became clear he too was staring at the compound. I could make out no figures and doubted that he could; it was too far and the haziness further obscured the view. That didn’t mean a prison guard standing watch with binoculars couldn’t see us.

  Both hands on the AK-47, Jesus raised it high over his head and swung the weapon from side to side. Then he lowered it and fired a burst into the water and the sound died over the waves of the lake. Then he raised the gun over his head again in the pose of domination.

  I’d seen that pose. I remembered on September 11th, watching CNN in my apartment for hours on end, the same tapes playing over and over. Though the footage of the planes striking the towers were horrendous, what I remember most was the image of those delighting in the massive deaths of the innocents, images of Palestinians and other Arabs dancing with rifles raised overhead, celebrating the demise of Americans. Standing in front of us was the same celebratory pose. I shuddered.

  Jerod nudged my arm and I forced my attention away from Jesus and back to the students. With their heads bowed and hundreds of students and teachers in knotted groups, Jerod and I found it hard locating the journalism students. We made our way around the overcrowded deck, edging from group to group. As we moved, we checked on students and I tried to give some reassuring touches, mumbling false assurances. It took several minutes for us to find my group. I recognized their urgent whispering before we were able to see them. When we did, we found they were almost to the very front of the deck, quite near where Jesus stood.

  “We can’t just stand here and do nothing!” I heard Tyler say as we approached the group.

  “What the hell do you think we can do?” demanded Goat, stamping from one foot to the other, one hand absently brushing his goatee.

  “I think we should just stay together and keep our heads down,” said Zoë, her whole face reddened the color of her pimples.

  “Well, I’m not going to stand around, doing nothing,” declared Tess, her arms flapping repeatedly across her body. “Does anybody have a notebook?”

  “I do. W-w-what are you going to do?” asked James, his voice shaking from the cold and fear. He pulled a reporter’s spiral notebook from his back pocket,

  “Maybe, one thing they want is a forum. We’re a newspaper. Maybe if we give them a forum, they won’t kill us,” I heard her argue just as I worked my way around the last group of students. When I got to the group, I saw her take off toward Jesus.

  I turned to Jerod. “Can you stay with them? I’m going to try to head off Tess.” I didn’t wait for his answer. By the time I caught up with her, she was already in conversation with Jesus.

  “I was the student who interviewed Asad,” Tess was saying. “I thought you might be interested in going on the record with me.”

  “On the record?” Jesus was skeptical.

  “Mr. Ramirez,” replied Tess in her journalist’s patient voice, “when all this goes down, don’t you want your side of the story to be told?”

  “Americans do not want anyone’s side of the story other than their own!” Jesus responded, displaying anger for the first time.

  “Mr. Ramirez, I’m a journalist. I will tell your side,” Tess began.

  Jesus laughed at her and said, “You...you are a student.”

  “Okay, I’m studying to be a journalist,” Tess continued, undaunted. “We are taught to cover different sides of a story.”

  I came up behind her and placed my hand on her shoulder and she jumped at the touch. Recognizing me, she turned and saw me, hugging me briefly. Then she turned back to Jesus. I noticed for the first time that he was wearing a blue sleeveless ski jacket which no doubt kept him comfortably snug even in the freezing temperatures. As I stared at him, up close, he flashed that smile of his that now seemed much more like a sneer and suddenly I was worried about what he had in mind. Without thinking, I intervened.

  Stepping in front of her, I faced Jesus and asked, “Maybe you can’t make any case for your actions. Are you man enough to go on the record?” When confronted with an alpha male, I have found it usually works when you challenge their manhood. I didn’t expect it to work this well, like poking a rabid bear.

  I saw the anger flash in his eyes and then he caught himself and said, “But Miss?” he looked politely to Tess.

  Immediately she replied, “Esselmann. Tess Esselmann.”

  “Yes,” he smiled again, turning on the charm, “Miss Esselmann has asked for the interview. No?”

  Without looking back at Tess, I replied, “It doesn’t matter. I’m the advisor.” When he hesitated, I pressed my luck. “How about this? I’ll ask the questions and Miss Esselmann will do the recording.”

  I waited for his answer. I really didn’t care if he said yes or no. My real goal was to get Tess out of harm’s way. But as another frigid wind sliced through me, I shivered.

  AK-47 slung in front of his chest, Jesus raised his eyes upward, looking into the darkening clouds and falling snow. Then his glance swept across the deck as if checking his hostages. He returned his stare to me and faced me, fierce green eyes ablaze with condescension. Then he announced with a derisive laugh, “Why not! It will be an interesting, uh...ah, yes, diversion!”

  Chapter 30

  Okay, it was not a very smart thing to do, especially for someone that was at the top of her class. Well, near the top. To engage in an intellectual battle with a psychotic--I knew by this time Jerod was right about that--who was using an AK-47 to wield power over life and death, this was perhaps not the smartest thing I ever did. But seeing the abject terror in the students’ faces, I was seized by
a fury so fierce, it controlled me, not the other way around. Even though a part of me wanted to, I refused to allow myself to cower there on the cold, wooden slats of the deck even as these two insane criminals leered at us, laughing at us, preparing to execute us.

  “Fadi, in the spirit of true American journalism, they wish to interview us,” Jesus called to his compatriot across the deck. They laughed and Jesus proclaimed, “Who knows, Fadi? Perhaps we will help them win a Pulitzer Prize, although it may have to be awarded posthumously.” He laughed again. “Very well then, Miss Sterber, ask away!” Relaxing his body, he leaned back against the three-foot high wood railing that edged the deck, elbows on the top rail and one leg on the bottom rung.

  I tried to ignore his threat and stared past him into the frigid waters of Lake Harold. My body chilled by the biting wind, my mind conjured up visions of tiny icebergs in the waves of the lake below. Now that I got what I sought and Tess was out of harm’s way, at least for now, I wasn’t sure where to begin. So I started with the obvious. “Okay, Jesus, who are you?”

  “You already know that, Miss Sterber,” he said, smug smile firmly in place. “I am Jesus Ramirez, poor itinerant teacher.” He lifted his hands from the railing, stood up and turned slightly in a mock modeling pose.

  “Jesus, I doubt that you are either poor or a teacher,” I said dismissively. He feigned hurt, but I ignored it. “Why are you doing this?”

  “Ah, yes,” he said, grinning again. “I guess you could put down that we are soldiers in Allah’s sacred army fighting the great Jihad. That’s J-I-H-A-D, Miss Esselmann.”

  “No, Jesus, I’m not talking about the whole band. I mean you. Why are you doing this?” I asked.

  “Oh, you mean me personally,” Jesus responded, nodding to his companion who shot a toothy grin back. “You mean what’s a nice Hispanic boy like me doing with a group of Arab terrorists?”

  When I stared back but didn’t say anything, he went on, as I knew he would.

  “There is much you do not know about me, Miss Sterber,” he said, the smile vanishing. “For instance, you probably don’t know that my mother was Muslim, a Palestinian in fact, married to a Ecuadorian businessman who had come to Lebanon to make his fortune, as you say in America. And you do not know that,” he gritted his teeth, “when I was four years old, I watched my mother being raped and killed by Lebanese Christian militia. I watched her die in front of me and swore revenge…in the name of Allah, of course,” he added.

  I was stung by his admission and didn’t know what to say. I cast a quick glance back to Tess and the crowd of students behind her. In the middle of the students, I saw Jerod put an arm around a terrified Goat and whisper something into his ear. Then he shot a warning look at me and I nodded slightly. To cover myself, I asked Tess, “You getting all this?” She shook her head and I went on, trying a new tact.

  “Jesus, the death of your mother must have been horrible and I’m truly sorry. That would drive anyone to do desperate things, but you surely know these children had nothing to do with those events. Why are the students of James Thurber High School such a threat to Allah’s army that they need to be held at gunpoint?” I asked.

  “No one is a threat to Allah’s army, as you and your country will soon find out,” he said with icy coldness.

  “If we are no threat, then why would your army want to terrorize several hundred innocent children?”

  “You and your readers will learn that as long as Muslim children all over the world are massacred by American bombs, there can be NO innocent American children.”

  I studied our captor. It was as if his personal revelation had altered him. I could see Jesus darkening. Staring at him, watching him as he spoke, I could see a transformation spread over his whole face, the polite, handsome facade peeling away, like badly sunburned skin. His handsome features didn’t change exactly, but I could see the rage flare in his green eyes, making them cold and distant. With each exchange I could watch harshness etching into the lines of his face and his charming smile morph into a fatalistic sneer.

  I tried a different tact. “Would you be willing to give us an explanation of your grievances so our readers can understand all this?”

  “Grievances, Fadi!” he bellowed. “She wants to know our grievances. How about a thousand years of oppression and persecution of Muslims at the hands of Christians? How about decades of attacks, conquest and rape of Muslim people and lands by the West? How about the murder of thousands of Muslims, children and adults, caused by American bullets and bombs?” His foot slid off the lower railing and he faced me.

  “I admit the world can be a terrible place, loaded with injustice and cruelty. I even admit that there is much that America has done wrong. But that is not us and certainly not these children.” My arms swept the crowd of students behind me. “Why are you here at Thurber?”

  “I would have thought that that would be obvious,” and then he added, “even to a simple high school teacher. We have the glorious duty to free another member of Allah’s sacred army.”

  “Would this be the same member of Allah’s sacred army who murdered other innocent Americans?”

  “Miss Sterber, you really are more dense than I had thought,” he said with an evil chuckle. “You have already forgotten. There are no innocent Americans.”

  Shaking from the chill, another icy blast ripping through me, I crossed my arms tightly across my chest, but it did little good. I was losing my body’s fading warmth and any empathy. “I would think that even a simple soldier in Allah’s sacred army,” I mimicked, “would know that it is not possible to free Akadi from the most secure prison in the country.”

  “That is because you do not have faith, Miss Sterber,” he announced pedantically. “As the prophet, peace be to him, said, if he cannot go to the mountain, then the mountain will come to him.”

  “I believe you are mistaken, I don’t believe the prophet ever said that,” I said, automatically drawing on my knowledge of the Koran. “It is a common enough mistake. Can you tell me, where is it written that the prophet uttered those words?”

  “What do you know of these things?” Jesus demanded.

  “Perhaps more than you might think, Jesus. I too am a person of faith and I have spent many hours studying the writings of the prophet.”

  “What you think, woman, is of no consequence.” This assertion was said with barely disguised contempt and he stiffened his back. “This mountain will decide to come to Mohammed, peace be upon him, because if it does not,” he stared at me coldly and announced, “then Allah’s soldiers will begin sacrificing students and teachers!”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the students close enough to hear the exchange cower at his threat. It’s what I wanted to do as well, but I was too far in now to back out. “And you claim the mission of your army is a holy one?”

  “Of course,” Jesus snapped, “this mission has been blessed by Allah and commissioned by the Sheik himself! If your American eyes were not so blind, you would see, this is just one part of the great Jihad sweeping the world.” The transformation now complete, Jesus’ green eyes held the rabid fervor of the crazed zealot.

  The fierce wind howled and slapped at me and I lost my temper. “Hey, Jesus! If you and these Arab thugs want to break a criminal buddy out of prison, go right ahead. But do not use the holy Koran as a cover for such unholy acts. Nowhere in the Koran does it sanction the murder of innocents, for your cause or any other.”

  “Stupid woman, what do you know of such things?”

  “Obviously more than you if you believe the great prophet Mohammed sanctioned the killing of innocent men, women and children.”

  Then Jesus spat at me, but the wind, that whipped my body and tormented my flesh, halted the phlegm inches before it could reach my face. The spittle hung there for a second and then was flung out to the water. With unbridled anger, he sprouted at me a memorized verse from the Koran in Arabic.

  Even as freezing and petrified as I was, I held
myself still and did not flinch. I returned his stare and then calmly translated his quote. “That Allah may separate the wicked from the good, and put the wicked one upon another, then heap them together, then cast them into hell. These indeed are the losers. Sutra 8:37.” His surprise registered briefly in his features. “Like many with only hate in their hearts, you quote from Koran only to suit your own murderous purposes. If you had paid more attention to your lessons, your Imam would have taught you that that verse reveals what Allah will do, not what man is to do. If you were a true man of faith, you would also know the next verse of that chapter,” I said and then uttered the remaining passage, first in Arabic and then in English. If anyone slew a person — be it for murder or for spreading mischief in the land — it would be as if he slew the whole people: And if anyone saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of the whole people.”

  Jesus moved away from the railing and strode toward me, but I did not budge. Eyes on fire and eyebrows raised, he screamed, “Woman, that is enough! I do not have to put up with such insolence from you.”

  He approached me and stopped, his angry face inches from mine. Standing directly in front of me, finger on the trigger of the rifle, he was so close that all else was blotted from my view. I had passed the point of no return and decided if I was going to die, I would not do so cowering and begging for my life. Behind me, I felt hands trying to pull me back away from the terrorist, but I shook them off, held my ground and glared, unflinching, back at my captor. Jesus broke the stare first, turned away, took a step back and I released a small breath.

  Then I saw him whirl back and raise the AK-47 at my face. Finger on the trigger, he yelled, “I will teach you how insolent women are to be treated!”

  Chapter 31

  “Mr. Samson, I’m sorry to disturb you, sir, but you have a call on line one,” said the Director’s secretary. “It’s James Cromer.”