The Occurrence

  The first floor Media Center was packed with journalists from around the world. A cacophony of languages swirled in the air as they worked the room and sent out information as it came in.

  The “No Broadcast” rule from the Center had been suspended. The world wanted to know what was happening, and the government, knowing it wouldn’t be able to control the flow of information, made certain there was a huge military and police presence in case things went sideways.

  The thrum intensified as the convoy approached the courthouse, and the crush of onlookers, dying for a glimpse of the most wanted man in the world, pressed in hundreds deep.

  Along the way Hashim had been transferred twice. First, from the Humvee to one of two black Explorers, then from the Explorer to an armored SWAT vehicle. Four military helicopters had picked up the convoy at dawn and followed them into the city, peeling out as the vehicles moved into the underground courthouse garage.

  Soldiers weaved around Hashim, three-sixty, as they moved inside the building. They were prepared for anything.

  In the elevator going up to the courtroom, Hashim was moved to the back, as a row of four armed agents stood like a wall between him and the elevator doors. Nothing was being taken for granted, outside, or in the building.

  67

  In the courtroom were a slew of prosecuting attorneys, headed by the Attorney General, William Caulder. Carl Robinson, one of the two defense lawyers who’d visited Hashim in prison, was the only one at Hashim’s side.

  The jury, a court reporter, and a court artist were the only other civilians allowed here.

  Twelve soldiers flanked the courtroom. No journalists were allowed. They’d get reports from the woman assigned to convey the minutes of the trial every hour.

  Hashim was brought in. Shackled.

  “Your Honor,” Robinson said.

  “Yes,” Judge Littelton said in a sharp burst, as if he were a drill sergeant. He was a stern man. Short cropped gray hair and military bearing.

  “Would it be possible to have the prisoner’s chains removed, Your Honor?”

  Littelton grunted as he stared at Robinson, then Hashim. He motioned for the bailiff to remove Hashim’s chains.

  The bailiff approached and removed the manacles from Hashim’s hands and feet. Hashim rubbed his wrists. They were red and bruised.

  “Thank you, Your Honor,” Hashim said.

  Littelton motioned him to sit. Hashim did.

  “Mister Caulder. Your opening statement for the prosecution,” Littelton said.

  Caulder strode center stage. He was quick and sharp in his delivery.

  “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the government will prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that this man, Abd al Hashim, headed an organization that had the means, the motivation, and the desire to kill thousands of Americans, so that at the end of the trial you’ll turn in a verdict of ‘guilty’ on all counts. Thank you.”

  He went back to his seat.

  Littelton scanned the room, observing and discerning the emotional temperature of everyone.

  “Mister Hashim, since you’ve chosen to represent yourself, do you have an opening statement?”

  “I do, Your Honor.”

  “Let’s hear it.”

  All eyes shifted to Hashim as he approached the jury. The twelve soldiers stepped in closer. The jury flinched in unison at their approach.

  Littelton motioned the soldiers back.

  The jurors held their gaze on Hashim, who was calm and deliberate as he spoke.

  “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury. I am sorry for what I’ve done.”

  A murmur vibrated in the courtroom.

  “I have been misled by a flawed belief. I have misled my people in that belief. And I am guilty of all the charges your government has brought against me.”

  The jurors were confused by the confession.

  “Is this why you surrendered to the FBI? To come here, into my court, and apologize for the thousands of murders you’ve committed? You believe an apology is what’s required? That it’s enough?”

  “No, Your Honor.”

  “So tell me. What do you believe is required?”

  “A reckoning for all I’ve done.”

  “Mister Hashim. It’s not just you who’s on trial. It’s the mentality that has bred you and others like you.”

  “I know, Your Honor. And I have come to regret all those actions. We’re wrong for the blood we’ve shed. There’s nothing I can do to bring those lives back. And for that I’m sorry. When I see our young men giving their lives to jihad I have remorse. I have perpetrated that violence and put my people on an abhorrent path. Hate is a painful journey. It is venom that poisons the self. You cannot create freedom from hate.”

  The jurors shifted in their seats. They looked at one another. Confounded.

  “We’re here today to judge you for the crimes you’ve committed. For the crimes you’ve set forth. For the conspiracy against the United States. Not to listen to a confession.”

  “Yes, Your Honor.”

  “What do you have to say in your defense?”

  Hashim seemed no longer a man of bloodshed, but a man of shame.

  “I have no defense, Your Honor. I must pay for what I’ve done.”

  “Mister Robinson. Approach the bench.”

  Robinson moved to Littelton.

  “Were you aware of this statement beforehand?”

  “Not all of it, Your Honor.”

  “He didn’t take any of your advice?”

  “None, sir. We had to force him to agree to even have me present.”

  “Where is Mister Keyser?”

  “Uh. He’s not feeling well, Your Honor.”

  “That sounds like cowardice.”

  Littelton stood.

  “I’d like to see you, your client, and only Mister Caulder in chambers. Now. This court will be in recess until further notice.”

  Littelton slammed down the gavel and left the room. The three men followed.

  No one said a word as the lawyers and Hashim got situated in chambers. Hashim remained standing.

  Littelton came in. He leaned back against the dark oak desk.

  “Mister Hashim.”

  “Yes, Your Honor.”

  “As part of this confession you seem so eager to give, are you prepared to provide specific information regarding the workings of Al-Qaeda, ISIS, and other terrorist organizations? What plans for attacks have been made? Locations of cells? Names of those with whom you have worked? With whom you have conspired, here and abroad? Banks? Financiers?”

  “What information I have and know is yours, Your Honor.”

  Littelton told the Marshall to bring the court stenographer into chambers.

  He turned back to Hashim.

  “Hassan al Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood has said, ‘It is the nature of Islam to dominate, not to be dominated, to impose its laws on all nations and extend its power to the entire planet.’ I’ve studied your history, Hashim. So, why should I trust anything you say?”

  “I understand it’s hard to believe me.”

  “That’s an understatement.”

  The Marshall escorted the court stenographer in and sat her next to Littelton.

  “What information would you like first?” Hashim asked.

  “Do you know where and when the next attacks are planned?”

  “Yes. But I assume most, if not all, of those plans are being changed since my surrender.”

  “You’re a clever man, Hashim. I don’t trust you. And, if I can’t trust you, then all of what you say to me is worthless.”

  “Your Honor. I was a young boy who once dreamed of peace. Those who had inculcated in me a belief, and those to whom I chose to listen, were caught in an ancient barbarity. Once inside that world even ordinary people will commit evil. But what happened to me in the warehouse transmuted that hate, and I came out from that with a different purpose—a soldier who would renounce our violent jihad. Our grievances mask
a deep fear. Fear of a godless world, of chaos and loneliness, fears we all have. They also mask greed for power, land, and money. A type of masculine wound America knows well. I was taught to intensify these needs in order to ignite holy war.”

  Littelton peered at Hashim a long time. It made the others restless.

  “You’re a smart man, Hashim. Tell me. What about the others? Did they transform from this near-death experience?”

  “I don’t know, sir.”

  “You’ve had no contact with them since the warehouse?”

  “No,” Hashim said, lying to protect them.

  “Your purpose in sneaking into this country wasn’t to finish what you’d started there?”

  “No, sir.”

  “What about the woman, Catherine Book? The CIA told me about her.”

  “I know nothing of her.”

  “These individuals seem to have had an intimate experience of you and yet you know nothing of them?”

  “The journalist and the soldier were in the warehouse with me. I wanted to kill them. That experience is not a basis for attachment. I’m told Catherine Book has some special ability, of which I know nothing.”

  “What about the young boy, Nazir Siraj? He was in the warehouse with you.”

  “I left him with his grandmother in Mosul. He was injured in the explosion.”

  “You’ve not seen him since?”

  “No, Your Honor.”

  The two men studied each other.

  “Do you know Sayyid Sarif?”

  “Not personally.”

  “Well, the FBI raided the local terrorist cell he fronted here in D.C., but no one was there. Do you know who might have warned him? Where he might be now?”

  “I can conjecture where he might be now.”

  “Then do that.”

  “There’s a farm in Pennsylvania used as a safe house. I don’t know the address but if you give me a map I will point the area out for you.”

  “Get me a detailed map of the state of Pennsylvania,” Littelton said to the Marshall.

  68

  Under cover of night, ten FBI agents made their way up the long dirt drive to a two-story red brick farmhouse on the outskirts of Pennsylvania.

  SWAT, and an army of back up, waited behind the dense foliage surrounding the property. Drones had transmitted heat signature images of three persons inside the main house. The silo to the left was abandoned and empty.

  One of the agents placed a charge by the front door, the others surrounded the house.

  The charge exploded, the front door shattered, and within that noise rapid gunfire came from inside the house, but it wasn’t enough to stop the fusillade of return fire.

  The agents made their way in as SWAT and backup followed.

  The three inside were dead, their bodies riddled with bullets. The agents took fingerprints and sent the information back to FBI headquarters in D.C.

  Within a few minutes they received confirmation that one of the men was Sayyid Sarif.

  PART SEVEN

  The Cave

  of Memory

  69

  Saturday, October 3

  The transport flight Bruton had put Julian and Dominique on landed in Joint Base Balad at dawn. It was in the Sunni Triangle forty miles north of Baghdad. That left the remaining 180 miles to Mosul for them to travel.

  The cab was thick with sweet licorice. “Yansoun,” the cabbie said when Dominique asked what the scent was. “Aniseed. Anise.” He spoke through more gums than teeth. “It is one of oldest spices from Egypt.” And it hung on him like perfume.

  A CD played music from cracked speakers. The singer’s voice was beautiful.

  Dominique asked what it was. The cabbie lit with joy. “The Qur’an,” he said.

  It reminded her of the prayer Hashim had chanted in the warehouse.

  Julian took her hand as they came into the city. Mosul held a dark memory. Nazir had given Julian the name of the one who’d helped him escape. The same man who’d forged the Nicolas Sandor passport for Hashim. His name was Ja’far.

  vThat night, Julian and Dominique waited in a café in a corner of the bazaar. The brilliant colored fabrics that billowed as the soft night wind blew captivated Dominique. The scent of dried herbs and teas rode on the air from the stalls of merchants closing their shops.

  This was a land of magic, she thought, as she breathed in the sweet-scented intoxicant air and stood among the fabrics that seemed so full of life. She remembered a line from Milton’s Paradise Lost: “Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth unseen, both when we wake, and when we sleep.” She’d always believed literature captured a level of unseen reality. And here, in this place, she knew the air itself was animate with these spirits.

  She broke from her reverie when a weathered man with a wisp of beard approached them at the café.

  Dominique stared at him. He looked familiar.

  “I know, I know,” Ja’far said, with a twinkle and a smoker’s rasp. “Everyone says I look like your actor, John Hurt.”

  “He’s English,” Dominique said with a grin.

  “There’s a difference?” Ja’far said, winking. “Allah rest his soul.”

  He handed Dominique a piece of paper. Written upon it was a password Nazir had told them he would provide in order to confirm his identity.

  Dominique handed the paper to Julian, who looked at it, tore it up and said, “Okay.”

  Ja’far went right to business and began to lay out the plan for the morning. He would pick them up at the hotel before dawn. Together they would travel outside the city to an underground access point into the cave of memory.

  For Dominique, time past and time present had merged. What time future would bring she had no idea.

  70

  Sunday, October 4

  The battered pickup truck Ja’far drove was thick with the smell of herbs and gunpowder. The scent of war had soaked into every fabric of his life. There’d been no escape from the contagion. He maneuvered through the sleepy back alleys of Mosul into the cold dawn of the desert—toward the cave he’d told them was their destination.

  In the back seat, Dominique held tight to Julian’s hand. The last time they’d been transported out of this town was with tape on their mouths and burlap over their heads, going to their death. And while she had no certainty them going back to the warehouse to find the tablet precluded that danger, she also felt the protection of the millions of spiritual creatures who walked the Earth unseen. And, as if Ja’far had read her mind, he spoke of those creatures.

  “Islam explains the world of the Djinn.”

  Through the front windshield, an aurora brushed traces of red and green streams of morning light on the road before them.

  “Islam provides us with many answers to the mysteries of things seen and unseen.”

  Ja’far had a theatrical flair.

  “The Djinn are beings created with free will, living on earth in a world parallel to ours. They are invisible to us. This makes it easy to deny their existence, but their origins can be traced from the Qur’an and the Sunnah. The Djinn were created from fire, and they live in the deserts and wastelands. They were created before man. Before the angels. Allah speaks of this. And God does not lie.” He caught Julian peering at him in the rearview. “What it is?” Ja’far asked.

  “You speak English very well.”

  “Since I was a child many foreigners have come to this land. Especially the British.”

  “The Anglo-Iraqi war.”

  “Yes. I was five years old in May of 1941 when they re-occupied The Kingdom of Iraq.”

  “You’re not that old.”

  “Oh, yes I am. But don’t let my age distract you from my youthful heart, my sharp mind, and my expert abilities. I knew even at five that I must learn to speak the language of the enemy.”

  “Yet, you’re being helpful to us,” Dominique said, charmed by him.

  “In the hope of what we find, and what you’re able to decipher, that y
ou will remember this kindness and know we’re not all savages. And use it to help more than yourselves.”

  “That we will, Ja’Far,” Dominique said.

  “Good. Because you will discover much more than you believe possible.”

  They were on the edge of town when Ja’far ran out of words. He stopped the pickup. Took a crumpled pack of Mikado cigarettes from his jacket pocket and jumped out of the truck.

  “Wait,” Julian said, following him out.

  He pulled out a pack of Marlboros from his jacket pocket and handed it to Ja’far.

  “These are much better than that crap.”

  “Thank you,” Ja’far said with a smile. He took a Marlboro from the pack; Julian did the same and offered one to Dominique, who passed.

  Ja’far rolled his thumb down the wheel of a battered Zippo and took a drag of the smoke. He lit Julian’s cigarette.

  “Hashim’s grandfather, Qadir, told me what happened to Hashim,” Ja’far said. “They spoke in a dream.”

  “A dream?” Julian said.

  “Yes. Do you not dream?”

  “I dream,” Julian barked, and turned away.

  “Did Qadir tell you what they spoke of?” Dominique asked.

  “He told me about the butterfly and the words Hashim saw written in the air. And of the ground that stopped opening beneath you. Is that not what happened?”

  “Let’s move on,” Julian said, making his way back to the truck.

  “Wait,” Ja’far said.

  Julian stopped, impatient.

  Ja’far finished his smoke as a dot of cinnamon sun bled through the hot, grey haze of the desert. He crushed the cigarette butt with his heel into the sand. He grabbed a heavy satchel from the trunk.

  “We walk from here.”

  They walked for hours before arriving at a massive gravesite long since abandoned. The sun disappeared with a puff behind the horizon line. The temperature dropped and the air turned cold.