Garage Sale Diamonds (Garage Sale Mystery)

by Suzi Weinert

  “What happened to ‘live-and-let-live’?” Jennifer asked.

  “Ah, that’s the real puzzle. But how can we ‘get along’ with radicals single-mindedly focused on destroying Israel and, now, western cultures of Europe and America?”

  They pondered this question silently. Jennifer sighed. “Larry, I’m impressed by your knowledge. You’ve given me new insights. Thanks for taking time from your walk to tell me about this.”

  “My pleasure.” He stood, eyeing the last brownie.

  “Please take this for the walk home,” Jennifer urged. “By the way, I’m curious. How do you happen to know so much about this subject?”

  “Well, it just so happens that at the Reform temple I mentioned, I’m the rabbi.”

  13

  Thursday, almost midnight

  Ahmed bolted upright in bed. Sweat dampened his body and the sheets on which he slept. His frightened eyes swept the room until he realized the horrific memory of his parents’ deaths before his eyes was only the painful recurring dream. Distant in both time and location from that experience thirty years ago in the Middle East, he slept tonight in a house in McLean, Virginia.

  A glance at the clock confirmed he’d wakened in the middle of the night. He shook his head with grief at his father’s execution, his mother’s adored but deathly-still face and the murdered infant. Would he ever purge these ghastly childhood images? Yet, didn’t their murders provide the root cause for his sitting tonight in McLean: avenging their undeserved deaths as his mother wished?

  He turned on the bedside lamp, shuffled to the bathroom and doused his face at the sink. Filling a glass with water, he sank into the upholstered armchair, drained the glass and looked around the room he’d first entered this afternoon. A wallpaper border of animals circled the wainscoting, suggesting a child used this room previously. When he’d shoved his battered suitcase into the closet earlier tonight, a box of toys pushed to one end confirmed that theory.

  Smaller than numerous mansions he’d driven past to reach this McLean neighborhood, this house fit well into its surrounding residential development. Though modest by McLean standards, it contrasted grandly with his simple accommodations in the country he’d left only months ago.

  Mahmud, his host, welcomed him warmly at the Safeway this afternoon. “Your room will be cleaned daily, your laundry washed and your meals prepared. Eat with my family or in your room.” Due to fatigue this first night, he chose the latter and settled into his new, final abode.

  Now at his McLean destination, he’d start the long-awaited action. Mahmud, and other “sleeper” comrades placed here decades earlier, had assimilated into this community to await their destiny—and now that time had arrived.

  “Have you mail for me?” Ahmed asked his host upon arrival and was handed two letters and a package. All were addressed to Tom Johnson in care of Mahmud’s McLean address. In his room Ahmed opened the box containing the promised thirteen untraceable cell phones. With one he’d communicate only with the Great Leader. Cell members would get ten, he the eleventh and an extra. The package came from Dearborn, Michigan, one letter from Columbus, Ohio, and the other from New York City. With trembling hand, he opened the two letters. They divided the list of the local sleepers’ names and contact data. None knew each other until Ahmed assembled them. If compromised, this ensured no one learned all from one envelope and only “invisible” Ahmed knew how these cell members fit a larger plan.

  He phoned Abdul first. Although the man didn’t know it yet, their first meeting would take place at his warehouse tomorrow. Abdul must scramble to clear out employees for this secret session. Once Ahmed established this gathering’s location, he phoned the other names on the list, again using the special codeword to ensure their attention.

  “Our friend Scarab asked me to contact you...” He waited while this profound information registered before adding, “about a meeting tomorrow morning at 9:00 at this address—he read Abdul’s warehouse location. “Scarab wants to know you will attend.”

  “Yes,” they all responded with surprise but no hesitation. Finishing the nine calls, he relaxed.

  Ahmed’s plot to glorify Allah, peace be upon Him, would unfold at their target. He’d perish while striking the Unbelievers with his lethal sword. This room, then, was his last earthly home.

  The clock read 12:08. Though he needed sleep after his arduous two-month trek over sea and land, the upsetting nightmare had jolted him wide awake. So be it—a good time to hide the entrusted treasure he guarded with his life during each leg of his perilous journey to McLean.

  But where?

  He studied the room. He could tape the packets to the back of the dresser or behind the bed’s headboard, both too heavy to move during routine cleaning. He could pull up a carpet edge, flatten the packets, tuck them beneath and re-attach the rug to the existing tack strip. He could tape them under a drawer, not noticeable unless one lay on the floor to look upward from directly beneath the pulled out drawer. He opened the closet door. His gaze fell upon the box of toys. He pulled it into the room and, given the hour, quietly emptied the contents onto the carpet.

  Unfamiliar with American playthings, he gasped at a nude Barbie doll tumbling from the box along with her toy furniture and clothes. Did American boys look at such dolls? Is that how their irreverence for women began? Or was his host’s child a daughter?

  He reached for a second doll, this one dressed in simple Middle-Eastern clothing. He studied its wisp of black hair mostly hidden by the hijab, its dark eyes and soft cloth body. The sight of this toy ignited a nearly lost childhood memory of his twin sister playing with a doll remarkably similar. She visited a cousin that terrible day in his homeland, sparing her the grisly killing scenes he witnessed, scenes still haunting his dreams. When she left home that morning, he had no idea he’d never see her again, but the sight of this doll evoked an instant connection with her. Had she survived? If so, where was she now?

  His mother’s last words echoed in his mind, foretelling Allah’s guidance in his life. “Look for his signs.” Had she predicted his Allah-directed rescue by the two men following his parents’ brutal murder by depraved American Jews? Had Allah guided his placement at the madrassa by those two men, his graduation to combat training at the tough Yemeni military camp, his selection by the mullah for schooling in the English language and, later, elite special-forces school? And was Allah’s final gift the Great Leader’s selecting Ahmed to lead this suicide mission?

  Was tonight’s frightening nightmare of his childhood, followed by the poignant discovery of this doll from the past at the moment he sought his treasure’s hiding place, an accident or an omen?

  He examined the doll with new interest, opening its clothes for closer inspection of the cloth body beneath. Yes, he could slice open the fabric, remove some stuffing, hide the packets, cover them with a piece of the batten, stitch the cloth together again and replace the clothes to disguise the surgery. Then he would place the doll out of reach behind his suitcase on the closet’s top shelf.

  A smile creased his lips, the first he’d allowed himself during the two months of grueling travel to this house in McLean. He took a small sewing kit from the dresser where he’d unpacked his belongings. Removing scissors, he snipped at stitches in his filthy, travel-worn clothes, tediously collecting the gems secreted into the garment’s seams and hems.

  This accomplished, he removed seven sheets of soft jewelry paper hidden in his suitcase’s false compartment. He counted the collected stones twice to assure he’d found them all and divided them into equal groups. Putting ten stones aside, he folded the rest into the jewelry paper to form six packets. Then he wrapped the remaining ten stones in the seventh piece of jewelry paper and placed it on the desk. Crowding diamonds together risked scratching against each other, which lowered their value. But for the number of packets he must hide, less was more.

  Scissors in hand, he cut a three-inch slit in the doll’s soft torso, inserted the diamonds and
sewed the gash shut over the hidden packets. Viewing his handiwork with approval, he dressed the doll with clumsy hands. Women and girls touched dolls; men of his culture didn’t sully their masculinity by doing so. But he pushed away his distaste. Terrorism was a male province and this mission demanded whatever means were necessary for success.

  This job finished, he next wrote his name on an envelope, sealed the smaller package of ten stones inside and pushed the envelope to the back of the desk drawer.

  Ahmed sighed with relief. He returned to bed. Exhaustion combined with accomplishment at solving his first challenges in McLean allowed him to drift into immediate, dream-free sleep.

  DAY TWO

  Friday

  14

  Friday, 7:02 AM

  Ahmed awoke hungry the next morning. He dressed and went downstairs. His host met him at the bottom step.

  “God’s blessings upon you,” he said. “So, Important Traveler, is your room comfortable?”

  “Blessings also upon you. Yes, it is. Thank you for your hospitality, Mahmud.”

  “Come.” He led his guest to the dining room where they took seats at a table set with two places. “First, breakfast and then shall we go to accomplish your tasks today?”

  “A good plan,” Ahmed agreed.

  “Heba,” Mahmud shouted impatiently toward the closed kitchen door. It opened quickly to reveal a woman carrying a laden tray. She wore the hijab, a scarf framing her face and hiding her hair. Mahmud ignored her. His host’s wife? With downcast face she served coffee, cream and sugar.

  “Coffee?” Mahmud asked his guest.

  “Yes, thank you.”

  “Pour,” Mahmud directed.

  Her loose-fitting floor-length clothes disguised her shape, leaving only her hands and face visible, as in the Middle-East. Seeing her gaunt, down-turned face, Ahmed thought she looked fifty, about Mahmud’s age. She placed pastries and fruit on the table, took the empty tray to the kitchen and closed the door.

  “For me to understand your household, she is…?”

  “My servant. I bought her from a Turk I met a month after I arrived in the U.S. He bought her from someone else who got her from someone else and so on. She works hard and does everything I want her to do.” He gave Ahmed a significant look. “Everything I want her to do.”

  Surprised, Ahmed grasped this meaning and then thought of the irony. No woman would ever grace his life or his bed, and this man had two.

  “Her wage is food and a sleeping room in the basement, so I list her as a dependent for taxes. She cooks, cleans house and launders clothes, which pleases my wife. And she does not speak.”

  “No tongue?”

  “They don’t punish blasphemy that way in this country. I don’t know why she’s silent. But in a household with four women,” he gave a thin laugh, “one not talking is a blessing.”

  “Four women?”

  “Yes, here they come now,” he said as two women and a child entered the room. To them he said, “This is Ahmed, who visits us for awhile.” He turned to his guest, “This is my wife, Zayneb. She is Muslim-American, born right here in Fairfax County. We met at a mosque in Falls Church twenty-four years ago and married a month later. This is daughter Khadija, who is twenty-three years old and here’s my dear little daughter, Safia, who is five. Come, Safia, and sit on my lap.”

  The wife wore a demure long-sleeved blouse, ankle-length full skirt and no make-up. Ahmed thought her pale Nordic coloring and high cheekbones produced a regal look, enhanced the more by the hijab framing her face. His indoctrination taught repulsion for American women, but he found her modest in demeanor and striking in appearance.

  The little daughter had her father’s dark eyes and black hair. Neither she nor her sister wore the hijab. Khadija’s hazel eyes and lustrous light brown hair reflected a mix of her parents’ genes. Ahmed tried not to gape at the unmistakable female contours revealed by the older daughter’s slacks and loose sweater. He stared, marveling at her beauty.

  Unlike the submissive shyness and downcast glances his culture equated with femininity, this young woman’s hazel eyes looked directly into his as if looking deep into his mind…into his heart. In his country, men and women not of the same family didn’t touch in public so he fought shock as she boldly approached and shook his hand in the American manner.

  “Welcome to McLean.” Her sweet voice, lovely face, warm smile and the unexpected feel of her soft hand triggered a flood of longing so unexpected and powerful Ahmed feared he could not hide his spontaneous reaction from anyone in the room.

  15

  Friday, 7:34 AM

  Ahmed tried not to stare at his host’s beautiful daughter. Aside from the family women he knew as a small boy, until arriving at this home he had little proximity to females. From ages five to twelve he’d endured long days in the strict, all-male madrassa where memorization of inflexible religious rules reinforced Islam’s rigid Sharia law. Islam was heritage, in your genes, like your nose shape or skin color. This wasn’t a choice. Destiny assigned you to this religion, your ultimate Muslim identity. Even doubting Islam was a sin. Reading other religions’ holy books, if they could be found, meant grave heresy and severe punishment.

  The mullah identified devoted, obedient Ahmed as an alert boy. He sent the thirteen year old to an all-male Yemeni terrorist camp to train for military skills. Impressed with his quickness to improvise auxiliary solutions when primary solutions failed, the commandant selected him for the competitive special-operations hierarchy. This brought him to the attention of the Great Leader, who finally chose him to lead a part of this brilliant, long-planned suicidal strike against America.

  Hate lessons during those formative years included pictures of heathen American women wearing disgusting, skimpy clothes and garish makeup. Yet inwardly, powerful emotions warred between Ahmed’s learned revulsion for such blatant decadence and a natural curiosity about women and their seductive magic. After all, most Middle-Eastern men took one to four wives, to discover what forbidden mysteries lay beneath their flowing robes. The brashness of Mahmud’s daughter shaking his hand should affront him. Instead, her touch left an electric tingle upon his palm.

  “Hello, Ahmed,” Zayneb spoke from across the table, her polite smile not reaching her eyes. “A blessing that God kept you safe during your travels. How was your flight?”

  My flight? Good, Ahmed thought, Mahmud told her nothing of his real journey here, never mind his purpose. “It is a pleasure to meet you.” He repeated the memorized, respectful phrase before adding, “My trip was long. I am glad to arrive at last. Thank you for your hospitality.”

  “Will you take breakfast with us now?” Mahmud asked his wife.

  “Thank you, no. Friday mornings I drive Safia to school and stay to assist her teacher. We already had a bite in the kitchen.” She gave Ahmed another superficial smile. “Welcome to our home.”

  “Thank you very much.” He recited the expected response.

  “Sorry, but my youngest and I must leave now for the school. Please excuse us.” Zayneb left holding Safia’s hand.

  “Thank you for inviting us to join you for breakfast this morning, Baba,” Khadija said. Her father frowned disapproval as she put food on a plate, sat at the table and turned toward Ahmed.

  “Your English is good. Where did you learn to speak our language?”

  “In the madra…in my school and later at special language camps,” he answered.

  “Would you like to learn more?”

  “Yes, I would.” His answer surprised him. Why improve his language skills when he’d be dead in a week?

  “Watching television is a good way to hear and practice the language, especially the news channels. Did you notice the TV on the wall in your room?”

  “Not yet, but I will make a point to do so when I return upstairs.”

  “If you like, maybe I can help also. I teach ESL at a nearby community college.”

  “E…S…L?”

  “English as
a Second Language. I teach my students to speak and write English plus practical skills, like filling out a job application. I also teach them about our culture because life here may be very different from what they’re accustomed to in their homelands.”

  Mahmud frowned harder. He allowed women at the table after his own twenty-four-year exposure to American habits, but this high-ranking guest came straight from a different Middle-Eastern culture. Khadija’s refusal to behave according to Sharia law, the cornerstone of Muslim life, angered her father and must horrify Ahmed. He felt rage that his daughter embarrassed him in front of this honored visitor with whom he would soon shape a violence of such proportions all American lips would speak their names. “Khadija, enough!” he shouted with authority. “Our guest has no time for this. His schedule here is busy. His English is excellent and…”

  “No,” Ahmed interrupted on impulse. “To know more is wiser than to know less. I accept your daughter’s gracious offer, Mahmud.”

  As Khadija’s face lighted with enthusiasm, Ahmed marveled at the length and thickness of her eyelashes and the way her soft hair brushed the delicate skin of her face. Could the others hear his heart’s loud pounding inside his chest? Shifting self-consciously in his seat, he hoped the motion distracted Mahmud from noticing his strong reactions to the man’s daughter.

  Mahmud’s look of surprise at Ahmed’s reaction froze into a rebuffed and disapproving scowl. They ate in silence until Khadija looked at her watch, sipped the last of her coffee, stood and announced, “I’m off to class. Back about one o’clock. See you all this afternoon.”

  Her father grunted annoyance and Ahmed said, “Safe travel.”

  He felt as if a piece of him left the room when she did.

  16

  Friday, 7:47 AM

  As Khadija’s car pulled out of the driveway, Mahmud volunteered to Ahmed, “The others have gone and Heba’s in the kitchen where she can not hear us, so we can speak openly.”