Fury kac-17

by Robert K. Tanenbaum

  "No way!" Zak replied. "I got all ball."

  "You got all hand," Giancarlo complained. "Look, you can see the red mark on my hand."

  "I don't see nothin'," Zak said.

  "Anything."

  "What?"

  "You don't see anything," Giancarlo said.

  "Whatever."

  "Good answer. And no, I don't think they'd do it either. But that's why you have judges and juries. Dad doesn't go around prosecuting people for no reason."

  "Dad is just one guy. He can't know everything that goes on in every courtroom."

  "Well, I'll bet he knows all there is to know about this case. He doesn't like it when one of their cases gets overturned."

  The case the boys were talking about-The People vs. Salaam and Mohammed-had been tried that summer. The boys didn't know all the details, only what they'd picked up on the basketball court and heard their father talking about to their mother.

  Apparently that past February, Salaam and Mohammed, both varsity players for the Columbia University basketball team, had been accused of raping a young woman in her apartment bedroom during a postgame party. They'd been convicted and sent to prison. However, a defense lawyer had won an appeal that got them out of prison because of something the prosecution had done wrong, and now they were waiting to see if the twins' dad was going to try the case again.

  In the meantime, the twins had been told by friends of the pair that the university had stripped them of their scholarships and kicked them out of school without a fair hearing. Giancarlo and Zak knew that both of the young men came from poor families in East Harlem. Now no other school would offer them a scholarship or even admit them, for that matter. Even if the charges were dropped, their lives were-as Salaam had said-messed up.

  The twins also knew from the newspapers that their dad had been taking a certain amount of heat from black activists because Salaam and Mohammed were Black Muslims. The charges, according to one newspaper op-ed opinion piece by some attorney named Hugh Louis, would never have been brought if the defendants had been "white and Christian." Louis had accused their dad of "giving in to the racist hysteria of post 9/11 where every dark face and every Muslim is considered a terrorist."

  The boys had wanted to ask their dad what it all meant, especially because they had known Salaam and Mohammed for nearly two years and didn't believe that they would have done the crime. But Butch Karp didn't like to "bring the office home" (as they'd heard him tell their mother) and they'd avoided saying anything.

  Zak frowned, something he did so often that his mother warned him someday his face was "going to stick like that"-a not totally disagreeable result because he thought it made him look tougher. Of the twins, he was the stockier and more athletic, prone to act first and consider, if he ever did, the ramifications later. He was a good-looking kid who had his share of female admirers in junior high.

  On the other hand, Giancarlo was beautiful by anyone's standard. Artists he met on the street or through his parents remarked that he looked as if he could have posed as an angel for Renaissance painters. His dark wavy hair was growing back nicely after having been shaved for the surgery. He was more likely to think before he acted and often surprised adults with his perception, as well as his nearly savant talent as a musician who now played the violin, guitar, harmonica, and accordion.

  "Well, I think it's fucked up that just because someone says something a person's life can be ruined," Zak said.

  "You shouldn't use language like that," Giancarlo scolded. "It doesn't make you seem smarter; in fact, the opposite."

  "Whatever, fucker."

  When the twins got home an hour later, they grilled their dad about what was going to happen to Salaam and Mohammed. "Sorry, boys," he said. "I've been a little preoccupied lately, and I'm not up to speed on that one, though I expect I'll hear about it at tomorrow's staff meeting. Not that I'll be able to tell you much even then."

  "Why not?" Zak complained.

  "Why?" Karp replied raising an eyebrow. "Because it's top secret. Oh, I suppose I could tell you, but then I'd have to have you whacked, which your mother would probably never forgive me for."

  "Actually," Marlene said, entering the living room and catching the tail end of the conversation, "I've considered having them whacked myself for the state they left their bedroom in today when I specifically told them to clean it up or no basketball."

  Recognizing the danger of imminent chores, Giancarlo decided this wasn't the time to press on about their friends. "Come on, Zak." He sniffed. "I'm hungry and since the parental units would just as soon starve us out as look at us, I suggest we go look in the refrigerator before we pass out from hunger." Zak said nothing but followed his brother's cue and immediately turned and fled for the kitchen.

  "Bedroom," Marlene yelled after them. "Clean. Or no Santa Claus at Christmas."

  "We don't believe in Santa Claus," Zak retorted over his shoulder.

  "And besides, we're half Jew, we only half believe in Christmas," Giancarlo added.

  "I guess we'll remember that on Christmas morning then," Marlene said.

  The twins paused and looked at each other. But there'd been similar threats over the years, and they decided this one wasn't worthy of talking back. They continued on.

  With the twins out of the way, Marlene settled down on the couch next to where her husband was reading Walter Isaacson's book on Benjamin Franklin, An American Life. He pointed to a sentence and said, "His guiding principle was 'a dislike of everything that tended to debase the spirit of the common people.' I like that."

  "Uh-huh," Marlene said as she snuggled closer and began playing with the zipper on the front of his sweatshirt.

  Karp recognized the prelude to something more immediately interesting than old Ben and closed the book. "What's up?"

  "Remember me telling you about meeting that interesting Russian girl yesterday?" she said.

  "Yeah, but you didn't say much," he replied.

  "Well, I was a little preoccupied with Mom and Dad," she said.

  Karp put his arm around her shoulders. He'd felt so helpless when she told him about her visit with Concetta and Mariano. What was there to say about such a horrible disease? All he could do was hold her and listen…and wonder if the same sort of thing might happen someday to them.

  "What can you tell me about the Michalik case?" Marlene asked suddenly.

  Karp stiffened. Marlene didn't usually pry into his work. In fact, she usually steered well clear of it. He felt an odd twisting in his gut and hoped it wasn't a premonition that she was about to stick her nose where it didn't belong, again.

  "This have to do with the Russian woman?" he asked.

  Marlene fiddled a little more with the zipper and nodded. "Her name was Helena Michalik."

  "The wife of Alexis Michalik?" he asked. She nodded again. He shrugged. "He's been accused of sexually assaulting one of his grad students. Seems to be a strong case. I think Rachel's going to discuss taking it to the grand jury for an indictment at tomorrow's meeting. Why?"

  Marlene cringed at the mention of Rachel Rachman, one of her former protegees when Marlene had run the DA's sex crimes unit years ago. At one time she'd considered Rachman the best and most logical choice as her successor. But somewhere along the line, Rachman had become a zealot who seemed to view all men as potential rapists and all women as victims.

  "I don't know, maybe just the boys' questions about their friends," she said. "Sometimes people make false accusations. I was just wondering if someone's looked into the 'victim's' history. Helena seems to think that this woman was the one who was coming on to her husband." She told him what the other woman had told her.

  As his wife spoke, Karp felt himself getting irritated. There were times when it seemed everybody in his family was backseat-driving his cases. "Coeds flirt with their professors all the time," he said. "It doesn't mean they deserve to get raped."

  Now it was Marlene who flared a little. "I didn't say that. I was just as
king if anyone's looked into the possibility that this woman might be lying."

  But Karp wasn't backing down. "I'm sure that between the regular detectives and our investigators, we've looked under all the rocks. Besides, since when have you advocated that a victim's sexual history is relevant to a rape case? Isn't that the sort of thing that the shield laws were created to prevent? You used to be a big advocate of the shield laws. Isn't it a little two-faced now to suggest that we look into the alleged victim's sexual past just because you've taken in another stray dog?"

  He'd meant for the statement to sound lighter than it had come out of his mouth. A gentle teasing, maybe a little good-natured chiding, but he knew as soon as he said dog that Marlene wasn't going to take it that way.

  Indeed, she froze beneath his arm and stopped playing with the zipper. She sat back up and away from him. She glared at him for a moment, then announced, "I have a headache. I'm going to bed."

  "Marlene…," he said, intending to apologize, but she was already up and off the couch, and quickly disappeared down the hallway toward their bedroom.

  Karp swore. Married to the woman for nearly twenty-five years and he still kept hitting the wrong buttons when he didn't intend it. No sense going back there until she's asleep, he thought, I'd get frostbite.

  At about the same time that Karp was wishing he could take back words, Rashad Salaam and Khalif Mohammed were finishing their evening prayers at a small storefront mosque in Harlem. They had been inseparable since childhood-whether that was on the neighborhood courts, the high school team, or signing their letters of intent to play at Columbia while sitting at the kitchen table in Khalif's house as his proud mother looked on, bawling like a baby because "my child is going to college."

  Khalif was their leader in most things, coolheaded and studious. He'd also been the better player coming out of high school and could have attended a larger Division 1 university on a scholarship, but Columbia had been the only school to offer Rashad a full ride, so he'd opted to remain home with his friend.

  It was also Khalif, born Joseph White, who'd first met a Black Muslim who spoke at the high school and began studying the Quran. He'd liked the simplicity of placing his life in the hands of Allah's will, as well as Islam's tenets of peace and faith. He'd persuaded his best friend, Bobby Humphrey, to go with him to the mosque. They'd both converted to Islam and changed their names at the end of their senior year in high school-Khalif because he felt genuinely drawn to the teachings of the Prophet, Rashad because he felt it was more appropriate for African-American men than Christianity "which was the religion of our enslavers."

  It was Rashad, however, who had recently introduced Khalif to the Arab man with the pockmarked face and intense glittering eyes. "He's from Saudi Arabia, dawg," Rashad said before the meeting, "here to raise money for Muslim charities overseas. But he's also got a lot to say about how African-Americans are still enslaved to the white man in this country."

  "I don't know, Rashad," Khalif said. "Some of those 'charities' are just fronts for terrorists-"

  "Freedom fighters, homes," Rashad responded before his friend could continue. "It's The Man who says they're terrorists. But what about the Israelis bulldozing homes and killing little Palestinian kids? And what about the U.S. military machine that is bombing our Muslim brothers in Iraq as we speak? Isn't those terrorist acts?"

  Khalif scowled. "You forgetting my auntie was in the World Trade Center? She was just a poor cleaning lady. It wasn't no freedom fighters that done that. And puttin' bombs on kids to blow up innocent people is nothing but cold-blooded murder."

  "I know, dawg, I know. I ain't saying all that shit is right," Rashad said. "But Mr. Mustafa ain't no terrorist or freedom fighter, he's just here to raise money for the Red Crescent, which is sort of like the Red Cross. He'd just like to meet us and some of the other guys."

  Khalif reluctantly agreed and Rashad led the way to the back of the mosque-really a former grocery store that had been converted into the prayer room, several offices, and another meeting room in the back. As they entered they were greeted effusively by the imam of the mosque, Ahman Zakir, a roly-poly jovial sort whose understanding of the Quran was probably less than many of those who attended his mosque. But he kept the place open and provided clean prayer rugs and a decent enough call to prayer.

  What the two younger men, as well as most of the others in the room, didn't know was that Zakir was more of a front man than an imam. He'd found it tough to get by on what his local followers offered in the way of financial support so when the Middle Eastern men arrived in the mid-1990s offering to "sponsor" his mosque, which included a nice stipend for his living expenses, he'd happily agreed.

  There were just a few things they required in exchange. Their leader, Mr. Mustafa, the only name he ever had offered, asked him to have a back storage area converted into a sort of barracks "for pilgrims" with cots, a stocked refrigerator, and a hot plate for cooking. Before being allowed access to the room, the pilgrims were supposed to give him the current code word-taken from a different page of the Quran each week. He wasn't supposed to go into the room himself, which meant that he just had to once when none of the visitors were around. But he wished he'd resisted when he saw the assault rifles and other weapons neatly arranged on a rack.

  Mr. Mustafa later told him that he knew he'd been in the room. "Please follow my instructions from now on or we will have to find someone who can," he said.

  Noticing that Mustafa did not say they would find a new place, only a new host, Zakir took it for the threat it was intended to be. But he'd still managed to complain about the guns.

  "They are for defensive purposes only," Mr. Mustafa assured him. "In case the climate in this country should someday-encouraged by the Zionist murderers-turn against Muslims. Then you will be glad that we were prepared."

  At times there were no pilgrims staying in the back room. At others there were as many as a dozen men-some Arab, some African. They were always mysterious about their comings and goings, never together but always one at a time. It all made Zakir nervous, especially because there was a lot of activity again, as there had been before September 11, 2001.

  One of the other conditions of his agreement with Mr. Mustafa was that he introduce him to the young men from the neighborhood who came to the mosque to pray. "I am recruiting missionaries from America to go to Muslim countries to see how their brothers and sisters are subjugated so that they can return to the United States and be a strong voice against Zionist propaganda," he said.

  Zakir didn't really believe him, but he did like the three-thousand-dollar bonuses he received for every young man who signed up for Mustafa's missionary program. The money went a long way toward assuaging his conscience. He'd recently pointed out the two tall young basketball players and told Mustafa how they'd been wronged by the white man's judicial system. "They might make good…missionaries," he'd said.

  Tonight's meeting was going to be fairly well attended. Besides the two basketball players, there were six other young men. Even if only four join Mustafa, he thought, that's an easy twelve thousand dollars.

  He had to admit that Mr. Mustafa was clever and didn't start right in with a high-pressure sales pitch. Instead, he concentrated on talking about the plight of fellow Muslims and how the United States had been duped into helping the Jews establish their "One World Order, in which all true believers will be forced to kneel to their false God or die." He asked why the richest, most powerful nation in the world continued to oppress people of color both at home and abroad. "Because it is in the interests of the white man and the Jews to subjugate brown-skinned people. After all, why be the master of no one?"

  Zakir noticed that of the two basketball players, the one called Rashad seemed the most agreeable to Mustafa's message. The other, Khalif, had stood in the back of the room with his arms crossed and a skeptical look on his face. He'd barely listened for five minutes before saying he needed to go home. He tried to get his friend to leave-"Come on,
dawg, this joker's full of shit"-but Rashad had stayed.

  When Khalif stalked out by himself, Zakir caught the appraising look on Mustafa's face as he watched the young man leave. But he'd turned his pockmarked face back to his audience and shook his head as though sorry to see Khalif go. "We must always be careful of those among us who are so desperate to be a part of the world of whites and Jews-though they would never allow it-that they would betray our holy cause."

  An hour after the meeting was over, Mustafa, an Iraqi whose real name before joining Al Qaeda was Anan Al-Sistani, left the mosque with one of his bodyguards. He didn't stay at the mosque-he had a luxurious suite in midtown Manhattan from which he directed his operations-and didn't like being there. Too exposed. But he needed recruits to pull off his "event" and the mosque was the best place to find them.

  Outside on the sidewalk, he'd looked around with irritation for a second bodyguard who was supposed to be watching the front entrance in case the police or federal agents showed up.

  "Where is that fool Jabal?" he muttered to the other bodyguard. "Go look in the alley and see if he is relieving himself."

  The bodyguard walked down the block to the entrance of the alley. The space between the buildings was pitch-black and he couldn't see beyond a Dumpster ten feet from the entrance. "Jabal?" he said.

  There was the sound of scurrying and something sent a bottle skittering in the dark, making the bodyguard jump and put his hand inside his coat for the comfort of his gun. Rats, he thought when his nerves calmed down, just rats.

  "Jabal?" he said a little louder. But there were no more sounds. He considered exploring the alley for his colleague. But when he took a step into the blackness a chill seemed to freeze his muscles, and he could force himself to go no farther. He returned to his leader who was waiting impatiently.

  "Well?" Al-Sistani demanded.

  The bodyguard shrugged. "He wasn't there. Perhaps he thought he'd been noticed by a passing police car and left to avoid being questioned."

  Al-Sistani thought about it. "Yes," he concluded. "He wouldn't want to draw attention to this place. He'll meet up with us later."