The Witness

by Josh McDowell

  Internally Marwan flinched. How much can I tell him about my past without putting him and Mrs. Nour in danger? It seems that the less they know about me the better. But it’s getting harder and harder to lie to these good people.

  Marwan knew he’d made a mistake coming here. If the people looking for him were able to trace him to Kadeen, they certainly would be able to track him to the Nours. What an amateur mistake! I let my heart overrule my brain!

  But then he saw Dalia, sitting under her father’s arm with her hand laid gently on his side. That’s when he knew there had been no other choice. This was meant to be. It was almost as if the force drawing them had simply been too powerful to resist.

  Let’s just hope that same power can protect them if the bullets start flying.

  57

  When Marwan began speaking, he was almost surprised that what came out was the truth. “Yes, sir. I grew up in Beirut in the eighties. It was kind of a scary time to be a kid, as you can imagine, with the civil war and all. Everybody, Christians and Muslims, killed each other in the name of religion, each claiming God was on their side. And I hope this won’t offend you, sir, but the whole thing kind of soured me on religion. In my neighborhood, people who called themselves Christians were constantly blowing people up and destroying everything in sight. They weren’t the only ones, of course, but it all left a bad taste in my mouth.”

  Dalia’s head lifted up from her dad’s chest, and Marwan could see a concerned look in her eyes. But he kept going.

  “Because I grew up in a ‘Christian’ home,” Marwan said, air-quoting the word Christian, “I pretty much had to sympathize with the Christian fighters. But I kept away from the fighting. To be honest, I hated them all—Christians and Muslims alike. Which side do you choose when they are both equally evil?”

  “That’s an impossible choice for a young man to make,” Naheem said.

  “Then, when I was a teenager, I watched as a car bomb took my parents from my brother and me—a bomb placed by a Christian,” he said angrily. He didn’t know why he was working himself up so much, pouring his heart out to someone who, until an hour ago, was a total stranger. “So you can see where I’m coming from when I tell you with the utmost respect, sir, that although I greatly respect you as a person, I have no use for your beliefs.”

  Dalia stared at him with horror. Marwan wondered if she was seeing all her hopes for a happy extended family flying out the window. He gave her a look intended to say, What can I tell you? I have to be honest!

  “I’m going to go see if I can help Mom,” Dalia said, getting up. Apparently her stress at the conversation was getting to be too much.

  But for all the shock Dalia was feeling, Naheem just smiled a sad smile. “I’m so sorry for your loss, son. No child should see their parents taken like that. No child should have their parents taken like that. But please believe me when I tell you that those people who did that to your mother and father were not Christians.”

  “Well, that would be news to them.”

  “Yes, I’m sure it would be. But just because someone calls himself a Christian, it doesn’t necessarily make it true.” He leaned forward, plucked a nut out of one of the bowls on the table, and held it up to Marwan. “If I told you I was a pistachio, what would you say?”

  “You’re crazy.”

  “Why? What if I really believed myself to be a pistachio? What right do you have to say I’m not?”

  “Well, because it’s obvious you’re not a nut—although it would be quite possible that you’re nuts,” he said with a laugh. “But I guess I would just say that you and a pistachio are so completely different that it would be absurd if you called yourself one.”

  “Precisely! Jesus said that if we were truly his followers—true Christians—we would obey him. And what were the two things he told us to do? Love God and love others. Now, when you think about what those people did to your parents, how is it any more absurd for me to call myself a pistachio than it is for them to call themselves Christians?” And with that, Naheem peeled back the shell and popped the nut into his smiling mouth.

  “Fair enough. It just seems like in all of history, religion and violence have gone hand in hand. That’s why I decided long ago I wanted nothing to do with religion.”

  “How interesting. I remember making that very same decision.”

  “What made you decide to come back to it?”

  Naheem gave him a surprised look. “Back to it? Why would I ever want to go back to it?”

  “But . . . I mean . . . well, aren’t you the pastor of a church?”

  “Yes, I am,” Naheem said, taking a bite of a dried apricot. “But at my church, we don’t practice religion. Instead, we rejoice in a relationship. We don’t preach Christianity; we preach and worship Christ. And trust me, son, there’s a huge difference.”

  Marwan sat silently, trying to process what the pastor had said and wondering at the feelings welling up inside him. This man was single-handedly breaking down all the walls he had built against the church. He was redefining what it meant to be a follower of Christ.

  “Tell you what,” Naheem said, rising to his feet with two audible pops of his knees, “you look like you’ve got a little bit you need to consider. In the meantime, why don’t I show you that computer?”

  Marwan gratefully followed him down the hall to one of the bedrooms that doubled as an office, happy to finally be facing a situation he felt he could actually handle.

  58

  Goddard was sitting in a small coffee shop in downtown Beirut when his phone rang. He checked the caller ID, then answered it anyway.

  “Any progress with Accad’s brother?” the Skeleton demanded without so much as a greeting.

  “Some,” Goddard said, pushing away the plate with the small pastry. Talking with Lemieux always made him lose his appetite.

  “Did he break?”

  “No.”

  “He didn’t tell you where Marwan Accad is?” Lemieux pressed.

  “No.”

  “What did he give you?”

  “Very little. So I threw him in jail.”

  “You did what?”

  “I threw him in jail. What did you expect me to do?” Goddard shot back, pushing away from his table and walking outside to avoid listening ears. The night was well lit by streetlights and signs, the air just beginning to cool.

  “Make him give us his brother, you fool,” Lemieux retorted.

  “That’s why I put him in jail. I don’t think a man like Ramy Accad is going to want to spend much time in a Beirut prison.”

  “And I don’t think you give these Accad brothers enough credit. They’re smart, they’re dangerous, and they’re fiercely loyal to each other. If you want any information from Ramy, you’re going to have to be more forceful with him.”

  Goddard wasn’t sure he was really hearing what he thought he was hearing. A car with its stereo’s bass thumping enough to shake its windows was slowly driving by. He waited until it passed before he said quietly, “Are you telling me to torture him?”

  “No, you idiot! How dare you accuse me of that! What I am saying is that you are in Beirut of all places, where the rules of interrogation are different. If things happened to get physical, no one would ever know.”

  “So you are telling me to torture him.”

  “No! I’m telling you to get from him the information that we need. And if you are too squeamish to provide the proper encouragement, I’m sure you can find someone around there who is not.”

  The city was noisy with horns honking and people talking and laughing, but an icy silence filled the line as Goddard worked through Lemieux’s words.

  Finally the inspector spoke. “You said you made some progress, but it sounds like you’ve got nothing. Which is it?”

  “I did make some progress,” Goddard answered, trying to put aside his rapidly growing disgust for his superior.

  “Let’s hear it.”

  “We tapped Ramy’s satellite ph
one account.”

  “At last, an intelligent move. What did you discover?”

  Ignoring the slight, Goddard continued, “It turns out he’s got a dozen armed men in the mountains outside of São Paulo. Guess who they’re holding?”

  The line was silent.

  “Inspector, did you hear what I just said?”

  But Lemieux said nothing.

  “It’s Mrs. Ramsey. They’ve got Claudette Ramsey,” Goddard said, dropping his bombshell and waiting for the reaction.

  But there was none. The line was still silent.

  “I’ve just dispatched one of my teams there to arrest them all and help rescue Mrs. Ramsey,” Goddard continued. “They’re coordinating with the Brazilian authorities even as we speak.”

  Goddard waited for something—anything—but Lemieux said nothing.

  “Are you still there, Inspector?” he asked.

  “Yes, I’m here.”

  “Do you understand what I’m saying? This could prove the Accads’ involvement in the kidnapping. Forty-eight hours from now, Mrs. Ramsey will be safely back in Monte Carlo, and I’ll be able to debrief her about everything. We have Marwan Accad dead to rights. So let me congratulate you, sir, on being right about him all along. Can I expect you to join us in Monte Carlo?”

  “I’ll have to get back to you on that,” Lemieux said absently. Then the phone went dead.

  Goddard stood on the street trying to figure out what had just happened. That conversation had definitely gone in a direction he hadn’t planned. He didn’t know what exactly it meant, but he did know that the alarm bells that had been ringing for a long time about Lemieux were rapidly increasing in volume.

  59

  For the next hour, Marwan deleted files and restructured the computer’s start-up.

  “Please be more careful about the programs you download, Pastor Nour,” he said. “If you didn’t have such good antivirus software, your whole computer would be compromised by now. Also, I’ve installed an anti-spyware program to keep out all that extra stuff that finds its way onto your hard drive without you even knowing it.”

  “Thank you.” Naheem patted Marwan on the back. “You have blessed me greatly, but you may have blessed my computer even more.”

  Rima’s voice rang through the apartment, calling them to dinner. It was all Marwan could do to not run to the table. The smells had been gradually filling the home, and now the whole place smelled like an Arab spice market.

  Marwan pulled out the chair for Rima, then did the same for Dalia, all the while noticing the amused look on Naheem’s face. Then Dalia’s father held out his hands, and everyone else followed suit, Marwan only slightly belatedly. Once everyone was linked together, Naheem prayed.

  “Our Lord, you have blessed us today in a way we could never have imagined. You brought our daughter home. You truly are a God who answers prayer. Thank you for watching over her while she was gone. Thank you for never letting her out of your strong, loving grasp. Thank you . . .”

  As Naheem prayed, Marwan couldn’t help but notice the difference between the two hands he was holding—Rima, with her soft, cool fingers; and Naheem, with his calloused, scratchy palms. Pastoring isn’t the only thing this man has ever done. His hands didn’t get that way sitting in an office reading the Bible.

  Marwan chanced a look around and was surprised to see Dalia with her eyes closed, nodding agreement to her father’s words. It amazed him how natural it looked on her. I guess it’s not that strange that she’s praying; it’s just that I’ve never seen her do it before. Still, he couldn’t help but feel a bit of a distance growing between them as he watched her connecting with a God he had never truly met.

  Finally, and mercifully for Marwan’s raging appetite, the prayer ended. Instantly Rima was out of her seat to begin running dishes of food to and from the kitchen. The food turned out to be as good as it smelled, and over the course of the next hour, Marwan partook of everything set before him—and a lot of it.

  The dinner conversation revolved mostly around Dalia catching up on family and on the happenings in the town of Ma’an. Her brother, Elias, was excelling in the Air Force and was about to be promoted to captain. He was interested in an English girl and was apparently considering bringing her to meet his parents on his next leave. Naheem said he wasn’t too sure about the morals of those English girls, and he received a chastising glare from Rima in response.

  Dalia asked about friends and neighbors and church members. She was sad when she heard of the deaths. She was amazed at the marriages. She oohed and aahed when she heard of the births. As Marwan watched her, he could tell that she was back home where she belonged.

  What does that mean for me? How does that affect our future together? He shook his head. And why am I worrying about a year or five years or ten years down the road, when I don’t even know if I’ll survive into next week?

  Already feeling he had divulged a bit too much about himself earlier, Marwan deflected most questions addressed to him by asking about Dalia’s childhood or Naheem’s church, subjects both parents were all too eager to talk about.

  By the time the dishes started to be cleared away, everyone was full and Marwan, particularly, was exhausted. Feeling unable to keep his eyes open another minute, he asked if he could be excused to bed. Dalia led him to her brother’s room, which happened to be the same one he was in earlier with the computer.

  “So what do you think?” Dalia asked.

  “About . . . ?”

  “About my parents, of course.”

  “I’m wondering why you ever left this place.”

  Dalia sat on the bed. “I’ve been spending the evening wondering that too. I mean, I know why I left. But all my reasons now seem so juvenile, so petty. It was a stupid decision to run off and a stupid decision to stay away.”

  “Why did you stay away so long?” Marwan asked, sitting next to her on the bed.

  “I don’t know. I think that after a while—you know, after so many ignored messages and screened calls and deleted e-mails—I guess I couldn’t face them again. I knew I was in the wrong, and I figured they would hate me as much as I hated myself.”

  Marwan nodded as he took her hand. Then, rubbing her finger where the cheap Egyptian ring had sat, he asked, “Are you regretting any other decisions?”

  “Not at all,” she answered, giving him a long kiss on his cheek. “It’s just . . . I don’t think I’m quite ready to tell yet. I mean, it’s obvious they know about ‘us.’ They just don’t know how ‘us’ we are.”

  “I can understand that. You let me know when it’s time, and I’ll talk to your father. Is that a deal?”

  “It’s a deal.” Dalia got up from the bed. “I’m going to go help my mom clean up. She said you’re welcome to any of my brother’s clothes. He’s a little bigger than you are, but they should work.”

  “By the way, how did you explain us arriving without any bags?”

  Dalia smiled. “I told her how terrible it is to fly anyone other than British Air. Those idiots at Royal Jordanian lost our bags.” Her smile faded. “I guess that’s just one more lie I’m going to have to answer to them for.”

  Marwan got up and put his arms around her. As he held her tightly, he said, “You’re a good woman, Dalia Nour. Never forget that. Sure, you’ve made mistakes, but your parents have forgiven you, and . . . and you know that God has forgiven you too.”

  Dalia’s smile returned as she looked at Marwan. “Look which one of us is becoming the pastor,” she said before kissing him.

  “I love you, Dalia.”

  “I love you, too.”

  When they’d separated for the night, Marwan raided Elias’s closet and found a pair of shorts and a shirt to sleep in. Then, after washing up, he climbed into bed.

  Although he was so tired, he knew there was no way he would be able to sleep. There were too many dangers to prepare for, too many contingencies to plan against. Somehow he had to find a way to keep these good people safe,
to direct the hunt for him away from them. Things like that were too important to put off until the following morning.

  The next thing he knew, he awoke with a start, looked at the bedside clock, and saw that it was six in the morning.

  60

  The dream had been similar to the one Marwan had been having since leaving Kadeen’s house, except this time Naheem was the one who was killed backing him up, and Dalia and Rima were the ones leaning against the door.

  Only one day, he thought as he climbed out of bed. One day to figure out my next steps, and then I’m gone.

  He listened at the bedroom door but didn’t hear any movement in the apartment. Putting on a pair of Elias’s running shoes, he crept from the bedroom and out of the apartment. Once downstairs, he set off on a jog around the town. The sun was just coming up, and people were beginning to emerge from their homes. Smoke from early-morning cooking fires hung in the cool air and reminded him of walking to school in Beirut when the power was out due to the fighting.

  He wound his way through the streets, sometimes getting a wave from people he passed, sometimes having to speed up to avoid an overzealous stray dog. By the time he arrived back at the apartment forty-five minutes later, he was feeling refreshed and ready to face the day.

  Quietly, he opened the door, then tiptoed to Elias’s room. When he arrived, he saw that Naheem was already there working on the computer.

  “Oh, excuse me, sir,” he said, trying to back out. “Don’t let me disturb you.”

  “No, come in, come in,” Naheem said, turning off the monitor. “Please, have a seat.”

  Marwan obeyed, planting himself on the stool that the pastor had motioned to.

  “How was your run?”

  “It felt great.”

  “I’m envious. I may not look it now, but I used to be quite the runner when I was younger. Then my knees went out on me, and that part of my life ended. It’s not a fun thing getting old.”

  Marwan nodded.

  Naheem leaned forward and stared at him for a long while—right in the face, barely blinking. After several uncomfortable seconds, he sat back in his chair. “Can you tell me what you are doing here with my daughter, Mr. Accad?”