“Matt,” Bennie said, “you, Woody, and I all asked our client the same thing. Basically who has it in for him, and why? As we all know, Al wouldn’t say anything about that. For some weird reason, the jihadis have spent a lot of time and money creating an Agatha Christie story. There’s got to be something about Al Yamani that’s eluding us, and he’s not helping.”
“Hey guys,” Diana said, “remember, we already concluded that we can put up a defense for Al even if we don’t know who’s trying to screw him. After all the angles we’ve gone through today, I’m going out on a limb to say that we’re close to establishing reasonable doubt. Hell, we may even be able to establish the disappearance of that doctor and nurse as evidence of a plot to frame our client. But I’m no lawyer. What do you think, Matt?”
“Dee, the only difference between you and a lawyer is a piece of paper. Your legal analysis is right on, as usual. Yes, the air is heavy with reasonable doubt. But I have another concern. What if we’re able to get Al off the hook and set him free? Then what?”
Of course I didn’t know it as I spoke, but all of us would soon find out that our case had gotten even more complex.
Chapter 10
Youseff Ahmadi called through his megaphone to the trainees as they completed a 5K run. The camp, in a desolate area of northern Iraq, covered 44 acres of desert wasteland. The facility was covered with various types of harsh training apparatus, including walls for scaling, overhead horizontal ladders for strength training and coordination drills, and of course, firing ranges. The 350 students exercised and went through their combat lessons under Ahmadi’s watchful eyes.
Ahmadi himself had attended a similar facility 20 years earlier when he was 15 years old. The purpose of the camp was not just physical and mental conditioning. The main goal was to train young men to kill for their faith. Ahmadi had one goal in life, to train martyrs, murderers willing to die for the Islamic State. He was a rising leader of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, for the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, as well as ISIL, the Islamic State in the Levant, the Levant being a region including Iraq, Syria, Eastern Libya, and the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt. Ever since he was a child, Ahmadi dedicated his life toward the goal of the Islamic State to establish a caliphate, a nation state based on the sacred laws of Sharia. He married when he was 16 years old, and currently had three wives. His first wife was 12 years old when they met. She died at the age of 15. Ahmadi beat her to death with a club after he saw her walking down a street, alone, and without her head or face covered. He had 14 children from three wives, ages two to 18. Their education consisted of one lesson plan, to memorize the Quran.
The sweating, panting men assembled when Ahmadi summoned them with his megaphone. As they approached the assembly spot, they each grabbed a weapon from a stockpile. Ahmadi assembled them for a photograph, and he wanted each of them to be armed for the picture. Two of the men fell, overcome by the heat and thirst. Ahmadi made it clear that no water would be dispensed until after the photograph. The two stricken men were dragged away. One of them died of heat stroke. When Ahmadi shouted the instruction, each of the men raised his weapon in a display of martial enthusiasm.
Jamal Boudri, Ahmadi’s assistant, stood about 200 feet from the assembly area. As the men raised their weapons, Boudri stepped behind a small building and pressed a detonator button on an instrument in his left hand. Five bombs simultaneously exploded, killing all of the 350 men as well as Ahmadi. Boudri, the only living human being in the camp, casually walked over to a Toyota Land Cruiser and drove away. He inserted a Frank Sinatra album into the CD player. As the Toyota bounced along the dirt road, Sinatra crooned, “I did it my way.”
***
Muhammed Aleppi, the imam of a mosque in Dearborn, Michigan, stepped up to his pulpit. Aleppi was wildly popular with the worshippers for his inflammatory sermons. Well known to local law enforcement, including the FBI, Aleppi was careful to limit his rhetoric to the mosque itself. He appeared on so many “watch lists,” that he was almost a celebrity among cops.
Aleppi, age 45, was born and raised in Dearborn. His parents, both from Yemen, had raised him as a Muslim, but they weren’t devout practitioners. Their faith, like that of so many worshippers of all religions, could best be described as lukewarm. But when Aleppi was 12 years old, he met a man, an imam or religious leader, who convinced him that Islam was the way, the only way in life. At the man’s urging, he began his years-long task of memorizing the Quran.
He began his sermon with the words, “Heaven does not await the brother who sits on his hands. Allah wants to embrace only those who are willing to die to snuff out the infidel.”
He looked out over the crowd of over 400 worshippers and smiled when he saw the effect of his words—400 small Qurans waved in front of him.
“Are you willing to live among the heathens?” “No!” came the loud response from the crowd.
“Are you willing to accept the ways of the infidel?” “No!” they shouted.
“Are you willing to die for Allah?” “Yes!” rang out the voices of 400 men.
“Are you…” He stopped and coughed. Every man present began to cough along with him. Within 30 seconds, Aleppi and the 400 worshippers were dead.
The forensic team from the Dearborn Police Department, wearing gas masks, determined that the inhabitants of the mosque died of Sarin gas poisoning. After a six-month investigation they found no suspects.
Tyrone Wagner, the Chief of Police for the Dearborn Police Department, stood before an array of microphones for a press conference. “We’ve seen acts of violence before, but this incident still has us puzzled. After such a terrible act, we normally hear from some person or group, claiming responsibility. We have heard nothing. At this point, we don’t have any strong leads pointing to a perpetrator or perpetrators.”
***
“This is Shepard Smith for Fox News ladies and gentlemen. It’s been three months since the horrible Sarin gas attack on that mosque in Dearborn, Michigan. It’s been three months of the authorities chasing one dead lead after another. No one has stepped forward to claim responsibility for the murders, which is quite strange in itself. It’s common, in a mass murder such as this one, that some deranged person or group of people will come forward and take grisly credit for the murders. But there has been no such claim. Authorities, not to mention the press, are all scratching their heads over this one. Was it an in-house act of revenge for something? Was it an attack by a rival sect of the often-splintered religion? At this point, nobody knows.”
Chapter 11
I walked into our apartment at 6:45 p.m. Dee met me at the door, as usual, with a hug and a kiss.
“Hey, honey, after dinner we can plan for the big condo board meeting tomorrow morning, she said. Dee was being her best sarcastic self. We hated condo board meetings.
“Great,” I said, “you had to remind me.”
***
I like to think of myself as a pitch-in kind of guy. God knows I have a lot of work to do, but I’m not the kind of person who likes to turn down a request. I don’t know what that says about me. Maybe I just like to seek approval. I should ask Bennie about this little proclivity of mine to always say yes. My dumbest “yes” came recently, when I agreed to serve as the president of the condominium board of our building. The delegation of outgoing executive committee people argued that since Dee and I have the biggest and most expensive apartment in the building, one of us should be the natural president. Bullshit. Well, I didn’t say that but I should have. I really didn’t need the aggravation.
I should have read the by-laws before I accepted the position. There’s a bizarre provision that says that any and all board meetings, including executive committee meetings, are open to every member of the Homeowner’s Association (HOA). It’s also required that we hold meetings monthly. Not quarterly or (God, I wish) annually, but monthly. In an association of 50 owners, the same 20 people show up for every meeting, people who I think of as the “Terrible 20
.” Dee and I have some good friends in the building, people whom we like to entertain, and whose company we enjoy. We have lots of laughs and good conversations. But they aren’t the people who attend the meetings. Every time I invite one of them, they invariably say, “You’ve got to be kidding.” The people who show up every month, the Terrible 20, are either retired or living on trust funds. They are people who have entirely too much time on their hands, and they all share something in common: they love to attend meetings. I asked Dee, actually I begged her, to take an open spot on the board as recording secretary.
The meeting was scheduled to start at 9 a.m. Dee and I showed up at 9:01, one minute late. Mrs. Doyle, from Unit 23, dramatically raised her arm and looked at her watch. She then looked at me with a frown.
“Good morning, folks,” I said with my best fake smile. “According to our agenda we don’t have too many items to address, so we should be out of here in about an hour, maybe less.”
“Excuse me Mr. President,” said Mrs. Curran from Unit 19, “please don’t forget the by-laws section 10 subsection 3 (a). It says that any member of the association can raise any issue whether it’s on the agenda or not.”
She insists, as do a few others, on calling me “Mr. President” rather than Matt. It’s a substitute for “Hey Shithead.”
I went through the agenda, which only had three items on it: our new heating system, the window washing service, and snow removal.
“Mr. President,” said Mrs. Cravitch from Unit 32, “during the big blizzard last year, it took the snow removal people until noon before they had the walks cleared.”
“Well, as I recall, Mrs. Cravich, the blizzard was still going strong until 12:30 that day. Our contract gives the company the flexibility to make decisions while snow is still falling.”
“But what if I had to go out?”
“Did you have to go out?”
“No, but it’s the principle of the thing.”
The principle of the thing is a phrase that I hear about a dozen times per meeting.
“What about rodents, Mr. President?” said Mr. Jennings of Unit 18. Mr. Jennings, I estimate, was a bit shy of 90.
“Rodents?” I said. “I haven’t heard a thing about rodents.”
“A friend of mine said he saw a rat by Navy Pier a few months ago. That’s not far from here. What does the board intend to do to prevent a rodent infestation.”
The conversation, despite my attempts to reign it in, then revolved around the horrors of rats by the waterfront, although only one had been seen, and that was a rumor. One member discussed at length a documentary she saw on the Discovery Channel. I looked at my watch. My intended stopping point of 10 a.m. had come and gone. The next questions concerned the color of the new carpeting that was installed in the hallways. Some people didn’t like the color, even though samples had been sent to everyone for their opinion prior to the installation. I had an unintentional mental flash back to my service in the Marines. What I could do with a stun grenade this room, I thought. No, stop, you agreed to take this job. Make nice.
At 12:45 Dee made a motion to adjourn. It was the fourth time she made the motion but this time, thank God, it got seconded. “All in favor?” I said.
“Point of order, Mr. President,” said Mrs. Cravitch from Unit 32. “I’m not ready to vote yet.”
“Mrs. Cravitch,” I said politely, “if you check the by-laws, article 4 section 5(b) you’ll see that only board members can vote, although everyone can attend meetings.”
“Move the question,” Dee said, God bless her. The board vote carried. The fucking meeting was over. Until next month.
Chapter 12
The Westfield Mall, known among locals as the South Shore Mall in Bay Shore, Long Island, was more crowded than usual because of a mid-day concert held by the main entrance. The band, Summer Solstice, was popular on Long Island, partially because of their aggressive agent, but mainly because they were talented. Their style could best be described as classic rock, and the fans loved it.
Phil Doolittle, an Army veteran recently separated from the service after two tours in Iraq, was happy that he landed a job with the Johnson Security Agency, a company that specializes in providing security guards to shopping malls. The pay wasn’t bad, the hours were decent, and the company had a reputation for loyalty to its employees.
Although his Army service taught him how to handle weapons, Johnson Security provided a two-week training course on the specifics of guard service in crowded shopping centers. Since the horrific bombing of the Water Tower Place Mall in Chicago a few weeks before, security training for mall guards had taken on a high priority. During his classes, Doolittle heard lectures from FBI agents as well as local cops. A crowded shopping mall can present a tempting “soft target” for a terrorist, and more than half his training concentrated on just that—anticipating a terrorist incident. The balance of his curriculum was about more mundane topics like shoplifting and how to handle the rowdy customer.
As the band played a few rousing tunes, Doolittle noticed something that didn’t seem right. A big part of his job was just that—noticing things. He looked at a satchel under a bench. Part of his work consisted of walking around and keeping his eyes open. He knew the object wasn’t there the last time he walked through that area, about 10 minutes before.
He approached the bag and snapped a picture of it with his iPhone. Then he called the security office to make a report. The bag wasn’t large, about the size of a teenager’s backpack. He didn’t touch the object, as he was trained, but he looked at it and jotted down notes, including the exact time.
In the final moment of his life, Doolittle knelt down to get a closer look.
The bomb exploded at 12:10 p.m., a time of high shopper traffic. The blast immediately wiped out five kiosks that lined the center of the mall, and tore an opening in the new Macy’s Department store. Bodies were flung as far as 100 feet, some thrown against walls before they fell to the floor. The band, Summer Solstice, had just begun another song, the old Beatles favorite, Helter Skelter. The bomb blast hurled a large glass counter in the direction of the band. None of the musicians survived.
***
Muhammed Sidduq, age 29, worked for a local public library as a clerk. He sat in his one bedroom apartment in the Elmhurst section of Queens, looking at the screen of his small TV. The news reports were still showing scenes from the massive mall bombing on Long Island three days before. He heard a loud pounding on the door. He had managed to scrape together enough money to pay rent that month, he thought, so it couldn’t be the landlord.
He opened the door and was immediately tackled by a large man wearing an FBI vest. He was handcuffed and taken to a waiting car, then driven to the jail unit at the federal courthouse in Manhattan. When the agent read him his Miranda rights after he was apprehended, all Muhammed kept saying was “what the fuck?”
A tall thin woman entered the visitor’s area of the jail unit.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Sidduq. My name is Georgina Rice, and I have been assigned as your attorney. In about a half hour you’re going to be arraigned. That means that a judge will tell you what you are being charged with.”
Georgina Rice is a civil defense lawyer. She spends her career representing defendants in civil lawsuits, but as a practical matter, she really represents insurance companies, the people on the hook for the outcome of a civil lawsuit. But, like many attorneys, she had volunteered for the pro bono criminal defense program
“Do you know what they’re charging me with?” he asked in perfect English.
“Yes, of course. It’s now common practice for an accused’s attorney to be given the charges before the formal arraignment.”
She read him the charges from the indictment: 312 counts of murder, 52 counts of conspiracy to commit murder, eight counts of conspiracy to commit terrorist acts, and 10 more pages of various other accusations.
She explained the accusations and recommended that he plead not guilty to all charg
es.
“That means that the government has to prove each of the charges against you beyond a reasonable doubt. I won’t kid you, Mr. Sidduq, these charges are serious, and the prosecution may seek the death penalty.”
“Please call me Mickey. Everybody does.”
“Okay, Mickey. Would you like to comment about what I just said?”
“I have no idea what kind of bullshit they have on me, or think they have, but I can guess. I’m sorry, I apologize. Please pardon my language, Ms. Rice.”
“You can call me Georgina if that makes you comfortable. And don’t worry about the language. I see and hear plenty of bullshit in my line of work.”
“Here’s the most important thing I can tell you, Georgina. I had nothing to do with the bombing of that mall. Nothing at all. I’m not just ‘not guilty,’ I’m innocent, and yes I know the difference.”
“So you’re saying that these charges are trumped up, that somebody is trying to frame you, or simply that it’s a mistake?”
“Yes to your first two statements, but no to the third. This is no mistake. I’m a target, a fucking target. Whoops, there I go again, sorry.”
“We have some time before the arraignment. It’s a busy day at the courthouse. I need to ask you some background information about yourself so I can represent you as best I can. I see that you’re a clerk for a local library as a clerk. Is that your regular occupation?”
“Yes, but I’m also a writer, although I make very little money from my writing. Even though I make a living as a library clerk, I actually have a university degree, from the University of Cairo.”
“Can you share with me some of the things you’ve written about?”
“I mainly write fiction. I tried to find an agent to sell my stuff to a publisher, but I haven’t been successful so far. So I self-publish electronic books for the Kindle. It’s a cheap way to get your work out there.”
The Reformers: A Matt Blake Novel (The Matt Blake legal thriller series Book 2) Page 4