Chapter 18
“Sit,” I said to Dee as I walked in the door.
“Roll over,” she said with a laugh. Always the wiseass.
“I’ve got something amazing to tell you, and that’s why I want you to sit down. I don’t want you to fall over. Our client Al, has a lot more in common with those other two accused bombers. I visited Al in the lockup this afternoon because I wanted to talk to him about his books. He opened right up and talked about his writings. But then I wanted to hit him with an important question, the one that’s been nagging at me. I asked him if he knew Mickey Sidduq, Georgi’s client or Jake Almeth, Jerry’s client. After a little needling from me, he admitted that he knows them both.”
“Oh my God,” Dee said. “This can change everything. Does this mean that these three guys from three different states are all being targeted by the same people? There can’t be any other explanation. They all know each other, and all of them have written books critical of radical Islam.”
“And they’re not alone. According to Al, all three of these guys seem to be distant members of the same family.”
“You mean they’re related?”
“No, think family as in Mafia. Our three guys are connected to a mysterious group that has declared war on jihadis, on radical Islam. Our three guys are peaceful—they just write about their criticisms of Islam in their novels. The extended group, the ‘muscle part of the family,’ as Al puts it, are a really rough bunch. They’re killers, and quite prolific ones. The people they kill are radical Islamists, jihadis.”
“Wow,” Dee said. “There have been a ton of news reports in the past few weeks about groups of radical Muslims getting bombed or shot. I recall hearing about some fiery preachers getting killed too. You mean our client and the others are connected to this group?”
“Well, connected only in a distant way. Al, Mickey, and Jake are peaceful guys. Oh yeah, Al told me that Mustafa, Jerry’s client, likes to be called ‘Jake.’ ”
“Matt, does this group or family have a name? I don’t remember hearing anything about a shadowy group that’s killing jihadis.”
“Yes, they have a name. Get this, they call themselves the NFL. It an acronym that stands for Not For Long.”
“So our guy plays for the NFL.”
“Yeah, but he’s more like a locker room attendant. He’s not one of the players on the field.”
“Matt, tell me your thoughts about our big question, the question why. Why have these three guys been framed? Why didn’t ISIS or al-Qaeda simply kill our three guys? Why all of the elaborate bullshit with thumbprints and videos?”
“Well here’s Al’s opinion on the subject. Yes, he finally opened up. Al thinks that framing him, Mickey and Jake—shit, this is starting to sound like an old movie—is the beginning of an elaborate but simple plot. The radicals are trying to show the world, and especially Americans, that there’s no such thing as a moderate or reform-minded Muslim. What better way than to show the world that these three peaceful critics of radical Islam are themselves radicals, that they killed hundreds of innocent people. The idea is simple: the radicals want to sell the idea that all Muslims are radicals. That will force out the moderates.”
“And if the Jihadis are successful in forcing out the moderates,” Dee said, “then the world will stand in fear.”
“So all of this brings me to a great idea, Dee. At least I think it’s a great idea. I think you should start on a new book. The subject of the book should be the writings of Muslims who are critical of radical Islam. With your name on the cover, I think it will sell like crazy. It’s an important topic, and who better to address it than you, professor?”
Dee stood up, grabbed a cushion and flung it across the room, shouting “Yesssss.” One of the many things I love about Dee is her explosive enthusiasm. She even gets enthusiastic about going to the store. She walked over to a shelf and grabbed our baseball gloves and a ball.
“Let’s play catch, honey. It will help me think. Your idea about that book is absolutely fabulous.”
She wound up and flung her fastball at me like it was shot out of a gun.
“Hey, babe, don’t think so hard. I’m going to need a new mitt—maybe a catcher’s mitt with a lot of padding.”
“I can’t believe it Matt. Your idea is brilliant. My agent, Suzie Cohen, has been talking to Harvard University Press about a book on Muslim reformers. They approached her on the subject and told her to talk to me. I’ve been scratching my head about it, and you just came up with the perfect idea—Muslim writers critical of Islam. Maybe we can title it, The Reformers.”
“I’m also thinking about our Yamani case, Dee. As you research the book I think you’ll come up with some evidence I can use, maybe even some witnesses I can call for the trial.”
“Yesss—Perfect, honey,” she said as she flung the ball at my mitt.
Chapter 19
Professor Muhammed Islama conducted his class at the University of Cairo in both English and Arabic, both of which he spoke fluently. His specialty was “the correct” reading of the Quran. His idea of “correct” had been formed over the 40 years of his life, and some people thought of his interpretations as radical. Even some extreme Islamists consider Professor Islama’s reading and writings on the subject to be over the top. He subscribed to the notion that killing infidels is not only sometimes necessary, but actually a duty for every Muslim.
His students eagerly anticipated his Monday morning class. He would stress the idea that there is no such thing as a moderate or reform-minded Muslim, and that the Quran requires every Muslim to subscribe to his harsh view of human relations.
“The infidel does not have the right to exist,” Islama said, warming to his subject. “Either human beings follow the words of the Prophet or they follow the way of the heathen.”
A man in the back of the room reached under his seat and came up with a Sig Sauer P226 pistol, a popular weapon known for its accuracy. He pointed it at the Imam’s torso and fired two shots. He then fired a third at the man’s head after he fell to the floor. The gunman was immediately surrounded by four large men, who formed a phalanx around him as the five of them left the stunned auditorium and walked to a waiting car.
The scene inside the auditorium was chaos. Most students ran for exits while a few ran to the stage toward the lifeless body of Professor Islama. A campus security officer ran to the stage where three other guards had already arrived. He told them that he saw the gunman, along with four other men, run toward the East exit (the opposite door from the one they had actually used to escape). All of the security guards ran toward the East exit.
***
Aadhil Ahsan stood before a group of 45 boys, ages 14 to 18. Ahsan was the Director of the Center for Islamic Youth in Sana’a, Yemen.
“Bring me young minds and I shall deliver soldiers to the armies of Allah,” read the inscription hanging at the front of the classroom.
The class began, as always, with a one-hour session of quiet reading of the Quran. Ahsan was a strict teacher, and his most emphatic dictum was that students should never read any book except the Quran. Once a week, three students were selected at random to recite a passage of the Quran from memory. If a kid flubbed a word or two, he would stand in the corner of the classroom for the rest of the day, holding the sacred book above his head.
Ahsan himself had come up through the ranks. As a youth he was a student in the very institution that he now headed. Ahsan had never read from any book but the Quran.
“Why seek knowledge anywhere but from the words of Allah as given to the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon Him. You are here to learn from the only true source of learning. You are not to seek knowledge from anywhere but from the divine source. The infidel will try to entice you with his worldly ways. You are to reject the infidel, and of course the Zionists. You are on the true path, the one true path.”
Shortly after noon it was time for the Dhuhr, the second of the day’s five prayer sessions. The Dh
uhr was proceeded by the wudu, or ablution, where each of the prayerful washed himself in the prescribed way, including his feet. Ahsan demanded that each step of the prayer service be performed “according to the book.”
After the day’s lessons concluded, Ahsan walked the quarter-mile to his small house, which he shared with his wife and four children. When he entered the house his senses were on full alert. It was custom, in the Ahsan household, for his wife, Ehan, along with his children to greet him at the door. But the house was silent. He walked from room to room, calling his wife’s name. His anger began to rise. He had strictly forbidden Ehan to ever leave the house without him or at least without his knowledge.
He walked into the room at the back of the house that overlooked a small garden where they grew dates. A man stood with his back to the door holding a sound-suppressed pistol pointed toward him. In the final moment of his life, he realized that he knew the gunman personally.
***
Imam Abdul Ishak stood before the crowded mosque in Evanston, Illinois. His audience, consisting of only male worshippers, was over 300. Imam Ishak was popular with the people of his mosque because his sermons were never dull. For years he had been on law enforcement and government watch lists, including the Chicago Police Department, the FBI, and the CIA. But of course he was free to speak, and there was nothing the authorities would or could do to prevent him from spreading his message.
“The laws of the idiot infidels give us the power to eventually defeat them,” he would often tell friends, referring to the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.
His sermon for the day was about Ali Yamani, the suspect in the bombing of the Water Tower Mall in Chicago, just a few short miles from his mosque.
“The heathens say that violence is committed by people they call ‘radical Muslims.’ But the man who is accused of the murders is not in any way a radical. He is an apostate, a reformer as he likes to call himself. He is a man who has written against Sharia law and against the strict adherence to the words of the Quran and the Prophet Muhammad, may peace be upon Him. The man is worse than an infidel. He is a Muslim who has turned his back on the only path to truth. The heathens will soon learn that the violence they complain about is caused by scum like Yamani and his Zionist helpers. They are the violent ones. They are the ones who seek to kill.”
That evening, Imam Ishak drove his car along the Dan Ryan Expressway. He was going to a speaking engagement at another mosque in South Chicago. As he approached his exit, a large pickup truck swerved into his lane, hit the side of his car and drove it into a cement barricade. The truck continued on. Ishak was killed immediately. The autopsy would confirm simply that the cause of death was blunt trauma to the head.
The pickup truck was found two hours later, abandoned on the side of a road in Gary, Indiana. The vehicle was taped off as a crime scene, and both the interior and exterior was dusted for fingerprints. Not one print was found on the truck.
Chapter 20
Diana had been working on her book for two weeks. Besides her teaching load at the university she was also working on a feature-length article for The Atlantic, as well as helping me on the Yamani case. Dee had just called me to say that she had enough research to begin a first draft.
At 6:30 p.m. I walked into our apartment. Dee was already there, the dining room table littered with papers. She walked up to me and we kissed. But something was off, something was different.
“Hey, hon,” I said. “How about a smile?”
“After I tell you about my research, you tell me if I should smile.”
I sat at the table. It may sound like a small thing, but it’s rare when Dee isn’t smiling. A smile is like the default setting on her pretty face. It’s sort of like there’s always a smile in there just waiting for an excuse to pop out. She wasn’t smiling. But she did have my attention.
“Why don’t you go freshen up, Matt. I’ve got a lot to tell you.”
I went into the master bathroom, took a quick shower, put on a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt, and rejoined Dee in the dining room.
“The big three weren’t alone, Matt.”
We were starting to call the three defendants in the mall bombing cases the Big Three, Al Yamani, our client, Mickey Sidduq, Georgina’s guy in New York, and Jake Almeth, Jerry Blackwell’s client in San Francisco—the Big Three.
“A lot of people are, or were, writing critical stuff about Islam. I’ve come up with 36 Muslims who wrote serious critiques about their religion. Twenty are novelists, ten could be described as journalists, and six are non-fiction book writers.”
“Dee, you said ‘or were’ when you just referred to these writers. So are they or were they writing stuff about Islam?”
“Of the 36 people I’ve identified as writers who are critical of Islam, 27 are dead—fucking dead. That’s 75 percent of the reform writers. I dug further. Of the 27 dead guys, only three died of natural causes. One guy was in his 80s and died of a heart attack. One was 75 and died of cancer. And the third guy died at 65 of emphysema. Of the remaining 24 dead people, 19 were shot, two beheaded, and three died in explosions. Are you still wondering why I’m not smiling?”
“Are you thinking about Al Yamani, Dee?”
“Yes, I’m thinking about Al Yamani, as well as that guy Mickey and the one called Jake. If you and the other lawyers are successful in getting these guys off, what kind of life expectancy will they have?”
“Remember, Dee, Al Yamani spoke about this weird new group, the NFL. Unless we can have our guys delivered permanently into the Witness Protection Program, maybe those tough guys will cover their backs.”
“On that subject, Matt, let’s talk about this NFL stuff—Not For Long. What do you think about them?”
“Well, I don’t know a hell of a lot about them, and apparently neither does our client. But he does know of their existence—a group of anti-jihadis. Part of me likes that there’s a shadowy group that’s on our guy’s side, but part of me is suspicious as hell. Bottom line, even if we may silently cheer them on whoever they are, you can only describe them as lawless vigilantes. I guess you haven’t discovered anything about a secret anti-jihad group in your research.”
“Not a thing. From what I’ve read so far, and I still have a lot more to go, the writers only mention other reformers. I did most of my research with digital copies of their writings. I searched for ‘NFL’ and came up with nothing except one guy mentioning that his kid was in the NFL draft and got picked up by the New York Jets. It seems that this NFL will just be in the background of whatever it is we do. It may be our background, but they are the underground.”
“Hey, Dee. Let’s think about a few of the news stories in the past week. A well-known radical Islamist professor got whacked in Egypt. A guy who radicalizes teenagers was shot in Yemen. And, a bit closer to home, that nut-case from Evanston, Abdul Ishak, was killed just two nights ago on the Southside. A truck sideswiped his car and drove him into a barricade. They found the truck in Indiana. It was abandoned. I asked Woody to make a couple of calls. There were absolutely no fingerprints in the truck. So Ishak, like the others, got killed. If this weird NFL group really does exist, it appears they’ve having a busy season.”
Chapter 21
“Hey, Bonnie, congratulate me and give me a hug,” Jack Logan said to his wife.
“Sure, babe. For what?”
“I just got off the phone with Sarah Watson, Director of the FBI. Get this. She’s offered me the position of head of the Counterterrorism Task Force. It’s a huge promotion and a lot more pay.”
“It’s also a lot more aggravation, Jack. And besides that, isn’t the Counterterrorism Task Force located in Manhattan? That’s a hike from Philadelphia.”
“More good news. Sarah has a well-known reputation for caring about her agents’ family lives,” Jack said. “She made a few calls, and the New York Police Department is looking for a homicide detective. Sarah knows all about you and went over your background wi
th the NYPD commissioner. The job is as good as yours. Based on Watson’s recommendation the NYPD brass agreed to make a huge exception for you. Normally the NYPD would never hire a detective in a lateral move from another police department. The pay level is the same as Detective First Grade, and it provides $20,000 more than you’re making now. Technically, your title won’t be detective but something like Special Assistant to the Commissioner, a civilian position. But for all practical purposes you’ll still be a detective and that’s what cops will call you. And after 20 years with the Philadelphia PD, you’re vested in your pension. There’s nothing keeping us here in Philly, so what do you say? Hell, we both grew up in New York, so it’s not like it will be culture shock. Let’s become a couple of New Yorkers again.”
***
Jack Logan opened the door of his new office at 26 Federal Plaza in Manhattan. He and Bonnie had found a comfortable apartment in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan, a block away from his old friend and predecessor Rick Bellamy, who is now Secretary of Homeland Security. Bonnie was assigned to NYPD Headquarters at 1 Police Plaza, a short walk away from Jack’s office and also not far from their apartment. His phone rang. It was Rick Bellamy, calling from Washington to congratulate him on his new job, the same one that Bellamy had occupied for a few years. “Develop a taste for Maalox,” Rick said. “You’ll have your share of agita.”
The Reformers: A Matt Blake Novel (The Matt Blake legal thriller series Book 2) Page 7