Escape (45 page)

On the night that Justin Rhodes declared to the imam that he would die for Allah, he was given a new name, Suleiman Abdalla. And this time it was not meant as an insult.

"The Suleiman Abdalla for whom you are named is a modem warrior of Islam," Jabbar explained at the ceremony. "He is currently imprisoned in Colorado for the brave attack on the U.S. Embassy in Kenya. He would be proud if his namesake carried on the jihad he could no longer wage from prison."

I wonder what Paradise will be like,
Abdalla thought as he neatly folded the
London World Herald
and placed it next to him on the seat of the car. He was thinking about the nubile virgins who would be his reward for martyrdom. He'd never been with a woman, or even had a girlfriend.

Thinking about it dredged up the old feelings of hatred and anger. Soon they would all regret it—his parents, his classmates, the whores, and the gang members. And when the crescent moon signaled the start of Ramadan, he'd show those big-talking blowhards with the Nation of Islam what it meant to be a true believer.

As he prayed at the mosque for the will to perform jihad, he knew that he was doing as Allah intended. A part of him tried to tell him that killing people, especially women and children, was wrong. But the other part argued that it wasn't wrong if it was Allah's will, and if the victims were truly innocent, they would enter the gates of Paradise, too.
Inshallah
... God's will be done.

Khalifa could have ruined it for all of them. It was bad enough that he was too weak to stay away from alcohol and got kicked out of the brigade. But then he'd selfishly jeopardized the plan by blowing himself up at the synagogue.

The others in the Al-Aqsa Brigade had been told about Khalifa's "martyrdom." The imam and the Chechen woman, Ajmaani, had explained that while they understood the desire to sacrifice themselves for Islam, such unilateral actions risked exposing "the spectacular event" envisioned by The Sheik before it could be accomplished.

Khalifa's death hurt, too, because he and a heavy boy named Abdul Raouf had been Abdalla's only friends at the mosque. They'd all received their Muslim names on the same night and often talked about going on jihad to Afghanistan together.

Perhaps because his own face was scarred from smallpox, Khalifa never commented on Abdalla's vitiligo and had often had him over to his home for dinner. In honesty, Suleiman had a crush on Khalifa's wife, Miriam, the most beautiful woman in the world, he thought; she didn't look at his skin when she talked to him but into his eyes. He'd honored her as the wife of his best friend but kept his feelings to himself, even after Khalifa killed himself.

Abdalla had only seen his friend once after he'd been kicked out of the brigade. He was living in his tiny new apartment, and they talked for a long time about how much Khalifa missed his wife and son. As Abdalla was leaving, Khalifa had handed him a book of food-stamp certificates. "I won't need these," he said. But when Abdalla inquired as to why, Khalifa just shrugged and said he had a new job.

Abdalla had kept the food stamps in his wallet, too embarrassed to actually use them. However, recently while scouting out an "escape route" that The Sheik would be using after the great plan had been implemented, an enormous panhandler had approached him.

"'ooger 'ongry," the filthy giant complained, holding out a large, dirt-encrusted hand. "Can u 'pare um change?"

Suleiman had been thinking about putting the food stamps in the charity box at the mosque on Ramadan, when good deeds earned special rewards. But
I might not get the chance,
he thought, fishing his wallet out of his pocket.

"Here you go," he'd said, handing the hungry giant the certificates.
"Salaam."

The beggar had looked at the stamps suspiciously but then brightened, "'ank you, 'ery much," he said and shuffled off.

After the synagogue bombing, Abdalla had felt a twinge of envy when he had read all the newspaper accounts of Khalifa's martyrdom. But then he realized that his friend had not accomplished what he had hoped. Khalifa had always complained that he was a "nobody." Now he still was.... No one knew—except, apparently, his former comrades at Al-Aqsa—that he was the martyr. It seemed a cruel trick of fate, or perhaps it was a punishment from Allah for putting himself above the greater good.

You
are still a nobody, Jamal,
Abdalla thought. But soon
I will be somebody.

Shortly after Khalifa's death, Abdalla and the others had been told to pack a few days' worth of clothing and bring it to the mosque that night. Once there, they were told to board a bus driven by one of the imam's bodyguards. It left the mosque grounds and Abdalla soon fell asleep; later he awoke to the sound of the bus's tires crunching on gravel just before they came to a halt.

The driver ordered them to collect their things, get off the bus, and form into two lines outside. They'd done as they were told, trying to make out their new surroundings in the darkness. They were obviously not in the city anymore.

Nearly all the jihadis had been born and raised in Harlem, and the closest they'd ever come to The Great Outdoors had been Central Park. Even Abdalla, who had attended summer camp as a youth, was disconcerted. All he could tell was that they were out in the country on what appeared to be some sort of farm surrounded by a dark forest.

The two lines were quickly marched off to a long low building with only one door and no windows. The interior was non-descript, just a row of bunk beds on either wall, and had a strange musty smell to it.

"Get some sleep," the bodyguard had ordered. "Tomorrow, you begin the road to jihad.
Allah'-u-Akbar!"

"Allah'-u-Akbar,"
the young men responded as the driver left. They then chose their beds and gratefully turned in.

The first morning, they were rousted before dawn by Ajmaani.

"Where are we?" one of the sleepy men asked after roll call.

"That's not important," Ajmaani had replied. "You are not to ask questions unless it is to review what you will be taught. All that you need to know is that you have sworn your lives to jihad and that you have been specially selected to, God willing, carry out a very important martyr mission that will strike a crippling blow to your oppressor, your enslaver, the United States of America. Are you ready to become holy warriors of Islam?"

The young men of the Al-Aqsa Brigade had done their best to snap to attention as they shouted:
"Allah-u-Akbar! Allah-u-Akbar!
" Nobody back home had ever treated them with much respect, but now they were holy warriors of Islam, specially chosen.

They spent the next few weeks getting physically fit. Only one of the men—Abdalla's other friend, Abdul Raouf, a large, overweight young man—couldn't make it. It was difficult for him to shed the pounds and get in better shape.

Then one day, Raouf quit halfway through the obstacle course as he bent over and threw up. Seeing this, Ajmaani screamed for the others to halt and gather around the heaving man. "Are you quitting?" she shouted at him.

"Fuck this, I just need to catch my breath a minute," Raouf gasped.

The woman appeared not to hear him, or care. "You quit," she sneered. "What if your objective required you to cover that distance quickly or the entire mission would be a failure?"

"I'm doing my best," Raouf replied sullenly. "Maybe I'm just not cut out for this."

Ajmaani turned to the others. "What is the penalty for quitting?" she demanded.

No one answered. They'd all been told that the only way out of the brigade was death.

Realizing what she'd said, Raouf stood up with fear in his eyes. "I can go on now," he said and started to lumber off.

"You have two minutes to complete the obstacle course," Ajmaani shouted after him.

The big man stopped short. "Ain't no way," he complained. "Ain't nobody could do that."

The other members of the brigade looked at each other; the fastest, most able among them would have had difficulty completing the task. But Ajmaani held out her hand to one of the bodyguards, who handed her his 9 mm Glock semiautomatic. She leveled it at Raouf. "You now have less than two minutes," she said quietly.

With a cry of terror, Raouf took off running. He reached the far end of the course and started back, fear and desperation keeping his heavy legs moving. They could hear his breathing—big, ragged gulps that whistled in and out of his mouth—as he drew close and finally collapsed across the finish line. His fellow mujahideen smiled; Raouf was one of the friendlier members of the brigade, a dedicated student of the Qur'an and always willing to help the others with their studies.

Then Ajmaani looked at her watch and announced. "You were twenty seconds late," she snarled, crossing the few yards and kicking him as hard as she could in the ribs. Raouf screamed and rolled over on his back, blinking in the sun.

Ajmaani pointed the gun at his head. "Because this man quit, you were all killed by the Enemies of God," she shouted. "But worse than that, your mission failed and there is no place in Paradise for you. You are not martyrs, you are all failures."

Raouf began to cry. "I'm sorry," he apologized. "I'm sorry my brothers. I'll try harder."

"Try harder?" Ajmaani scoffed, her green eyes blazing. "Is that what you'll say the next time you quit and your 'brothers' die for nothing?" She turned back to the main group and held up the handgun. "Who will kill this quitter for me?"

The men looked at her in shocked silence, shifting back and forth from one foot to the other. She scowled as she looked from face to face.

"Is there no one who will strike this betrayer down for Allah?" Ajmaani demanded. She chose Suleiman. "You, Abdalla, you shoot him."

"I couldn't. He's my friend."

"Your friend just betrayed his oath to Allah," Ajmaani snarled. "Who do you choose, this fat pig or Allah? Shoot him for Allah!"

Abdalla stepped forward and accepted the weapon from her. It seemed so heavy; his hand fell to his side.

"Do it!" Ajmaani commanded.

Abdalla walked over to where Raouf had risen to his elbows and now begged for his life. "Sule," he cried. "We're friends. Please, I want to die as a martyr for God, not like this!"

"Kill him," Ajmaani hissed in his ear as she stepped up behind Abdalla.
"Inshallah .
.. it's God's will."

Abdalla sighted down the barrel at the blubbering face of Raouf. "Kill him!" Ajmaani suddenly screamed in his ear. He pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. The gun didn't fire.

Ajmaani smiled. "I see it is time to begin weapons training," she announced as if it had only been a test. "You must first release the safety." She sidled up behind him, placing a hand on his shoulder while her other hand snaked along his arm that held the gun until her hand covered his. She pressed a little lever on the side of the gun. "The safety," she said softly in his ear. "Now, pull the trigger, Suleiman."

All Abdalla could think about was the pressure of her breasts against his back and her hips against his buttocks. It was easy to forget that he was pointing a gun at the head of a man pleading for his life. He only remembered when Ajmaani squeezed his finger and the gun roared.

In that moment, everything came back into focus. A neat dark hole appeared in Raouf's forehead at the same time blood and gore blew out the back of his skull.

Abdalla remained frozen in place, his arm extended, pointing the gun as a wisp of smoke escaped the barrel. Patting him on the shoulder, Ajmaani gently removed the weapon. She held the gun aloft and pointed her other hand at him.

"Behold, Suleiman Abdalla, a true warrior of Islam!" she shouted. "Without hesitation, he strikes down the Enemies of God. He has killed a man who would have failed you and prevented you from fulfilling your sworn duty to Allah! Blessing of Allah to Suleiman."

As he looked into the smiling eyes of the woman, Suleiman Abdalla believed that he had reached the defining moment of his life. He was no longer Justin Rhodes with a skin disease; he was Suleiman Abdalla, a warrior of God, and the new favorite of the beautiful Ajmaani.

As promised, Ajmaani began teaching them to use weapons—assault rifles, handguns, grenades, and knives. After just a few weeks, she told them they'd become an elite fighting force capable of taking on and defeating any enemy.

During a visit to the camp, Imam Jabbar had congratulated them for becoming the vanguard of a militant American Islamic movement that would someday reach millions of young men in America's urban centers who'd been oppressed by whites and Jews for far too long. Inspired by the legend of the Al-Aqsa Mosque Brigade, they would rise, "an Army of Allah," and with their brothers-in-jihad overseas defeat the West's decadence and bring about a new era.

At inspirational night meetings, they swore on the Qur'an to die for each other and the glory of Allah.
And for Ajmaani,
Suleiman would add to himself.

So he was terribly disappointed when the brigade was divided into two groups, each with a separate mission, and he was assigned to the group that would be lead by The Sheik, not Ajmaani. When he complained, she rubbed his shoulder and said she understood, but he should look at it as a reward.

"Because you have been true," she said, "you have been given the greater honor of going on jihad with The Sheik." She'd looked around to make sure none of the others were in hearing range before confiding that of the two missions, his was the more important. "It may well be that the success of the entire plan may ultimately depend on you."

Abdalla blushed with pride but said he would still rather die with her. It was the closest he'd ever come to expressing feelings for a woman, and as soon as he said it he cringed, fearing that she would laugh.

However, Ajmaani smiled. "We will die together," she promised. "But in two different places. Now can you do that for me, Suleiman?"

He nodded his head and murmured
"Inshalhh,"
thinking that he sounded romantically fatalistic.