Escape (31 page)

The blonde woman sitting in the window booth of the Khartoum Restaurant across the street from the Al-Aqsa mosque ignored the dark looks she was getting from the mostly Muslim male patrons and staff. She was the only white person in the crowded cafe—famous for its
shorba,
a puree of lamb, served with warm
kisra
bread—as well as the only female not wearing a hajib.

In fact, she was dressed in tight, black leather pants, a form-fitting white T-shirt, a black leather coat and beret, and large, white-framed sunglasses, despite the early evening. She wore the outfit for three reasons: to deliver a slap in the face to the locals, whom she regarded with contempt; to drive her "date" crazy with lust later that night; and, as she'd explained to her black male companion, to disguise her identity from someone who had only seen her wearing loose-fitting robes and a head covering.

When they walked into the restaurant, the owner insisted to her accomplice, a homegrown jihadi named Ali Hazzan, that she leave. Hazzan had explained that she was a "special guest" of Imam Jabbar's and not to be trifled with. The owner glared at her for a moment, but then retreated to the kitchen. The patrons overheard the reference to the imam and did not express their displeasure either—the imam's inner circle of bodyguards played rough.

Nadya Malovo could not have cared less what they thought. Even her companion was beginning to irritate her. She certainly didn't need his protection—she could have killed him and several more like him without much trouble—but he knew his way around the city and its subways; otherwise she would have acted alone.

Hazzan and the others she had been training at the "Phase Two" site in Vermont called her "Ajmaani" and thought she was Chechen, fighting to establish an Islamic state in the former southern state of the Soviet Union. They'd heard about the Beslan school massacre that she'd helped to engineer, and they'd seen enough of her violent personality on a firsthand basis to be scared to death of her.

Malovo was actually a former KGB agent, recruited as a teenager off the streets of Moscow and trained as an assassin, and she'd first plied her trade in Afghanistan during and after the Soviet invasion. When the USSR crumbled, she'd gone into private practice, working for a coalition of crooked politicians, mob bosses, and corrupt military men.

Her orders in Chechnya and other former satellite states on the southern border were to carry out "Islamic terrorist" actions to discredit legitimate nationalist movements by Muslims. By publicly aligning herself with the nationalists, who didn't want her help, she gave the Russians a reason to send in troops to quash the "Islamic extremists." Of course, Russia's real purpose was to keep the area's oil resources, as well as unfettered access to warm-water ports on the Black Sea. The true Islamic extremists, mostly foreigners fighting to establish Islamic fundamentalist states ruled by religious law, didn't know her true purpose and welcomed her as one of their own. And as it turned out, her employers saw the value of allying themselves with the group represented by Dean Newbury.

Without saying anything to Hazzan, Malovo got up from the table. Across the street, the woman she'd been waiting for left the Al-Aqsa mosque and began walking west on 124th. She hesitated by the door, as Hazzan paid the bill, to allow the young woman to get far enough ahead, and then left the restaurant and began to follow.

Although the day had been warm, there was a bite to the air now that the sun had gone down, leaving the city bathed in a Soft blue-gray light.

Miriam Khalifa looked up at the sky, hoping to see above the surrounding buildings her first glimpse of the new crescent moon signaling the start of Ramadan. The exact time of its appearance had been the subject of much spirited debate at the mosque—some relied on the Hayden observatory, while others eschewed "modem" means and preferred to try to work it out with the old Arabic formulas.

"Any night now," her father, Mahmoud Juma, would say with a laugh as he had every year of her life in the days before Ramadan. "We must be ready." A simple fisherman in their native Kenya, he was a devout Muslim and cherished this time of year as the most important to his faith.

Miriam pulled the edges of her lime-green hajib close around her face to ward off the chill and hurried along the sidewalk until she reached the corner of Frederick Douglass Boulevard, where she turned right and headed north. She was filled with trepidation.

The night before she'd been visited again by the spirit of Hazrat Fatemeh Masumeh, a Muslim saint. The Aalimah, or "learned lady," had been with her since her childhood in a tiny village on the shores of the Indian Ocean, usually in times of danger or uncertainty. She'd been appearing more often of late.

The first time she'd seen her had been when she was about nine years old and waiting on the beach for her father and brother to return from the sea in the family fishing boat. They were overdue, having been expected the day before. That in itself was not unusual; sometimes if the catch was particularly bountiful they would stay until the boat couldn't hold any more. But the other fishermen who had returned spoke of a sudden squall that had nearly swamped their boats, and she had a feeling that something was just not right.

"Please Aalimah, if it pleases Allah, bring my father and brother back," she prayed. "My mother is not well and my sisters and I are afraid."

A devout Muslim like her father, she loved hearing stories about the heroes of Islam. Of these, her favorite had always been Hazrat Fatemeh Masumeh, who had been related to the Prophet and was taught the Islamic sciences by the most important imams of her time. Miriam liked that in their male-dominated culture, her heroine was respected and revered for her intelligence, piety, and knowledge as well as her scholarship of the
Ahadith,
the traditions passed down directly from Allah's messenger, Muhammad. Masumeh was devout, kind, and gracious—said to have performed many miracles—some of which Miriam's father would describe in stories told by the family fire. She was loved by her people in her own time as well as by the millions of pilgrims who had visited her shrine in Qom, the city where she'd died as a martyr in a.d. 780.

Hazrat Fatemeh Masumeh was said to fulfill the rightful wishes of believers and heal incurable diseases. When nothing happened in response to Miriam's prayer—not a sail on the horizon—she was disappointed. She was as devout a little girl as there was in her entire village. She had not asked for riches, or anything for herself, only the safe return of her father and brother.

At that moment, she'd looked down the white sands of the beach and spied a dark figure walking toward her—a woman by her robes and scarves that fluttered in a breeze that had suddenly come from the ocean. She expected the woman, who was a stranger—and oddly, not African—to pass by, but instead she approached and spoke to her.

"Jambo,
Miriam," the woman had said in the traditional Swahili greeting. "Why do you wait?"

"I wait for my father and brother to return from the sea," Miriam said. "I am worried that a storm has taken them." She could not see much of the woman, but she appeared to be Arabian. Miriam knew even then that the Arabs were a people who had visited that coast for thousands of years, bringing trade and Islam. The woman had olive skin and light brown eyes, and it seemed to Miriam that she could smell rose petals in her presence.

"Why worry? If all things are in the hands of Allah, then we believers must accept that things will turn out as they are intended," the woman said.

"But if I pray to Allah, then He may answer my prayers and what is intended will be the return of my father and brother," Miriam replied.

The woman smiled with her eyes. "And that by definition is God, with whom all things are possible." As she spoke the woman turned to look out to sea and sniffed at the stiffening wind.

Miriam followed her gaze with her own eyes and out of the blinding sun a dark shape appeared on the horizon. "It sails oddly," she said excitedly as she stood and shaded her eyes with a hand. "But it is my father's boat." With tears in her eyes, she turned to the woman. "Are you Hazrat Fatemeh Masumeh?"

The woman caressed her face. "I am who you need me to be," she said. "And I will be with you when you need me."

Miriam ran forward as her father brought his boat onto the beach, where her brother jumped off to secure it with a rope. "I am so glad you are home," she said. "I would like you to meet my friend, Hazrat Fatemeh Masumeh." Her brother had looked at her with surprise and then burst out laughing. "What are you talking about, little nut?" he teased. "Have you been sitting in the sun too long?"

Miriam whirled around expecting to see the woman, but the beach was empty. "But she was here," she insisted. "I prayed to Allah that you would come home safely, and Aalimah granted my wish."

Her brother started to tease Miriam more, but her father had stopped him. "It is not important whether Aalimah was here in body," he said. "What is important is that you believed that with God all things are possible, and if you are devout and ask, your wish may be granted. Tonight, this family will say an extra prayer of thanks for Hazrat Fatemeh Masumeh, may Allah bless her and give her peace."

Miriam had never loved her father more than she did at that moment. But neither had she ever loved him less since. His faith was the Islam she knew—full of wonder at the greatness and compassion of God. Through His Prophet, He had given mankind rules so that they could live in peace with one another while worshiping God, not out of fear, but out of praise for all He had created for them. A God of the family hearth. A God who brought fish to the nets of her father. A God who would give them a place in Paradise someday, if they just followed the teachings of the Prophet.

As it turned out, the squall had snapped off the mast of her father's boat and hurled it away. Adrift, surrounded by sharks, they were sure to die in the blazing sun when their water ran out unless discovered by another fishing boat, but that would have taken a miracle on so great an ocean. And yet, even at their bleakest hour, there was no fear.

"We placed our lives in the hands of Allah, the merciful, and were content to die if it was His will," her father recalled. But that morning a breeze had started blowing from the east—a good thing—but with no way to take advantage of it, they could not hope to be blown to the shore. Then Miriam's brother had spotted something in the water.

"It was our mast with the sail still attached," her brother explained. "A miracle."

They'd retrieved the mast and rigged it the best they could. Progress had been slow, but the wind remained steady and blew them home.

At bedtime that night her father sat with her until her eyes grew heavy, and then bent over to kiss her on her forehead. "Thank you for your prayers, little Miriam," he whispered. "I believe they saved us."

After that, Hazrat Fatemeh Masumeh had appeared to Miriam often. One day she had showed up in time to push her away from the strike of a giant cobra. She did not answer all of the girl's prayers, such as those she'd repeated over and over while her mother and one of her sisters lay dying of malaria. However, the saint had stood by her side as she grieved at their gravesides and assured her that they would wait for her in Paradise.

In 1998, the Juma family traveled to Nairobi, where they hoped to get work visas that would allow them to emigrate to the United States. Following the death of his wife, Mahmoud Juma had lost his heart for fishing and their life in the tiny village. But his son, Miriam's brother, had already immigrated and was working as a taxi driver in New York City. His letters back home had been filled with fabulous stories about his new home, as well as the money he was making and the dreams he had of starting his own fish market someday. He urged his father and sister to join him, and with nothing left for him on the shores of the Indian Ocean, Mahmoud had agreed to give it a try.

The sisters were delighted. They'd heard that women in America were treated more as equals than in Muslim Kenya, and that their opportunities were nearly limitless.

"I hear any woman can attend university and have a career," said her older sister, Ayaan.

"I don't believe it," the shocked Miriam had whispered as they slept on the floor at the home of a family friend that first night in Nairobi.

"It's true," Ayaan giggled. "And you can even pick the man you marry!"

"Papa would never allow it," fourteen-year-old Miriam scolded. "It wouldn't be proper for a Muslim woman."

"Maybe not," Ayaan, then fifteen, laughed before dropping her voice again. "But it would be more fun."

They rose the next morning before dawn to go to the U.S. Embassy, where they had to spend hours waiting in line. When their father was out of hearing range, they at first passed the time scandalizing each other with the things they would do in America. Nearly eight hours later, they had tired of that game and silently fanned themselves in the merciless sun.

Miriam was wishing she could have a drink of water when Hazrat Fatemeh Masumeh appeared behind her in line. There was real fear in the woman's eyes.

"You must leave here," she cried in Miriam's mind. "There is great evil afoot. Oh, the poor people..."

The thought of leaving after getting so close to the gate, now only fifty feet away, made Miriam want to weep. "But we've been standing here all day in the hot sun," she replied in her thoughts. "Can't we get our visas first?"

"No!" The Aalimah was more insistent than she had ever been. "You must take your father and sister and go away from here as fast as you can." Miriam thought about ignoring the spirit. But Hazrat Fatemeh Masumeh had never lied to her. "We have to leave," she said to her father and sister.

The others had looked at her incredulously. "Why should we go?" Ayaan demanded to know.

"I don't know why," she replied. "I just know that we must."

"But we will have to start over tomorrow," Ayaan complained. Mahmoud Juma, however, looked thoughtfully at his daughter and then asked, "Has she spoken to you?" He knew his daughter seemed to have a special relationship with the Aalimah, may Allah bless and keep her.