The 19th Hijacker Read online

  “Who wouldn’t be nervous in my situation?” she repeated.

  “Yes. That, of course, could explain it. Nevertheless, I must inform you that from now on, our conversations will take on a more formal tone. Henceforth, not only my summaries but a complete transcript will be prepared. These will be provided to the American authorities, as well as to our criminal division. You will be placed under oath. I advise you to take this a little more seriously, Fräulein. We are on the verge of bringing charges against the one surviving member of the Hamburg cell.”

  “Who is that?”

  “His name does not matter. He’s a foot soldier, not a principal.”

  “Am I a principal?”

  “At present, you are a witness.”

  “Not a suspect?”

  “Let’s just say you’re a person of high interest.”

  “What if I just didn’t take part in these interrogations?”

  He scowled. “I don’t think that’s in your interest. Uncooperative witnesses often become official suspects automatically and are treated accordingly.” He looked at her disapprovingly and added, “You will need to show more respect for our proceedings, Dr. Ilgun. If you are untruthful or deceptive, you will be subject to the full force of the criminal justice system. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, I understand.”

  “Of course, convicting a peripheral figure who may have lied once or twice or provided a little money here and there will scarcely satisfy the American people for the crime of 9/11. They are out for revenge. Such a conviction will provide no satisfaction for them, unless they’re able to have a few public hangings.”

  “Do they want to hang me?” she asked.

  Recht frowned.

  “For having the wrong boyfriend?” she pressed. “Is that what you want?”

  “We want to know what motivated these men,” Recht replied, “partly so we can protect ourselves from another attack. The masterminds of the American attacks are still at large—”

  “Who are they?” she interrupted.

  “Two of them in particular. One calls himself Muktar after some sort of Islamic revolutionary from the 1930s.”

  “Where is he now?” she asked.

  “We think he is in Pakistan.”

  “And the other?”

  “The other calls himself Omar. He took the name of the second caliph from the Prophet Muhammad’s time.”

  “And where is he now?”

  “Don’t you know?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  He paused, glancing at her sideways. “I said, don’t you know where he is?”

  “No, I don’t, Kommissar Recht.”

  He stared at her, appraisingly. Then he said, “Have you ever heard of them?”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  Recht glanced at the mirror and scribbled something on a pad before him. “We’re not sure, but we think Omar may still be in Germany. His next target could be German. First the US Capitol and then the Reichstag. It would be a logical progression. The bomb could be ticking right now. We need to know how they dealt with one another. We need to know who’s still working with the ones that are still out there. And we need to know it now.”

  “I would want to know that too,” she whispered.

  “I must tell you this bluntly, doctor. Because Haddad was a loner, because he maintained his intimate relationship with you—in violation of his orders from his al-Qaeda masters—”

  “How do you know that?” she snapped. “It is a reasonable surmise.”

  She said nothing.

  He waited … then he said, “As I was about to say, he could well have been our best chance to disrupt the entire plot … if you had come forward.”

  “Come forward about what?” she exploded. “I have told you over and over, I knew nothing about his secret life!”

  “Calm down, please. I am speaking in hypotheticals here.”

  “There is nothing hypothetical about this for me! You have no right to imply such things!”

  “Perhaps. Perhaps not,” he said flatly.

  “Samir Haddad used me! He deceived me! He lied to me repeatedly. I was involved in only one half of his double life. I knew nothing of what he was hiding. Why can’t you believe me?”

  “I have a job to do. Please try to collect yourself.”

  The kommissar got up, reached in his coat pocket, and drew out a blue pack of Gauloises. He stood at the window, his back to her, inhaling long draws on his foul cigarette, with its stinking Syrian tobacco. Karima fumbled through her purse for a perfumed tissue. She looked at her watch.

  When he turned back, he again leveled his gaze at her before speaking.

  “As I’ve said, I’d like to believe that you have done nothing wrong,” he said. “If I assume your total ignorance of the plot, we’re still on—how should I say?—a journey, a quest together. You are our best witness. We want to know why Haddad persisted with Atta and the others. He had a good relationship with his family and a very satisfying romantic relationship with you, it seems. But there was emptiness somewhere. Otherwise, he would not have been ripe for a religious awakening.”

  “I’m not sure he had a religious awakening.”

  “Really? … We will explore that later.”

  “Later? I’ve told you what I know. How much longer is this going to go on?”

  “I will decide that.”

  “Kommissioner Recht, you are a policeman. You have the authority to take me on any journey you want, as you put it. Anything I say … I’m just guessing.”

  “Guessing?”

  “Yes, guessing. You wish I had all the answers. And when I do not, you make me out to be a liar and an accomplice.”

  “That’s not true,” he said.

  “I will not be your scapegoat, Herr Kommissar. For you or the Americans or anyone else.”

  When she disappeared downstairs, the first kommissar emerged from the mirror room and confronted Recht in the hallway.

  “Recht, I did not see much progress in that interrogation. She’s uncooperative and defensive and hostile. And she’s a good actor. I think she’s in cahoots with Omar. Listen here, kommissar, and listen well: I must have that package!”

  That evening Karima came home exhausted. On the afternoon after her morning interview with Recht, she had a particularly trying extraction at the clinic. The patient had been querulous and rude, insulting her after the procedure. More than rude. The woman was sorry she had put herself in the hands of an amateur, she screamed, just to save a few pennies. “I wish I could cut your fingers off,” she hissed. Karima slunk away to find her supervisor and get her to mollify the woman. She resented the way the poorest and most difficult patients were palmed off on junior residents like her. The encounter had taken its toll. Perhaps she had not been at the top of her game that afternoon after her session with Recht. She had to ask her supervisor for a leave, but what could she give as a reason?

  At home that evening, she threw her purse on the living room table and then noticed something odd, an odor of some kind. She went to the kitchen. Had she forgotten to take out the garbage? The can was empty. She went to her closet to change into something more comfortable. When she pulled open the top drawer, the rows of socks were amiss. And then she realized what she smelled.

  Syrian tobacco.

  She reached for her phone to call Recht. Static crackled in her ear, and the receiver seemed to emit the vague smell of an electrical solder, like the smell her own solders made when she had fashioned the metal anchor in her implant procedures. Returning the receiver to its carriage, she turned the device over to spy an additional wire. Her eye followed it to its jack in the wall. She paused for a minute, her eyes darting around the room. And then she dialed him.

  “Are you deliberately trying to drive me crazy, Kommissar Recht?” she said in a trembling voice. “You can’t get Sami Haddad.
So, driving me insane is the next best thing. Is that what you’re trying to do?”

  There was a long pause on the other end. “We are only trying to protect you, Dr. Ilgun,” he said softly. Did he really think she wasn’t aware the police had searched her apartment—that his goons had pawed all over her things? She felt dirty and violated. His men had to back off, she shouted. She had to have more space to be alone in her own apartment, she said, without the police breathing down her neck.

  He listened without apology or admission. But he did say that her “protection” might be relaxed a little.

  “There is a difference between protection and spying,” she quipped.

  Kommissar Recht had not asked her directly and specifically if she was withholding any letters or tapes. How could he know she had such a thing—or was she imagining things? Only by sheer luck had she shifted Sami’s stuff to a new hiding place the morning before. She was no lawyer, but she had some notion about the punishment for withholding evidence. What if she were just to destroy the tapes? But they were all she had left of Sami.

  Sami’s farewell letter haunted her. She went back to it again and again. “You should be proud of me,” he had written. “This is an honor. You will see the results, and everybody will be happy.” Happy? Had he really, in his heart, believed that? He was dead. She and his family were tormented. The families of his forty victims in Shanksville were devastated. The families of thousands more were grieving. The world was in upheaval. Christianity and Islam were at war. What was he talking about? Who was this “everyone” who would be happy?

  June 6, 2001

  “A week after my last encounter with Atta, I heard from Omar. He had had a cancellation. He would see me in the library of the Steindamm mosque. But he had only forty minutes, his message said.

  “When we were together, he greeted me warmly. I thanked him for making the time in his busy schedule. We sat in the folding chairs, face-to-face. Omar pulled out two cell phones and put them on the adjacent chairs.

  “‘You never know,’ he said. ‘The bank might call.’

  “Again, his charm and intelligence were captivating, but I was determined not to sound too eager.

  “‘To the good Muslim, he began, the world is divided into three parts. There is the land of peace, where Islamic law is in force and where peace covenants exist with other Islamic lands. Then there is the gray area: lands where Muslims do not rule, but which have covenants with Muslim lands. And finally, there is the black hole: places that are not Islamic and have no covenants with the lands of peace.’

  “‘Like Israel?’ I said.

  “‘And America,’ he replied. ‘In this black hole, the rules of behavior prescribed by Islamic law do not apply.’

  “‘You mean anything goes there?’ I asked.

  “‘No, not necessarily. In relations with the black hole, a Muslim state cannot engage in hostilities without good cause.’

  “‘Without good cause?’

  “‘There are exceptions,’ he went on. ‘If the enemy violates the norms of war—’

  “‘Like what?’

  “‘Well, like a mutilation of bodies of fallen warriors. In such a case, those accused of such crimes must be turned over for justice. The other exception is when Muslims are driven out of their homes …’

  “‘Palestine.’

  “‘Yes. Your home, Sami. The home of the refugees. Where the Jews occupy the Noble Sanctuary. The believers are obligated to regain their homes and drive out the nonbelievers.’ His voice trembled when he said that.

  “My education had begun, Karima. Omar was patient with my questions. Not arrogant, like Atta. I had met the spiritual leader of the group. I was curious about the makeup of the study group now … who played what role. Finally, I got up the courage to ask about Atta.

  “‘He’s the decision maker,’ Omar replied. ‘We call him the Emir.’

  “I hooted. ‘Atta, the emir? Of a study group?’ I imagined the little cripple with a rusty crown on his head. ‘Why would a study group need an emir?’

  “Omar’s expression remained blank, inscrutable, suddenly menacing. It’s like he was waiting for my amusement to pass.

  “‘You have the wrong attitude,’ he said coldly. ‘You have a lot to learn.’

  “I was embarrassed and confused. I had caused an offense. We sat in silence for a long while.

  “‘I think the session is over,’ Omar announced.

  “‘Omar, I’m sorry. I’m new to all this. I know I have a lot to learn. Please excuse my immaturity.’

  “The frozen look on Omar’s face began to thaw.

  “‘I like you, Sami,’ he said finally. ‘You have potential. You might even become a valued member of our study group. But you’re in love with the pleasures of this life. Look at you, how well you are dressed. You’re vain about your clothes and your appearance.’

  “‘What’s wrong with looking nice?’

  “‘And we have found out a few things about you. Your girlfriend in Greifswald, for example. Your nights in bars and discotheques …’

  “Now I was getting angry. ‘So what? What’s wrong with that?’

  “‘Nothing,’ Omar said calmly. ‘Nothing at all.’

  “Again there was a long pause, as if he were waiting for me to say something else stupid or juvenile. Finally, he said, ‘You love the fact that you’re good-looking, don’t you?’

  ‘There’s always someone better-looking. My mother used to tell me that,’ I said.

  “‘How do you think you would look in a beard?’ he asked.

  “‘I really don’t know. I never thought about it before. It itches, right?’

  “Omar’s hand absentmindedly stroked his beard. ‘Not after a while,’ he said.

  “‘How long does it take to grow in?’

  “‘Two months.’

  “‘Doesn’t it come in unevenly? Patchy? I have an anniversary coming up.’

  “‘You think it might cover up your good looks?’

  “‘I don’t know. I wouldn’t want it to look, you know, scraggly like a hermit. I would have to ask my girlfriend what she thinks about it.’

  “‘She will probably find it scratchy … since she doesn’t wear a headscarf.’ What else did he know about you? I wondered.

  “‘Does your girlfriend like it?’ I asked.

  “‘I don’t have a girlfriend,’ Omar said. He looked sad.

  “I could probably introduce you to a few girls,’ I offered.

  “‘Actually, I’m looking for a wife. The Prophet said, “He is a poor man who has no wife, and she is a poor woman, who has no man.” Every weekend I travel away from Hamburg on a search.’

  “‘To the meat markets? Oh yes, I’ve heard about them.’

  “Omar screwed up his face. ‘So far, I haven’t found the right woman.’

  “‘I’m sure you will find someone. There are a lot of attractive women out there. Take it from me.’

  “‘I’m looking for something more than physical beauty.’

  “‘Yes, certainly. I agree entirely. What’s inside is important, too.’

  “Suddenly Omar seemed tired.

  “‘What do you really love in life, Sami Haddad?’ he asked with a sigh.

  “It was a fair question, Karima. I had never thought about it before. I’d always just gone along on paths that others had laid out for me.

  ‘I would love to fly airplanes,’ I said at last. ‘I’ve wanted to do that ever since I was a boy.’

  “‘Have you ever dreamed of doing something great in your life?’

  “Something great? The question flummoxed me. I’m a college student, I thought. I’m just trying to graduate and get a job—earn enough money, so I can marry a beautiful woman—have a family, and be able to support them. Do something great? What on earth was he talking about?

  “Omar changed the subject. �
��You know, I’m from Yemen, the land of frankincense. Omar is not my real name. I only took the name of the second caliph recently, when the emir decided that I had earned it.’

  “‘So, you are now the commander of the faith.’

  “‘Sub-commander perhaps, in a very small pond. But small ponds can be important too—it was so for the Prophet at first. We all have special names as warriors of God. Someday, you could have one too.