“In The Shadow Of Death”

by

Jamie Huston

“We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.”

Winston Churchill

It was like a joke, with a priest, a minister, and a rabbi, but instead of a bar it was the civic center’s conference room, and instead of a bartender it was four gun-wielding terrorists. Like most of those jokes, though, there was nothing funny about it.

An hour before, I had just been taking notes on this interfaith meeting of the city’s major religious leaders for my newspaper column. They had come together that morning to make plans for activities to promote unity and tolerance throughout the city. Such multi-denominational efforts are not uncommon in the age of terrorism.

The crown jewel of the meeting was the presence of local imam Mohammed Fayed, who had refused any statements to the media about alleged terrorist cells connected with his mosque, or the multiple acts of vandalism at the mosque since 9/11. I couldn’t tell which of those was the impetus for his agreeing to be at this meeting, and his reserved demeanor wasn’t helping me figure it out.

I had smiled when I’d read the press announcement, and had made sure that I’d been the one sent in to cover it. Pretty slick way to capitalize on heightened fears, I thought. Get some free press, pad the numbers in the congregations. The three men who’d organized the meeting and invited Fayed—Catholic priest Donald Hughes, Evangelical pastor Dennis Anderson, and Rabbi Isaac Horrowitz—had everything to gain and nothing to lose. Either they build a bridge toward the burgeoning but misunderstood Muslim community, or they allow Fayed to dig an even deeper grave for himself and his cause. Whatever happened, these three guys would come off looking pretty good.

Only fifteen minutes into the meeting, they strayed from their agenda when Pastor Dennis Anderson (“Pastor Dennis” to his flock), eagerly suggested that world events were putting them in a position to make serious progress in understanding each other. “In the 21st century, ignorance won’t be rude, it’ll be deadly,” he had said.

He then likened the group in the room to the social revolutionaries of history, like Mahatma Gandhi, and from there the discussion broke down into a freestyle brainstorm of role models, including Thoreau, MLK, Albert Schweitzer, and Mother Teresa.

The only story that was new to me was one that Rabbi Horrowitz brought up. “When the Roman Empire decided to decimate Judea, the last place of refuge to hold out, even after Jerusalem was destroyed, was the fort at Masada. When the Romans came with their siege towers and it was clear that there was no way they could win or escape, they took an oath together. If they were going to die anyway, they would make their last act a show of faithfulness to God and the ultimate show of resistance to the Romans. They would deprive the Empire of any new slaves. When the Romans broke through the walls, they found nearly a thousand Jewish men, women, and children, all dead by their own hands.”

Not only was that gruesome, I sure didn’t see what it had to do with building unity, but Pastor Anderson and Father Hughes both nodded solemnly, apparently agreeing with some moral of the story. I could almost see a stronger bond forming between the three of them. Fayed merely listened, then calmly spoke the name, “Fabrizio Quattrocchi.”

Interest perked and all eyes went to him as he paused before adding, “An Italian captured in Iraq in 2004, he was forced to wear a hood and dig his own grave. His captors put him on camera and ordered him to kneel down. Instead, he stood, pulled off his hood, and said, ‘I will show you how an Italian dies!’ They shot him in the back of the neck.” He sighed. “Al Jazeera refused to show the tape of his death.”

The awkward silence that followed meant that none of were sure how to interpret what had been said. I couldn’t remember where Fayed was from, but I thought it might be Iraq.

I thought it probable that this whole episode had been prepared for the media’s benefit. I could almost see them on the phone the week before, planning it. “We’ll make some grand plans to unite the town in a religious love-in and it’ll even sound spontaneous!”

But my page four “expose” criticizing the self-serving activities of organized religion quickly turned into this page one feature. Four thugs in flak jackets ran into the room, one holding a camcorder and a laptop, the other three yelling at us to freeze. One gunman made for the far exit and covered it. Another sprinted for the midpoint of the room, duct taping plastic panels over the vents. The third stayed in front of the door they’d come in through with the cameraman; the three gunmen forming the points of a wide triangle. When people jumped up, screaming, they found themselves with nowhere safe to go and were herded along the far wall of the room.

After the confusing cries of “Get down!” and “Shut up!” the one in front of the first door grabbed a cell phone out of his pocket and started talking. The one in the middle of the room, closest to the group of hostages, ordered all jackets and shoes off, and searched each of them while the one at the far door covered him. He smashed any cell phones he found. Other than that, the men didn’t address us at all yet. The room darkened and I turned to find the two large windows already covered with plastic sheeting and similarly duct taped.

Five minutes after the siege had begun, the four men at the table, the two press representatives (myself and Carl Piven from the Post), and the two civic center employees in attendance each had one of two kinds of reactions. We four non-spiritual types were dumbfounded with shock, except for the obvious shivering of Nancy Whitehall, the seventeen-year-old daughter of City Councilman Eric Whitehall. Nancy was spending the summer as a hostess to events at the civic center, a cushy job courtesy of her father. The other kid, an intern no more than sixteen years old, whose name tag identified him as Aswan from Egypt, looked like he might throw up. Carl and I were trying to settle our nerves and do our job.

The four clerics at the table looked different. All four still had their eyes closed and heads bowed in prayer. It didn’t seem to me to be a very good strategy to keep your eyes shut just then, but I admit I had to envy them their serenity even in moments of panic. Unless that was all for show, too. Fayed also prayed, and compared to him the other three men at the table looked tense.

Our captor had mostly ignored us since entering, checking the secured areas and talking on a cell phone. Finally the man in charge turned and faced us. He was the oldest, but not because he was graying. Far from it. He was the only one with any decent facial hair at all. The other two gunmen were probably in their early twenties. The youngest accomplice, the one with the camera, sported the fuzzy burgeoning patches of weedy chin hairs that placed him around the same age as the Egyptian intern who was trying not to wet himself.

“My name is Ahmad,” the leader said. I’d always imagined that terrorist kidnappers would begin the process by appearing friendly, to calm the nervous hostages. This guy stormed up and threw his speeches at us, each word hacked at with razors to give them jagged edges. If his voice didn’t make his feelings clear, the twisted look of sour hatred on his face did it. Even now, I don’t think he found an ounce of pleasure in what he did. If so, he was a masochist.

“Even after our beloved brethren struck you, you have refused to accept the truth, that you are wicked and that your false gods have rendered you too weak to even defend yourselves.” At this he turned his attention to the kid with the camera plugged into a laptop.

“This camera is linked to an Internet site that is broadcasting live. We have already sent links to your media so that tonight they can show your countrymen how you squeal and cry when faced with the power of Islam.”

We hadn’t even had time to process this when Ahmad told one of his kid thugs to bring Pastor Anderson to him. Nancy shrieked when Anderson was grabbed from next to her and drug before Ahmad, then shoved back onto the floor. Anderson stayed still for a moment, then slowly rose to his hands and knees and looked up at Ahmad. Ahmad already had a gun pointed between Anderson’s eyes.

“Do you really think your money can save you now?” It was shouted like the rest and sounded rhetorical, but a moment later Ahmad barked, “Answer!” Anderson flinched a bit, then seemed to draw upon some deep reserve. He met Ahmad’s eyes again and said simply, “God’s will be done.”

Ahmad pulled back the hammer on the gun. “Do you know that you deserve to die?” Anderson swallowed hard.

“Nobody deserves to live, but I will fear no evil. I forgive you.”

Ahmad’s face showed angry surprise. He had expected denial, not forgiveness. Anderson’s choice of words put Ahmad in a corner: killing him now would make a martyr, not set an example for a degenerate enemy. It seemed Ahmad would have to revise his strategy, so I was still startled when Ahmad shot Pastor Anderson anyway.

As soon as I could think again, though, I realized that Anderson had gotten his wish to be a role model for others to rally around. Then I wondered if anybody ever really would follow an example like that. Then I just wished I had taken better notes on his enthusiastic comments when the meeting had begun.

*****

The eleven people in the room all kept to themselves for a few minutes, with a few exceptions. Nancy was soon calmed down to quietly sobbing and Father Hughes, true to the metaphor of his title, had pulled her into his arms and was cradling her like a much younger child. The other intern, Aswan, had gravitated to the other Middle Eastern-looking hostage, Fayed, who was wearing the most stoic poker face I’d ever seen. The two did not speak or touch, but now I wondered if Fayed had come from Egypt, not Iraq. And what about the four terrorists?

With no transition, Ahmad spoke up again, “Now you see your folly. God will not save the corrupt leaders of a corrupt people.” Nancy’s face pulled tight in a new burst of thorny tears. All I remember thinking was that if Ahmad wanted to hurt the most Americans possible, he’d strike someone more symbolically powerful, or something that better represented American decadence. Why four small-time religious leaders? Carl and I looked at each other, but what was there to try to communicate? Sitting with us along the wall, Rabbi Horrowitz had something to say.

“Please don’t insult our intelligence,” he said. “You’re from al-Qaida like I’m from Notre Dame. Maybe you have a group and maybe you don’t, but you’re not professionals. You’re looking for attention. You’re trying to impress your misguided heroes and now you’re in over your heads. You’ve even had to recruit children to do your dirty work.”

Ahmad came around the table with a lithe speed that belied his size, every pore of his body screaming brutal pain at everything. He looked like he might just run into Horrowitz but stopped when he raised the gun to his head.

“Yes,” Ahmad hissed. “That’s exactly what this is. You see, this does prove that anybody fighting the infidels is given power in the fight. ‘Terrorism,’ as you call it, can happen anywhere, anytime, and can come from absolutely anybody. None of you are ever safe.

“We’ll make sure none of you Americans forget this lesson again, by torturing every one of you here for the world to see. Let them all see with their own eyes the true nature of the American, not the guns or the movies, but the whimpering begging of the helpless coward. Even the leaders of your infidel religions will quiver and beg for forgiveness before they die.”

All of this had been spoken directly to Horrowitz, the gun slowly coming down as Ahmad got into his speech, but it struck a chord in all of us. “Why would you say…” I stammered, “The only thing you’re trying to prove is that we’re afraid? What’s the point in that? What’s the rest of the plan?”

“That is their plan,” Horrowitz said, looking at Ahmad only two feet away. “It’s not enough to show off their strength, they want to humiliate us. They want every network in the world showing this tonight. If Americans see their own falling apart under threats and violence, all the while being so openly manipulated, it will strike a nerve.”

“Right,” I said, “It’ll outrage us. We’ll come together and fight back.”

“What, you mean like after September 11th?” Ahmad asked, the high-pitched sarcasm mocking us.

Horrowitz continued, “No, they don’t expect us to change much, or effectively. He expects us to shrivel up and hide, or deny what’s happening, or explode in incriminating bigotry, or some such embarrassing, useless reaction. They’re banking on us being traumatized, totally demoralized, like we were after the Kennedy assassination. Only now he’s trying to tell us we’re so far gone that there doesn’t even need to be a conspiracy. Our enemies can walk around in broad daylight and be safe from us.”

I thought I could derail that plan. I never was any good at being an optimist. “But it can’t work now, now that their plan is out there. People watching will know all about it. They’ll choose to react differently.” I expected every face to vindicate me, but they all fell even further. I still didn’t understand, but Horrowitz explained the flaw in my thinking.

“They know that, too” he said, indicating the terrorists. He stared at the table and spoke slowly, as if he were only figuring this all out as he spoke. “Their point is that Americans are so weak that even being told to their faces like this that they have to resist or die won’t spur them on to any real action. Americans are supposed to see this and knowing full well what’s at stake, do nothing about it. He’s betting that we’ll prove his point for the world about just how cowardly Americans are and that Americans seeing this will be crippled with shame and fear about it. It’s a surgical strike to morale.”

Now he looked up at Ahmad again, a tear visible on his face. “And this whole conversation, everything we’ve just said, was all part of his plan, too.” There was no mistaking the new heavy feeling in the room, and I knew that I had been wrong in my thoughts before. This was the perfect plan. And the red eye of the camera had followed every word.

Ahmad paraded to the other side of the table again, practically a victory lap. “Yes, you see, I can admit what my method and motives are, and you will all still do exactly what I want you to.”

A steely edge lined Father Hughes’ voice as he spoke up for the first time. “You’re wrong. Your understanding of men and God is one-dimensional if you think that. We always have a choice. We can choose not to cooperate and break the mold for others. We can choose not to be afraid.”

This remark unnerved Ahmad, who grabbed Horrowitz by the collar and said, pointing his gun at Hughes, “First the Jew, then you.” He pulled Horrowitz out of his chair and drug him into the far corner of the room, dropping him on top of Pastor Anderson’s body and pointing the gun at him. He motioned for the boy with the camera to come over.

Ahmad pinned Horrowitz with the nose of his gun, and looked into the camera as he recited some brief bit of rehearsed propaganda that I won’t dignify here, pausing twice to gesture at Horrowitz and once to motion to the rest of us. Then he turned decisively to Horrowitz and clicked back the hammer, announcing, “Now this Jew will die.”

Horrowitz quickly protested, “No, don’t shoot me.” Ahmad did pause, the slightest trace of a sneer visible on his lips. This was clearly the disgraceful pleading for one’s life that he wanted on film.

“Cut off my head.” Horrowitz said it simply, without any of the dramatics that Ahmad used, which made it even more surreal. At first I wondered if I’d heard him right.

Ahmad was frozen. He hadn’t planned that a hostage would plead for a slower, more painful death. While he appeared to consider his next move, the rabbi spoke up again, “The young man standing by the door has a machete strapped to his belt. Use it.” He seemed to want to say more, but didn’t.

Ahmad suddenly broke his indecision and rushed over to the other side of the room to snatch the knife from the other man’s belt, taking his gun off Horrowitz, who didn’t move. Ahmad stormed back over to him and swung the knife at his throat, stopping just short. “Is this what you want? If it is, say so again, and I will send your every scream, each last drop of blood, out for the entire world to see.”

“I will fear no evil.” The unspoken volumes of the rabbi’s choice were not lost on me, as I hope they’re not on you. Again, Ahmad had gone from being a holy warrior to an impotent pawn.

Ahmad stared holes through Horrowitz’s head, then seemed about to drive the knife through his throat all at once. He closed his eyes for a moment, then shoved Horrowitz to the floor and pinned him down with his knee.

He didn’t have to. Horrowitz never tried to resist. Somehow, he never even made a sound.

*****

“What the rabbi did, it was like what Saint Peter did,” Carl whispered to me a while later. Ahmad paced the far end of the room, avoiding all eyes except Fayed’s, while his young accomplices kept their weapons trained on us. Fayed looked disappointed and angry; Ahmad turned away from the reproving glares. Apparently, Ahmad wasn’t pleased with the victims’ speeches. But when nothing much changed for nearly a half hour, even the gunmen started getting restless.

“When Peter was condemned to crucifixion, he asked to be crucified upside down because he said he wasn’t worthy to die the same way Jesus did. I wonder if the rabbi knew that story.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” I said to Carl. It seemed to comfort him.

We weren’t so relaxed though that we didn’t all go through the roof when a megaphone outside addressed us. It’s amazing that nobody pulled a trigger.

“This is the chief negotiator for the police department. Until we know more, we are considering this a hostage situation. If you have access to a cell phone, call us at this number.” The booming voice gave the number, and Ahmad pulled a phone out of an inner pocket and dialed. Hardly a moment passed before he was saying, “Yes, there is a hostage dead. In fact, there are two hostages dead. You cannot help them, but you can help the six that remain.”

Ahmad listened for a long time. I couldn’t imagine what the police were saying that could take so long. Finally, Ahmad made a strange declaration. It sounded like he’d been waiting to say this.

“I make no promises but this one. Whether or not any more hostages die, a great victory will be won this day for the forces of the righteous. You will be reminded that you are never safe in your idols, that the wrath of Allah can strike you in your sleep, even the deep sleep of your own slothful wickedness. You will learn.”

I don’t know which was worse, the threat or the juvenile purple prose. If Ahmad’s accent hadn’t testified that English was not his first language, his melodramatic posturing did the trick. I wondered if he’d even written the statement. I felt sorry for the police who had to leave their channel open while Ahmad ranted.

But when Ahmad snapped off the phone, he strutted with such purpose that we all felt that something important was happening again. The next phase of his plan was in action.

There’s no horror so inhuman that it can’t be worse. No matter how numb the brain becomes to trauma, it’s always possible for something to blindside you and rattle you even deeper than you had been. That’s the worst part of shock. There’s no absolute zero.

I thought I’d seen the major tragedy of my lifetime when Pastor Anderson had been executed. But that was nothing compared to the inexpressible horror of Rabbi

Horrowitz’s torturous death. I thought my nerves had shut down after that, that all hope was gone. When I realized that both of those murders had only been leading up to this third brutality, the most monstrous thing I’d ever heard of, I felt every scar I’d ever had open up again and hurt worse than at first. Ahmad wasn’t going to be satisfied with killing clergymen and daring us not to break down. He had a more poignant target in mind.

Ahmad grabbed Aswan and Nancy each by the neck and dragged them over to Father Hughes, who had been pulled upright by the arms and brought to the head of the table by one of the gunmen.

“Choose, Father, which child lives and which child dies. If you do not choose in the next ten seconds, the blood of both shall be spilled, and shall fall on your hands.” Instantly, there was more adrenaline in the room than oxygen.

Even in our shock at the demand, I’m sure everybody saw the impossibility of the situation. If Father Hughes chose the white city councilman’s child to live, it would stir up massive resentment about the racial preference. If he chose the Egyptian child, people would assume he’d been trying to placate the terrorists and he’d be branded a coward. Either way, he would be choosing which child would be slaughtered like an animal. He’d have to say it with the children looking up at him, pleading with their eyes. He’d have to watch the insane terror of the condemned child in the last few moments of this life as he or she wondered why he’d chosen them to die. Would Hughes look at the children?

Aswan’s face was turned not to Hughes but to Fayed , his eyes pleading through thick tears. Fayed was showing the first cracks in his cool exterior, eyes darting to Hughes, Aswan, and Ahmad. Did using an Arab kid as bait go against what Fayed knew about what was going on here? He clearly wanted to intervene somehow, but didn’t know what to do. I thought it was pathetic that he appeared so willing to sacrifice Nancy just to save the kid who was ethnically closer to him. I thought I understood Fayed’s story about the Italian.

But as Fayed struggled with inner turmoil, Hughes acted. We were almost stunned out of our shock when he answered the demand in only four seconds, his voice solid granite.

*****

What happened next has spurred outrage across the world, and a pretty one-sided debate. I think that I do have a better perspective because I was there. Maybe we were getting caught up in the rhetoric of the ideas and examples we’d already seen. Maybe Hughes really was suffering from some brief insanity. I don’t know. If so, it was contagious.

Aswan’s father forgave Father Hughes, to his immense credit. Councilman Whitehall did not. In fact, he has filed a lawsuit against Hughes on Nancy’s behalf. For what it’s worth, I hope it gets thrown out of court. Hearing on the news about what Father Hughes did is no substitute for seeing him make a stand in person.

*****

“Kill both of them,” he said.

Ahmad hesitated as he tried to figure out the trick. “What did you say?” he asked with as much authority as he could muster without practice.

“Kill them both. Now. Do it.”

All matter and energy merged into ten kinds of tension. As the standoff drew on towards a minute, my analytic instinct kicked in and I suddenly understood what Hughes was doing. He was following the examples of his friends, the pastor and the rabbi, and those of all his heroes. His whole life had trained him to handle this moment.

Ahmad had clearly been disappointed with the result of his confrontation with Horrowitz; Hughes was using that against him in the form of reverse psychology now.  For the third time, the aggressor’s illusion of control had been stripped away by a victim who would not cooperate.

Ahmad clearly would have no reservation about killing them, but not if it was leading him into another trap. “Why?” he asked.

“Because I will not help you spread fear. I follow God, and His way is to suffer patiently and resist evil. Doesn’t the Qur’an say, ‘The life of this world is but a sport and a pastime. Surely better is the life to come for those that fear God?’”

As he finished his quote, Hughes had slowly approached Ahmad and then snapped out his hands to grab the gun. He bent Ahmad’s wrist back and slid the gun into his own palm, while using the leverage he had on Ahmad’s arms to pivot his body around and use him as a shield from the other guns. Hughes held the gun up to Ahmad’s throat. Interviewing him after the fact, I learned that Hughes had been in the Marines before entering the priesthood.

“What will you do now, priest? Kill me? I hope you do. Allah is great and will…” but the sentence was cut off by Hughes’ action. He shoved Ahmad away from him, up against the table. When Ahmad turned, the gun was still trained on him,

but Hughes walked over and set the gun down next to Ahmad. Then he walked back to the wall and sat on the floor. He calmly looked up at Ahmad and said, “The power to give and take life is God’s, not ours.”

The silence this time was not one of terror but nervous apprehension. But I felt something else, too. The crisis with the children apparently having been diverted by this wild distraction, my fear that all hope was lost felt wrong now.

Mohammed Fayed spoke for the first time since the siege had begun. “It’s over, Ahmad. You have damaged our faith enough for today. Give up.” That was all the evidence I needed.

“You’re in on it with him! That’s how he knew we’d all be here!” I almost shouted what I’d been suspecting since his nonplused reaction to the first murder.

Fayed slowly turned to me. “No,” he said patiently, with weary offense at my suspicion, but reluctant understanding as well. “I did not know anything about this cowardly attack, but I think I know how they came to be here.” His eyes flicked to Aswan’s face as he said this. The boy had been trembling since Ahmad had grabbed him, his countenance a mixture of fear and confusion. Fayed’s face now exuded compassion. I was surprised with how natural it looked on him.

Aswan broke down and came over to Fayed, throwing his arms around him.

“I’m sorry, Father. I’m so sorry,” he said between choking sobs. “I didn’t think he’d really do it. He said nobody would get hurt. I…” The boy’s face was red and puffy

and his softening cries were the only sound in the room. Understanding and compassion dawned on many more faces now. Fayed simply patted the boy’s back and whispered, “It’s all right. You didn’t know what you were doing. We’ll be fine.” After a minute, Fayed stood up and addressed the room.

“I came here today only to denounce the extremist violence and explain our true nature, but I have learned much from my friends in God today. But you, Ahmad, you

never will learn the lesson that you just sent out to the world.” Still, the camera followed each voice.

“What lesson is that?” Ahmad asked, bitterness strangling each syllable.

“You think your suicidal devotion to God makes you invincible. But you have dismissed your enemies and forgotten that there is no monopoly on devotion. You can’t beat an army that’s willing to make any sacrifice.”

Ahmad’s face twisted up even more than it had been, looking like he’d chewed a dozen lemons. “You’re worse than the other unbelievers. Our Holy Qur’an says, ’Make war on them until idolatry shall cease and God’s religion shall reign supreme.’”

“Your war is narrow-minded, Ahmad. We are told that ‘we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.’”

Ahmad looked genuinely confused. “What surah is that from?”

“It’s from the Bible.” Ahmad’s face contorted in disgust. “But if you prefer something closer to home, the Qur’an does say, ‘Believers, Jews, Christians—whoever believes in God and does what is right—shall have nothing to fear or to regret.’”

Ahmad was silent for far too long to maintain any dignity in the face of Fayed’s argument, and when he dramatically grabbed his cell phone, the gunmen’s attention all turned to their leader as he began barking disjointedly at the police.

Fayed didn’t seem to know what to do next, but Ahmad was so absorbed in lying to the police about his control that he didn’t notice Father Hughes approach Fayed. Fayed was a little startled when Hughes spoke, and I realized it was the first time there had been any direct communication between Fayed and any of the three other men involved in the meeting. It’s too bad that Anderson and Horrowitz weren’t there for it. The teenage cameraman noticed the activity and turned the camera from Ahmad to Hughes and Fayed.

“You quoted Ephesians. Have you really read the Bible?” Father Hughes asked timidly.

Fayed said, “You quoted the Qur’an. How much of it have you read?”

Hughes seemed embarrassed by the question. “All of it once and some parts a few times. ‘Don’t barter away your faith for unbelief.’ I like that… Sadly, we never made it to that part of our agenda for the meeting.”

Fayed smiled back and nodded. “I’ve read most of the Bible. Paul is especially intriguing, but he’s got nothing on Isaiah.”

Hughes chuckled a little, then hesitated before speaking again. “Aswan is your son. My choice could have killed him. You didn’t say anything.” I listened intently, wondering about this myself. He was quiet so long, I didn’t think he would say anything. Then, without quite looking at Hughes, he said, “The rabbi’s story reminded me of Abraham and his son.”

Hughes agreed, “Me, too.” A slow smile spread across his lips and he stuck out his hand. “Father Donald Hughes, Catholic.”

Fayed easily took the hand. “Muhammad Fayed, Muslim.”

Their eyes and hands held for a moment, and I wondered what they were thinking. Then Fayed looked right at me. Then he looked at the gunman closest to him.

Fayed stepped to the side, out of the gun’s line of fire, and looked over to me and Carl again. The kid with the trigger stayed riveted on Ahmad. Fayed snapped his eyes towards the guard between Carl and me with his back to the wall. It didn’t take a genius.

Carl tapped the young man on the shoulder before I could, so when the guard turned it fell to me to bring both fists down on his head. The gunman fired and hit Carl in the shoulder as he went down. Everybody turned to us and I could almost hear the shouting outside over Ahmad’s phone. The second gunman trained his gun on me and also had time to shoot before Father Hughes grabbed his arms and Fayed punched him twice in the face. That gunman also went down, but not before I’d been shot in the side. Three other shots went wild.

Just as the second gunman was falling to the floor, Ahmad shot at Father Hughes but missed. Fayed took a step towards him, but stopped when Ahmad’s gun targeted his heart. Nobody said anything. He looked about to fire when Fayed saw the live cell phone, which had been dropped on the table. He stepped toward it.

Ahmad was too shocked, too confused to do anything, when Fayed leaned near the phone that had fallen on the table and, adopting an accent like Ahmad’s, hissed, “Fool! You shot the last hostage! Hurry, now!” Fayed then looked Ahmad deep in the eyes and smiled.

Ahmad was more frantic now than anyone else had been so far. His eyes darted around between the unconscious bodies of his two accomplices on the floor and the bodies of the two hostages he’d killed. He looked to the cameraman, unable to put any command in that look, but it didn’t matter: the fight had clearly gone out of the boy behind the camera. He lowered it a bit and stared Ahmad down. “I will fear no evil,” he said.

I bet Ahmad’s ears focused first on the increasingly loud pounding of the approaching army of SWAT team boots, then his imagination added the cacophony of gun fire that might cut him down in a few moments. That fire would come from an enraged group that had just been led to believe that Ahmad had nothing left to lose.

But his eyes lingered longest on the camcorder his own man was holding. That live feed was supposed to be the jewel of the attack. It was supposed to showcase to the

world how weak Americans were, how easy it was to destroy their spirit, how much stronger his macho brand of religion was. No matter what happened in the next ten seconds, that broadcast to the Internet would survive and would give the world a far different message than the one he’d intended.

Ahmad turned his attention to the six surviving hostages. Seven people awake and alive, himself included. Standing in the middle of the total ruin of the plan he’d spent months devising, he knew that only one of those seven was worth shooting now.

THE END