She paused a second as if she were still trying to figure him out and then continued, “I read the Quran as far as Surah IV on women where it says ‘… marry such women as seem good to you, two and three and four.’ After reading that, I tossed the book in the dumpster behind Albertsons. I didn’t want Dad to find it in our trash. God made one perfect man as a match for each woman; for me that man was Zayd. If one Muslim man can have four wives then three men get left out. That can’t be God’s plan. It's like a troop of baboons where the alpha male gets all of the females. My relationship with Muhammad was close, but we’re just friends now. I don’t love him, and I don’t really understand him. He’s become quite fanatic and strange, even a little scary.”
“What did Zayd say about Muhammad? Were they friends?” I asked.
“Zayd called Muhammad very intense. They were not exactly friends. Zayd explained that some recent converts are even more devout and conservative than people who grow up in Islam. Muhammad was making great progress in Arabic, and Zayd thought he was very smart. He was memorizing the Quran and already learned the first fifteen sections perfectly.”
“Not exactly friends you said. Do you think there’s any chance that Muhammad had something to do with Zayd’s death?” Chad asked.
Ashley looked at Chad. She paused for a second before she replied. “I know that Zayd was very unhappy when Muhammad saw us leave the church one Sunday morning. He didn’t want any Muslims to know he was going to church with me, but I don’t think that would have anything to do with his death. I thought someone killed him to steal his truck.”
“The manner of death was unusual for a car-jacking. Zayd was taken ten miles from the nearest road and left to die of thirst,” Chad said.
“When he was trying to teach me about Islam, Muhammad had a favorite quotation from the Quran. He had me memorize that sentence, and he repeated it over and over in Arabic like a prayer. ‘And whoever disobeys Allah and His Apostle and goes beyond His limits, He will cause him to enter fire to abide in it, and he shall have an abasing chastisement.’ Muhammad thinks I’ll go to hell because I wouldn’t convert.” Her tone indicated that she thought just the opposite was the case. Chad and I looked at each other at the mention of fire. Muhammad jumped right to the top of my arsonist suspect list.
“I’ve taken a long break. My manager will be upset if there are customers waiting,” Ashley said.
“One more thing Ashley,” I said. “When we were at your house, you had an argument with your dad. A piece of cloth was tossed out of an upstairs window and landed on a bush behind the kitchen. Was that an abaya?”
Her eyes got wide and she said, “I’ve got to go. I don’t know anything about a black scarf. You must be mistaken.” She walked back toward the REI store without a backward glance.
I watched her walk away. That was the second time today that I’d been interviewing people who’d shut me off when they didn’t like my questions.
“You didn’t mention it was black,” Chad said.
“I think I know what Muhammad kept repeating in Arabic when he stopped answering our questions. The taskforce has always been convinced that someone was driving from Phoenix to set the fires because of the Saturday night timing, and Muhammad is spending the summer down there. We’ve focused our attention on members of the Muslim Student Association who are going to be juniors and seniors at NAU because the fires started last summer. Of course, even though he’ll be a sophomore, Muhammad was in Arizona last summer,” I said.
“And Ashley told us that Zayd thought that some recent converts are more radical than most men who are born to Islam,” Chad said.
“We’ll need someone assigned to follow Muhammad al-Mukhtar every Saturday night,” I replied.
CHAPTER 29
After our meeting with Ashley, we drove to the house near downtown rented by Hamad al-Subayyal and Ibrahim ibn-Mazin. When there was no answer at the front door, Chad walked back to the detached garage and pulled open the door.
“We don’t have a warrant,” I said in surprise. The single car garage revealed a silver BMW Z4 3.0L twin turbo. I assumed that Chad wanted to make certain that it didn’t contain one of the recently stolen vehicles or an ATV that pulled a trailer full of gasoline.
“That’s a nice little ride, over seventy thousand new. I just thought they might be back here working on a car or something,” he lied with a grin. “They must have gone somewhere in that Hummer.”
We walked around the property to see if there was anything suspicious, but there was nothing of note. An overgrown backyard looked like they never used it. There were not even any chairs for sitting outside to enjoy the summer evenings. The screened-in back porch was completely empty. In the side yard opposite the driveway was a metal storage shed with a padlock. It was large enough to hold an ATV and the trailer used to start the Happy Jack fire. Without a warrant, we risked blowing the whole case if we forced it open.
“I’m sure curious what they keep in here. They don’t seem to ever use a lawn mower. The shed looks new, maybe a year old,” Chad said.
“The FBI is putting Hamad and Ibrahim under surveillance. They can twist arms for a warrant much better than the Sheriff’s Department if they claim it’s connected to a terrorist cell. If we do anything, it might blow their whole case,” I said as Chad strained on the aluminum door to open it a crack and peer into the dark interior.
“I don’t see an ATV, but they might have already moved it,” he said.
“They could hide their fire starting rig almost anywhere. The arsonist is probably smart enough not to keep the evidence at home,” I said.
“My money is on these two Saudis as our Saturday Night Arsonists. How about you Mike?” he asked.
“Muhammad has my bet right now, but I would not count out these two yahoos,” I said. “Muhammad grew up here in Flagstaff and certainly knows his way around the forest. His dad said he returns to Flagstaff most weekends, and there’s something funny in his relationship with Ashley and Zayd. Something doesn’t add up between those three.”
“A love triangle maybe?” Chad said. “If Muhammad loved Ashley and she rejected him because of his conversion to Islam, he might be especially pissed if later she fell in love with Zayd, a Muslim.”
“Especially if Zayd was considering converting to Christianity to get her,” I said. “Muhammad concerns me mostly because of his single-minded embrace of religion: that would be true of any religion. Men who are certain that God is directing their actions can rationalize anything, no matter how evil it appears to the rest of us.”
“He’s a little lower on my list because the Happy Jack fire is close to his parents’ home in the Country Club neighborhood. Surely, he wouldn’t try and burn their house,” he said.
I wasn’t so certain, and the fire was about to push Ashley and her family from their home as well as my boss and several thousand other residents of the Country Club neighborhood. I had a hunch that the Happy Jack fire was actually set specifically to kill those rangers. One of them knew something or saw something. I just couldn’t figure out how to get to that information with all three of them dead. If one of the rangers had stopped Zayd’s truck with an ATV in the back, he or she could have identified the driver. Would there be a record of that information that survived the fire?
I decided to call Alexander Peeps at the State Crime Lab and see if he could help. I explained that I was looking for anything they might have found in the remains of the ranger station that would tell us who the rangers might have stopped and ticketed the day before their deaths.
“All of the paper records are unusable ash, and their computer was melted to a useless lump. We won’t recover any information from it. Hold on while I check it out.” There was a pause as Alexander went somewhere to retrieve the computer remains. “In the hole that was once the modem jack, there’s evidence of burned plastic and copper. I think it was hooked to the phone line when it burned. It’s possible they uploaded their data every evening to some cen
tral database. You might want to check on that.”
I called a friend who is the chief ranger for the Sedona district. She laughed when I asked about uploading data to a central database. “Mike, if the Happy Jack rangers had a computer, it must have been a personal one. The Forest Service is much too hard up to supply remote ranger stations with computers. There’s no such thing as a central database, just some room full of unread paper reports somewhere. Sorry,” she said.
Next, we headed to the house of Ahmed Khan. I wanted to ask the MSA president some more questions about Muhammad. No one answered the door. I thought I saw movement of a curtain, as if someone was looking out to see who was there. I suspected that Mrs. Khan would not open the door to two westerners if her husband were not home. The Khans’ car was parked in the driveway, but their location was a good one for walking to campus and nearby stores.
We drove to the Law Enforcement Building to learn the latest about the fire and the arson investigation. The complete absence of wind was a break for the firefighters, but the enormous cloud on the southern horizon looked even more repulsive as it rose straight up to 20,000 feet before it spread out in a hideous black mushroom.
“I spent four hours briefing the FBI this morning,” Major Ross said. His tone indicated that the wasted morning was probably my fault. “No one else on the taskforce really believes your terrorist theory, but the FBI sure bought into it. They want to hook Washington in by phone on our next meeting. That will probably double the time it takes to get through it. They haven’t said that they’re running the show yet, but I guess it’s just a matter of time before they take over.”
“I understand that the CIA supplied some evidence that Al Qaeda and the Islamic State planned arson attacks in the western forests. The FBI is watching a possible sleeper cell in Phoenix, but they haven’t connected them to the Saturday Night Arsonist. They’re considering the possibility of an NAU based group now,” I said, sharing the meager information that Linda Surrett had volunteered. “The Sheriff’s Department has a plan to keep track of some of the local Muslim students on Saturday.”
Major Ross grunted acknowledgement, and Chad asked for the latest on the fire. There is some good news and some bad news, he explained. The firefighters set backfires after the wind died late last night. The wildfire draws in currents of air from all directions to fuel its growth and that airflow causes the controlled burns set at the perimeter to move toward the main wildfire consuming its fuel. The back fires broadened the fire lines enough to inhibit the fire’s move towards Flagstaff. Last night’s success will postpone the need for further evacuations.
The bad news is that a series of blustery storms are moving toward the area from the south in a typical monsoon pattern. Strong winds and lightning are expected for each evening for the next four days. Winds over forty miles an hour could carry burning embers long distances. They might be strong enough to rekindle the fire past the fire lines, or lightning might start new fires outside the containment area. It would take substantial rain to really get things under control. The Happy Jack fire still poses a major risk to Flagstaff.
Chad and I briefed the sheriff on our activities. Sheriff Taylor ended our conversation by saying, “Remember Mike, I need some reports from you on Saturday.”
As we drove back to Ahmed Khan’s house, Chad commented, “The sheriff is going to be shocked when he sees the first name on your list.”
CHAPTER 30
I called Margaret and explained that we wanted to interview some students, and that I’d be late for dinner. It was about 5:30. I thought we’d have a good chance of catching Ahmed Khan at home, but his car wasn’t in the driveway. I decided to leave him a note asking that he call me at home. Chad waited in the Explorer while I walked up to the front door to tape my note to it. I could smell smoke as I got out of my truck, but that wasn’t unusual with the enormous fire burning just south of town.
As I approached the door, I could see a flickering red glow through the small window in the door. The smell of smoke grew stronger. It was not the campfire smell of burning ponderosa, but the acrid smell of burning synthetic fibers and drywall. The house was on fire. I shouted at Chad to call the fire department, and fearing that Mrs. Khan might be at home and overcome by smoke, I kicked open the door.
I have no recollection of what happened next. I came back to consciousness on the ground twenty feet in front of the house. I could feel Chad dragging me farther from the house, which was totally engulfed in flames with nearby trees now burning, threating to spread the fire to adjoining houses. I must have only been out for seconds, because the fire department hadn’t arrived yet.
“Jesus, Mike, I thought you were dead,” Chad said.
“What happened?” I said as he propped me up against the Explorer where I’d be out of the way of the arriving fire trucks.
“You opened the door, and a huge fireball tossed you through the air like a football. You don’t seem badly hurt, but lie still until the paramedics have a chance to look you over.”
“It was a dumb move on my part. When I opened the door, I gave the smoldering fire a new source of oxygen. I should have known better.”
“You look a little strange with no eyebrows, but I think you’re OK. I’m sure you were trying to help the Khans,” Chad said.
“It’s my ass that hurts; I must have landed on it,” I said.
The paramedics arrived and began to check on me while the Flagstaff Fire Department began setting up their hoses. There was no chance to save the Khans’ house, it was so fully engulfed, but they put out the fire in the tree, and then they concentrated on saving nearby structures. A crowd of neighbors had gathered, and I suggested to Chad, “Maybe some of the neighbors would know if either of the Khans was home or where they might have gone.”
“I’ll see what I can learn about Ahmed and his wife,” he said.
An attractive young woman paramedic was examining my rear end, and the fire chief was waiting to talk to me. The paramedic said, “I’ll bet that hurts, but nothing is broken. You should go to the Flagstaff Medical Center for an x-ray anyway. I’m sure you won’t enjoy sitting down for a week or so.”
That was an understatement, and I enjoyed the opportunity to get to my feet, pull up my pants and talk with the fire chief. I explained what happened. If there were bodies, they would be ash and bone by the time we got into the building. He mentioned that the detached garage was now fully engulfed and that the fire fighters had pulled out of the backyard to avoid the possibility of gasoline or other chemical explosions. There was no hope of saving either structure; their efforts had kept it from spreading, but it could still send embers to the dry trees and roofs of any nearby houses. The neighborhood was one of sixty-year-old homes on small lots with mature trees, a bad place for containing a house fire to a single building.
I watched the fire destroy the Khans’ house for fifteen minutes. Because their car was gone, I hoped they’d driven somewhere for dinner. Chad walked up as the roof was collapsing, releasing a huge ball of flame into the air above the normally quiet neighborhood. “One of the neighbors noticed a maroon Hummer parked in front of the house about 4:30, but no one was certain if the couple was home at the time of the fire,” Chad said.
“Maroon Hummers are too rare. It can’t be a coincidence; Hamad and Ibrahim were here not long before the fire started,” I said.
“There’s nothing we can do here until the fire is out. If there are bodies in there, we won’t find them tonight. Let me take you for the x-ray before I drive us back to Sedona,” Chad said.
Just as we started toward the Explorer, an enormous explosion ripped the garage apart. Flaming debris rained down, and we both sheltered behind my truck. It had been a smart move for the chief to remove his men from the backyard. The flying remains of the garage continued to fall for several seconds raining fire on the whole area. A one-foot diameter disk crashed onto the street beside us. The small tire continued to smolder with the foul smell of burning rubber.
“Is that what I think it is?” I asked.
“About the right size for an ATV,” Chad replied.
“That was a damn big explosion for a five gallon can of gas for his lawnmower,” I said.
“Maybe a fifty-five gallon drum of gasoline mounted on wheels,” Chad said.
A brief walk around the yard revealed the scattered remains of a Honda ATV and a trailer rig designed to hold a fifty-five gallon drum. Arson investigators for the Flagstaff Police were taking charge of the crime scene, and the fire chief asked Chad and me to leave the area until the fire was completely out.
I didn’t feel I needed an x-ray, but Chad wouldn’t take no for an answer. I had a wait at the emergency room, which I spent standing watching a TV news account of the Happy Jack fire. After a weird x-ray and a two-minute exam by the emergency room doctor, I was sent home for three days of bed rest. Nothing was broken, but I’d be very sore for a week. I’d landed on my ass, and it was literally black and blue.
Before we left the hospital, I went to the men’s room. I was shocked to see my face in the mirror. A nurse had cleaned me up before the doctor’s examination, and I had no serious facial damage. However, the unfamiliar visage in the mirror was blotched and red and had neither eyelashes nor eyebrows. Even stranger, the hair on the front of my head had burned in an odd pattern making me look like a punk rocker from the 1980’s. I decided to call for a haircut appointment for early tomorrow. My barber, Dennis, agreed to meet me at his shop in the Village of Oak Creek at 7:00, even though he did not normally work on Saturday. Maybe I’d go back to a haircut like I had in basic training in 1979. I wondered if I could get a haircut standing up.
When we left the emergency room, I insisted on going by to see Hamad and Ibrahim before we returned to Sedona. Chad drove, and I put the seatback all the way down so that my back and shoulders could take some of the weight off my rump. It was certainly going to be no fun to ride in cars for the next few days. I called Sheriff Taylor at home and told him of the fire at the Khan house and the ATV and trailer remains. He said he would call the Flagstaff Chief of Police and Major Ross of the State Police to make certain that the crime scene was carefully protected. He expected the State Police and FBI would take charge of the arson investigation. Sheriff Taylor said he would put out an APB for Ahmed Khan and his wife and for their vehicle.
The Arson at Happy Jack Page 14
