“I was captured and tortured,” she blurted out.
“When, after I left?”
She nodded her head. “They dragged me out of the pit, I thought you were dead.” She showed me the marks I had already seen and some that I had not noticed. She pointed to her feet. “Do you see those marks?”
I nodded.
“They used a power drill. They drilled all the way through both of my feet and hands. They started at the bottom and the drill came all the way through, until it popped out of the top.”
“Those sons of bitches!” I exclaimed. “What did they want?”
“They wanted the names of all of the people in town who had helped hide Saddam Hussein and they wanted to know where he was.”
“What did you tell them?”
“I didn’t know anything! I pleaded with them, but they wouldn’t believe me!”
“Do you see my face?” She stroked her cheeks.
Once again I nodded.
“They burned me with acid. What kind of person burns a person with acid? They said that unless I confessed they would burn away my face.”
“I sat shocked.”
“There was nothing I could say to satisfy them! I was just a little girl.” She remembered something and then started to cry.
“What is it?” I asked.
“There’s more.”
“It’s okay,” I answered reaching over and touching her hand.
She turned and looked directly at me, her eyes filled with tears and said, “They raped me,” she pointed to the marks on her ankles. “They tied me up and raped me again and again. I don’t know how many, but there were many of them and I don’t know how long it lasted, because they had me in a room with a dirt floor and no window. Sometimes they came inside of me and sometimes on my face or in my hair. They left me tied, waiting in terror for the door to open and for it to happen again.”
“Animals, fucking animals!” I exclaimed. “Who were they? Did you find out who they were?”
She looked at me incredulously, “It was the American soldiers! The same soldiers that killed my father and shot you!”
As you can imagine, I was devastated. There was no question in my mind that she was telling the truth. NSA taught me that the truth is much easier to detect than a lie and her story was consistent with her wounds.
She told me the rest of her story. The pieces of her puzzle made a graphic picture. They held her for at least 2 weeks. They tortured her with the acid and the power drill and rape until they were convinced that she had nothing more to give. And when they were through with her, they tossed her into the street like a worthless piece of garbage. She had no money, no place to go and she was sick. She lived for a month on the street ill and nauseous, and considered committing suicide. Finally she found a clinic and went to a doctor to find that the sickness was due to pregnancy, from one of the abusers, someone she would never know. She also had contracted genital herpes and tested positive for HIV, once again by someone she would never know. She had to find a “black market” doctor to abort the pregnancy. She treated the other diseases the best she could. Finally, she found her mother’s sister in Kirkuk who graciously took her in and nursed her back to health. She finished school, worked for an Iraqi bank and then watched in horror the invasion of Iraq by the new administration.
Because she was anxious to leave Iraq, her aunt gave her the name of a colleague of her father’s who lived in Washington, D.C. She wrote him a letter and begged for an internship which allowed her to come to the United States.
“When I found out that you were alive, my first stop had to be to see you. You are the only real family I have left.” She started once again to cry.
I slid over and hugged her for what seemed to be an hour. “You can always come to me,” I answered. “You are my real family, too.”
Chapter 13
Over the next several weeks, Islee and I rekindled our love for one another. I had her internship transferred to Johns Hopkins so that she could work with me. She was bright, energetic and willing to do anything. I made sure she received the proper medical attention and drugs for her HIV and she responded well. She gained weight and the color and beauty was once again back in her face. But our joy was only temporary, because our deep seated anger wouldn’t leave us alone. We turned into each other’s therapists, talking, crying, trying to understand what had happened to us.
I found it very easy to listen to Islee and together we discovered a radical new world. She was surprised at how sympathetic I was to the plight of the Iraqi people.
“Why wouldn’t I be?” I asked.
“Because it didn’t happen to you,” she said.
“Yes it did. You are forgetting that I was there with you in that pit.”
She stopped and looked at me with a hard stare, “I wish I had died there! I would have died happy and naive. I never would have known just how brutal people can be. Now I am dead even though I breathe.”
“Ditto,” I said giving her a hug. “But there must be a reason that we survived, something that we can do.”
“How can you overcome a government?” she asked. “We will always be victims because of our beliefs.”
“Last year I was approached by some people at the university who are organized. Somehow they learned that I had some roots in Iraq. We can talk to them.”
Islee listened but didn’t agree.
“It’s different here Islee. We have freedom of speech. They can’t arrest you for who you are or your beliefs. But please, don’t do this because of me. It has to be what you want.”
“How could I want anything anymore?” she answered.
Within a month we were attending meetings and were both working in a small group that was part of a larger group. The organization called Iraqi Hope was a non-profit organization that used its funding to support candidates who opposed the Iraqi conflict. The organization was layered like an onion and the more passionate people were drawn into the center. In the middle was a totally different motivation and in the span of six months we were planning an attack on the United States of America.
The leaders of our group knew that there would never be a way for the Iraqi people to fight back and win a war with the United States. Their answer was to attack America’s freedoms by crippling the American Government which would have a direct bearing on the US economy. This would force the United States to focus all its resources on rebuilding their own leadership and providing protection for their people. The idea was that once the American people understood just how vulnerable their way of life was, there could be a negotiated and lasting peace with the Middle East. The master plan was written in a thesis entitled, David and Goliath, how to kill the Mighty Philistine. The organization had several wealthy benefactors and allied itself with other organizations, which were all brilliantly insulated. There would be no way to ever know where the money was coming from or who was involved at the highest levels.
I studied the thesis and saw that it was pure genius. Certainly the only way to stop the United States from annihilating the Arab nations would be through a young boy taking a stone from the stream and hitting the mighty Philistine directly between the eyes.
.
The inner layer of our group consisted of 15 people, but only 2 were Iraqi. Our leaders were a business professor from George Mason University, named Keith Ray, and a computer consultant from Booze Allen, named Paul Abdul Mohammed. Each had their own motives, some for wealth, some for power, but most for revenge. Keith had married an Iraqi, who was suspected of complicity with terrorists and sent to Guantanamo without rights or an attorney. She was awaiting trial that probably would never come. Paul’s Palestinian family had been displaced by the Israelis and placed into an occupied territory where they were oppressed and abused by the Israeli occupation of their land. They were well on their way to planning an attack on the U.S. Government. The first step was to wake up the sleeping giant and make him stand on his feet and the second step was to place a smoo
th stone into the sling shot of a man who had the ability to kill the mighty giant. I soon found that the organization had experts in virtually every field. My advanced genetic skills quickly allowed me to be of assistance. I was able to provide implants that would scramble retinal scanners and disguise fingerprints so that our operatives had a clear path into and out of this country. In March 2010, the United States withdrew its forces from Iraq, but two years later a new offensive was begun in Iran. It was apparent that the war on terrorism was really a war on Islam and the United States would not be happy until every government in the Middle East was the same as ours.
So how did we destroy the Federal Building on Jeff Davis Highway? I would like to say that it was difficult, but it was embarrassingly simple. In modern America, security, compliance and audit have become the most powerful categories of public and government life. Most Americans only see the security sector, identifying it with the military through their uniforms, badges and guns. But unknown to most, the American government has made compliance reporting, safety engineering and the audit branch even more powerful. I’ll have to hand it to Homeland Security, with their border patrols and harassment techniques, it has become virtually impossible to infiltrate Homeland Security. But that is not the case with compliance and audit functions. They hold the same security clearances and have access to more places in an organization than the Homeland Security agents.
On March 15th 2012, four months before the event, a safety engineering company that employs five of our operatives, one a supervisor, all with top secret clearances, completed a routine procedure per the Government Safety Manual Section 29 Part 2. The manual called for the 10 year replacement of all of the 220 fire extinguishers in the building. The extinguishers were removed from the facility and sent back to the manufacturer to be recycled. The manufacturer was run by John Jamison. He replaced the extinguishers with brand new units, 110 filled with halon and ballast, and 110 filled with C-4 explosives and an atomic timer set for 12:30 p.m. July 15th. The ballast was to assure that each unit weighed exactly the same. Dave Stockton, one of our chemical engineers, was in charge of quality and testing of the units. Other than a cursory look at the contents, no one else examined the extinguishers and they came in through a supply door in the rear of the building, all in cases of six units, never x-rayed. The reason we chose to have so much explosive was that we couldn’t be sure where each unit would be placed and we needed to have enough power to down the entire building. In doing so we had enough explosives to destroy two buildings of that same size. Once the extinguishers were placed, our only fear was a real fire, where an extinguisher might be grabbed and not work. Over the next four months there was only one small fire in a kitchen by the nursery, but fortunately, the fire extinguisher in the kitchen was a real one. But this was only the first step of a much larger plan.
The purpose of the first step was to convert one individual (the stone) whom the group had targeted from the beginning. He was believed to be the major cog, possessing the skill-set to bring success to the overall plan. Amazingly that person was someone that I knew, Jonathan Anderson. They told me his entire history and gave me the information necessary to contact him. Within a year we were married. The plan was distributed in steps, code named Othello. The first step was the destruction of the Federal Building on Jeff Davis Highway. Step two would be to frame and torture Jonathan so that this all American, Naval Academy trained, CIA agent would become angry, so angry that the anger would tear out his American roots and remove any shred of patriotism. For what ultimate purpose, I don’t know, but I surmised it had something to do with his aviation skills and was much larger than the destruction of another Federal building.
You are probably wondering why I would betray a man who had done nothing to me, but love me. For me it was very personal. I am angry with everything that this country has done to the Middle Eastern nations and to my family in Iraq. Simply put, I love Jonathan, but he lives in a fairyland. I hate for him to suffer but it’s the only way I think he’ll see. He needs to be made angry and I want him to be as angry as I am. He needs to feel what it is like to have everything taken from you, to be shot and left for dead in the bottom of a pit, by the nation you thought you loved! Maybe then he will understand what I go through each and every day of my life. But more than anything I want him to see clearly and soberly that he has given his life and career to an evil monster that tortures its own and must pay for killing the loved ones of others.
Setting Jonathan up was easy. First we put all the information on his computer including emails from the suspected terrorist and left an audit trail back to his home address. Then our experts deleted the audit trail, knowing that the agency would trace his computer actions. We anticipated that the agency would be severe, but they exceeded our expectations. Before he was arrested, we sent Jonathan several leading emails knowing that he would respond, further showing his disloyalty to the agency.
The master plan turned into disaster when there was a freakish change in Matthew and Carly’s schedule, causing them to be in the building at the time of the explosion. There was supposed to be a contingency, someone on the inside who would make sure they were out of the building. When I find out who was responsible for that, God help him or her! Because of the foul-up Jonathan and Carly barely escaped with their lives, but my precious Matthew died in the explosion. My precious baby was incinerated in the blast! Matthew Tariq Anderson was a pure gift from God to me. As Carly is with Jonathan, so Matthew was with me. From the instant he was born, we were of the same spirit. And as he grew, our bond got closer. It was as if a part of my uncle lived in that little boy….I could see Tariq in his eyes every time I looked into his beautiful brown eyes. Matthew was special, he was going to be something great, a leader…..but then quickly, suddenly, it all ended. You have to believe me that I would never have intentionally killed my own baby!
My grief now is unbearable. Islee tries to comfort me, but I am lost in another pit, this one without a bottom. I have been receiving pressure from my cell, because phase three of the plan was supposed to begin immediately after Jonathan’s return from interrogation and I have been told that I have a vital role, but I have lost my purpose and cut off all contact with my cell. I had to, at least until I can sort through the torment in my own head. I thought that they would kill me when I stopped communicating, but all has gone quiet.
Now Jonathan and I are both alone, broken and angry. I am not sure whether the answer is to complete my mission or bare my soul to my husband, so that more innocent babies, like my Matthew, don’t die. I pray that somehow God or Allah or whoever may rule the hearts of men will see more overall good in what I’ve done than bad; but I don’t think that is possible because deep inside I know the evil angel has murdered the good angel and I have lost my soul. Carly reminds me of this every day.
Book 3
Deliverance
Chapter 1
Jonathan exited the black agency Suburban and walked in a daze toward the doorway of his Occaquan home. Mary came to meet him on the landing, just outside the door. She looked haggard and worn, with dark circles under her eyes and her usually well kept auburn hair straggly and showing streaks of gray. But even though she wasn’t wearing any makeup and was dressed in gray sweat pants and her favorite MIT sweatshirt, she still looked beautiful to Jonathan. He could see traces of crying, worrying and insomnia. She walked directly to him and grabbed him by the shoulders. “Oh my God,” she said. “What did they do to you?”
Jonathan hung his battered head and explained that he was no longer employed.
There were a few minutes of silence while she absorbed his words and then she spoke.
“Those sons of bitches!” she replied. “They’re not going to be content until they take everything from us. First Matthew, now this….I hate them, I hate them! When is it all going to end?” She started to cry and he grabbed hold of her to comfort her and she yielded.
“We’ll sort it out.”
“Someti
mes I think I’m cracking up.”
“You’re not allowed to crack up; Carly and I need you now more than ever.”
He hugged her tighter knowing more than ever that, right now, she was one of only two people who were left in his life.”
“What are we going to do?” asked Mary. Jonathan didn’t have the strength or the wisdom to comfort her. “They gave me a 3 year package, but other than that, I don’t know, I have to think this through. It’s like a bad dream that I keep hoping will just end. More than anything else I’m just confused! I was working through it all but now after this it’s all coming back in a bloody torrent! All I can think of is what they’ve done to us. I’m pissed at the terrorists, pissed at the agency. Mary, there isn’t anything left for me.”
“So now you’re catching up with the way I’ve been feeling all along. Come on inside and let’s talk about it,” she replied
“Where’s Carly?”
“She’s taking a nap, she’ll be happy to see you. She’s the strangest little thing, talking more, but she comes out with the craziest stuff. I’m worried about her Jonathan. I caught her talking to her brother yesterday. They were playing a game and had the floor all wet. When I asked her what she was doing, she didn’t answer. Jonathan, she seldom talks to me. But I heard her telling Matthew to help her put the fire out.”
“What does the therapist say?” asked Jonathan.
“She says that it’s her mind’s way of dealing with it and that it’s not unusual. Kind of like a boat trying to level itself on wavy water. We all have to do it our own way. She says we should just let her go, but it’s very upsetting for me to watch and listen, too. She said that kids, especially young ones who have been hit with a trauma of this magnitude, sometimes pick up a kind of sixth sense. She said there is documented evidence of kids becoming extremely perceptive, she used the term ‘spiritually aware’ and able to read emotions, almost like what we always talked about as ESP.”
Perspectives, An Intriguing Tale of an American Born Terrorist Page 18
