by Jim Wilson
Alice was born in 1956 in Miami. A few years later, they assigned her father to the Prime Minister of England as a troubleshooter. Alice and her parents traveled the world from station to station until she enrolled in the University of Miami in 1974.
It was Wednesday, and Brian was at the beach with Mira. Alice had forgotten her previous pains of childbirth, and watched television with her feet propped up on a coffee table. They lived in an upper middle class home in Wesley Chapel, Florida, about six miles north of Tampa. She liked the small town, and their roomy home. When her first pain came, Alice looked at her watch. It was four minutes past one, local time. She had her suitcase packed, and her plan was to wait for the pains to get closer and then call a cab. In a way, she was okay with Brian and Mira being at the beach. If she got to the hospital early, she would just hang out with her friends until she was ready to deliver. The second pain was at one twelve, and she decided to call a cab. It arrived and she posted a note on the front door, “Meet me at the hospital, Alice.”
Two hours later, Brian and Mira arrived home. He saw the note and they made the ten-minute trip to the hospital. Alice was in the doctors’ lounge surrounded by many of her hospital friends. Brian and Mira entered the room and sat with Alice as she talked with her family and friends. She had another strong pain. “It’s time.” Joyce, Alice’s favorite nurse, rolled in a wheel chair and took her to delivery, and after an hour and a half of labor, Alice delivered a perfect baby boy. It was five eleven, local time.
They took Alice and the baby boy to a standard private room. It had a hospital bed surrounded by a moveable curtain, two tables, TV, three visitor chairs, and a small bathroom with a shower. A large window looked over a black flat roof topped with an air conditioning unit. As Alice entered her room, she saw several plants and flowers, and every nurse and doctor on the floor that was not saving a life was there to greet her. Lying in bed, the nurse handed her newborn son to her. She looked at the healthy boy, then at Brian and at all her friends and smiled.
Brian asked, “How about naming him Henry?”
“I’ve been thinking William.”
They said together, “William Henry.” Everyone laughed.
*****
In Dhuudo Somalia, a small fourteen-year-old girl lay near death on the dirt floor of a mud hut, her eyes closed, and gasping for air. The brown dirt floor hid the blood that was draining from her body. She was a slave wife of Ishak Ahmed, taken in a raid two years earlier, from a village two days by foot to the north. On her left hand, three fingers were missing, but she had learned from the lessons that Ishak taught her. The Majerteen tribe had rules, Ishak was their leader, and he enforced the rules. If a run-away slave is caught, they pay a price. She ran three times and three times, he caught her. If she ran again, it would mean her life and not a finger. It took Ishak Ahmed almost a year to tame her. After twenty hours of labor, her death was imminent and three Dhuudo women hovered over her. All were wives of Ishak Ahmed. Koua was twenty, the oldest and had not yet given children to Ishak. Both of the younger women had born him a girl child.
“The girl’s lost. Maybe she holds a boy child.”
Koua had a prized possession. When she was only six years old, she found a knife sticking in the chest of a dead soldier and the dead killer’s hand still held the knife. She was a small girl and it was not easy for her to free the knife from the dead men.
Only Dhuudo men prayed aloud. The three women each said a silent prayer. Koua had done this before, but only to a sheep. First, she cut the throat to give the girl peace and then carefully opened her belly. She smiled as she freed two baby boys from the girl’s lifeless body.
Koua had two friends with new babies. “I’ll prepare the girl.” She gave the babies to the other wives, “Take them to the nursing mothers.”
The Majerteen was a poor tribe, but birth and death were both important events. Koua thought, Even the little slave must have a funeral. I will ask Ishak to trade a goat for the celebration. Koua was a good wife and Ishak agreed.
Ishak looked at Koua, “Which boy was first born?” She had cut a small brand on the firstborn’s right arm, and showed it to her husband. He nodded approvingly, “I name my first born, Mohammad. He will be the senior. I name the second born Ishak.”
It was nine thirty, local time. An American real time JN27 low orbit geosynchronous satellite, two hundred and seventy miles above, locked on to a small fire near Dhuudo, Somalia. This was the only visible light within thirty miles. Surrounding the fire were four hundred people. It scanned the crowd for metal and found little. The automatic analyses marked it as a celebration. It took ten photos, marked them secret, and placed them into a CIA folder.
The air crackles with dust and debris
Earth and nails that yearn to be free
And heroes emerge to face the gore
A second explodes to kill once more
Chapter 1
Bill Crane always did well in school. He was a solid B student, but he passed through the school system using as little effort as possible. He was never a problem, just a late bloomer. Both his parents were doctors and they expected him to be part of the social leadership of his graduating class. The only extracurricular activity that he participated in was track. During the summer, he decided to start fresh in college.
His first day at the University of South Florida started early. During the morning, he enrolled in his classes and purchased his books. After lunch he attended a two-hour new student orientation at the campus arena, called the Sun Dome. There were about thirty five hundred new students seated in front of the stage and on both sides. Bill was thirty minutes early and sat at the right end of the fourth row in front of the stage, and to his left there were two empty seats. As his section filled, the two seats remained open. Daydreaming, he made his choices. He would major in pre-med and attend medical school, later he might even specialize in cardiology, like his father.
As the lights dimmed signaling the start of the program, two late comers approached him. They asked in broken English, “Here okay?”
Bill answered, “Here fine.”
Each presentation followed the program handed out at the door. At 2 o’clock, speakers for special activities started and much of the audience left. The remaining group relocated to the center section. Bill and the two late comers remained seated. The third presentation was Coach Becker, the new track coach for USF, but he was not new to Bill. In the summer before eleventh grade, he met Coach Becker at the Methodist church that he and his family attended. Every Wednesday night the church had a dinner, and Bill and his family sat together at a table. Coach Becker joined them and encouraged Bill to try out for high school track.
Bill was the right height for a good runner, he was five foot eleven, but his legs were a little short. As part of the tryout required for the team, he made a one-mile run. The coach could not believe that he ran the fastest mile for an eleventh grader in the high school’s history. That was a long time ago. Now he was a freshman in college, and he felt like he would be lucky to be in the top five milers of his freshman class. At the end of the Coach’s presentation, he asked interested parties to join him at the rear of the Sun Dome for another short meeting. As Bill stood, the two late comers also stood and introduced themselves as Mohammad and Ishak Ahmed.
“We are runners from Somalia,” they said, pointing to each other.
For the first two years, Bill’s sister, Mira, attended classes at the University Medical Center. She had a nursing degree and worked as an RN at Tampa General Hospital. Mira admired her mother’s trauma skills. She worked on her masters in emergency room nursing. The two late comers, Mira, and Bill became close friends, and they often studied together at the student union. Mohammad and Ishak soon became Mo and Ike. As their friendship grew, Bill helped them with English and they taught him Arabic and their unnamed tribal language.
Coach Becker considered the twin’s body structures perfect for long distance events. Both were about five fo
ot eight and weighed about one hundred and thirty pounds, and they had the longest legs on the track team. Ike was the fastest distance runner in the conference. The coach rated Bill as the best all-around athlete he had ever trained. As he matured, coach directed him towards the triathlon and then Ironman. Coach asked all of them to try out for the USA Olympic Team, but it would have delayed their graduations by two years and they all declined.
The four years Bill spent at the university were happy times. He liked his studies, and he discovered that he had very special foreign language skills. He found time for extra courses in French, Spanish, German, and Italian. He could speak each language as well as his teacher. He did what he had promised himself. His grade point average after four years was a perfect 4.0. His father warned him that anything less than perfect could hurt his chances of getting into medical school. Two weeks earlier, he received notice of his acceptance and as graduation approached, he felt that his life was in total order.
The USF graduation date was set for May 17. Mira completed her masters in nursing two years earlier. Mo and Ike were receiving chemistry degrees, and were returning to Somalia. The Muslim Faith Society (MFS) paid all their expenses for four years. From time to time, each of the twins was given a new car and ten days before graduation, two light blue Mercedes C230s arrived by container ship at the Port of Tampa. Bill followed them to County Wide Mercedes to drop off their year old E200s, as directed by the MFS. Mo’s old car had 581 miles, and Ike’s car had 743 miles. Then he drove them to the Port of Tampa auto receiving area to pick up their new cars. He was very impressed at by how well the MFS treated the twins.
Mo and Ike had a two-bedroom apartment off campus. Their lives changed over the four years they lived in America. They had adventure after adventure during the first few months at USF. Two things that never stopped amazing them were water and space. Prior to their new life, Mo nor Ike had ever been alone, and had never washed with clean running water. Now they were each driving their own new blue Mercedes back to their apartment, and they could not wait to wash them. Their apartment offered them each a private bedroom and a garage that held both of their new cars. Their mullah had taught them well and they never questioned the path they were taking, but the frailty of the plans of man gave them some worries. They now had confirmation of everything and knew they would never need to return to Somalia.
They parked side by side, and shut the garage door behind them. It was a very special day in their lives. They each had a new blue Mercedes. Four years earlier, in Somalia, Mullah Ovahy Ahmed gave them a wonderful map to paradise. They agreed that the blue cars would contain the powerful explosive vests needed for their final step. Mo was the first to open his trunk. He saw the small round hole in the back wall and behind the hole was a lever. He pushed it, removed a panel, and there it was. It was glorious. He removed his vest and called excitedly for Ike to view the device. Together they went to the other blue car and Ike extracted his vest. They headed inside their apartment to examine them more closely.
Muslim charities had different purposes. Wealthy Muslims from oil rich countries were required to contribute to organizations that helped the poor. These charities built Muslim schools all over the world and a few of the schools had different purposes. In the poor areas of Africa, it was education and control. In very poor areas of Africa, the charity schools secretly set aside a few students to become martyrs. The charities supported the parents of the martyrs, and they made the lives of the martyr’s families easier. Mo and Ike were educated in such a school, and from the age of three, trained to end their lives in suicide. Until they left for Tampa, they had never been outside the control of their mullah.
The properly trained martyr craved death like the average college student craved beer. They craved death and they craved the blood of innocents to give them additional glory in paradise. Somewhere in the minds of the twins was a wall that held back this craving, but that wall had fallen and the new blue Mercedes crashed it.
MFS was only a name and the money that the twins received was from cash accounts opened, closed, and changed from country to country. The Mercedes came from a dealer in Douala, Cameroon, Africa. Mo and Ike’s benefactors had hired a nomad to buy them. The nomad walked into the dealer, ordered two cars built to American standards, and paid for them in full with American dollars. The nomad placed his ‘x’ on the sales agreement, because he was unable to write his name. He then waited for the cars in Douala. He stayed in a small hotel with a nearby restaurant that allowed him to eat all the food that he wanted. He waited in Douala for two months, until the cars arrived from Germany. The dealer gave the nomad two large envelopes containing documents certifying payment of Cameroon taxes and freight charges. The package included German paperwork that qualified the two cars for shipment to America.
The nomad was from a tribe that was camping near the village of Yaounde, Cameroon. The day before the new cars arrived at the dealer, he saw a friend from his tribe, and he agreed to drive the second car. They drove the new cars to a warehouse on the edge of town. For buying the cars, the nomad received payment the equivalent of ten years wages in Cameroon. The nomad paid his friend ten Euros. They received a ride back to their tribe as part of their arrangement. A warehouse worker had an old red Honda and the happy group headed for Yaounde. Five miles outside of Douala, the driver murdered them. He simply raised an automatic pistol and fired several rounds into his two unsuspecting passengers. As instructed, he cut off and saved the little fingers from their right hands. He took the money, set the car on fire, and walked the five miles back to the warehouse.
Cameroon built the best suicide vests in all of West Africa. Every sort of explosive was readily available. They made their vests with the finest and most powerful explosives. The metal bearings that covered the charges were special heavy alloys that gave distance and distance meant more killing. Between each step of assembly, the builder said a prayer and then washed his hands with soap and water. As the vests neared completion, they called the mullah for additional prayers. The mullah finished Mo and Ike’s vests and placed the severed fingers into pockets, and sewed them shut. The vest builder then inserted a line that ran to the detonator and attached a Velcro wristband to the other end of the line. The martyr would put on the vest, run the line up the sleeve of his jacket, and put on the wristband. With his other hand would he would remove the safety, and when he raised his right arm, paradise was near.
A welder built a false wall in the trunk of each car. The builder inserted a vest between the walls, and carefully washed the cars to remove fingerprints. They had done this before, but not for martyrs in the home of the great Satan. They drove the cars to the port and placed them on a small ship that sailed to Lagos, Nigeria, Africa.
In Lagos, they examined the paperwork and found it to be in order, placed the cars into a container, and shipped them to the Port of Tampa. In the paperwork that followed the new cars, only three names appeared- the nomad, Mohammad Ahmed, and Ishak Ahmed.
Mo and Ike liked their American names. In classes of a hundred or more students, they could sign their papers Mo or Ike and their instructor knew to whom they belonged. Both dutifully studied and their grades were the highest in the chemistry department. Their favorite professor offered to sponsor them in graduate school, and the chemistry department approved the twins for full scholarships to continue their education. They made many friends, and they liked to fill their cars, and go to the beautiful beach in Clearwater, Florida.
Mo and Ike were especially fond of the Crane family. Bill Crane was their best friend, and he helped them with their English. He said the best way for them to learn English was for them to teach him their language. Bill mastered Arabic in three weeks, and they were still struggling to understand American English after four years. Often they would study at his home in Wesley Chapel. Sometimes they would just go there when they were a little lonely and watch TV with his family. Mira was like an older sister to them, and she would worry when they looked
tired or too thin. They were a complex pair of young men.
During the last four years, they had not entered a mosque or done their daily prayers, as was clearly required by their sacred Qur’an. They shaved their faces and would often attend a Methodist church with their friend. The church had dinner on Wednesday nights, and on several occasions, they ate pork during these dinners. On two occasions, they were with other friends, and attended a facility where scantily clad women danced for them. To make things worse, many times they drank alcoholic beverages.
The Qur’an clearly forbids these activities. However, before leaving Somalia, the mullah had advised them that they must live as others around them lived. Their mullah promised them, that as martyrs, Allah excused Mo and Ike’s sins. Allah knew the great pain of these sins and special rewards awaited them in paradise. Mo and Ike were happy that their vests had arrived. They did not know how much more of this wonderful place they could take. The next morning they would leave for paradise, but first they would wash their new cars.
Mo and Ike were at the Tampa Mall before 7 o’clock in the morning, and were wearing their martyr vests under their USF letter jackets. It was all set. Mo was the senior and would be first. He would position himself where the crowd was at its maximum and Ike would hide in a restroom and wait for the emergency response people to arrive. Then Ike will come out and kill many more. They had strange feelings for their victims. They were runners and they knew many of them.
All of Bill’s finals were completed and in one week he would attend graduation, but this morning there was a 15k run that started at the Tampa Mall and ended at the USF student center. He planned the race. He would run at his fastest pace and try to hold the lead for the first five miles. Close behind him would be Mo and he would take the next four miles with Ike behind him. Then Ike would take the lead to the end of the race, and maybe Ike would leave USF with a new 15k record. Mira was going to be there for medical support. It was 7 o’clock local time and lightly raining when he arrived at the mall. Everyone signed up for the race and paid in advance. All they needed to do was sign in and get their numbers. The race started at seven thirty and he had plenty of time.
