“What?” Sergeant Sadler replied.
“It's Second Corinthians 4:4,” Bailey said. “The guy is a walking Bible quote. Loony tunes if you ask me.”
“Yeah, well, I like a good sermon on Sundays,” Sadler replied. “But not when it's wasting our time and there's a kid who needs help. Follow me; I'll make sure no one gets in the way. O'Leary, bring up the rear as soon as you hand Brother Frank over to the backup . . . and tell them to keep the good reverend out of the building, otherwise he and his other goon are free to go.”
With that the sergeant entered the building with the two paramedics hustling along behind him. Reaching Apartment 3C, he pounded on the door.
“Police, open up!”
An older woman with frizzled hair, poorly dyed to a sort of burnt orange, answered the door. “Are you believers?” she asked.
“Yeah, sure,” Sadler replied. “We believe there's a sick child on the premises, and these two men need to see him.”
The woman's eyes widened and she tried to close the door. “No doctors! Blasphemers!” she shrieked. “You can't come in!”
“Like hell we can't,” the police sergeant replied and pushed the door open with his shoulder, entering the apartment with the two paramedics as the woman continued to protest.
The apartment was enveloped in shadow, the shades drawn over the windows and no electric lights were turned on. The only illumination was from dozens of candles that had been lit and placed around the small living room and tiny kitchen. But even in the half light, the police officer and paramedics could see that the only adornment on the walls were portraits of Jesus and of the Rev. C. G. Westlund.
Several people were sitting on a couch and on a few chairs pulled into a circle in the living room. They appeared to be praying when the men entered but had stopped and now only stared up at the intruders.
“We're looking for a sick child,” Sadler announced. No one answered. “Who called 911?” Again there was no answer. Instead, the group returned to their prayers, their voices droning on.
“Come on,” the sergeant said to Raskov and Bailey. He led the way down a hallway to a back bedroom in which more than a dozen adults and several children were crowded around a bed praying. A young boy lay on the bed, nude except for a pair of underwear, his skin nearly white except for the dark circles below his closed eyes. His thin chest rose and fell slightly and he groaned once.
The paramedics pushed through the crowd and checked the boy's vital signs. “He's comatose,” Raskov said, looking up at the police sergeant. “His pulse is weak and breathing is shallow, we need to transport him to the hospital now!”
“You can't,” one of the women in the prayer circle said. “My name is Nonie Ellis and I'm Micah's mother. My son will be cured through God's will; Western medicine is the false hope of Satan. We will heal him with prayer!”
“He hasn't got a prayer if we don't move him now,” Bailey replied.
“I want you to leave,” Ellis demanded. “You have no right to force us to accept your ways.”
“And I'm ordering you to stand back,” Sadler told her. “In fact, if anyone in this room delays us one more second, I'll have the whole lot of you hauled down to The Tombsâand if you want to meet devil worshipers, that would be the place to spend the night.”
A worried-looking man walked over and stood behind Ellis. “Nonie, honey, I think we have to let them take him,” he said as he tried to put his arms around her. She shrugged him off but made no more attempts to stop the men, and instead ran from the room.
Bailey picked the boy up in his arms. “No time for a stretcher,” the paramedic said, “this kid's dying.”
The sergeant looked at the man who'd tried to console the boy's mother. “And you are?”
“David Ellis,” the young man replied. “I'm Micah's father. Please help him if you can.”
This time the paramedics led the way out of the apartment and down the stairs to the ambulance. Waiting on the sidewalk, having been joined by the people who'd been in the living room, the Reverend Westlund yelled when he saw the paramedic Don Bailey emerge with the child, “There they are! The new centurions! No different than the Roman soldiers who helped the Jews murder Christ!”
“Blasphemers!” someone shouted.
“Satan worshipers!” yelled another.
“Stop them!” cried a third.
The crowd of Westlund followers started to surge toward the ambulance even as Bailey laid the boy on a gurney to be loaded into the back. But before they could reach the paramedics, Sadler and the other three officers on the scene had placed themselves in the way.
“HOLD IT RIGHT THERE,” the sergeant yelled, his booming voice rising above all the others. “BACK OFF, OR WE WILL ARREST EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU!”
The crowd hesitated. But then from the rear Westlund cried out, “Don't be afraid, my brothers and sisters!
âBlessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven!'
This is a direct affront to the will of God!”
Again the crowd, which had been augmented with those who'd been praying in the boy's bedroom, started to move forward. The sergeant pressed the button on the radio transmitter on his shoulder. “Dispatch, we have a situation and are in urgent need of backup,” he said even as he pulled the Taser from its holster again. He and his men prepared to defend the paramedics.
“Stop this!” a voice suddenly shouted. It belonged to David Ellis who inserted himself between the crowd and the police. “Micah is my son, and I don't want anyone else hurt,” he said to the angry mob. “Please, we appreciate your prayers and your concern. But just go home now. Please.”
The crowd stopped and seemed unsure of what to do. A few of them yelled but no one moved to interfere with the police and medics.
Sadler turned to Ellis. “Thanks, son, that could have got ugly,” he said. “Now do you or your wife want to ride in the ambulance with your son?”
The young man turned to find his wife and saw her standing next to Westlund, who had his arm around her shoulders as she sobbed. “Honey, do you want to go with Micah?” he asked.
His wife stopped crying long enough to glare at him. “I will not sin! Micah was in the hands of the Lord and now you're taking him away.”
Westlund pointed his finger at David Ellis. “Whoever removes the boy from his fellow believers is responsible for his passing from the world and will face the wrath of God.”
The father's shoulders sagged as he looked back at Sargeant Sadler. “I'd like to go, thank you,” he said.
The sergeant directed him to the back of the ambulance. “Then let's hurry, son, your boy needs more than prayers right now.”
David Ellis climbed in and sat next to his son, his hand caressing the boy's ashen face. “Please God, take care of Micah,” he whispered and began to cry.
FOUR MONTHS LATER
T
he two men tried to look as calm
and nonthreatening as possible as they waited in line for the ferry that carried tourists to Ellis Island and then onto Liberty Island where the Statue of Liberty stood bathed in the morning sunlight. They had arrived at Battery Park early that Monday to make sure that they would be on the first boat to the islands.
Both men were Muslim, one an American-born, twenty-one-year-old of Pakistani descent. The other was a twenty-five-year-old native of Afghanistan who'd come to the United States two years earlier on a student visa. According to plan, he'd attended classes at New York University, but acting like a student was only a ruse. His attendance had been spotty at best, and when a month ago he began preparing with other members of the team for the Ellis Island event, he stopped attending school altogether.
As he and his partner stood in line, they chatted idly about the late March weather, relatives, and schoolwork while occasionallyâto reinforce the image of themselves as innocent sightseersâsmiling at their fellow passengers and chuckling at the antics of children, all of whom would be dead by noon.
God willing,
Aman Ghilzai thought as he bent over to pick up a stuffed animal dropped by a toddler held in the arms of his mother.
“Thank you so much,” the doomed woman said to him.
“You are very welcome, a beautiful child,” he replied.
A native of Afghanistan, Ghilzai had been recruited by the Taliban as a teenager living in the tribal areas of Pakistan and then, when he complained that their focus on Afghanistan was too narrow, by Al Qaeda. Several other members of the team were also from abroad, places like Yemen and Somalia. They, too, entered the land of the Great Satan at various times over the past several years to await orders that would carry them to martyrdom. The remaining members were Americans brought into the fold by the Chechen
mujahideen
Ajmaani, a beautiful and mysterious blond woman who'd become a legend even in Al Qaeda due to her savage attacks on the infidels.
Ghilzai sighed. He hoped at least one of the virgins who would be attending to him when he reached paradise would look like Ajmaani. A year or so prior to meeting her there'd been rumors she'd been killed or captured by the Americans, but then she'd reappeared a month ago carrying coded instructions from a trusted Al Qaeda courier telling Ghilzai and the others to cooperate with her. He'd been impressed with her plan, and her cold-blooded viciousness that held no regard for the lives of Americans whether they were adults or children.
It did not occur to him that she also had no regard for the lives of his team, or any Muslim tourist who might happen to be killed as well. He wouldn't have cared either way. His only complaint was her reliance on the American-born jihadists she assigned to the team, such as his fellow sightseer, Hasim Akhund. Although these men were enthusiastic about taking part in the attack, they liked to boast to each otherâlike men who had to talk in order to keep their courage upâand pose for photographs with their weapons. They all seemed to have some nebulous complaints about their treatment in the United States: such as not being able to get good jobs, which they blamed on racism and anti-Muslim prejudices; or that they didn't have girlfriends; or were just what Americans called “losers” with nothing else to do.
They said all the right things and prayed fervently in the days leading up to that morning, but Ghilzai thought their reasons for volunteering for jihad were insignificant or petty, rather than to strike a blow for Allah and repressed Muslims all over the world. He didn't trust them; he worried that their boasting would get beyond the group, and he worried they wouldn't come through when it mattered. But he was not in charge, and he could only hope that the other foreign-born jihadists, who like him had fought the infidels overseas, would be enough if something went wrong.
So far, everything seemed to be going right. Ghilzai had seen Ajmaani that morning as he'd crossed State Street to Battery Park. As prearranged, she'd been haggling with one of the Somali sidewalk vendors who sold knock-off purses to tourists. When she spotted him, she held up two purses, the sign that he was to proceed with the plan. As he and Akhund walked toward Castle Clinton National Monument to buy tickets and get in line for the ferries, he'd placed a quick call from his cell phone.
“Allahu akbar,”
he said quietly and then hung up.
Purchasing the tickets, the pair proceeded to the dock where they discovered that they weren't the first arrivals. A young couple was first in line, acting like newlyweds with shameful public displays of affection, kissing and hugging as though no one else was near. The man was lean and carried himself like an athlete, while the young woman was tan, prettyâthough her nose a bit prominent by Western standards Ghilzai knewâand green-eyed. Other than friendly nods when Ghilzai and Akhund walked up to stand behind them, the couple paid them little attention. When the couple wasn't kissing, they laughed and joked without a care in the world, and it pleased Ghilzai, who had never had a woman's love, to know that their day would end tragically.
Ghilzai pretended not to notice when Ajmaani got in the line just in front of a middle-aged couple that had walked up behind her. He quickly studied the pair, looking for signs of danger. The man was a fit, square-jawed type with close-cropped gray hairâthe sort Ghilzai disdainfully thought of as a wealthy businessman who spent too much time at the gym and barber; his woman was tall, buxom, brunette, brown-eyed and, the terrorist conceded, a match for Ajmaani in beauty. Although they were more discreet than the young couple standing next to him, they were obviously in love from the way they looked at each other and their hands occasionally met. But they didn't seem particularly interested in Ajmaani, who caught his eye and gave him a slight nod.
At last, the guard at the entrance announced that the ferry would begin loading. Entering a large white tent, passengers were told to remove belts, shoes, coins, and anything else metallic, as well as all cameras and electronic devices, and place them in a basket to be viewed by security personnel. Then passengers had to pass through metal detectors, all part of the fallout from the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center.
Ghilzai and Akhund did as requested, knowing they had nothing to worry aboutâeverything they needed was already onboard the ferry, placed there by a member of their team who'd gained employment years before with the company that ran the ferries.
As the pair walked aboard the boat, they were greeted by an Asian-looking man who, according to a tag on his lapel, was named “Vinh” and was a volunteer guide. “Do you have any questions about where to go for the best views?” he asked pleasantly.
“No,” Akhund answered curtly.
Ghilzai noted with alarm that his partner was sweating profusely and looking around nervously. “No, thank you,” he added politely and then pointed toward the stairs leading to an observation deck. “Let's go up there.”