Living Stones (38 page)

“OK, I’ll come. Where do I come and when?”

“Oh, Najid! I love you! It’s the same office where we had the debriefing. I’ll come and pick you up at one-thirty.”

Ashley could hardly concentrate on Pastor Tom’s sermon except when he mentioned the study group to evaluate how their church could better help the Christians in the Middle East promote justice
and be reconcilers and peacemakers. She noticed her father lean forward to hear. His eyes widened. Finally they stood for the last song and then proceeded out to the foyer after the pastors had walked by. Ashley had explained they should meet with Pastor Jim because he had led the team to the Holy Land.

They waited until the crowd had thinned. Jim came over and Ashley introduced her parents to him.

“It’s a pleasure to have you with us today. I think very highly of your daughter.”

“We do too, Pastor Swain,” Frank said as they shook hands.

Dorothy reached out her hand as well. “I understand you led the team to the Holy Land and did such a wonderful job, particularly when Ashley ran into trouble.”

“I did lead the team, Mrs. Wells. We ran into a terrifying situation when she didn’t return to the guesthouse. I’d like to tell you more and discuss some things with you. You may have some additional questions that Ashley can’t answer.”

“I’d like to hear more, Pastor.” Her father seemed surprised but willing to meet with Jim.

“Ashley, why don’t you get some refreshments over in the gym. We’ll have some in the office, your parents and I.”

“OK, I’ll see you in a bit.” She smiled as Jim led her parents to his office.

A woman came into Jim’s office with coffee and tea and a plate of veggies with dip, crackers, and cheese. They all sat around a circular table on comfortable upholstered chairs. One remained unoccupied.

Jim reached for his coffee. “I’m so pleased to meet you both. You have an amazing daughter. She inspired all of us to meet with people there, not just see sites.”

“We’ve heard some of her stories, Pastor,” Frank Wells began, “but I’d be interested in your impressions as well. We didn’t hear fully why the guy abducted her.”

“I realize that you don’t have the full story, and I’m happy to fill in some of the gaps. My understanding is that the bomber here considered Ashley the only one who could identify him. So he paid for a Muslim radical in Jerusalem to hire a hit man to eliminate her. The guy in Jerusalem operated out of the Muslim Quarter in the Old City. He tried several times to capture your daughter, but succeeded finally in Jerusalem. We prayed intensely for her during several hours, and God used the guy’s mother to release her from captivity. That’s the short version.”

“Thanks for filling us in, Pastor.”

“Please call me Jim. You can imagine our relief when Ashley walked into the guesthouse after running from her captor. My job was to protect all our team, and in that I had failed. We had divided up into smaller groups led by young Israeli guides. Ashley got caught up in a demonstration in East Jerusalem.”

“She could have been killed, Jim. You know that better than we do,” Frank said. “As Ashley’s dad, my job also is to protect her. I don’t know whether you know this, but the last time we visited Ashley, she had nearly died from the bombing and lay in the hospital bed following emergency surgery. A young Palestinian friend named Najid came to see her. Apparently they work in the same department in graduate school at the university. He was there at the bombing. I don’t know whether he had something to do with it or not. Ashley thinks he’s a Christian, from some ancient church. I have no idea whether that is true. But I know what Palestinians do to the Jews in Israel. I don’t trust them. We’re worried that this guy is trouble. And we told Ashley to have nothing to do with him.”

“I understand your concerns. We trusted Ashley when she wanted to visit Najid’s family near Nazareth in Israel. She seemed safe.”

“Oh! We had no idea she visited his family. I guess she didn’t want to tell us.” Frank, raising his eyebrows, lowered his head and shrugged.

“Would you like to know more about Najid?”

“I suppose so, particularly if he continues to try to see Ashley despite our wishes.”

Jim went to the door and ushered in a middle-aged woman. He introduced her to Dorothy and Frank as Jane Smithwick. He explained that he met her when she came to check on Ashley at the hospital one day. A witness of the bombing, she was concerned for
the young woman. After the usual pleasantries, Jim spoke.

“Would you tell us what you saw when the synagogue exploded?”

Jane smiled and addressed Frank and Dorothy. “I live across the street from the synagogue and rushed to the window when I heard and felt the blast. It almost makes me cry to think of it. Here was this lovely young lady lying on the sidewalk, bleeding, and a young man kneeling over her, waving his hands and calling for help. He succeeded in attracting attention and soon Medic One came. He got up after they had taken her in their van and began to walk away with his arms bleeding. He looked shocked, overwhelmed. The police quickly handcuffed him and took him away. That’s all I know.”

“Thank you so much for coming, Jane. You’ve helped fill in some blanks in our understanding of what happened.”

Jim escorted her out and brought in a tall man. He introduced him as Gordon Appleby to Ashley’s parents. “Mr. Appleby, an FBI agent, has been involved with Najid from the outset of the bombing. Mr. and Mrs. Wells, Ashley’s parents, sir. They are interested to learn what you found out about Najid in particular. And thanks for taking time from your family to come.”

“Well, first of all,” Gordon began, “you have an outstanding daughter. I can’t say enough about her steadiness through all the trauma she’s had. She has been incredibly helpful, even to getting the bombing suspect to open up to his parents, to us, and to his defense counsel.”

“Thanks, Mr. Appleby,” Dorothy said. “Ashley didn’t tell us that.”

“Please call me Gordon. But you wanted to know about Najid. We arrested him at the scene of the bombing thinking he, as a Middle Eastern young man, may have had something to do with it. We investigated him thoroughly. Believe me, there is not one shred of evidence to suggest that he was involved. We released him as a person of interest after only one night in jail. He has been nothing but respectful and cooperative, realizing we needed to do our job of investigating.”

“I understand the suspect has admitted guilt, Gordon?”

“Yes, sir. And Najid had something to do with that.”

“How was that?” Frank inquired.

“It’s quite a story, but the short version is that Najid and Ashley
accidently ran into Robert Bentley in a supermarket. Ashley recognized him as the bomber, was terrified, and panicked. Najid, at his own peril, not knowing whether Bentley was armed—he was—tracked him home. We don’t advise people to do that, but Najid cleverly followed him to his residence, unobserved, and then notified us where he lived. Najid’s action enabled us to arrest the first U.S. bomber since 9/11, a murderer that we in the FBI had been unable to locate for several months.”

“Hmm.” Frank frowned.

“Oh, and one more thing. Bentley, the bomber, had hired a hit man in Israel to get rid of Ashley, as you now know. We thought he might have retained a killer here as well. So from the time she got off the airplane, we told her never to be out on the street alone, particularly at night. Najid became her bodyguard in that she could call on him at anytime, and did. So he ended up protecting her for several weeks until we were sure no hit man existed here in the U.S.”

“We didn’t know that either. Why did you come here to tell us this, Gordon?” asked Dorothy with a quizzical look. “You’re a busy man.”

“I would have come to Oklahoma to tell you this and put your mind at ease about your daughter and Najid! He is one of the most courageous and brave young men I have ever met. Helpful and pleasant. Delightful guy. What you see is what you get.”

“Thanks, Gordon,” Jim said. “I know we’ve imposed on your weekend. Please thank your family for us. You’ve given me some insights I didn’t have.” Jim ushered him to the door.

Jim came back with a short, wiry, athletic-looking young man. “Mr. and Mrs. Wells, this is Jerry Farnsworth of the mountain rescue team here in Seattle.” After everyone shook hands, Jim continued. “Please sit down. We are interested to hear what you learned about Ashley Wells and Najid Haddad at Anvil Rock on Mount Rainier recently.”

“OK. They told us they had climbed to Camp Muir with a group from the U. She suggested they walk over to Anvil Rock during a lunch break. A storm came up while they sat on the rocks away from the group at Muir. She sprained her ankle, couldn’t walk. They got caught in a whiteout—you know, where you can’t see a thing and
get disoriented. It’s a weird feeling. No horizon. Can’t tell directions or even upslope or down. So they did exactly the right thing. Najid dug a deep snow cave, wrapped Ashley in a thermal blanket they both had, and shoved her in. She shivered with hypothermia and couldn’t make any decisions by her own admission. But she soon warmed up. They stayed in the cave all night, and we rescued them easily by helicopter in the morning after the storm.”

“So they kept their heads?” Frank asked.

“Yeah. If they had tried to make it back on their own, they probably would never have found Camp Muir or their group in the gale and sleet. Even if she could have walked normally, or if they had stayed on the surface, either way, they wouldn’t be here today.”

“Did Najid have any mountain experience to know how to dig a snow cave?” Frank wondered.

“Not to my knowledge. He saved her life by not losing his head and thinking what would make sense. She said she had seen survival shows on TV. That may be where the idea of the cave came from. But he accomplished a major feat protecting them both in a howling storm.”

“Hmm . . .” Frank remained quiet for a moment, then replied, “I’m amazed that you would take time out from your weekend to come here and tell us this.”

“I have the highest respect for this guy, for saving your daughter’s life.”

“Thanks, Jerry. You guys are fantastic in your work. Most people don’t know you are all volunteers. And thanks for volunteering again today.” Jim escorted him to the door, and this time brought in Ashley.

Welcome to court, Miss Wells,” Jim said with a smirk. “You’re the next witness, and I’m the prosecutor. I think you know these people, the jury.”

Ashley laughed, glancing at her parents, but still felt a bit nervous. “Okaaay. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to report.”

“I’ll ask the questions.” He turned to Frank and Dorothy and winked. “It’s true. She doesn’t know what’s coming or what just happened. I haven’t told her anything.”

“Miss Wells, did you visit the Haddad family in Northern Israel, in Galilee?”

“Yes, sir.” Ashley glanced at her parents with a nervous laugh.

“What did you find? What are they like?”

She took a deep breath and sat back in her chair. “Rafiq, Najid’s dad, looks like him and has a gentle manner, polite. Of course he speaks Arabic, so his son Sami translated for me. Rafiq is soft-spoken, like Najid. He lived during early childhood as a landowner’s son in a large house surrounded by an olive grove. But now they live in a small three-bedroom house with six kids, and he is a farm laborer in someone else’s orchard.”

“What about his wife?”

“Oh, Farah loves her kids. They speak of Najid with such affection and talk with him on Skype once a week.”

“How does Rafiq treat his wife?”

“With real tenderness. I could see they are very much in love. They’re Christians, you know. She speaks lovingly of Jesus. They attend a historic Christian church, Melkite. They are great people. In a short few days, I grew to love them. Najid has a wonderful heritage.”

“What about the other kids?”

“They respect their parents and are all younger than Najid, but full of life. I played soccer with them. Sami, next oldest, got angry at a checkpoint in the West Bank, but only because the Israeli soldiers stripped him naked and left him in a room for fifteen minutes, for no apparent reason. We were trying to get through the wall to get to a friend’s orchard. It’s a long story.”

“Anything else about them?”

“I guess the most amazing thing is the way they get along with both Jewish and Muslim neighbors in Israel proper. And despite being harassed at checkpoints in the wall of separation, and having been displaced from their ancestral home of many generations, they are not bitter. In fact, they want to be reconcilers between the Jewish Israelis and Palestinians, whether Muslim or Christian. Najid has had Jewish friends from his own childhood.”

“Thank you, Miss Wells.” Jim started to say something else when the door opened. Ashley left.

“Jim . . . I didn’t realize you had a meeting going.”

“It’s OK, Tom. I want you to meet Ashley’s parents from Oklahoma, Frank and Dorothy Wells.” He turned to them. “Pastor Tom Evans you know from this morning’s sermon. Please come in for a moment and sit down.”

Flashing a warm smile, Tom shook their hands and sat down in the now empty chair. “I don’t want to interrupt you all.”