“
No!
” she said, struggling against him. “Leave me alone!”
But Najiib only tightened his grip. He dragged her out of line and into the pandemonium of the parade ground. Ismail saw her turn and shout to him, her headscarf unraveling in the wind. And then, in a flash, she was gone.
Ismail awoke with a start, unsure for a moment where he was. The truth came to him in sensations—the coarseness of the blanket on his skin, the hard mattress pressing against his back, the concrete walls marking out the boundaries of his cell. He was in America, in the maximum-security block of the Chesapeake Correction Center, in the hands of a justice system he would never escape.
He rolled out of bed and stood on the cold floor facing east. He didn’t know what time it was exactly, but the lights weren’t on yet, which meant it was before 6 a.m.—time to observe the
Fajr
prayers. He went through the motions from memory, reciting the
takbir
, folding his hands over his chest, bowing and touching his knees, kneeling, prostrating and touching his forehead to the ground, sitting with his legs bent to the side, reciting Sura
al-Fatiha
, standing again, and so on.
When the ritual was finished, he sat on the edge of the bed and thought about the dream. It always ended the same way, with Yasmin melting into the crowd of
mujahedeen
—his last glimpse of her. But there was one more memory that he had always wondered about, a flash of purple from the Land Cruiser that passed by just as he pointed the gun at Samatar. Had she seen him kill the boy?
He felt the shame again, like a noose around his throat. If she saw him, what did she think? She wasn’t there to see what came before it: the commander who had delivered the boy to the militiamen, casting him on the ground and kicking him in the stomach; the Shabaab fighter who had picked Yusuf out of the lineup and thrust an AK-47 into his hands, ordering him to kill the deserter; the way Yusuf had nearly fallen to pieces in fear; the way Ismail had stepped forward, taking the gun from his brother, and put on a show for the commander, shouting “
Allahu Akbar!
” with the zeal of a jihadist, then turning the gun against Samatar and saving Yusuf’s life.
He shook his head forcefully and focused on Yasmin. Where had Najiib taken her? West to the stronghold of Baidoa? South to the port of Kismayo? Or to somewhere in the interior, to a village of herdsmen and farmers lost in time? Najiib had almost certainly married her, for she was beautiful and it was the practice of the Shabaab commanders to take their pleasure with captured girls. But had he brought her into his household under the formal rule of
nikaah
, or had he used the loophole of
nikaah misyar
—the traveler’s marriage—to have his way with her and then cast her aside, divorcing her with a declaration and taking no obligation for her future? It had been almost three years since the school attack. Anything could have happened. Yet Ismail clung to the hope that Najiib was too proud and too libidinous to let go of a catch like her. He had to believe that. To believe otherwise was to admit defeat.
At six o’clock, the lights came on, and Ismail went to the door of his cell, waiting for his breakfast. “Morning, friends,” said the jailer—a portly man named Richie—as he and his second—a short man everybody called Longfellow—carried the trays up the stairs and distributed them to the inmates. Ismail’s cell was third in line on the second floor of the block.
Longfellow greeted him with a half-smile. “Chicken and vegetables,” he said, sliding a tray through the open port. “And tea with enough sugar to kill a diabetic. As the Frenchies say, ‘Bon appétit!’” The jailer turned away and then thought of something. “What the hell does Afyareh mean anyway? Sounds like an Arab sheikh.”
“It’s a nickname,” Ismail replied. He was always deferential to the guards, and they rewarded him for it, treating him kindly and doing him favors like bringing him sweets and turning his bland tea into something approaching proper
shah
. “It means ‘agile mouth.’ My men called me that because I speak English and Arabic as well as Somali.”
Longfellow laughed. “A regular pro-di-gy,” he said, emphasizing each syllable of the last word. “Someday you’ll have to tell me how you got mixed up with a bunch of pirates.” He swung the port closed. “Eat fast. They’re coming for you at seven.”
An hour later, after Ismail finished breakfast, mopped his cell, and took a shower in the stall on the main floor, Richie came for him. The jailer put him in irons and led him to a bank of elevators and down to a holding cell in the transfer area. He found his court clothes laid out on the bench: a gray pinstripe suit, white shirt, blue tie, and black dress shoes and belt, courtesy of his attorneys. It was the fanciest outfit he had ever worn, and every time he put it on it gave him the illusion—for a moment, at least—that he was somewhere other than in an American jail, standing trial for murder.
He changed out of his orange jumpsuit and waited on the bench for the sheriff’s deputies to collect him. A few minutes later, they appeared and escorted him to the van. He was the only one attending the hearing. His men had already entered into plea bargains with the government, promising to testify against him in exchange for lighter sentences. They were being held in another jail—he didn’t know where. According to Megan Derrick, his lawyer, their stories were consistent, which didn’t surprise him. As soon as Mas had spoken the accusation on the ocean, he knew they were going to point the finger at him. But it didn’t matter. He knew what he had to do. In a strange way, their accusation was a gift. It gave him additional leverage with the government.
The ride to the federal courthouse in Norfolk took forty-five minutes. The deputies parked in the rear lot and led him inside, handing him off to the U.S. marshals, who put him in their holding tank until everyone had assembled for the hearing. When the time came, a gray-haired old marshal with a lopsided smile took him upstairs to the courtroom. It was the most ornate chamber Ismail had ever seen outside a mosque, with an ornamental ceiling twice as high as an ordinary roof, giant windows with red curtains on one side, decorative lamps and stonework and oil portraits on the walls, and dark wood everywhere in the gallery, around the judge’s bench, and at the tables before the bar.
Megan was waiting for him on the defense side, along with a coterie of associates and paralegals. She greeted him with a hug and he replied with a smile. There had been moments, especially at the beginning, when he wondered if he could trust her, but he had seen no hint of deception in her. And unlike her brother, Paul, she came with no strings attached. She was intelligent and forthright and extremely capable. Everyone from the judge to the U.S. attorneys to the marshals respected her.
Soon after Ismail found his place at the defense table, the judge’s law clerk stood up and knocked his gavel three times. “All rise! The Honorable Chief United States District Judge Marian Philips McKenzie presiding. Please be seated and come to order.”
Judge McKenzie appeared and walked to the bench, scaling the steps and taking a seat in the middle of three high-backed chairs arranged beneath the seal of the United States. She was a handsome black woman with a moon-shaped face, a prominent forehead, and compassionate eyes.
“In case you’re wondering,” she began, “the magistrate is out on sick leave. I’m handling my own arraignments.” She looked at the Assistant U.S. Attorneys, Clyde Barrington and Eldridge Jordan, over her horn-rimmed spectacles. “Is the government ready to proceed?”
“The government is ready, Your Honor,” said Barrington.
The judge turned to Megan. “Is the defense ready?”
Megan nodded. “We are, Your Honor.”
“Very well.” The judge turned to Ismail. “Mr. Ibrahim, as your attorney has no doubt informed you, the government has filed a Superseding Indictment in your case, naming you as the sole defendant. Ms. Derrick has waived formal arraignment, but I’m going to read the charges into the record before requesting your plea. Is that clear?”
Ismail stood and said: “Yes, Your Honor.”
He listened as the judge rehearsed the litany of crimes of which he was accused—piracy under the law of nations; conspiracy to commit hostage taking resulting in death; hostage taking resulting in death; conspiracy to commit kidnapping resulting in death; kidnapping resulting in death; conspiracy to commit violence against maritime navigation resulting in death; violence against maritime navigation resulting in death; the use, carrying, brandishing, and discharge of a firearm during a crime of violence resulting in death; assault with a dangerous weapon on federal officers and employees; and murder and attempted murder within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States.
The magnitude of the charges made Ismail’s head spin. He struggled against the weight of guilt. In the days after the shooting, there had been times when it had overcome him, stabbing his heart like a dagger. As time had passed, however, the remorse had resolved into a cold ache. No matter what happened—even if Quentin made a full recovery—it would never leave him. The boy’s blood and that of his father were a permanent stain on his soul.
When the judge finished the recitation, she focused on Ismail again. “Mr. Ibrahim, how do you plead to these charges: Guilty or not guilty?”
Ismail spoke the words despite the pain: “Not guilty, Your Honor.”
“The government has also filed a notice of intent to seek the death penalty should you be found guilty on any of the charges for which such a punishment is permissible under law. Has your attorney explained this to your satisfaction?”
“Yes, Your Honor,” Ismail intoned.
“Thank you, Mr. Ibrahim,” the judge said, and Ismail sat down again.
The judge next took up the matter of the trial date. Megan objected when she suggested June, but the judge allayed her concerns by promising to consider a continuance if the government didn’t move quickly in producing relevant documents and witnesses. She set the trial for June 18 and scheduled a motions hearing for March 2 to handle any disputes about the scope of discovery, including the inevitable question of national security.
“Are there any other matters that I need to take up at this point?” she asked the attorneys.
“No, Your Honor,” said Megan and Barrington at the same time.
The judge nodded. “Very well. This case is adjourned.”
When Judge McKenzie departed the bench, Ismail looked toward the back of the courtroom and caught sight of Vanessa. He recognized her from the photo album on the sailboat. He met her eyes and saw the suffering in them, the depthless well of her sorrow. He remembered standing beside Daniel and Quentin as the plane flew overhead, remembered seeing her hand on the window and catching a glimpse of her red hair. The words he had spoken to her echoed in his head:
We have done nothing to harm them . . . nothing to harm them . . . nothing to harm them.
He wanted to tell her that he had meant it, that he never wanted this to happen. But he knew it wouldn’t assuage her pain. Nothing would.
Megan touched his shoulder. “We need to talk.”
“Okay,” he said, following her to a windowless conference room on the way to the lock-up. They took seats at a table, and Megan took out a pad and pen.
“A June trial means we have a lot of work to do,” she said. “The statements you made on the
Truman
are damning. I’m going to move to suppress them, and I’m going to attack the indictment. But I’ll be frank with you—I’m not going to get much relief. Unless something changes, they’re going to hang you with your own words. I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again: I don’t believe for a second that what happened out there is as simple as your crew claims. I don’t think the Shabaab has anything to do with it. What really happened, Ismail? I can’t help you unless you help me.”
He met her eyes. The more he was around her, the more she reminded him of Paul. “I told you before. We had a deal, and we intended to honor it. But the Navy broke its word.”
She shook her head. “That’s not good enough. I can dredge up every mistake the Navy made—and, believe me, I plan to—but they didn’t shoot the hostages.
You
did. At least that’s what your crew says. You’ve never directly admitted it, but you haven’t denied it either. This isn’t a game, Ismail. You’re rolling the dice with your life.”
“What does it matter?” he asked, regarding her frankly. “I have no defense to the piracy charge. You told me yourself: the minimum sentence is life in prison.”
“I can’t believe I’m hearing this,” she exclaimed. “Prison or not, life is very different from death. They want to execute you. If that’s what you want, that’s your choice. But I’m not going to help you commit suicide. Either tell me the truth, or I’m going to ask the Court to get you another lawyer.”
He looked away, feeling profoundly conflicted. Like her brother, she was gifted at persuasion. But she couldn’t fathom the calculations running through his head. His life was over. He knew he would never spend another day in freedom. There were only two things he wanted anymore: to rescue Yasmin and avenge the destruction of his family. There was a chance—albeit remote—that he could achieve both objectives at the same time. But for the gambit to work, he needed Megan’s help.