Traitors Within Read online

  After his impromptu speech, he left the room to head back to the smoke shack for another cigarette. This victory called for a celebration.

  *******

  As Jamal searched the diaper bag for a fresh diaper, he realized that he hadn’t checked to see if there were any extra ones in the bag before they’d left for his brother’s wedding reception. Jamal pulled his wife and Walid aside and told them, “I will be back shortly. I’m going to drive to the store down the road and grab some diapers.”

  His wife didn’t say anything but shot him a look that clearly communicated, “I told you to check the bag before we left.”

  His brother just smiled, and said, “It’s not a problem, little brother. Just let me know when you get back. I have someone important I want to introduce you to.”

  Jamal nodded and then rushed off. While he drove down the winding road leading away from his brother’s compound, their conversation played repeatedly in his head. He didn’t know who his brother wanted him to talk to, but Jamal had told Walid in the past that he wanted nothing to do with his ISIS colleagues. Walid had always told him that he shouldn’t believe everything that the Western media published, that they weren’t as bad as they were portrayed. Jamal was nervous at the thought of what awaited him when he returned.

  He grabbed the diapers as quickly as he could and then got in his car to return to the reception. As his vehicle came around the final bend in the road leading to the compound, he saw a bright flash. Then the windshield imploded, sending shards of glass flying toward his face. He lost control of the car and hit a tree. After that, everything just went black.

  Chapter 2

  Awakening

  Gaziantep, Turkey

  Jamal woke up two days later in a local hospital. At first, he was completely disoriented and unsure of where he was and what had happened. Then, as he sat there trying to eat the vegetable soup that had been placed in front of him, the images started to flood back. Suddenly, he experienced the accident all over again—there was the bright flash ahead of him at his brother’s compound, the sound of glass shattering. He pulled his arms to his eyes, as if he could still shelter himself from the shards of the windshield that were flying at his face. He felt the car swerve beneath him and the brief moment of weightlessness that happened before his forehead slammed into the steering wheel. The airbag must not have deployed.

  Jamal didn’t have much time to process these memories before a doctor walked in and began to read over his chart. “How are you feeling?” he asked.

  Jamal delayed for a moment as he assessed his body. “I have a bit of a headache, but otherwise, I’m feeling fine,” he responded.

  The doctor explained, “Well, you should have a headache. When you were brought to the hospital along with the other survivors from the wedding blast, you had a concussion, some abrasions on your face and hands, and a broken arm. Many of the others were not so lucky, I’m afraid. There were only thirty-six survivors.”

  Jamal realized for the first time that his left arm was in a cast. Suddenly, it throbbed with pain. Then panic set in. “Doctor—my wife, my children. Are they here? Were they injured?”

  “I am so sorry to be the one to tell you this, but they died in the explosion,” the doctor answered. “Your brother was Walid, correct? He also perished in the blast.”

  Jamal slumped down and began to cry. His family was gone. He was a man without a country, and now he had lost his family, too.

  The day before Jamal was to be released from the hospital, a man in a suit stopped by his room. “I would like to offer my sincere condolences,” he said. Jamal detected that the man’s Arabic had a Saudi accent. “I knew your brother, Walid,” the man continued. “It was a shame that he was killed in such a horrible way.”

  Jamal responded, “I was told it was a terrorist bomb that killed my brother and the rest of my family.”

  The man nodded. “Yes, it was a terrorist bomb—an American terrorist bomb,” he explained.

  Jamal was about to respond but stopped himself. He tried to analyze what he had just been told.

  The man must have seen the look of deep thought on Jamal’s face. “As you know, your brother had been selling oil and gas for our organization. This made him a target. We told him he needed to keep a lower profile, but he insisted that he was well protected in Turkey.”

  Jamal shuddered. He had suspected that he was speaking with someone from ISIS, and now he was certain.

  The man continued, unhindered by the response. “You see, we have a person who works on the American air base. Our source informed us that an American drone had taken off roughly three hours before the explosion with two missiles. When it returned, it only had one missile. There were no other drone strikes in Syria or Iraq during the period that the drone was in the air—just the ‘suspected car bomb’ at your brother’s compound.”

  The man let the information sink in for a minute. “Your government tried to kill you in Aleppo, the Americans just killed your family…now, we want you to come work for us.”

  Jamal was silent for a moment before he responded, “Why would I want to work for your organization? I adamantly disagree with your interpretation of Islam and what you are doing.” He hoped that the man would not pull out a pistol and kill him.

  Instead, the man just snickered before he replied, “It doesn’t matter if you believe in our cause or not. We can provide you with the means to avenge the death of your family. If that interests you, then call me when you get out of the hospital and we will talk further about it.” He placed a burner phone on the table near his bed, then nodded and walked away.

  *******

  A week had gone by since the man in the suit had given him the burner phone. After settling his brother’s estate with the local government and burying his wife, two children and brother, Jamal picked up the phone and called the only number programmed into it. It rang a couple of times, and then a man picked up.

  “Yes,” he said in a gruff voice.

  “This is Jamal. I was given this number to call when I was ready to talk,” he said. He wasn’t sure if he was talking to the man in the suit or someone else.

  “Someone will be in touch with you shortly,” the voice responded briskly before abruptly disconnecting the call.

  Jamal held the phone in his hand and stared at it for a moment. He was feeling impatient, his desire for vengeance burning within him.

  The following day, a man called Jamal back on the burner phone. He picked it up on the second ring. “Hello?” he queried.

  Without any pleasantries, the man on the other end replied, “Go to Café Rumist tomorrow at ten o’clock in the morning and order a coffee.”

  Jamal started to ask a question, but the line was already dead. He sighed. There was nothing left to do but wait.

  Another restless night of sleep went by as his mind raced. He speculated what would happen at this meeting.

  Am I being set up? he wondered. He kept contemplating whether or not that man would really have the ability to allow him to exact his revenge on those who had killed his family.

  Jamal tossed and turned all evening, barely getting any sleep at all. However, the sun eventually rose, and it became time to head toward the café. By 9:50 a.m., Jamal was already seated with a drink and a pastry, trying to appear as normal as possible.

  After a couple of minutes, the man in the suit from the hospital walked up from behind and sat down across from Jamal. “Asalaam alaikum,” he began. He had a warm and inviting smile, as if greeting a good friend and not someone he had only just met.

  “Alaikum asalaam,” replied Jamal as he took a sip of his coffee.

  Smiling, the man declared, “I am pleased that you contacted me.” He waved off the waiter, who had walked toward their table. “Now that you have settled your brother’s affairs and buried your family, it is time for you to have your revenge. Are you ready?” he asked.

  Jamal simply nodded his head, never breaking eye contact.

&nb
sp; The man smiled. “Good. We have a plan for you. We want you to apply for political asylum in America. The Syrian government made a deliberate attempt to kill you and your family because you spoke up against the regime, and this has been well documented—”

  Jamal interrupted, “—The Americans killed my family. Why would I want to apply for political asylum with them?” He clenched his fists in anger as he spoke.

  Without missing a beat, the man replied, “Because the mission we have for you is in America. You possess a special skill set, one that we could use there more than we can here.”

  Pulling a folder out of his briefcase, he handed it to Jamal. “Inside the package, you will find a business card for Sheikh Ibrahim Eliamam. He is the imam at the Chicago Metro Islamic Center. He is also the doctor who runs the local medical clinic there. Make contact with him. He will know to expect you.”

  The still-unnamed man continued, “Once you are there, get settled into Chicago. Find a nondescript job and do not stand out or get in trouble with the police. Keep to yourself. Sheikh Ibrahim will introduce you to the other members of your team when and if he needs to.” The Saudi spoke as if he was explaining to a new employee what his job duties were going to be.

  Sitting back in his chair, then taking a sip of his coffee, Jamal asked, “What exactly do you want me to do?”

  The man in the suit just smiled. “We want you to use your skills in chemistry. You will create a wide range of explosive devices for various uses.”

  Jamal’s face betrayed his concern at this suggestion.

  “Don’t worry, my friend. Others will use what you have created, so you will not be at risk. You just need to produce the devices when asked. Of course, when you create these devices, you must be sure that you do not leave behind any evidence, such as fingerprints or traces of DNA. The Americans are very good at finding any errant remnants.

  “The Americans have been waging war against the lands of Islam for nearly thirty years. They have killed millions of our people with impunity. That is about to change. You are one of the last pieces of the puzzle that will allow us to bring the fight to their lands; you will probably be the most important person in this effort. We don’t ask you to be a part of our mission lightly. Now that you have committed yourself, we will do our best to protect you and help you succeed.”

  The two men talked for a couple of hours about how they would communicate. They would use a couple of specific chatrooms on the dark web ISIS had found and used as a cover. The man talked briefly about the dark web and how to access it using Tor and Privoxy, so his IP address could not be tracked. The man brought out his laptop and walked him through the process. It seemed simple enough. Though Jamal wasn’t very tech savvy, he knew what Tor was and how an onion router worked. He felt comfortable being able to navigate inside the dark web to the areas he needed to. He could always watch YouTube if he had questions.

  After several hours, the two men walked to the nearby mosque for afternoon prayer and then parted ways, never to meet in person again.

  Chapter 3

  The Good Doctor?

  Chicago, Illinois

  Sheikh Ibrahim Eliamam had immigrated to the US in the late 1980s after fighting in Afghanistan as one of the Mujahedeen that the CIA had trained. He was one of many Saudi Muslims who had traveled to Pakistan to attack the Soviets for the Americans. In return, he had been rewarded with a green card and a pathway to citizenship.

  Prior to volunteering to be a Mujahedeen, Ibrahim had gone to King Saud University and been educated as a doctor. He had used his medical training to provide medical services to the Mujahedeen and the local villages they protected. When he arrived in America, he settled in Chicago and went to work at the University of Chicago Medicine as an ER doctor. His experience working as a clinician in a war zone was highly valued since he had enormous experience in combat trauma injuries. Ibrahim also taught several medical courses on gunshot trauma and other battlefield injuries at the teaching hospital.

  Ibrahim quickly made a name for himself as one of the best trauma doctors in the city, and his courses at the university were among the most sought after. Ibrahim was not an overtly pious Muslim, though he did actively practice his faith, and he routinely volunteered his limited time at free clinics that served the Muslim community of Chicago.

  It was not until the September 11, 2001 attacks that he became more heavily involved in the Islamic community. When it was announced that Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda organization was responsible for the attacks, he flashed back to a training camp that he had attended in Afghanistan where he had heard bin Laden teach; the memory had remained dormant until Ibrahim had seen his face again on the news.

  Following that day of days, he noticed that his colleagues at the hospital viewed him differently, and so did his patients. Despite having assimilated into his adopted home and speaking fluent English, he suddenly felt like an outsider. Everyone looked at him suspiciously, even though he had gone through the hard work of obtaining dual citizenship with the United States and probably knew more about the country’s history than most of them did.

  One day, while he was attending to a patient at the hospital, he was approached by several FBI agents. They barged into the treatment room of the ER while he was stitching up a patient and barked, “Ibrahim Eliamam, you are under arrest! Step away from the patient!”

  He stood there for a second, stunned, not sure if this was some sort of dream. As he came to his senses, he managed to ask, “What are the charges?”

  The FBI agent, who was wearing dark sunglasses indoors, pulled out a warrant and announced in an unnecessarily loud voice, “You are under arrest for suspected ties to Al Qaeda!”

  Everyone around Ibrahim stood there shocked. Then worry and panic set in. They were all concerned that they might have had a terrorist living and working amongst them all this time. The agents turned him around and cuffed him in a not-very-delicate manner. They marched him out of the ER in front of his fellow colleagues and patients as if they had just arrested Osama bin Laden himself. He saw the looks of shock, anger, and fear on the faces of his peers. One of the nurses that he used to have coffee with spat on him as he walked past her.

  Fortunately, Ibrahim was a highly-paid doctor, so he had the financial means to hire a high-powered lawyer, and that was exactly what he did. His attorney wasn’t happy that his client had been interrogated for nearly forty-eight hours straight before he was allowed to contact his legal counsel, and he came in with guns blazing, threatening a lawsuit from the ACLU.

  After being held for nearly three days in FBI custody, Ibrahim was released, with no charges filed. His lawyer brought him to a café to get some food into his system. Ibrahim didn’t wait until they were in a more private place to talk. “What in the world do they have on me?” he probed in between ravenous bites of scrambled eggs.

  “Well, the FBI already knew that you had fought with the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan, but they recently learned that you had attended a training camp run by bin Laden. They have no evidence linking you to Al Qaeda, other than being at the same place as the world’s most wanted terrorist fifteen years ago…Ibrahim, you need to keep a low profile. Don’t do anything to attract additional attention. I would also recommend that you keep my law firm on retainer, in case you need us again.”

  Unfortunately for Ibrahim, when the FBI had arrested him, they had made a big deal about it at his place of work. Someone at the hospital had also tipped off the Chicago Tribune, which had run a story about the FBI detaining a local ER doctor for allegedly having ties to Al Qaeda. An unnamed source at the FBI had leaked that Ibrahim had attended a Mujahedeen training camp run by bin Laden in Afghanistan in the mid-1980s. Most Americans didn’t know the difference between the Mujahedeen fighters, who had fought against the Soviet Union, and Al Qaeda, so this was devastating to his reputation.

  When Ibrahim went back to the hospital the next day after being released from the FBI, he was stopped by a security guard. “You are not
allowed on the property, Sir,” he was told.

  The following day, he was asked to report to Human Resources. He met with his boss, several people from HR, and the hospital lawyer. He explained to them, “This was just a mix-up. I am not a member of Al Qaeda. The FBI made a mistake. They didn’t charge me with any crime. Why else would they release me?”

  The damage, however, had been done, and there was no undoing it. One of the HR staff announced, “You are being terminated for failure to show up to work for three consecutive days.”

  “But, Sir,” Ibrahim protested, “that was the amount of time I was held by the FBI without charges.”

  It didn’t matter. He wasn’t getting out of that room with his job still intact.

  As they walked out, his supervisor pulled him aside and told him privately, “I’m sorry, Ibrahim. Several of the nurses and doctors expressed concerns about working with you. They don’t feel safe, even if you weren’t charged by the FBI.”

  Ibrahim said nothing in response. Instead, he filed a wrongful termination and discrimination suit against the hospital. The matter was settled quietly out of court for ten million dollars.

  Afterwards, Ibrahim tried to get hired at nearly a dozen hospitals. Each time, his arrest was discovered during a routine background check and he was passed over. Then the Americans invaded Iraq, and Islamophobia was at its height. He began to spend more time at the Chicago Metro Islamic Center, the one place he felt accepted.

  Since he could not practice medicine the way he had in a hospital setting, he spoke with the imam and was granted permission to establish a medical clinic for the local Muslim community of Chicago. Ibrahim donated several hundred thousand dollars of his own money to get the clinic up and running. He also wrote a letter to the Saudi consulate in Chicago and asked if his clinic, “Access Clinic,” might be eligible for any grant money.