True Allegiance

The man across the table from Brett had grown since high school. He wore a short-cropped beard now, as well as a taquiyah. He’d also taken to wearing a pair of rimless round glasses, which he wore perched on the tip of his nose. Behind those glasses, though, it was still Derek, smiling eyes, the kid who’d once sung “Ebony and Ivory” to get him out of a confrontation with a mammoth named Yard. Brett and Derek had kept in touch after high school; Derek had gone on to the University of Illinois. There, he’d become enamored of Islam, in particular the later teachings of Malcolm X—the ones, Derek said, that Elijah Muhammad and Louis Farrakhan ignored. “They didn’t shoot Malcolm for being a racial radical, or for yelling about the white man,” Derek said. “They shot him because he taught true Islam. The Islam of peace. They didn’t kill him until he changed his name to el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz and started talking about how Islam taught tolerance for religious plurality and political differences and racial diversity.” Derek’s own brand of Christianity, he’d told Brett, had seemed washed out and pale next to this broader religion; his mother had taken him to church once in a while and given him a whupping if he’d been caught skipping Sunday school, but he didn’t know much about Jesus other than the pictures of the white man on the wall. He’d found his peace in Islam, changed his name to Hassan Abdul—“Beautiful Servant” in Arabic.

Hassan had gotten active at his local mosque, gone on hajj, experienced the magic Malcolm X had talked about. He’d also experienced something else: the perversion of what he believed his religion to be. In Saudi Arabia, he’d seen corporal punishment taking place. He’d seen the repression of the regime, and he’d heard the complaints of citizens whispering about the corruption of the monarchy, the loose talk about religiously purer heroes, men like Osama bin Laden. Upon his return to the United States, he’d moved to Virginia for work, attended mosque at the Dar Al-Hijrah Islamic Center near Washington, DC.

There, he’d met Anwar al-Awlaki. Charismatic, scholarly, soft-spoken, brilliant, al-Awlaki quickly built a following in the mosque. His classes were deeply conspiratorial, charismatically magnetic. The Zionist entity, he said, was responsible for Muslim suffering the world over, an outpost of Western colonialism and racism; groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, and al-Qaeda were fighting for a stronger Islam. Hassan Abdul said nothing. He did nothing. He thought perhaps this was just another strain of Islam. After all, Malcolm X had spoken in favor of ideological diversity.

Then, on September 11, he’d seen al-Awlaki’s impact. The government linked al-Awlaki to two of the hijackers. And the Saudi government had backed the mosque because so long as outrage was focused without rather than within, it served their purposes.

After September 11, Hassan spoke to Brett, and Brett set up a covert meeting with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Hassan Abdul became a mole. His jobs changed over the years, as did his location. His responsibility under the Bush administration had been to provide leads on possible terror suspects attending mosques in prominent urban areas. For the past several years, he had been stationed in New York City. At the mosque, he posed as a borderline radical—he spoke regularly about the injustices of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—but during his off-hours, he spoke frequently with a connection at the FBI. When al-Awlaki made contact with the treasurer of a local mosque via e-mail, the FBI found out, because that treasurer was Hassan Abdul.

With the election of Mark Prescott, however, the FBI had undergone certain changes. The monitoring of mosques had largely been shut down, deemed offensive and inefficient by the new administration. Hassan still received occasional contacts from the FBI, but the lack of regularity made it difficult to track secondary suspects, or to continue long-term monitoring of those who left the area. Over time, Hassan cut off contact altogether, frustrated with the lack of investigative follow-up.

Then he received a call from Brett.

Hassan adjusted his glasses. “I don’t know who’s behind the bridge attack, Brett. I’m sorry.”

“I didn’t expect you would.”

“Then why are you here?”

“I don’t think it’s over. And I need you to help me find someone.” Brett laid out what he knew about Mohammed: the name, the fact that he’d heard Ashammi specifically address him in Tehran.

“It’s not a lot to go on. How do you even know he’s coming to New York, as opposed to some other city? How do you know he wasn’t involved in the original attack? Has the government even locked down the bastards who planted the bombs?”

“I don’t know, Hassan. All I know is that there’s something more to this. And I know that he is religious. The way that Ashammi spoke to him. If he’s here, the only way to find him will be through the mosques.”