May 3
9822 Watchung Road
Essex County
Short Hills, New Jersey
5:11 P.M. EDT
“Signal to me when you are in readiness to begin,” Ahmad Abu Khaled said to Ziyad.
“I will hold up my fingers,” Ziyad said, bordering on an inappropriate giddiness in his excitement. “A countdown. When I close my fist, we will be recording.”
“Fucking floor directors,” Dennis Littrell murmured to Katie Casey, “anywhere you go, they’re all the same.”
Denny had hoped his words might somehow comfort the young woman, but they were needless: Katie displayed a bold composure, though it also broadcast an unmistakable disdain at their captors. Denny was impressed; his own demeanor was similarly contemptuous, but he would have readily admitted that he had far more practice at it.
Both of them faced the camera, kneeling, hearing the excited muttering of the men lined up behind them. Denny and Katie fell back into silence.
Only Tavah Duhahi was speaking now, as she had since they each had been roughly shoved to their knees in the brightly lit room. She had been placed next to Denny, turning the newsman into the centerpiece between the two women who would die with him.
Tavah’s voice was strident, defiant, laced with what Denny guessed were blistering Arabic blasphemies and various profane suggestions about the lineage, parentage, and heritage of their captors.
Like her fellows, Tavah’s wrists were wrapped in multiple layers of plastic shipping tape; unlike them, at least for the present, she was stained and mottled, covered with blood on her head, face, torso. Abu Khaled had decided not to have her face wiped clean, no doubt intending the blood of a “fallen jihadist martyr” to communicate additional messages unspoken.
Ahmad stood directly behind her, framed by the ornate green-and-white banner that served as a backdrop to the overall tableaux.
At the camera, Ziyad’s fingers began the countdown; Denny heard Abu Khaled clear his throat. As if in unconscious cooperation, Tavah fell into a defiant silence beside him.
The cameraman’s hand closed to a fist.
“Bis’millah, ir-Rahman, ir-Rahin!” Ahmad said, a chant immediately repeated in English. “In the name of Allah, most gracious, most compassionate! May all Believers honor him, and the unholy fear him!”
Ziyad grinned, despite the solemnity of the occasion: His shot had begun as a tight frame on the leader’s face, pulled back timed to the opening words, and had settled into a wide shot that included the background banner, the line of Abu Khaled and his warriors, and of course the three kneeling infidels.
It was indeed expertly done, Ziyad told himself. Compelling video, a majestic image that is rich in symbolism…
“I am his servant, lowly before Allah,” Ahmad proclaimed. “I but serve him, as do my companions.” His left hand gestured vaguely at the line on either side of him.
Zayid frowned slightly; to him, the gesture looked awkward.
Had we but rehearsed, he sighed. Ah, well … no matter…
“Together, we have scourged the Great Satan—destroying his city, slaying the man raised up as these infidels’ President. These actions have been justice, and righteous vengeance for the evils inflicted on Believers around this world. Know this, America: Your capital and your President are but a minor part of the payment due from you, which we will never cease to exact in the name of the One True God!”
Through the viewfinder, Zayid saw Abu Khaled’s eyes flicker to the side of the room, off-camera. He risked his own glance, and saw the two infidels who had aided the group slip through the door.
An insult, Ziyad raged. Cowards; they have no stomach for the coming sacrifice, insufficient will to watch as justice is delivered…
Ahmad had composed his features, resumed.
“These three—” with haste, Ziyad dipped the camera, moved in for a three-shot medium close-up “—this man and these women, today will pay yet more of this price. This woman, defiled in blood—” Ziyad silently cursed; his camera move to Tavah’s face was jerky, amateurish “—is an Israeli spy, a faithless woman who has committed murder in the name of her fellow criminals who occupy our lands. She is cursed forever, and her fate foreshadows that of all Jews.”
Ahmad took one swift step to the side; his right hand flashed from behind his back as his left seized Tavah Duhahi’s dark hair and pulled it sharply rearward.
The knife slipped effortlessly across her throat, deep into it; Ziyad almost cheered at the visual impact of the gushing blood that erupted like a crimson fountain in the camera’s viewfinder.
He held the shot, a sharp focus on the gaping wound that opened like an oversized, second mouth below the other, itself also opened wide and streaming blood.
When the flow slowed to a dripping trickle, Ziyad took it as his cue: pull back and widen the shot, moving in pace with Ahmad Abu Khaled as he stepped to the side.
He slowed behind Denny.
Then he took one more sideway step, and halted behind Katie Casey, her features frozen in shock.
Tavah Duhahi’s hot blood dripped from the knife’s razor edge, a drop falling on Katie’s cheek. It traced a downward line, but still the young woman did not move.