I was back on the street the next morning.
It was before 8:00 A.M. on September 11, 2001. The weather was perfect. Not hot, but not cool yet. The only hint of fall was football dominating the morning sports talk. Week one was over. My Bills dropped the season opener to the Saints, but it was week one. There was still hope.
I was tired as I drove my Mazda to the buy. Even though Billy cut me loose early, it still took me hours to come down. When I finally got to sleep, the alarm went off. I dragged myself to work, praying for a weekend.
It was only Tuesday.
I parked my car after doing a lap around the block. My spotter, James, was set up across the street as I approached the dealer. He was a young black guy. A low-level guy. He was just a cog in the machine. The start of a thread that hopefully led to his supplier.
The crack buy was routine. Money and drugs exchanged in one fluid motion. The dealer was chatty. I wasn’t interested in talking about the weather or if the Seattle Mariners, on their way to winning more than one hundred games, would challenge the Yankees when the playoffs started next month. But sports turned to current events before I walked away.
“Yo, did you hear some drunk guy just flew a Cessna into the World Trade Center?” he said.
“What?”
“Yeah. A plane hit one of the towers.”
I didn’t believe it. A drug dealer wasn’t the most reliable source unless you were looking to score. I got back into my car and tossed the drugs onto the passenger seat. I tuned the radio to a news station. Initial reports had a Cessna striking the north tower at 8:46 A.M., a few minutes before I made the buy.
As I drove back to the office, details started to come in about the plane. It wasn’t a Cessna. It was American Airlines Flight 11. The Boeing 767 aircraft had left Boston’s Logan Airport headed for Los Angeles. I’d learn later that Mohammed Atta and four other hijackers took control and flew it into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. There were eleven crew members and seventy-six passengers on board.
I got back to the office just as United Airlines Flight 175, a Boeing 767 with a crew of nine and fifty-one passengers, hit the South Tower. I ran into the conference room. Guys from the unit were watching the news on a TV in the corner. A stunned silence hung over the room as the footage of the plane hitting the South Tower was replayed. The pit in my stomach grew each time I saw the plumes of smoke and fire shoot out of the towers.
—
American Airlines Flight 77, a Boeing 757 aircraft, with a crew of six and fifty-three passengers, crashed into the Pentagon thirty minutes later.
Oh God, please don’t let this be a terrorist attack, I thought. That’s how naive I was at the time, how naive many of us were.
My cell phone rang. It was my girlfriend. She was crying. Our mutual friend was trapped in the South Tower. He was a few floors above the damage and called his wife. She could hear the sirens in the background as he tried to reassure her.
“I love you,” he told his wife. “I don’t know what is happening. We’re going to try and get out now. Don’t worry about me. Take care of you.”
That was the last time they talked. Everybody in the office was getting the same kinds of calls. The first reports about al Qaeda shook me out of my stupor. Images of Osama bin Laden in his military field jacket firing an AK-47 filled the TV screen. Then news broke that the hijackers were all Arab Muslims. All of a sudden my religion was front and center. The hijackers had killed thousands of innocents in the name of the most precious and private thing in my life. My gaze was fixed on the TV, but my mind was back in Egypt.
I was born in Alexandria. I arrived in New Jersey in 1977. My father was looking for a better life, so he packed up his wife and two kids and flew three thousand miles to a foreign country. Even at four years old, moving to the United States was a culture shock. My preschool teacher called home after the first week with a good report.
“He is doing well,” she told my mother. “He is very talkative. He is a good little boy. But no one has any idea what he is saying.”
My father was a medical engineer, but his first American jobs were modest. He pumped gas and worked in a chocolate factory and as a security guard on a department store’s graveyard shift. My mother was a chemist. She worked side jobs before getting a job at a chemical company that made fabric dyes. She was lucky. It took my father six years to get a job designing orthopedic implants. His claim to fame was Bo Jackson’s hip. Each passing year my family got wealthier. When my father bought a house with a pool in North Jersey, we knew we had settled into the American dream.
Being Muslim in America in the 1980s wasn’t a big deal. We lived across the street from a church. A synagogue sat behind our house. I had sleepovers at my Jewish friends’ houses. Most people thought I was Hispanic. But at home, my mother only spoke Arabic to me. She never wanted me to lose my culture or religion.
Islam was something I practiced privately. My mother made sure I studied the Quran and made Islam a daily part of my life. I still strive to say my prayers every day. Do I miss a day? Yes. Have I missed fasting during Ramadan? Sure. I’m no different from Catholics who go to church only on Christmas and Easter. That doesn’t make me less religious. It just makes me a human who, at the end of the day, is a Muslim.
It was a trip to the mosque with my father that set me on my path. I was in college, struggling to get a degree in business. The prospect of being chained to a desk in a cubicle farm made my skin crawl. My favorite college class was an introduction to criminal justice. I knew it would be a hard sell to my parents. They’d accept lawyer, but not cop.
It was Friday and I was headed home for a visit. My father met me at the house and we went to the mosque together. As I prayed, I noticed a Turkish man in a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) shirt nearby. I watched as he prayed with his gun strapped to his hip. I didn’t know the man, nor did I talk to him afterward. But seeing him planted a seed. In his own way, he gave me permission to consider law enforcement.
The next semester, I switched my major to law and justice. It was a hybrid prelaw and criminal justice major. I told my parents I wanted to be a lawyer, but my sights were set on federal law enforcement. My grades went from solid Bs to straight As. Right before graduation, I broke the news to my parents that I wanted to be a cop. Not a street cop, but a federal agent. The FBI was recruiting me, but I didn’t have a formal offer.
I papered the region’s police departments with my resume. I was in the running for jobs in Maryland and with the Secret Service, but a New Jersey police department hired me. They promised me an investigative position and a spot on the fugitive task force. I couldn’t say no. The day I graduated from the police academy, the FBI recruiter pulled me aside.
“Can I have a minute of your time?” he asked.
Agent Butler was a former SWAT Team member who was finishing up his career recruiting. I had met him during career day in college. Butler had checked in on me at the police academy, but this meeting was different.
“So, son, are you ready to join the FBI?”
“Let me ask you something,” I said. “You and I have been talking for a couple of years now. You don’t really know me. Why are you pushing the FBI so much on me?”
Butler smiled.
“I don’t really know you,” he said. “But you speak a language we need. You’re in law enforcement, and before your face is known and before you forget about us, we’d love to have you start the process.”
The Bureau was looking for Middle Easterners to help with terrorism investigations. It was the late 1990s, and terrorism was on their radar after the 1993 World Trade Center bombings. The FBI saw a gap in its ability to track and understand the Islamic terrorism threat.
“What are the chances of me ending up in a van in Detroit or in New York listening to a bunch of dirty Arabs?” I was trying to get a sense of how typecast I’d be.
Butler shrugged.
“Very astute,” he said. “I’m not going to lie to you. A high likelihood. You’re twenty-two years old. We don’t hire twenty-two-year-olds to become agents unless they have one of a handful of things that we need. You speak Arabic. You’re hired for that reason. They’re not going to stick you in a bank robbery squad.”
The FBI was one of my career goals, but more than anything I wanted to get my hands dirty.
“Okay,” I said. “Can you give me some time to figure out what it means to be a cop? Get that out of my system, and maybe our paths will cross later?”
Butler shook my hand.
“I respect that,” he said. “Good luck, son. Stay in touch.”
—
I graduated from the police academy on a Friday in 1996. On Monday, I joined a fugitive task force in New Jersey. A couple of years later, I moved over to narcotics and guns. Back in the conference room on 9/11, I couldn’t shake a feeling of guilt. Had I missed my calling? If I’d gone a different route, could I have prevented this? Should I have taken the FBI’s offer?
“There’s nothing we can do about this,” one of my coworkers said. “I’m going back out on the street.”
I couldn’t move. At one point, a sandwich showed up for me. It sat untouched. People shuffled in and out of the room. But I stayed in my seat. An evidence bag of crack cocaine sat in front of me. All day I could feel the rage building in the conference room. There was a twinge of anger in Peter Jennings’s tone as he read the updates. I understood it. But this wasn’t Islam to me.
The sun had set when I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was Billy, my sergeant. He didn’t put his hands on anyone unless they were getting arrested.
“We know that is not your religion,” he said. “I hope they get those fucking animals. Go home. Get some sleep.”
It was dark when I finally stood up. I’d been physically, mentally frozen all day. I locked up the office and walked to my car. I didn’t turn on the radio. I just drove to my house in silence. I couldn’t take any more talk about al Qaeda or the attack. I was angry, embarrassed, and hurt. Some asshole in a cave turned me and my family into the enemy. I hadn’t felt this lost since my mother passed.
As I drove home, my mind drifted to 1997. It was July 4th weekend and I’d been a cop for a little more than a year. I was standing in my kitchen when my father called. I could tell something was wrong immediately. There was a hitch in his speech.
“Pop, what is going on? You’re freaking me out.”
He paused.
“I don’t want to worry you, but your mom started dropping things in the kitchen,” he said. “Being clumsy. She hit a shopping cart at the A&P parking lot. She clipped the mirror pulling out of the garage. I took her to the doctor. They found a brain tumor.”
When my father said “brain tumor,” I felt sick to my stomach. My legs felt weak and I sat down. My father sounded confident as he talked about how one of the best brain surgeons on the East Coast was going to treat her. I knew he was being positive for me and I took the lifeline. She was going to be fine, I told myself.
My mother was in and out of the hospital the next few weeks. The biopsy confirmed the tumor was malignant and aggressive. The treatment plan was to use chemotherapy to shrink it, and then the surgeon would go in and remove it. My father called me after one of her stays in the hospital. My mother wanted to have a party.
Our house had a cabana with a fireplace and furniture. I helped set it up for the party. Growing up, my friends spent from morning to when the streetlights went on swimming and hanging out at the cabana. My mother waited on us with drinks and snacks, but she was more than that to many of my friends. They spent hours talking to her. She knew more about their aspirations and problems than I did. I spoke to my mom every single day I was away at college. So did my roommates. They would run to answer my phone just to talk with her.
On the day of the party, guests arrived in small groups. There were lots of smiles. Some tears. Many laughs. I stayed busy helping with drinks and food. It was around dusk when my father asked me to help my mother to the pool deck. The guests were outside and my father wanted my mother to be in the mix. I trotted across the thick green grass of the backyard and in through the back door of the house.
“Dad wants you to come out,” I told her.
She smiled and reached for my hand. She clung to me as we walked from the family room to the back door. Each step was a grind.
Left. Right. Left. Right.
I used to yell from the pool for more chips or soda. She had walked these few steps with ease and a smile. Now nothing flowed. Her joints were like hinges in need of oil. She was leaning on me so much that I practically carried her across the lawn.
I had leaned on her my whole life. Now she was leaning on me just to get across the yard. My mom wasn’t getting better. She wanted this party to say her goodbyes.
My mother returned to the hospital less than a week later. I lived about an hour south, but I came up a couple of times a week to visit. One evening my father called me and asked if I could keep my mother company.
“I’m going to be late,” he said. “I have a meeting in the office.”
“No problem,” I said.
“Just help her out with dinner,” he said. “Sit with her until I get there.”
I left work early the next day and headed to the hospital. Traffic was terrible and I arrived about ten or fifteen minutes late. She was alone in her room. Her dinner was on the tray across her bed. She had her knife and fork, but her brain wouldn’t let them work together. The fork fell out of her hand. She held the plate with her elbow and tried to cut a piece of meat.
Tears rolled down my face. I froze at the door. I didn’t want her to see me because I knew she’d console me. I wasn’t there for me. I was there to help her. I wiped the tears from my cheeks and walked into the room. My smile hid the pain. I hugged and kissed her.
“I’m so sorry I’m late,” I said.
I made no mention of the fork or knife. I just started cutting her meat and talking. I tried to keep a happy face, but my mother saw right through it. She knew I was hurting.
After her tray was cleared, I sat by her bed. I held her hand. I still wasn’t ready to accept what was happening. But she was. She squeezed my hand and told me it was Allah’s will.
“It is everything I ever taught you,” she said. “You need to believe it in your heart.”
She told me to take care of my father and sister.
“One day we will all be reunited,” she said, the hint of a smile on her face. “Never spend a day being sad. Remember all the love and the memories we had. Wear them. Use them. Be the good man I know you will be. Help people. Do as much good in this world as you can. I will see you in heaven.”
It was calming, yet devastating. Our bond was for eternity. I needed to hear it. But I still wasn’t ready for the end.
My father called me the following week.
“You should come up,” he said. “Your mother slipped into a coma.”
I rocketed up the Garden State Parkway. It was just a setback. It happens. I kept repeating that to myself while I drove. When I got to the hospital, the nurses were standing around crying at their stations. In the short time my mom was there, she knew every nurse by name and everything about them. They adored her.
My father was in the doorway of her room. His arms were crossed. He was crying. It was the first time I’d ever seen him shed a tear. I touched his shoulder and entered the room. In the corner was my sister in a ball. She was hugging her knees and sobbing.
The doctor was at the foot of my mother’s bed looking at her chart. I was struck by how thick it was. He flipped page by page like he was looking for a cure. His eyes never left the chart. I ran to my mother’s side. She was wearing her favorite purple robe. She had a breathing tube in her mouth. Her head was leaning toward me. I grabbed her hand and touched her head. My mouth was dry. My head was throbbing. I wasn’t sure what to do. There was only silence and the hum of her respirator.
Why weren’t we game-planning? Why wasn’t this like a war room? I didn’t want peaceful. I craved action. A plan. Anything but surrender. I stared at the doctor. He kept his gaze on the charts.
“The tumor clearly didn’t reduce in size,” I said, struggling to engage him. “It’s obviously getting bigger. What if we go in and we just try to take it out? You said it would be like arthroscopic surgery. We can just reduce it, right?”
I wanted him to order the nurses to prep my mother for surgery. I wanted him to tell me he was going to save her. The doctor put down the chart and looked at me.
“Look, kid, it’s over,” he said. “Say your goodbyes.”
“You motherfucker,” I said.
Then I dove across my mother’s legs and reached for his shirt. My pistol—slid into the waistband of my pants—was visible. The doctor recoiled and stayed just out of my grasp.
Then I felt someone grab me. It was my father. He was in shock. He went from watching his wife die to stopping his son from hurting the doctor. I was screaming and yelling as the doctor ran for the door.
“Call the police,” the doctor told a nurse as he left.
Jasmine, one of my mother’s nurses, took me to a neighboring room. She was a Middle Eastern woman in her late forties. Not much younger than my mother.
“I was with your mother before she slipped into the coma,” she said. “Your mother kept looking at something in the room.”
The story calmed me for some reason.
“What was she looking at?” I said.
“She saw light,” Jasmine said. “She told me everything was going to be fine. She said, ‘I know it is going to be fine. I am so relieved. Tell my family it is all going to be okay.’”
I didn’t know what to say.
“It’s going to be fine,” Jasmine said.
A police officer arrived a few minutes later. He was wearing sergeant stripes and a stern look. Jasmine met him at the door. She said a couple of words to him just out of earshot before he walked over to me.
“Son, are you on the job?” he said.
“Yes, sir,” I said.
“Can I see your ID?”
I showed him my badge. He looked at it and put his arm on my shoulder.
“I’m sorry for your loss, son.”
My mother died later that day. I didn’t sleep for weeks. I paced. I stared out the window. When I got home on September 11, 2001, I felt the same profound sense of loss. But unlike with my mother, there was something I could do to help. The next day, I met Billy in his office.
“They’re going to need help,” I said.
Billy was confused. “Who is going to need help?”
“The FBI,” I said. “I speak Arabic. I know the religion. I know the culture.”
I needed Billy’s permission to talk with the FBI. Billy signed off immediately. The next day Jim, the FBI resident agent, met me.
“We’re a little slammed,” he said.
It was three days after the attack. The Bureau was running down every lead they had on the hijackers. There were reports of meetings in a northern Virginia mosque, of trips to flight schools in Florida, and of post office boxes and checks cashed in Virginia Beach. Every FBI agent seemed to be working the case.
“What can I do for you?” Jim said.
He looked haggard. His suit jacket was absent. His shirt was wrinkled and he moved with a nervous energy. He hadn’t slept for days and likely wouldn’t for the next few at least.
“I speak Arabic,” I told him. “I’m Sunni Muslim. If there is anything I can do, let me know. I cleared it through my chain of command. I want to help.”
“We really appreciate it,” Jim said. “We’ll definitely be reaching out to you if we need you.”
I got the message. Don’t call us. We’ll call you. The meeting had lasted less than thirty minutes. I followed up with Jim for weeks after the attacks, but he was always too busy to talk. The FBI was waking up to a new war. They could no longer just be cops. They had to adapt to meet a new enemy.
When I arrived in America, Islam just was. Now it was the only thing that mattered.