AT 10:00 P.M. TO THE MINUTE, Kommissar Recht arrived at her apartment. He came across her threshold with a long face.
“I suppose you’re quite pleased with yourself,” he said.
Karima mustered a warm greeting to cover her nervousness. She had prepared a lavish spread to assuage his bad feelings. Scented candles flickered on her mantelpiece, and soft Ottoman music played in the background. She wore a casual, floor-length shift of red kelim design. She knew she looked gorgeous.
“I know I behaved badly today, Günther,” she said, as she took his coat. “I am sorry. Will you accept my apology?”
He uttered a half grunt.
“Good,” she said, taking his vocalization as an affirmative. “After all you’ve done for me, you did not deserve that.”
“No. I did not deserve that treatment,” he said, “especially in front of my colleagues.”
She went to her pantry and reached for a shot glass and a bottle.
“Have you ever tasted arak?” she asked, pouring the clear liquid into the glass. “The Lebanese call it the milk of lions. They give it to their best fighters.”
He gulped it down. “I prefer schnapps,” he croaked.
At her kitchen table she put the goulash and wine before him and watched him eat in silence. “Tell me your news,” she said at last.
He wiped his face politely and folded his napkin carefully.
“The good news first?”
“Please,” she said. “I’d welcome some good news.”
“For once we did things correctly,” he began. He reached in his vest pocket and pulled out a sheet of paper. “This is classified,” he said, “You can read it and give it back.”
“What is it?”
“A police report.”
She read:
At the call from Kommissar Recht from Hannover, five officers deployed to Hamburg Station. When the train from Hannover arrived at Bahnsteig 8, Agent A got off the train and made her way through the crowd waiting to board for Koblenz, deposited a packet wrapped in brown paper in the trash receptacle, and proceeded to the elevator and the upper floors. Two suspects were surveilled coming through the crowd. After looking around suspiciously, one retrieved the packet and started to walk away quickly as officers moved in on them. One was detained immediately, but the other took off running through the crowd down Bahnsteig 8 with the packet under his arm. An officer gave chase and tackled the suspect before he reached the stairs. Looking down at his prisoner, the officer said, “God is great,” and the suspect spat in his face.
Karima looked up at him in amazement. “Who was my impersonator, Agent A?” she asked.
“The one known to you as Frau Weiner. She had taken off her wig. She’s not much older than you. She’s one of our best performers.”
“Who are the prisoners?”
“Mere foot soldiers. When I got back to Hamburg, I interrogated them.”
“Yes, and?”
“They cracked like an eggshell.”
“What do you mean?”
“Later this evening, police in Duisburg arrested an African.”
“An African?”
“Yes, a professor from Mauritania named Abu Musab. We think that he has been posing as Omar, that he was the one who left those messages on your answering machine and who wrote the instructions for your drop today.”
“Omar is the Mauritanian?”
“We think that the publicity about you may have protected you somewhat from them.”
“What about the real Omar?”
“We’re sure now that he left Germany before September 11 and is somewhere in Pakistan. We have leads.”
Karima exhaled deeply and slumped down on her couch. “What’s the bad news?” she asked.
He shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “The note you gave us in Hannover mentioned sacred mementos.”
“Yes.”
“That confirms suspicions that I … and my colleagues … have long harbored.”
Curiously, his formality pleased her. For all his fustiness, she saw him now as a consummate professional, and she admired that. It was a quality to which she aspired herself.
“What suspicions?” she asked.
“We believe you received more than merely a letter and a gold coin and an inscribed Koran and precious earrings from Sami Haddad right after 9/11. The postman who delivered your mail has approached us.”
“Dear, sweet Herr Schmitt. He is a solid citizen.”
“Yes. He described a bulky envelope. Indeed, he described its feel with considerable precision. That you would get a bulky package from Newark, New Jersey, only days after 9/11 aroused his curiosity. And then he read about your connection to Haddad in the papers. He was reluctant to come forward until now. To be honest, like a few others I could name, he felt protective toward you.”
“Okay. What else?”
“A neighbor of your mother’s in Stuttgart has been in touch with us.”
“I might have guessed. I bet I know the biddy you’re talking about. My mother has only a few friends left, you know.”
“I would not make light of this, Karima.”
“So, you have a curious postman and the gossip of an old blabbermouth and a note from Omar.”
“Yes. And a phone tap with Omar’s demand for Sami’s sacred relics. They were desperate to get whatever you had. Your gold coin and earrings did not make sense.”
“And so, what is your conclusion?”
“We think you received some sort of tape recordings.”
She took his plate without answering and drifted to the sink to soak the dish and silverware.
“Would you like another glass of wine?” she asked.
He nodded. She poured it, careful not to drip on her new tablecloth.
“Tell me something, Günther. Have you ever considered having that mole on your face surgically removed?”
He was content to let the conversation drift down side paths. She had not howled in protest at his mention of tapes. His detective’s intuition told him that she would not posture or dissemble this night.
“My colleague at work refers to it as my signature. Someone else thinks I store my microdots there. I’m not sure why it fascinates people.”
“I just thought women might find you more attractive without it,” she said.
A long, awkward silence passed between them.
“Yes,” she said at last. “It’s true. Sami did send me tapes.”
Recht felt his heart pound. Many confessions had come his way in his long career. Usually, they came as the fruit of a long, hostile interrogation when the subject was boxed in and when a confession was in the culprit’s self-interest. This was different. It was voluntary, flowing from the heart, a confession of the best kind. He could not threaten her. This was what his American counterparts would scoff at as a “fishing expedition.” Yet it felt now as if he had hooked his fish. Her story had to emerge naturally. If he coaxed the material out of her, it would be a real feather in his cap. It might even restore him to good standing in the office.
“Your favorite songs, I suppose,” he said. “Sami Haddad reading the sweetmeats of Kahlil Gibran poetry.”
“I didn’t know you read poetry.”
“Or some sort of sentimental, deathbed apology?”
“Sarcasm does not suit you, Kommissar,” she scolded. “Since he mailed his package to me the night before the attack, I suppose you could call it a deathbed confession … except that he recorded his sentiments to me over the two months before the operation.”
Her revelation floored him. Confessions from Haddad recorded over two months before 9/11! Unbelievable! The night before, when Recht had brainstormed about this meeting with the first kommissar, they had imagined tape recordings with a few sentimental tidbits. Nothing revelatory or actionable, perhaps a little elaboration on his farewell letter, just another piece of the puzzle, nothing that would be of any real interest to the Americans. Two months of recollections? It was unthinkable!
She paused. Now it was her turn to level a stare at him, searching for good intentions or bad.
“Günther, I think we should review our relationship.”
“All right.”
“Now that I have disclosed my secret to you, are you going to arrest me and throw me in jail? Put me on trial for withholding valuable evidence and send me to Guantánamo Bay? Dentists are not taught about their legal rights, except in cases of malpractice.”
“Some would say that withholding vital tapes from the BKA and the Americans is a form of malpractice,” he said.
“Unless the material is trivial or personal. If he sent me our favorite songs, or read sappy Kahlil Gibran love poems to me, that would have no legal or historical value, isn’t that so?”
She continued to clear the plates, enduring his long silence stoically.
Finally, he said. “Why don’t you let me listen to the tapes? Let me be the judge of their value?”
“I can’t,” she answered.
“Why not? We could make an agreement that would protect you.”
“No, Günther, I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because I have burned them.”
Vice Kommissar Günther Recht thought he had experienced nearly everything in his long and varied career in criminal justice. But at this moment his shock was profound. Burn the tapes! Burn the most crucial evidence imaginable! How could she do such a thing?
“They proved my innocence,” she was saying. “But you will have to take my word for it now.”
“Um Gotteswillen, Karima! Do you know how many agents … here and in America …” he sputtered. “The entire BKA … a thousand FBI agents… if they knew what you have done. The Americans will be livid.”
“Honestly, Günther, I don’t think so,” she replied calmly. “I don’t think they’re interested in the humanity of Sami Haddad. They’re only interested in why their FBI and their CIA did not catch Sami and the others before they could act.”
“You burned the tapes,” he uttered again. “Of course! That accounts for the smell of burnt plastic in the train. How could I have been so stupid! The agents reported a smell of burning plastic mixed with your cigarette smoke.”
She returned to the sink and began to wash the plates. The sound of rushing water was deafening to him. He was still shaking his head, more in anger now than in disbelief. “You burned the tapes,” he whispered.
Her back was turned to him as she worked the detergent and brush. “Well, not all of them,” she said.
She rummaged in the icebox for a pear and brought it to him with a knife. Why was it, he thought to himself, that peeling a piece of fruit had such a calming effect? He could feel his heart thumping.
“Not the last one,” she said.
“The last one?”
“Yes, the one where he may tell me his decision.”
“His decision?” Recht whispered.
“Yes, his decision to go forward or to desert the cause and run away with me,” she said.
“You still have that tape?” he said, still trying to grasp what he was hearing.
“Yes.”
He leaned back in his chair, speechless, as a year of his professional life seemed to pass through his mind in a flash.
“I could make you a promise,” he blurted out finally.
She sat down across from him to hear it, her expression open, expectant, devoid now of artifice or duplicity.
“If you will let me listen,” he continued, “I could promise not to reveal their existence to my colleagues and to the Americans, unless we agree together. I could swear that to you. I will put it in writing, if you wish.”
“Oh, Günther, you are such a dear man.”
He tried to modulate his tone. “I can’t begin to imagine how hard this is for you, Karima. How have you borne this alone this far? You cannot bear it alone any longer. You just can’t.”
“You’re not the first person who has suggested that.”
“We could work together. I know as much about 9/11 as anyone. I can fill in your blanks. If we need to keep this confidential, so be it. If we decided together to go public, I promise that you’ll be protected.”
“I know you’re an important man, Günther … Ober Kriminal Haupt Kommissar Günther Recht …”
“Actually, the oberkommissar is under me.”
“Over or under, I doubt that you’d be able to control things if my tapes were made public.”
“I could. I could.”
“Besides, why does hearing Sami’s voice excite you so much? It’s morbid.”
“Why does it excite me? Because I have been on Sami Haddad’s trail for a long time.”
She rose from the table and pushed in her chair. “I have an idea, Günther. Why don’t you go outside and smoke one of those revolting Gauloises, and I’ll think about it.”
It was true. She had been alone in this quest, so utterly alone. For once, listening with someone might be a good thing. Gretchen? Or Gretchen’s brother? Or her mother? They would not understand. Hadn’t the time come to unburden herself completely? Maybe he was right. She could no longer bear this witness alone. Unless she wanted to go crazy.
Recht came back through the door almost tiptoeing. He glanced at her sidelong for a hint.
“Well?” he said.
She pondered the lumpy face of this man with whom she had logged so many miles since the catastrophe, and she felt a great storm of sympathy well up. She sat down beside him on her couch, hands over her face, and broke into uncontrollable sobs. He put his hand on her shoulder, and she collapsed into his arms. He held her firmly, as the convulsions came one after another, as if all the hurt and confusion and anger and shame of the past months had to come out wave after wave until it was all expended, and she could speak again.
“You’re right. I can’t do this alone anymore.”
“Of course not. Nobody could.”
“I thought … I thought … that his tapes were just for me. Just for me! Such an honor! He wanted me, only me, to know his whole story. How stupid I have been.”
He held her silently, awkwardly, as if afraid of saying the wrong thing.
“I’m so far beyond anger now,” she said. “But the shame … the shame …” She could not finish. “Do you think people will ever forget about him … and me?”
He held her at arm’s length, his hands firmly on her shoulders, looking deeply into her eyes.
“Yes,” he said emphatically. “Yes, they will forget. Not about the attack. But the Nineteen? They were forgotten even before they acted.”
“But how can the attack be remembered, and not the attackers?”
“Oh, the masterminds may be remembered. Bin Laden, perhaps Atta. But not Sami. He’s the one who failed. He’s easy to forget. By his failure, the Capitol Building of the United States was saved. More than that. He gave the Americans a great story of heroism. That was his gift. Listen to the news reports and the political speeches about the brave passengers who stood up to ‘terrorists’ and to ‘terrorism.’ But not to Sami Haddad. The perpetrators are an abstraction.”
“He’s no abstraction to me.”
“Nor to me.” He paused. “Let’s just sort this out together, Karima, just you and I.”
“All right,” she answered. “But not now. I can’t handle any more tonight.”
“When, then?”
“In a few days. Yes, in a few days. I promise.”
“What will we be listening to? I’d like to prepare myself.”
“You want a heads-up? Isn’t that what the Americans call it?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, his last three entries.”
“What dates?
“July 18 and 19, and then the last one, August 8, I think.”
Recht arrived early the next morning at headquarters, eager to avoid Braun, at least for an hour or so. If he was to have the chance to listen to Haddad’s narrative of the last weeks, he needed to review the intelligence that his agency had developed on the same period. If they were more than wistful yearnings, the Haddad recollections might go right to the heart of the conspiracy. They would constitute the best evidence of motive, unfiltered, unadulterated, untainted. There was nothing else like that in the BKA files or in any files elsewhere. The truth was that neither the Germans nor the Americans had any real insight into the motives of the nineteen perpetrators, much less in the motives of the most interesting and vulnerable one of the bunch, the one who had almost pulled out of the operation.
Even though he was in a kind of unofficial probation for his cozy relationship with Karima and under tremendous pressure to produce the contents of Karima’s package, the vice kommissar still sat, however precariously, atop the huge BKA task force that was investigating the Hamburg cell and coordinating with the Americans. It had been he who wrote the agency’s summary report and sent it to Washington. He had been the one to sign the authorization to share secret information with the CIA and FBI. The BKA had done its work. His agency had responded promptly to every request by the Americans, but it had been a one-way street. Muaz the doctor, Bin Laden’s number 2, had not been killed in December after all, and now the terrorist leader was making threats against Germany for helping the Americans in its “war on terror.” Despite that, the FBI was refusing to share the intelligence gained from its separate interrogations. And Recht was disappointed in the way the Americans had used his information. The vice kommissar was mired in a state of chronic frustration.
In his modest office, with its gray walls and fluorescent lights, he leaned back in his leather chair and surveyed his domain. On the walls were reminders of a long and distinguished career: the picture of him as a rookie cop during the hostage crisis at the Munich Summer Olympics in ’72, as a young inspector during the Achille Lauro hijacking in ’85, and from the mad dash around Germany in ’88 with the Gladbeck hostage crisis. It had been a good run.
September 11 was supposed to be its capstone. It was a great honor to be put in charge of the German investigations. Instead, it became a devastating embarrassment: the BKA had had the Marienstrasse apartment under surveillance for two years before 9/11. He was the man in operational charge and, therefore, was held responsible for the lack of action. They knew about Mohamed Atta and the man Sami called Fatfat. They knew that a Pakistani air force pilot had been part of the cell, perhaps the inspiration for the “planes operation,” but they had lost track of him after he slipped out of Germany to the tribal areas of Pakistan.
Of course, the BKA had no actual details of the plot or its connection to America. But they knew the players (except Sami Haddad) and knew that they were dangerous. They had let them slip away without even adding their names to any watch list. To the German press, the agency blamed Germany’s progressive legal system for overprotecting free speech, even in cases of violent criminal conspiracies. Few were persuaded. It was a black eye for the agency. No one had been officially reprimanded for these failures.
With some trepidation now, he pulled the file on the detention of Haddad in the Dubai airport on his way back to Germany from Afghanistan. He was the one who had taken the call in June 2000 about a young Lebanese connecting through Dubai from Pakistan on his way to Hamburg. Recht had listened to the suspicions of the Emirati authorities that the subject was al-Qaeda and had trained in Afghanistan. His passport had been altered, and he was giving contradictory and unsatisfactory answers during his four-hour interrogation. He had failed a lie-detector test. And he laughed constantly, nervously, almost randomly. What should be done with him?
It had been he, Günther Recht, the vice kommissar of the BHA, who delivered Germany’s final recommendation: the suspect should be released for lack of evidence. Recht was a stickler for following German regulations and law to the letter. There was no probable cause of a crime. His legalistic approach had persuaded his colleagues. They had acquiesced in his arguments, and later, denied that they had done so, leaving Recht to hold the bag. The first kommissar had been especially reluctant in the decision.
That colossal error had initiated Recht’s obsession with Sami Haddad, long before he met Karima Ilgun. Haddad’s release and his central role in the attack weighed heavily on the vice kommissioner’s conscience. Since 9/11, no one had overtly held his advocacy for Haddad’s release against him, though he suspected that it was behind the first kommissar’s chronically sour attitude toward him. The consensus persisted. Had Haddad been found, broken, and arrested, he might have led them directly to Atta, to the Hamburg cell, and to the plan for 9/11.
He could not share his disgrace with Karima. In the end, he knew he was far more responsible than she.
To overcompensate for his mistake, he had allowed himself to get too close to Karima. He had gone soft. His failure to report the existence of the Haddad tapes immediately would be grounds for instant dismissal. His pact of silence with her violated every rule of investigative practice. He knew the consequences. Perhaps it was time to go. It would not be so bad to retire to the Frisian Islands, and do a little fishing. He had always wanted to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. True, he would lose a significant part of his pension if he took early retirement. He was fifty-five—still young. He could find ways to be useful.
Now, he opened the top drawer of his filing cabinet, pulled out the FBI’s “psychological profile” of Haddad, and stripped away the cover sheet marked SECRET in big red letters. The report was more than a hundred pages long, but he was not impressed with its contents. More a narrative of Haddad’s movements and calls and expenditures than a psychological profile, it contained no insights into the villain’s mindset or motivations or conflicts. As a fact sheet, it had its uses, but as a psychological profile, it was garbage.
Recht knew that he had to overcome his anger over the destroyed tapes and make the most of what survived. Karima had said the tapes she would play for him were recorded on July 18 and 19. That was around the time that Atta had flown to Spain to meet Omar and work out the final details of the planes operation. A few weeks earlier, Haddad had flown to San Francisco in first class on a 757, the aircraft he flew on September 11. And then he had flown on to Las Vegas to rendezvous with Atta, where they happily swilled whiskey and cavorted at the blackjack table. Caught on casino surveillance videos later, the pair had had a great time. Sami had purchased a GPS for use on the operational flight. The receipt for it was in his file. These actions did not sound to Recht like those of a man gripped by indecision.
If Sami Haddad was really torn, even right up to the end, was his ambivalence sincere? Or was he trying to make himself look more sympathetic in Karima’s eyes? Recht could argue it both ways. On the one hand was Haddad’s inexorable path toward his terrible fate; on the other was al-Qaeda’s verifiable concern about his commitment and reliability. The allure of Karima was their greatest worry, and who could blame them? In intercepted communications, marked TOP SECRET, Muktar had specifically written to Mohammad Atef that “if Haddad asks out, it’s going to cost a lot of money.” Money was code. The cost of Haddad’s defection would be far greater than financial.
And the evidence showed that as they worried about Haddad, they were grooming al-Sahrawi to take his place. In an encrypted message, Muktar instructed Omar to “send skirts to Sally,” meaning “send money to the Algerian.” By the time Karima prepared to fly to Florida to see Haddad for the last time, al-Sahrawi had completed six months of flight training, including an intensive flight simulator course in Eagen, Minnesota. Al-Sahrawi himself had told authorities that when he finished his flight training in August, his instructions were “to proceed to New York.” Why? The answer was obvious: clearly to be ready to assume the pilot’s role if Haddad pulled out at the last moment. But Muktar considered Algerian to be a poor substitute.
Viscerally, the vice kommissar knew he had caused himself a problem with Karima. All his professional life, he had known never, ever, to fall in love with your agent, and now the first kommissar had called him on the carpet for his indiscretions. His superiors knew that he was not involved in any romantic way. The notion was ludicrous. Recht was no lover. He was far too old and jaded and set in his ways for amorous indiscretion, though they imagined that he, like everyone else who came into contact with this stunningly beautiful woman, it seemed, had his fantasies. Rather, “the lover does not care for his beloved so much as he draws inspiration from her.” Recht had come upon the line in his nightly reading of Nietzsche a few nights before.
And Recht was drawing inspiration from Karima. No woman in his limited experience or even in his imagination had ever been betrayed so cruelly. By helping her navigate Sami’s recollections, interpreting his actions and statements, Recht hoped to prevent her from going insane. He had indeed become emotionally involved.
Now, against his better judgment, he had made her a promise. However impulsive, it was eminently practical: at the least hint of bad faith, she might consign these last tapes to the flames as well.
He turned to the section on Haddad’s voluminous telephone records. The man had been a telephone obsessive, and the Americans had done well to track every call, most of which had employed prepaid telephone cards. Sometimes he’d called Karima three times in a day, clearly in search of moral support. Flipping to the end of the record, Recht wanted to see whether Haddad’s last call had been to Karima—the three-times-I-love-you call. Could there have been a later one? Was it really true, as he had heard, that Haddad had called Omar in Germany from the cockpit itself? The unconfirmed report stated that as Haddad, somewhere over Ohio, turned the plane back toward Pennsylvania and set the course for Washington and the U.S. Capitol, he had shouted to Omar, “I can’t do it! I can’t do it!” and Omar had screamed back, “You must! You must!” But the report was unverified.
In the FBI’s telephone logs, he saw no record of such a call, but the hijacker could have used another phone. Recht knew that in certain circles in the Middle East, this story was gaining credence. In other circles, Haddad was being held up as an Arab hero. In the hills of the Bekaa Valley, there was now an insurgent group called the Sami Haddad Brigade.
Recht reached for the al-Khatani and al-Sahrawi files. Haddad’s tape of July 18 or 19 would have to mention their names, he surmised. What would Sami have to say about those hapless blunderers? The vice kommissar had enjoyed the slapstick of the al-Khatani story when he first heard it: a bumbling Bedouin arrives on a one-way ticket in Orlando with a wad of al-Qaeda cash, unable to fill out the US immigration form, unable to say why he was coming, unwilling to swear an oath that he was telling the truth, first saying that someone was waiting for him, then that no one was, while Atta waited outside, twiddling his thumbs. Recht chuckled darkly to himself. Here again the Keystone Cops of America had sent him home rather than detaining him. Then he checked the record. Yes, al-Khatani indeed had been captured in Tora Bora late in 2001 and was now in Guantánamo. But he had been brutally tortured and rendered useless.
And al-Sahrawi? He had been indicted in December and was headed for trial in US federal court, purportedly as the “twentieth hijacker.” But Recht knew that al-Khatani was the twentieth, and al-Sahrawi was to be Haddad’s backup pilot, the twentieth and a half. The elements of the Algerian’s story seemed like a dark comedy to the kommissar as well. His remark to his flight instructors that he was not interested in learning how to take off and land a jetliner, only in how to control it in flight, was priceless. Recht had encountered many pathetic criminals in his day, but this character ranked high in his gallery of dim-witted blockheads.
As Recht reviewed the latest FBI intelligence on al-Sahrawi, Braun entered with a smirk. “Well,” he said. “Did you have a good time last night, Kommissar?”
Recht scowled. “You have a dirty mind, Braun. Shouldn’t you be busy with the Deutsche Bank case?”
“Come on, boss. Give. What happened?”
“Look here, Braun, if something significant happened, you would have no need to know it; 9/11 is my province. If I need your help, I’ll tell you.”
“In Hannover, your nighttime appointment with her seemed so promising,” Braun pouted.
Recht glowered at him in silence.
“By the way, the man from the FBI is waiting,” Braun said.
“Let him wait.” Recht waved his assistant away and went back to the Al-Sahrawi file.
They each kept their promises. Two nights later Recht arrived at Karima’s apartment at 10:00 sharp. This time there were no candles, no music, no food. Karima had collected herself, steeling herself for what was coming.
“Okay,” she said. “Let’s get on with it. I didn’t sleep very well last night.”
She shooed away the cat, and they sat together on her couch.
“Do you believe in black magic?” she asked.
He snorted. “I’m a Lutheran. We believe that life with God persists even after death, if that’s what you mean.”
“But do you think we can communicate with the dead?”
“I suppose it might be possible to be a Lutheran and practice voodoo at the same time. Martin Luther wrestled with the devil, after all.”
“I’m not talking about Martin Luther.”
“We also believe in perpetual judgment.”
“What does that mean?”
“That judgment lasts forever, now and into eternity.”
Christian theology confounded her, as much as did the fine points of Islam. She let it go.
“I have developed a ritual, Günther. It’s silly, I know. Don’t laugh. Will you humor me?”
He nodded.
She folded herself into the lotus position, laced her fingers in her lap, and closed her eyes. With a tinge of embarrassment, she whispered, “Those who I have loved and lost, speak to me now.”
She switched on the machine, uncoiled her legs, and tilted her head onto his shoulder. Sami’s voice filled their ears like an infection.
July 18, 2001
“And so, Karima, I’m at a fork in the road. One path leads to you. I’ve begun to think about withdrawing from this adventure. Its finality is just … too final. If I leave, then Atta will have his magic number, nineteen. Nineteen angels to guard the hellfire. Then he will be happy. I know they’ve got a backup for me. He’s getting trained in Minnesota. He can do it instead.
“What would happen then? I’ve been thinking about that a lot. They would track me down. To the ends of the earth. I would never be safe. You, my family, all of us would be in danger. When this is over, whoever is still alive, whoever helped along the way, will be on the run. I must protect you.
“Maybe when we see each other, we’ll talk about it. You would be shocked at first. But then, my love, you will be my rock of support. We could be brave together. I’m sure of it. Because you love me. That will be enough.
“And the other path … Atta does not share all the particulars with me, but I know we’re four teams of five. The other teams are complete. Almost everyone is in the States. They know this is a martyrdom mission, but they don’t know the details. Only my team is one guy short. Atta is in Orlando today to pick up my fifth.
“Ahmad has been shadowing me for weeks. Atta insisted that we room together. The little prick is insufferable. Seriously, I hate him. He’s constantly waking me up to pray in the middle of the night. He goes out of his way to annoy me. And he sticks to me like glue.
“The others in my team are staying in Naples. They come from the al-Qassim in Saudi Arabia, where the Wahhabis are. I know them only by their warrior names. The guy from the al-Ghambi clan, his name means “might,” “pride,” and “invincibility.” I hope so. He was in Chechnya. The other claims to be a descendent of the Prophet. I haven’t met them yet.
“My fifth team member is that little Bedouin, al-Khatani, who bunked next to me in Afghanistan. Remember I told you how he used to dream of glory with Osama bin Laden and the Prophet himself? He’ll be in the best physical shape. That will be a huge plus.
“Perhaps for once in my life I should finish something I have started. To really achieve something—what would that be like?”
Karima switched the machine off. “Perhaps for once in my life I should finish something I’ve started,” she repeated.
“He was past the fork in the road, Karima,” Recht said.
“Maybe,” she answered. “I’ve listened to this passage over and over. He still has a chance to reject them.”
“Maybe,” he repeated. “Go on.”
She pushed the play button. Haddad’s first words boiled with anger.
July 19, 2001
“Karima! I CAN’T BELIEVE THIS! Atta came to my apartment tonight and said that stupid little al-Khatani had been turned back at the Orlando Airport. He learned this from Muktar. Since al-Khatani had a tourist visa, they asked to see his return ticket. And he didn’t have one. Then he showed them he had $2,800 in cash, and they said that was not enough for his stay. When they asked if he was being met, he said yes, then no. What a joker! Then they asked again, only under some kind of oath. He sputtered something incoherent.
“Then he lost it. Goatherd! He got hostile with them. The whole idea, I mean, the first principle is not to draw attention to yourself. Kalb! Asshole! What happened to all that training? And get this: he claimed to speak no English through the whole interview. So, they got an interpreter. But then they took him to the plane, sending him back to Dubai, and he stood there at the door of the plane and shouted at them.
“‘I’ll be back!’ Idiot!
“And so, my team has four guys rather than five. There’s no time to get a backup. Maybe this makes my choice easier. When I asked Atta what we do, he just shrugged his shoulders.”
“Have you ever heard him that angry?” Recht asked as he switched it off.
“Once.”
“When was that?”
“With my old roommate, Gretchen, in Greifswald. She was a theology student and a pretty good cook. We got together for a student dinner from time to time, and when Sami was around, they often discussed religion. She’s a devout Catholic and very interested in the rituals of religion. There was only one rule: we were never to bring up Israel and Judaism. That was taboo.”
“So, what happened?”
“One time they were talking about whether Muslims had a highly developed sense of right and wrong, or whether following the ritual of praying five times a day was enough. But the conversation drifted to the question of whether Islam was a violent religion. Sami became quite agitated, and he made some outrageous remark—I can’t remember what exactly, something about jihad, probably. She was pretty well versed, and she challenged him on some important pillar of his faith. He was obviously wrong about it. And then, half-serious, she questioned whether he was a true Muslim or was just faking it.”
“Ach so! She went right to the core of his insecurity,” Recht said. “Whether he was really a true believer or just putting on a show.”
“Yes. He exploded in a terrible rage. He turned on her viciously and said something like, ‘Tonight we eat together, and tomorrow I will take you out of the picture.’”
Karima rose from the couch to get them a drink of water. She could feel his eyes on her back as she glided toward the kitchen.
“Why is he so upset with this al-Khatani business?” she asked, handing him his glass.
“It’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?” he answered. “With four instead of five, his team would have difficulty controlling the passengers. With Sami and Ahmad in the cockpit, that left only the two Saudis to keep forty passengers at bay. Sami seemed to understand that. He knew the Americans by this time, knew there was a good chance that there’d be some hero on board. His chances of success were severely diminished.”
“Success,” she whispered.
“But isn’t that the way he thought?”
“I don’t know how he thought anymore,” she mumbled.
“Don’t you see?” Recht persevered. “All his life he’d had trouble finishing anything. He falters in high school, in dentistry school, in flight engineering school. He is always dropping out. Always needs help—from his professors, from his family … from you. The loss of al-Khatani must have felt very familiar to him. He saw the shape of yet another failure.”
“I suppose that’s the way it worked out,” she muttered.
“Tell me what you remember about your two weeks together that summer.”
Karima had replayed those two weeks in her mind so many times they had almost become a dream. Or actually, two dreams. She now could accept that she had loved half a man: the good Sami, the funny, playful Sami, the great dancer, and yes, great lover. In Florida, he’d taken her to his flight school to meet his instructors, to his gym to meet his personal trainer. They’d picnicked on the beach of Siesta Key. He’d flown her solo to Miami, where they’d partied in the bars and discos of Miami Beach. And he’d taken her downtown to see the skyscrapers.
From afar, she’d seen him through the glass corridor of the Tampa Airport, tanned and fit. He had frosted his hair, and his aviator glasses hung low around his neck by a pastel Croakie, a Tommy Bahama shirt hanging loose over his athletic frame. When he spotted her, he’d flashed his wonderful grin. She’d looked forward to being with him immensely. They were good at reunions.
That was the good dream. It was her fantasy that this was the total person—that this was the real Sami when he was free to be himself.
And then there was the nightmare.
She had not been at her best in late July. Her persistent summer cold with a hacking cough had interfered with the romantic moments, and she was feeling real pain in her throat—a sign that she would soon need that tonsillectomy. She had greeted him warmly, and they made love that night with all the excitement and enthusiasm of the past. But for the next three days she was under the weather, and when she got better, she announced that she could not take off the full two weeks from work. Her vacation days were depleted. They’d had their first quarrel.
While she rested, he receded into a corner and “worked” on her computer and took long walks. It was then, she found out later, he’d visited the website about “joining the caravan.” Once she had risen from her bed, groggy and dizzy from her medication, and crept up on him for a surprise hug, only to see over his shoulder an image of an airplane crashing into a skyscraper in a Hollywood movie.
“Hey, Sami, nice going!” she had said with a laugh.
He’d turned on her with a crazed look she did not recognize, as if some terrible secret had been exposed. More than startled—she had terrified him. When she put her arms around him affectionately, he recoiled.
“You know, Karima,” Recht was saying to her now, “he wanted you to save him.”
“To save him?”
“Yes, to rescue him from the trap he was in. He knew he couldn’t do it by himself. In his mind, he was putting the entire burden on you.”
“But how was I to know?’
“There was no way for you to know.”
“If only he had said something …”
“Yes, if only he had said something.” Recht muttered. He didn’t dwell on what might have flowed from that. “If he had only said something actionable.”
From the moment of her witnessing him transfixed by the freeze frame of a burning skyscraper on his computer, Sami had withdrawn. He’d viewed her with suspicion, casting sidelong glances at her, acting as if he were a cornered animal. The tiniest tiff had turned into a raging argument. They’d quarreled and pouted and apologized and made love joylessly. The glow of Florida faded, and there they were again, almost an old married couple, up and down, hot and cold, guarded even in their happiest moments.
A few days before she was to return to Germany, Sami was again pacing his apartment, and Karima attempted to confront him.
“Sami,” she had said, “sit down. I want to talk.”
Warily, he’d obeyed.
“What’s going on, Sami?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re so jumpy. Something’s off. Something’s wrong. We’re not connecting.”
He’d looked at her with a blank expression. “Well, you haven’t exactly been at your best either.”
“I’m sorry I’ve got this cold. I know I haven’t been much fun to be around.”
“No.”
She could feel her heart pounding as she took his hand and kneeled in front of him.
“Sami, I want you to come back with me to Germany.”
His eyes wandered to the window. “I haven’t finished my training,” he’d said.
“You could finish it there. These long absences are killing us. It’s taking longer and longer to get back on the same page. You feel so far away from me.”
“I’m almost done. Just a few more weeks.”
“Are we still going to your sister’s engagement party in Beirut?”
“When is that, again?” he asked.
How could he not remember? Her family was planning a big celebration. They had talked about it often. “Late September,” she said. “September 26.”
“Late September. Yes, of course, I should be finished by then.”
Again, she’d fixed her eyes on his. “Sami, look at me. If you want to finish your training here, I want to stay in Florida. I’ve already talked to my supervisor about a leave of absence. We could be together in the next month until you get your certificate.”
“You would abandon everything for my sake?”
“Not forever. We could fly on to Beirut for the wedding, and then afterwards, figure out what to do next.”
She’d thought she’d seen panic in his eyes. “It would be wonderful to have you with me, yahabibti,” he’d said. “But it’s just too complicated. Really, I have to focus.”
Recht listened to her story impassively. “There are things you don’t know, Karima,” he said.
She did not hear him, still possessed by might-have-dones and should-have-dones. As she worked herself into hysteria, it was as if she had taken this entire history of the attack on her shoulders. “Aren’t they saying that the dissension in Florida between Sami and Atta had posed the greatest threat of all to the plot?” she shrieked. “Aren’t they saying that if only Karima Ilgun had turned him from his course … If only I had gone to the authorities … If only I had exposed it all? If only—if only—if only ….”
“Calm down, Karima. STOP. Get ahold of yourself.” Recht grabbed her by the shoulders. “None of that is true! You are not a clairvoyant!”
And then she grew quiet, turning away from him with a terrifying calmness.
“If only I had not had that abortion,” she said in a soft voice. “If only I had had his child.”
“What on earth are you talking about?” Recht said.
“He drifted away from me after that.”
“He was drifting away anyway!” he protested.
“No, a child would have bound him to me. He would never have abandoned me … and his child. Our child would have made the difference.”
She burst into tears and fell into his arms.
“There are things you don’t know,” he said again, holding her tightly. “There are things you just don’t know.”
When Recht came to her door the next night, Karima ferociously blocked his way.
“What things?” she demanded.
“Excuse me?” he replied, startled.
“What things don’t I know?”
Recht looked at her quizzically.
“Günther!”
He raised his hands in supplication. “Give me a chance to catch my breath, will you?”
She stepped aside, put her hands on her hips, and watched him shuffle to the couch. As he sat down, he exhaled loudly.
“I don’t think it’s fair,” he said.
“What’s not fair?”
“That you won’t let me smoke while we talk about such profound things.”
“Okay, talk. If your talk is good, I’ll let you smoke afterwards.”
They eyed one another warily. “Okay,” he said gruffly. “Let’s get on with this.”
She switched the machine on. No words came at first, only far in the background the throbbing, repetitive chant of an Arabic singer. Karima recognized the Hamas anthem, and the phrases the wolf has entered your house, the law of the jungle decides the fate of man, and the only solution lies in the tenets of the Koran.
Sami’s first words were flat and cold. Before he was through his first sentence, Karima heard a tone that she had heard only once before, that night in Greifswald, when he’d said to her Gretchen, “Tonight we eat together. Tomorrow I will take you out of the picture.” Recht, too, recognized that tone. He had heard it before too, through the static of airborne communications, cockpit to passengers, recorded on the ground by the Cleveland air traffic control center. For more than a year that voice was burned in his brain.
“Ladies and gentlemen. Here is your captain speaking …”
August 8, 2001
“I’ve been back for three days. I’m putting my doubts aside once and for all, preparing myself for my own personal Battle of Badr. I am purifying my soul.
“Do not be sad. By your love, you tried to turn me away from this course. I absolve you of any responsibility in my historic act, yahayati. I proclaim your innocence, and I love and admire and honor your strength and your virtue. I do this entirely on my own. This is my choice. I alone am responsible.
“My oath binds me to Osama bin Laden. I’m guided by the trust that has been placed in me. I am the instrument of my people. At last, I connect myself with the history of my clan and my region. I have not been a good Muslim. I have failed in my duty to my faith all my life. Including my duty to jihad. By this act, I end my inner struggle.
“Omar says that doubt and inner guilt and anxiety are vanities of the unbeliever. These feelings are un-Islamic and must be laid aside. If the fatwa of Osama bin Laden is wrong, if I kill Americans wrongly, thinking, just because Osama bin Laden said so, that it was my duty as a good Muslim to do this, then the blame lies not with me but with Osama bin Laden. I will be absolved of all crime, as merely a courageous warrior in a misguided cause. And my victims will go immediately to heaven and live in joy through eternity.
“I am ready for my Day of Judgment. Whatever will happen is inevitable. Whatever happens is God’s will, for His hand is everywhere.
“Farewell, Karima, my love, my life, my heart.
“Atta has returned from Spain and his meeting with Omar. Our targets are finalized. My target is confirmed. The Faculty of Fine Arts.
“The date is set as well: a lollipop, a slash, and two toothpicks.”
Karima slumped back on the couch, drained and dizzy.
“That’s all? That’s the end?” she whispered.
“On your tapes, perhaps, but no, that is not the end,” Recht answered.
“What else could there be? He was lost. He was lost after his visit with me.”
“No, my dear, he was lost long before that.”
“You can have your smoke now,” she said ruefully.
“Let’s take a walk, Karima. There’s a full moon.”
They walked along narrow winding, cobblestone byways toward the heart of the city. At a cross street, she stopped and looked at him. “See, you hounded me, Günther. You put me on trial. I told you I knew nothing.”
“That is not the end,” he repeated.
The air was moist with the promise of spring, bringing new life and new possibilities. Strollers were out in force. Well-dressed, elderly gentlemen with their well-coiffed ladies meandered along arm in arm, taking the night air. As she noticed them, Karima took Recht’s arm as well.
“We are an odd couple,” she said.
When they reached the river, they stopped to gaze out at the silhouettes of the sailboats, secure in their overnight moorings. After a long silence, he finally spoke up.
“I have said many harsh things to you along the way,” he said.
“Yes.”
“I was just being a policeman, challenging you, hoping to discover your secret.”
“You accused me of being responsible for the entire catastrophe of 9/11.”
“Yes. That was unfair. There are others far more responsible.”
She did not seem to hear his last remark. “What else don’t I know? You must tell me.”
He paused. “Well for one … after your visit to Florida, Sami did go back to Germany briefly.”
“He went back to Germany … after me?”
“Yes, Atta drove him to the Tampa Airport. For them to be seen together broke all their operational rules, but they knew that Sami’s possible defection was a major crisis. And on the other end, Omar met him in Dusseldorf and spent hours with him. They threatened him. They let him know in the most graphic detail what they would do to him and to you and to his family and yours if he pulled out. From that point forward, through his whole visit with you, and all the way into the cockpit for Flight 93, he was driven by fear.”
“Not by commitment or his oath or any sort of ideology?”
“That is so.”
“How do you know this, Günther?”
“What was your answer to the judge? ‘I know it in my heart.’ They were gangsters, and I’ve had a lot of experience with gangsters.”
“But what about his oath, and the trust placed in him, and setting aside his doubts?”
“I don’t believe a word.”
“Not even his reprieve of me?”
“Oh yes, I believe that. But the rest? He was trying to put a noble face on it. It was more comfortable to present himself to you as a hero to the Arab peoples rather than the frightened, cornered, tormented wretch he was.”
“He spoke of martyrdom.”
Recht stopped to extract another cigarette from his crumpled pack.
“You can’t stop martyrs. All you can do is reduce their number. I read that line once in a novel,” he said.
“He seemed to have come to terms—”
“Oh, please,” Recht responded in annoyance. “He was not ready for his Day of Judgment.”
“But they had a backup,” she insisted. “You said so yourself. They had this Algerian.”
“Al-Sahrawi is a loathsome little maggot, totally unreliable. They had only contempt for him and were trying to figure out how to terminate him with the most extreme prejudice. Zacarias Al-Sahrawi was no Sami Haddad. They were right to worry.”
In the distance they heard a tugboat’s horn and then the clang of a buoy, bouncing in the sharp waves of the North Sea.
“Listen. On August 29, Sami was in Washington. He had come to scout his target, and for some reason to apply for a Virginia driving license. He had never seen the US Capitol before, except in the movies. He and Ahmad strolled down Pennsylvania Avenue, and they fell in with a group of tourists.”
“Tourists?”
“Yes. From Kansas. They listened to a guide speak of the Capitol as America’s “Temple of Liberty” and how George Washington laid the cornerstone, and the guide quoted Lincoln saying that ‘if the people see the Capitol going on, it is a sign we intend this Union shall go on.’”
“Abraham Lincoln? During the American Civil War?”
“Yes, that’s when they were finishing the Capitol. The Kansas couple were in the group, and we have their statements. The husband remembered the two Arab men on their tour—one handsome, the other small and ugly. The handsome one kept fiddling with a device. At first, the husband thought it was a cell phone, but then he saw it was a GPS. As the group meandered up a walkway, the husband remembered remarking to the Arab visitors about how beautiful the Capitol is, and his wife leaned over to them and said, ‘it’s beautiful because of its idea.’”
Recht stole a glance at Karima. She trudged on, staring straight ahead. Finally, she said, “Poor Sami.”
“He was thinking about only one thing,” Recht said.
“One thing?”
“About what it was going to be like to see the ribs of that dome right in front him through the cockpit window.”
“Do you think he was insane?”
“Not entirely. He made one last attempt to get someone else to stop his ‘caravan.’ He rented a car in Washington.”
“I read about that. They found a copy of Penthouse magazine in the trunk.”
“I would not take that personally, Karima. Listen to what Atta did on his last night. He left his Koran in the strip joint where he was throwing down one scotch after another.”
“I don’t care about Atta,” she said.
Recht nodded his understanding. “And on Sami’s drive toward Newark,” he continued. “he hiked his speed up over 140 kilometers an hour north of Baltimore. Of course, he was stopped by the police. Even on an interstate in America, that’s going to get noticed.”
“You think he was trying to get arrested?”
“Yes. For the second time.”
“Second time?”
“Yes. The first was in the Dubai Airport.”
“You think he wanted more than just a speeding ticket?”
“All he got was a ticket and a lecture.”
“But what about his checklist? The part about scuttling the mission and landing the plane safely?”
“I doubt he had the skill to pull that off, and I think he knew he didn’t have the skill. We’ve talked to his trainers.”
“Including the one in Sarasota?”
“Yes, she was hard to find. She fled to Australia. She confirmed that Sami was not the brightest bulb.”
The night fog was moving in from the North Sea. Karima pulled her jacket tightly around her.
“He wrote me that letter on the last night.”
“Yes … as he took a break from studying the cardboard mockup of the cockpit panel of a Boeing 757 that they found in the dumpster of his motel afterwards. At that point, Karima, you were an afterthought.”
“But he called me from the airport.”
“That call was his last act of treachery toward you. He knew the call would be traced.”
Again the mournful, clang-tinged wail of the foghorn drifted across the dark sea.
“You have thought a lot about his case, haven’t you, Günther?”
“Yes.”
“What else do you know … that you haven’t told me about?”
He paused. “I had the chance to stop him too,” he said finally. “But I didn’t.” She seemed not to have heard him. “I am far more responsible for 9/11 than you are,” he said emphatically. Still, his confession did not seem to register. In the dim light of the nearby street lamp and the glow of the distant searchlight on the piers across the way, he stopped and looked at her. He started to speak and then hesitated.
“What else do you know, Günther?” she repeated.
“The cockpit …”
“The cockpit recording?”
“Yes … from the voice recorder … from the flight data recorder … from Shanksville.”
“You have heard it?”
“Yes.”
“Um Gotteswillen,” she whispered.
“It’s horrible,” he said.
She sat down on the cold grass and covered her eyes with her hands. A tugboat moved away from the distant pier with a roar of its powerful engine. He sat down next to her.
“I want to hear it,” she said.
“I’m not sure—”
“Do you have it?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Then I want to hear it. I insist on hearing it.”
Slowly, half-reluctant, half-eager, Recht rummaged through his pocket and pulled out a microcassette player.
“You understand English, nichtwahr?”
She nodded. “You wanted me to hear it, didn’t you, Günther?” she said.
“Yes.”
Forcefully, he switched it on. Haddad was making his first announcement. “Ladies and gentlemen, here is your captain speaking. Please sit down. Remain seated. We have a bomb on board. So, sit!”
Recht switched it off again. “Are you okay?” he asked her.
“Yes. What’s happening?”
“Sami and Ahmad had stormed the cockpit. The other two musclemen were herding the passengers to the back of the plane. Sami and Ahmad had knives at the throats of the pilot and copilot.”
Recht took hold of her hand and held it tight. “I warn you. The next five minutes are very difficult,” he said.
She nodded. “Go ahead.”
They listened to the sounds of mayhem. Sit down. Shut up. No. No. No. Lie down. Please. Please. Please. Down. Down. Down. I don’t want to die. No. No. Please. Gurgles and then Ahmad’s squeaky little voice in Arabic, “That’s it. I finished. Everything is fine.”
Then a different voice. A flight controller in Cleveland.
“United 93.”
Sami’s voice again, in English, with Arabic cadence and German syntax. “Here is the captain. I would like to tell you all to remain seated. We have a bomb aboard, and we go back to the airport. We have our demands. So please remain quiet.”
“United 93,” the controller’s voice crackled again. “I understand you have a bomb on board. Go ahead.” Ten seconds went by. The controller again: “Center exec jet 956. Did you understand that transmission?”
A different voice. “Affirmative. He said that there was a bomb on board.”
“That was all you got out of it also?”
“Affirmative.
“Roger.”
“What’s going on, Günther? Center exec jet? I don’t understand what’s happening!”
Recht switched off the recorder. With the slow deliberation of a veteran policeman, he laid out the facts. Forty-five minutes into the flight, Haddad took control of the plane over Ohio. He forgot to turn off the communication link to the ground, so the controllers and a private jet in the vicinity—executive jet flight number 956—could hear his warning to the passengers. With the pilots dying at their feet, Sami turned the plane to a southeasterly course and set the GPS with the coordinates for the US Capitol: N3853.3W7700.3.
Meanwhile, their two musclemen held the passengers at bay in the rear of the plane with box cutters and mace. Because Flight 93 had departed nearly half an hour late, and only a few minutes before the first plane hit the World Trade Center tower …
“Wait a minute,” Karima broke in. “It left late? I thought they grounded all flights after the first plane hit the World Trade tower?”
“Yes. If Flight 93 had been delayed another five minutes, it would have been grounded.”
Recht plowed on. The Flight 93 passengers knew from their cell phones what had happened in New York and began to call their families. Seeing this, one of the musclemen announced in a loud voice that the passengers might as well call their loved ones because it would be the last opportunity they would have to speak to them.
“Um Gotteswillen,” Karima mumbled again. “How do you know this?”
“We have the calls of the passengers.”
Recht switched the recorder on again. For the next ten minutes, there was a garble of unintelligible sounds, thumps, electrical switching, snatches of Arabic, and in the background, the liquid sounds of life ebbing away. A voice said clearly in Arabic, “In the name of Allah. I bear witness that there is no other God but Allah.”
“Who was that?” Karima asked.
“Ahmad. They were now twenty-nine minutes out of Washington, and the third plane had just hit the Pentagon.”
Several minutes later, the revolt began. Recht surmised that Ahmad saw several passengers rise up through the pinhole window in the cockpit door.
“Is there something?” Haddad shouted.
“A fight,” Ahmad shouted back.
“A fight?”
“Let’s go, men,” Ahmad shouted. “Allah is greatest!” Suddenly, there was a distant sound that became increasingly louder, of something heavy being rolled up the aisle, along with the shouts of two American males. “Oh guys. Oh no,” Ahmad shouted his unintelligible alarm.
Recht hit the pause button. “We know from the flight data recorder that at this point, Sami, sensing the impending attack from the cabin, pushed forward on the control column as hard as he could and put the plane into a steep dive. This probably threw the passengers against the ceiling, creating almost a zero-gravity environment. And then he pulled the column back for a steep climb. He was such a novice. He was exceeding the tolerance limits of the plane, and it could easily have broken apart.”
“Did it work?” Karima said.
“No. Listen.” He turned the recorder on again.
She could hear the banging and the shouting, and she heard Sami scream, “The ax! Get the ax!”
Amid the confusion, Ahmad screamed, “Stay back! Stay back!”
And Sami, “They want to get in here. Hold. Hold from the inside. Hold!”
There was more banging and a cracking sound, as if plastic and metal were giving way.
And then, in an eerie voice, Haddad said, “Is that it? Shall we finish it off?”
“No! Not yet!” Ahmad screamed.
“When they all come in, we finish it off.”
“There is nothing.”
Recht turned off the machine again. He and Karima sat on the cold ground, breathing heavily. Trembling, Karima asked, “What did he mean, ‘There is nothing’?”
“I don’t know,” Recht answered. “I’ve wondered about that myself … many times.”
“You’ve listened to this many times?”
“Yes. Nothing. Nothingness. I don’t know. We need a Hegel or a Heidegger to explain it.” And then he turned back to her. “Can you handle the end?”
She took his hand and held it tight. “Yes, play it.”
It had become just noise to her now. A few words were intelligible: cockpit … roll it!… oxygen…. engine … until she heard Sami say, “Is that it? I mean, shall we put it down?”
And Ahmad said, “Yes, put it down.”
Seconds went by. Ahmad shouted more forcefully. “Put it down, kalb! Put it down, I say.” And more seconds, as the banging became louder. And finally, Ahmad screamed. “Give it to me, then! GET OUT OF THE WAY! Give it to me! Get away! Get your hands off there!”
A few more seconds passed. There was the sound of rushing wind. Ahmad started to chant.
“Allah is the greatest. Allah is the greatest.”
In the last moment, Sami, the passenger at last, joined him. “Allah is the greatest.” Then—silence.
They sat there for a long time, listening to the gentle waves lap against the sea wall.
“He couldn’t do it in the end,” Karima said at last. It was more a statement than a question.
“No,” Recht replied. “He couldn’t do it. Ahmad did it.”
They got up and wandered aimlessly, losing track of time. Karima leaned on his arm, wobbly at times, as they walked, an occasional wave of nausea washing over her. He tried to be stout and strong, but he did not feel strong. They were joined now in their mutual culpability.
“What is to become of me, Günther?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “You will have to decide. I have some decisions to make too.”
“Am I still a person of interest to the BKA?”
“No. I will have some explaining to do. And then I will no longer be a person of interest either.”
“I feel like a castaway.”
“We’re both castaways now.”
“I’m thinking I might move to Turkey. I would feel safe there.”
“You could take one of those unpronounceable names.”
“Yes. Build a new life in some small, remote village.”
“How about that conflict between the German and the Turk in you?”
He nodded. “Yes, we’ve all aged in the last year.”
“Someday, when I’m stronger and have more distance, I might go to America. Visit Washington, and even, if I could find the strength, go to Shanksville.”
“Oh, I don’t know, Karima. I’d think twice about doing that.”
He reached in his pocket and pulled out Sami’s last cassette. The thin, acidic strips came out of the housing with a whine, and Recht broke them strand after strand. The tangle gathered around his large, yellow fingers until it became a nest of gibberish. And then he took the Flight 93 tape and did the same, so that Sami’s confessions and his final act were intertwined. He reached to the ground, scooped up a handful of mud and pebbles, and squeezed the jumble into a ball. And then he threw it into the North Sea.
Together they watched it sink beneath the froth.