A terrorist assassinates a Marine. His father seeks revenge by inventing a death ray gun he wants used to murder terrorists, so the father then becomes a terrorist assassination target.
Chapter 1 Revenge
“I WANT TO get a patent on murder,” said Arnold Hamilton. The 59-year-old inventor sat in a chair across the desk from Lemont Levy, a patent attorney.
Levy laughed out loud and shook his head. “You can’t. Murder’s been done too many times already. You’ve got to know that.”
Hamilton frowned. “Yes, of course I know that, but not murder the way I want it done.” The look on Levy’s face changed from amusement to a serious stare. Hamilton continued, “I want my patent to say my invention’s a death ray gun that’ll be used for murdering Arabs. Because one of their terrorists murdered my son.”
“Hold on a second,” Levy said. “Have you ever tried to get a patent before?”
“No. This is the first one.”
“Well, before you tell me the details. I mean, before you tell me about your invention and how it works, we’ve got to deal with the murdering Arabs concept. The Patent Office won’t let you get a patent on something that isn’t legal.”
Hamilton rolled his eyes in frustration. “My gun’s no more illegal than any firearm you can use to do legal things like hunting or illegal things like robbing stores. I want everyone to know I invented the ray gun so it can be used to kill Arabs. I want the Army and Marines to use it to kill those raghead murderers.”
“Look,” Levy said. “I’m a Jew and I think I’m as patriotic as anyone. But I don’t believe Arabs deserve to be murdered. All Arabs aren’t terrorists. Anyway, I think you mean Muslim terrorists, don’t you? So what’s your reason for having your own personal crusade against just Arabs? Why not include Muslims? I can tell you right now the Patent Office won’t let you get a patent with the word ‘murder’ in the title. I can prove it to you right now with an Internet search of their database.”
Hamilton didn’t respond immediately. He stood up and put his palms flat on the desk. He leaned over, jutting his chin as close to the lawyer’s face as he could. Levy pushed against his desk and rolled his chair back a foot.
“I know all Muslims aren’t Arabs,” Hamilton said. Except that all terrorists I know about are Arabs. An Arab murdered my son, my only child. A good man who was trying to help their people…to help the Arabs. And the killer snuck up on him from behind and murdered him. He never had a chance to defend himself. That’s why I have a jihad of my own. The Arabs don’t have a monopoly on jihads.”
Levy rose and walked around his desk. At age 64 he was five foot eight with a distance runner’s build. His hair was completely white with some brown color still in his eyebrows. Blue eyes were spaced wide apart in his thin face that tapered to a rounded chin. Levy put his hand on Hamilton’s shoulder. “If it’s not too upsetting, I’d like to hear about your son.”
Hamilton sat down again with his head bowed while he massaged his eyebrows with the thumb and middle finger of his left hand. After a minute or so of rubbing he looked up. “To understand this tragedy, I’ve got to tell you what a great man and leader Allan was on the way to becoming. He was a champion soccer player, good enough to play on a pro team. He never tried out with the pros. He got a soccer scholarship at FSU, and captained the Seminoles to their championship in ’99. He chose to fight for his country, and he joined the Marines a year after he graduated from college. Allan was always popular with his schoolmates. He was elected to several student government offices in high school and college. He wanted to go into national politics and believed a tour of duty in the Marines would help him.
Levy gestured with open hands. “If Allan was good enough to be a pro, why didn’t he just do it? That’d make him famous enough to run for public office.”
Hamilton’s face beamed. “Well, one day a scout from the Orlando Pirates did come over to him. He was practicing at Percy Beard Stadium. The scout offered him a tryout with their team, but he wasn’t interested in being a pro. Allan knew he wasn’t good enough to be a star player as a soccer pro. He thought being a great amateur athlete would be better for his political career than being an average professional.
Allan‘s ambition was to be elected to the US Senate or even the White House. Look at how many of the men we elect to national office are war veterans. He was just as popular as a Marine as he’d been in school. Because of his soccer skills, they gave him assignments working for their public relations officers. Soon they promoted him to sergeant. In 2003 his division was sent to Iraq, and he fought on the ground in that war.” Hamilton rose from his chair and stood with his hands clinched into fists. He pressed his knuckles down against the desktop.
Levy was on the verge of becoming alarmed by the increasing rage in Hamilton’s tone. He narrowed his eyes and stared into those of his client. Then he shifted his gaze and noted Hamilton’s well muscled, lean frame that indicated he was in good physical shape. His brown hair was about forty percent gray and his receding hairline made his rectangular face appear even longer. He had light blue eyes, and his short straight nose had tiny nostrils.
Hamilton continued, “After our troops defeated Saddam’s army and occupied Baghdad, they assigned Allan back to the public relations staff. His job was to set up and run soccer teams for the Iraqi kids. He was always very patient with kids. He could figure out what any particular kid needed to do to improve his performance on the soccer field. The kids loved him. He was giving our Marines a good name with their parents. That must be why the terrorist murdered him. On February 22, of ’03 he was refereeing a soccer game between two teams in a league he’d set up. He was standing in the middle of the field with the kids running around him.”
Hamilton began to slowly rise on his toes. “An Arab walked out of the crowd of parents and other spectators on the sidelines. He came up behind Allan. No one shouted a warning or tried to stop the assassin. That Arab was holding a Colt 45 the whole time in plain sight of everyone in the crowd, but no one warned Allan. The Arab shot him three times in the back. Then he walked….he didn’t run. He just walked back through the crowd and disappeared. Before he left the field, that Arab murderer held the 45 up in the air for everyone to see and he yelled at them. That crowd of Arab spectators just parted to let him walk through. No one tried to stop him.”
“What’d the terrorist yell?” Levy asked.
Hamilton ignored him and started rocking back and forth as he moved up and down on his toes. “Allan’s coaching assistant was a corporal and he ran on the field to help Allan. But my boy was already dead. One of the 45 slugs hit his heart. The corporal got up from where Allan fell and went after the murderer; but he was gone. The corporal asked for help identifying the killer. No one admitted knowing who the killer was. Several people remembered the murderer raising the 45 above his head and turning around so everyone could see the gun. They said the assassin yelled a couple of times, al Khanjar yaqtil, al Khanjar yaqtil.”
“Do you know what it means?” Levy asked.
Again Hamilton ignored him and rose to his tiptoes and stayed there. Levy pushed with his feet to inch his chair back further from his desk.
“Allan was helping their children and those Arabs didn’t even try to warn him, or help him, or try to catch his murderer. That’s why I invented the death ray gun. And that’s why I want my patent to say my invention’ll be used to murder Arabs. I want everyone to know I avenged my son’s murder.” His eyes glistened and he wiped a tear from his cheek with the back of his hand.
The date was January 9, 2004.
Chapter 2 Sami
EIGHT YEARS EARLIER Sami Insien, a boy who would gain the power to have Allan Hamilton assassinated and to spread terror into the United States, removed his sandals and walked into the Mosque of Gentle Peace. The mosque was an unadorned building coated with blue stained cement having a two-story ceiling and high windows just below the ceiling. It was located in Zatoon, a small town of farmers and herdsmen in the Kerman Province of Iran.
Yassan Bieheiri, a white-bearded, middle-aged Imam, controlled everything going on in this mosque and many things in the town it served. When he was in the mosque attending to prayers or the village’s business, the Imam wore a traditional ankle length gown having a buttoned collar and sleeves, and a matching ornamented skullcap. On this winter day his garments were made from emerald green wool.
Sixteen-year-old Sami looked frail for a teen of his age. His clothes were hand-me-down gowns given to his mother by prosperous townspeople for whom she cleaned and cooked. The harsh washing they endured over the years leached out their color. That day he wore a gray gown that hung loosely from his body, as it would from a scarecrow made of sticks. In his sunken-cheeked face, his piercing black eyes matched his jet-black hair, which was cut short, high above his skinny neck. He had received only the minimum schooling available to children of his low status, learning how to read and write Arabic and little else.
The Imam stood in the doorway of his office. Sami grabbed the Imam’s sleeve in his fingers and said, “Allah spoke to me, and He told me to—”
The Imam glared at him and growled, “Allah does not speak to mortals.”
Sami moved into the Imam’s space and stared into his face. His eyes intimidated the Imam while Sami insisted he could prove Allah spoke to him many times. At this, the Imam broke eye contact and moved back angrily. He cuffed Sami on the side of the head with the back of his hand and had him thrown out of the mosque.
Some people standing outside of the mosque witnessed the commotion when the Imam’s deacons ejected the struggling boy. They gathered around as Sami stood in their midst and yelled, “I’ll come back here and prove Allah spoke to me.”
Two elderly men in the gathering nodded to each other. Then they moved toward Sami and reached out for him. Before they could catch hold of him, he fled toward the shack where he lived on the outskirts of the town with his widowed mother, Amina Insien.
At dawn the next day, Sami burst into the Imam’s office and blurted, “Allah told me to read the Qur’an one time from beginning to end, and He will seal the words of the Holy Book in my memory.”
The Imam looked up from papers on the desk where he was sitting, and fumed: The only way I can get rid of this pest is to let him read the Qur’an and that will expose him as a liar when he can’t recite it from memory.
He stood and motioned to Sami, “Follow me.” The Imam walked to a low table in a corner of the mosque where he placed a copy of the Holy Book. He looked at Sami and inclined his head toward the Qur’an.
Sami knelt down on his knees with his lower legs straight out behind him. He put his left hand on the floor supporting himself above the table with his face slightly more than a foot above the Qur’an. He slowly read the text, running the index finger of his right hand across each verse, and turning the page with that hand when he came to its end. His head bobbed up and down and his lips moved, but he uttered no sounds as he spoke each word silently to himself.
After Sami was thus occupied for about three hours, Deacon Abduhl Ariann walked over to him and said, “Do you need to stop for food or water?” The boy kept running his finger across and then down a page as if the deacon hadn’t spoken. Shaking his head, the deacon walked away and told the Imam what the boy was doing.
The Imam said, “Leave him alone. He’ll soon tire and give up his pretense.”
As the day progressed, nothing changed. In the late afternoon after Sami was bent over the Qur’an for at least ten hours, the Imam came to investigate. He grabbed hold of the boy’s shoulder, but Sami didn’t look up or stop moving his finger across a page. In irritation he bent down to where his mouth was next to the boy’s ear and hissed, “Stop this nonsense and go home for your supper.”
Sami didn’t stir or remove his gaze from the Holy Book. His concentration was so intense that he didn’t bother to brush away flies that lit on his face from time to time. Again the Imam decided to leave him alone, although now he was becoming concerned for his health. He hadn’t consumed food or drink and hadn’t risen from the awkward position he’d assumed shortly after the day dawned.
The Imam dispatched a lesser deacon to summon Amina Insien. The Imam met her on the steps of his mosque and told her what her son had been doing since the day began. She said, “Sami often kneels with his forehead touching the floor in a trance mumbling words of obedience to Allah. When he wakes up he tells me Allah’s been speaking to him.”
Now the Imam was alarmed. He turned to deacon Ariann and said, “Go, rouse the boy and take him outside to his mother. It’s time for him to go home.”
Deacon Ariann was a squat 25-year-old having great physical strength gained from manual labor he’d performed during his youth. He came up behind Sami and placed his hands under the boy’s armpits. Ariann bent his knees as if he were going to lift a heavy sack of flour and started to pull the boy up from his position bent over the desk. Suddenly Sami’s body lunged upwardly. He said in a voice as deep as that of a grown man, “Allah commands you…. leave me.” He pivoted with his left arm extended and rammed the arm into the deacon’s chest with strength that was amazing for an emaciated boy. Ariann was lifted and flung over backward against a nearby wall of the mosque.
Momentarily Sami’s eyes caught those of Ariann, and a vision was seared into the deacon’s brain through his eyes. The black pupils of the boy’s bottomless black eyes projected the image of an abyss of infinite power. Sami resumed his position bent over the Qur’an, silently talking to himself and running his fingers across and down the page as he’d been doing all day.
Ariann was so surprised by the boy’s phenomenal strength he remained crouched on his hands and knees in the position into which he was thrown. He stared at Sami in awe. Slowly he rose to a standing position while he continued to stare at the boy. Then he turned and walked in a daze out of the Mosque to where Mrs. Insien and the Imam were waiting. The shaken deacon told the Imam, “With one arm that frail lad lifted me and hurled me across the room when I tried to stand him up. Surely he’s supernatural…or possessed.”
The Imam could see Ariann was rattled. He said, “Leave him be until he gives up his hopeless efforts. No one ever read the Qur’an one time and then knew it by heart. From now on we’ll ignore him until he comes to us and admits he’s failed.”
“I know he’ll succeed,” Ariann said. “I’ll be his protector.”
The Imam shook his head in amazement at the attitude of his previously down-to-earth deacon. He dismissed Mrs. Insien and returned to his office to conclude his routine for that day. He ignored Sami as best he could.
Ariann walked back into the mosque and sat on the floor behind Sami. There he stayed for the remainder of the day, leaving only for his evening prayers, food and to relieve himself. There the deacon also stayed through the night, dozing frequently, as Sami continued his reading marathon.
The next day dawned bright with none of the brisk winter winds that plagued the village by blowing sand into every opening and unshielded eye. The sunny sky lifted everyone’s spirits and made them want to rejoice for reasons they could not articulate. Shortly before the noon hour, Sami moved his finger to the end of verse 6 of Chapter 114 at the end of the Qur’an. He looked up for the first time since Ariann interrupted him the previous afternoon and closed the cover of the Holy Book. Ariann jumped up from where he maintained his vigil. He moved to where he could look at the Sami’s face, which was flushed and had grey circles under the eyes.
“You want food and water?” Ariann inquired.
Sami merely shook his head and continued to kneel next to the table where the Qur’an lay closed. Ariann went to the Imam’s office where the cleric sat attending to business matters. Twenty-nine hours had passed since Sami began his quest. Now the Imam was sure he could shame Sami. No one could memorize the Qur’an in so short a time, more absurdly claiming he did it in one continuous sitting. “Bring that boy to my office at once,” he said.
“He hasn’t eaten, drank or slept or urinated for over a day,” Ariann protested.
“Never mind that. Fetch some strong coffee and bread with honey for him. Also some dates or figs. But bring him here immediately,” the Imam directed.
Ariann left and ordered a subordinate to bring the food and drink to the Imam’s office. He went into the mosque where he found Sami kneeling beside the desk with his head up and his eyes staring at a wall in front of him. Ariann approached and stood where he was sure the boy saw him. Sami fixed his weary eyes on the deacon. Then his face lit up with a smile when he recognized the observer who was his companion through the previous night.
“I’m ready,” he whispered. “Allah has sealed the words of Muhammad and other holy men in my brain.”
“Come with me. The Imam’s waiting for you in his office. We’ll give you something to eat and drink. Do you need to go?” he said motioning in the direction of a lavatory.
Sami shook his head. He stood but swooned as the blood rushed from his brain toward his feet, which tingled with sleep. Ariann placed his hands under the boy’s armpits. He supported Sami for a minute or two until the blood flow adjusted to his standing position and his feet regained their feeling.
“I can walk now,” he said, and gave Ariann a smile on his fatigued face.
Ariann removed his hands from under Sami’s arms, but kept one hand under his elbow. Together they walked into the Imam’s office, which was in one of several small rooms built against the exterior wall of the mosque beneath the high windows.
The Imam pointed to a chair across from his desk, and Sami sat down. The smile remained on the boy’s face, and he stared into the Imam’s eyes. Unnerved by the vision he saw in those eyes, the Imam looked down at a copy of the Qur’an lying open on the desk in front of him. The Imam piled other volumes on the side of the Holy Book nearest to where Sami sat, in case the boy could read upside down text. Before the Imam spoke, a woman entered carrying a tray bearing a pot of coffee, a loaf of bread and a jar of honey.
The Imam nodded toward the food. “Do you want to eat and drink before we begin?”
“Not yet. Allah gives me strength,” Sami said and moved his face to look into the Imam’s eyes.
“Enough of your blasphemy,” the Imam scolded. To avoid the risk of eye contact, he continued to look down at the Qur’an on his desk. “Recite the first verse of Chapter 96.” The Imam decided to make Sami’s task more difficult by using the chapter numbers instead of their titles.
“Read in the name of your Lord Who created,” Sami said without hesitation.
“Verse 5 of Chapter 60,” the Imam said.
Again the reply was instant, “Our Lord do not make us a trial for those who disbelieve, and forgive us, our Lord surely Thou art the Mighty, the Wise.”
“Verse 15 of Chapter 49,” the Imam barked angrily.
Sami thought a moment, then said merrily, “The believers are only those who believe in Allah and His Apostle then they doubt not and struggle hard with their wealth and their lives in the way of Allah; they are the truthful ones.”
The Imam seemed perplexed. He paused for a minute to search through the Holy Book for a lengthy passage. Then his face lit up with a sly grin. “Verse 5 of Chapter 22.”
Sami shut his eyes for a moment, opened them and tried to establish eye contact, but the Imam refused to look at his face. Then the boy began in a melodious voice, “O people. If you are in doubt about the raising, then surely We created you from dust, then from a small seed, then from a clot, then from a lump of flesh, complete in make and incomplete, that We may make clear to you; and We cause what We please to stay in the wombs till an appointed time, then We bring you forth as babies…”
“Enough,” the Imam thundered. “What is your trickery?”
Sami continued reciting the long passage, almost singing, until he concluded it with a smirk on his face.
Visibly shaken, the Imam said, “Take a break. Eat and drink. We’ll continue later.”
The Imam motioned to Ariann indicating he wanted the deacon to follow him out of his office. Sami pulled his chair closer to the desk, put honey on a slice of bread and began to eat. He sipped sweetened coffee between bites.
“Do you know how he deceives us?” the Imam implored eagerly.
“I believe he speaks the truth. Allah bestowed a gift on him,” Ariann murmured meekly.
“Fool!” the Imam raged. “You’re either in league with the brat, assisting him in his deception, or else you’re too gullible to be trusted. Go bring Haifein. I can trust him. You stay away from my office until I learn the method of this deception. His arrogance is infuriating.”
Ariann bowed to the Imam. Then he turned away and strode off in search of Haifein, a lower level deacon. The Imam returned to his office and stared at Sami while the lad ate and drank everything on the tray. Sami pointed toward the lavatory, and the Imam nodded his head. He returned five minutes later looking refreshed and energized.
While Sami was gone, Haifein entered the Imam’s office. The Imam moved next to him and exploded, “Sami Insien is pulling some kind of stunt. He says Allah put the complete Qur’an inside of his head. He pretends to recite from memory any passage I ask him. I want you to watch closely. Help me expose his trick. First, you must look into his ears and frisk him to make sure he’s not receiving signals by radio. Next I want you to put a blindfold over his eyes. Then you sit beside him and face the same way he is. He won’t get away with this fraud any longer.”
Haifein did as he was instructed. Sami submitted to the frisking and examination without protest. He even helped Haifein adjust the blindfold. He didn’t flinch when having a knife thrust at his face tested his obscured vision. The Imam indicated with a nod he was satisfied with these preparations. Haifein led Sami back to his chair and pulled another next to it. The deacon sat at his chair’s edge so his left arm touched Sami’s right shoulder.
“Now we will find out if you’ve really memorized the Qur’an,” the Imam said. “Speak Chapter 4, verse 168.”
Sami thought a moment, and his face lit with a smile as he recited cheerfully, “Surely those who disbelieve and act unjustly Allah will not forgive them nor guide them to a path.”
“Chapter 9, verse 193.”
Sami said, “It is not for the Prophet and those who believe that they should ask forgiveness for the polytheists, even—”
“Enough of that one,” the Imam interrupted, and Sami stopped reciting the requested passage. “From now on, just tell me the first five words or the last five words. I’ll tell you which I want. Do you understand?”
Sami laughed and bragged, “I can start in the middle or with any word you choose.” Since he fasted for the entire previous day, the influx of sugar from the sweet coffee and honeyed bread he’d eaten caused his insulin to spike, which gave him a surge of energy and self-confidence.
And so it continued for almost an hour, with Sami correctly reciting the first five words or the last five words of dozens of passages whose numbers the Imam fired at him without let up. When the last five words were requested Sami paused to recall the entire passage before he recited them, but he never made a mistake. Sami was wired; he bounced up and down on his chair and hummed a tune when he waited for the Imam to select a passage.
The Imam’s mood went from anger to bewilderment. He could not believe what he was hearing. His confidence faltered. He wondered if he were witnessing a miracle. He intended to continue with the inquisition for hours longer, but without a warning, Sami collapsed against Haifein.
The surge in Sami’s insulin was only temporary so eventually it plummeted. When this loss of energy was combined with his lack of sleep and intense mental exertions, Sami passed out. Haifein laid him down on his back on the floor beside the Imam’s desk. Slapping his face and dousing him with cold water didn’t arouse him. The Imam decided to let him sleep and to continue questioning him the next day. Perhaps his memory of the Qur’an would fade with the passage of time. In the mean time the Imam pondered what he’d just witnessed. Had the boy actually memorized the entire Qur’an? He admonished Haifein and Ariann to say nothing of what they witnessed, until the mystery of the boy’s memory or his trickery was solved.
Read more about A PATENT ON MURDER and Charles Kaplan HERE.
Copyright 2008 Charles Kaplan. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.
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