Nedim quite honestly did not know. The sheet of newspaper before him was the front page from the day after the embassy bombings. It went on in detail about the Muslim women and children who were killed. Even though a fatwah had been issued authorizing the deaths of all who served the infidels, these deaths weren’t covered by it. They were in a building across the street. Clerics from all over the world had issued fatwahs authorizing the deaths of all involved in this bombing.
That one botched bombing had sentenced everyone in his cell, and perhaps all cells, to death at the hands of other Muslims. Indeed, with the printouts they had in their possession, these men needed no official capacity whatsoever to chop off his head in the middle of a public square. They would never be prosecuted. They would receive medals and money from infidels around the world.
“You did not bring me here for atonement,” Nedim responded.
“True,” the man responded. “We would much prefer to execute you in front of the local mosque as soon as morning prayer completes.”
“Why don’t you?” responded Nedim. His mind raced to slap his mouth shut, but it was too late. The words were out.
The man sat silently for a moment while one of the brutes behind Nedim began forcing the pen in his hand to sign the confession. Apparently the brute had not been burdened with an overabundance of education, for he was squeezing Nedim’s wrist so hard the fingers couldn’t grip the pen even if he wanted them to.
“Others would prefer for us to execute all of you,” said the man.
The forcing, struggling, indeed, even time, seemed to stop after he spoke those words. Nedim now knew the way out of this. He might still die, but it would not be for weeks or months. He might even avoid prison.
“All of who?” responded Nedim. He did not want to appear to be a drowning man clutching at any reed to stay alive. He didn’t even care about the fist that found his skull almost as soon as he asked the question. There was a way out of this, but he had to play the game to the bitter end to be given it.
The man tapped the pile of printouts in the folder and said, “All of them. Not one of them is to be left alive when we are finished.”
Nedim began to shiver. He told himself it was the cold stone of the floor taking its toll on his feet and the chill of the room taking its toll on his bare legs, but he knew it was a lie. The reality of what was about to happen was sinking in. For him to stay alive, these men would have to kill all of those he had worked with, all of those who had known he worked with the others, and every person any of them had trained or spoken with. He seriously doubted the men in this room had that kind of capacity. In reality, they would arrest or kill some portion of the current list, then go off to other things. At that point, he would be dead. Either these men would kill him, or one they had let live would complete the task. It was an odd feeling to be perfectly healthy and know he had less than two years to live, an even odder feeling than knowing he would die in only a couple of hours if he refused. Perhaps it was the waiting — the thought of going to bed every night wondering which side was going to kill him while he slept.
This had all been so simple when it started. The cleric had arranged for a computer that was envied by all, even the rich students, to be delivered to him at the university. At first, all he had to do was study hard and graduate. Once out in the working world, all he had to do was to send a few emails back and forth. Some of them simply snapshots. None of them were pornography of any kind. Perhaps that was where it all went wrong. Had they used porn to embed their messages, really good porn, nobody would have noticed there was anything embedded in the messages. They could have even set up a porn Web site and made money to fund the cause while transmitting messages around. Sad that he would never get to suggest that to his cell.
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