Publicly, the cleric said it was his duty to bring all to Islam. Privately, Nedim suspected the real reason was that Sami\u2019s family had wealth. Nedim was a good Muslim and was attending university by means of a scholarship. He studied hard, but the computer lab was open to students only so many hours per day. He really needed his own computer to meet the academic requirements for his scholarship, but the scholarship would not provide one.<\/p>\n
Nedim was snapped back to the situation at hand by a stiff slap to the side of his head. The man had said something and he had missed it. One of the two he could not see snapped at him to answer the question he had not heard. He responded that he had not heard the question because he was praying as all good Muslims should be doing at this time. That answer earned him a strike on the other side of the head.<\/p>\n
The man asked his question again. \u201cDo you know the penalty for being a terrorist?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI am a good Muslim, not a terrorist,\u201d responded Nedim. Closed-fisted blow from behind this time, so fast and hard he had no idea which of the two delivered it, mainly because his nose had borne the brunt of the impact with the table and sprung his head back upright. He knew he was upright because blood was running down over his mouth. Vision was not a sense he had<\/span><\/span> at the moment as everything was a whirl of color and light, but it seemed things would come back into focus soon.<\/p>\n He tried to wipe the blood from his face and had his hands firmly pulled behind the chair, then tied.<\/p>\n The man asked his question again. \u201cDo you know the penalty for being a terrorist?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI am a good Muslim, not a terrorist,\u201d responded Nedim. This time the blow was from a club of some kind.<\/p>\n \u201cI did not ask if you were a terrorist. We have the answer to that question lying before us. I asked if you know the penalty for being a terrorist in this country?\u201d<\/p>\n After a moment, Nedim responded, \u201cLife in prison or death, depending upon how wealthy your family is and how famous you are.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAre you famous or from a wealthy family?\u201d asked the man.<\/p>\n \u201cNo,\u201d Nedim was forced to respond.<\/p>\n Before him on the table was an email that had grown to haunt him. This was the email that selected the Nairobi embassy for bombing and the date in 1998 when it was to be bombed. He had no problem with the killing of infidels. The problem with this bombing was how the Islamic reporters had covered it. Across the street from the embassy had been a secretarial training school for women, and near it a day care center. Muslim women should not be attending school, nor should their children be in day care. All good Muslims know this. There had been a fatwah justifying it, yet the outrage had happened. It appeared there were no good Muslims left in the land of the prophet. That bombing caused a lot of the money to dry up as well. It was the reason Nedim didn\u2019t have a better color printer at home.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are prepared to execute you tomorrow,\u201d the man said.<\/p>\n Nedim said nothing, but his mind raced wildly. Others were supposed to die, not him! He did not believe in martyrdom, nor that there were any virgins to be had. Besides, logic told him that unless there were thousands of them, within a month or two of his arrival in paradise they would just be used and complaining wives anyway. Unless he was getting seventy-two<\/span><\/span> beautiful virgins per month for eternity, martyrdom simply wasn\u2019t worth it.<\/p>\n \n<\/p>
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\nYou are reading a special promotional version of \u201cInfinite Exposure\u201d containing only the first 18 chapters. This is the first book of the “Earth That Was” trilogy. You can obtain the entire trilogy in EPUB form from here:<\/p>\n