Afraid of the Dark by James Grippando Read Free Book Online Page A

difference?”
    A sense of humor. That’s new.
    “My father still lives in Mogadishu,” said Jamal, “so I speak Somali as well as English. I lived with my mother until I dropped out of high school and got the hell out of the freezer. I hopped on a bus to Florida and took an apartment in Miami Beach. I waited tables for about a year, then finally got a job with Mr. Mays.”
    “I presume that’s how you met McKenna,” said Jack.
    “Yup. He’s a self-taught computer whiz who never finished high school. Just like me. We hit it off. He introduced me to his daughter. I was nineteen. She was sixteen—but very mature for her age.”
    Neil popped open his briefcase. “I have pictures,” he said as he laid them out on the table.
    The difference between Jamal’s appearance then versus now was not as dramatic as Jamal-the-client versus Jamal-the-Gitmo-detainee, but it was striking nonetheless. Not so long ago, Jamal had sported nothing short of movie-star good looks. Even so, one’s eyes naturally gravitated toward McKenna.
    “Pretty girl,” said Jack.
    “Beautiful,” said Jamal. “I used to kid her that she was the perfect blend of obnoxious blond father and stunning Bahamian mother that modeling agencies looked for.”
    Jack held his next question, choosing instead to observe for a moment. Jamal was unable to look away from the photograph, his eyes moistening. It was the first real show of emotion Jack had seen from his client.
    If it was real.
    “Did you get along with her mother?”
    “It’s funny. I thought we were going to get on just fine. McKenna told me that her grandfather was Muslim, like me. But I guess her mother had rejected Islam.”
    “Did she reject you?”
    “It wasn’t anything specific. I just got a vibe that she wasn’t nuts about me.”
    Jack checked his watch. The arraignment was less than an hour away, and he needed to speed things up.
    “Let’s fast-forward a bit,” said Jack, “to the time before McKenna’s death. Tell me how you came to leave the country.”
    “I was abducted.”
    “Abducted?”
    “Yes,” he said with a straight face.
    “By whom?”
    “I don’t know for sure. But I believe it was the U.S. government.”
    “Okay, I’m outta here,” said Jack as he pushed away from the table.
    “No, no, listen,” said Neil.
    Jack shook his head. “I took this case pro bono because you were right, Neil: Everybody deserves a lawyer. But I’m a sole practitioner, and I don’t have time to talk spy novels to a circuit court judge.”
    “My father is a recruiter for al-Shabaab,” said Jamal, “the Mujahideen Youth Movement.”
    That got Jack’s attention. While preparing for the trip to Gitmo, he had heard of al-Shabaab. Officially designated a terrorist organization by the United States in March 2008, it had been waging a war against Somalia’s government to implement sharia—a stricter interprentation of Islamic law.
    “Yesterday I stood before a federal judge and assured him that there was no basis to detain you at Gitmo,” Jack said, his eyes narrowing. “ Now you’re telling me that you were an al-Shabaab recruit?”
    “I have nothing to do with them,” said Jamal, “but they definitely tapped into my old neighborhood in Minneapolis.”
    Neil added, “Ethiopia invaded Somalia in December 2006 to push the Islamists out of Mogadishu. It was an outrage to most Somalis, which made it an easy rallying cry for al-Shabaab. Ever since then, they have been reaching out to young Somalis all over the world, recruiting them to fight.”
    “At least two of my friends from high school ended up dead in Somalia,” said Jamal.
    Jack settled back into his chair, willing to listen a little longer. “What does any of this have to do with your being abducted?”
    “Two high-school friends of mine were killed fighting in Somalia. My father was a recruiter in Mogadishu. Obviously, my name landed on somebody’s list of suspected terrorists.”
    Things were slowly starting