LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

a sudden, Mariah began sobbing uncontrollably. Finally realizing that her home was about to be totally destroyed, she cried out, “I have nothing left…it’s all gone…all our things, everything that was special to us…all gone. I have nothing to wear, nothing to eat; even worse, I have to tell my father of this. He will be devastated. He loved our house—said it reminded him of Ayna, my mother. Oh, those horrible men…”

      Miriam leaned over and put her arm around the sobbing girl. “Now honey, don’t you worry. All your friends in the neighborhood here will help you get through this. You can stay here as long as you want, and you can wear some of Ginger’s clothes. She’s about your size and far away at college; she won’t be needing what she left behind anytime soon. When you’re able, I’ll let you borrow my cell phone to call your dad. I’m sure he will want to return right away when he hears the news. What men are you talking about? Who were they?”

      “I-I don’t know, really,” Mariah continued to shiver and cry. “They came in through the den door in back, just as I was about to lock it and go to bed. Said they were going to make an internet movie of them raping me dressed up in provocative clothes with my Muslim headdress on. Some sort of humiliation to my religion and my country. I escaped out the bathroom window and set off the alarm before they could carry out their plan. I guess they decided to burn the house instead. They were very tough-looking, with tattoos of swastikas and things like that—must have been some sort of white-power, Aryan-type gang. They were probably planning to kill me when they were through, because they didn’t even bother to conceal their identities. Even though I lost all my things, I am so grateful they didn’t harm me. They were so hateful…” Mariah stopped in the middle of her sentence as she noticed the black car parked on the curb near her home. “I’ve never seen that car here before! I wonder if it might belong to them and they haven’t been able to get back to it. Miriam, can you get one of those policemen out there? I would like to talk to him now.”

      “Sure, honey, let me see if I can get one of them to come over here for a moment. Now you just try to calm down till I get back.”

      *****

      It had taken Buzz about ten minutes to work his way back up the creek toward the house. As he got closer, he caught a glimpse of what was left of it through the trees. Smiling to himself, he could see that the roof had almost completely burned off, and that part of the back den had caved in. The flames had apparently gutted the middle of the house, where the kitchen was, and then spread out in all directions. Some of the fire was still burning, but it looked like the firemen were getting it under control. There were two fire trucks there, plus a couple of cop cars. He noticed his own car parked slightly away from all the hubbub, seemingly unnoticed. As he approached the edge of the woods on the far side of the house, his foot slipped into a dark gully, sending him sprawling to the forest floor. “Fuck!” he muttered to himself. “Can’t see shit out here!”

      Pulling himself back to his feet, Buzz felt into his pocket for the car keys. He hoped he hadn’t lost them in one of his many recent falls. Surely they hadn’t fallen out! Hmmm…there’s the switchblade. He reached a little farther, then…aaahhh…there they were, just at the very bottom of the pocket. “Good!” he mumbled, calculating the distance from his present position to the car. About thirty yards, he estimated. He didn’t see any policemen, and the firemen were still busy wrapping up the last of the fire. He decided that the best plan would be to follow the woods to the street, then casually and unobtrusively walk toward the car, unlock it, and drive away as if nothing were wrong. Anything else would draw too much attention, he reasoned.

      Deciding that it was worth a try, Buzz crept through the woods until he reached the street. The car was now just ten yards to his right. Still no sign of any police near the car. He couldn’t remember if he had locked the doors or not—probably not, he guessed, as that was not his usual practice. He had the key ready in his hand, just in case, as he began to walk slowly and deliberately toward the car. Twenty feet, ten, five…his hand reached for the door. It was unlocked! His pulse quickened as he glanced right and left before quickly opening the door. No one noticed…unbelievable! Relief flooded his awareness as he moved the key toward the ignition and turned on the engine. The motor engaged with a low custom muffler-type revving sound, and he reached for the gearshift.

      It was just at that point that he felt something cold and hard pressing against the back of his skull, quickly followed by the command, “Turn off the engine and get out of the car.”

      Four Months Later

      Judge Frances Walker looked down over the tops of her glasses toward the counsels for the plaintiff and the defendants. The trial had been going on for several days, and since it involved rather politically sensitive issues, particularly in light of the post-9/11 tensions with Iraq, there had been a huge amount of media attention. She had excluded the TV cameras from the courtroom, but the atmosphere was highly charged nonetheless. Portland, a city renowned for its liberal thinking and home to several extremist groups, was now under national scrutiny. The Northwest Neo-Nazis had filled the courtroom with tattooed bikers and put on quite a show for the press. At the same time, Portland’s Muslim community had expressed outrage over this seemingly blatant attempt to ridicule their religion and cultural values, to say nothing of this threat to the freedoms granted to them by the US Constitution. The time had finally come for the closing arguments, and Judge Walker wanted nothing more than to wrap this case up and get all these strange-looking people out of her courtroom. Motioning to the plaintiff’s counsel, she requested that the closing arguments begin.

      Winston Merriweather III was almost a household name in the Portland legal community. Merriweather and Merriweather had been handling criminal cases in Portland for over fifty years now, even though WM Jr. had now largely retired and left most of the cases to his son, WM III. Winston was himself in his late forties now, graying a bit at the temples, and probably a few pounds heavier than he would have liked. He looked every bit like a successful attorney would be expected to look, however—dark suit, starched white shirt, conservative tie, wire-rimmed glasses, nice haircut. His trademark neatly trimmed beard, also graying a bit now, was somewhat of an anomaly, but it gave him a very powerful appearance and a force most other Portland attorneys did not look forward to reckoning with. He had taken the Quitan case for several reasons, not the least of which was his desire to rid Portland of these sort of radical groups who found nothing better to do than prey on upstanding citizens like the Quitans, whose only “fault” was not belonging to the “chosen” social, political, and racial genre. Winston detested their white supremacist attitudes and their total disregard for the law. He had hoped to use this case to make a strong statement to groups like NNN, reflecting that the law would not tolerate their tactics or condone their bigotry. In addition, he happened to be a great admirer of Dr. Quitan and an avid follower of his research and publications. In Winston’s mind, there was no man less deserving of this sort of treatment than Mazen Quitan, and he had intended to do his very best to right the injustice that had been perpetrated upon him and his daughter.

      “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,” he began, “we have shown clearly beyond any shadow of a doubt that on Saturday night, October 26, 2002, the three defendants seated before you, Ralph “Buzz” Henderson, Barry “Big Bear” Hartman, and John “Blood” Stimmel,—all members of the gang known as the Northwest Neo-Nazis—entered the Beaverton home of the plaintiffs, Dr. Mazen Quitan and his daughter, Mariah, intent upon forcing Ms. Quitan to make a pornographic and religiously inflammatory internet film, gang-raping her, and then burning the Quitan home to the ground with her in it. Ms. Quitan’s unwavering resolve, keen mind, and ingeniously engineered escape are the only reasons she is sitting here before you today and these men are charged with aggravated assault and arson, rather than rape and murder. Ms. Quitan’s own firsthand testimony along with the gasoline can found at the scene of the crime, covered with fingerprints from all three men, AND the arrest of Mr. Henderson as he later attempted to move his car from the scene of the crime make it abundantly clear that these men were involved not only in the assault of Ms. Quitan, as she has described, but also in the burning of the Quitan family home. I urge you to recommend the maximum penalty available to you by law for these atrocious acts, which would have been far worse were it not for the uncommon valor of Ms. Quitan. The prosecution rests its case, Your Honor.”

      Judge

Скачать книгу