Treason

By Douglas Ewan Cameron

A NATION IN DISTRESS
President Chyrise Elliot’s first term of office was completing a fairly uneventful first four months when four simultaneous kidnapping incursions are made into the residences of her children. Twenty-four hours later a ransom video is furnished to the news media revealing the kidnapped children in a desert setting and the beheading of one. The Jihadi John type kidnapper threatens to behead them all in forty-eight hours unless the president resigns from her position. It is up to the Secret Service to locate and rescue the kidnapped children but there are few clues except for the terrorist’s ransom film. Will that be enough or will President Elliot be forced to give in to the terrorist’s demands?

• Language: English
• Publisher: W & B Publishers
• Release date: Dec 2, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370870509

Book preview

Preface

The very knowledgeable reader might realize that Michigan State University and the University of Michigan use different academic calendars and their final exam periods do no coincide. I used an author’s privilege to make that happen in this book.

I drew the title of this book from the following definition of treason:

Main Entry: trea·son

Pronunciation: 'trE-z&n

Function: noun

Etymology: Middle English tresoun, from Anglo-French traisun, from Latin tradition-, traditio act of handing over, from tradere to hand over, betray -- more at TRAITOR

Date: 13th century

1 : the betrayal of a trust : TREACHERY

2 : the offense of attempting by overt acts to overthrow the government of the state to which the offender owes allegiance or to kill or personally injure the sovereign or the sovereign's family

Prologue

MID-MAY

There was no way for the White House or the Secret Service to stop the announcement of the kidnapping and ransom demand for President Elliot’s children. The movie/videotape of the announcement was sent to every national network, cable and satellite provider in every major city in the United States. The envelopes arrived at their destinations within 30 minutes of each other and contained a 128-gigabyte flash drive on which was the video clip. Many of the envelopes were opened by secretaries or assistants to the person to whom the envelope was addressed. Less than forty percent of those who recognized it as a flash drive took it to the addressee. Less than fifty percent mounted the flash drive and clicked on the clip. The remainder took the flash drive to the company’s IT guy to have it checked for viruses – there weren’t any to be found. The destructive nature of the flash drive was contained in the content of the video clip. Most of the addressees who received the clip before it was watched or scanned for viruses also had it checked for viruses before checking out its contents. There were many who failed to check for viruses who found themselves on the chopping block of their immediate superiors and several of the addressees who failed to have it checked for viruses found themselves in trouble with their boards. After all, these are turbulent times in which we live. Once having viewed the clip, the conscientious ones contacted or attempted to directly contact the president herself and found themselves transferred to the Secret Service.

Charles Wright was the man to whom most contacts were routed and his standard answer to the usual query Is this real? Can we use it in our news broadcasts? was The validity of the video clip has not been verified and therefore it would be inappropriate and potentially fraudulent to make its existence known.

This answer did more to spur the use of the video clip than anything else and it was on the air within ten minutes of its receipt. One of the first to publically show it was Jerrad Watts of NBC news.

We have just received a video tape that purports to show Nathan, Natalie, Jennifer and James Elliot, children of President Elliot and the First Gentleman ... excuse the faux pas ... her husband Dexter, being held prisoner in a desert that appears to be almost identical to the one where several Americans were beheaded by Jihadi John. You might remember that Jihadi John was a British born man who was the leader of a four-person terrorist group who because of their British accents were known to most people as ‘The Beatles’. We warn you that you might find this video a little graphic and advise you to not let your young children see it. I cannot make any further comment on it because I will see it with you for the first time. Jerrad then nodded at the camera and the film started.

The first thing a viewer saw was a desert, with a light wind stirring up wisps of dirt or sand. As though from a distance the viewer could hear the sound of a motor which increased in volume until a dirty tracked vehicle rumbled in from screen left and stopped in front of the camera, its motor idling. The camera moved in until the vehicle became a blur and after the vehicle apparently sat there idling for about 30 seconds, then the engine rumbled and the blur moved and disappeared screen right. As the dust settled, a man, suspected to have been in the carrier and dismounted when it was stopped, could be seen standing in the middle of the screen. He was dressed from head to toe (or as least as far down as one could see) in black and in that respect bore a striking resemblance to Jihadi John. Except for two things: First, he wore black gloves on his hands and second, his eyes were covered with reflective sunglasses. Unlike Jihadi John, he was not going to let anyone see the color of his eyes and more easily pursue his identification. The dust had not yet settled when the man spoke, his voice obviously distorted by a vocal resonator.

In case you have not already heard about it, I am sorry that you have to learn of the kidnapping of the president’s children in this manner.

There were audible gasps on the set as well as around the country.

Of course, with any kidnapping come demands and threats. This is no different. What are our demands? The freedom of all Muslim fighters in Guantanamo – or Gitmo as you Americans say – and all other imprisonment camps in your and other countries.

Again, there were gasps and a few laughs and one voice in the studio saying, As if that’s going to happen.

But, more importantly, we require your she-whore president to resign from her office.

On the set there was laughter and undercurrents of He’s got to be kidding.

"The announcement of her resignation is to be made by the president on national television.

If any attempt is made to rescue our four visitors.... Well, first we had better show you who the visitors are.

The Terrorist waved to screen right and from that direction came two men bearing a chair sedan-chair style except that the chair was facing screen front rather than the direction of travel. The person in the chair was dressed just like The Terrorist but fastened securely to the chair with cable ties. Whoever it was struggled to get free, shaking any part of its body that it could. There was one difference between the headgears of the two. The Terrorist appeared to be wearing a balaclava like Jihad John but the new person was wearing a traditional keffiyeh or shemagh, a scarf wrapped to cover the hair and face with nothing showing but the person’s eyes, which were covered with reflective sunglasses. The person was looking around wildly as though expecting to see someone there to set him/her free. The chair was set down screen center with the chair bearers standing on either side.

The Terrorist said, If you have any doubts, this is Nathan. With that he nodded to the chair bearer on the right of the chair, who removed the sunglasses. The other man undid the lower part of the keffiyeh to reveal Nathan’s face, a piece of duct tape serving as a gag. The camera zoomed in smoothly until his face filled the screen top to bottom. It paused for perhaps five seconds before pulling smoothly back.

Nathan nodded vigorously in confirmation but then once again began shaking his head wildly as the chair was picked up and carried screen left. The Terrorist waved again and a second sedan chair appeared from screen right with a person dressed and bound like Nathan had been.

It’s probably Natalie, Jerrad Watts said over the earpiece circuit. She is the second oldest.

The chair was carefully placed screen center, the chair bearers looking down as though trying to put it exactly where the previous chair had been. There was a slight pause as they appeared to be moving the chair back.

This is Natalie, intoned The Terrorist as the masking piece of the keffiyeh and sunglasses were removed to reveal Natalie’s face, tears running down her cheeks. Once again the camera zoomed in to show her full face but this time, both in and back, it was jerky, pausing and then continuing.

The chair was removed and with The Terrorist waving again was replaced by a third chair appearing from screen right bearing a person attired like the previous two and once again carefully placed center stage.

Got to be James, said Jerrad Watts over the circuit. He is the older of the twins.

However, when the sunglasses and lower part of the keffiyeh were removed, the face was obviously that of Jennifer who was just as obviously terrified indicated by the tears streaming down her face. The camera zoomed in smoothly this time and zoomed back the same way.

Of course, this must be Jennifer, The Terrorist explained.

That brought a sobbing that could almost be heard through the gag and the chair was borne off screen left. The Terrorist waved and once again from screen right came two men bearing yet another clone of The Terrorist and this person was struggling more violently than any of the other three.

Got to be James, Jerrad Watts almost whispered, sounding apologetic after his faux pas in the identification of the previous captive. When the chair reached the center of the screen, which was directly in front of The Terrorist, it was set down and the two bearers exited. The Terrorist stepped forward to a point just behind the chair.

You have my demands. If any attempt is made to rescue our visitors...

As the word visitors was uttered, in one swift motion The Terrorist pulled a sword from a scabbard which appeared to be attached to the back of the chair and in one continuous motion swung it and sharply – and daresay efficiently – detached the head of the person in the chair. There were definite cries of alarm and one of the women on the set fainted. However, the blow wasn’t clean enough and part of the keffiyeh remained attached either to the chair or the body and the severed head flew in the air to the right and came entirely free of its headdress and quickly disappeared. There was a brief spurt of arterial blood as the heart pumped its last. The Terrorist was forced to step back quickly to avoid being spattered.

The Terrorist said, If any rescue attempt is made and if our demands are not met, we shall repeat this process beginning with, hmmm, ... Jennifer. We are reasonable people and will give you forty-eight hours to accomplish our demands. Let’s say beginning at 2:00 p.m. Greenwich Mean Time today.

The countdown has begun, exclaimed The Terrorist who then threw a Nazi style salute and exclaimed Tahiat 'iilaa muhammad (salute to Muhammad).

The screen went black.

PART I

PREPARING FOR THE KIDNAPPINGS

Chapter 1

Early March

T

he package wasn’t anything special. A box wrapped in brown paper with an address label printed using a computer, most likely a laser printer. It had been mailed through the USPS (United States Postal Service) from Washington, D.C., if you believed the post office stamp. It was ground rate so there wasn’t any rush on it. It wouldn’t have received so much as a second glance at a sorting facility. A scan would have revealed that in it were two cellphones. The cheap kind you can buy anywhere with prepaid minutes. You can add more minutes, but they are known in the ‘hood as throwaways. It wouldn’t have raised a Homeland security eyebrow.

When the package was opened, Naji Suleiman knew what the contents meant. He had been preparing for this for some time. Even before that she-whore Chyrise Elliot was elected president. Suleiman was Syrian by birth, although most people who knew him believed him to be Lebanese and he never corrected them. When he introduced himself, he would say, Hi, I’m Nigel eschewing his last name. He saw that one of the phones had a button that had been painted red with fingernail polish. The other didn’t have any such marking. He would make one call with the marked one, get his assignment, dispose of the phone, and keep the other handy – always charged, never used to make a call, only used to receive a call. Just one call and it would also be history.

Even understanding what he was to do with the phone, he just sat and looked at it. Pushing the button would activate him, start him on the road for which he had been trained, a road that would take him away from the relative peace and tranquility of his life. He would leave his wife Falzia, son Abdullah (three years old), and daughter Roashna (sixteen months old). He knew that this was a venture from which he might never return – he had known that when he had been trained, known that when he had come to the United States, known that when he had gotten married, and known that when his children had been born. He also knew that if he didn’t use the phone to get his instructions, he and his family would seem to disappear leaving behind questions and, very likely, their dead and possibly ravaged bodies. To save his family, he had only one option. Picking up the packaged phone with the marked button, he opened the plastic cover easily since it has previously been opened and removed the phone. Issuing a prayer to Allah, he pressed the button. When the phone was answered, he said, Alllah hu alddare baladi (Allah is my shield).

A voice that had been changed by an electronic convertor, said Select three or four good men like yourself. No more than four. Find a place in which a prisoner may be kept without anyone knowing but in accordance with the instructions on the paper in the box with the phones. Then on a date we will give you, you will go to a prearranged spot at a prearranged time and receive your prisoner. The prisoner is not to be harmed – that is imperative. Do not harm the prisoner. Treat him as a prisoner but with kindness. You might have to keep this prisoner for several days or several weeks. He has no information of value. The only value he has is himself and if he is harmed, he might be of no value. Do not be concerned with any newscasts about him. Wait until the phone rings and follow those instructions without fail. Do you understand?

Yes, Suleiman answered, but...

There is no other option except to follow these instructions. Do you understand them?

Yes.

The connection was broken.

This episode was repeated almost verbatim three other times that day in other cities with other people. None of them knew who their prisoner would be. If they had they might have questioned what was happening and therefore it was good that they didn’t. The names of the prisoners-to-be were the adult children of the first female president of the United States: Nathan Elliot who lived in an apartment in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he was attending Harvard Law School; Natalie Elliot who was a senior at The University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan; James Elliot who was a freshman at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan; and Jennifer Elliot, twin sister of James, who was a freshman at The University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Chapter 2

S

uleiman read the instructions about the place he was to find.

Your location is to be at least ten miles beyond the I-95 beltway around Boston.

It is to be as isolated as possible with no other buildings within a quarter mile if possible.

It must have a room at least thirty feet long and twenty feet wide.

There must be a holding room in the building with bathroom facilities. If the rental space is one large room, a holding room would have to be made in one corner but must be no more than ten feet square.

One thirty-foot wall will be made into a green screen. The following Internet source gives you options on its construction:

http://www.mediacollege.com/video/special-effects/green-screen/

Your green screen wall must be the best quality possible.

When you have your facility ready, send an email to [e-mail]. You will receive instructions on where to obtain the camera equipment and how it is to be used. If possible, one of your team should have television or camera experience. You will make a test of your green screen following the directions included with the equipment.

When you have accomplished this, you and your team will make this building your home for the duration of this project.

TIME TABLE:

Team acquisition 1 week

Site acquisition 1 week

Site preparation2 weeks

Site confirmation1 week

Included in the box was a credit card with the name Ishmael Nagi, a South Carolina driver’s license in that name with his picture and an address in Charlotte, South Carolina. Instructions were to use the credit card only to rent the facility and a van in which to carry supplies for the facility and to bring the prisoner back to the facility. Also included was a key to a locker in the local airport. In the locker was a box containing $300,000 in fifteen packets of one hundred dollar bills. Each packet contained $20,000. A note in the package stated these were to be used for preparing the facility to meet the requirements and the rest to be used if necessary to secure loyalty of your recruits. Anything that is not spent on a completely successful project is yours."

Although Suleiman didn’t know it, the plan to kidnap the four Elliot children was in two parts. One was the construction of the four holding areas. The other was four separate groups to plan and execute the actual kidnappings. None of the eight groups (four holding and four kidnapping) knew any of the others. Each kidnapping group was itself composed of three separate groups referred to by The Overseer as Steps.

Step 1 was to ascertain information about one Elliot child by monitoring her/his movements on a twenty-four hour basis. Each group in this step had a leader and four members. Each was known to the others by an alias first name. In addition to monitoring the target and looking for an opportune time to kidnap her/him, the group members were also to gather information about the Secret Service protection. While they were looking for an opportune time to kidnap her/him, they did not know that they were doing this – they were simply reporting any time when target was basically out of the reach of her/his protection even if only for a short period.

Step 2 was to take the information obtained in Step 1 and plan the kidnapping and obtain kidnappers. Weapons would be provided. The obtaining of weapons and personnel was underway while Step 1 was in progress. Unknown to the teams in this step was that the weapons were all coming from one source and the basics were the same: Glock 17 semi-automatic pistols modified for slings and Tasers (if required). Because of the nature of this step, money was available to pay for kidnapping personnel if it was felt that mercenary types were required. After securing the hostage, the kidnapping team was to take her/him to a predetermined spot given to the Step 2 leader.

Step 3 was the easiest of all the steps because it required just one or two additional people depending on how the step leader felt. This step was to acquire a vehicle to transport the hostage from the exchange spot with Step 2 to the exchange spot with the holding team who would then bring the hostage to their facility. While the easiest to set up it was the key to security – they didn’t know who the hostage would be, where she or he came from, and where she or he was going. If one of the vehicles was stopped they knew nothing to incriminate any other person. And that was the key to the entire setup. One member could identify up to four other people but nobody could go beyond that. All phones were burner phones.

If each step team did its job and if each was successful, there was little risk to being caught. Step 2 was the most vulnerable because they were doing the kidnapping, Step 3 was next in vulnerability, Step 1 was vulnerable because they were the most likely be identified by the Secret Service agents and Step 4 was deemed to the safest although in existence the longest. Once – according to the plan – the ransom demands were met, the hostage would be released and all Step 4 teams could disappear. Since the plan was to keep the hostages only a couple of days, the Overseer had reasoned that it would take all that time to determine where the hostages were to be held, much less attempt a rescue.

Chapter 3

Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan

Mid-April

About halfway through the time schedule for the four teams to build their holding cell and green screen, the kidnapping plan was entering Step 1.

Ferdinand (Freddie) Guerrero was standing in front of Mason Hall, waiting for the start of his 9:00 class. Well, that wasn’t what he was waiting for and that wasn’t his actual name. He was waiting for Jennifer Elliot, who was in the same Freshman English class as he was. To be precise, he was in the same Freshman English class as she was. He would pick up her trail today as they had – by no coincidence – three classes together. Freddie’s real name was Farouk Charpentier and he was born in Benzú, a small settlement in the autonomous Spanish city of Ceuta. His father André Charpentier had been on the staff of the French Embassy in Rabat, Morocco, and Ibtihaj Samarahis (his mother and a Moroccan citizen) had fallen in love with him but not at all in the usual fashion.

This was a time when adult Moroccan women were veiled and all that could be seen of their faces were the eyes and her eyes were sexual as they first glanced at André Charpentier as he walked through the market for a noontime meeting. He had been stunned at the beauty of her eyes and she had been taken with his looks and physique. Knowing the Muslim Laws and not wanting to get her in trouble, he had passed by with only a slight hitch in his step, a hesitation that she had easily noticed. It was she who had basically broken the rules and followed him until he entered a public office building and she dared go no further. In fact she couldn’t have gone any further because the building had a guard outside who looked at each person’s identification to see whether or not to admit him or her. But Ibtihaj Samarahis was so smitten that she was bolder than she had a right to be and had asked the guard who the man was. The guard laughed and said, Be gone. Mr. Charpentier wouldn’t be interested in the likes of you. Now armed with a surname and being a young woman looking for love and knew that she had found it, she continued her search until after several weeks of stalking him and asking question where he had stopped, she finally learned his first name André and that he worked in the French Embassy. Finally knowing all about him that she could without actually talking to him, she had frequented the bazaar until she had spotted him again. As he started to pass she had adroitly stepped in front of him and he had collided with her and knocked her down – in reality she fell more than was pushed. Of course she knew that traditionally it was her fault and that the man – Muslim or otherwise – would not stop to help her up and only offer some verbal expletive like Eahirat alkhuraqa (clumsy whore). For that reason, she had slipped a folded piece of paper into his pocket as she fell, grasping clumsily at him in an apparent attempt to stop her fall. It was an hour later when André Charpentier reached into his pocket for something else entirely and discovered that piece of paper folded in fourths. Opening it he discovered a note bearing tomorrow’s date, a time, and an address. It was poorly penned, but at that time women were not educated, or at least most of them weren’t. It took just a minute for André to realize who had put the note in his pocket and, at least to him, it had meant only one thing. He thought briefly about it, looked at his schedule for the morrow and shrugged. Certainly he could make time for a brief afternoon liaison.

The following afternoon when he knocked on the door in a slightly rundown apartment house, Ibtihaj was ready with delicious tea cakes purchased in the bazaar and hot water ready for Morocco’s famous mint tea. She was looking forward to a pleasant hour or two getting to know the man with whom she had quickly become infatuated. She had convinced a young couple she knew to lend her their one bedroom – actually one room – apartment for the afternoon. When she heard the rapping on the door she took a deep breath and quickly answered it. She was happy to see that her message had been understood and invitation accepted. She had quickly realized that this meeting had several non-anticipated barriers: first, they had no common language as Ibtihaj knew no French (or any language other than Arabic) and André’s Arabic was strictly limited. Had there been a common language the second and much more crucial problem would have been eliminated – the reason for the rendezvous. For Ibtihaj it was a strictly social tea, exchanging pleasantries and getting to know each other. For André it was purely pleasure – his pleasure – for he had assumed, as one often did in Morocco, that Ibtihaj was a prostitute. Muslim tradition forbade Ibtihaj from not wearing her veil and so André couldn’t see the smile on her face as she opened the door wide and let him enter, closing the door behind him. As she turned to face him, she immediately grew apprehensive. When she had expected a smile, what she saw instead was a leer and he was looking her over from head to foot.

She was about to introduce herself when he stepped forward and put his hands on her breasts, squeezing them to feel the size and fullness, till now hidden by her kaftan. The suddenness surprised her and she was trapped by her submissive training. Upon entering, André had seen the sparseness of the room, what he expected from a common prostitute, and the bed against the far wall made a definite imprint on his mind. Satisfied that the girl’s fullness was going to be satisfactory he reached down to her crotch groping to assume himself he was not going to find any unpleasantries. This affront was more than she could tolerate and she broke from his grasp seeking some refuge along the far wall. André took it for her understanding his wishes and turned to follow her only to see her cowering against the wall. With his sexual urge further aroused by the chase, he reached her and grabbing her, threw her on the bed. He motioned that she should remove her clothes and then he started to remove his, unbuckling his belt, opening his fly and letting his trousers fall to the floor. This revealed his erection protruding from his underwear and brought a gasp of semi horror from Ibtihaj. She had never seen a man’s penis let alone an erection and the size of it frightened her. She knew what was going to happen and suddenly realized that she was powerless to prevent it.

André found himself driven by a strong desire that only a rape can bring about in a man. Without taking his eyes off his intended victim, as she had become, he stripped off his shoes lifting one foot at a time and ripping the shoe from his foot. Then he dropped his pants, followed by his underwear, and climbed onto the bed his eyes never leaving his victim’s eyes. For her gaze was riveting, and she couldn’t close or turn them from her attacker’s face. André pushed her kaftan up above her waist and started to pull down her panties. It was then that she offered her first and only resistance, trying to sit up and push him away. This action brought forth a sharp slap on her face, knocking her face to one side and bringing tears into her eyes. From that point on she did not look at André and lost all memory of what happened. With her clothing impediments removed, André spread her legs and with practiced certainty entered her slightly. It was a game of his with his conquests or prostitutes. Get that first initial insertion and then ram it in as hard as he could. And that is what he did, ripping her virginity and a scream of pain from her. It wasn’t fast, but he certainly was not slow or gentle in his rape, collapsing briefly as a huge orgasm engulfed him. But his sensuality being aroused, he was far from finished. He rolled her over and with the same rough invasion as before, raped her sodomitically, and then repeated the rapes. Finally drained of sexual energy, he used the limited bathing facilities in the small room to cleanse himself and then left without a backward glance but picking up a couple of tea cakes on the way out and using them to help satisfy a raging hunger for food, his hunger for sex already being satisfied. At least for the time being.

For some time after André had left, Ibtihaj lay there unmoving not thinking about what had happened because she could do nothing about that. She was thinking about her future and what she visualized was not good. At worst she would be dead, possibly stoned by her own parents because, even though it was wrong, the implication that she sexually invited the man to have intercourse with her could not be discounted. Such is strictly forbidden in the Muslim religion and is part of the reason for the clothing with which Muslim women cover themselves except for their eyes. At best, she would be shunned by her family and friends, again for the same reason that she could have been stoned. Naturally, the thought of the first abhorred her as did the second. The best thing that she could do was to disappear and that meant leaving Morocco. The easiest choice she could make would be to go to Ceuta (Spanish Morocco). She cleaned up the small room as best she could but unable to clean the bedding so she was forced to leave the blood and semen smears that would be telltale but more than that she was certain that the sexual odors from the encountered would still remain when her friends came home. She looked around the room and, deciding that she had done was she could, was faced with only one option: To run. And run she did.

Chapter 4

Nine months later in the small Spanish town of Benzú, Ibtihaj Samarahis gave birth to Farouk Charpentier. He was named after her father and his father, the latter chosen so that he might never forget it. She had forsaken, at least publicly, her Muslim religion and professed to being a Spanish Christian and raised her son in that religion, again at least publicly. But privately, they were both Muslim and as regularly as they