A Long Time Coming... Pt. 03

Morning came as morning does, the slow rise of the sun upon the eastern horizon, the gradual brightening of the day and the quickening of life to meet the day.

My waking up was shocking, about 45 pounds of excited 4 year old landed on me in my sleep. For most people this might of been a near normal thing, but given my recent history, it almost scared me to death. I did not react well. I was startled awake and pushed the child hard enough that she practically flew off the bed. At the same time, I drew myself up against the headboard in anticipation of a further attack. As I realized I wasn't under attack I slowly became aware of a crying child.

"Who are you?" Great choice of first words to one of the kids.

"You pushed me hard! You hurt me! You're a meany! Zaynab said you were nice, you're not! You're a meany!"

I realized who she was at this point and said "I'm sorry I pushed you. I didn't mean to hurt you. You scared me when you jumped on me. Please, come here and let me see where you're hurt, sweety."

"No! You're mean!"

"Please sweetheart, let me see where I hurt you. What's you're name?"

"I'm Nylah, are you really mommy's David?" Tears abated, Nylah rose to peer over the edge of the bed at me. The first thing I noticed was that Nylah's coloring made her look as if she was heavily tanned. Her hair was coal black with iridescent highlights and came down to her shoulders. She had dark brown eyes over tear-streaked cheeks that had a generous scattering of freckles covering both cheekbones and the bridge of her nose.

"I'm David and Rose was my wife so I guess I'm your mommy's David. How do you know about me?"

"Mommy Rose told Layla and mommy Zaynab all about you and they told me. I was still just a baby when Mommy Rose went away. Layla and mommy Zaya always told me you would come for us someday and you did. I couldn't wait to see you so I ran here and jumped on you cause you were still being a sleepyhead. I've waited sooo long to meet you and then you threw me on the floor and I bumped my knee."

At this point, there was a commotion at the door and a flustered Zaynab in a housecoat followed by two more little girls came into the room. Now I was not prepared for visitors. As was my habit I had slept in only my underwear. I had the bed-clothes pulled up to my waist but I was nude from there up. While this didn't bother the girls, Zaynab was finding herself uncomfortable. To relieve some of that she said "I see Nylah has introduced herself already. Let me introduce the other two girls." Zaynab grasped the larger of the two girl's hand and pulled her out from behind herself. "This is Layla, she's the oldest at 6 years of age. She's a bit shy." Layla might have been 4 feet tall, maybe 80 pounds. Willow thin, long fingers, long eyelashes over nut-brown eyes, high cheekbones again covered with a generous helping of freckles, dark almost black hair that fell to her waist. "Say hello to David Layla."

From a downcast face came a timid voice "Hello David, I'm Layla." She then turned and buried her face in Zaynab's coat.

The second of the girls stepped forward, placed her hands on her hips and said "I'm Amara. Are you really David? Cause if you're really David, what took you so long?" She then stomped her left foot on the floor, almost snorted and scurried behind Zaynab to peek out from behind her. Amara had almost almond-shaped eyes, large in for her face, a tad sturdier than Layla, her hair was a dusty black with the exception of a nickel sized streak of pure white centered and just above her forehead. Once again she was graced with freckles across her cheeks and nose.

"Come, girls, we need to let David get out of bed and get dressed. There are many things to do and to talk about and we can start that at breakfast. David, can you be dressed for breakfast in say 30 minutes?"

"That won't be an issue Zaynab. I'll see you at the table then."

My first order of business was getting some communications that weren't provided by the Saudi's, or by the State Department, or by anyone else involved so far. My second was to get myself, Zaynab and the girls out of the D.C. area. I was pretty sure we'd be heading to Minneapolis in the next day or two. I needed to talk to my sister Amy first to set a few things up. I just hoped she still had the same number or that I could get her number. I needed a safe place to stay that wasn't connected to the government or the Saudi's, I needed communications that were reasonably free of monitoring, I needed transportation lastly, I needed a little time to get my feet under me and some plans set up. I was still blue fire hot enraged, I just didn't want any fallout from what I was going to do to land on anyone I cared about. My list of people that fit that descriptor included Zaynab and the girls, I just didn't know that yet.

Breakfast wasn't what I expected. No pork or pork products, oatmeal and several flavors of yogurt, dark nutty bread with a kind of sweet spread made from dates. Zaynab and I had coffee, the girl's orange juice. The 5 of us were never alone. There was always a servant cook, maid or obvious guard within a few feet of us. By the end of the meal, I had had enough and I verbally confronted the apparent lead guard. "Are we prisoners here? Must you people hover?"

The guard was taken aback, he stuttered a reply to the effect that they had been given orders by Saheer that all of their needs were to be immediately met. I asked about getting a car to go pick a few things up. it was difficult to convey to the guards that I intended to go alone. It wasn't until Zaynab asked if she could go along that they relented and gave me the keys to a Mercedes 450dl.

Once in the car, I asked Zaya "Are we ever going to get away from being watched all the time?"

"Once we get away from the buildings owned by the embassy I'm sure they will stop hovering over us. Right now everyone is afraid you're going to blow up and go public. The consequences of that would be harsh for you and likely fatal to me and the girls. We would be disappeared I'm sure."

"I told you not on my watch Zaynab and I meant it. We're going to Minneapolis. I've got family there. I just need to get in touch with my sister and set a couple things up. For that I need a phone, you should have one too." A short time later we hit an Apple store and were set up with iPhones. Amy's number had changed but 411 had the right one.

My call to Amy went better than I expected. For one thing, the judge had already been in touch and explained the whole sordid mess to her, for another the judge had mentioned that I had come into a lot of money. Its true, family is family but money opens doors.

With Amy setting things up in the Twin Cities, I was able to get travel arraignments made for the group. Three days later we were going to be going through the security gates at Dulles en route to Minneapolis. I spent those three days learning about the girls, which wasn't much, they are young children after all, and about Zaynab. Now she was a wealth of information.

It seems that Zaynab's husband was the result of a family arraigned marriage as were most marriages in her social circle. She had been married to a man nearly twenty years older than she was at the age of 17. She had received some western education while her father was living in Switzerland. Her marriage was a result of her developing several western attitudes her father didn't care for. His solution was to find her a very "conservative" husband who promptly took it upon himself to beat those attitudes out of her. The next 4 years of her life were fairly hellish between regular beatings and his frequent taking her body for his pleasure. To say that she hated him was an understatement.

The 911 attacks in New York freed her of his presence. He was a supporter and follower of Bin Laden. The attacks caused him to go to Afghanistan to do more than monetarily support Bin Laden. He was hiding in a cave complex near the Pakistan border when a laser-guided bunker buster bomb flew into the cave mouth. Besides collapsing the entrance, the blast put a lot of concussive overpressure into the cave complex. There were no survivors. At the husband's location, the overpressure was in excess of 30 pounds per square inch and turned his internal organs into bloody jelly.

Zaynab was promptly returned to her father's house. She was not a popular addition to her late husband's family and they wanted no part of her. The only reason she didn't get a ride into the desert then was her status as her father's daughter. Coming home was better but not by much. She was angry with her father for marrying her to an abusive man. Her father told her if he could he would find another who would treat her worse, but given that she was the widow of someone who had openly defied the crown it was highly unlikely that anyone would have her as a wife. She was relegated to her father's oda where she met Rose and Rose's children. Rose was also very unpopular, with her western attitudes and open defiance of Fahad. The majority of the other women, indeed all but Zaynab felt Rose was stirring things up and they would all be better off if she would learn to go along to get along.

Zaynab basically told David that she had no place else to go, no one else to turn to. Anathema to her own family, abandoned by her people, nothing to return to and nothing to hope for, her only chance was David and the girls.

The time moved fairly quickly and three days later found the five of them in Minneapolis at baggage claim waiting for Amy to appear. They hadn't gathered their last bag before she arrived. Introductions followed with the two adult women sizing each other up a bit. The girls were shy but warmed quickly to Aunty Amy. Amy led them out of the terminal to her waiting minivan in the parking lot. Amy had used the time to set the five of them up in a month to month furnished rental home in Forest Lake, north of the cities.

The drive to the rental would normally have taken 45 minutes or more. This trip was longer. I had Amy stop at a Walmart to pick up a few things. Better jackets for us all, march in Minnesota is mid-winter cold in Alabama, more clothing items from the skin out for the girls and Zaynab, some groceries and a half dozen Trac phones and time cards.

Amy left us at the rental with a promise to return the following day. My first order of business was transportation, my second was to find a bank, my third was to call my brother John with one of the Trac phones at the number Amy provided. John's membership in the Outlaws M.C. and the contacts he had through them would be "useful". The last thing on my list was finding an attorney I could trust.

Amy was at our door at 9 am. Our first stop was a car dealership. Amy was a regular fuck buddy for the lead salesman there, his side piece, like Amy, once said: "once a slut, always a slut". Amy's fuck buddy cut me a decent deal on an F250 Crew Cab, green in color with 45k on the odometer. It had been a contractor's ride before the housing downturn and it was as basic as it got. It had an FM radio, bucket fronts and bench rear seat, rubber floor, and a manual transmission. It was perfect for my needs. I realized I needed to get Zaynab a drivers license as soon as possible. I might not be around to play chauffeur all the time. I could see a minivan in my own future.

My next stop was at Wells Fargo. Once they learned how much money I had available I was being taken care of by both the first banker I met and the branch manager. They helped me contact both the Swiss and the Cayman banks and, with their help, set up a new account in the Cayman's that held all the money with the exception of the 1.5 million I deposited in a Wells Fargo checking account. I acquired a new checkbook and new debit cards for both myself and Zaynab before I left. The last thing I acquired was a safe deposit box.

I stopped in a strip mall parking lot in my new truck and placed a call to my older brother John on the Trac phone. We spent nearly 15 minutes "catching up". I asked John for some favors that involved repaying some debts. John said he'd see what could be arraigned and at what price. We decided between us that the first debt paid would be a certain guard in a certain facility. John made certain that I understood the rules of contacting him about what they were going to do. Never call but on a disposable Trac phone. Never call from a residence. Never call from a vehicle. Never call from the same location twice. John was sending me a "parts" list with associated "labor" costs involving the building of a custom ride for myself. Even with the above rules, we would only discuss things from this list while on the phone. I sought out a bookstore and purchased several copies of a dictionary. These copies would all be part of the same printing of that dictionary. Any word in it could be referred to by page number, column number and numerical position from the top down. I saw to it that a copy went to both John and Amy.

Having set a few things up with John, I moved on to the attorney Amy recommended, another of her married playmates. I dropped off the various pieces of paperwork that I had from both the girls and Zaynab and spoke to him at length about protecting everyone legally as best as possible. The attorney suggested that I might want to consider having a couple offshore residences in both Ireland and Brazil. Neither country was big on extradition to the U.S. or anywhere else for that matter. Both had relatively modern accommodations, both had cheaper costs of living and both were very open to moderately wealthy people coming there to live. I wrote a check for the 10k retainer fee and left.

During my talks with Zaynab, I learned she was not overtly religious. Matter of fact she was about as anti-religion of any kind that it was possible to get. Mind you she believed in both a good creator and his evil adversary but having suffered at the hands of a religious zealot, she feared organized religion. Besides, while she was in Switzerland she had discovered the pleasures of both beer and pizza. Just part of her father's issues with her attitudes and behaviors there. As for the girls, some attempts to indoctrinate them to Islam had been made but Rose worked harder on them to know Christianity. As for myself, any faith I might have had before Rose was stolen from me was long since lost. I was thinking of this as I ordered Take out pizza and stopped for a case of beer on my way to where I and my girls were staying. It would be the kid's first taste of pizza.

The next three months seemingly flew by. I picked up the study guide for Zaynab to get her Minnesota driver's license. She took the written test and passed on her first attempt so to celebrate we took her back to Amy's "close friend" and had her pick out a minivan. Having passed the written test she had her driving permit so I had Amy drive my truck back to the house and I rode with Zaynab as she drove the first time. I had decided that we needed a home base in Minnesota, so I made inquiries into purchasing the house we were living in. Given the severely depressed housing market, I was able to get the place for under 200k. 5 bedrooms, 4 baths and a 3 car garage on a fairly large, fairly private lot, good school district and a quiet neighborhood, it was a good place to live.

I was becoming fond of Zaynab. Used to having her around. She was always at my elbow and went to extremes to ensure my house was clean, my laundry is done and my meals cooked. At least she tried to cook, it was a learning experience for all of us. There were no overt romantic signs or feelings from either of us, but the almost forced contact, day in and day out, dealing with the needs of 3 active little people had us beginning to act almost like a couple.

Layla, the eldest, was registered with the local school district and would start school in the fall as a second grader. They had tested her for placement and found she was nearly as advanced as a third grader in most subjects. While she might have been academically advanced enough to start there the school felt that skipping two grades was a bit much. Amara would start in the first grade in the fall as well. She excelled in some things but not all. Nylah would start half day pre-school.

It was nearly the 4th of July weekend when John called to tell me that my first debt had started repayment. Seems a federal corrections officer named Mary Ingersol had been pulled over for speeding on her way to work one day by a female K-9 officer of the local police. During the stop, the officer had her dog out and the dog alerted for drugs on Ms. Ingersol's car. In the resulting search, nearly 500 grams of crack cocaine was located in the trunk of her car. Ms. Ingersol was in custody and being held at the local county jail on 1st-degree possession of controlled substance charges. At the same time, several inmates in the federal facility she now worked at (she had been transferred here after the investigation started with my release) had come forward claiming she was their source of contraband. So now Ms. Ingersol was experiencing about the worst thing that could happen to a guard who enjoyed teasing and verbally mistreating inmates by being an inmate herself. Not only was she facing state charges for possession, but the feds had also picked up her case and intended to federally prosecute her as a public example of zero tolerance of this kind of behavior by federal corrections staff.

The arresting officer was the daughter of a member of the Outlaws M.C. He wasn't the custodial parent while she was growing up but he was her biker hero dad. The local prosecutor had a nephew who was patch holder and the federal prosecutor was eyeing a house of representatives seat coming up and wanted to appear as hard line on drugs for the Republican base. Mary was in a world of shit.

Not bad for a 25k "tranny rebuild". Officer Ingersol had her car serviced at the local Walmart. The service tech who worked on her car was an Outlaw's prospect. The nearly 500 grams of crack had been stolen from a drug dealer on the southside who had made the mistake of getting a patch holder's daughter hooked on the shit before he turned her out as a whore. In the future, it will be difficult for that guy to do much. He had the misfortune of being mugged, and during the mugging, his jaw was broken in several places, both thumbs and most of his fingers cut off, and his genitals had third-degree burns. Some cares and considerations were taken to prevent him from expiring due to shock. Dead people tell no tales nor learn their lessons.

It was the 4th of July weekend that I and Zaynab took the first steps to become more than housemates. I got more than a little drunk and proceeded to tell Zaynab how much I appreciated all she did for both the girls and me. This led to a considerably more sober Zaynab confessing she cared for me and just wanted to see me happy. By the 1st of August, we were going on dates of a sort and by the first of September, we were doing a lot of hand-holding and kissing. I found a jeweler and was I planning a proposal involving the girls when Nylah spilled the beans and spoiled it.

That was a moment Zaynab had been dreading. She knew what some of the Arabic forms that I had signed were all about. In order for me to take her into my household, she had to be a member of my household, in other words, according to Saudi law, we were already married. I was more than taken aback by this revelation. I was very angry and curt with Zaynab for several days culminating in my yelling at her: "What the fuck else haven't you told me?"

At the time of this occurrence, I was seated in my easy chair in my den. Zaynab was kneeling on the floor at my feet There were tears running down her face from shame and frustration from her deception. "There are no more secrets Dave, if anything comes up I will be the first to tell you. I'm sorry I didn't tell you at the time or sooner. I was afraid you would reject me, reject us if I did. Please forgive me."