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She smiled reassuringly at Sami and Lisa. It was her way of
telling her 6-year-old niece and her 3-year-old nephew that the
nightmare that had begun for them ─ and for her ─ a
month earlier and half a world away was nearly over. That was when
their father murdered their mother, Nesime’s sister Nihal, and
then kidnapped the children to his native Jordan.
Despite her smile, Nesime knew that their ordeal ─ fraught
with international intrigue and palace politics ─ would not
really be over until they all made it onto the plane, first to
Germany and then back to America.
If she had any doubts about that, she needed only to look as far
as the car trailing them, where stone-faced Jordanian guards sat
quietly, their fingers on the triggers of their guns, to make sure
that the children and their escort reached their destination.
At least they had secrecy in their favor. The authorities had
arranged it all so quickly, it seemed that no one yet knew that the
children were on their way home. The streets were still dark and the
haunting call to morning prayers had only just begun when Nesime,
the children and their entourage had been spirited out of the safe
house where they had been staying into the waiting cars.
Nesime had been relieved, if a little surprised, that the small
contingent of reporters who had followed her to Jordan were caught
unawares by their sudden escape. They were still asleep in their
plush beds at the Hilton in Amman as their quarry pulled up
alongside a waiting plane on the tarmac.
She was even more relieved that the general seemed to have been
caught by surprise as well. After all, Brigadier General Yahya
Abequa was no minor adversary.
One of the most powerful men in the country, he was a harsh and
humorless man who exerted almost unchallenged authority over the
close-knit band of ethnic Circassian soldiers that formed King
Hussein’s personal guard. He was well respected as well within the
Islamic fundamentalist party in Parliament, a group that often
challenged the moderate, Western-educated King Hussein. A master of
political equilibrium, the general always seemed to maintain his
balance when walking the tightrope between the two camps. He was, by
any definition, a formidable man.
Nor was his power limited to Jordan. U. S. State Department
officials had thrown a shroud of secrecy over the children’s
departure from Jordan because, they later said, they feared that the
general might have had ties to international terrorist
organizations.
More to the point, the general had a blood tie to the children.
He was Lisa and Sami’s uncle. In fact, he was the main
reason that the children had been taken to Jordan in the first
place. It was Yahya Abequa’s protection that their father had
sought when -- after murdering the children’s mother -- he dragged
them on a late-night flight from New York to Amman, known in ancient
times as Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love.
The general had already suffered one defeat. Jordanian officials
decided to try Mohammed Ishmail Abequa for murdering his wife and
kidnapping his children. Now, Mohammed Abequa was being held in a
dusty prison camp on the outskirts of Amman. The general and his
family were outraged. They had tried to characterize the murder as
an honorable killing, a justifiable homicide under some obscure
doctrine of Islamic teaching, under which a man can kill his wife if
he feels he’s been wronged by her.
Yahya Abequa had made it abundantly clear that he wasn’t about
to tolerate another defeat. Ever since Nesime had arrived in the
country, he had been trying to whip up anti-American sentiment in
the 50,000 strong Circassian community to support his bid to keep
the children with him forever.
Just a few days earlier, about 100 members of his family staged a
three-hour sit-in outside Prime Minister Abdul-Salam Majali's
office, demanding that the children stay in Jordan. The crowd waved
banners that read: "Our children are not for bargaining,"
and "Sami and Lisa are our children."
But Nesime, it seemed, had friends in higher places.
A few days earlier, when King Hussein had returned to Amman from
a trip to the United States, she had been one of the tens of
thousands who had watched with almost reverential awe as Hussein
flew his own military jet low over the city. She remembered watching
the scene with a sense of peace. There was a sureness that came over
her that the king would keep his word and cut through the Gordian
knot of intrigue that had kept the children in Jordan for so long.
Now, as the Royal Jordanian Airlines jet that would carry Nesime
and the children to freedom taxied down the runway at Queen Alia
Airport, she finally relaxed.
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| Queen Alia Airport
(AP) |
The king had kept his word. They were going home.
And for the first time in a month, Nesime Dokur found the time to
truly mourn for her sister.
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