Aram Schefrin
How did an
Egyptian city planner, a Yemeni religious fanatic, a boy from the
United Arab Emirates who worshipped sex, not Allah, and a young student
of aircraft design who went to a Christian school in Lebanon - four
very different men with very different ideas - get involved in flying
the 9/11 planes? How did the plot develop, and who developed it?
"Marwan," a novel by Aram Schefrin, puts the reported facts together
and fills in the details with fiction - from the group's first coming
together in Hamburg, Germany, to the moments before the jets they were
to hijack took off. You'll come to know the participants, and how they
were motivated, what their personal lives were like and the roles they
played in the plan. You will learn to know them as people - not simply
as "terrorists"- because, as the author sees it, you have to understand
your enemies if you want to defend yourself.
Aram
Schefrin is the author of four novels. He is a pioneer in the new art of
podcasting fiction, and this novel can be downloaded from iTunes and heard in
its entirety. Mr. Schefrin practices law in Rhode Island and Florida. He was a
founding member and the lyricist of the rock group Ten Wheel Drive, which had
its moment of fame in the early 1970's. He lives in Wellington, Florida with
his wife, two dogs, four cats and three polo ponies.
And then two tall ugly buildings to
the south. Atta hated skyscrapers – people piled on top of each other. “Hideous.”
He made a face. “Like what goes on inside them. Hey – Marwan. You have to look
at them.”
But
I could not look at them. “It’s like seeing your own tombstone. Let’s go
somewhere else.”
Jarrah
mugged for the cameras of the fat tourists in jeans and sneakers as we pushed
through their sweat stink onto the elevator, holding our breaths until we were
disgorged into the street. I had already had enough of New
York. No matter where we looked that day, we found
filth – not just wrappers and cigarette butts but a coating of grime on
everything, which only a flood like Noah’s could have cleansed away.
So
it was not a high point when Atta
led us down some steps into a hole in the sidewalk that smelled like my
unwashed laundry did when I let it sit for two weeks. Atta handed me a coin,
and I followed him to a turnstile and watched him insert a similar coin into a
slot. The turnstile spun as he pushed on it, and let him through. I was about
to do the same when three monkeys scrambled down the stairs and leap-frogged
over the turnstiles, scattering to the right and left toward places I could not
see. This gorilla show so startled me that I dropped my coin – not into the
slot but onto the floor, where it rolled on its edge for fifty feet until it
stuck in a wad of bubble gum still fresh enough to hold it.
Atta
gave me another coin and I forced my way through the turnstile. Suddenly the
whole place shook and a train slid into the station. Doors opened and people
poured out and slammed me into a pole. Atta yanked me through one of the doors.
If he had not, I would not have gone into that car for all the sneakers in China.
I
am from desert people. This was not civilized.
Coming
up the stairs at the end of the ride, I gasped for air, and then choked on what
I had drawn into my lungs. When I finally straightened up, I saw in front of me
the bases of two buildings embossed with high narrow arches like a crocheted
antimacassar.
“You
shit!” I snarled at Atta. “Why did you bring me here?”
“I
didn’t bring you here,” Atta said. “Allah did.”
