“Omigod, no wonder he couldn’t pull his hands apart. I almost feel sorry for him,” she exclaimed.
“I wasn’t sure it would work,” I admitted, “but I felt like I had to try something.” Esther said nothing; she just gave me a long, appraising look.
Just then we heard a terrific thud and the front door was kicked open. A number of men burst into the house carrying assault rifles. “FBI,” one of them yelled. “Everyone down on the ground, hands in the air.”
It took a while to sort things out. After the agents finally decided that the rest of us were who we said we were, they began concentrating on Ameer. First they carefully cut off the “martyr’s vest” he was wearing and then disarmed it. One of the agents whistled. “This would have blown the whole house apart if he’d set it off,” he marveled.
Only then did they cut the tape off of the terrorist and try to separate his hands. It took two agents to pull them apart, and the pain woke the terrorist. He made a quick grab for the trigger to his vest, only to realize that it was gone and he was helpless. For a moment he slumped back in defeat, but then he turned his head to stare at Esther and me.
“You think you have won, but you are wrong. Even if you knew what to look for you are too late to stop what will happen. My life does not matter; the caliphate will rise as before. Al Andalus!” he shouted, and then ground his teeth in a smile-like grimace. I heard a small crack and then smelled the odor of bitter almonds.
“Shit,” one of the agents shouted, “he’s taken poison!”
The medic who was working on Ameer’s hands yelled at his partner, “Amyl nitrite – stat! Hold it under his nose and try to get him to inhale it!” But Ameer went into convulsions and within two minutes stopped breathing altogether.
“Cyanide,” the medic swore. “He must have had a fake tooth. The last time I heard of anyone using one of those was back in the twentieth century.”
After Ameer was loaded into a body bag and unceremoniously hauled out to the ambulance, there was only one more dramatic incident. One of the agents went over to Ginny and politely asked, “Are you Virginia Selfridge?”
When Ginny nodded, he said, “Mrs. Selfridge, you are under arrest as an accessory to murder and terrorism.” With that he began to read her her Miranda rights as she gasped and protested. “No, no, I had nothing to do with all this. I had no idea that he was a terrorist,” she cried, but the agent ignored her protestations and calmly handcuffed her.
She was crying again, and she turned to me with fear in her eyes. “Thomas, help me. You’ve got to do something. Make them understand that I wasn’t a part of this. Ameer tricked me!”
I have to admit that I enjoyed the moment thoroughly. “Sorry, Ginny, I can’t help you. You brought all this on yourself. Next time you need to do a better job of picking the man you’re going to commit adultery with.”
As the agent led my sobbing wife out the door, I turned to one of the other agents. “Are they really going to book her as an accomplice?” I asked.
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