Of fasion and terror

Paging through the March 2005 issue of Vogue, which she'd picked up in hopes of finding styles that would fit with her desire to dress as a modest but modern Muslim woman, Fatima bin Laden suddenly saw the face of a woman she grew up admiring, the beautiful Aafia Siddiqui! What was she doing in a fashion magazine? Only then did Fatima see the headline: "The Most Wanted Woman in the World."

Aafia came from one of the most prominent families in Pakistan; they were friends of her father and uncle. Aafiya's mother was well known for her charitable works and for reminding the increasingly macho male leadership of the Islamic movement of the Koran's pronouncements on the rights of women. The family was educated, Aafiya earning a doctorate in biology from MIT, later researching brain function at a Boston hospital. Aafiyah was 12 years Fatima's senior, and she'd only met her briefly, but admired Aafiya's reputation as a strong woman known to shame men into acts of jihad, and an ardent fund-raiser for jihadist causes, even contributing her own wedding ring to a jewelry drive.

With a whole week and a half of Prof. Young's Journalism 101 under her belt, Fatima read the lengthy article with a new eye, and was impressed with the breadth of reporting. And while it quoted a number of friends and associates, both in the U.S. and in Pakistan, who declared this mother of three children was far too sweet to be a terrorist, Fatima believed she absolutely could be. Beauty, she knew from experience, both to men and women, was a great veil. As if people associated beauty with goodness. Her own beauty, Uncle Osama said as he sent her off on this mission, would be one of her weapons, a gift from Allah, bless his name.

Ah, her mission.

She'd gained access to the brig at Ford Island, where her uncle's friend and colleague Muhammed Resurreccion was being held after his attempt to blow up the Arizona Memorial.

And her relationship with Lt. Basel Zakly Faris, USMC, an MP at the brig, would make further access possible, one way or another, with or without his direct participation. But she still had questions about Baz. He was a good Muslim, answering the call to prayer five times a day, and had refrained from touching her in any way. On the plus side were his feelings about the way "good Muslims" were treated in America and the double-standard he lived with in the Marines. On the negative were his avowed love for America's freedoms and his apparent devotion to Imam Ibrahim al-Shakr and his Sufi preachings of love and tolerance.

But help from her uncle was on the way, supposedly by tomorrow. And then, if she were both successful and lucky, she would supersede Aafiya as the most wanted woman in the world. Hey, she too could be in Vogue!