THE 19TH HIJACKER

Everyone knows what happened on September 11, 2001. But what lured the educated son of a fine Lebanese family to the jihadist message of destruction and annihilation that would result in the death of 3,170 innocents? What was it about the Hamburg cell that appealed to him?

The 9/11 Commission Report made clear that Number 19 nearly pulled out of the operation a month before September 11, because of a romantic relationship with a lovely Turkish-German woman. Very little is known about the nineteen hijackers, and what little is known remains classified. The life and death of Number 19, Sami Haddad, therefore, has been imagined by Reston. Sami Haddad is tormented by doubt as he pondered his choice in August of 2001 -- whether or not to join the 9/11 hijackers. Through a series of tape recordings which Sami had made in the months before the operation, he tells his beautiful and feisty Turkish-German lover, Karima Ilgun, about his first meeting with Muhammad Atta in Hamburg; about his training in Afghanistan under the watchful eye of Al Qaeda's military chief; about his meeting with Osama bin Laden, where he swears his oath of allegiance; about his final months of preparation in Florida where he comes to loath Muhammad Atta but cannot find the courage to flee. A sense of doubt and skepticism suffuses his musings to her, but also a sense of weakness. After the attack on 9/11, Komisar Recht, a rumpled German government investigator, is tasked to ferret out Karima's role, if any, as an Al Qaeda operative. He comes to suspect that she is withholding valuable evidence, but under German privacy law he is barred from employing strong-arm tactics that would force her to talk. Surviving members of the Al Qaeda cell in Hamburg also suspect Karima is hiding Sami's tapes. To them Sami's recollections are sacred artifacts, a legacy of their successful mission, though they suspect that his presentation of the attack is portrayed as something less than heroic. Karima is caught between these two forces, either of which could have terrible consequences for her. How she resolves this dilemma is the climax of the novel. James Reston, Jr. is the author of 18 books, two of which are novels. He taught fiction writing in the creative writing program at the University of North Carolina for ten years. Among his books are three works that deal with the clash of Christianity and Islam in history: Warriors of God, Dogs of God, and Defenders of the Faith. Warriors of God is an international best seller that has been published in Great Britain (Faber), Italy, Spain, Portugal, Brazil, Turkey, Korea, China, and in Arabic. Reston was trained in the recruitment of foreign agents in Army intelligence during the Vietnam War era.