Chapter 1

Cal should have been used to it by then. His three golfing partners were outwardly polite and friendly to the eleven-year-old, but underneath, two of them were seething at the drubbing he was handing them. Cal had a feeling one of them would lose his cool before the round was over, so he used his standard escape strategy. Walking up the fifteenth fairway, he pointedly looked toward his house and announced "Sorry, guys. I need to drop off here. That's our house and the signal is out for me to come home."

It was, in fact, his family's home there on the fifteenth, but there was no signal. If anyone ever pushed the issue, he would point out the orange card that he kept in his own bedroom window. After several angry, embarrassing scenes from beaten club members, Cal had worked out the tactic of bailing out at fifteen, before his defeat of the adults was final.

And a defeat it almost always was. Having lived on the course as long as he could remember, Cal had almost grown up with a club in his hands. On top of that, he had an unbelievably smooth, consistent swing. Members who played with him always wondered if that was how Jack Nicklaus had played as a boy. His reputation was such that the men were constantly trying to get in a group with him. It had taken a while, but he had come to understand that many could not stand the ego hit of having an eleven-year-old considered better than they were. On his own, he had decided it was best not to 'finish them off', much as it aggrieved his naturally competitive personality.

Of course, not all of his partners reacted badly. There were some who sincerely appreciated his talent and told him so. He had no problem finishing rounds with them. Likewise with the really good players who could beat him honestly. He never bailed out of a round if he was trailing, or if another player had a legitimate chance to overtake him.

The country club was quite exclusive and the surrounding homes very expensive. Cal's father, Martin, a highly successful real-estate developer, had been on the board several times. That was part of the reason Cal was allowed on the course, where children under twelve were normally prohibited. The other reason was the publicity value of a potential junior champion among the membership.

Cal's game needed more length before he was a legitimate junior contender, but all of the other elements for success were there. It was a rare day, even during the school term, that Cal did not play at least the equivalent of nine holes. Often, it would all be done on the four or five holes closest to their home, and sometimes, he would play three or four balls simultaneously.

Leaving the course as he did took a lot of self-control for someone his age. A naturally fierce competitor, he was very keyed up as he walked in through the back door of the garage and picked up a basketball. For over twenty minutes, he shot basket after basket, dashing to get the rebound if there was one, which was not often. Even at eleven, Cal was a deadly shooter.

John Calvin Banner had been named in honor of a grandfather, with his parents totally unaware of his name's connection to the historic Christian leader. When he entered first grade, he counted the 'Johns' in the room and insisted thereafter that he be called 'Cal'. That, of course, endeared him greatly to his namesake grandfather.

Demanding the use of that name was a very uncharacteristic move for young Cal, whose most notable characteristic seemed to be his 'averageness', bordering on anonymity. It would have been much more in keeping with his personality to remain lost among the sea of 'Johns'.

Being an 'unexpected' child made Cal even more of a misfit. He was a product of his parents' first union after his mother, Elaine, was almost recovered from birthing his older sister Rebecca. Somehow, she had thought she could not yet be fertile - wrong! To his parents' credit, they in no way resented his birth, planned or not. But there was no doubt that the difference from the rest of the family in his appearance and his personality kept them off balance much of the time.

Genetically, it was no surprise that Cal was athletically talented. His father was a three-sport high school athlete and a running back in college. His mother had been a competitive skater through her early teens, then switched to volleyball. His older brother, Pete, soon to enter ninth grade, appeared to be following in his father's footsteps. Even his sister Rebecca, just a year older, was naturally athletic. She was a brain and a musical prodigy, so she did not spend much time on sports. When she did, though, it was obvious that they all came naturally.

What was not explainable about Cal genetically was his size. Smaller and thinner at the same ages than Pete, his three-years-older brother, it was already apparent that he would never achieve the well over six foot stature of his father and his brother. It was also obvious that if he was ever to play football, it would have to be as a kicker. Certainly eleven-year-olds could bulk out later, but he was much more slender and wiry that Pete had been at that age.

The nature of Cal's athletic talent was also different from his father and brother. He excelled at anything that required planned, controlled motion. Golf, pool, bowling, shooting baskets: those were all activities at which he shone. It wasn't that he was slow of foot or reflexes - far from it. It was just that when he could plan an action he was unbelievably precise and accurate.

As evidence of his overall athleticism, Cal was quite good at soccer. He did not particularly like the strange game, but his best friend Khalid was an avid player, and Khalid's father, a native Saudi, was an excellent coach.

As if he did not have enough things that made him unique in his family, he was a quiet, reflective boy in a household of flaming extroverts. He was by no means shy; he just preferred to observe and listen while the rest of his family seemed to be in a constant battle for center stage. From his earliest years he had been adept at lurking unnoticed, seemingly merging into the surroundings.

All good athletes and all good warriors have exceptional visual and spatial awareness. They are able to integrate everything that is going on around them and take the optimal action. Cal had definitely inherited that ability. He seldom chose the wrong club or aimed a shot foolishly. He always seemed to be in position on the soccer pitch, an unusual trait for a young player. As he grew, it would be a great asset in all team sports.

Cal's innate stealthiness and visual acuity were important for what had become his hobby, besides his sports, that is. Since he was seven or eight, he had been fascinated with photography. In a family where money was no problem, he had been given cameras that most adults longed for.

Unlike many children blessed with too many things, Cal treated his possessions with care and skill. Not only did he take many pictures that would have left his extended family and their large circle of friends amazed and pleased if they had seen them, his gear was always meticulously cleaned and stored. When school had let out after his fifth grade year, his dad had given him a darkroom. His mother had been rightfully concerned whether he was mature enough to handle anything so complex and technical, but when he produced his first self-developed photos of her on the day it was completed, her concern was vanquished.

It was only occasionally that anyone saw Cal's pictures. They were usually carefully filed away in his workroom adjacent to the darkroom. What he did show to other people were usually fairly ordinary, giving no hint of the real talent he had for capturing people.

It was a torrid late-June day, just before noon, and Cal was drenched in sweat after shooting baskets vigorously until his competitive buzz from the abandoned golf round diminished. Someday, he told himself, he could finish his rounds no matter how badly he was embarrassing some rich, lazy weekend hacker. For now, a dip in the pool and some fresh clothes were what he needed. Instead of going in to put on his suit, though, he thought he would see if his neighbor and best friend, Kal, could join him.

Kal's real name was Khalid Mussafi, and it was a very bad idea to let his father hear him called Kal. For their circle of friends, though, the duo of Cal and Kal was just too choice.

Rachman Mussafi was one of the thousands of Saudis peripheral to the royals but close enough to have accumulated a sizable hoard of oil money. In his early thirties, while studying for an MBA in the States, he had met a blonde California woman who taught a business writing class. Amelia Barnes was blessed with a centerfold's body and face and a brilliant mind. Rachman was a dead ringer for a young Omar Sharif and had the cultured manner of one who had sampled much of the world's bounty. Instant physical attraction was no surprise: blonde vs. dark; West vs. East; liberated vs. Muslim...

That, of course, was the problem. To Rachman, beautiful women were always available - available to be acquired and used as he saw fit. Amelia, however, was something he had never encountered. Female attire appropriate for California college teaching in that day was much closer to that of a houri belly dancer than to a Saudi wife or mother. Rachman naturally approached Amelia as a potential acquisition, and the battle was on.

It was really an uneven fight. She was on her turf where her rules dominated. She was painfully experienced in the battle of the sexes, while he had to learn to think of a woman as an actual person. In the midst of the battles, the two found genuine love. In the end, they willingly overlooked the problems of a Muslim-Christian union and married.

Amelia was a confident and strong-willed young woman in addition to her extraordinary beauty, and her father was a successful lawyer. Rachman required her to sign a pre-nup, and she had a document of her own drawn up, one which nearly scuttled the wedding. Her agreement stated that the family would live in the U.S. and specified a generous divorce settlement if he reneged. It also stated that the children would not be raised Muslim.

The agreement that Amelia insisted on sent Rachman's family into an absolute rage, and he was forced to choose between his love and his family. He was a perfect example of many upper-middle-class Saudis: officially a devout, even fanatical follower of Wahabi Islam. In practice, he was a bon vivant who on his regular trips to London, Vegas and other European or U.S. cities partook freely of the bounty of the Satanic West. Though he regretted the estrangement, his love for Amelia was so strong that he turned his back on Islam and the Mussafi clan. They were married in a civil ceremony.

Subsequently, Rachman became a very worldly, fairly normal American husband and father. If he had any inclination to revert to the 'women-as-chattel' ways of his upbringing, Amelia was quick to disabuse him of those thoughts. She knew the hold she had on him and used it willingly. There was true shared loved between the two, and he did his best to shed his old-world attitudes to please her.

The two children born to Rachman and Amelia were as beautiful as one could imagine. Fourteen-year-old Ismi was the prototypical virgin that so many Islamist fanatics looked forward to having in paradise. In future years, many such fanatics would willingly martyr themselves to possess a harem of Ismis in paradise. At eleven, Khalid was almost too pretty to be a boy. As Westernized as he became and despite the agreement, Rachman had held very firm in his insistence on Islamic names for their children. Amelia had thought it a wise and harmless concession.

Using his capital wisely, Rachman had bought and expanded an importing business, and had more than enough money to live in the exclusive country club community next to the Banners. Amelia had obtained another college teaching position, and was on a tenure track, having completed her Ph.D. For over a decade, the Mussafis were a happy couple and a happy family, as American as any third or fourth-generation immigrant family might be.

Ismi grew up as an American first-born child. Essentially, boy or girl makes relatively little difference. The first-born is the pathfinder, the groundbreaker. The first-born typically has the fiercest battles with the parents over privileges and limits, but usually ends up with the stronger lifelong bonds to the parents, as well.

Being drop-dead gorgeous and an early bloomer, it was almost cruel to allow Ismi in the company of teenaged boys. She was a good girl, not at all promiscuous, nor even much of a tease. She did, however, adhere strictly to the fads of teenaged dress.

In Muslim society, rights and privileges are not considerations for girls: they have almost none. Furthermore, modesty to the point of total concealment is a deeply ingrained cultural and religious imperative. Rachman had done an admirable job of adapting to America mores, but the puberty and exploding sex appeal of his stunning daughter was more than he could handle.

From the first appearance of Ismi's nascent breasts and incipient hips, domestic tranquility at the Mussafi home was doomed. In his gorgeous wife, Rachman had always accepted and treasured her open sexuality and borderline exhibitionist leanings. Somehow, he could not transfer that same tolerance to his daughter. Perhaps latent guilt over his own unavoidable responses to Ismi's sexuality was at the core of his problem.

Even though Amelia kept the girl's dress very mainstream, the exposure bothered Rachman more and more. As the two began to argue about the subject, his long-suppressed feelings that wives should be silent and obedient also surfaced more and more. All of the beliefs that he had scoffed at on his younger globe-trotting trips and seemingly abandoned at the altar began to become important to him.

It was a gradual descent into open warfare, but their home had now become a battleground, a fact not well hidden from friends and neighbors. Amid the growing tension, Rachman had returned to the mosque and under the urging of the mullahs was trying to impose the strict observances of his youth on his Americanized family. While in his younger years he had followed the requirements mechanically, with no true spiritual commitment, he now was becoming a true believer.

Amelia, for her part, would have no part of Islam, something she had been steadfast about since their first date. Every time she reminded him of his promises and the signed agreement, he flew into a rage. The marriage was obviously on its last legs, but even that posed a huge problem. Only immoral behavior by the wife justified divorce to a Muslim. The fact that theirs was not even a legitimate Muslim marriage did not make the idea of divorce any easier for him.

As a sweaty Cal walked next door to fetch his pal for a swim that Sunday morning, the battle over Ismi's modesty had reached a new level of frenzy. Cal heard the yelling when he opened the patio door, his usual entrance. He could have, and probably would have, returned home at that point, but it was another of his signature traits that prevented him from leaving.

Cal had always carried a heightened awareness of and abhorrence of anything that was unfair or unjust. He was the one in the family or among his friends who would actively intercede to stop any activity he considered harmful to any person. He was always the arbiter at childhood games and the one to break up scuffles between friends or classmates.

From his youngest days, the one thing that would make Cal the center of family conversation was some situation of unfairness or inequity. He would hold forth in childish fervor for many minutes at a time while his parents and siblings suppressed their mirth - usually. Somehow linking a passion for fairness with the practice of law, his parents assumed that their youngest was headed for a law career, a perfectly reasonable and acceptable goal for one of their offspring.

Just as Cal was turning to close the Mussafis' patio door and avoid violating their privacy, he heard a ripping noise, a shriek from Ismi and Amelia's shout of "Don't," followed by the unmistakable sound of a hard slap and a body falling. That was too much for Cal.

As he quickly but quietly walked toward the family room where the conflict was raging, Cal heard Rachman yelling "If she will not cover herself properly, why should she be allowed to wear anything? There is no difference! You have let her become nothing but a typical American whore!"

Before him, Cal saw Amelia lying on the floor, stunned and holding her hand to the side of her face. Ismi was bending over facing away from the others and covering her exposed breasts with her arms. Rachman was waving the tank top he had apparently ripped from his daughter as he continued to rage about her exposure. Khalid stood to one side, poised as if to intercede, but motionless.

Completely overtaken by his rage, Rachman came up behind his daughter and yanked down her shorts and panties, exposing her bottom and causing her to fall as she struggled to get away. Instantly on his knees over her, he began pulling at the garments, trying to get her naked, spouting invective all the while.

Khalid had been watching in stunned silence until then, but that was too much. He adored his beautiful, loving older sister, and even his carefully nurtured respect for his father would not let him stand by as he humiliated Ismi. Dashing across the room, he shouted "Father! Stop! Don't do that!" and grabbed a hold of Rachman's arm.

With the strength and the single-minded oblivion of mindless rage, Rachman threw his arm back with stunning force, sending Khalid flying across the room, out of control. He continued his efforts to denude his sinful, errant daughter without a thought to his impertinent son. Cal and the recovering Amelia, however, saw what happened to Khalid.

It was to be stamped indelibly in his memory for life, the permanent condemnation of hatred and bigotry, as far as Cal was concerned. Khalid lost his balance and fell awkwardly, his head smashing into the stone hearth. Cal was closest and pulled his stricken pal into his arms immediately, somehow knowing the accident was fatal. Khalid began convulsing violently for many long seconds before falling totally still, not breathing.

It was Amelia's frantic screams that broke through Rachman's rage enough to make him turn and see his son. "You killed him!" Cal could not help screaming out. Rachman froze for a moment, trying to absorb the enormity of what he had heard. Turning toward the fireplace, what he saw convinced him that it was true.

The shock of having killed his son should have broken through the rage and calmed the man, but it had the opposite effect. A son was a man's treasure, meant to carry on his name and his legacy. Now, his only son was gone. A girl was a useless burden, her only value a future dowry, which his slut of a daughter would never earn him. How quickly the old ideas regained control of him.

Even more strongly consumed by his rage and his religious fervor, Rachman diverted the blame to his daughter, still cowering on the floor with her shorts and panties around her lower legs. "Now your whorish behavior has caused me to lose my son! You made me lose my son!" He began shouting over and over. When he stood and began kicking her, Cal could not take it. Releasing Kal's inert body to his hysterical mother, he leaped across the room and fell on top of Ismi, trying his best to shield her from the power of her father's doubly enraged kicks.

It was only in the ER later that Cal learned what had happened. Both he and Ismi suffered cracked ribs, concussions, and uncountable bruises from Rachman's mindless kicks. It took Amelia several seconds to come out of her shock over her son's death enough to realize what was happening to her daughter and to Cal. Using the strength of her own rage, she was able to grab a fireplace tool and attack her husband. He was so lost in his grief and the venting of his rage that he was unaware of her and her first blow was to his head, which knocked him out. There were several more blows before Amelia turned her attention to the two badly beaten youngsters.

Showing remarkable presence of mind, Amelia called 911, then tried mouth-to-mouth and CPR on her son, all to no avail. She was almost catatonic with shock and grief when the police and paramedics arrived, erroneously believing that Ismi and Cal had been killed, as well. The commotion brought Cal's family out and it was a terrible shock to them to see Cal wheeled out on a gurney.

The incident was of course the major local news story for days, and a major setback for the Islamic community. For Cal, it was unwanted attention, painting him as a young hero for trying to shield Ismi. He was kept in the hospital overnight for observation, a standard precaution with concussions. With bandaged ribs and more sore spots than he could count, he went home, only to be faced with a gaggle of reporters in front of the house.

The first instinct of both Cal and his parents was to send the reporters away. The family attorney, who had been quickly called in, however, recommended that they allow one interview with one reporter and one cameraman. The attorney counseled them that the pressure would never stop by itself. The attorney was assigned the task of choosing the reporter, and insisted on a written list of the questions that would be asked. Cal's parents and the lawyer spent an hour going over the questions with a very reluctant Cal.

When the actual interview occurred, Cal was very self-effacing, to no one's surprise. When asked what he thought when he fell on top of Ismi, he answered. "I couldn't let him kill both of my friends."

"Weren't you worried about being hurt or killed yourself?" came the question.

"I never thought about it," was his answer. "I had to protect her."

"Why didn't you try to stop the father?" was the next question.

"Kal is bigger than me and..." Here his voice broke. He did not cry, but he turned his head away and he paused for a moment. "He w... was bigger and stronger, and his dad just... All I could do was protect her."

Despite the careful coaching, he deviated from one agreed-on answer in a way that caused no small stir in the Islamic community. The wrap-up question was a rather inane "How do you feel about the whole incident?"