The Hunt for Truth Read online

  7

  Sania hurried inside her house as fast as she could upon hearing the phone inside her house ring. As she rushed towards the phone, her heart was thumping hard with the eager anticipation that the person calling was Sam.

  “Sam,” she answered, breathing hard, “Sam, is it you?” She continued her hopeful cry as she heard silence on the other side of the call, and, just before Sania called out Sam’s name again, the connection went dead.

  Sania hurriedly pressed the switch hook on the phone’s cradle with the faint hope of reconnecting the call, but her efforts ended up futile. All she heard was a dial tone.

  As she placed the phone on its cradle, Sania couldn’t help remembering the stupid fight she had with Sam a few months before. It was on the morning of May 13, 2001. There was no way she could forget the date as it was their wedding anniversary. Sania had wished for a cell phone as her surprise gift from Sam. She was extremely confident that Sam would have picked the latest mobile from Sony as her gift, given the number of breadcrumbs she dropped in spring. Oh boy, was she in for a surprise when she opened the gift. It turned out to be a phone, but not the phone she had wished; it was a rotary phone from the ’60s.

  Sania was perplexed. Who in their right mind would get a phone from the ’60s?

  She ended up arguing and fighting with Sam about it. Sam’s excuse for this inexplicable gift was that he wanted it to be unique. He said that anyone can gift a cell phone, but no one will think of gifting a rotary phone in 2001.

  The whiff of nostalgic memories washed over her, reminding her how unique and different Sam was. She might have known him only for four years, but every day with him had been a joyful ride. When she married him four years ago, it was not her choice. Instead, she was forced to marry him out of tremendous debt her family owed.

  There is an old Yiddish adage, “Mann Tracht, Un Gott Lacht,” meaning, “Man plans, and God laughs.” Despite our careful planning, the road to life is unpredictable. Sania felt the Yiddish adage was tailored just for her.

  In the summer of 1992, her plans were all coming together beautifully. Her wedding with Reza was set, and the plans were well underway for a beautiful wedding in NY. Both their parents agreed to the marriage, despite their religious differences; Reza was a Sunni Muslim, and Sania was a Shia. The difference to outsiders might sound small, but in the Muslim world, the rift between them was vast. The history was filled with countless wars between these two sects.

  Sania and Reza couldn’t have been happier when both their religious parents agreed and gave their blessings. Sania planned to get married to Reza, with or without her parents’ blessings. But for Reza, the approval of his pious parents mattered.

  However, all their plans came to a standstill when Reza got the fateful call on her bachelorette night. It was the night she learned that Reza’s entire family in Yemen got killed. It left both of them devastated, and the life she had dreamed was never the same from that moment onwards.

  Sania was lost in her memories, and she was jolted back to the present when the sound waves of the chiming clock reached her ears. The antique clock was one of the possessions she kept when she moved from New York to Philly. It reminded her of one of the secrets that she had kept hidden from Sam. ‘One of the secrets’ is the operative phrase to keep in mind. At that time, Sania thought that it would be her only secret, but fate had other plans for her.

  For reasons her heart would know, the clock chiming sounded ominous. It was 7:00 PM, and, in her heart, she knew something horrible has happened. Just as the worrying thoughts entered her mind, the phone rang loudly.

  “It is about time,” Sania thought to herself and rushed towards the phone.

  “Hello, hello,” Sania answered hurriedly.

  There was no response on the other side of the line. It was just silence.

  Sania breathed raggedly, repeating her hellos. For a moment, she wondered if the line got disconnected, and that thought soon went out the window when she heard breaths on the phone line.

  “Sam…?” Sania said hesitantly.

  “Is it you?” Sania held the phone tighter and pressed it closer to her ears.

  There was no response.

  “Are you okay?” Sania’s voice began to tremble.

  Still, there was no response from the other end of the line.

  “Please…. Please say something if you hear me. I am distraught,” Sania pleaded.

  All she heard was a click, followed by a dial-tone.

  Sania’s heart was beating hard, her palms were sweating profusely, and her head felt like it was bashed with a baseball bat. She was a wreck.

  She gazed at the clock and began to mumble, “7:10. Something has gone wrong.” It didn’t matter how many times she rubbed her temples; the worries in her head continued to spread like wildfire.

  The lack of rest didn’t seem to suit her or the baby. Sania stopped her nervous pacing and took a deep sigh, feeling the unusually strong kick of her baby. Sania reflexively acted by gently rubbing her belly to comfort and console the baby. Reflexes are evolutionary traits that we, as humans, have developed over millions of years ago. They are involuntary and automatic, designed as a protection mechanism. We don’t have to think to blink when something flies towards your eyes or something bright flashes. We do it without even thinking about it; we have been hard-wired to act. Sania’s wiring screamed for her to slow down, rub her belly and make sure her baby was well.

  As much as she wanted to slow down, her anxious mind didn’t allow her to do so. After the baby settled down and there were no more kicks, Sania’s mind pushed her to do something that she would repent in the future. Sania picked up the car keys from the coffee table and walked out of her front door.

  8

  As Sania sat in her car and inserted the ignition key, she hesitated to start it. A debate was waging in her own head; should she go, or should she stay in her house? After a moment’s hesitation, she turned the key as the compulsion to do that was so much stronger than the prudent decision to stay put in the house.

  The neighborhood streets were dead; no one was playing on the streets or going for a stroll. It seemed like everyone was glued to their television sets, watching the news. Sania imagined that to be the case across the city and across the country. Quite understandably, there had been wall-to-wall coverage about the 9/11 attacks on the television. Everyone wanted to know how this happened on American soil — multiple coordinated attacks across various cities, resulting in over three thousand casualties. It was unfathomable. Everyone was on edge, and they desperately wanted to know if these attacks could happen again in the next few days. People across the nation were angry and terrified at the same time.

  Sania stopped the car in the four-way stop sign before exiting her neighborhood to enter Midvale Avenue. Sania was pre-occupied with her own thoughts to notice a silver-colored Honda following her from the moment she had left the house.

  Sania was perturbed about the repeated blank calls. Everyone at some time in their life must have received blank calls, but how many would have received it from their missing husband’s phone? That threw Sania off. When Sania saw the caller ID, she knew it was from Sam’s phone. Why did he not speak? Was it a weak connection? Sania imagined it was a weak connection until she heard the deep breaths on the other end of the line. The person on the other end definitely heard Sania call out Sam’s name and listened to her outcry. However, the line remained silent. Why?

  Sania’s head was splitting; she had a pounding headache – the lack of sleep and the stress had started to weigh her down. Running into Arya was unexpected, and finding out that she was a cop could be useful in her current situation. Sania, now crossing the intersection of Henry Avenue, gazed at the speedometer to ensure she was driving within the speed limit. The last thing she need was to get a ticket; she didn’t want anyone to know where she was headed, including Arya.

  The Honda continued to keep pace with the Highlander, always trailing by a hundred yard
s. Whoever was driving the Honda knew what they were doing; this was not their first rodeo. Sania did not suspect that she was being followed, and why would she? Maybe in hindsight, she should have been careful and should have expected being followed. Especially given what she had done in the previous few months, from the moment her past collided with the present.

  Sania gazed at the sky as she turned into Kelly Drive; it was pitch-black and was devoid of any stars. It almost felt like the sky was in mourning, reflecting the nation’s sentiment, with what just happened in the country.

  Just as she had imagined, Kelly Drive was isolated. There were no runners or cyclists; it was just Sania and the curvy road. Sania drove past the Temple Boathouse with her eyes glancing at the Schuylkill River on her right. The images of her rowing for the first time with Sam flooded her mind. Rowing was not something she was into; it was indeed her least favorite activity to do. It was more of Sam’s thing, and, if you ask Sania, he treated rowing as a religion. When they got married, his fascination with rowing used to upset Sania tremendously. He used to disappear for hours with his boat; sculling was his favorite. Once, he even forgot that they had planned to go for a Friday night movie, and Sania ended up being stranded in front of the theater. She fumed; he apologized and said he would change, but, in the end, nothing happened. He continued to disappear for hours with his boat. After a while, Sania understood his passion and gave up pushing him. She tried joining him on a few of his trips to the river and tried sculling, which instead ended disastrously. Sania was clumsy with the oar, and, even after repeated attempts, she never got the hang of it. In the end, she saw the light and realized rowing was not for her and gave up on it.

  Sania glanced at the rear-view mirror as she made the steep curve past the Columbia Bridge, and there was no one behind her. It was five minutes to 8:00 PM, and she wanted to make it to her destination before the top of the hour. She hoped to find answers.

  Sania slowed down to under twenty miles-per-hour when she got closer to the Strawberry Mansion Bridge. She swept her eyes from the rear-view mirror to both sides of the car, nervously looking for signs of life, but she couldn’t spot a soul. She brushed the hair that fell across her face back and took a deep breath as she pulled her car to the parking lot next to the Temple Boathouse. The clock on her car dashboard showed 8:06 PM.

  She was late, but not by much. She was hopeful that she could find answers that eluded her. She should know what happened last night soon.

  Sania killed the engine, sending the parking lot back to darkness, and slowly stepped out of her car. Her heart was thumping hard, her mouth felt thirsty, and the adrenaline was rushing through her body. In other words, she was a walking bowl of anxiety.

  This parking lot nor the boathouse was new to her. Over the last four years, she has been here a few times with Sam. However, the frequency of her visits to this place significantly increased during the previous three months.

  From the paved parking lot, Sania turned left at the marker for the Schuylkill River Trail and entered the secluded river trail. The trail was quite uneven and slippery; the overnight rain certainly didn’t help with the conditions. To add to her misery, there were no lights on the trail. Low visibility and slippery conditions were not an ideal recipe for a pregnant woman to take this trail at night.

  Sania knew she was not that far from her destination. With every step, she felt not only getting closer to her destination but also to the truth. With that hope, Sania labored on.

  It took her another five minutes to take the meandering path, which led her to a secluded wooden bench by the Schuylkill River. When Sania found the bench to be empty, her mind raced in diametrically opposite directions. Was she late or early? She was a few minutes late to the meeting spot if she had to go by her watch. However, she was not terribly late.

  Sania found the five long minutes of waiting to be painful. With every minute, the amount of self-doubt in her head began to spread, making her a nervous wreck. The rippling sounds of the Schuylkill River as it flowed along its bed made Sania feel fretful. The other sounds of nature – buzzing insects, chirping birds, and croaking frogs created a nervous effect on Sania. She started to question herself if she had made a terrible mistake by coming here. Little did she know that her fears were not unfounded.

  As Sania nervously waited on the bench by the river trail, a man hiding behind a thick tree was taking pictures of her using a telephoto lens. He was the same man who followed Sania on a silver Honda from the moment she left her house tonight. The moment Sania made the turn on Midvale, he knew where Sania was headed. It was not the first time he had followed Sania to this secluded bench on the river trail. It was his fourth time.

  If it was any other day with the usual traffic on Kelly Drive, he would have just stayed a few cars behind and followed Sania. But he knew today was nothing but typical, and this part of Kelly Drive would be deserted. The years of experience on the job informed him that the best way not to get made by Sania would be to take an alternate route. He followed his instinct and took Ridge Avenue, which ran parallel to Kelly Drive, and got to the river trail by choosing one of the narrow streets. He was reasonably confident of Sania’s destination — the secluded bench on the river trail. He was optimistic that he would be able to get there to catch her with his long-range lens.

  As he had expected, there she was, sitting on the bench and gazing at the river. The image he saw through his lens was the same as the other four times, except for one vital difference. She was all alone. No one was sitting by her side, holding her hand or rubbing her back.

  9

  Sania felt restless as minutes started to add up, and she began to nervously pace around the bench. Whatever hope she had coming here started to wither. After waiting for another twenty minutes, she knew the time was up. There would be no answers today. It was time for her to go back to her house and wait for the phone to ring. Hopefully, this time she would get to hear him.

  A hundred yards away, the man lowered his Nikon D7200 camera and watched Sania pace nervously.

  “What did you do?” the man muttered to himself. “Where is he?” He twisted his hand to glance at his Timex and thought, “He has never been this late; something is up.”

  Even though Sania had been to this place many times, she felt uncomfortable walking back to her car. The terrain was slippery and uneven, and she felt unsteady, probably due to the stress of the situation.

  As she neared the paved portion of the trail, Sania’s heart skipped a beat and stopped still. She heard what sounded like a ringtone of a phone. Her heart was beating so hard that anyone nearby could have heard it. Her mouth turned dry; she felt parched. She swiftly turned around and stared at the bench. She swung her glance from one side to another, and she couldn’t spot anyone.

  “Hello, anyone there?” she called, clearing her throat. All she heard was silence, except the natural sounds of the river. It was incredibly silent, and that didn’t help with her jittery heart.

  Did she hear what she thought she heard — a phone ring? Or is it just her imagination running wild? She began to doubt herself.

  Her mind got sprayed with a myriad of questions, and, at this moment, she had no definitive answers.

  At the same time, the man behind the tree took a crouching position to avoid detection from Sania’s sweeping eyes. His phone rang, and he cursed himself for being so careless not to turn the ringer off. From his vantage point, he still had eyes on Sania and hoped that she wouldn’t walk towards his position. If she did, he had two options. One was to attack her, and the other was to run away. The presented choices were just a mirage; he knew that he really had only one option. He had to run and avoid being spotted. If he got spotted, his cover would be blown, and he won’t be able to catch her in the act. More importantly, he would lose a fortune.

  He sighed a big relief when he saw Sania started to walk towards the paved trail. She didn’t suspect being followed. He stayed behind for few more minutes, just in case Sani
a changed her mind. When he saw the coast was clear, he slowly raised himself from the uncomfortable position. After a quick sweep of the place, he was convinced that it was now safe for him to move.

  From his past visits, he knew where to go next. He moved swiftly towards a nearby slope and used his hands like a claw to climb up. He was glad that he was wearing his hiking boots. One thing that he learned from years of experience was to always be prepared. That mindset has saved his life many times on the streets.

  “There you are,” he whispered, viewing Sania opening her Highlander door through his Bushnell Equinox Night Vision binoculars. He couldn’t count the number of times this beauty had come to his aid in the past. Those specific binoculars could help him see targets a thousand feet away, whether it was day or night. It might not be as good as the night vision goggles that he used during his service, but it is more than enough for his current civilian needs.

  He waited for Sania to pull her SUV from the parking lot before scurrying towards his silver Honda. He lost her once a couple of nights before, and he didn’t want that to happen again.

  10

  It was the third time Arya rang Sania’s doorbell, and the result was the same as the previous times; no one answered.

  Arya glanced at her watch, feeling disappointed. It showed 9:30 PM. Arya wondered if Sania had already gone to sleep. She knew that it was late, but given the circumstance, she thought Sania would still be awake.

  After waiting for another minute, Arya walked back to her car that was parked in front of Sania’s house. She decided it would be best to try Sania in the morning. If Sania managed to sleep, it was probably for the best.

  As Arya roared the Crown Vic to life, she saw a white SUV in the rear-view mirror pull up. She narrowed her eyes to get a better look at the driver, and when the image became more evident, she parted her mouth slightly and grinned.