Part 5 • Mujahideen movies

(Page 4 of 4)

(P.G.) Perhaps the knowledge of what would happen to Khalid if he disappeared into the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior was what did it. Sitting on a bed in the Monitor's Baghdad apartment, he finally broke down.

"I knew you wouldn't believe me if I told you the truth!" he sobbed.

	KEEPING TRACK: The white board used by editors at the Christian Science Monitor to track their efforts to release hostage Jill Carroll. JOHN NORDELL - STAFF

By this point, Khalid (not his real name) had worked for the Monitor and other media organizations as an interpreter, on and off, for a year-and-a-half. He was a gentle soul, thin and nervous in a birdlike way. He'd come via recommendation from someone in the Coalition Provisional Authority, back when that still existed, and Murphy liked working with him. He was interested in the way that religion and politics fit together, as was Murphy himself.

And for days now, Khalid had said he had a source - two separate sources, actually - who knew where Jill was.

The information - revealed in dribs and drabs over time - was detailed in a way that made it sound credible. It even jibed with other leads coming in. She was being held, allegedly, in Al Adl - the same neighborhood where she was kidnapped and a part of the city known to be rife with insurgents. There were two teams that took turns guarding her, each composed of three men. The house was detached, and the opening in its surrounding wall was a white metal gate - sheet metal, not bars, and streaked with dirt. Behind the gate sat the Monitor driver's maroon Toyota with a broken window and bullet holes in the side.

The Monitor's Baghdad team had passed this information along, and the Hereford, England-based security firm hired by the newspaper sent an Iraqi employee into the neighborhood to eyeball possible houses. He found four or five.

But then one of Khalid's sources went out of town. And his story began to change. Maybe the gate was ... black.

What was going on? Late one night, a colonel from the Iraqi Interior Ministry arrived to interview Khalid in Arabic. The colonel was a busy man; he talked to the interpreter a bit, then left on other business. But he made himself clear: At this point, if Khalid didn't name his source, Khalid would have to come in to the ministry.

He didn't have to say that bad things happened at the ministry, even to good people.

Khalid was shaken. Murphy, too, was concerned. He sat beside him, and gently asked, again, for the real story. And finally it came out.

His wife had visions, said Khalid. They're painful and difficult for her, he said, but it's a gift. She'd warned him not to get involved, but he'd wanted to help. He'd given his wife one of Jill's cherry-tinted hairs from a hair band which he'd secretly taken from the office. She'd been the one who "saw" where Jill was. Khalid believed her. But he knew Murphy and Peterson wouldn't.

The reporters were stunned. For weeks now, they'd been pursuing this lead. Now, it seemed, they had been sending people into dangerous neighborhoods based on the musings of a clairvoyant.

From the beginning, investigative tracks dealing with Jill's possible whereabouts gave the family and her employers a sense of hope and momentum.

Excerpts from readers' letters

... The only right thing to do for any true Muslim or any human being is to release her unharmed. Our prayers are with her and her family. - Tilmann Deutschbein, Auxerre, France Dear [Jill], ...Your innocence is stronger than all the cruelty. Stay strong and return quickly to us. – Mohammed Ahmed, Islamabad, Pakistan I am joining with my family, friends, and church to say we are all praying every moment ... to see this beautiful, dedicated young woman free.... We pray for the captors, that they will act with wisdom and free her immediately, and then we will listen to their concerns and support their needs. Our love surrounds Jill and her family. We will not stop this vigil until Jill is returned. – Judith Stump, Aliso Viejo, Calif. We've been praying for you. We also tried folding 1,000 paper cranes. (Did you know in Japan, if a sick person folds 1,000 paper cranes, the gods will make them better?) I also like the Army. – Andy Banner, fourth-grader, St. Anthony's School, Florence, S.C. ORIGAMI: Fourth graders at St. Anthony Catholic School in Boston folded 246 paper cranes for Jill Carroll. ASHLEY TWIGGS

What they didn't provide, in the end, was Jill. Leads dried up. Sources disappeared. Demands for ransom turned out to be attempts at extortion.

The curious case of the clairvoyant was perhaps the most extreme example of where tracks went. But it wasn't unique. Other sources claimed to have a video taken on a cellphone - and described her in detail.

Notes scribbled daily on legal pads by managing editor Marshall Ingwerson give a sense of the rise and fall of these efforts.

From 1/11/06: "New lead. HWG [the US Embassy's Hostage Working Group] onworking. Source is someone we've worked with before ... contradictory to [The New York Times's Dexter] Filkins lead...."

From 1/14/06: "2 tracks still in play. Filkins update: By chance his sources - guard at racetrack saw her yesterday while she was being transferred...."

From 1/19/06: "No more on Dexter's track. Contradictory info on [Scott Peterson's] track."

From 1/20/06: "Dexter track definitely dead...."

One morning, the British security man under contract to the Monitor told Murphy and Peterson that the body of a Western woman had been found in Baghdad. Police were checking the morgue. The two reporters kept the information to themselves, tensely awaiting verification. The report proved untrue.

While the leads were thin, the public support poured in. The Monitor would post on its website a daily selection of e-mails and letters from Jill Carroll supporters of all faiths, and all walks of life. During some of the darkest nights, Mary Beth Carroll would go to her computer and draw some comfort from the strangers' missives.

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