Uncover - S18: "Pressure Cooker" E2: The Mysterious Uncle Abe

Episode Date: January 13, 2023

Meet the misfit suspects behind the foiled attack. Learn how they fell down a rabbit hole of conspiracy, hate and terror. And how they crossed paths with a mysterious financier who pledged to fund their diabolical plot. For transcripts of this series, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/podcastnews/pressure-cooker-transcripts-listen-1.6563380

This is a very strange and frustrating story. To have your family member stolen and murdered, then missing. I'm Connie Walker and this is Missing and Murdered, Finding Cleo. It's such a mystery, such an impossible task. Please, help us find her. Finding Cleo. If you'd like to hear more, you can find the full season wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC Podcast.

John Nuttall still remembers the first time he set foot inside a mosque. It's sometime in the mid-2000s. He's got his studded leather jacket and army boots on, and he's been drinking. He turns to his girlfriend, Amanda Carote, and tells her not to follow him. We were in Victoria, and we were entrusted, so I went to the masjid, and I said,

well, just wait across the street, because I don't want them to see you dressed like that. It's early in John and Amanda's relationship, just wait across the street because I don't want them to see you dressed like that. It's early in John and Amanda's relationship, many years before the two would read the Quran and convert to Islam. And Amanda's being told to wait outside because she's wearing a miniskirt. I said I will never wear the hijab or give up my miniskirts. Never.

To say John had a shaky grasp of the religion is an understatement. At the time, he apparently knew Muslim women dressed modestly, but he was overlooking his own behavior. I had like a 26er of Jack Daniels stuffed inside of my coat, and drunk as a skunk. But I didn't know you're not supposed to drink.

And they asked me to leave, but very politely, and come back tomorrow when I'm not drunk. It's an awkward moment, but John isn't bothered. He comes back, apparently ready to learn. So I asked them about Islam. They gave me some pamphlets and stuff. I asked for a Quran. I always wanted a Quran because for me it was 9-11. That's my first experience with Islam.

You heard that right. John says his intro to Islam begins on September 11, 2001. What John was looking for that day, it wasn't so much a spiritual community. He had questions about planes crashing into towers. What kind of religion is this? I was just so curious. That cemented it in my mind. From then and there, I sought out Muslims everywhere I could go, and I found out about places called the mosque, and that's where you go to pray, and I was like, okay, I got to go there. Remember, this dude stumbling into a mosque with a bottle of whiskey

is the same guy from the manifesto video we heard in the last episode. We are people who embrace death the way you embrace life. We know he doesn't get there alone. He's got Amanda by his side. But there's so much more that goes into shaping John's radical mindset. I'm Dan Pearce and this is Pressure Cooker. One thing you got to know about John, he's a seeker. He spends a lot of time wrestling with questions about God, prophecy, and what happens after we die. But when it comes to fitting in with the religious community, it's never been easy.

John's spiritual seeking begins in childhood, which he does not remember fondly. I was raised in a Christian home and had it shoved down my throat. And I had to go to church every day and be in the choir and believe in all this nonsense. And I hated it. John doesn't like to talk much about his childhood. But by all accounts, it was traumatic. John was my mom's first child with her high school sweetheart. This is John's half-sister, Hannah Taggart. They split and then I'm next. John's only three years old when his dad leaves the picture and starts a whole new family. His mom remarries twice. John has bad memories of both

his stepfathers. So eventually he goes to live with his grandmother, Lorraine. Like, granny calls her, you know, like, he loves her so much. Like, I almost feel like he sees her more like a mom than our own mother, you know. Because, yeah, like, they were living together, and, like, she was always there to bail him out and help him with rides and just anything that he needed, right? She would be there for him and give it to him. Even though John hated singing in a church choir and preferred living with his grandma,

Hannah could tell he still wanted something out of religion. I can only assume that it's like acceptance and wanting a place to feel safe and loved and working towards a better self, maybe. And if humans are so flawed and his own mother and father couldn't do right by him, that maybe this holy God could, in his perfect light, could help. Privately, young John devoted himself to prayer. But Jesus, the focus of his prayers, wasn't answering him. Yeah, he wouldn't come into my heart, no matter how much I prayed. And then I asked God to come into my heart, and he did. And I realized I'm a Jew. After getting snubbed by Jesus, John goes to a synagogue to speak to a rabbi.

I told the guy, I said, I denied Jesus being God. I said, I am a monotheist. I believe in only one God. I said, Jesus was nothing more than a man, and the Trinity doesn't exist. I deny all of it, and I want to be a Jew. I am a Jew, I said. And he said, your parents are Christian,

and especially your mother, you know, so you're not a Jew. And I felt really dejected and he turned me away. Next thing you know, he gives up on salvation altogether. John says he became a Satanist in his late teens for no other reason than to piss people off. He would quote parts of the Satanic Bible and he would wear like he was goth by any means, but he would wear this freaking, you know, all black.

And like I said, he had the dark hair. This is John's old friend, Michael Lohr. I was John's roommate for the summer of 95 and a little bit of the end of 94. Their circle of friends is small and full of weirdos. They spent time in flop houses with pentagrams scrawled on floors. Yeah, he would do ridiculous, kind of like a pig Latin kind of thing, you know, and do these chants. And it's like, what are you doing, man? And it's like, oh, it's a satanic chant. It's like,

no, it's not. You know, I don't know that much Latin, but I know a couple of words and like, that's nonsense. Some of John's Satanist buddies would even gather at a Victoria's cemetery to perform occult rituals. Apparently, Victoria was a hotbed for Satanism in the 90s. Underneath all the studded leather, Michael wondered if John was looking for a ride-or-die brotherhood, a chosen family who would embrace all his rough edges. John's rebellious attitude gets him into trouble everywhere he goes. He gets into fistfights and struggles to hold down a regular job. At one point, he takes inspiration from a film about violent white nationalists and shaves his head. It was a movie called Romper Stomper, which is a Russell Crowe movie. And he, all of a sudden, he wanted to be a skinhead. He wanted to be a skinhead.

And all of a sudden he wanted to be a skinhead. He wanted to be a skinhead. And I say, John, have you seen the end of the movie? I mean, like, it's not a pretty sight. You want to be this guy? But he really admired. It wasn't so much just the fact the guy failed. The guy kept fighting.

That was the point. Whether you fail or not is irrelevant. You just keep fighting. John doesn't want to talk on the record about his neo-Nazi devil-worshipping years. I'd rather not get into that. We're not supposed to talk about our sins, to be honest, in Islam. I used to piss people off, you know. I just rebelled. Everything I did was a rebellion. All this seeking and rejection pushes John towards all kinds of extreme ideas.

So his strange reaction to the September 11th attacks wasn't the first time John sided with the bad guys. John says he cheered the hijackers for taking aim at what he called tyrannical American power. I wanted to jihad before I became a Muslim. When 9-11 happened, I became really interested in these people who are fighting the evildoers. And I realized these are the only people with the balls to stand up to this tyrant. John thought the 9-11 attackers represented all Muslims. And judging by the wave of Islamophobia that swept through the West, he wasn't alone. Except John didn't hate or fear Muslims.

He wanted to be one of them. John's buddies don't stick around to find out where this all leads. On his way down a dark rabbit hole, he finds Amanda, and then the Quran. When John reads the holy text for the first time, he feels it has answers that he's been looking for. When I read that, I knew this book was not written by any man. No human being could have written this book. I knew it in my heart, and I just started crying.

I started crying, and my soul was nearly ripped in half because I realized what a sinner I had been, how selfish I had been, how selfish I had been, how I wasted my life. All these things came all at once, these emotions. Amanda didn't grow up with the same level of spiritual hunger as John, but she had similar feelings when she read the Quran. It just spoke to us. We felt like it really was the word of God and we wanted to do what God wanted us to do and we went on our knees and put our faces on the ground as soon as we read it and prayed to God to accept us into Islam.

John and Amanda take the leap and convert in 2011, a decade after John first started to wonder about the religion. They're living in Vancouver when they say their first prayer as Muslims. This prayer is called the Shahada. It's a pledge to worship only one God. John and Amanda are both overcome with emotion. I just spent the whole night, like, just, like, sobbing. But it wasn't sadness. I was just overwhelmed by feeling that connection to God for the first time.

But John, he's still looking for an answer to his most pressing question. Where does he sign up to fight? The day I said my shahada, you know what I said to the brothers? I said, okay, now when do we jihad? First I asked, how do I pray? I then went back and I said, now, when do we jihad? When do we take on the Israelis and the Americans? You've heard John say this word jihad, and you'll hear it a lot more. In the news and in popular culture, jihad has become shorthand for any kind of violence carried out by Muslim extremists.

But that's not what the word means. So jihad in Arabic means struggle. This is Ahmed Al-Rawi, professor at Simon Fraser University's School of Communications. The core meaning of the word means personal struggle and strive to become better, to live a better life. So we talk about, for example, research or studying as jihad. Social activism, praying regularly, taking care of aging parents, these are all examples of jihad. For the extremists and terrorists, jihad is something in their mind related to fighting infidels, the unbelievers. For ISIS, I am an unbeliever because I do not believe in their own message. So I should be killed. John's questions about fighting jihad

create some tense situations. Remember, this is the height of war on terror Islamophobia. Muslim men and women had good reason to fear for their safety. Time and time again I approach Muslims and they want nothing to do with me. They don't like me. They don't trust me. They think, who is this white guy who knows so much about Islam? John's fiery rhetoric doesn't help him fit in. He and Amanda visit a few different mosques with mixed results. There was a cultural gap, right, that there were white converts.

In some places they found welcomeness, in other places they found indifference. MTS Poppet is a counselor and Muslim advocate who met John and Amanda around the time they converted. He appreciated John's endless questions. When he looked at the world with a Muslim lens, it made sense to him. And he could find answers that worked. and he could find answers that worked. And even those answers were maybe somehow questionable, but the fact that he was searching for the truth,

for his truth, helped him a lot. John recalls getting a phone call in 2012 from a man who said they'd met at the mosque. I can't tell you his real name, but for now, let's call him Kaz. John's keen to make a new Muslim friend, so he invites him over. He says Kaz shared his extremist views about fighting the enemies of Islam, and they'd watch violent propaganda together.

Videos of Chechen fighters beheading Russian soldiers and Hamas firing rockets into Israel. He showed us all these horrible videos, all day long, every day, that's all we did. We'd spend like 10 hours a day, and he'd teach me about the religion, and he taught me how to pray, he taught me verses from the Koran,

I still remember to this day. Did he live with you guys? No. He may as well have. He would go home at night when we were getting ready for bed, but he was there all day from morning till night.

Kaz was apparently way down the would-be terrorist rabbit hole too. John says they would even sit around and come up with plans for jihadist attacks. These are pretty wild claims, and they raise so many questions about this mysterious friend. We've looked into Kaz, and he's named in plenty of police records. I'll have more to tell you about him in another episode, but for now,

it's enough to know he is a real person with a phone number and address. with a phone number and address. John says he and Kaz were preparing for war. And one movie above all inspired John to join the fight. Rambo III. He never draws first blood. He only fights back. Rambo III is a time capsule of its era.

Released in 1988. Sylvester Stallone's iconic character, John Rambo, is summoned to Afghanistan to rescue his friend and help fight off Soviet invaders. This is him attacking a Russian outpost, just like the Taliban attack American outposts in the same country. He's doing everything that the Taliban are doing with the Taliban, and he's a hero.

The Taliban didn't technically exist in the 80s, but you get the point. There's a call to action that speaks to John. The Afghan fighters are defending themselves against an imperial enemy. What you see here are the Mujahideen soldiers, holy warriors. Twice this war is a holy war, and you can see they are ourselves dead already. This Arabic word, Mujahideen, describes guerrilla fighters defending their religion and homeland. Mujahideen refers to many soldiers, while Mujahid means just one soldier. The director's cut of Rambo 3, he decides to stay behind and become a Mujahid. Mujahid becomes the screen

name John adopts while playing online video games. At this point, I was radicalized. I admit it, I was. But I didn't want to kill anybody, and I didn't want to kill myself. But I did support those who did fight jihad, like the Palestinians. I supported the Afghans. So in early March 2013, John admits he was already pretty radicalized When he meets an unlikely new friend Who John and his wife will call Uncle Abe It's a Saturday afternoon

The weather's cool and overcast John walks to a nearby Shell gas station to pick up coffees for himself and Amanda, his usual spot. Outside the store, a bearded man who appears to be from the Middle East approaches John and shows him a photo of a teenage girl. He showed me a picture and said, my niece is missing. I need you to look at this picture and let me know if you've seen this girl anywhere in the neighborhood or anywhere, right? John looks at the photo, but doesn't recognize her and starts to walk away.

He chased me down and said, please, please, sir, will you just look at it again? And I said, of course. I looked at it again, and I said, I'm sorry, I've never seen this person. The man says he doesn't know where kids hang out in the area, and he asked John if he would show him.

John agrees to help and gets in the truck, a shiny black Ford F-150. Well, when I got in the car, I noticed he had a Quran and he immediately tried to hide it and he threw it in his glove compartment or something. I threw it under the seat. And what did you say? I said, Assalamu alaikum, Aki, you know, brother. Once the man realizes John is Muslim, he shares some of the private details of the family's struggle with his niece. He says her name is Sophia.

She's rebelling and doesn't want to wear the niqab. He didn't know anything about this place. They drive around the neighborhood. They check the high school, a park, a little strip mall, and some train tracks where John has seen teenagers smoking weed. The two men really hit it off. One thing I've learned from spending time with John is that he's not great at keeping his cards close to his chest. In fact, it's within the first 20 minutes that John tells Abe he's mujahid. He goes on to bring up the plight of the Palestinians and the injustice of the Israeli

occupation. He says he's already got a plan to fight behind enemy lines in Canada, but he needs resources, money, guns, a plasma cutter, welder, and metal. Abe tells him he knows others who share his views about jihad. But they don't bring heat by talking about their plans with everyone. Three hours pass with no sign of Sophia. Meanwhile, my poor wife is waiting for me at home to come with the coffees that I want to go get. Toward the end of the afternoon, John begins to quote Osama bin Laden. Abe recognizes it immediately.

John tells him the only thing stopping him from carrying out his plan is money. Abe says the money problem can be solved, and that he can introduce him to some other like-minded brothers. John agrees to help continue the search for Sophia the next day. When he finally brings the coffee home to Amanda, of course it's cold. He told me that he had met a Muslim brother and he helped him look for his niece, and that's all I remember him telling me. He told me that he had driven him around to places where kids hang out, and they looked for her, but they didn't find her.

Mm-hmm. What did you think about that? I thought that that was very good of him. The next day, Abe drops by the basement suite to pick John up. He comes inside and briefly meets Amanda, who's wearing a niqab. I sat at my computer playing Dungeons & Dragons, and then a man came in and gave me his salaam, and I gave mine back, and then they left.

Abe and John head back out to look for Sophia. During their search, John goes into further detail on his jihadist plan. And remember, John only met further detail on his jihadist plan. And remember, John only met this guy 24 hours ago. He tells Abe he wants to build Qassam rockets, like the ones fired at Israel from the Gaza Strip. John wants to fire them at the provincial legislature in Victoria. Abe tells him to be careful with what he says They don't have any luck finding the missing niece But while they're hanging out Abe asks John if he can help him with some business the next day John happily agrees

When Abe drops John off at home He hands him two $50 bills For all the help trying to find Sophia. It's over the next week that John's work for Abe really gets started. He gave me a cell phone. And he said, you're not to use this phone for anything except for when I call you. Abe picks him up at his house and they go for

coffee at Tim Hortons. They take a meandering route through alleys and side streets to lose any tails. As they drink their coffee, Abe lets John know that his niece finally came home. John chimes in, suggesting a punishment. 20 lashes. chimes in, suggesting a punishment. 20 Lashes At first, Abe has John picking up and delivering packages all over town. He tells him to go to the bus station and deposit a package into a locker, or ride the train to Ikea, pick up an envelope, and drop it into the trunk of a car. John never asks what's in the packages, but he assumes it's heroin.

After his first delivery, Abe pays him $200 for like an hour of work. John makes a few hundred bucks in his first week, which is a lot for him. But more importantly, he believes he's doing something for the jihadist cause. Abe tells John that he uses his business profits to finance his real goals. One day, Abe brings John along in a business deal at a Sandman Hotel. He told me, I just need you there as backup and just sit on the bed, introduce yourself, give your salaam, and do not say a word. Do not speak.

Just give your salaam, sit on the bed, and watch my back. And that's what I did, right? When they enter the suite, Abe exchanges greetings with the leader of the group. John watches as Abe hands the guy a large stack of cash. He was there counting money like Tony Montana with a money counter. All $100 bills. And when I walked in, the waft of this new money, like you could smell the money because it was the new plastic money. And at that point, I was just terrified.

You know, and I was like, what the fuck have I gotten myself into? It's worth pondering here, what's Abe getting out of this relationship? I mean, sure, John helped look for his niece, but what interest does a serious business guy like Abe have with a misfit like John Nuttall?

Eventually, John starts to wonder why Abe is trusting him with his business. Abe tells him that if he's having doubts, they can go their separate ways. He can drive him home right now, no harm done. John immediately backpedals and apologizes for doubting him. He tells Abe they're partners for life. I was at a point in my life where like I had gone from being a bad person and then all of a sudden I meet this guy who does everything in his power to turn my life around and make me some money and help me out. It was amazing. Like to me, I thought it was something that was set up by a law himself. Just as John's life is turning around, Abe breaks the news that he's going out of town.

He tells John he'll be gone for two weeks and not to bring any heat while he's away. Abe's always saying that. Don't bring any heat. It's a tough stretch for John. He really misses Abe. Meanwhile, his grandma has had enough of their religious conversion. She's taken to cranking up the volume on the TV whenever they say their prayers. Amanda isn't doing well either. John's behavior is making her nervous.

I started to get really worried when he started carrying around. He had this paintball pistol that he started putting marbles into and carrying it whenever he went out to meet with them. So that scared the shit out of me. Because I was like, where is he going that he feels he needs this extra protection? And I asked him about that, and he was just like, don't worry about it, I'm fine, everything's fine. It's just in case.

And I was like, just in case what? And he was just like, Surrey's a dangerous place. John and Amanda's only two friends in the neighborhood are Ashley and Daryl. They all smoke weed, play video games, and shoot paintballs together. Ashley recalls the strange man who started coming by their house. There was always this black truck. And it just, out of nowhere, it started coming around. We didn't know who the person was,

because when it was over, we were not allowed to go there at all. We thought it was really weird, because the only people that they would talk to was me and my ex. He wouldn't tell us who it was, nothing. He kept it so secret. As Abe's business trip drags on for weeks, John becomes increasingly desperate. On March 22nd, two weeks after Abe's departure, John sends a text message. We're missing out on a fantastic opportunity. I need to see you ASAP. I pray you're safe.

Abe calls him back to ask for more information on this opportunity. John explains that Canadian soldiers will be returning from Afghanistan. They're getting a hero's welcome at a naval base on Vancouver Island. John says he wishes he could give them the welcome they deserve. I've been to one of those things. It's easy to get there, to get in. They don't pat you down for weapons or nothing, man. If you wanted to sneak in an army there and just wipe them all out as they come off the boat. Abe reminds him not to do anything until he gets back to town.

John seems disappointed, but agrees to follow orders. He considers himself a soldier, and Abe is the general. I would have died for him. I'd have taken a bullet for him. And he knew it. He could have told me to do anything, and I would have done it for him. In 2017, it felt like drugs were everywhere in the news. So I started a podcast called On Drugs.

We covered a lot of ground over two seasons, but there are still so many more stories to tell. I'm Jeff Turner, and I'm back with season three of On Drugs. And this time it's going to get personal. I don't know who Sober Jeff is. I don't even know if I like that guy. On Drugs is available now wherever you get your podcasts. Nearly a month has passed when Abe finally returns, and John and Amanda welcome him home with a gift. It's an old calendar featuring the most holy sites in the Muslim world. Abe also brings gifts, a prayer mat, beads, and incense. Amanda says she prayed for Abe while he was away. John tells us when Abe got back, he wanted to see a plan for carrying out jihad. We can't say for sure at this point whether Abe was pushing John to plan an attack,

but John says it was happening constantly. And just a heads up, he's eating a pita wrap while he tells this story. All day, every day, he asked me. And if I changed the subject, he would eventually turn it back to the plan. And so that's when I came up with the nuclear submarine idea. Okay, the nuclear submarine idea. Ready for it? John tells Abe about a Vancouver Island military base at Nanus Bay, where he believes the Americans have stored nuclear submarines.

I've seen a video where they were sending rockets to Nanus on a train, and it was a well-known thing that there's nuclear submarines that the Americans had parked in the Neuse Bay. They have a little base there. That video that John saw on the internet of rockets being sent to Neuse Bay on a train, yeah, those were actually props for a Godzilla movie that was being filmed in the area. John believes this is just a convenient cover story concocted by the U.S. government. The U.S. military does have a joint naval base at Nanus Bay, where they test torpedoes. Although they neither confirm nor deny the presence of nuclear subs.

I was like, dude, you took like 10 guys with AKs, you can just take over that submarine so easily and you could make Bashar al-Assad do whatever the fuck you wanted him to do. You tell him to stop or we're going to nuke you right now. Keep in mind, this is the peak of the Syrian war and Assad is bombing his own citizens. So John wants to hijack some nukes and force the Syrian president to end the war. Mind you, we had no knowledge of how to work a nuclear submarine. How hard could it be, honestly? Probably pretty hard.

Anyway, that's not up to me. That's up to them. They're the ones with all the power and all the smarts and all the know-how. I'm just giving them ideas that they're asking for. So I said, well, here's an idea. So yeah, John pitched storming a naval base, hijacking a submarine, which he thinks is armed with intercontinental ballistic missiles, and holding the world hostage.

John has a few meetings with Abe in April, where they go for coffee and talk about plans. Then, on April 15th, the Boston Marathon bombings happen. Abe calls John the day of the attack. I was watching it on the TV when he called. But he didn't bring it up, so I never brought it up. Now would be a good time to mention that John is an avid conspiracy theorist. Chemtrails,

New World Order, Illuminati, even 9-11 being an inside job, which somehow coexists alongside his admiration for Osama bin Laden. You get the sense that there's a battle going on inside John's head between his conspiracy brain and his jihadist brain. On the day of the Boston attack, his conspiracy brain wins out.

I was just like, oh, it's another Timothy McVeigh thing, whatever. Another 9-11, false flag. I know what's up. A few days later, Abe calls with another hotel gig. He says they'll be meeting some prospective business partners at the Hilton. John and Abe get to the hotel room first. When the other men arrive, John's sent down to the lobby to escort them up to the room. He struggles with the key fob in the elevator, and one of the brothers has to help him. The meeting goes smoothly, but John feels out of place. I just said, like, if I'm going to be going to all these meetings and meeting mobsters and

shit, I shouldn't be dressed up in, like, camouflage pants and ripped clothes with a fucking leather jacket with spikes and shit. Like like, just doesn't look right, man. And the people I was meeting with were all in suits. And he's like, yeah, you're right. And so he bought me a suit. Where did he take you? And I still have the shoes. They're right here.

They're fucking nice ones, too. Where did he take you? Joe Fresh. Joe Fresh? Yeah. On that same shopping trip, Abe gives John $200 to buy a hard drive. The idea is that John will type up his plan and deliver it to Abe on the drive. As a code word, they decide to call John's plan his book.

John goes home that night with dinner for his wife, a new suit, a fresh hard drive, and a sinking feeling that he's in way over his head. I'd already seen their faces. I know their names. I know where their hotels are. I know their license plate numbers. I know their vehicles. I know too much. We obviously can't get inside John's head at the time. But it's at this moment that we get the next best thing. More than 100 hours of audio and video recordings. From now on, every meeting, every phone call,

and every interaction between John and Abe will be recorded. We prepared for death. I am prepared. Because the whole reason Abe is helping John is that he's an undercover cop. And Project Souvenir is in full swing. On May 4th, nine days after Abe buys John the suit and hard drive, the two meet again. Abe picks him up and heads for the Tim Hortons, as usual. Only this time, the cameras are rolling.

John sits in the passenger seat wearing his new suit and black eyeliner. He drinks a large coffee and chain-smokes cigarettes. I figured it's not good to always meet at the same place, huh? Abe takes a call from an associate. He's arranging a trip to Whistler for the next day to deliver the hard drive with John's plan to Abe's business partner. And just a note here, the courts have banned media from broadcasting Abe's voice. So you're going to hear an actor.

And by the way, Abe's not even his real name. It's just a small package. I just need a drop point for it. It's not finished. It's not finished. The look in John's eyes as Abe sets up the drop is the look of a man whose bluff has been called. But it's too late. Abe sets up the meeting in Whistler for noon the next day.

Show care for your health. Okay. Bye. I thought you told me it was finished. It is. What's missing? The plan. Oh, you didn't put the plan.

Look, I got something to tell you before we go any further. John steals himself and takes a deep breath. I've told you so much about myself, yet you seem to still be mysterious and quiet about yourself, okay? What do you want to know about me, Hake? I'm saying that it's crossed my mind that I could be getting set up. And as soon as I hand over the plans, I'm going to go to Guantanamo Bay. Abe tells John that if that's how he's going to start thinking, the door is always open.

He can walk away at any time and they'll still be brothers. But John suggests one way he can be sure that Abe isn't setting him up. I found a way to put my mind at ease. No Kufar force would ever give a guy like me a gun. Ever. Unless they were themselves mujahideen and goreba. I'm going to tell you, Akhi, I'm not going to give you a gun now.

I'm going to tell you right now. I'm not going to give you a gun now because if you don't have trust, you don't have it, Akhi. With or without God. You don't have it. John's clearly disappointed, but Abe makes one argument in his defense. And remember, their code word for John's plan is his book.

What did I tell you when I was with you on the phone today? Don't bring the book, because I don't want it with me. If I don't have a safe place for it, I don't want it. Because if it was like that, I'd take it from you. That's very reassuring, actually. A wave of relief washes over John as he exhales. That is very reassuring because you know what? If you guys were really trying to set me up,

you would just give me a fake bomb and tell me to go bomb a target and the bomb wouldn't go off and then I would be grabbed. You guys wouldn't be doing all this complicated stuff if you were setting me up. This is the wisdom of my wife. She told me this just before I came to see you. John's trust in Abe seems to be restored for the time being. But Abe makes it clear there's no turning back. Are you sure of yourself, Akhi? John raises one finger to the air. By Allah, I swear I want to do this and I will do this. Okay, Akhi, if you're going tomorrow, would you take your wife with you?

You can tell the question catches John off guard. Yes, I would, inshallah. Like if you want, Akhi, we can have nice lunch there. It's like going out. Can she come? Yes. Okay, at least it's going It's like going out. Can she come? Yes. Okay, at least it's going to make her come out. Abe seems satisfied.

The light's almost gone, so he starts the truck and drives John home. When they arrive, Abe tells John to have his book ready for 10 a.m. the next day. The plan have to be there, Aki, because I told you, the other brother have to know. John's mobile

phone starts to ring. Hi, it's going good mom. How are you? Hold on, just give me one moment okay? It's my mother, Amr. Okay. Go talk. I'll have the book ready. Everything ready. I'm going to go home right now and set it up. Okay, brother. Ma'a salama. Ma'a salama. May Allah watch over us all. John comes home from that May 4th meeting feeling shaken. The message from Abe is clear.

Finish the plan by tomorrow. John is at the center of an elaborate undercover police investigation. But from his point of view, Abe is part of a well-financed terrorist organization. Look, at this point, I had already made all these drops. I had met his friends. His phone would always be ringing off the hook with all these text messages, and he'd be talking with them or pretending. He was really talking with the cops, but they were trying to make it look like he had all these contacts in his organization.

John says he tried to keep Amanda out of the picture, but Abe kept asking about her. They're always asking about my wife is not a rat, and she is a very, very devout Muslim, I told them. She's with us. Don't worry about her. I was just terrified. It could be that by trying to protect Amanda from terrorists, John incriminated his wife in the eyes of the police. In any case, John and Amanda are in this together now,

and they're becoming increasingly isolated. Yeah, like I cut off all ties with my family. I didn't talk to them, I didn't call them, I didn't email them. I didn't want them in my life because if they were in my life, I thought that these people might find out about them. And we were told not to go to any mosques or speak to any moms. Don't go to any mosques or speak to any moms. And then comes the worst possible news for John.

My grandmother told me she was moving out. And I was like, what the hell? She said, I don't feel safe here, you know, and she wouldn't tell me any details other than that she was threatened. Remember, John has lived with his grandmother on and off since he was a little kid. He loves her more than anyone in the world. He's gutted. John is convinced the police did something to scare his grandmother away,

but there's nothing in the records to confirm this. When John's granny moves out in April, she cuts off the phone line. From this point on, John and Amanda have little contact with anyone but cops. But John's feelings for Abe were complicated. Amanda has a knack for articulating John's inner world. leader and he he loved him with all his heart. I recognized that so I thought maybe it'll be okay but he was also very afraid of him because he was carrying the marble gun so it was like a yeah love and fear. With just one night left to work on it John's book is to be delivered to Abe's partner in Whistler the next day.

Abe's picking them up at 10 in the morning, at which point there's no turning back. That's next time on Pressure Cooker is written and produced by Sarah Berman, Rafferty Baker, and me, Dan Pierce. Mixing and sound design by Rafferty Baker. Our digital producer is S.K. Robert. Jeff Turner is our senior producer. Our executive producer is Chris Oak,

and Arif Noorani is director of CBC Podcasts. Uncle Abe's voice has been replaced by Siavash Desvare. Our theme song is by Humans. Special thanks to Graham MacDonald and Taranum Kamlani. Thanks for listening. Before we go, I want to tell you about another series you might like called Satanic Panic from CBC Podcasts. John Nuttall wasn't the only one to have a brush with Satanism. Unravel how rumors of satanic cults

took root across North America and devastated a small prairie town, resulting in hundreds of false allegations, scores of unjust criminal trials, and countless lives torn apart. No evidence of the so-called satanic ritual abuse of children was ever found, yet there were thousands of charges. So what really happened, and why? Find out now on Satanic Panic, available on the CBC Listen app or wherever you get your podcasts.