A Short Course In Miracles

His long hair has been closely cropped and his beard shaved clean, but John Walker Lindh is still a believer. In his jail cell in northern Virginia, he has been telling his religious adviser how he came to realize that Allah had a plan for him.

Trapped in a cave in Afghanistan, Lindh and his comrades had no way to escape, he told Abdelwahab Hassan. But they awoke one morning to the divine comfort of a Taliban soldier's dream, which promised that somebody would come for them in seven days. They counted each setting sun until, just as foretold, a rescuer freed them. Another time, while learning from al-Qaeda terrorists how to fire shoulder-launched grenades and ignite Molotov cocktails for the glory of jihad, Lindh witnessed the shooting death of a fellow believer. The smell of musk filled the air, and he recalled the teaching of the prophets that martyrs emit their essence upon death.

He has come to believe that he witnessed two modern miracles. But for Lindh, 21--raised amid the mellow comforts of California's Marin County and charged with betraying his country--another miracle came to pass last week in a northern Virginia courtroom, where defense lawyers and federal prosecutors announced a plea bargain. The deal abruptly ended the case against Lindh, who pleaded guilty to charges of aiding the Taliban and possessing explosives; in exchange, the government dropped terrorism and conspiracy charges that could have brought him three life terms plus 90 years. Federal District Judge T.S. Ellis III must approve the deal, which would send Lindh to prison for 20 years, though he could be out in 17 years for good behavior.

While the carefully worded agreement was not a complete surprise to legal scholars who doubted the strength of the case against Lindh, the timing of the deal stunned even Judge Ellis. He was ready to begin a series of hearings meant to decide whether to suppress incriminating statements Lindh gave FBI agents and a CNN reporter after his capture last December. Lindh had pleaded not guilty to a 10-count indictment, but he hardly denied one of the primary charges--that he assisted the Taliban by willingly fighting on the front lines. To him, say his lawyers and relatives, taking up arms in support of the Taliban was a religious experience, the result of his search for the purest interpretation of the Koran. "I started to read some of the literature of the scholars and the history of the movement, and my heart became attached to them," Lindh told CNN.

Lindh's religiosity might not have helped him if the case had reached a jury, especially one in Alexandria, just miles from where al-Qaeda crashed a hijacked plane into the Pentagon. "When your defense is count nine of the indictment, you're in trouble," says Lindh lawyer James Brosnahan, referring to the charge that Lindh aided the Taliban. "He was a kid who believed in what he was doing, but he was not a terrorist."