“Not much. You’re not that interesting.”
“Christie!”
“Relax. I only told him the good stuff.”
“Like?”
This time she laughed out loud. “Okay, I just told him what a great teacher you are and how you came back to your hometown to teach these students when you could’ve gotten a job at a lot better schools and been paid a lot more money. I told him that one reason you’re so good at your job is because you care so much about your students.”
I started feeling embarrassed and Christie stared across to make sure her point was delivered. Some friend, huh?
“In fact, I tried to ask about him and his job but all he wanted to talk about was you. If we weren’t such good friends, it might give a girl a complex. I told him you were funny... and interesting...” she said, finger to her lips in that thoughtful pose of hers. “Oh, and I told him the reason you were such a great teacher is because you are so, uh ... passionate.”
She made me wait for the last word because she knew how I’d react. I tried to open my mouth but she was not to be stopped. “Look, Dee Dee, I was just trying to help you. Lord knows you need the help, and besides, he’s gorgeous.”
“Maybe I don’t want that kind of help.”
Like the friend who knows me too well, she answered with one of my favorite sayings. “Methinks the woman protests too much! Dee Dee, don’t be stupid. This guy seems interested in you. Lord knows why when all you do is brush him off. Reality check, gal! You live in Hammerville and it’s not exactly as if you had guys lined up outside your door.”
I said, “I think Jerod is a jerk. Sometimes I think he works at being exasperating.”
“Well, what guy isn’t?” she countered. “It’s what guys do best.” She smiled at me and then corrected herself. “Well, it’s one of two things guys do best. Come on, Dee Dee, with that guy sitting in your room almost every day, you can’t tell me you haven’t done a little fantasizing about him?”
“Gimme a break.”
“I was only talking to him for about ten minutes,” she said, her blue eyes glazing over, “and before I was done, I was already building one major fantasy project. You know, clothes on the floor, his hands on my body, our breathing shallow.” She closed her eyes and was gone.
“Hey! Earth to Christie!” I said. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”
“What?” She opened just one blue eye.
“Oh, a little thing like the fact that...you’re engaged to get married in two months! I’m not sure Kurt would be too crazy about your fantasy project.”
“Who says my fiancé has to know?” she snapped back. “Anyway, according to this book I’m reading, The Passionate Marriage, fantasizing can be a boost to a healthy sexual relationship. Besides, in our vows, we promise to love, honor and cherish. Nowhere does it say a word about halting my fantasy indulgences.”
“You are something else, girlfriend. You know that?” I said.
“Yeah, I am, aren’t I?” she chuckled. “Are you going to sit there and tell me you have never designed your own little fantasy scenario with Jerod the hunk?”
“Well, I-I-I...” I stammered.
She took this as a sign that I was weakening--which I was--and took full advantage of it. “Look me in the eye and tell me, Ms. Danielle Sterber, that when you’re standing there, having one of your intellectual discussions with Jerod the hunk that you’re not secretly peeling away his clothes.”
“Th-that’s ridiculous,” I protested, unable to keep the stammering out of my voice. In the mirror I caught a glimpse of scarlet blossoming up my neck.
“Ah-ha!” she said.
“Christie, I wouldn’t make love to him if I was about to die and he was the only male around!”
“Really.”
“Besides, I-I-I think he’s crazy...and maybe dangerous. You heard what he told the kids. What if he actually arranges for them to interview Asad?”
“Oh, that. It was probably just what he told you,” she answered. “Anyway, they’re supposed to have all this super tight security at HBE. I’d be surprised if they’d do anything to endanger that.”
“ I don’t know. That Asad is one really nasty dude, as my guys would say. I’ve got this really bad feeling about the whole execution.” I said. “I’ll just be glad when it’s over.”
But Christie couldn’t stay serious for long. “Dee Dee, you worry way too much,” she said, smiling. “Whatever’s going to happen will happen. That’s why you’ve got to take advantage of opportunities when they come along ... or when they walk into your classroom.”
“Christie, you know you are exasperating!” I said, but returned her smile.
“Girlfriend, I’m outta here. I got a class to catch. I’ll see you tomorrow.” She was out the restroom door before I could open my mouth again.
Chapter 16
No matter what he did, Yassim couldn’t shake the numbing chill from his body. After climbing out of the water, he had stripped and grabbed some clothes out of his sports bag in the trunk, his breath frosty puffs in the night air. Then he had Fadi drive the Trans Am so he could call the Sheik to report what had happened. He took three slow breaths, using the oxygen to cleanse his mind and steady his nerves. But as he punched in the ten digits, his hand still trembled. He spoke slowly and deliberately in measured Arabic for two minutes into the satellite phone he had received in Canada. When he was finished, he listened for the next ninety seconds, the color slowly ebbing from his features.
His body shivered again, but he couldn’t be sure if it was from the icy water clinging to his skin or from the Sheik’s new directives. He would follow them of course; in Allah’s army there was no room for questioning orders. Besides, he believed fervently in the Jihad and was convinced it was the only way to purge his people of the Great Satan in their midst. His devotion to the Sheik was total. But that didn’t mean he enjoyed killing. After the savage murder of his wife and son, all he had wanted was revenge, or so he thought. Now, after he himself had inflicted death several times, he hadn’t found it. He had found only that the hole left by the death of his wife and son was still a ragged, open wound gnawed constantly by some parasite inside him. The longing and desperation lingered, and festered.
He glanced up and spied the exit marker on the side of the highway. “That’s our exit, three miles ahead!” he called at Fadi so loudly that he woke the boy.
“It’s okay, Asim,” he said more gently. ”It’s all right. Everything’s going to be all right.”
The boy gazed into the half darkness with red swollen eyes. The boy slowed his crying and sniffed back the snot in his nose. Yassim reached into his pocket to pull out a handkerchief and realized it was with the rest of his soaked clothes in the trunk. “Give me a handkerchief,” he growled to Fadi.
As Fadi reached into his back pocket, the car veered onto the shoulder of the road.
“Watch what you’re doing!” Yassim screamed as Fadi regained control of the car. “There, there, Asim,” Yassim said in a more soothing voice, handing the boy the large white cloth. “Blow your nose and you’ll feel better.” The youth gave a loud honk and then reduced his crying to a few sniffles. “Isn’t that better?” The boy nodded.
Ever since Yassim had spoken with the Sheik, Fadi had said nothing. The driver’s massive hands choked the leather around the steering wheel, his knuckles white from the tension. His broad shoulders were stiff and the cords in his neck stood out. But he asked no questions.
“Put your blinker on for Hassan and exit here,” Yassim said.
The Trans Am rolled down the exit ramp and stopped, its big engine rumbling at the light. “At the second light, turn right and then another right directly into the parking garage.”
Yassim turned again to check, for the thousandth time, on the Blazer behind them and was satisfied to see that the SUV matched every move of their car. As they stopped at the ticketing machine, the SUV pulled up behind them, headlights brightly illuminating the in
terior of the Trans Am. Yassim glanced back through the glare but could make out nothing. He hoped that the hour drive into Cleveland had given them ample time to think. Not that it mattered now.
“Follow the ramp to the bottom floor,” Yassim said, “and pull to the rear of the building. There will be four cars there. Pull behind the first car.”
Fadi nodded but kept his eyes on the twisting ramp ahead. In the narrow passage, the whine of the car’s engine reverberated off the concrete walls like some wounded animal. Fadi twisted the Trans Am down the spiral as the floors went by in a dizzying procession until they arrived at the bottom level, the Blazer close behind. The headlights of both cars probed the darkness of the underground chamber, their beams swallowed up by the damp mist. In the limited space illuminated by the lights, they could see nothing. Yassim began to second-guess himself and thought for a moment he had misunderstood the Sheik’s directions.
Just then a pair of lights blinked twice in the distance and then went black. Fadi said, “Did you see that?”
“Of course,” replied Yassim. “Drive toward those lights.”
Both cars rolled across the floor of the garage, their engine noises still audible, but more subdued in the open space. As they neared the parked automobiles, Yassim noticed that they were quite different than the cars they were driving. The first was a white panel van with writing on the side. Parked next to it was an aged, tan Dodge Minivan, probably ‘98 or ‘99, he couldn’t tell. The final two cars were identical, late model Honda Civics. The Trans Am pulled to a stop and Yassim got out. As he approached the cars, the door of the white van slid open and two men stepped out.
“Cut d’ lights,” Yassim heard the first man say. Before the lights were extinguished, Yassim caught a glimpse of two dark-skinned men with sharp Arab features and clean-shaven faces. Light spilled feebly out from the interior of the van and the Trans Am, barely outlining the figures standing between the cars.
“Where are the boy and the woman?” the same voice said. “I will take care of them.”
Yassim opened the back door of the Trans Am and coaxed the boy out. “It’s okay, Asim. We’re here.” He worked to keep his voice light. “This man will take you to your Uncle Nazir. Come on.”
The boy crawled out of the back seat, a small brown blanket clutched tightly in his right fist. Yassim took his other hand and led him to the stranger. The man caught the boy’s hand, a little too roughly, thought Yassim as he turned and went back to the Blazer and opened the passenger door.
“Patti, go with this man.” She slid out of the seat and strutted past him without a word. Her eyes were defiant, but, with her lipstick smudged and her curls disobediently flopping down across her forehead, her earlier bravado had evaporated. Motionless, Yassim stood next to the SUV and watched as the trio got into the first Honda and drove away. In ten seconds the car disappeared up the ramp.
“Hassan and Mohammed,” he called out without glancing inside the car, “the Sheik says that before you can take your next step you need to face Mecca on your knees. He has directed that you do penance for your sins. Allah demands it.”
“Here?” said Hassan, his voice squeaking.
“The Sheik says that for this penance, the place does not matter. It is what is in your heart that Allah sees.”
While they exited the Blazer, Yassim walked over to the other stranger and spoke quietly. “Do you have it?” Without speaking, the man produced an object from a cavernous pants pocket and handed it over to Yassim, its steel briefly catching the faint light from the car’s interior.
“What are we to do?” asked Hassan, his tone petulant.
“The Sheik says you must face east, kneel and touch your head to the ground and recite the traditional prayer for forgiveness,” the cell leader answered.
“Which way is east?” asked Mohammed, looking around anxiously. Without thinking, Yassim pointed to the back wall of the garage.
“Come on, Mohammed,” Hassan whined as the two moved a little away from the parked cars, trying to locate an unsoiled spot on the concrete floor. The two knelt down, lowering their foreheads to the cement. Together they began intoning the required prayer, reciting the words aloud in Arabic in a monotone.
Yassim followed them and stopped a few feet behind the prone figures. Taking a deep breath, he whispered, “May Allah have mercy on your souls.” Both men rattled on, unhearing, loudly reciting the lengthy prayer. Yassim bent over their figures. He raised the small revolver to the back of the heads of the two praying men. The gun spit fire twice, the sound deafening as it bounced off the concrete wall.
He lowered his hand and slowly walked back to where the stranger was standing. Handing him back the weapon, he said, “You will clean up.” The man nodded. Yassim shouted back toward the Trans Am. “Come, Fadi, we take the minivan.” Fadi jumped out of the car and ran to catch up, visibly shaking.
“Isn’t this great, Fadi?” Yassim said, pointing at the car. “We’ll be touring America in a Caravan. How Arab. Allah would approve of the irony.” His laugh, when it came, was hollow. “You drive. The keys are in it.” They both climbed in and the two car doors shut in unison, sending an echo through the darkened garage.
Chapter 17
Yassim adjusted his position on the uncomfortable folding chair and studied the screen of the laptop. He still could not believe what he read. He reread the decoded text in Arabic and translated the words aloud into English, unconsciously mimicking the staccato cadence of the Sheik in his voice. “This mission is of vital importance. The present trouble must not be allowed to be an impediment to your progress. There is no soldier I trust more than you. I place the next decision in your anointed hands. I am certain that Allah will guide your actions. The files of the recruits to replace your fallen men are below. Follow these simple directions. Study this information carefully, then destroy it. To expedite the process, these men have been flown nearby. Like true disciples of Allah, they only await your call. Call and interview those you wish. Select the two men Allah tells you to choose. Then swiftly deliver the others to their reward in Paradise. Until it is too late for the Americans, your mission must not be discovered.”
He stopped reading and raised his eyes, his glance darting around the empty room, searching for fresh demons. But Yassim knew he was alone. Fadi had dropped him here at this dilapidated apartment building a half hour ago. Yassim had retrieved the key and a slip of paper, the only contents of the stunted glove compartment. The white sheet contained an address and a single word in English and Yassim had barked curt directions to his remaining soldier. As instructed, Fadi had delivered him here, then driven the minivan to a different, more secluded location, and registered at a seedy hotel nearby.
Ignoring the two drug-crazed Hispanics on the stoop, Yassim had climbed the crumbling concrete steps leading up to the aged brownstone. Slowly he made his way up five flights of darkened, urine-stained stairs, as if he were ascending into some special hell. Now, examining the peeling, faded wallpaper of this ugly bedroom, he realized that they had been directed here, somewhere in the ethnic neighborhood of Parma just outside of Cleveland, because he and Fadi would never be noticed. A look at the Mideastern man and woman he had passed, shamelessly groping each other on the second floor landing, had confirmed this. At least, he thought with relief, he was close, the objective of the mission less than a two-hour drive away.
Once inside the apartment, the door locked and bolted behind him, Yassim had entered the rear bedroom and found the black laptop sitting, as promised, atop a blond fiberboard desk, its cable snaking down across the top. It took him only a few seconds to open the case and turn it on, watching as the screen brightened with color and the short message scrolled slowly down the screen.
Yassim read the message again, this time to himself, needing to distill its meaning and weigh the consequences. The fingers of his right hand pinched the stubble that had replaced his long beard. So many senseless deaths, he thought and heard himself whisper her name
, “Fatima” aloud in the bare room. Then, without willing it, he was back home, sailing on the Mediterranean Sea, a warm breeze on his face. She was smiling up at him, those beautiful brown eyes beaming, both graceful arms encircling the small body of Jamal. It had been their son’s first sail and his body bounced with the excitement. In his reverie, Yassim could hear the snap of the sail in the wind and smell the salty sea air.
Dragging his attention back to the laptop, he opened the message and scanned the files, studying the brief bios of the new recruits. When he had finished reading, he flipped open the phone and punched in the first number, beginning the process of exercising control over life and death.
It took only three hours and three interviews for Yassim to make his decision. The first was easy. Mustafa was a monster of a man, 6’4” and 260 pounds. He had massive hands and biceps to match. Beardless, his face had a harsh, rugged look with a nose that had been broken and reset badly. The fractured nose was perched between steely gray eyes that looked like two bb’s floating in pools of white. His dossier revealed an expertise with handguns and knives, knowledge and experience with several different types of explosives as well as a radical devotion to the Jihad. From the few words he has spoken, his English was excellent and, when told of his selection, he said aloud, “Allah, be praised,” though without much feeling. He would serve as an apt replacement for Hassan. In fifteen minutes, Yassim had sketched out only the barest details of the mission and dispatched him to the motel where Fadi waited.
The second interview was shorter and less productive. Yassim only needed a few minutes to recognize the young black-bearded firebrand as a powder keg of hatred. The recruit’s hazel eyes glazed when he spoke of his devotion and his willingness to die to punish Allah’s enemies. The cell leader decided that even with the young man’s considerable skills, his temperament was too much of a liability. Yassim ended the interview, not even bothering to remember his name. It would be easier that way, he told himself. He sent the recruit into the bedroom for the traditional prayers, following a few feet behind him. As the recruit bent low to the ground, Yassim retrieved the silenced Makarov from a side pocket and pulled the trigger, hearing the spit of the silencer. The cell leader stood over the limp body as blood flowed into a crimson pool. He whispered, “May Allah give you sweet reward,” hoping he believed it. Then, summoning up control he did not know he possessed, he closed the door and moved back to the front room. He called the next name.
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