by Abbott, Jeff
‘Don’t cut me out. Don’t. Tell me where you’re at. I’ll send you money; I’ll send you whatever you need to hide. Mouser was only supposed to find you and bring you to me. So I could make you … understand.’
‘Understand what? That you used me to knit together a terrorist network? Are you kidding me, what do you think I’m supposed to understand?’
‘I can deal with Mouser and Snow, and anyone like them who bothers you. But there is another man who’s hunting you. Drummond. Stay the hell away from him, from anyone connected to him or a group called Quicksilver.’
The breath gelled in Luke’s chest. ‘I … I don’t believe you.’
‘Listen carefully to me. The cabin where you were held, it was paid for by a company called Quicksilver Risk. Stay away from them. I am begging you to listen to me. I know I screwed up but I never wanted you hurt. Ever.’
‘I hope you die, Henry, and I hope I’m there to see it.’
‘For God’s sakes, Luke.’ Henry’s voice rose. ‘I have been your father for ten years.’
‘You’re not fit to say the word “father”,’ Luke said.
Henry forged ahead as though Luke’s contempt was mist. ‘I am not trying to get you killed, I’m trying to save you. I’m trying to find out who’s attacking us, who’s using us. Quicksilver is behind your kidnapping. Stay away from them.’ Then a pause, while Luke’s head spun. ‘The man in Houston who was killed. His name was Allen Clifford. I knew him. So did your dad. We once worked together. On a special project for the government. Everyone who died on your father’s plane, they were part of the project. It was called the Book Club.’
‘What do you mean, worked for the government?’ The air left Luke’s lungs. ‘He was a history professor, for God’s sakes.’
Henry’s words burned as unrelenting as a fuse. ‘After the accident, there were only three members of the Book Club left. Me. Allen Clifford. And Drummond.’
‘He was a teacher. A scholar. Just more lies from you—’
‘Every word is truth,’ Henry thundered. ‘Drummond thinks you’re part of the Night Road. He blames you for his friend’s death. He came to me, threatened me if I didn’t turn you over to him. He has significant resources to find you. And I know this man - when he finds you, you will vanish forever.’
‘You can’t tell me all this and expect me to believe it.’ He stood, went to the back of the plane, fought down the scream that wanted to roar up from his lungs.
‘I’m trying to show you I’m on your side. Son, please.’
‘Don’t you call me “son”. I’m not your son. I never was. If you were on my side, you never would have gotten me involved. I was your needle and thread. Stitching together a whole bunch of killers and freaks and fringers for you. I met your buddy Chris. You actually went and shook hands with these guys who think an American al-Qaeda’s a great idea, met them with open arms, planned to give them money.’ He leaned his head against the plane’s wall. ‘You are funding terrorists to the tune of fifty million dollars. You are such a piece of shit.’
‘I didn’t lie to you. My clients lied to me. They are using the research in ways I didn’t consider. I need you to meet me.’
‘No, Henry.’
He heard a long intake of breath. ‘I love you like you were my own child. I didn’t at first, because you were such a pain. Spoiled, contrary, too smart for your own good. But I grew to love you as much as your own father did, Luke. I have only tried to protect you. To do right by you. Meet me at a place of your choosing and we’ll work out a plan to get your name clear and you safe. Together.’
‘You weren’t brave enough to help me. You could have gone to the police, to the FBI, and you didn’t. You left me to die.’
‘I am trying to save us …’
‘Prove it. Hellfire, Henry. What is it?’
Silence.
‘Tell me what it is, give me your greatest secret, and I’ll believe you want to help me. I know it’s separate from the attacks that are happening now. It’s bigger, isn’t it? What is it? Bombs? Airplanes? Bioweapons? God help me, is it a nuke?’
A silence again, a stillness heavy enough to crush a heart, to flatten a family. Then: ‘I don’t know that term Hellfire. I swear to God I don’t know.’
‘Goodbye, Henry.’
He took the phone and he broke it apart, scattering its components on the floor. He saw no point in talking to Henry again, no value in talking to Jane. What was he going to do: beg them for his life back? Screw pleading and begging.
A rage and a despair he had never felt filled him. He imagined what it would be like to kill his stepfather. But the image of Henry’s face, distorted in fear and remorse, the thunder of Luke’s own heartbeat in his head - vanished in a snap.
You can’t kill him because then you’re him.
He stood over the broken phone and the rage changed to a hardness in his heart, a welcome toughness.
He sat on the floor in the back of the plane while Aubrey slept, knees drawn up to his chin, wondering what darkness he was flying into, salvation or death. For a moment his hand closed on the Saint Michael’s medal. Strength, the ability to face and overcome evil of the basest sort. He had to find his courage, fan its flame, keep going. He slipped the medal back under his shirt. The hum of the plane worked through his exhaustion and he closed his eyes to ponder his next move.
30
The Night Road was cutting its path through the heart of America, as Luke headed toward New York.
The high school football game in suburban Kansas City had been targeted because the attacker was a neo-Nazi and the high school had been named for a soldier who died early in the war in Iraq. The soldier was Jewish. The neo-Nazi hated seeing the Jew’s name on the sign when he drove past every morning on his way to work.
The football game was a close one, and the neo-Nazi sighed in relief: a rout might have led to more people leaving earlier. Instead the game - he could hear the distant rumble of the announcer, voice tense with excitement - had been decided in the final three seconds by a field goal. The target school’s team had won. The neo-Nazi rubbed at the dark tattoo across his neck - a highly stylized swastika - gritted his teeth and thought: And no one will remember that. As the crowd spilled out into the lot, waving flags, banners, girls laughing and clutching at boys’ arms, he pressed the first button.
The trunk of the car he’d parked in the middle of the lot popped open.
He saw a white girl, holding onto the arm of a boy who looked Mexican, glance over at the popping hood. The neo-Nazi gritted his teeth again. The world would go mongrel in two generations, if people didn’t realize they just couldn’t do what they wanted, he thought.
He waited until a bigger mass of people had spilled out into the lot, but before many of them had gotten into the protective cocoons of their cars.
He pressed the second button.
The bomb was not big; it had been built the month before by Snow. The neo-Nazi, who had picked it up from her the previous week, packed her creation with nails, bolts and screws.
Chaos. A flash that burned his eyeballs. Screams and a distant heat and, he imagined, the whistle of thousands of flying blades whittling through flesh and bone. And then he heard the screams, much worse than even he had dreamed they would be. A glimpse of hell.
He got into his car and drove away, careful to stick to back roads. The emergency responders would be creating a traffic headache. He drove south and dialed a phone number. ‘Mine is done with success,’ he said by answer. ‘I get to be in Hellfire.’
Henry Shawcross - but the neo-Nazi did not know him by this name - said, ‘There has been a change in plans.’
‘Is Hellfire canceled?’
‘No. Check the following email account.’ Henry gave him a Gmail account name and password. ‘It will contain the name of a city. Drive there, call on a fresh prepaid phone when you arrive, and await further instructions.’
‘When do I get my money?’
�
�Follow instructions.’ He hung up.
The neo-Nazi bit his lip. Not even a word of congratulations? His contact sounded like he’d lost the stomach for this battle. The neo-Nazi did not like that answer but what could he do? Complain? The mission first, that had been driven into his brain ever since he met the man with glasses and the rumpled gray suit at a coffee shop. He’d spent so much time complaining about the damned Jews (and various other groups) and their plots to eviscerate America on websites, it felt good to meet with someone who recognized his unique potential. And with the first wave of attacks nearly done, now they could truly hurt this hated world. He drove for a while - he felt the need to put distance between him and the school - and stopped ten miles later at a suburban coffee shop that offered free internet access. He opened his laptop, checked the account.
The email account’s one message simply said: CHICAGO.
He checked the news websites. The bombing was, of course, the lead news story. A smile, a bubble of laughter, rose from his chest and heat traveled along his skin. It felt good to make a fist for justice and throw a hard, savage punch. And Hellfire was going to be so much more than a little punch. He trembled with excitement. With his promised cut of the money, he could recruit new adherents. Buy automatic weapons. Buy better material for bombs, higher-quality explosives, and much more of it. He could set up operations throughout the Midwest.
He could be somebody who shaped the world.
He was tempted to go onto the Night Road site, but no. Not now. Not here. There were a few patrons lingering over their lattes. And the barista, she looked Jewish to him, and she kept trying to see what the sharp-edged tattoo on his neck was. He suddenly didn’t want her looking at him.
He got back in his car and drove north toward Chicago, the screams playing in his head like a symphony he’d written himself, a masterpiece.
The second attack took place in Los Angeles, California, outside a small restaurant off Sunset Boulevard. It had, unusually, been a stormy day in Southern California. Rain fell in broken wind-blown curtains and the wind hissed like steam, and the young man in the car waited on a side street. He had never killed before and his hands shook with fright at the thought of what he was about to do. He opened the file folder next to him, although he had studied it for hours in the past several days, when he wasn’t praying at the mosque or trying to hide his activities from his mother and his father, who would disapprove.
The target’s picture was drawn from his books, which outlined how the war against Islam must be waged, and sold in the hundreds of thousands to the unbelievers. His advice was being cited in Washington; he had the ear of powerful people who might act contrary to Allah’s will. He was a history professor at UCLA, a specialist in terrorism and the Middle East, an educated man who apparently knew nothing. His words could not be allowed to continue, and he had been talking and writing more and more about the possibility of American Muslims being seduced into violence, as had happened in France, Germany and Britain, becoming home-grown carriers of terror.
Then the young man saw the professor. Walking with his wife and his teenage daughter, hurrying, huddled under an umbrella. The rain had eased in the past fifteen minutes, Allah smiling on his mission.
The young man lowered his window. Fifteen feet away.
The gun was ready in his hand. Ten feet away. He had to do this, he had to keep his nerve so he could qualify himself for a much greater battle.
He raised his firearm, asked Allah to guide his aim and fired the modified semi-automatic at the family, hoping the drizzling rain would not badly deflect his bullets.
The wife and the daughter, strolling in the front, fell screaming. He could see that the girl was dead in an instant, a bright cloud of blood settling on her skull; the wife shrieked, badly wounded. The professor - He Who Must Die - stumbled, trying to catch his family, a dawning horror on his face.
The gunman fired again, another spurt of fire, bullets drumming through tender flesh and mortal bone. The three of them lay sprawled in the blood and the cleansing rain.
He had just killed an entire family and for a moment the realization cut to his heart. Then he thought: Good. Well done.
They had dropped in front of a wine bar and a man ran out, a woman stumbling behind him, trying to help the family.
Stupid or brave? The gunman thought. It did not matter. The gunman shot them both, biting his lip again, not caring now. He didn’t want to be seen, didn’t want his license plate noticed. He revved onto Sunset Boulevard, drove fast, blasted through two red lights, turned onto side streets. He had stolen it earlier that morning, changed the plates with a car at the airport. Now he drove the car to Orange County, parking in the shadow of a mosque, his breathing returning in even tides. He had committed a most brazen mass killing, in full daylight, and escaped. Now. He could be part of Hellfire, his worth proven.
He made the phone call. He was told there was a change in plans, that he would not go to Houston, that he must check an email account that he had never seen before. He went to a computer at a public library and opened the account.
The message read: CHICAGO.
He had been chosen, not just by Allah, but by his brothers in arms, his fellow warriors, whoever they were. He lowered the window as he drove east, letting the damp air refresh his skin and nourish him for the battle and the glory that lay ahead.
31
Bridger lay bound and tied in the car trunk; Henry looked at him with a gaze free of pity. Snow’s ex had been turned in by a Night Road member he knew, one that Bridger had run to in Alabama, begging for money and a place to hide. Per Henry’s orders, the man drove Bridger in the trunk up to a rural field in northern Virginia.
Standing under the gleam of the stars, Henry wanted a cigarette for the first time in several years. The conversation with Luke had unnerved him badly. He had thought before that Luke would at least be willing to hear him out. If he could simply get a word in, he was sure he could make Luke understand. Barbara kept crowding into his thoughts, her final words to him much like Luke’s: I know what you are. She had said them right before the crash, when he’d only grabbed the steering wheel to get her to pull over, so he could work his magic, convince her that she was wrong. If she’d only listened, the car wouldn’t have plowed through the guardrail, somersaulted down the hill. He had kept his eyes open during the whole crash, screaming Barbara’s name, watching her die.
If only Luke would listen, a certain tragedy would be avoided.
Barbara had only found a phone in his desk. A cell phone he kept for contacts in the Middle East. The balance sheet for the think-tank had grown thin, and he spent long hours re-reading his 9/11 papers, wondering when I saw 9/11 coming, why did no one believe me? He would ignore that he had failed to include so many vital details that actually happened in the attack. His anger at being overlooked would heat like a fever and he would think, like a bullied child, I’ll show them all. He would sip his whiskey, grow morose. He knew many people in the Middle East, some of them with loose connections to the terrorists he’d interviewed and psychologically dissected. He had sent out feelers, calling them, asking for meetings, trying to find a solution to his problem: how he could predict terrorist attacks with greater accuracy, how he could win wider acclaim, grow his business, be seen as a power player.
He’d finally realized he’d needed someone that could help him make his vision work.
She’d found the phone and she’d listened to a voicemail he’d forgotten to erase, from an associate of the Arab billionaire. Stupid of him. But he had been listening to it when she interrupted him and he’d just switched off the phone. But she knew it wasn’t the phone he normally used. What had possessed her to pry, to listen to the voicemail? Had she been afraid he was unfaithful, that the phone was used for contact with a mistress? He worshipped Barbara. He knew how lucky he was. And she had waited until they were in the car, a day later, to confront him. He should have denied it all while they were driving but he was too rattled
.
He would not make such a mistake again. It had cost him Barbara; it would not cost him his son.
He had driven to the deserted field from his Alexandria home, careful that Drummond or someone else was not following him. There was no sign of a shadow; then he reminded himself that if Drummond was still part of the government, then they could simply train a satellite on him and follow him.
You’re not that important, he told himself. And that is your strength. If they’d realized you were important maybe you’d still be with State. Maybe you’d be where you started, on the side of the angels.
Then the little stinger of his conscience: if you had been treated as important, then none of this would have happened.
‘I need to speak with him alone.’
‘I’ll take a walk,’ said the young Alabama man who’d delivered Bridger. He strolled off into the darkness. Henry dragged Bridger out of the trunk, propped him against the car’s bumper. He still wore the leather jacket with its emblazoned eagle.
‘I’ve had a very bad day,’ Henry said. ‘You know, in my business, I have to email out position papers on policy and theory to some of the most powerful people in the world.’
Bridger stared.
‘I’ve warned my clients about all sorts of impending attacks today: a follow-up on the chlorine bombing, an assault on our fuel supplies, a rise in neo-Nazi hatred. Everything I’ve predicted is coming true.’
Bridger moaned behind the gag.
‘I’ve had violence on my mind, Bridger. And you know, thinking about violence can make one more violent. That’s unlucky for you.’
Bridger’s eyes widened with terror.
Henry unwrapped the gag, let the fabric fall from Bridger’s mouth and he screamed for help.
‘No one can hear you,’ Henry said. ‘God, that feels good to say that. You’re the best part of my day, Bridger.’
