California

by Jamie Lee Grey

  Nadir caught his breath. Could those incoming teams defeat his plans? How soon would they arrive? He wished to ask a million questions, but decided to wait and see if the answers came on their own. It’d be less suspicious that way.

  A man’s questions had a way of revealing his secret thoughts and motives.

  “Well, that’s something, anyway,” Thomas said. “With that and the air tankers….”

  A long silence enveloped the room. Nadir’s eye twitched. He waited for someone to speak. To answer all the questions running through his mind.

  His father stood up. “I need to contact the Forest Service and the FBI.”

  “Hopefully they’ll have some good news.” Bob Osgood pushed his chair away from the table.

  “Yes. Hopefully.” The governor started for the door, pausing for a moment to lay his hand on Nadir’s shoulder. “Why don’t you come with me. The rest of you, keep me in the loop.”

  Nadir followed his father around the corner to his office.

  “Leave the door open.” His father sat down behind his desk. He punched a speed-dial number on his phone.

  “FBI,” he explained, motioning Nadir toward a chair. “Have a seat.”

  When the investigative agency answered, the governor put the call on speaker.

  “This is Governor Abdullah. I need an update on the terrorists. Any leads?”

  “We’re interviewing witnesses,” answered the special agent in charge. “There were so many people on the coast this morning, and we’re getting a lot of fluff information that isn’t helping.”

  “Such as?” Nadir’s father exchanged a glance with him.

  “Dead end leads. People trying to help, thousands of civilian reports of suspicious people and vehicles. We’ve got to sort through every one and try to find commonalities. In the meantime, it wastes a ton of man hours eliminating reports that are meaningless.”

  “I see.” His gaze turned to the window. “Any commonalities so far?”

  “Only stupid ones. Like people who are convinced it was the volunteers on the beach cleanup project.”

  The governor snorted. “Yes. Clean up the beach and torch it while you’re there!”

  “Exactly.”

  “Keep me in the loop as soon as anything relevant comes in.” He terminated the call and looked at Nadir. “I am glad your mother is not here. She’d be devastated.”

  Nadir nodded. “Have you spoken to her today?”

  “She called and left a voice mail when she heard the news. But no, I have not called her back yet.”

  “I’ll do it.” Nadir stood. “I’ll tell her not to worry.”

  “Fine.” His father’s eyes turned back to the phone. “Check in later. I have calls to make.”

  Nadir nodded and left the room, then hurried up to the second floor. What time was it in Iran, anyway? Would his mother be awake at this hour?

  No matter. She’d want to hear from him, regardless. He picked up his phone and placed the call. Moments later, his mother’s worry filled the phone.

  “Are you alright? What is happening?”

  “We are fine, mother. Everything is going as planned.”

  A heavy breath rushed though the line.

  “Oh. That is so good.” She paused. “Does your father know?”

  “No.”

  “Are you in Seattle now?”

  “I had to re-schedule.”

  “Don’t delay, Nadir. We are all waiting for you.”

  “Father insisted I stay and help here.”

  “But you mustn’t!”

  Quietly, Nadir closed the library door and walked to the grandfather clock. “I will do my best. The mission comes first.”

  “I understand. But you must try to join us.”

  “How is my uncle?”

  “He is well.”

  “And his work?”

  She took a moment before responding, as if measuring her words for anyone who might be surveilling their call.

  “He – he has completed his major project. We will be celebrating tomorrow. You must be here with us, Nadir!”

  ***

  “I’m hungry, Momma.” Timothy gave Katie an imploring look. She climbed out of the driver’s seat and walked to the kitchen in the rear of the RV.

  “Okay, you can have some apple slices. How does that sound?”

  He smiled and held out both hands.

  “Do you mean, ‘yes, please?’”

  “Yes, puleeze!”

  “Alright, then.” She whacked up an apple and gave him half.

  The little guy promptly gave a slice to Duke.

  “Don’t feed the dog at the table!”

  The RV door swung open and Katie spun around, knife still in hand. Nobody better be messing with her motorhome or her kid!

  “Whoa!” Zach stood on the bottom step and raised his hands in the air. “I surrender!”

  Timothy squealed with laughter. Katie lowered the knife. Instant relief mingled with worried frustration.

  “Where’ve you been? Did you get my texts?”

  “My phone battery died, and the charger is in the RV. I tried to radio you, but you must have turned off your walkie talkie.”

  “Whatever. I’m just so glad you’re back! I was getting worried.”

  “I’m sorry, Babe.” He closed the door. “I found another station, but the lines were so long, and I couldn’t get ahold of you, so eventually I gave up.”

  His shoulders dropped. “We’re really out of gas now. I barely made it back here.”

  “That’s what I texted you about! Come with me.”

  She led him outside and opened the storage bay.

  “WHAT?” He grabbed the gas can and gave her an incredulous look. “How…?”

  “Anna’s dad had it in his pickup.”

  Zach set the gas can on the ground and wrapped her in a bear hug. He lifted her off her feet.

  “You are amazing. You know that?” He whispered in her ear.

  “Well, yes. That’s why you married me!” She pulled back and gazed into his blue eyes, then kissed him.

  “PDA!” He lowered her to the ground, dropped his arms and teasingly looked around to see if anyone witnessed their public display of affection.

  “We need to get going,” Katie said. “There’s a lot of talk on the news about evacuating. Traffic will only get worse.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” Zach picked up the fuel and walked to his truck, talking over his shoulder. “Once we’re out of town, we’ll be golden.”

  Katie sighed.

  “Yeah. Can’t wait for that!” She followed him to the pickup and watched as he filled the tank. “How much do you think is in there?”

  “Probably four gallons. Normally, that’d get us about eighty miles.” His gaze wandered out toward the freeway. “Today, I’m not sure.”

  He put the empty gas can in the back of the truck and closed the canopy. “Let’s stop at a station near the end of town, and fill up both rigs.”

  “Sounds good.” She handed the pickup keys to him. “That monstrosity is all yours. You want to lead the way?”

  “Sure.” He started toward the RV.

  “And plug in your cell phone!” she called out.

  A few minutes later, they’d wrestled their way out of the parking lot and onto the street. Katie tucked the pickup in right behind the motorhome, which was like driving behind a billboard. She couldn’t see much ahead.

  The street traffic crawled forward, with much jostling of vehicles trying to get into the right lane to enter the freeway on ramp. Luckily, Katie was already in that lane when she exited the burger joint parking lot.

  All she had to do now, was maintain forward momentum until they could escape all this city traffic.

  How hard could that be?

  ***

  Alana entered the president’s suite from their adjoining door just as Basilia burst through the main door, trailing aides and officials behind her like attendants at a wedding. She strode to
the table, which could accommodate twelve around its polished oval top.

  “News!” She snapped. “And I need the latest!”

  Mike Robinson, her national security advisor, spoke up.

  “The military has just been put on high alert because the nation is undergoing ongoing attack. We’re deploying troops as we speak.”

  “Where, exactly? The fire lines?” Basilia asked.

  “Multiple locations throughout the state. They will provide assistance wherever needed – coordinating with the FBI on the investigation, boots on the ground at the fires –”

  “What about my family?”

  “Ma’am?”

  “My parents – my siblings – are they in danger?”

  The national security advisor looked slightly taken aback. “We have not heard of any specific threats.”

  “They live in California!” She glared at him. “Are they in the path of the fires?”

  “We can look into that, Madame President.”

  “Do it.” She gave him the stink eye. “Now!”

  He glanced around at the other officials, then withdrew to a corner of the suite with his cell phone.

  She turned to her chief of staff. “Get me an update on Dominic and my kids, too. Maybe they need to be moved from Martha’s Vineyard. I want them some place secure, just in case.”

  Grace Denver nodded and began making a call.

  “Now, the rest of you…” Basilia made eye contact with each person. “I need more from you than I’m getting at the moment.”

  No one moved a muscle. Alana could hear her heartbeat in her ears.

  “I want satellite imagery. I want real-time updates on evacuations. I want my family OUT OF THERE.” She slapped her palm on the table. “MOVE!”

  The suite flew into a blizzard of activity. The director of homeland security and the secretary of defense set up monitors for satellite images from the fire zone. Alana’s staff called the California governor, the director of CAL-FIRE, and the state fire marshal. As soon as all three men were on the conference call, they were placed on speaker phone and the room quieted.

  “I need an estimate on the real threat to the population,” the president said. “Director Osgood, can you address that?”

  “According to our preliminary analysis, the threat is significant,” the CAL-FIRE director responded. “One of the primary problems is evacuation. When our teams determine a fire can’t be safely contained beyond the perimeter of a community, we need to evacuate that community. But that’s quickly becoming impossible in certain instances.”

  As he spoke, the director of homeland security brought up satellite imagery of the new fires.

  “Due to the situation on the interstates?” Basilia drummed her fingernails on the table.

  “The interstates, the highways, some local roads are closed, we have problems at the airports –”

  “Governor Abdullah, is there anything you can do to mitigate this? When there’s a hurricane, for instance, the travel lanes toward the storm are closed, then re-opened moving traffic outbound only. Are you doing that?”

  The homeland security director switched the monitors to images of the freeways as the president spoke.

  Alana stifled a gasp. Image after image zoomed in on bumper to bumper traffic snarling nearly every highway in the state. Most did not appear to be moving at all, or not faster than a person could walk.

  “Unfortunately, that won’t work, in this case. First, all the highways are already packed full. And second, there’s not a specific direction to send people away from the fires. The northern highways are closed due to pre-existing fires. Highways going east will take people straight into the new fires. Going west will take them to this morning’s fires.”

  “What about south?” The president asked.

  “Into Mexico? Also no good,” Governor Abdullah said. “The Mexicans have closed their ports of entry because they’ve gotten calls about bombs in trucks coming from the U.S. side.”

  “WHAT?” Basilia jumped to her feet. She whirled to the secretary of defense, perhaps because he was sitting beside her. “Get the Mexican president on the phone. I want that border open!”

  Chapter 11

  Standing in the library, Nadir spoke quietly on his secure phone.

  “Your calls have worked, brother. The Mexicans have closed their border.”

  “Perfect!” Kamal’s tone was exultant. “Everything has fallen perfectly into place!”

  “Just as we planned.”

  “Yes! As you planned,” Kamal said.

  Nadir smiled. “And as you executed.”

  “I am amazed! I never expected it to go this well. To be this easy!”

  “The simplest plans are often the best,” Nadir agreed. “Like flying airliners into skyscrapers.”

  “Exactly! Like torching a state with portable propane tanks and weed burners!”

  Nadir’s smile turned into a grin. It had been so simple, so cost effective. The propane tanks had each cost about sixty dollars, plus a few more to fill them. The weed burner attachments were less than fifty dollars each. Instant, efficient torches!

  Total cost? A little over a hundred dollars per jihadi.

  Cheaper even than the 9/11 airplane tickets.

  And nobody had to go to flight school to learn how to fly an aircraft into a building!

  Oh, how this would go down in the history books!

  The ones in Europe, of course, because the United States wouldn’t be writing any more fake history or publishing any books at all after Monday.

  Surely Allah had smiled on them today.

  Nadir’s phone beeped.

  “We must go. Time for ‘Asr prayers.”

  His feet barely touched the stairs as he ascended to the third floor. He must remember to look anxious and worried when his father arrived, rather than excited and joyful.

  Before opening the door to their prayer room, he calmed his breath and his mind, and willed his face to comply with his deception.

  His father was already inside when he stepped in. He glanced over his shoulder, disapproval reflecting from his eyes.

  “Let us begin.”

  As they started their prayers, Nadir wondered that his father took time for them on this day. He had a million urgent and pressing issues, yet here he was, faithful to Islam.

  And that was good.

  Because if the time ever came that Nadir must tell him the truth, it was only their shared faith that would save him from his father’s wrath.

  He did notice that his father’s words were rushed, however. He obviously wanted to get through prayers as quickly as possible. And who could blame him?

  Their state was burning to the ground.

  ***

  Katie groaned. Turned out, getting away from the greater Sacramento area was much more difficult than she expected it to be. Even getting onto the freeway was next to impossible.

  Horns honked, fists shook, and middle fingers extended at the on-ramp traffic that Katie was stuck in, as they attempted to merge with the traffic already on Interstate 80.

  Cringing and avoiding eye contact with her neighboring drivers, she plastered the pickup to the rear of the RV and hoped for the best as Zach began merging the motorhome into the travel lane.

  It was like trying to cut in line for the discounted flat-screen TV deal on Black Friday. At any moment, she might get trampled or caught up in a brawl.

  So far, though, the other drivers were staying in their vehicles. Probably not wanting to miss a chance to ease forward ten more feet when the opportunity arose.

  Space between bumpers disappeared as more and more traffic pressed onto the interstate. It looked as if each vehicle was physically attached to the one in front of it.

  Margin for driving error evaporated.

  Katie gritted her teeth, clenched the wheel and jostled for position with a red Mustang that refused to give an inch.

  “I AM getting in your lane, so make room,” she hissed under her
breath.

  A middle finger flew up and a horn blared.

  “Sorry. Gotta get in.”

  The Mustang’s fender was inches from her front left wheel.

  She glanced skyward. “Lord, I hate this! Can you please get us out of here?”

  Behind the Mustang, a semi slowed, giving Katie inches to squeeze in. She lowered her window and waved her thanks. The Mustang moved forward, gluing itself to the back of the motorhome.

  Finally! At least they had sorted out their traffic line, and everyone was continuing to creep forward. It might take all day, but she had no intention of ever leaving this lane.

  Ever. For any reason.

  Her eyes turned to the gas gauge. No, she probably wouldn’t be going eighty miles, given the crawling traffic. But she’d be able to make it out of the urban area, anyway. They’d get gas somewhere after that.

  Zach’s voice came over the walkie talkie.

  “You want to move into a middle lane?”

  “No!” She didn’t have any desire to fight with other drivers, even if those lanes were moving one mile per hour faster.

  “This is a bad lane to be in,” Zach said. “All the merging on and off happens in this lane. Over on the left lanes, they don’t have those hassles.”

  Of course he was right. Everyone knew that.

  She took a deep breath and huffed it out. “Fine. You go ahead, and I’ll get there when I can.”

  “Actually, it’d be easier, since you’re in the back, with the smaller rig, if you moved over first and opened a spot for me.”

  “I hate this!” There. She said it out loud.

  A long pause followed.

  “I’m sorry, Babe.” Zach spoke slowly. “We can stay in this lane.”

  “No….” Katie bit her lip. “I’ll move over.”

  “Only if you’re okay to do that,” he said. “It’s okay to stay here.”

  She turned on her left turn signal. “I’m going for it.”

  Looking over her shoulder, it was clear there was no room to slide over. Each vehicle clung precariously close to the one ahead of it.

  She turned the wheels slightly left, crowding the white line separating the lanes, then letting the pickup drift over the white line.