Dead on Arrival

by Mike Lawson

  Youseff placed his carry-on bag on the conveyor belt and moved slowly forward to walk through the metal detector. He had already made sure he had nothing on him that would set off the detector. His pockets were completely empty; he had even removed his belt and thrown it into the garbage can in the airport restroom. All his possessions were in the carry-on bag. He expected that they would search the bag and pat him down because of his name, but this time they didn’t. He simply passed through the metal detector, picked up his carry-on bag, and put on his shoes.

  It was all God’s will.

  The small jet used to shuttle passengers between New York and Washington had twelve rows, two seats on the starboard side of the plane, one seat on the port side. He was in the single seat in row eight. A woman and her child were sitting across the aisle from him, the child a tiny blond-haired girl no more than seven. He couldn’t look at the child.

  He sat there with his eyes closed as the plane was being prepared for takeoff and thought of his wife and his own children, his beautiful children. Would his wife miss him when he was gone? Probably not, he’d treated her so badly the last two years.

  The plane rose into the sky over New York. The stewardess informed the passengers that they would arrive at Reagan National Airport in less than an hour. When the seat-belt light was extinguished, Youseff sat a minute, tried and failed to remember a prayer from his childhood, and then rose from his seat. He pulled his carry-on bag from the overhead bin and walked back to the restroom. As he walked down the aisle he saw more children. The plane seemed to be filled with children.

  Inside the restroom, he removed from his bag the pieces that made up the pistol. The pistol was constructed of some sort of plastic, a polymer that was very tough, and the gun’s components resembled common objects: the barrel was the handle to a hairbrush; the trigger was the earpiece to a pair of sunglasses; three small-caliber plastic bullets and a spring had been packed into a container that appeared to be a ballpoint pen. Youseff assembled the pistol with trembling hands and loaded it, then looked into the mirror. His face was unshaven, his hair was sticking up, and his eyes seemed to have swelled in their sockets, as if they were about to explode from all the emotions he was trying to suppress. He looked like a madman.

  But it was time. It was time to do what he had to do. Then it would all be over.

  He left the restroom and walked slowly up the aisle of the plane, the pistol in the pocket of his jacket. He dropped his carry-on bag on the seat where he’d been sitting and continued up the aisle toward the stewardess, who was standing by the coffee mess near the cockpit door. He approached as if he was going to ask for something, then grabbed her by the arm, jerked her in front of him, and placed the barrel of the gun against her head. He heard people start to scream and then he started screaming too, telling the passengers not to move, not to resist. At least that’s what he thought he said. He wasn’t sure, there was such a roar inside his head.

  He dragged the stewardess backward until the reinforced cockpit door was at his back and he began to kick at the door with his right foot, yelling for the pilot to open up. He waved the pistol at the passengers to keep them in their seats, and then placed it again against the stewardess’s head. He heard someone inside the cockpit say something and he turned his head slightly, to hear better, to yell again at the pilot, to tell him he would kill the stewardess if he didn’t open the door.

  Youseff Khalid didn’t see, sitting in a single seat in row five, no more than six feet from him, the U.S. air marshal raising his arm. He didn’t see the pistol in the man’s right hand. He didn’t feel the bullet that entered his head and blew his brains all over the cockpit door.

  12

  Mahoney had not wanted to go to the vice president’s sixty-fifth birthday party. He went only because his wife, Mary Pat, was good friends with the VP’s wife. And to make matters worse, since his wife was with him, Mahoney couldn’t flirt with all the good-looking women who’d been invited – like the new undersecretary from State that he could see talking to the president’s chief of staff.

  The new undersecretary was not only a looker but Mahoney had heard she was some kinda genius and spoke half a dozen languages. Mahoney thought it almost unfair that God would give a woman an ass like that and brains too. And now she was laughing at something the president’s chief had said. As the man was about as funny as a case of the clap, Mahoney figured that in addition to being brilliant she was also polite.

  Mahoney turned back to the bartender and asked for another drink. So far he’d spent more time talking to the bartender than anyone else at the party. He glanced over at the new undersecretary again, looked around for his wife, and saw that she was talking to the birthday boy himself. The vice president was nodding his head agreeably and had, as usual, this blissful expression on his face as if he’d swallowed a bottle of Prozac.

  Thomas Riley Marshall, who had served as vice president to Woodrow Wilson, once said, ‘The vice president of the United States is like a man in a cataleptic state: He cannot speak; he cannot move; he suffers no pain; and yet he is perfectly conscious of everything that is going on about him.’ Mahoney agreed completely with that sentiment, particularly as it applied to the current occupant of the office.

  Mahoney looked at his watch. Dinner had ended half an hour ago. He wanted to get the hell out of here and go home and go to bed, but it looked as if Mary Pat was having a pretty good time. He was thinking – his wife otherwise occupied – that maybe he should go over and introduce himself to the lady from State. He’d just pushed away from the bar when he heard someone say, ‘Good evening, Mr Speaker.’

  Mahoney turned. Aw, shit, it was Broderick. Mahoney had managed to avoid the guy all night, but now here he was. Mahoney could understand why the VP had invited a bunch of Republicans to his party, but did he have to invite Broderick?

  ‘How you doin’, Bill?’ Mahoney said.

  Mahoney had always thought that Commie-buster Joe McCarthy, the politician to whom Broderick was most often compared, had looked like a bad guy. With McCarthy’s five o’clock shadow and his dour face, it was easy to picture him in the role of thug and bully. But Bill Broderick didn’t look like that.

  Broderick was in his early forties, tall, broad-shouldered, and trim. He had a full head of sandy-brown hair, an engaging smile, and wide blue eyes that made him appear open and honest and sincere. And he had no particular facial feature – big ears, Durante nose, Leno chin, or odd bouffant – that political caricaturists could readily capture. When the cartoonists portrayed Mahoney, they all went after his white hair and his gut.

  ‘Just fine, Mr Speaker,’ Broderick said. ‘I realize this is a social occasion but …’

  Then why don’t you go socialize.

  ‘… but I thought I should take this opportunity to talk to you. As I’m sure you’ve heard, my bill reported out of committee today.’

  The FBI’s preliminary report was that Youseff Khalid had planned to crash the New York–D.C. shuttle into the U.S. Capitol. Why they concluded this had not yet been made totally clear, but it didn’t matter. After a few senators heard what the Bureau said, Broderick’s goddamn bill had practically squirted out of committee.

  ‘No, I hadn’t heard,’ Mahoney said.

  ‘Well, it did, sir, and it’s going to the floor in a couple of weeks. Maybe sooner, because after what happened today, the public is demanding we take action.’

  Oh, please, spare me the speech, Mahoney thought.

  ‘I’m fairly confident that it’s going to pass in the Senate,’ Broderick said.

  And it just might, Mahoney thought, although it was going to be close, from everything he’d heard. But all Mahoney said was, ‘Is that right?’

  ‘Yes, sir. The reason I wanted to speak to you tonight was that I was going to suggest that you might want to fast-track the bill in the House when it comes your way.’

  Mahoney gazed over at the new undersecretary again as he took a sip of his drink. Jesus, the
woman was built. He swiveled his head around; his wife was nowhere to be seen.

  ‘Well,’ Mahoney said to Broderick, ‘we’ve got a lot on our plate at the moment, but I’ll—’

  ‘A lot on your plate, sir? The country is under attack from a segment of its own population. The plot in Baltimore, two terrorist attacks this month – surely, Mr Speaker—’

  Mahoney wasn’t sure the country was exactly under attack, but it was certainly acting that way. National Guard troops armed with automatic weapons were patrolling borders and airports, grim-faced cops were prowling subway stations in packs, and air travel had virtually ground to a halt due to security delays. But there was no point discussing any of that with Broderick.

  ‘Bill, would you excuse me please?’ Mahoney said. ‘There’s a gal over there from the State Department. She’s new in the job and I think she needs an old hand to explain to her how things work in this town. I’d give you the lecture, but you seem to have figured things out already.’

  As Mahoney walked toward the lady from the State Department, he wondered what the hell that damn DeMarco was doing. He’d call the guy tomorrow, make sure he wasn’t goofing off.

  13

  He stood in an alley where he could see the apartment in which the boy lived. This neighborhood in Cleveland was filled mostly with brown and black people so he blended in, and at this time of day the few people he saw were hurrying off to work and didn’t even seem to notice him. He had arrived at six, though he hadn’t expected the boy to leave that early, but it was almost eight now, so he should be coming out soon.

  It was odd, but his leg hurt less when he stood. He didn’t know why but he could stand for hours, yet as soon as he sat or reclined on a bed the pain would come. The doctors had said it had something to do with the way the stump had healed, something about his circulation. It was particularly bad at night, and when he ran out of pills he couldn’t sleep for more than an hour at a time. He was addicted to the pills by now, but that was a minor problem.

  He had lost his lower leg in Afghanistan. He didn’t know if the mine was Russian left over from the eighties or American from the war in which he had fought. It didn’t matter. It was an enemy mine and it had killed his best friend, and another man he didn’t know, and blown off his leg below the knee.

  The doctors said he was lucky that he lost his leg below the knee instead of above it. They said it was much more difficult to learn to walk when the amputation was above the joint. And then they gave him a good French prosthesis, very light, very durable. He couldn’t run on it but he could walk and stand and do what he must do. And in a way, he had been lucky to lose his leg. It was the amputation that had brought him to Sheikh Osama’s attention – or, to be accurate, it was the fact that he didn’t go home after he lost his leg that brought him to the sheikh’s attention.

  Like Osama bin Laden, he was from Arabia. He went to Afghanistan when the Americans had invaded to slaughter the Taliban, and he went there for the same reason that other Saudis did: to serve, to sacrifice, to kill – and, if necessary, to die. Like Sheikh Osama, he was well educated – he spoke English and French and some German – and he came from a wealthy family. He didn’t have to go to Afghanistan. He could have stayed in Arabia, done nothing, said nothing, and lived in the lap of luxury like the corrupt royal princes. And he could have returned to Arabia when he lost his leg; his father, after a suitable period of sulking, would have taken him in. But he didn’t go back.

  Instead, after his leg had healed and he could walk again, he went into the mountains near the Pakistan border to find Sheikh Osama. He never did find him, of course – he had been naive and arrogant to think that he could – but Osama somehow, some way, had found him. He was taken blindfolded to the house where Osama was staying that night – he’d be in a different house or tent or cave the next night – and he had tea with him. He had been shocked at how weak the sheikh had looked and he couldn’t help but wonder if he was still alive today, though he would never have said this aloud. He was with him for only an hour, but in that hour Sheikh Osama saw the depths of his belief, the fire of faith blazing in his soul. Osama told him what he must do next, then embraced him, and when Osama’s cheek touched his, he was surprised by how hot the man’s skin was. He could still feel that burning cheek next to his own. He would feel it for the rest of his life.

  Following the meeting with Sheikh Osama, he made his way out of Pakistan and made contact with another Saudi, a man not much older than himself, a man who might one day be the next Osama. This man provided money and passports and equipment and helped him cross borders. They hadn’t spoken face-to-face in three years, not since London, but this man, thousands of miles away, was still helping him. He was the one who had given him the name of the couple in Philadelphia that had hidden him for two months, and he was the one who would make sure the couple never talked about him.

  Ah, finally, there he was! The boy stood for a long time on the stoop of his building, as if he was reluctant to go wherever he was going. He was holding two or three books in his right hand. The papers had said the boy was fourteen but he looked younger, much younger. And he was small, maybe five-foot-two, less than a hundred pounds. But the boy’s size was irrelevant, as was his age. He had worked with martyrs who were as young as nine. All he hoped for was that the boy was ready. That his hatred had made him ready.

  14

  As DeMarco lay in bed he could hear the shower running – and the voice of a content woman singing in the shower.

  Could life possibly get any better than this?

  He’d been in Key West for five days, and for once his vacation had been exactly as advertised. The daytime temperature had been a balmy 80 degrees, the breezes had been mild, it hadn’t rained once, and the sea was as warm as tepid bath water. His second night in Key West he’d been sitting in a bar on Duval Street, looking out at the ocean. He’d had swordfish for dinner and the bartender had just cleared away his plate when a woman in her late thirties sat down one bar stool over from his.

  He had glanced at her and then, because she looked so good, he immediately did a ham actor’s double take. Oh, great, he’d thought, that was really suave. He sat there, staring down into his drink, desperately trying to think of something clever to say, something other than How do you like Key West? Isn’t the view great? Isn’t the weather wonderful? But his brain chose that moment to vapor-lock; he couldn’t produce even a passable, much less original, opening line. And then she said, ‘Hi, my name’s Ellie. Isn’t the weather wonderful here?’ It didn’t sound bad at all when she said it.

  Ellie Myers was cute and funny and bright. She had dark hair and bright blue eyes and a light-up-the-room smile that made little dimples in her cheeks. She also had legs that looked very good in shorts, though a bit on the pale side, as if she too resided somewhere far north of Florida. DeMarco soon found out that she was a teacher from Iowa, divorced, no kids, and, like DeMarco, had just decided to escape the grim midwestern winter to enjoy the sun. They wondered together if there was something wrong with them, going on vacation by themselves, and soon concluded that there wasn’t. They went to bed together that night and for the three nights that followed. And they still had one night left, thank you, Jesus.

  They had been snorkeling and had taken sunset walks on the beach. They had sat naked in a Jacuzzi, even though it had been too hot to do so. They drank too much and ate too much and made love – but not too much. And DeMarco never once thought about John Mahoney or Reza Zarif. He barely thought about his ex-wife and his asshole of a cousin.

  He did make one call to New York the day he arrived in Florida and found out that Danny’s case wouldn’t go to trial for six months. DeMarco wondered if Danny’s boss was hoping the witness would die during that time or lose her memory, or maybe he was thinking about forcing her to lose her memory. DeMarco wondered – but he didn’t care.

  Ellie came out of the bathroom. Her hair was uncombed – wet and tangled – but she was already dr
essed in shorts and a T-shirt that she’d bought in a tourist shop. They’d been living together for three days but she still didn’t feel comfortable dressing in front of him. The T-shirt had a grinning alligator and a pink palm tree on it, and there were glittery things on the palm tree’s fronds; it was okay to wear T-shirts like that when you were in Key West.

  She smiled at him and said good morning. He smiled back and said he’d already called room service, and coffee and croissants were on the way. She turned around to rummage in her purse for her comb, and DeMarco admired her backside and wondered if he could talk her into getting back into bed. He had concluded a long time ago that there should be some way to stop time and cause all relationships to stay forever at the four-day point.

  At that moment there was a knock on the door. Ellie opened it and took the tray from the room service guy and overtipped him because she was feeling so good. She placed the tray on the dresser and handed DeMarco his coffee. Then she glanced down at the paper that had been delivered with the coffee.

  ‘Oh, those bastards!’ she said when she saw the headline: TERRORIST SHOT ON D.C. SHUTTLE.

  Ellie went shopping, to buy Florida trinkets for her nephews and her sister and all the other poor souls she knew who were freezing back in Iowa. She asked DeMarco if he wanted to go with her but he’d begged off. He enjoyed shopping almost as much as having his teeth extracted. So instead of trailing behind Ellie, walking from store to store, bored out of his skull, he sat in a lounge chair and read the morning paper. It was the first time he’d looked at one since he’d been in Florida.