Random Acts

by Franklin Horton

  “What?” Cole muttered.

  “There was a Random Acts of Kindness flash mob set to take place in downtown Charlotte less than one hour ago. We pieced this together overnight from the electronics we found. We were able to put teams at the proposed location of the flash mob and intercept the terrorists before any explosives were distributed.”

  “That’s incredible,” Amanda said.

  “Excuse my language but no shit!” SAC Greenfield said with exuberance. “This is a major accomplishment.”

  Amanda laughed and that brought a smile to the agent’s face.

  “Not many people outside of this building and the White House know about it yet, but it will be all over the news by tonight. I just wanted to give you a heads-up since you paid a price in making this happen. I speak for everyone in this room when I say we’re proud of the way you conducted yourself and we’re pleased to see you going home safe.”

  Amanda teared up and her father leaned over to put an arm around her. He was tearing up too.

  “Allergies,” he said, pointing at his eyes.

  Greenfield nodded in understanding.

  “So, young lady, if you don’t mind, I need you to start at the very beginning and tell us everything that happened. We may ask a few questions along the way. We’re also going to be recording this if that’s okay with you and your dad. If you need a break at any time, just speak up and say so.”

  For several hours, that was exactly what they did. Amanda explained what little she knew about Victor Hesse. She described her experience and the things he said. She answered their questions to the best of her ability and when it was over, she walked out into a warm summer evening.

  “Let’s go home, Dad. I’m exhausted.”

  Cole took her hand and smiled. Just hearing her call it home warmed his heart.

  “You got it, sweetie.”

  59

  Mohammed knew of nowhere else to go but the last safe house he’d stayed at with Khebat and Nasr. When he showed up, the man who’d picked him up at the dock with Nasr asked no questions about the missing men, nor did Mohammed offer any information. He needed time to think and figure out his next step. His host provided food and drink, then left Mohammed alone in the apartment.

  Mohammed immediately fell into an exhausted asleep on the couch. He was awakened near midday by his host.

  “There are men downstairs waiting on you,” the man said.

  Mohammed had been in deep sleep. His head was foggy and he wasn’t thinking clearly. He checked his phone and found several missed notifications.

  He’d missed the event but Miran had said his participation was not needed. It should have gone on without him. Everything was in place.

  “The men are waiting,” his host repeated. “These are not men who like to wait.”

  Mohammed understood exactly what type of men the host was referring to. It must be men like those he’d dealt with in Frankfurt. He stood and gathered his belongings, then left the apartment. At the bottom of the steps he saw a black van. When he reached it, he knocked on the side and the door slid open.

  Hands flew out and grabbed Mohammed, yanking him violently inside. He dropped his bags as he was shoved to the floor and punched in the head. He started to yell in protest but a dirty rag was shoved inside his mouth, then covered with duct tape. One of the men leapt from the van and tossed in Mohammed’s bags, then climbed back in, shutting the door behind him.

  More tape was wrapped around Mohammed’s hands and eyes. He wanted to beg, wanted to ask questions, but could not speak. A man sat atop him, assuring he could not move while the men finished securing him. The weight impeded Mohammed’s breathing but he could not request mercy.

  The van cruised at the speed limit but Mohammed did not know for how long. In his uncomfortable posture, with his impeded breathing, time dragged on. Each second felt like minutes. They took several turns before easing onto a red clay road.

  They approached an abandoned mobile home deep in the woods of northern Alabama. The engine was turned off and Mohammed’s heart pounded. It was likely he would soon find what fate awaited him. The door to the van slid open and someone grabbed Mohammed by the ankles. He was yanked out the door, falling onto his face. He contorted in pain but was unable to do anything.

  Two men latched onto his ankles and dragged him up the steps into the mobile home. He arched his back and rocked from side to side, trying to keep his face from rebounding off each step. He was only halfway successful. By the time he was dropped onto the damp, moldy carpet, he was certain his nose was broken. He’d lost two front teeth and the ragged shards were trapped in his mouth by the tape, slicing at his tongue.

  A fingernail picked at a corner of the tape covering his eyes and it was yanked free. Mohammed blinked as his eyes tried to adjust to the light pouring in through the smeared yellow windows. Then his eyes locked onto Miran’s smiling face.

  “We meet again,” Miran hissed.

  Mohammed’s eyes went wide and he tried in vain to scream. To beg.

  Then his eyes focused beyond Miran, to the items set up on the peeling kitchen counter: a propane deep fryer, a kettle, and a metal funnel with a flexible nozzle.

  Mohammed’s wail was only perceptible as a deep vibration emanating from his chest. Miran drew the wicked curved blade from his belt and reached toward the bound man. With a flick of the blade, he cut off an earlobe.

  Mohammed tried again to scream, but the sound went nowhere. His eyes filled with pain, with tears, and his face reddened.

  Miran dropped the severed earlobe in the oil and the sizzle filled the air. Miran smiled. “It’s ready.” He raised his eyes to Mohammed. “There is always a price for failure, my brother. Today that debt falls on your shoulders.” Miran cast a quick glance back and gestured at the funnel. “Well, perhaps not on your shoulders exactly.”

  60

  Amanda and Cole both took a couple of days off work. She was anxious to get back to work, though she understood she might not make it back on her bike that summer. She concentrated on healing and processing what she’d been through. Cole concentrated on helping Amanda do those things. While their relationship was still complicated, it felt different.

  They spent evenings on the porch, Amanda sipping a Sun Drop and Cole sipping a beer, the two of them pondering the elusive and fleeting beauty of the sunset. The undertones of the mountain days gave way to the multi-layered complexity of night, with its sounds and smells embedded in the gray-green landscape. Amanda felt truly at home now, reconnecting with the child inside her, the mountain child who had grown up in this place.

  “Some people have to go off into the world and find themselves,” Cole said one evening. “I was never one of those people. I knew when I was a child there was just a handful of things I wanted from this world.”

  Amanda wasn’t sure what had brought on this moment of self-disclosure but she wanted to encourage it. They were on the cusp of broaching whatever stood between them. “What did you want?”

  “I wanted to build houses and I wanted to have a family.”

  “Really?” Amanda asked.

  Cole nodded.

  “So you were my age and already knew what you wanted out of life?”

  “I did. I was the practical sort, even then.”

  “That’s hard for me to imagine,” Amanda said. “I have no idea what I want to do with my life.”

  “There’s no hurry. Some people never figure it out. I just always knew what I wanted. When your mother and I fell in love in high school, it seemed like part of my plan was coming together. We got married the summer after graduation.” Cole paused and took a sip of his beer.

  “Was that Mom’s plan too?”

  “She didn’t have a plan then. Getting married was fine with her because it wasn’t like she had anything else going on. I guess in my head I’d never considered I needed to find someone whose plans paralleled with mine. I thought I just needed to find someone else willing to be a part of mine. I to
ok your mother’s indifference as an unspoken agreement."

  “But something changed?”

  Cole shrugged, traced the edges of his beer label with a damp finger. “Your mom wanted to hold off on having kids until she finished college. Then she got a good job and wanted to hold off until she advanced in her career.”

  “Was I an accident?” Amanda asked.

  “No,” Cole said adamantly. “Your mother was too controlling to allow any accidents to happen. We discussed it and agreed it was time to start a family. The problems came later. She claimed the time she lost from the pregnancy and from mom duties stalled her career.”

  “She resented me?”

  Cole shook his head. “No, she resented me for wanting a child so badly. Then, when I wanted a second child, she refused. She had this big plan. She had her business degree, she was working in the loan department of a bank, and she wanted to get her realtor’s license. She wanted us to go into business together, me building houses, her selling them.”

  “You didn’t want that?”

  “No,” Cole said. “I wanted a family and to work outside. I didn’t want to run a business from an office. I wanted a simple life and she had bigger aspirations. We grew apart from there, in completely opposite directions. The more outgoing she aspired to be, the more introverted I became.”

  “I know she and Fox were having an affair,” Amanda blurted. There, she’d said it. She’d never told her father she’d discovered that bit of information.

  Cole sighed heavily and took a long pull from his Modelo. “I didn’t want to throw that out there. I didn’t want to make you think badly of her.”

  “She was responsible for her own actions, Dad. Not you.”

  “She started travelling a lot. She went to a lot of conferences and meetings out of town. She kept in touch with the people she met through social media. She was on there every night, chatting long after I went to bed. It led to job offers she wanted to take but I didn’t want to move. That led to more friction between us.”

  “What did you do?”

  “What could I do?” Cole asked. “She was a grown-up. I didn’t have any authority over her. And maybe I’d already given up on her.”

  “Did you know she was having an affair?”

  “Not until she told me she was leaving. Then I confronted her and she admitted it. I guess I had my head buried. It’s probably hard for you to understand but it’s devastating when the life you’ve always imagined doesn’t turn out like you expected. It’s hard to face. I felt like a failure. Like the rug had been pulled out from under me.”

  Amanda had never heard her father so vulnerable. So open. There was one last thing she had to know. “Why did you let her take me?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  “I need to understand it. That part doesn’t make sense to me. If a family was all you ever wanted, how could you just let it go? How could you let me go?”

  Cole could hear the desperation in her voice, knowing she needed to understand for things to be right between them. Just hearing her put those feelings into words made his heart ache. It had to go back to things her mother had told her, the lies about him not wanting a child. She needed reassurance. She needed to know he loved her.

  “If you’ve only had one dream it’s hard to watch it fall apart. I guess I wasn’t as sophisticated as your mother. I didn’t know a lot about the legal system. I didn’t realize I could have tried to block her from taking you out of state. She told me she had a lot of money saved up and the man she’d been seeing had a lot of money too. She said they would bankrupt me if I tried to fight them. Then she laid a bunch of crap on me about how you would be better off with her. I fell for it. I kind of retreated back into my shell and I stayed there.”

  Amanda thought for a long time before responding. “I’m not sure I was better off with her. I kind of feel like I missed a lot of life back here. A lot of good life.”

  “I know I did,” Cole admitted. “I missed you every day. Things never felt right but I didn’t know how to fix them. I was miserable. I lived for your visits. The rest of the time I just buried myself in work.”

  “I’m sorry for what you went through, Dad.”

  Tears ran down Cole’s face at his daughter’s words. “I’m sorry for what you went through too, sweetie.” He got up from his chair and went to his daughter, delicately hugging her battered body.

  “Let’s start over, Dad. Let’s pretend I never left.”

  “Will you drink tap water and Maxwell House?” Cole asked, his voice cracking.

  “Don’t push your luck,” Amanda said, holding her father and smelling the fragrances that were a part of him. Sawdust. Pine trees. The warm mulch of the forests.

  He smelled like home.

  About the Author

  Franklin Horton lives and writes in the mountains of Southwestern Virginia. He is the author of the bestselling post-apocalyptic series The Borrowed World and Locker Nine. You can follow him on his website at franklinhorton.com

  Also by Franklin Horton

  The Borrowed World

  Ashes of the Unspeakable

  Legion of Despair

  No Time For Mourning

  Valley of Vengeance

  Locker Nine

  Grace Under Fire

  A Sample of The Borrowed World

  Please Enjoy This Sample From

  * * *

  THE BORROWED WORLD

  By

  Franklin Horton

  Bonus Content

  Imran ul-Haq was eating a late dinner and watching The History Channel. The veal he was eating was exquisitely tender and perfectly seasoned, practically melting in his mouth. It was one of his favorite meals and The History Channel was one of his favorite channels. The show he was watching was on the disintegration of America’s infrastructure. Imran, a plastic surgeon of Syrian descent now residing in Arlington, Virginia, found the show to be both amusing and fascinating. During the hour-long program he learned about America’s weakened bridges, failing dams, problems with the electrical grid, and the fragility of America’s water supply. When the show ended he was struck with an idea that he felt had practically been thrust into his hands. He smiled.

  At the end of the program, there was an advertisement which told viewers how to order a DVD of the show. Imran made a note of the website and planned on ordering five copies that very evening. Four of the copies he would send overseas with no explanation necessary. When the recipients viewed the DVDs they would see them through the same lens as Imran did. A deadly flower would grow and blossom.

  The surgeon recalled the attacks on America of September 11th. He envisioned a broader attack -- more men, perhaps permanent devastation, yet somehow less dramatic. Something more visceral and less flashy. Something overall less complicated, because the Americans had done half the work already in allowing vital parts of their nation to weaken to the point that much devastation could be accomplished with very little work. With a few skilled men and a few well-placed munitions, this country could be toppled like a child’s stack of building blocks. Imran was certain of it. The producers of the show had practically laid it out for him.

  This was obviously not work for plastic surgeons, though. Such complex orchestrations would have to be the work of a man with the right connections and significant funding. Such a man could call upon cells of the faithful hiding in plain sight in North America and call them into action. A man on the fringes of a movement such as ISIS would be perfect. A man like his brother.

  Imran went to his expensive custom-made walnut bookcase, opened a glass door, and retrieved a mundane text on Islamic history. In Iraq, the same text sat in his brother’s living room on a humbler and likely dustier shelf. Imran sat down at his computer and went to a generic webmail account that he used to communicate with his brother. He began to type a series of numbers.

  “3-18, 28-98, 9-32 . . .”

  It was a simple system. The numbers instructed his brother as to what page
number to go to in the book and which word to retrieve from that page. When all of the words were retrieved from the book and written out in order they spelled out a message. This was referred to as a “book code” and it was nearly impossible to break unless you happened to have the same copy, same edition, same printing of the book that the sender and receiver were using.

  When Imran completed his email, he clicked the send button. Before rising from his desk, he ordered the copies of the show he had just seen on the History Channel.

  His housekeeper had left him a nice chocolate cake for dessert. He placed a modest slice on a china plate and sat back down in front of the television. A show about lumberjacks was on now and he was particularly fond of it, although they certainly used a lot of profane, heathen language. American television may one day be remembered as its finest achievement, he mused.

  Almost six months had passed since Imran had mailed his brother the DVDs, and he only now was hearing back from him. When he did, it was in the form of another encrypted book code email advising him of a special family celebration taking place in Syria that he should return home for. Imran knew that this message meant that the seed he planted had grown into something significant -- something that he hoped was very special indeed. As he had no family to be concerned about, he had his office manager clear his schedule for a month’s vacation and began to pack. He hired a service to box the contents of his home and pack them in a shipping container bound for Syria. Due to trade imbalances, there was very little freight leaving U.S. ports these days. Shipping all of his belongings home only cost him six hundred American dollars. With his surgical skills he could start a new life, perhaps in Dubai, a place he’d long wanted to visit. He had savings sufficient to make that happen.