WASHINGTON, D.C.
F
EAR, anticipation, boredom, dread, excitement, and now an awe-inspiring elation. As the van crested a slight hill, Karim looked out across the vast expanse of lights, bridges, and monuments and felt his heart quiver. To his left he noted the large, square, white top of the Lincoln Memorial. Almost straight ahead was the dome of the Jefferson Memorial, with the Washington Monument jutting up behind it like the tip of a great sword. Farther to the right the massive Capitol sat atop a slight hill. The sheer scope and size of the building was the perfect example of American excess. Excess that had been obtained through hubris and arrogance and colonial subjugation.
Karim had experienced many emotions on his journey, especially boredom during the months of isolation in South America. It was his middle passage toward his ultimate destiny; the sacrifice great persons must make to steel themselves for the challenge that would make or break them. The boredom was gone. Now, looking out on the lights of his enemies’ capital, he thought it a trivial price. He wondered if this was how the great warriors of Islam felt as they gazed out on the campfires of their enemy the night before a great battle. The swelling of pride in his chest, the joy, and the knowledge that he was about to strike a mortal blow for Allah was all too much.
Karim let loose an emotional sigh. Why was he so fortunate? Why was he the one that Allah had chosen to strike this mighty blow? To take the once great and feared al-Qaeda and return them all to their proper place as the most powerful and influential group in all of Islam. Karim felt it as deeply as he ever had before. He was ready to take his place alongside Islam’s most legendary generals. This would be the beginning, the first of many cities where he would wreak havoc and spread fear and terror among the weak and godless Americans.
Everything that had come before would be a tedious preamble to how he had risen from obscurity, just as Mohammad had done, to motivate millions to fight for Islam. To once and for all banish the infidels and dirty Jews from the cradle of Islam and restore the caliphate. Restore peace and justice to their lands. Not this nonsense called democracy that the Americans were so proud of. This nonsense of government by the people of a godless country filled with nothing more than possessions and desires. They had been spoiled now for several generations and they were ripe for the taking. Karim could see it all before him as if Allah had given him the map. The Americans were in their last days of their little experiment and Karim was here to help accelerate their downfall.
The honor was almost too much to take. It rested on his shoulders to set the cause back on the proper course. Islam would once again take its rightful place on the world stage and they would cleanse their lands of the infidels. Karim’s eyes slowly filled with tears, and he covered his face lest any of the others see him in such a state.
As he was doing so, he heard Hakim ask him, “Are you all right?”
Hakim handed him one of the napkins that were left over from a fast-food stop. He wiped his eyes and blew his nose, while trying to assure Hakim that everything was fine. The two had spoken very little since they had left the park in Georgia. Karim could not understand why his friend was so upset over the death of their driver. Hundreds of thousands had already died in this most recent holy war. No one man was more important than the mission. What was one more martyr?
“It is time to make the call,” Hakim said as he checked his side mirror and changed lanes.
Karim looked at the clock on the dashboard. The green numbers read 10:27. They’d been on the road for nearly seventeen hours, most of it on Interstate 95. Like so much of the rest of the last year, their journey would be marked by another leap of faith into unfamiliar territory. Karim retrieved the phone from the center console and held it in his right hand atop the steering wheel. After finding the red power button on the unfamiliar phone he went to press it and then hesitated. Most people looked at a mobile phone and never thought anything beyond the convenience of what it offered them. Not those who had fought against the Americans in Afghanistan and Iraq, though. They looked at the phones as a game of Russian roulette. Every time you turned one on you were tempting the hands of fate. Zawahiri and bin Laden had not used a mobile phone in years and the rest of the al-Qaeda and Taliban leadership used them only sparingly. Dozens had been killed or captured after making calls. One minute they would be standing there talking, and the next thing you knew, a missile would come streaking through the air and blow them to bits.
“Go ahead,” Hakim said as if he didn’t care. “Remember… you’re a needle in a haystack.”
They had talked about this incessantly. In the mountainous border area between Afghanistan and Pakistan there were fewer than a million people spread over thousands of square miles. Very few had mobile phones, and there was extremely limited coverage for digital and analog phones. The only type of phone that worked with any real consistency was a satellite phone and that made things even more dangerous. Satellite phones were extremely expensive and rare, and they worked by using orbiting satellites that were owned almost entirely by Western telecommunications companies, and that was only the half of it. The United States Government was rumored to have one of their billion-dollar KH-12 spy satellites in geosynchronous orbit above the region as well as a myriad of unmanned aerial vehicles and spy planes. They were all understandably gun-shy about using the devices, but here in America nearly everyone had a cell phone and the American government was not allowed to listen in on the calls without permission from the courts.
Karim closed his eyes and pressed the button. Ten seconds later the tiny screen was showing that everything was working as expected. He took a look around, and began punching in the number from memory. His hands were clammy as he held the phone to his ear and listened to the strange-sounding ring.
“Hello,” a voice answered with just a hint of an accent.
“Joe,” Karim said in a voice that cracked, “It’s Chuck. How are you?”
There was an abnormal pause and then the male voice said, “Fine, Chuck. Are you in town?”
“Yes.”
“Are you going to stop by and see me?”
“Yes.”
“When will you be here?”
Karim covered the phone and asked, “How long until we are there?”
“Twenty minutes.”
Karim relayed the number and then said good-bye. “He sounded nervous,” he said to Hakim.
“Normal.” Hakim shrugged as if he couldn’t care less.
“How long are you going to stay mad at me?” Karim asked.
“I don’t know. How many more innocent people are you going to butcher?”
The question was not entirely unexpected, but it stung nonetheless. “War is not without casualties.”
“When you are involved, that’s for certain.”
“You would rather I place the outcome of this entire operation in the hands of a twenty-three-year-old boy who owes me no loyalty?”
“Back to your tribal mentality again.”
“My tribal mentality is what has gotten us this far.”
“No.” Hakim shook his head stubbornly. “I have gotten you this far… me and a twenty-three-year-old boy who you rewarded by putting a bullet in the back of his head.”
Karim did not want to fight. Not now. He wanted to take in this great moment as they passed through the heart of America’s capital. “What is it you want me to do?”
“I want you to start consulting me, before you act so recklessly. I have spent a great deal of time in this country. I understand their culture. I understand what goes unnoticed and what gets noticed. Despite all of the tapes you have had the men watch, despite all the language lessons, they still sound stilted. They act nervous, which will make Americans nervous, which will get you noticed.”
Karim did not like the criticism. “And what does this have to do with me killing your friend?”
Hakim heard the cynicism in Karim’s voice and answered sharply. “It has everything to do with it. He was an ally and an asset. He could get directions, or food, or pretty much anything else without attracting suspicion. All of you” – he waved his hand toward the back of the van – “and your tightly wound demeanor and attitudes scream trouble. I haven’t seen a single one of you smile once. Not once all day long. Despite what you think, people in this country are happy. They smile, and when men with dark skin and black hair walk around like robots with frowns on their faces, it makes them very nervous.”
Karim was more than reluctant to agree with his friend, and even if he did, he would never show such a sign of weakness in front of his men. In a quiet and firm voice he said, “We will continue this later.”
“I’m sure we will,” Hakim said under his breath. As the road curved around to the left, a massive well-lit complex came into view. Hakim pointed at it and said, “There is the Pentagon. You will notice not a single sign of the attacks on nine-eleven. Within a year, the entire site was cleaned up and repaired. These Americans,” he said as he glanced over at his small-minded friend, “are not all the lazy godless people you have made them out to be.”
“We will see,” Karim said confidently. “We will see.”
ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA
M
AGGIE put Charlie to sleep at 8:00 and then got to work on Jack. The ten-year-old employed a series of delay tactics and dragged his feet more than usual. Maggie finally realized he was stalling so he could see his father before he fell asleep. Nash was gone picking up the two oldest ones from after-school activities. Jack seemed to take his father’s coming and going harder than the others. Maggie knew she needed to sit down and talk to her husband about it, but she wasn’t sure about putting any additional stress on him right now.
Maggie told Jack to get under the covers and that she’d be back in a few minutes. She went into her bedroom, stripped off her work clothes, and threw on a pair of pajamas. After brushing her teeth, she came back into Jack’s room and told him to scoot over. Jack and Rory shared a room. Each had a twin bed with a single nightstand in between. Maggie nestled under the blankets with him and put her arm around his bony little shoulders. She kissed him on the forehead and ran her fingers through his bristly hair.
“Is everything all right, honey?”
“Yeah… why do you ask?”
“Because that’s what mothers do. We ask, and we care, and we worry, and we get deep wrinkles on our faces, and you kids suck all the life out of us and turn us into old prunes.”
Jack looked back at his mother with worried eyes and said, “I think you’re beautiful, Mom.”
Maggie kissed him on the forehead again and gave him a big hug. She knew she had only a year or two more at the most before she lost him. It would happen one day without warning, just as it had with Rory. She still had the bond with Shannon, but these damn boys were too much like their father. Jack would stop holding her hand and telling her she was beautiful, and then they’d start butting heads.
“You’re a sweet boy, Jack.”
Jack was about to ask her a question, when the doorbell interrupted him. Maggie looked at the bedside clock. It was almost 9:00. She told Jack to stay put, and she went downstairs to see who it was. When she peeked through the sidelight next to the front door, she saw Todd De Graff, whose son went to school with Rory.
Maggie unlocked and opened the door. The word
hello
got stuck in her mouth as she looked at a bloodied and battered Derek De Graff. Finally she managed to say, “Oh my God… what happened?”
“Your son is what happened.”
Maggie’s eyes moved from the son to the father. “Excuse me.”
“I don’t stutter, Maggie. Your son Rory beat him up after school.”
“But…” Maggie stammered, “you and Rory are friends. Why would he do something like this?”
“That’s a good question. I’d like to ask him.” De Graff looked over each of Maggie’s shoulders in search of her son.
“He’s not home yet. Why would he do such a thing?”
“Supposedly they were screwing around, then Rory went nuts for no reason.”
Maggie thought about the way he’d been acting up lately. It was entirely possible. He had way too much of his father in him. “I am so sorry. I can assure you I will deal with this the second he gets home.” Maggie shook her head and added, “That boy is going to be in serious trouble.”
“I’m not spending twenty-eight thousand dollars a year so my kid can get bullied and beat up.”
“Todd, I promise you Rory will be punished severely, and as soon as he gets home I will bring him over and he will apologize in person for this.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” De Graff shook his head. “Kristy is really upset about this. I had to talk her out of calling the police.”
Maggie was suddenly gripped by a new set of problems. Her little Jarhead in the making was going to end up with a juvenile record, and if that happened he could kiss an Ivy League education good-bye. And then she thought of Kristy Hillcrest De Graff, quite possibly the most gossipy, stuck-up mother amongst a group of women who were not the least bit embarrassed to behave like they were still in high school. Maggie felt her Irish temper coming on. She apologized to both father and son one more time and said she’d call them after she was done chewing Rory’s ass out.
After closing the door, Maggie went to the kitchen and headed straight for the wine fridge. She retrieved a bottle of Toasted Head Chardonnay and wrestled with the cork. Jack appeared in the doorway, looking concerned.
Maggie looked up and said, “Back to bed, young man. You do not want to be down here when your brother gets home.”
She opened the cupboard, her right hand reaching for a small Chardonnay glass and then skipping over it. A situation like this called for a big burgundy glass. After pouring nearly a third of the bottle into the glass, she took a massive drink and then leaned against the marble counter. Her mind raced off in three different directions almost simultaneously. How would her husband react to the news, how many women had Kristy Hillcrest De Graff already called, and what punishment was she going to give her thirteen-year-old monster?
She was nearly finished with the glass when she heard them pull into the garage. She waited for them in the kitchen, her anger slowly building. Shannon entered the kitchen first; she was on her cell phone, so she didn’t notice the brooding look on her mother’s face. Next came Rory, with his father close behind.
Nash entered the kitchen, took one look at his wife, and thought,
Holy shit, what did I do now?
Instead he said, “What’s wrong?”
“Well… Derek and his father just stopped by.” Her eyes shifted to her son. “Would you like to tell me why he has a black eye?”
Rory shifted nervously and then stammered for a second before spitting out, “He said something that wasn’t right… and I told him to stop, but he…”
“Do you have any idea,” Maggie screamed, “that you can be kicked out of school!”
“But, Mom, he…”
“I don’t care what he did!”
“But he…”
“Did you hear me?” she screamed. “Nothing that he could have said would justify what you did to him. Do you know how much we pay to send you to Sidwell?”
Rory was shaking. “I don’t care!” he yelled. “I don’t even like it there!”
“Don’t you dare raise your voice at me, young man! Go to your room right now!” She pointed toward the hallway. “Your father and I will discuss your punishment, but I’ll tell you right now, I’m in favor of pulling you off the lacrosse team.”
Rory ripped himself free from his father and ran down the hallway. “I hate you!”
Maggie yelled after him, “That’s really going to help your case, young man!” She turned to her husband and said, “Can you believe this?” She snatched the bottle of wine from the counter and poured herself another third. “I have no idea how we are going to deal with this.”
Nash wondered for a brief second who in the hell this woman was, standing in his kitchen. “Woman… what in the hell is wrong with you?”
“Me?” She pointed at herself. “Maybe you haven’t been paying attention, Michael, but that school costs twenty-eight thousand dollars a year and they have a zero tolerance on fighting. He’s going to get kicked out.”
“Don’t you think we should hear his side of the story before we get all worked up?”
“I don’t need to hear his side. Zero tolerance. That’s the policy. We’re screwed. He’s going to get expelled, and then good luck trying to get him into Harvard.”
“Oh, that’s what this is about.”
“Don’t go there with me. This is your fault. I should have never let you give him boxing lessons. It’s bad enough that he has that same aggressive gene you and your brothers have.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Remember… remember the bar you and your brothers tore apart? If it wasn’t for the fact that that cop was a Marine and you were on leave you’d have a record right now.”
“What I remember is you were jealous because I was talking to some girl, so you decided to do blow job shots on the bar, and if you hadn’t been sticking your pretty little ass in that guy’s face, he would have never grabbed it, and Sean would have never had to knock him out.”
Maggie pointed at herself. “That was not my fault, and this is not my fault. This comes from your side of the family. You brother Patrick just beat up some guy in Atlantic City last month and he’s thirty-five years old.”
“The guy had it coming.”
“Oh… I’m sure he did. You and your brothers… any excuse to fight, and now it’s been passed down to our son.” Maggie looked up at the ceiling and moaned. “I can’t believe this is happening. He’s going to get kicked out of the best prep school in Washington. Do you have any idea how many strings my father had to pull?”
Nash had heard enough. He’d never liked the idea of sending Rory to the effete prep school, but he wasn’t around enough to really fight it. “You know what, Maggie, it doesn’t matter how much money your dad made, and it doesn’t matter how much you make, they’re never going to let you into their little club. No matter how you slice it, you’re an Irish Catholic girl from Boston.”
“What in the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“You tell me. I’m proud of where I came from. I’m not so sure you feel the same.”
“Don’t you ever!” she screamed, and held her glass up like she might throw it at him.
Nash waved her off and walked out of the kitchen, saying, “Look who’s the one with the temper now.”
“We are not done talking about this!” she yelled after him.
“Yes, we are.”
Nash grabbed the railing and climbed the stairs. He knocked softly on the boys’ door and then entered. Rory was on his stomach, his face stuffed into a pillow, sobbing. Jack was sitting in his bed reading, a frightened look on his face. Nash walked over and pulled back Jack’s blankets.
“Go read in Mamma’s bed. I’ll come get you when I’m done.”
“Is everything all right?” Jack whispered.
“Everything will be fine, buddy.” Nash nudged him out the door and then closed it. He walked back to Rory’s bed and sat on the edge. He put his hand on Rory’s back and said, “Ror, I want you to try and calm down and then I want to hear your side of the story.”
Between sobs, he managed to spit out, “What does it matter… Mom doesn’t care.”
“I care… so stop crying and turn over.” Nash rubbed his back and added, “Son, I was in plenty of fights when I was your age. My dad used to say it takes two to tangle. Your mother doesn’t understand that because she’s a woman, but I do. You’re a good kid. I doubt you just hauled off and smacked Derek for no reason.” Under his breath he added, “Especially since he’s a spoiled little shit.”
Rory flipped over and composed himself enough to start the story. He said, “We were done with lacrosse… and were waiting for play practice to start… which I hate… and Mom made me sign up for.”
Mentioning his mother elicited another deluge of tears. “Calm down,” Nash told him.
“Derek was waiting to get picked up and he started talking about Shannon. He started to say… things.”
Nash’s antennae went up. “Like what?”
“He talked about how hot she was… and that he wanted to have… you know… he wanted to have sex with her… except he didn’t use that word. He used that word that we’re not supposed to use.”
Nash felt his own anger grabbing hold. “Which word?”
“The F word.”
Motherfucking little shit,
Nash thought to himself. “Is that all?”
“I told him not to say it again or I was going to hit him… and then he started talking about Mom.”
“Really.” Nash said, surprised. “What did he say?”
Rory squirmed. “I’d rather not say.”
“I’d rather you did,” Nash said in a very firm paternal voice.
“He said… Mom was a…” Rory stopped.
“What?”
“He called her a MILF.”
“He called her a MILF,” Nash said in near disbelief as he thought of the acronym that stood for Mom I’d Like to Fuck. “What else did he say?”
“He said he wanted to do the same thing to Mom as he said he wanted to do to Shannon.”
“And then you hit him.”
Rory nodded.
“Good.”
“So I’m not in trouble?” asked a hopeful Rory.
“Not from me and not from anyone else, if I have anything to say about it.” Nash bent forward and kissed him on the forehead. “Let me have a word with your mother and then I’ll call you down.”
Nash stood and walked to the door. He stopped and turned back to his son and said, “Rory, do you like going to Sidwell?”
His son shook his head and the tears began to well up once again in his eyes. Nash felt like an absolute jerk for not being there for his son. For not putting his foot down and telling his wife the way it was going to be. His job was sucking the life out of him, and his family was suffering for it. Nash decided, at that moment, he was going to do Rory right and set things straight.