by Mike Brogan
“How?”
“I’d tell him.”
Waazi cursed and looked out the window, pointed at something and mumbled a curse.
“Now, what’s your problem?”
“Trees.”
“Why?”
“America has too many. Yemen so few.”
THIRTY ONE
Nell sat in the cabin living room watching Aarif rip meat off his kebob. He washed it down with red wine, forgetting the Koran commandment forbidding alcohol.
He also forgot the commandment forbidding murder. Like the thousands of innocent Americans he would soon help Hasham kill.
But to Aarif we are not innocent. We are infidels!
In his mind and Hasham’s, we are guilty because we exist. Like Jews were guilty for existing in Hitler’s malignant evil.
She watched a morsel of meat fall onto Aarif’s beard. His tongue shot out and flicked it back in like a lizard. He strutted into the living room, sat down opposite her and started smoking his hashish pipe. She watched his facial muscles relax and his eyes soften as the cannabis and wine took hold.
Was he relaxing to kill her? She didn’t think so. Psychopaths like him didn’t need to relax to kill. The killing relaxed them.
She had to get him talking, build some kind of bond with him and gain time to avoid what he planned to do to her.
“You’re Muslim, right?”
He looked offended that she might think otherwise.
“Of course!”
“But you’re drinking alcohol.”
He blinked like the Imam caught him boozing in the mosque.
“Do you know why I drink?”
“No?”
He took a defiant gulp of wine. “I drink so I can blend in, walk among you infidels unnoticed.”
Anyone with nasal passages will notice you.
He walked over toward her. “I like wine now. I also like other western things.”
“Really? Like what?” Keep him talking . . .
He paused as though considering whether he should answer her. After all, he didn’t have to answer her since he considered her a mere woman with all the status of a floor mat.
Keep asking questions, she told herself, praise his answers, admire his English, keep him talking.
“Really I’d like to know. Name something you like here in America?”
His thick wine-red lips curled in a sneer.
“Some television shows.”
“Really?”
He nodded and chugged more wine.
“Like Arab-entertainment programs? Egyptian soap operas?”
“A few.”
“But what about American TV shows? Name just one you like?”
He paused. “Smackdown Wrestling.”
Nell remembered reading how many Middle Easterners loved watching American pro wrestling. Arab women in particular enjoyed watching muscular men toss their firm butts around the ring.
“You like watching men wrestle?”
“No - not men!” He frowned like she’d cast aspersions on his manliness.
“Who do you watch?”
“Women!”
Another Muslim no-no: watching bikini-clad women flip their bodies around the ring.
“Is it professional?”
“Very professional.”
“Which channel?”
“The Fight Network.”
“Who’s your favorite wrestler?”
“Kitty Kelly. Strong. Tough.”
“Is she pretty?”
“Very pretty . . . blonde hair . . . sexy.”
His grin revealed green khat stuck between his remaining teeth. Then, slowly, his gaze slid down to her breasts.
“Sexy like you!” His beady eyes slid open.
She stopped breathing. Her plan to get him talking just backfired. He was looking at her as a woman.
He grabbed the wine bottle and poured her a glass. “Here – you drink now. Make you feel good.”
“No thanks.”
He leaned close to her. “Drink NOW!”
To slow him, she took the glass and sipped some.
“Good, huh. . .?”
“Ummm . . .”
He gulped down the rest of his wine, belched, then gazed at her body again.
“More wine you drink!”
She said nothing.
“DRINK!”
She saw it in his eyes.
Aarif would rape her, then kill her.
THIRTY TWO
Towering evergreens, red spruces and sugar maples. That’s all Donovan had seen for the last few miles. Now they drove past chalk-white birch trees thick enough to hide the White House.
He saw nowhere for trucks to pick up or drop off anything. No cabins, huts, garages, barns, storage bins . . . and no white van. Just this narrow dirt road crowded by tall trees. He felt like he was driving through a shag carpet. Only one kind of vehicles made sense here: logging trucks.
Agent Manning called in.
“Any more sniper activity?” Manning asked.
“No. But what about the three white vans you’re tracking?”
“In van one, the man was eighty-six, van two, the woman was a ponytailed man. Van three was Meals on Wheels. We’re driving toward you. Where exactly are you now?”
“Somewhere on a dirt road off Tolmantown where both a delivery truck and a white van were seen heading toward a cabin at the end. This white van feels solid, Drew!”
“Good. Just leave your phone on. Our techies will lock onto your location.”
“Will do.”
Donovan drove around a curve as two fawns shot across the path and vanished into a thicket.
A minute later, he stopped at a fork in the trail. The fork didn’t show up on the GPS map. He studied the two branches. Similar in width. Both had car and truck tread marks.
Which one?
He decided on the left trail and drove off. The car compass direction said northwest.
Several minutes later, the trail seemed to narrow a bit. Then, a half-mile farther, the trail narrowed more. Something felt wrong.
Did he take the wrong trail?
THIRTY THREE
“Drink more wine . . .” Aarif said, raising Nell’s glass toward her mouth. “Wine good for you.”
She eased the glass up to her lips and swallowed some. The alcohol hit her hard, thanks to not eating breakfast.
Suddenly, Aarif grabbed her arm, and pulled her toward a nearby sofa and started to pin her down, rape in his eyes!
“Stop! The Koran teaches a man must respect women!”
“No! Koran say woman must obey to the man!”
“Her husband! Not all men!” she said.
Aarif clearly didn’t like an infidel lecturing him on Islam. He chugged his wine, then grabbed her blouse, ripped a top button off, and slid his greasy fingers over her face and neck.
She had to reach the bathroom!
He reached toward her again.
“Wait - I’m going to be sick! The wine . . .!” She jackknifed forward, fake-vomiting toward him.
He leaned back fast.
“The bathroom. I must use it now . . .” She placed her hand over her mouth, leaned forward, and fake-vomited toward him again, and almost did vomit.
He jerked back.
“The wine makes me sick. I need the bathroom . . . before you and I do . . .”
“Before we do what?”
“You know, before we do what you want to do . . .”
He arched his eyebrows, looking excited that she might actually accept his advances.
“Bathroom window nailed shut. Wire over window. No escape!”
“I know. I know . . .”
Aarif stared at her, still deciding.
She coughed again.
He nodded for her to go ahead.
Nell hurried into the hall, turned the corner, stepped into the bathroom and locked the door. She had seconds. He would listen for her trying to open the nailed window. She wouldn’t even try.
/>
She hacked hard a few times, turned the faucet on full blast, flushed the toilet, then picked up the toilet tank cover and set it on the sink. She snapped on her lab gloves, reached into the tank and took out the small sealed eyedropper bottle. It contained the remaining milliliters of VX that Hasham had used to kill the homeless man in the lab. After, Hasham set down the bottle, assuming it was empty, and answered the phone. He grew enraged at the caller. When he turned his back to her, she grabbed the bottle and minutes later, still angry, he hung up and took her upstairs, forgetting the bottle.
“You come out now!” Aarif pounded on the bathroom door. A thin door he could easily kick open.
“Still sick. Just a minute, please!”
She flushed the toilet again – and grabbed an Inspire jihadist magazine from a nearby rack and flipped it to an article on the American president. She unscrewed the eyedropper bottle top and placed the remaining drops of liquid VX on the outer edges of the pages. She fanned the magazine pages until they were a bit dryer.
He pounded the door again, rattling its hinges.
“You come out now!”
“Okay, okay I’m coming.”
She flushed the toilet, threw her gloves away, placed the eyedropper bottle back in the toilet tank and replaced the tank cover.
“I said NOW!”
He kicked the door open . . .
She walked out holding the Inspire magazine, very careful not to touch where she’d placed the VX.
Aarif saw her holding Inspire and he looked confused.
“What - you read Arabic?” he asked.
“No. But I really wanted to know what this article says about our President? Your English is so good. Could you please translate a little?”
He stared back. “Why?”
“Because I think you’re right!”
“Right about what?”
“That we Americans need to understand Islam better.”
He frowned like it wouldn’t matter in her case.
“You speak with so little accent. You have a gift for languages, you know!”
He shrugged, but the compliment seemed to puff him up a bit.
She felt justified with what she planned to do. The man was going to rape and then kill her, as ordered by Hasham. Then he would “Bury her in forest.” This magazine was her only self-defense. But would he grab the slightly damp section of the pages? Would he hold the pages long enough? Was there enough VX? He was a large man.
“This important article here,” she said, offering him the magazine in a way that forced him to grip where the pages were damp with VX.
His sausage-sized fingers grabbed the VX area. She exhaled in relief.
“Magazine wet.”
“I washed my hands.”
He seemed to accept that. Then he looked down at the magazine article.
“What does this article say?” She pointed.
“Says your president helps Zionists pigs occupy Palestine. Says he pretends to care for Palestinians, but sends US soldiers to occupy other sacred Muslim lands. Says America causes deaths of thousands of Muslims.”
His fingers still gripped the pages.
“But,” she said, “America gives millions in aid to the Palestinians. Billions to Egypt. Each year.”
“Says here you give more money to Israel!” This angered him and he seemed to squeeze the pages even tighter. Sweat beaded on his forehead.
“We give aid to help bring peace,” she said.
“No . . . to bring Arabs to their knees!”
Aarif’s neck and face grew darker. Was it anger, or the VX entering his bloodstream?
“Says Pentagon will grab Saudi oil fields. Keep all money!”
He cleared his throat and sniffled. Clear fluid drained from a nostril. He wiped it, coughed hard several times. His eyes were pink now. The VX was mixing with the moisture on his fingers and seeping into his bloodstream.
He coughed hard again. His face grew dark red. “Six new Arab babies born . . . for every non-Arab baby means Arabs rule America one day!”
“But you’ll never see the day, asshole!” she whispered a little too loud.
“What you say . . . ?”
He coughed and glanced at the magazine, then his fingers, then seemed to realize she’d poisoned him.
He grabbed her blouse, ripping it a bit, and tried to push her down on the sofa. But she kicked him in the groin – buckling him over.
Then suddenly - the VX hit him like freight train - he grabbed his chest as VX shut down the nerve impulses regulating his breathing. His entire body went rigid and his eyes turned crimson. His left nostril bled. His face twisted with rage – but somehow he still lunged toward her.
But Nell jumped back. He missed her, fell and gashed his head open on the corner of a glass coffee table. Blood poured from the gash. His body shook in a violent seizure as he struggled to breathe. Chunks of meat, blood and green vomit erupted from his mouth.
He’d be dead in seconds.
She had to escape now! But first she had to find the flash drive Hasham always worked on.
She hurried over to his computer and checked the USB slot. Empty. Where’d he hide it? She checked the side drawers. Only printer paper and ink cartridges. Did he take the flash drive with him?
She reached under the desk and felt lumps of dried gum.
Then she saw the flash drive – taped to the far side of the printer. She pulled it off and put it in her pocket. Turning back, she nudged the desktop computer to the side a bit and saw another thumb-sized flash drive – hidden behind the screen.
Hidden because it’s important!
She grabbed the flash drive and stuffed it in her pocket.
Then she heard something.
Tires crunching on gravel.
Glancing outside, she saw the white van driving up.
She ran over and saw Aarif’s gun wasn’t on him. She took the keys from his pocket. Where’s his cell phone? Not on him. No time to look. She raced to the back door. Which key? She tried the large one. It didn’t work. She tried the other four.
None worked.
Where’s the hell’s the key? Her head throbbed with every heartbeat.
Outside, the van doors opened . . . then slammed shut. Men mumbled . . .
Seconds later, she heard a key slide into the front door.
THIRTY FOUR
“Itook the wrong damn trail!” Donovan said, as he stared at the rain-swollen, fast-flowing creek water blocking the Suburban.
The water looked at least fifty feet wide.
“The trail continues on the other side,” Lindee said, pointing.
“But the tire tracks don’t,” Donovan said.
”Because this water’s too damn deep,” Jacob said.
“Agreed,” Donovan said, as he spun the big Suburban around and raced back toward the fork in the trail. They’d lost time.
“How long back to the fork, and down the other trail to the cabin?” Donovan asked.
“I can’t tell,” Lindee said. “These small trials don’t show up on my GPS map.”
Minutes later, back at the fork, Donovan careened onto the other trail and drove toward what he hoped was the cabin at the trail’s end. But he worried that the same waterway might block them again since it seemed to flow in that general direction.
He accelerated, but the deep mud holes kept bucking him to the side, preventing him from driving more than ten miles an hour.
A mile later, something glinted off his eye. Glass. He crept forward and saw a cabin window a hundred yards ahead. A row of large oak trees stood along the front of the cabin. He turned the car off and pointed.
“Light inside!” Jacob said.
“And behind the cabin is something white!” Donovan said.
“Where?” Jacob leaned to the side.
“Behind those bushes. A propane gas tank . . . or . . .”
“No – that curves like a van fender!” Jacob said.
“Look!” Lindee pointed
down at the dirt trail. “Lots of fresh truck tracks heading toward the cabin.”
Donovan grabbed the open line to Manning.
“Drew, this cabin looks like it!” What’s your ETA here?”
“Six minutes maybe.”
“When you get to the fork, go right.”
“Roger that.”
Donovan studied the old cabin. No visible movement inside or out.
“Let’s go check the vehicle in back,” Jacob said.
Donovan nodded, but didn’t like risking Jacob’s or Lindee’s life, or approaching the cabin without backup. On the other hand, if Nell was inside, every second counted, and acting now might save her life . . . maybe even thousands of lives targeted for imminent death.
He suddenly worried that someone in the cabin might see a reflection from their black Suburban.
Donovan quietly reversed down the dirt road a few hundred feet and parked behind some dense bushes. He couldn’t see the cabin and hoped no one inside saw the Suburban.
“You ever fire a Glock, Jacob?”
“Saved my life in Iraq a few times.”
Donovan unlocked the glove compartment, reached in, and handed Jacob a holstered 9mm Glock 19.
Jacob flipped the safety off. And checked it out.
“Lindee, when we get out, please get in the driver’s seat and lock the doors. If you see trouble, text me. Don’t phone unless it’s an emergency. Special Agent Manning’s team should be here in a few minutes.”
She nodded but looked nervous.
“Don’t worry, we won’t charge the cabin until Agent Manning’s Rescue Team gets here!” Donovan said.
“Unless Nell’s in danger,” Jacob said.
“Agreed.”
He and Jacob got out and stepped through the dense forest toward the cabin. The carpet of pine needles muted their footsteps.
Donovan worried a sniper had them in his crosshairs. He also worried about Jacob. Seeing Nell in trouble might overwhelm him, make him rush in and get shot.
Behind Donovan, leaves rustled. He spun around and saw a shadow move behind some trees fifty yards away. A sniper? He raised his gun, waited, looking for the reflection of a rifle, a face . . .
Suddenly a huge buck bolted from the trees and ran down a hill.
Donovan and Jacob approached the left side of the cabin. No movement in the window. No sound from inside. They circled left and saw more of the white vehicle. They moved a few feet closer.