The Occurrence

  The next thing that happened was the overwhelming impulse to protect him. The traitorous thought locked her in an internal struggle. She knew she needed to give the government something; otherwise they and Vickers would solidify their disbelief in her ability.

  She sketched what she saw on the wall of the hotel room. A reproduction of a generic pot of flowers that hung over the bed.

  She pulled off the wires attached to her temples and wrists.

  Vickers clicked the intercom.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  She had no idea what was going on with her, only that Hashim needed refuge. That was the last thing in her mind before she shut it off.

  Unsettled, she headed for the door and tried to open it but it was locked.

  “Let me out, Eric.”

  A second later the door clicked open.

  Vickers stood there.

  “What have you got?”

  “This isn’t room service.”

  Vickers pushed past her and entered the room.

  Catherine lingered in the hallway, not sure what her next move would be.

  Vickers went to the desk and saw the sketch of the pot of flowers.

  “She get anything?” the tech guy said to Vickers through the intercom.

  “Fucking flowers,” Vickers said as he presented the drawing to the camera. “Told you this was bullshit.”

  The tech looked at the image on his computer screen.

  “Eric. I think she gave us something.”

  “What?”

  “I know those flowers.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “That stupid reprint is in every Holiday Inn. Credit my multiple divorces for that piece of information.”

  Catherine’s body tensed when the tech make that connection.

  “As I said, it’s bullshit.”

  “Yeah. But it’s the only thing we got. Your call, boss.”

  “Well, you won’t be needing me anymore today, Eric” Catherine said, and moved down the hall.

  Rattled, Catherine drove her car out of the CIA parking lot. She knew the unique architecture of her brain expanded the borders of her consciousness. That’s what opened her to remote viewing. But it had a cost.

  The intense sunlight coming in through the front windshield blinded her. She pulled off to the shoulder of the road.

  Her dreams and visions were her primary tools for making sense of the world. They were a gift she’d struggled to embrace in her younger years, for she saw the cheap uses of her ability, and it haunted her until she realized she could define her own relating to it, and saw that it could connect her to the world, not alienate her. She was whole in that connection. But it offered no insight into how to deal with what just occurred—empathy for evil.

  Was it the devil who had overtaken her in that room, like it had overtaken her father in those tents where people came to heal? Or was it the Holy Ghost she believed had saved her from loneliness and nihilism? Which hand guided her now?

  28

  Hashim had been in the Holiday Inn on the edge of D.C. for over a week. He’d been fighting exhaustion since he’d arrived. The fever he’d experienced in Turkey at the airport had come on full-bore and he was taking the last of the antibiotics he’d brought with him.

  He’d made no contact with his people at ISIS, either in the Middle East or America. He wasn’t sure if he ever would. He knew they were searching for him, dead or alive, with the intent of finding Nazir as well.

  He’d left Nazir at his grandmother’s home, wounded, with no time to discuss what had happened to them, or his plan to find Dominique and Julian. He wasn’t sure how his disappearance would affect Nazir on top of what happened to them in the warehouse. But something had happened there. Something that entwined those who’d been left alive.

  He knew about the legend of the stones—artifacts hidden in the desert protected by the Djinn. But he’d never found them, despite the belief he had. Perhaps they were there and saved him in spite of the evil he’d committed. Perhaps they’d saved the four of them, and were leading him now.

  He had no explanation for what he was about to do other than an unseen hand was guiding him. A different hand than he’d allowed to lead him before.

  He laid back in bed. The dreams of his grandfather, the field of the butterfly, and the eyes of his mother pierced through the fever-haze.

  Compulsion had got him on that plane. It was this drive that had him rise to lead jihad and be feared. Instinct and passion had been his elixir. They were what had always saved him. But this was different—needing to find the two Americans he once wanted to kill, because now he needed their forgiveness.

  But would it have impact—his crisis of conscience?

  He knew the impact of the evil he’d done—the orchestrated acts of terror. The impact of surrender was unknown. He knew the fever was his conscience burning with that choice. And he knew it would let him do nothing but seek forgiveness and surrender. From that there was no turning back.

  He went into the bathroom, ran cold water in the sink, and washed his face.

  He looked in the mirror and held onto the countertop to steady himself.

  He knew he wouldn’t make it further without medical help. It was a gamble he’d have to take.

  29

  Catherine hadn’t moved. She was still in her car on the shoulder of the road. She knew whatever choice she made now would determine the rest of her life, and maybe cause her death.

  She’d come upon charlatans, and those who had wanted to do her and her family harm. You don’t go unscathed when you claim to heal people and often do. Enemies flock to destroy your reputation, if not you. What would happen if anyone found out she’d had empathy for Hashim, and kept what she saw from the CIA?

  Wet canvas, sawdust, and kerosene flooded her senses, and sent her back to the tents of her youth. She thought she’d eradicated that past and those traumas of the circuit she was forced on. It took years to stop feeling like a freak. And when she began to realize she could remote view, she took it as a sign to escape the rolling revival she’d been born into. But here and now she was in the midst of a new madness that had nothing to do with the ghosts of her past. Or maybe it had everything to do with it and what she’d been being guided toward all her life. It was madness, but she was overwhelmed with the need to protect Hashim. That’s when she flashed on the fact that he was no longer in the hotel, but on his way to George Washington University Hospital.

  30

  Catherine spotted Hashim sitting in the overcrowded waiting room in the ER. She knew staring would frighten him, and so sat across the room in one of the few empty chairs available and glanced his way. No one else paid him attention.

  She could see he was in pain, from the way he rubbed his forehead and wrapped his arms around himself. But there were other more urgent illnesses the staff needed to attend, and so he waited.

  The seat next to Hashim freed when a nurse escorted the young woman with bruises on her face sitting next to him out of the waiting room into the inner corridors of the ER.

  Catherine picked up a magazine on one of the tables as she made her way to the empty chair and sat next to Hashim.

  She looked down at the magazine and saw it was National Geographic’s feature cover story on Islam.

  The cover photo drew Hashim’s attention.

  “Would you like to read it?” she asked.

  “No, thank you,” he answered.

  She nodded and flipped through the magazine. But out of the corner of her eye she saw Hashim’s hands. They were rubbing each other. She was struck with how sensitive they were. She saw Hashim’s awareness of her attention on him and he moved to stand. She reached out to him. Hashim froze.

  “I’m not here to harm you,” she said.

  “Who are you?”

  “The CIA knows you were at the hotel. It’s a matter of time before they tell the FBI and they track you here.”

  His eyes dart
ed around the room. She could see he was looking for the quickest way out.

  “I know you have no reason to trust me, but I can take you to a safe place.”

  A nurse’s voice called, “Mister Sandor. Mister Nicolas Sandor.”

  Hashim stared at the nurse, who saw his attention and approached him, asking if he was Mr. Sandor.

  Catherine whispered, “If you go in there they will find you.”

  Overhearing that the nurse said, “Is everything all right?”

  Hashim looked to Catherine.

  “Would you like to come with me, sir?” the nurse asked.

  Hashim hesitated.

  The next move was up to him.

  “Sir. Would you like to come with me?”

  His voice wavered. “I’m feeling better, now.”

  Confused, the nurse shrugged and said, “Whatever you think best.”

  He turned to Catherine and said, “You can take me home.”

  “Well. We’re here if you need us,” the nurse said.

  She looked at her patient chart and called another name as she moved away.

  “Who are you? And why are you doing this?” Hashim whispered.

  “My name is Catherine Book. And, all I know, is that it’s what God wants me to do.”

  She saw something in his eyes she never expected from one who’d been so ruthless and violent—vulnerability and surrender.

  A short time later, FBI agents swooped into the ER.

  Vickers had sent artists’ renderings of Hashim to the Bureau. Renderings that included all possible manifestations of how he might look. Renderings that had him with a full beard, clean-shaven, heavier than they’d known him to be, and thinner. He also sent them the only thing he had. The drawing of the flowers.

  The FBI had emailed the renderings of Hashim to all the Holiday Inns in the surrounding areas. The one on the border of the city responded in the affirmative. But when the agents arrived there, the manager told them the man in the drawings had been taken to George Washington University Hospital.

  At the hospital, the agents questioned patients and staff to see if any of them might give information on the couple that had been there and left.

  When they showed the photos to the nurse who’d engaged with Hashim, she pointed to the clean-shaven version, and gave them a description of the woman with him.

  31

  They hadn’t met each other. Dominique had reached out to Catherine in the aftermath of what happened in the warehouse, but never got a response. It was hard for Catherine to take acknowledgment for a gift she believed she’d never worked for, or even wanted. Truth was, she got shit for being able to see what she did, and kept it close to her chest unless there was an urgent need. There was now. And she reached out to Dominique.

  Catherine stood in the living room of Dominique’s modest apartment in Northwest Washington near Logan Circle. It wasn’t far from where Dominique worked at The Washington Post.

  She and Catherine had known about each other through Adrien Kurt. Their connection was cemented by Catherine’s guiding the CIA to the warehouse. But this was the first time they’d been face-to-face.

  “Where is he now?” Dominique asked, stunned at what Catherine had told her. “Where is he, Catherine?”

  Dominique tried to remain calm, but her mind raced with what this could mean.

  “He’s not here to harm either you or Julian.”

  “Why is he here?”

  “You’ll understand when you see him.”

  “You’re asking me to trust you with my life.”

  “I’ve already trusted mine to him. Be at this location tonight,” she said, handing Dominique a paper with an address. “You and Julian.”

  “I don’t understand what’s going on.”

  “You will.”

  Dominique looked at the address.

  “Virginia Beach?”

  “I have a cottage there. You’ll be safe. Please trust me. There’s something remarkable going on beyond what we’re able to comprehend.”

  Even in her panic, Dominique knew that was true.

  32

  In the all-white farmhouse country kitchen in Catherine’s Virginia Beach cottage, Julian glared at Hashim, who was weak and leaned against the kitchen counter.

  Catherine handed him a damp washcloth to wipe the fever-sweat from his forehead.

  Dominique watched from the doorway, trusting what she’d said to Julian to get him here, would be the catalyst for him to grip what was happening.

  Julian pulled out his revolver and pointed it at Hashim.

  Dominique put herself between the two men.

  “Are you fucking crazy!” Julian said.

  Dominique didn’t budge.

  Neither did Julian. He was a fighter and would fight until his walls were forced to crumble.

  Dominique stared at him until he lowered the gun.

  “Okay. You tell me why you’re here?”

  “I’m here because of the things I’ve done,” Hashim said. “There is no forgiveness unless it comes from Allah.”

  “Allah’s not here, in case you haven’t noticed.”

  “Allah is in all people.”

  “What the fuck is going on?”

  “I came to ask your forgiveness. Both of you,”

  “Forgiveness? There’s no forgiveness for you.”

  “Julian. Listen to him,” Dominique said.

  Julian steeled himself against her plea and didn’t take his eyes off Hashim.

  “I understand your rage and your doubt.”

  “You don’t understand shit.”

  “You can call the police. But hear me before you do.”

  “What could you say that would change my mind to see you as anything but the evil you are?”

  “You’re right. I don’t deserve forgiveness, or to live. But if I do, I promise I will do all I can to bring the caliphate down, because they will get stronger unless someone reveals what they know about them.”

  Hashim labored to a kitchen chair and sat.

  Julian couldn’t believe what he was hearing. A week and a half ago Hashim was about to execute them. Now, he was a frail man asking forgiveness, and offering to take down the caliphate.

  “Why should we believe anything you say?”

  Hashim spoke of his mother. A beautiful soul he’d drifted from in his rise to power. He spoke of his father, how he’d hated those who misused power, possessions and money. It was a powerful drug for a young boy to be mentored to take down the privileged. More powerful than the vulnerability of his mother. He spoke of the veil of forgetfulness that had lifted since their deliverance in the warehouse, which opened him to those buried memories.

  “I grew to despise my mother’s meekness. It had no place in the world I saw. So, I followed in my father’s footsteps. I regret that.”

  “Those are just words,” Julian said.

  “I understand.”

  “More words.”

  “Make your call, then.”

  Julian took out his mobile.

  “Wait,” Dominique said.

  “Okay. You tell me what we do now.”

  “Why won’t you get it? Something unfathomable has brought us here. Why won’t you see it?”

  “Because he murdered thousands of innocent people.”

  “Our hands are bloodied, too.”

  “You’re comparing us? Fuck you.”

  He raised his gun into the air.

  “Julian. Stop it,” Dominique said, and slapped his face.

  He was pulled farther across the tightrope he’d been on, deeper into his own conflict with all he’d done, and all that had occurred.

  Survival in his world demanded black or white. Hashim had colored it in an unsettling shade of humanity.

  Julian refused to believe the game had changed in the warehouse, but it was Hashim, here, now, who ripped a hole in his armor, and it slammed him into the reality that nothing was the same, no matter how much he denied it.

&nbs
p; 33

  Monday, September 21

  The airport doors opened and passengers exited the Dulles terminal. Nazir looked liked an American teenager. A couple of days’ growth of beard, a gray Patagonia vest. He blended into the melting pot of the twenty-first century as he moved through the crowd carrying a backpack.

  He’d never been to America. And now he was in the center of its government. This was the enemy. But as he stared at the crush of people, they didn’t look that much different than he. And all the stories of the infidels who lived here seemed just that. Stories to instill rage and righteousness. But he had none of that standing amid the humanity around him.

  People who stared at their phones like the youth he knew. Some distracted. Some lost. Some who smiled and hugged those for whom they’d been waiting. Families. Children. Lovers. Loners. They didn’t look much like enemies. Perhaps this was part of the transformation that occurred after he survived the blast. But he wasn’t sent to see through the rage and righteousness. He was here to hold them in his fist.

  Nazir knew the cells were on high alert since Hashim had disappeared, and through their international pipeline were able to track him to Turkish Flight 1269. What they didn’t know was why Hashim had come to Washington, if that was indeed his final destination. This was Nazir’s job.

  Nazir had faced much confusion since the desert occurrence. And after, when Hashim had brought him to his grandmother’s home, there was sadness in the cleric’s eyes. A sadness that said to Nazir, this is the last time we may be together. It was those sorrowful eyes Nazir couldn’t shake from his mind.

  He spotted a man he recognized from a photo given to him in Mosul. This was his connection.

  The man brought him to a waiting car.

  34

  3511 Massachusetts Avenue was the address of Church Dry Cleaners. It looked like a full-fledged dry cleaning operation, complete with the sharp, high-inducing chemical smell of Picrin, and the whirr of row upon row of plastic covered clothes that swayed overhead like an amusement park ride. It was a front for an ISIS cell.