Blackout

by Jason Elam

  Pak Bae knew that much of this man’s hope was resting on him, and he was determined not to let him down. Trying to keep his focus for the next two customers would not be easy, but he knew he couldn’t show a thing. Steady face, no emotion, business as usual.

  Finally, the nameless man in the black Fiat knockoff pulled up to Pak Bae’s pump. Pak Bae waited patiently as the man reached into his glove box to retrieve the key for the gas door. As the window began descending, the man in the car sneezed into his hand.

  “Wihayeo,” Pak Bae said.

  The man acknowledged the blessing with a curt nod of his head as he passed the key out. Transferring the key to his left hand, Pak Bae moved toward the rear of the car. Suddenly, he coughed, covering his mouth with his right hand. As he did, he slid a moist, waterproof sheath into his mouth, tucking it between his gums and his right cheek.

  After keying open the gas door, Pak Bae pretended to have difficulty removing the gas cap. This allowed him to pull off the five 1,000-wo˘n notes that had been taped to the inside of the small door. Finally, with the nozzle inserted, the gas flowing, and the money safely tucked in the pocket of his coveralls, Pak Bae was able to start planning ahead.

  Although taking the money always made him uneasy, he knew it was necessary for him to carry out his link in the chain. But never let it be said that he was doing this for his own financial gain. No, every wo˘n, every last cho˘n, would be put toward accomplishing his mission.

  Pak Bae prided himself in being a patriot, but his loyalty was to the old Korea—the Korea his parents and his mother’s parents had told him about when he was a child and the family sat around the huge stew pot in their little corner of the village. That was a Korea of culture, of hope, of faith. When he called himself a Korean, that was the nation to which his loyalties belonged.

  Not this new country—this plaything for the powerful. When Kim Il Sung had inexplicably allowed Korea to become a pawn in the chess game between America and the Soviet Union, Korea had been shattered, Pak Bae’s family along with it. On the day the border was permanently sealed, Pak Bae’s grandfather on his father’s side was in Seoul, along with two of Pak Bae’s great-uncles. The family had never seen nor heard from them again. These Kims do not serve Korea; Korea serves the Kims. Well, this is one Korean who will not bow down in his heart to these criminals. If I and my whole family must be sacrificed in the name of a restored homeland—a Korea we can once again be proud of—then so be it!

  After work, Pak Bae would stop at the market and use the 5,000 wo˘n to buy some medicinal herbs, a new pair of glasses for his uncle, Sam-chon, and a new stew pot for his mother. Then, when Sunday came, he would stuff the pot with the herbs, glasses, and some other items that were hard to get in the rural areas, go to the train depot, and begin the hot, muggy journey north to the border county of Chosan. By the time he arrived in his hometown, he would have only an hour before he had to begin his trip back to the big city. That would give him just enough time to pay his respects to his family, deliver the supplies to his mother, and slip a certain waterproof sheath to his cousin.

  Pak Bae knew why he risked what he did, but as he watched the black car drive off, he couldn’t help wondering why that man would jeopardize so much. Most men in such a high position follow the party line. Why does he chance losing his job, his comfortable living, his family, and even his life?

  A horn pulled Pak Bae out of his reverie. He gave an apologetic wave to the driver of the next car in line and hurried to the descending window.

  Tuesday, July 7, 10:00 a.m. MDT

  Parker, Colorado

  Riley Covington’s body was burning, but it was a good burn. With his toes balanced on a large blue physio ball, he was seeing how many push-ups he could do in sixty seconds.

  “Look at the boy go,” said Keith Simmons, his fellow Colorado Mustangs linebacker, kneeling about fifteen feet from Riley. Keith had just finished a second set of eight reps on the cable row and was drying his face with a towel.

  Riley turned and gave him a wink, then began adding claps to his push-ups. Let’s see the old guy do this, he thought with a smile. He knew that Keith, who had played in the Professional Football League four years longer, was really starting to feel these off-season workouts.

  Suddenly, in the middle of a clap, his body crashed to the ground.

  “In the old country, we call that the Persian Flop,” said a laughing voice behind Riley. “But you do it pretty well for a Wyoming farm boy.”

  Riley rolled over and spotted Afshin Ziafat just in time to see the younger linebacker rifling the exercise ball back his way.

  Afshin was a rookie—twentieth player taken in the draft—and Keith had taken the younger man under his wing.

  Initially, Riley had struggled with having Afshin on the team. But soon he came to realize that his hard feelings toward the kid were based solely on his name and Iranian heritage. After Riley had done some serious repenting to God and apologizing to Afshin, the two had become fast friends. Now these three linebackers, who shared a mutual faith in addition to a love of the game, had bonded to form a team within the team.

  “Now, Z, that’s what I’m talking about when I say you’ve got to think ahead in the game,” Riley said, using the ball to lift himself up. “You’re two exercises behind me doing what?”

  “Physio ball push-ups.”

  “Which is done with . . .”

  “Uh . . . a physio ball?” Afshin responded with a barely suppressed grin, knowing where this conversation was going.

  “Exactly,” Riley said, bouncing the large ball next to him. “Two exercises from now you will be doing . . .”

  “Okay, Pach, I get the point,” Afshin said as he watched the ball bounce up and down. Pach was Riley’s nickname from his time playing with the Air Force Academy Falcons and came from a comparison to the fast, hard-hitting Apache attack helicopter.

  “You will be doing . . . ,” Riley repeated, forcing an answer from Afshin.

  “What you were just doing—physio ball bridge push-ups,” Afshin quietly answered, still grinning.

  “Which means that I have two opportunities to get you back in painful and borderline evil ways, and which makes you . . .”

  “El Stupido?”

  “Si,” Riley said, drilling the ball back at his friend, then moving to his next exercise.

  “Come on, amigos, this is America. Speak American!” Keith complained as he grabbed the v-bar for another set of kneeling rows.

  “Lo siento,” Riley called back as he placed his face between the split pads for the first of four directions on his neck machine. The conversation ended as each man worked through his set.

  While the workout room at the Mustangs training center in Dove Valley was bigger and better equipped, it also tended to be loud and crowded. So two years ago Riley had converted his basement guest suite into a weight room. It wasn’t huge, but it was big enough, and it had all the equipment Riley needed for his off-season workouts. Along with the weights and workout machines, he had installed a booming sound system and a large-screen television that he usually kept muted and tuned to ESPN or FoxNews so that he could watch the crawl.

  Off-season workouts were required four days a week by the Mustangs organization, but they didn’t necessarily have to take place at Dove Valley. So Mondays and Wednesdays, Riley, Keith, and Afshin worked out down at the training center. Although the training center wasn’t as convenient as Riley’s basement, they wanted to keep their connection with the team. Tuesdays and Thursdays, however, they met at Riley’s.

  Since they all played the same position, the workouts, while varying from day to day, were identical for each man. They started with movement exercises—deep squats, diagonal arm lifts, rotational stretches—then moved on to strength training: weights, kettlebell exercises, and ab work, as well as presses, pull-ups, and push-ups. Finally, they’d end with a restoration period that included a hurdle series, Gatorade recovery shake, stick and soft tissue work, and t
hen a 3x cold tub–hot tub contrast, which could best be described as misery to ecstasy to misery to ecstasy to misery to ecstasy in one-minute intervals.

  Now, as he rested between sets on the neck machine, Riley bobbed his head to TobyMac and Kirk Franklin singing about not wanting to gain the whole world while losing their souls. From the first time Riley had heard the song, it had resonated with him. As a professional football player, it would be easy to get caught up in himself—to believe his own press. It takes a lot of prayer and perspective to keep your head small enough to fit through a doorway when everyone’s calling you a hero and telling you how wonderful you are, Riley thought. And it takes good friends like Keith and Afshin, who are more than happy to make sure I stay humble.

  After finishing his last neck set, Riley sat down on the padded floor to do the exercise he hated most—Russian twists. No wonder they call these Russian twists; they’re worse than being sent to the gulag! Picking up a medium-size weight ball, Riley lifted his legs and his upper body, balancing himself on his rear. Then he held the ball out at arm’s length and began twisting his torso side to side. He counted to himself as he touched the ball to the ground on either side, one, one, two, two, three, three, all the way up to fifteen. When he was done, he collapsed to the floor.

  “I hate them; I hate them; I HATE THEM!” Riley yelled, while his abs and obliques screamed.

  “Oh, come on! Man up, pansy-boy,” Keith taunted from the neck machine.

  Riley shot him a dirty look and saw Afshin watching him from the corner of the room while quickly finishing the last of his physio ball sets. “Don’t worry, Rook,” he called out, “I won’t mess with your ball. I’m much too creative to do something that obvious.”

  Afshin slid off the ball and stretched out on the floor. “Oh, great—now I’m going to have to be Mr. Paranoid, watching your every move. Can’t you just get it over with? Here,” he said, putting his feet back on the ball, “come and get me.”

  “Sorry, son; don’t play the game if you can’t pay the price,” Riley said as he picked up the ball for his second and final set of twists.

  Tuesday, July 7, 10:35 a.m. MDT

  Parker, Colorado

  Later, when Riley, Keith, and Afshin were relaxing in the backyard hot tub, letting the jets work through their sore muscles, Keith asked Riley, “So how’re you doing, man?”

  “I’m doing good,” Riley answered quickly. “A little sore, but good.”

  Keith rolled his eyes. “Okay, now that you got the pat answer out of your system, let me ask you again: how’re you doing, Riley?”

  Riley put his head back and sighed. Just over a month had passed since his father had been murdered—blown up—by a terrorist group trying to flush Riley out of hiding. Collateral damage, he had thought at the time. That’s all my dad was to them—collateral damage.

  Then, less than a week ago, Riley’s best friend, Scott Ross, and Riley’s . . . What? Girlfriend? No . . . Girl friend? Maybe . . . Who knows? Khadi Faroughi had been suddenly transferred out of Denver, along with the whole counterterrorism division they were part of.

  Khadi and Riley had hit it off last January and had only been growing closer since. The only thing that kept them from establishing a true romantic relationship was the huge chasm between their two faiths—Khadi was a Muslim. Her move to Washington, D.C., with the rest of the CTD team had already been misery for Riley, as it added physical distance to the existing emotional and spiritual canyon.

  The only team member left was Riley’s bodyguard and good friend, Skeeter Dawkins. Tilting his head, Riley looked over at the big man, who was sitting in an Adirondack chair, scanning the trees at the back of the property. If you ever want a picture of loyalty and trustworthiness, there’s your man.

  “I don’t know,” he finally answered Keith. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I guess I’m a little bit lonely. And while I’m so thankful that all the killing is over with, I also get the feeling that it’s not really over with. Does that make any sense?”

  “Yeah, I suppose,” Keith said. “I’m not sure that I’ll ever get past what’s happened in the last year. I have no idea how I’m going to feel the first time I walk back into Platte River.” Last December, Keith had taken some shrapnel to his thigh during an attack at Platte River Stadium during a Colorado Mustangs Monday Night Football game. The physical damage had healed completely, but the emotional wounds were still open and raw.

  Afshin, who was the only one of the three who had not been in the stadium that night, said, “I can’t imagine, guys. I mean, I don’t even know what to say when you start talking about it. But you know I’ll be there for you both, praying you through and encouraging you however I can.”

  Keith and Riley nodded their appreciation. Silence surrounded the men for a time.

  Riley took a sip from his protein smoothie, then asked, “So what do you guys think of Zerin?”

  “Man, if I could take back any moment . . . I can’t believe how I let that taping get out of hand,” Keith said. “One minute I’m laughing, holding on to one of his legs. The next minute I’m wondering what just happened.”

  “We were just as bad,” Afshin said. “We just sat back and watched. We should have stepped in and stopped it.”

  “I tried apologizing,” Keith continued, “but he’d have no part of it. He just turned and walked away.”

  “Yeah, me too,” Riley said. “I even invited him to come to our workouts, but I got the same response.”

  Afshin shook his head. “Don’t expect much else from him. It’s an honor thing now. That’s one thing about us Persians and the Arabs. If you insult our honor, then it’s game on.”

  “So what do we do?” Riley asked.

  “Yeah, is there any way to repair the damage done?” Keith added.

  “Time and prayer. That’s how I got over your warm little welcome, Riley,” Afshin kidded.

  Shame circled through Riley’s stomach, even as he laughed with the others. Forgive yourself and let it go. Z’s forgiven you and moved past it; you’ve got to move past it too. But even as Riley thought those words, he knew it would still be a while before he would get over the guilt of his prejudice.

  “Speaking of repairing the damage,” Riley said, turning to Keith and changing the subject, “how’s the work coming on your cabin? I still feel bad over that.” During the events of a month ago, Riley had holed up in Keith’s mountain cabin/mini mansion, trying to draw out the terrorists who had killed his father. Unfortunately, Riley’s plan had worked a little too well, and Keith’s home had burned to the ground.

  “Well, don’t,” Keith said. “I told you, it’s just stuff. Besides, I had some sweet insurance on the thing. They’re just finishing clearing the rubble from the old place, and we’ve already got the plans for the rebuild. Puts the old one to shame. Seriously, it’s almost embarrassing. Hey, why don’t you cook me and Z some barbecue this weekend, and I’ll bring over the blueprints?”

  “Sounds like a date,” Riley said.

  As he slid a little deeper into the hot water, Riley said a quick prayer of thanks for good friends. Maybe things really can get back to normal for me, he thought with a smile.

  Tuesday, July 7, 7:15 p.m. EDT

  Washington, D.C.

  The brilliance of the halogen lamp shining on the kitchen table banished any sign that outside the windows the sun was setting. Not that Hassan al-Aini could have seen the oncoming darkness anyway with the window shades drawn and fastened down with duct tape. On the side of the brown brick building ran a fire escape, and the very thought of a fleeing drug dealer clomping down the metal stairs or a love-struck girl cautiously sneaking her way past the window on her way to a secret rendezvous was enough to cause Hassan’s brother, Ghalib, to take the extra precaution.

  Hassan secured the soldering iron in its metal stand. Just below the tip were two brown-edged scars that had been burned into the table earlier in the day when the tool had slipped from its makeshift holder. Two
teaspoons and more tape were all Ghalib had needed to reinforce the stand and make it stable. Hassan flexed his hand, trying to release the tension of the last five minutes’ white-knuckle session.

  Ghalib crossed the room to admire his older brother’s work. “Is it done?”

  “It is done,” Hassan said with a sigh.

  Ghalib placed his hand on Hassan’s damp shoulder. “Then we are ready to go?”

  “Tomorrow, Ghalib. We will do it tomorrow.” Hassan patted his brother’s hand, then stood and took Ghalib by both shoulders. Although only six years separated the two siblings, the premature gray around Hassan’s temples and the extra three inches of height seemed to triple that spread. “Father would have been proud of you, little brother.”

  “And of you,” Ghalib replied with a heavyhearted smile.

  With one final shoulder clap, Hassan walked to the kitchenette and put a pot of water onto a hot plate. As he stood leaning on the narrow counter, he noticed that his right leg was bouncing up and down. He forced himself to stop. Ghalib needed to see strength and confidence, not this nervousness.

  Tomorrow didn’t scare him—death held no fear anymore. Hassan just wanted to make sure that they would die in such a way as to further Allah’s cause. If only he could be certain that they were doing the right thing. Just a quick phone call, a brief “Is this okay?” “Yes, it’s okay” would set his mind and heart at ease. But that was impossible now.

  Two months ago, all communication had halted from the leadership of the Cause to Sheikh Hamza Yusuf, the leader of the madrassa where Hassan and Ghalib had been taught the truth about Islam and what Allah expected from his followers. Then, two weeks ago, the madrassa and its accompanying mosque had been raided. Sheikh Yusuf had disappeared during the raid—whether into the hands of the American government or through one of the escape routes, Hassan did not know.