Marathon

by Brian Freeman

  Maloney had accepted the new reality with grace, and he’d built one of the top field offices in the country out of his heartland beat. He had no chance of heading back to D.C., but he never expressed disappointment at the direction his career had taken.

  Gayle sat down in front of Maloney’s desk. His eyes were direct. She was accustomed to reading people’s faces, but in this case, her boss was taking the measure of hers.

  “You know what’s going on,” Maloney said with almost no inflection. If he’d read bedtime stories to his kids in that tone, they’d have fallen asleep in no time.

  “Of course, sir.”

  “We’ll be taking over the investigation,” he went on.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “There’s considerable interest in this case at the highest levels in Washington.”

  Maloney’s voice never betrayed how he felt, but Gayle knew that “considerable interest” was probably an understatement. The betting in the field office was that the president would be weighing in on Twitter about the bombing before midnight, and he wasn’t likely to be nuanced in assigning blame.

  “I’m sure that’s true,” Gayle said.

  The field director assessed his agent for a moment in silence.

  “You grew up in Duluth—is that right, Durkin?” Maloney asked, even though she was sure he could have recited her entire biography from memory.

  “I did, sir. My parents still live there.”

  “This is a painful day for your hometown.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “I’d like you to serve as our liaison with the Duluth Police during the investigation. We’ll be in charge, but they know the terrain.”

  “Thank you, sir. Yes, absolutely.”

  “Normally, I’d use our resident agency in Duluth, but we lost our supervisory agent there after Special Agent Harrison passed away last month.”

  “I understand,” Gayle told him.

  “The lieutenant in charge of major crimes in the Duluth Police is a man named Jonathan Stride. He’s good. He has a strong team.”

  “I look forward to working with them,” Gayle said.

  “Be ready to leave in thirty minutes.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Gayle stood up, but before she could leave, Maloney stopped her with the smallest motion of his hand. “One more thing, Agent Durkin. The eyes of the country are on us. Whatever we do will be scrutinized and second-guessed. It’s very possible that politicians may get ahead of the facts in this case, but the only thing I care about are the facts. Understood?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “No matter what we uncover about the people who did this, or their motives, I will not tolerate the slightest unprofessional behavior from anyone on my team.”

  “Of course. I appreciate the opportunity.”

  “You know why I’m telling you this, don’t you? I want assurances that you’ll be able to separate any personal feelings you may have from this investigation. Because if you have any doubts about that, say so now, and I’ll find someone else to do this.”

  Gayle knew he would have to bring this up, and she knew what he expected her to say. She had no doubts. She had no emotions. Or if she did, she would set them all aside to solve the case. That was how the FBI worked.

  “You don’t have to worry about me, sir,” Gayle told him.

  “Good.”

  Gayle left the office, exhilarated to be back in the field. It was what she’d wanted for a year. In truth, she did have doubts about whether she could handle the case with professional detachment. She did have emotions. When she first heard about the bomb in Duluth, she’d thought about Ron, and she knew exactly what she felt about the terrorists who’d launched the attack.

  She wanted to kill them.

  6

  Khan turned his taxi into the driveway of his small home on Vassar Street at three o’clock in the afternoon. They had no garage, so on winter mornings, he had to shovel his cab out from the snow before he drove off to pick up his first fare of the day. He parked on the gravel and sat in the car with his hands still on the wheel. Tall trees soared over his head, full of summer greenness. The rain had stopped, but the ground was wet and shiny with puddles.

  The front door of his house flew open.

  His wife, Ahdia, burst onto the wooden deck that was lined with geraniums in clay pots. She saw him and clapped both hands over her mouth in relief. She bolted down the three steps and ran to the car. He opened the taxi door, and when he climbed out, she threw her arms around him.

  “Khan!” she breathed into his ear. “I thought you were dead. I was so scared. I called, and you didn’t answer! Why didn’t you answer?”

  They stood at arm’s length with their hands still entwined. He stared at the face he knew so well. The dark, teasing eyebrows and brown eyes, so vivid against her ivory skin. The mouth that was always laughing at whatever he said. The blooms of her cheeks, pink, puffy, and round. Her bright hijab making a circle around her face. She was small, and to him, she was perfect. A treasure.

  “I’m sorry. I went back to help after the explosion, and I lost my phone in the chaos.”

  “I can’t tell you all the thoughts that were in my head.”

  “I know. There were people stranded everywhere. I wanted them to get home, so I made several trips in the cab. I’m sorry you were worried.”

  Ahdia dragged him toward the house, but her eyes never left him. She wore a cherry-red sweater and long black skirt. “Come inside. I’ll make you tea.”

  She led him up the old porch steps, which shifted unsteadily under their feet. Their house was small, nothing more than a tiny box with a pointed roof, but it felt like a castle to him. The lawn grew fast and always felt overgrown. They lived in a quiet neighborhood, on a street that dead-ended in deep woods. They’d bought the house a year ago. Some of their new neighbors ignored them; some had welcomed them with strange Minnesota dishes like green bean casserole. Others, the fearful ones, whispered or stared when Khan drove by in his cab, but he smiled at them anyway. He was a happy man.

  But not today.

  Inside, sandalwood incense relaxed him. He dropped into the worn armchair near the front window. A yellow embroidered tapestry took up most of the wall beside him. Whenever he saw it, he thought of his mother, who had made it over a stretch of months. She was long gone. So was his father. And his brother, who’d died in the riot in Lahore. None of them had made it out of Pakistan.

  Ahdia brought him tea in a blue ceramic mug, which he cupped between his palms. His wife curled up on the wooden floor at his feet and lay her head against his knee.

  “How is Pak?” he asked.

  “He’s sleeping.”

  Khan smiled. “Impossible.”

  His four-year-old son, with his mop of black hair, had limitless energy. He could already run like the wind, and he had astonishing grace on the soccer field. Khan was sure that Pak would be a star player.

  “Tell me what happened,” Ahdia said. “People outside were talking. They said there was a bomb.”

  Khan nodded. “Just a minute earlier, I’d been standing right there.”

  “Were you hurt?”

  “No. I’m fine.”

  “Did anyone die?”

  “I think so. That’s what I heard.”

  Ahdia took his hand. “Awful. So awful.”

  Khan stared down at his wife. Yes, it was awful, but he knew the troubles in their community were just beginning. “These are going to be dark days for us, you know.”

  “I know.” She added after a pause, “Did you find Malik? Was he there?”

  “I never saw him,” Khan replied. He sipped his tea, but he had no thirst for it now. He took off his silver glasses and wiped away the smudges with the tail of his shirt.

  “So maybe he wasn’t involved.”

  “I hope that’s true.”

  Ahdia stood up and folded her arms across her chest. “You should rest, Khan. You look exhausted.”

 
“I wouldn’t be able to sleep. I’m going to take a walk to put this all out of my head.”

  She bent down and kissed him. “All right, but don’t be long. Pak will be up soon. He’ll want to kick the ball with you.”

  Khan got up and went outside into the damp afternoon. He passed his yellow cab, where he spent twelve hours every day. Later, he would wash it. The rain had left it dirty, and he was fanatical about keeping a clean cab. He wandered into the empty street, which was quiet except for the songs of birds and a hushed wind. Where the road ended, he made his way onto a dirt trail leading into the woods. The silence of this place was a blessing. Growing up in Lahore, he’d never known what silence was. There was tumult everywhere, people shouting, animals baying, cars and bicycles honking horns or ringing bells as they clamored for space in the street. He missed very little about his homeland, where his memories were mostly of hunger and loss. He didn’t always understand America, but he was proud to be American.

  As a fourteen-year-old orphan, he’d been brought to Chicago by his uncle. Khan was grateful to have been rescued, but his uncle’s children had resented him and wanted nothing to do with him. Instead, his friends became his family, most of them young immigrants like him. He didn’t have money for college, so at eighteen, he drove a cab instead. His life followed a strict but sterile routine. Drive all day, pray, go to the mosque, share an apartment with four other ex-Pakistanis with similar lives. Looking back on those days, he understood how young men could go wrong. He wasn’t starving, but he’d had no clear purpose, and the purposeless life yearned for any kind of meaning.

  Everything had changed when he was twenty-three. His uncle introduced him to Ahdia.

  She was a Pakistani, like him, but her parents were both technology professionals, and she had a degree from the University of Chicago in computer science and a job with a local medical device manufacturer. She was traditional but strong-minded, and she was beautiful. He learned about life from her in a way he’d never appreciated before. She made him a better person. It was Ahdia who convinced him to become a citizen, and Ahdia who suggested they leave Chicago and move somewhere quieter and smaller, where they could build a family.

  They married. Ahdia got a job offer from the high-tech aircraft manufacturer Cirrus, and they made the move to Duluth. Khan continued to drive a cab. Pak was born a year later, and they bought their little house a year after that. The Muslim community was much smaller here than in Chicago, but they had built a small circle of friends at the mosque, some from Pakistan but others from places like Somalia and Iraq. Right now, today, Khan had everything he wanted in life, and the only thing he needed from the rest of the world was to leave him in peace.

  As he walked through the quiet woods, though, he realized that the world always catches up with you. He hiked a trail he’d hiked a hundred times before, and he saw someone waiting on a bench near the bank of Amity Creek. It was Malik.

  His friend stood up when he saw him. They didn’t embrace.

  “Salaam Alaikum,” they both murmured.

  Ironically, Malik looked more American than Khan did. He wore American clothes and kept expensive sunglasses tucked into the V-neck of his white shirt. His black hair was buzzed and came to a sharp point on the peak of his forehead. He had a chin curtain beard that followed the line of his square jaw. Malik, at twenty-two years old, was more than a decade younger than Khan. He was a senior at UMD, studying engineering, and his parents in Detroit were both doctors, but his privileges masked something hollow.

  Like Khan years before, Malik had no purpose, and the purposeless life always looked for meaning.

  Khan wasted no time getting to the point. “Did you do this?”

  “Nice to see you, too, Khan,” Malik replied.

  “No games! I want the truth. Was it you?”

  “Does it matter? They will blame us. They always do.”

  “And what if it was us? People died, Malik. People were blown to bits. Men, women, probably children, too.”

  His young friend sat back down on the bench. Behind him, water gurgled over the rocks, gathering strength. Barely two miles away, the creek crashed downward in waterfalls on its way to Lake Superior.

  “They bring it on themselves,” Malik replied.

  “How can you say that? This was a vile act. If a Muslim did this to innocent people, he is no Muslim to me.”

  “Nobody in this country is innocent,” Malik told him.

  Khan sat down next to him. “I was there. It could have been me, too. One minute this way or that, and I’d be dead.”

  For the first time, Malik looked concerned. “Why were you there?”

  “Looking for you,” Khan told him.

  Malik said nothing.

  “I wasn’t the only one,” Khan said. “Many of us have been worried about you. The things you’ve said lately? All the anger? The threats you’ve made against this awful woman Dawn Basch?”

  “Are you saying she doesn’t deserve them?” Malik asked.

  “I’m saying she is baiting us! She wants to incite violence. She only needs one fool to give her what she wants. These are not children’s games, Malik. Our community is trying to protect itself.”

  “If you think I’m guilty, turn me in.”

  “I think you’re hiding something,” Khan said.

  “My plans don’t concern you.”

  “If they put you at risk, they do concern me. You know how I feel about you.”

  Malik’s angry eyes softened. “Yes, I know that, and I love you like a brother, too. That’s why I don’t want you involved. You have a family. A life to protect.”

  “So do you.”

  Malik stood up. “I have dedicated my life to something else now.”

  His friend walked away toward a bridge that crossed the creek. Khan called after him. “Malik! How can I reach you? Where are you staying? You haven’t been at the dorm in days.”

  “It’s better that you not know where I am,” Malik replied.

  “Then turn on your phone.”

  Malik retraced his steps. “I destroyed my old phone. I have a new one now. Memorize the number, but don’t use it except in emergency.”

  Malik rattled off a number, and he made Khan repeat it several times to be sure he had it right.

  “Tell me what’s going on with you,” Khan urged Malik, but his friend simply walked away. In a short time, he’d become someone different. He was older and harder, with a cold line to his jaw. He looked like a man who’d found his purpose, and that was what worried Khan. It was too easy to find purpose in evil.

  “Go home to your wife and boy,” Malik called to him without looking back. “Keep your head low, Khan. Bad things are coming our way.”

  @AP tweeted:

  Press conference under way in Duluth. Minnesota governor asks for calm, advises people to remain indoors.

  #marathon

  @AP tweeted:

  Governor introduces Patrick Maloney, Special Agent in Charge of the Minneapolis office, FBI, to lead investigation.

  #marathon

  @AP tweeted:

  FBI’s Maloney cites “multiple casualties” from one explosive device. No other devices found.

  #marathon

  @AP tweeted:

  FBI’s Maloney says no suspects or motive, no claims of responsibility, investigation “wide open.”

  #marathon

  @myopeneyes tweeted:

  No motive, Pat? How about allah akbar. Wake up.

  #marathon

  #copsareblind

  17 people favorited @myopeneyes

  @a_private_i tweeted:

  Marathon photos showing up on diggitt.com. Got photos? Post them. Let’s solve this thing.

  #marathon

  @fredsissel tweeted:

  Thousands of photos at diggitt already. Come on, people, we can find this asshole.

  #marathon

  182 people retweeted @fredsissel

  @dawnbasch tweeted:

  Motive? Th
is was terrorism.

  This was an attempt to silence me.

  I will not be silenced.

  #marathon

  #islamismurder

  #noexceptions

  7

  Stride stood with Special Agent Gayle Durkin in Canal Park. The lift bridge, which separated the city from the strip of land known as the Point, loomed like a gray steel monster two hundred yards away. He could see the deep blue of Lake Superior from the street. The entire area around them had been taped off as a crime scene. FBI personnel swarmed the half block surrounding the Duluth Outdoor Company retail store, laying down numbers to mark evidence to be collected.

  Shrapnel. Metal. Fabric. Human tissue.

  The FBI Special Agent in Charge, Patrick Maloney, had cornered Stride after the press conference to introduce him to Durkin. Stride, in turn, had introduced Durkin to his cops at the bomb site. It helped that she was from Duluth. That gave her credibility as a police liaison, because she knew the local area, but no one—including Stride—was naïve about her role. Liaison was just a fancy word for the fact that Durkin would be telling his team what to do.

  “Was there any chatter around town before the marathon?” she asked him.

  “You mean threats? No, nothing specific. We were on high alert because of Dawn Basch and the unrest she’s caused. There’s been a lot of angry rhetoric back and forth. Campus protests. Things like that.”

  “Yes, Basch already called us about the death threats she’s received. She’s sending over copies of the hate mail. We need to review any intelligence you gathered on the protesters, too. E-mails. Videos. News reports. Social media posts. I want names and faces.”

  Stride took a long time to reply. “This isn’t the NSA, Durkin. We’re not spies up here.”

  “Yes, and Duluth’s not New York City,” Durkin fired back. “It’s a small town. I know how it works here. Nobody’s a stranger. Everyone is connected to everyone else. Chances are, somebody knows who did this. And a smart cop like you must have a pipeline to these people.”