“Stay close to the trees, and stay quiet,” Malik whispered. “There could be patrols out here.”
Malik led the way. They were both dressed in dark clothes. With the woods beside them, they were invisible. The golf course dipped and rose as they headed south. He saw the silhouette of the clubhouse and its flags on the hill above them, and then they dropped into a valley, following a cart path that took them past manicured greens and sand traps.
All Khan could think about with each footfall in the wet grass was Ahdia and Pak. His wife and son were not even two miles away—less than an hour’s walk through the golf course and the trails of Hartley Park. Then they would all be together again. In each other’s arms. Crying. Smiling. The past day of loneliness in the house on Redwing Street had been the longest of his life, but it would be over soon. Every nightmare ended at dawn.
He tried not to think about Malik and his suicide vest and his awful plan. It was impossible to reconcile the image of his best friend with that of a man who would do something like that. For now, Malik was leading him to his family, and that was all that mattered. Khan didn’t know what to do next, but soon he would be with Ahdia again, and she would make all the choices seem easy. His heart felt so full, he found it hard to breathe.
If he listened, he thought he could hear Ahdia, her voice like a musical instrument. “Come to me.”
And Pak, too. “Papa, where are you? It is time to pray.”
I am here, my boy. I am on my way.
In front of him, Malik held up a hand. “Stop.”
“What is it?” Khan asked.
“Someone is out there,” Malik murmured. “Take cover.”
Together, they ducked into a stand of trees and squatted behind the thickest trunk. Khan squinted into the darkness. Malik was right. A dark shape moved on the fairway under the stars, no more than fifty yards away. It wasn’t human. It was a doe, putting its head down to feed on the grass.
“It’s just a deer,” Khan said. He was impatient.
He began to stand up, but Malik stopped him. “Wait.”
Much closer, almost close enough to reach out and touch, Khan heard a stealthy rustle in the brush, accompanied by a low, violent growl. The sound made him freeze. He could see an animal now, breaking cover. It was a wolf, its body low to the ground, slinking from the rough to the fairway. Heading for the doe.
“Another,” Malik whispered, pointing.
Khan followed Malik’s hand and saw the silhouette of a second wolf, approaching at an angle. The two hunted together.
“We should do something,” Khan said.
“Do what? It’s nature. Either the deer lives or the deer dies.”
“We can shout.”
“And bring the wolves to us? Or the police? Come on, quickly, let’s go. Silent running.”
Khan eyed the wolves, but they were focused on the deer, not on the scent of men. He followed Malik, and soon the animals became part of the night, indistinguishable behind them. He tried not to listen for the sound of the hunt and the capture. It might be nature, but he couldn’t abide the death of innocents. He hoped the doe was able to escape.
Moments later, they reached the end of the golf course and crossed a gurgling creek onto the wooded land of the Hartley Nature Center. The forest was dense. A soggy trail barely a foot wide wound into the trees. With a flashlight Malik illuminated the standing water of a swamp.
Khan was lost, but Malik walked with confidence. Mosquitoes feasted on their skin, and gnats flew up into the moist part of Khan’s nose. The swampland got deeper, and a floating boardwalk carried them to the next trail, making their boots sound like the clip-clop of horses on the planks. Where two trails intersected, Malik stopped to get his bearings, but then he led them onto a new trail with his light. The park felt claustrophobic at night, with the trees crowding around them and grabbing at their arms like the street urchins in Lahore. Khan couldn’t see anything except the flashlight beam on the ground.
Malik stopped again, but this time, there was no cross-trail. He swung his flashlight as if looking for something, and finally, his light stopped on a white handkerchief tied to a tree branch that dangled over the path. His friend looked back with a dark smile.
“The going gets tough from here.”
“It wasn’t tough before?” Khan asked.
Malik pushed directly into the thick trees. Their boots splashed into several inches of water. Sharp branches clawed their faces. The bugs were even more voracious here. The two of them fought their way forward through a cage made of tree branches, and what was probably no more than a tenth of a mile felt longer and harder than everything they’d hiked before. They made noise. Too much noise. But it couldn’t be helped.
Finally, with a jolt, they burst out of the woods onto a paved residential street. It was the intersection of Harvard Avenue and Oxford Street. Malik gave him a thumbs-up and pointed down Oxford, which was lined with trees and telephone wires.
“We’re only three blocks from Woodland Avenue. The gallery’s there.”
Khan found it almost impossible not to run, knowing that Ahdia and Pak were so close. Even so, they went more slowly, because the risk was greatest here. Houses and driveways appeared among the trees. Some had lights on inside. After one more block, the trees gave way to an open neighborhood where houses were packed closely together. He saw a school building on a slope to their right. Streetlights lit them up. He was conscious that they were two Muslim men, wanted by the police.
“It’s not far now,” Malik said.
Khan felt his adrenaline surge. He was so close. Where he was now, the world was chaos and violence and confusion, but two blocks away, in the loft of a tiny gallery, was happiness. He could feel the pieces of his life come together again. He walked faster and faster, because he needed to escape the guns and the bugs and the wolves.
And yet he felt something else, too.
A dark cloud. A sense of unimaginable dread.
Something was wrong. He had no idea how he knew, but something was very wrong. He felt it. The closer he got to Woodland Avenue, the more he could hardly contain himself from sprinting. It was as if angels were falling from the sky and beating their wings in despair. As if disaster were on the wind. They passed house after house and finally crested the shallow hill, and when he saw the stop sign below him, he said, “Malik, run.”
“What? Why?”
“Don’t you smell it?”
Malik lifted his nose to the air, and his face fell, and without a word, they both ran. Khan had never run faster. No sprinter would have passed him. But none of it mattered; none of it chased away Iblis. Shaitaan. Satan. The explosion rocked the ground. It lifted him off his feet; it threw him down. He was dazed and terrified. He got up and ran again, and already he could feel the heat. When he turned into the cracked asphalt drive that led to the rear of the gallery, he had to dive away to avoid a van that nearly ran him over. He didn’t see what it looked like. He didn’t see who drove it. It was there and gone, and all that was left was the hell in front of him.
Fire roared like a beast from every window. Smoke clouded the air, poisonous and black. Glass covered the ground like diamonds.
Khan screamed from the bottom of his soul.
“Ahdia! Pak!”
He ran for the gallery. Malik tried to grab him and hold him, but he shook himself free and ran. Nothing would stop him. He would walk through fire. He would breathe smoke. He would suffer any pain to reach them and free them and save them. His family.
His wife. His child.
But the fire was stronger. Satan was stronger. He charged in, and the flames drove him back. Again and again. The ground was on fire. The trees were on fire. The conflagration sucked away his breath. He fought to the front of the building, hoping to see an open window, hoping to find his wife and son safely on the street, hoping to see them ready to jump into his arms.
No.
Every window was smoke.
Every window was fire.<
br />
“Khan!” Malik shouted.
Tears poured down Khan’s face. Tears filled his soul. He wailed like a baby.
“Khan!” Malik called again, trying to shout down the roar of the fire.
Sirens screamed, drawing close, but not soon enough, not fast enough. They were too late.
“Khan, we have to go, there’s nothing you can do.”
Khan tried to call their names again, but his mouth and tongue were black and dry and unable to form a word. The tears dried on his face, like burns. He felt Malik pulling him, yanking him back toward the park. He squeezed both hands against his skull, as if he could crush the bone and pull out his brain and destroy life and memory and breath and consciousness. He wanted to curl up and die. He wanted to run into the fire and let it consume him. If he could, he would have become nothing but black ash floating in the air.
“Khan,” Malik said again.
He could barely walk, so Malik dragged him like a child. Even when they were blocks away, he could still hear the guttural throb of the fire. The boastful, evil, murderous fire. It followed him back into the woods, and he knew it would never be gone from his memory.
32
The fire was out, but the smell of smoke clung to Stride, a stench that couldn’t be washed off. Black soot streaked his skin. He leaned against the door of his Expedition and felt every one of his fifty years. Around him, Woodland Avenue was closed and taped off in both directions. Media crowded the perimeter, looking for answers. Special Agent Maloney had already spoken to them; so had the mayor and the police chief. They’d said what they had to say—words of outrage and comfort, appeals for calm, promises of justice. Stride knew that words didn’t change a thing.
Haq Al-Masri stood next to him. His body had the tight coil of a rattlesnake. His gaze never left the scorched remains of the gallery.
“This is what happens,” Haq said, hissing out the words. “Politicians prattle about free speech, and in the real world, people die. Every one of us in our community knew this was coming. Every one of us knew something like this would happen sooner or later. You can’t have this kind of vicious hatred spread around without someone paying the price.”
Stride had nothing to say.
“I want that woman arrested for murder!” Haq went on. “She killed them. If she put a gun to their heads, she couldn’t have been more responsible. You know that’s true.”
Stride put a hand on the man’s shoulder. He didn’t want an argument about justice, especially when he knew there was no likelihood of Dawn Basch ever being prosecuted for murder. “Haq, I feel the pain of this every bit as much as you do. I’m devastated.”
Haq was in no mood to listen. “Basch already spoke to the press. Did you hear her? Expressing sadness at the loss of life? That lying hypocrite. She got exactly what she wanted. And her followers! Have you seen the things they’ve been posting? Calling Ahdia a terrorist. Saying she got what she deserved. Saying the death of a child takes a future terrorist from the world. It is unbelievable. You wonder where violence comes from? You wonder where radicals come from?”
“I don’t defend extremists of any kind,” Stride said.
“I know you believe that, Jonathan, but you’re the one protecting Dawn Basch. You have to live with that, and I don’t know how you can.”
Stride wanted to fire back, but he didn’t. He was angry, but he held himself in check, because blind anger was the root of everything that had gone wrong. He wanted to tell Haq that if he’d trusted Stride, there would have been no loss of life. If he’d brought Ahdia to him, instead of hiding her away, she and her child would still be alive. It didn’t matter. He found it hard to blame Haq for his choice, because trust was in short supply.
“Where is Khan?” Stride asked.
“I have no idea.”
“Haq, I want him safe. If he reaches out to you, you need to tell me. No one else. Just me. I’ll make sure nothing happens to him.”
Haq shook his head. “No. I’m sorry, Jonathan, no. We are done. We are over. No more information. No more secrets. I will not betray my community. You stay in your world, and we stay in ours.”
“That’s not how it works,” Stride said.
“It is now.”
Haq stalked away toward the crowd of reporters. Seeing him come, they shouted questions and lit him up with klieg lights. Stride could hear Haq begin to unleash his bitterness in front of the press, and he walked away, rather than hear the next volley of hatred. Tit for tat. It never ended.
Maggie waited for him in the middle of the street. “You okay?”
Stride wanted to say no. No, he was not okay. He’d lived too long and worked too hard to accept the notion that his city was going backward.
“I was thinking about something Scott Lyons told me when he was the chief,” he replied. “He said he became a cop to save the world, and it took him a long time to realize that the world had no interest in being saved.”
Maggie blew the bangs out of her face, which was dirty with ash, like his. “We’re just Dutch boys, boss. Fingers in the dike.”
Stride knew she was right. It was late, and there was nothing more he could do there. He wanted to go home; he wanted to watch Cat sleep; he wanted to get into bed with Serena and talk to her, because he knew he’d never sleep himself. This was a night that made him glad he was married.
“Remember I told you about that case twenty years ago when I was filling in as interim chief in that small town for the summer?” Stride asked.
“The missing boy? Joshua?”
“That’s the one. He was out walking with his brother on a dirt road. Brother hears a car while he’s in the woods, and when he comes back, Joshua’s gone. I figured it was all a misunderstanding and Joshua would be back home by nightfall. I mean, a stranger kidnapping in the middle of nowhere? What were the odds of that? But Joshua never came home. I spent the whole summer looking for him, and I swore I wouldn’t leave that town until we solved the case. But summer ended, and we didn’t find him. Twenty years later, his parents still don’t know what happened to their boy. I didn’t deliver. I didn’t do what I’d promised to do.”
Maggie was quiet. Then she said, “What’s your point, boss?”
“The day I left that town at the end of the summer was the only time in my life I thought about quitting the job,” Stride said. “Until now.”
“It’s a bad day. There are always bad days.”
“Yeah. I know.”
“Go home, boss.”
Stride nodded wearily. He headed for his Expedition, but then he backtracked. “I want you all over this one, Mags,” he told her. “Find out who did this.”
TUESDAY
33
Cat knew that Curt Dickes would call her, not Serena, when he found out where Eagle was hiding. And he did.
She spent the morning spying on Drew Olson and her baby from the parking lot behind the elementary school basketball court. She watched them through binoculars as she sat on the hood of her beat-up Civic. Even from far away, Cat could see a lot of herself in her son. There was something about his smile that made her think she was looking in a mirror. His eyes were her eyes. Even the shape of his ears, with the sharp little edges like wing tips, reminded her of photos she’d seen of herself as a baby.
Yes, Michael was her son. He had a stable home, which was more than she could have given him herself. He had a father and mother. He had everything he needed in life. It should have made her proud, but it made her feel lonely.
She put down the binoculars. She didn’t want to watch anymore.
It was summer, and summer made her restless. When she was in school, she had things to do. She was good at her classes, and Serena watched her like a hawk to make sure she got her homework done. Now she had nothing constructive to do until September. Serena kept lining up tutoring sessions and volunteer work for her, but some days Cat had an itch to do bad things. An itch to steal or drink or smoke or run away to the Graffiti Graveyard. That was w
ho she really was. There was no point in trying to change.
“Cat?”
Her head flew up. Drew Olson, holding Michael, stood on the edge of the school basketball court, no more than twenty yards away. He’d spotted her from the backyard of his house.
“Oh, damn,” she murmured, sliding off the hood and throwing open the driver’s door.
“Cat, wait!” he called.
Cat didn’t listen. She sped off in the opposite direction, casting a glance in the rearview mirror to see father and son behind her. Drew waved at her to come back, and part of her wanted to turn the car around, but she kept driving. The house disappeared in her mirror. She couldn’t see them anymore, and she was glad they couldn’t see her. Her face felt hot from embarrassment.
As she turned on Grand Avenue, her phone began to ring. She wondered if it was Drew calling her, but when she answered it, she heard the all-too-familiar voice of Curt Dickes.
“Hey, babycakes!”
Cat pulled to the curb. She knew she should hang up. Tell Curt to call Serena and put down the phone. But talking to Curt made her feel as if she was back in her old world, and that was where she felt comfortable. Besides, she liked Curt. He always had crazy ideas, but he was funny and knew how to make her laugh.
“Hey,” she said to him.
“You guys still looking for Eagle?” he asked.
“Yes. Did you hear something? Do you know where he is?”
“Maybe.” His voice teased her.
“Come on, what does that mean?”
“I mean, maybe I can help you, and maybe you can help me.”
Cat squirmed in her seat. “Help you how? What are you talking about?”
“Well, here’s the thing. Everybody’s bored. The whole city is shut down because of the bombing. One of my customers called—guy over on Congdon Park Drive—and he’s trying to set up a party for tonight. High-class, lots of champagne, the works. He said he’d pay two hundred bucks to every pretty girl who shows.”
“Yeah, and what do you get?”
Marathon Page 20