Alavi pulled hard on Riley’s hair and twisted his face toward the camera. Behind that lens, millions of people were watching him right now in horror, wondering what he would do. How would the great Riley Covington show his unbroken spirit?
Riley willed himself to do something defiant—call out a patriotic slogan, sing like that senator, put up a fight to get away—but all he could do was stare at the camera. Because the truth was that he truly was broken, at least physically. They had beaten away every ounce of strength he had left. The only thing even keeping him semiupright was the mass of hair in Alavi’s hand.
But he still had his heart. They hadn’t broken his will. He stared hard into the camera, praying that the people could still see through his eyes that the terrorists had not won.
“This man you see before you—this man your media calls Captain America, as if he were the epitome of all your nation finds true and virtuous—this man is nothing but a criminal of the worst kind. Beginning with his time in the military while participating in your country’s unjust incursion into Afghanistan, through his career in the sinister black operations—the activities your rogue government doesn’t want you, the citizens, to know about—this man has raped, tortured, and murdered his way through countless innocents. . . .”
Raped? Tortured? Murdered? Lies! Riley said desperately with his eyes. All lies! Don’t believe him! Please, I would never do those things! Don’t let that be your final impression of me! Everything I’ve done, I’ve done for the good. . . .
Then something Grandpa had said cut through his growing anguish. “You got to make sure you’re right with God and with the people who love you. Let Him take care of the rest.”
In that moment, all the fear, all the anxiety, all the wondering what was going to happen and how he would be remembered—all of it disappeared. Replacing it was faith—the complete and unquestioning belief that God is on His throne and that Riley was in His hands.
He felt the hardness in his eyes soften. Lord, do with me what you will. Make this about You and not me. Let me decrease and You increase. Let me fade away, so they can see You—Your love, Your forgiveness, Your salvation.
Another jerk of his hair brought Riley back into the here and now. Saifullah was still speaking: “. . . and today justice will be carried out. The Prophet—peace be upon him—has written, ‘If anyone killed a person not in retaliation of murder, or to spread mischief in the land—it would be as if he killed all mankind.’ This man is a murderer of mankind. Today, he receives his retribution.”
Saifullah stepped to the side. The blade lifted from Riley’s neck.
Father, I am Yours.
The first cut was like fire burning so hot that all the other pain in Riley’s body seemed to coalesce itself in that one spot. Then the knife sawed back, taking the agony to a new level.
Please, Lord, let it end quickly! Take me into Your hands!
The blade began its cut back down again—muscle ripped and cartilage tore.
Then the lights went out.
Friday, September 16, 1:46 p.m. EDT
Scott was moving even before the HERF took the power down. This better work or they’re gonna blow the roof of this place down on us! The stairway went dark.
Scott flattened himself against a stone wall as the sound of breaking glass echoed from above, quickly followed by the ear-splitting staccato of twenty stun grenades detonating.
Immediately, he was back up and running. Fifteen steps later, Scott burst through an arch into a colorful gloom—the only light in the shadowy grey building coming from the stained glass windows above.
Movement caught his eye—he recognized Ubaida Saliba on the ground, pushing a button on a remote control device, once, twice. A round from Scott’s Bushmaster stopped him from trying a third time.
Bravo and Delta teams spread out quickly, and the gunfire began. Off in the distant back of the sanctuary, the sound of doors shattering resounded through the cathedral. Scott glanced over to see Alpha and Charlie teams swarming into the nave.
Continuing at full sprint, Scott beelined for Wilson Bay. All around, bullets flew and men dropped to the ground—but whether good guy, bad guy, or hostage, he didn’t stop to find out.
To his left, a gunman stepped from behind a pillar, his AK-103 leveled at Scott.
He was pegged, and it was too late for him to do anything about it. Skeeter, be there! Skeeter, be there!
A shot from behind Scott caved the gunman’s chest in, and he crumpled to the ground. Skeeter, my man!
Spotting the arched passage into Wilson Bay, Scott slid to a stop against the pillared entry. Not knowing where Riley was, he fired two rounds high, then ducked back. A volley of bullets flew past him. Then three precise, evenly spaced shots sounded from his right.
Scott dove in and found Saifullah, Majid Alavi, and a third man behind a video camera dead on the ground. Skeeter, who had fired the three shots from the opening to the nave, jumped through, slid over Wilson’s tomb, and landed next to Scott.
“Where is he?” Scott yelled.
Skeeter dropped to the ground in response. He threw the dead cameraman out of the way, the body bouncing off Wilson’s final resting place.
Now Scott saw him too. Riley had been shoved under a stone bench, a long red cushion placed in front to conceal him. Skeeter already had hold of his shoulders and was gently easing him out.
Scott fell to his knees. “Is he . . . ?” He couldn’t bring himself to say the word.
Skeeter’s eyes said it all.
“No!” Scott took hold of Riley and pulled him to his chest. The blood from the gaping wound in his neck had slowed to a trickle, but his friend’s entire upper body was soaked with it. “Riley, no! No! No! No!”
The gunfire outside was slowing down, but Scott hardly noticed. Skeeter, too, seemed to be in a world of his own—squatting down, his head in his hands.
In his ear, Tara’s voice was saying, “What? Scott, what is it?”
He pulled the earpiece and threw it across the bay. “How could this happen, Pach?” Scott asked through his tears. “You’re invincible, man. You’re Captain America.”
A couple of minutes passed while both men grieved in their own ways, until a hand rested on Scott’s shoulder. He looked up and saw Gilly Posada.
“We’re clear,” Posada said softly, the sorrow evident on his face. “Schneeberger needs to talk with you.”
Scott nodded. Gently, he laid the body on the tarp and stood up. He was about to tell Skeeter to stay with Riley, but he realized he didn’t need to. Reaching around to the back of the big man’s neck, Scott pressed his brow to the top of his friend’s bald head, then walked out.
Friday, September 16, 6:10 p.m. EDT
Khadi endured the endless questioning for the next four hours—telling her story over and over again. Finally she pleaded exhaustion and was allowed to go with a sworn promise to be at Homeland Security headquarters at 8:00 sharp tomorrow morning.
As she left the trailer, she spotted a man about ten yards away squatting in the grass. He had a cigarette in one hand and a cell phone in the other.
When he saw her, he said into the phone, “Oh, gotta go.” Standing up, he addressed Khadi. “Didn’t expect you out quite so soon.”
“Yeah, I said I was exhausted, and they let me go until tomorrow morning.”
“They’re going to be pretty pissed when you don’t show,” he said.
“They’ll get over it,” she said with a tired smile.
“I’m Pat Kimmin, US Marshal. Your friend Skeeter asked me to wait for you. He thought you might be looking to get away for a while.”
Khadi eyed the man for a moment, then said, “My friend Skeeter was right.”
“Then follow me,” Kimmin said, extending his arm, which Khadi took.
They didn’t say anything while they wound through the trailers. Finally, they came to a black Mustang.
Kimmin dropped a set of keys into her hand.
“You take
care,” Kimmin said, opening the door for her. “Just bring her back sometime, or else I’m going to have a boatload of paperwork to fill out.”
He gave her a hug, and the smell of tobacco clung to her for a long while after. Slowly, she eased herself through the scurrying foot traffic, found a path out to the road, and pointed the car in the direction of her parents’ house in Arlington.
Riley would have loved this car, she thought sadly as she drove down the freeway. The sound, the colors, the cool white shifter knob. He would have been all over this.
She burst into tears. The sobs poured out of her so violently that she pulled to the shoulder and parked.
When she first got word of Riley, she was still at the monitors, which had all gone blank when the HERF fired. There was nothing to see, but she stared blankly at the screens anyway, hoping to somehow catch a glimpse of him from the cathedral’s security cameras. Then Stanley Porter came over and gently pulled her back a few steps.
Looking in his face, she knew what he was going to say, even before he said it. “Scott and Skeeter found Riley. I’m sorry, Khadi. He’s gone.”
She had nodded her understanding, then walked to the stool at the back of the trailer. There she had sat, emotionally numb, feeling like she should be crying—wailing—but unable to shed a tear. It was all just so unreal.
After a time, Porter came to tell her that she was needed to complete her debriefing. Again she nodded and let him lead her to another trailer, where the same two CTD agents were waiting for her.
The emotional anesthetization helped her remain businesslike throughout the four hours of questioning. But all the while, she knew that her sorrow was just a Dutch boy’s finger away from bursting through.
And now, on the side of the freeway, her emotional dike had finally ruptured. It was a full fifteen minutes before she could finally force herself to merge back into traffic. She probably could have stayed there all night, but the overwhelming desire to be with her family pushed her forward.
Her mom answered the door, and soon the whole house rose into an uproar. Most of her extended family were there praying for her and waiting on news. When she simply appeared out of the blue, it was almost as if someone had stepped out of the grave.
This is what I need. Family. Oh, Riley, I wish you’d had time to get to know them all. They would have loved you.
Dad, a physician, tended to her wounds. Mom jumped to her every need. Her brothers swore oaths against the criminals who had done this to her.
After the initial flurry of loving and doting, she realized just how tired she was. Mom turned down the covers on the bed she had slept in until going to college, and her sisters-in-law promised to take turns sitting by her as she slept.
She didn’t open her eyes again until morning.
Morning—that was when things started to go wrong. From years of habit, her internal alarm clock stirred her early. Her eyes cracked just in time to see one of her sisters-in-law slipping from her bedroom. What’s going on? she wondered, still in a half sleep. Part of her felt like she was in a movie, compelled to follow the mysterious apparition.
The aches and pain from her many cuts and bruises made it difficult to pull herself out of bed, but eventually her feet reached the floor. Finding one of her old robes in her closet, she wrapped herself tightly and stepped out of her upstairs room.
Gently, she inched her way down the hallway. Her mind was still foggy, and she wondered if maybe the beatings of the last two days had damaged her more than she realized.
The sound of the morning Ramadan prayers reached her first. An anxious, jittery feeling took hold of her body. Slowly, she peeked around the corner. Down below her in the great room, all the furniture had been pushed to the side, and her entire family were on their knees in prayer—the men in front and the women behind.
Her stomach retched as visions of her captors doing the same thing only yesterday flashed through her head. Stumbling to the bathroom, she vomited noisily. Footsteps echoed up the stairway, and Khadi dove to close and lock the bathroom door before anyone arrived.
The door slammed, and immediately she heard knocking.
“Khadi, are you okay, honey?” her mother called.
“Sweetheart, this is Dad; open the door. I want to make sure you’re all right.”
“I’m fine,” Khadi called out. Go away! Leave me alone!
“You may have a concussion. Sometimes the symptoms don’t appear until the next day.”
“I know that, Dad. Please, everyone, I’m okay. I’m feeling better already.”
But she wasn’t okay. The vision of her quiet, good, loving, sane Muslim family on their rugs praying to Allah kept intermingling in her head with the evil, radical, violent, terroristic Islamic kooks on their rugs praying to Allah. And as much as she tried to keep the two categories distinct, she couldn’t. The lines between moderate and radical danced and twisted and blurred until finally it all coalesced into five words: I’ve got to get out!
She waited until she heard all movement behind the door fade and the prayers begin again below. Slipping out the door, she stealthily made her way back to her bedroom, knowing from her childhood which areas of the carpet were safe to step on and which ones were creaky danger zones.
Once in her room, she changed as quickly as she could into some of her old clothes that still remained in the dresser. Then, spotting the purse her sister-in-law Zanita had left by the bed, she rifled through it. She found a Visa card and slipped it into her pocket.
Phone, phone, she’s got to have a phone . . . there! She checked the cell phone but saw that it had only half a charge. Not worth it, she thought and left it behind.
After quickly scribbling a note—Sorry, Zani! I’ll pay you back! Khadi—she slid open her bedroom window, stepped out onto the garage overhang, then dropped painfully into the grass below. The starting of the Mustang’s deep-throated engine was to her like the sound a cell door being slid open would be to a prisoner who had just received his walking papers.
As she pulled away, out of the corner of her eye she could see the front door open and her father come running out. Don’t look back! You can’t look back!
Her first stop was to a Verizon store to replace her phone. As soon as she got back to her car, she texted her dad. Just need some time to work things out. I’ll call later in the week. I love you all so much!
Sending out the text must have activated something in her phone, because all of a sudden voice message after voice message and text after text began coming through.
Ignoring them, she inputted Scott’s number and typed, I’m fine. Just need to process. Please let everyone know. I’ll call later. As soon as the Message Sent icon appeared on the phone, she shut it down.
She began driving north and eventually found herself out on Cape Cod. There, she found a quiet bed-and-breakfast and for the next few days alternated between walking the beaches and crying in her room. Sorrow mixed together with guilt—I am the reason Riley is dead—and formed a cocktail of self-loathing that she found bitter but all too easy to drink.
Then, on the third morning, as she was on her way out to the beach, the owner of the B&B—an older woman who had pretty much left her alone until now—said in a low whisper, “I know who you are, Khadi.”
Khadi had just nodded, thinking that when she got back from her walk she’d find a new place to stay.
“You know they’re all looking for you,” the proprietor had said.
“Who?”
“All of them—everybody.”
“I’m sure they are,” Khadi replied, turning the front doorknob.
“They all say you’re a hero.”
This stopped Khadi. She turned. “I’m sorry, Mrs. . . .”
“Milholland. But my friends call me Juanita.”
“I’m sorry, Juanita, but I’m no hero.”
“That’s not what everyone’s saying.”
“‘Everyone’ is wrong. ‘Everyone’ wasn’t there.” Khadi again turn
ed to go.
“Well, some of them were. There’s that old lady who was in the church. Then there was another man who was in the church too. Then there was that funny-looking policeman with the goatee—I don’t think I care for him much.”
“Scott Ross?”
“Oh, honey, I don’t know. I’m so bad with names. That’s why I didn’t recognize yours until this morning.”
Khadi stood there processing. I certainly don’t feel like a hero. But maybe—just maybe—Scott and everyone else don’t blame me after all. Maybe . . . maybe they still . . .
“You look like you could use a cup of tea, dear. Why don’t you go to the sitting room, and I’ll bring you a cup of this new honey vanilla chamomile I found. It’s simply scrumptious.”
Later that afternoon, Khadi drove back to DC. It took her another day before she summoned the courage to show up at 9:00 p.m., unannounced, at Scott and Tara’s front door. But the exuberant reunion she experienced assured her that no matter her own doubts, she was home and she was with family.
Saturday, September 24, 1:05 p.m. EDT
Washington, DC
It’s definitely a full house, Khadi thought as she took in the packed House of Representatives chambers. From her place in one of the VIP sections of the gallery, she was able to see the entire House floor—every seat taken except for twelve that were conspicuously draped with American flags. To her left and right were other VIP areas blocked off for the families of the slain.
All told, seven senators and five congressmen had lost their lives, whether by direct assassination or during the rescue attempt. Also lost were two MPDC officers, one SEAL, three Homeland Security ops agents . . . and one superhero. Riley, I still can’t believe you’re gone.
Khadi sighed deeply, picturing a shirtless Riley walking toward her with red dots dancing on his chest—the last time she had seen him. This vision seemed to be with her constantly now—his eyes, so much love, so much sacrifice. Khadi knew that with each mental viewing, Riley was becoming more and more perfect. Soon he’ll be floating towards me with wings on his back and a halo around his head . . . which is fine, as long as I can see his face, his eyes.
Inside Threat Page 29