“It’s okay,” his wife said to the children. “Just lie down and sleep. Everything is okay.”
She barely got the last word out before he choked off her words by grabbing her by the throat. If they were lucky enough to have the fire not be seen, he needed to teach her a lesson and ensure that this would never happen again. He felt like squeezing until she passed out. But he loved her. And aside from this one incident, she had been a good servant. But just like Husaam, all servants must also have their day. Maybe this was hers. He would let Allah decide and allow him to work through his body whether she lived or died. He was okay with either outcome.
“Stop it, Father! You’re hurting her!” Saajid’s son shouted.
Saajid ignored him, and continued to squeeze. Jamila rushed into the room and pulled at his shoulders.
“Leave us! This doesn’t concern you!”
Jamila backed away. Saajid continued to squeeze. He could feel his wife’s grip loosen around his wrists. He knew she was close, but he hadn’t heard from his god to stop.
“Father, please!” his daughter shouted this time.
He didn’t stop.
“Father!”
He felt his daughter’s and then his son’s hands pulling on him. His wife’s eyes rolled back in her head. Maybe his god was telling him to stop by having his two children be brave enough to challenge him.
Saajid let go of his wife’s neck. She sucked in air so hard that it choked her, but she was going to be fine. His children sobbed as they hugged their mother. Saajid stood and looked down at them.
“This could all have been avoided if you’d just followed the rules.” He backed away toward the doorway behind him. He took a few breaths to steady his rage. The adrenaline running through him was causing his hands to shake. “Not one sound from this room. Not one.”
He shut the door and went back to the office.
“The other bombings have been successful,” Jamila said.
Saajid gave her a nod, then looked at his men. “All of you, perimeter check, right now. Make it thorough. Take your weapons.”
They nodded and left the bunker.
“Do you think anyone saw the fire? You think all the brush and trees did their job?” Jamila said.
Jamila was talking about the natural wall they’d planted a decade ago to form a barrier. At the time, it wasn’t meant to hide light, but he supposed it had grown up enough around them that maybe it had.
“I-I don’t know. It’s late, maybe that will help.”
“We should be fine,” Jamila said, hoping to reassure him.
“It’s fine. Let’s worry about things we can control now,” Saajid said, pointing at the television footage of smoke rising from one of the bombed subway stations. “Are they ready in Los Angeles? Let’s not let up now.”
“Ten minutes.”
Chapter Forty-Two
“I’m telling you, I saw a light,” Sam whispered to King.
They had been jogging blindly for more than ten minutes, at least a mile and a half. It was pitch black around them. The clouds had moved in overhead, so even the moon couldn’t help them. The terrain was rough, causing both of them to stumble on a few occasions.
“I didn’t see it. Surely they wouldn’t be dumb enough to use electricity or fire after the sun went down.”
“It was there, and when we moved to our right, it was gone. But I’m angling toward it now, and it wasn’t far.”
The two of them jogged forward. King believed Sam; he just didn’t understand how he’d missed it. Regardless, he soon knew exactly what the source of the light was.
“You smell that?” he said.
“Smoke,” Sam confirmed.
It smelled like burning wood. It reminded him of another lifetime when his high school would put on a bonfire for the homecoming football game. And judging by how the smell was becoming stronger, they absolutely were close. King put his hand on Sam’s shoulder in front of him to slow her down and make sure they stayed together. It was that dark. He took the bottom of her T-shirt in his hand to keep tethered. He held his Glock in his other hand. He could feel the questions creeping up in his mind. Was this really Saajid’s village? If so, what was the security? And if they could get past security, where was Saajid and this underground facility?
The brush had become thicker at their knees. So much so that Sam had slowed to a walk. Every noise they made was loud. Visibility was about ten feet, and King couldn’t tell if his mind was playing tricks on him or not, but he swore he heard a breeze rustling some trees. Sam slowed to a stop. She had heard it too.
She pulled him close and whispered, “Trees in front of us. The smell is stronger. We’re here.”
King pulled her down to a knee. He heard something over her shoulder on his left. If this were his little village in the middle of nowhere, and he didn’t want it to be found, he would keep it dark like this too. And he would also have armed guards patrolling the perimeter. Always.
King tucked his gun at the small of his back. He reached in his pocket and pulled his knife.
“I’m going to try to keep this quiet. Just watch my back,” he whispered.
Then he felt Sam move around behind him. The clouds cleared a bit, and some yellow moonlight showed them the line of trees. It was terrible timing. King would have preferred no light at all. All the same, he moved forward, and he immediately heard a rock kicked just at the tree line ahead.
He kept his breathing even by slowly pulling in air through his nose and releasing it out his mouth. The breeze sent a cool chill down the bit of sweat he’d built on the jog there. He tuned his ears forward. His eyes searched the trees for any shadow passing in the moonlight. He was putting one foot in front of the other in what felt like slow motion.
He heard four quick footsteps off to his left, but before he could turn, he felt the burn in his shoulder at the same time he heard the rapid pop-pop, pop-pop-pop from the suppressed gunshots. He and Sam both dropped to the ground. As soon as their bodies met the dirt, Sam was firing behind her. Her gunshots sounded like mini bombs exploding in that quiet night. They didn’t have access to suppressors in Athens, and Sam’s gunfire may as well have been an air-raid siren. All King could see when he looked in the direction of the sounds were small sparks of light from the end of the shooter’s gun. He tucked his knife back in his pocket and pulled his Glock.
King managed to get his free hand around Sam’s arm, and he dragged her behind the brush in front of him. The claps of the suppressor stopped. He felt the blood from the wound in his shoulder running down the outside of his left arm. The adrenaline helped him to ignore the pain. King scooted to a knee, raised his head just above the bush, and his gun hand followed immediately when he saw a shadow moving toward them.
He pointed, fired three times, but the shadow had moved to the right.
“You hit the shooter?” he whispered to Sam.
“I think so.”
The suppressed shots hadn’t returned after he was shot, so he had to assume that she had hit the gunman a moment ago.
“I missed,” he said. “And they went right. Let’s go left.”
King stayed low, moving around the brush and into the trees. The light in the sky was just bright enough now that he could see the man who had shot him lying on the ground about ten feet away. Sam had hit him. King thought for a moment about picking up the man’s suppressed weapon, but at that point, the cat was already out of the bag. And if his magazine ended up being empty, it would have been a wasted trip. They didn’t have time for that. A wave of gunmen could be on their way to him and Sam. They needed to stay the course.
King moved quickly toward the pine trees ahead. He heard what he thought was a man’s voice, but it was faint and far away. They moved around some branches, just a few feet, enough for Sam to detect a flame flickering beyond the tree line. King, too, could see embers still smoldering in the pile now, right in the middle of a dirt road, which was flanked by several small adobe-style houses on both
sides.
But he didn’t see any security.
He figured that however many guards there were, they must be in the trees nearby.
As he stared ahead at the secret village, it seemed crazy to him that people had volunteered to live out here with such a madman. Of course, they probably thought he was a prophet or savior of some kind. King recognized that the longer it took him and Sam to find Saajid, the more of these blind followers would end up dead. Normally, he would wait for security to come to him, but there was no time for that. They had to keep pushing forward. No element of surprise this time.
He looked to his left and noticed the first building in the row of structures. He tapped on Sam’s arm to let her know he was moving in that direction. The snapping branches beneath his feet sounded like mousetraps going off. He picked up his pace. He rounded the adobe wall of the small structure. If there was anyone inside, they were likely awake. After the gunshots they’d heard, the entire village would be. He assumed they were trained to stay inside, to stay quiet, if anything like this ever happened. But he also assumed they would have known not to light a fire.
That gave King an idea.
He took the handle of the door, turned it, and pushed his way in. The end of his gun found a shadow inside. He came a hair away from pulling the trigger. Thank God he didn’t. What little moonlight he’d let in showed a woman covering her baby’s mouth, trying desperately to keep the child from making a sound. King could see the whites of her eyes were wide, but he could also see that her free hand was moving.
King dove forward onto the woman. Turns out, he’d kept her from raising cast-iron pan she had under a blanket instead of a gun he’d worried it might be. He put his knee on her arm and covered her mouth with his left hand. This gave him hope that maybe no one else living in the surrounding houses were armed either. Sam had swooped in behind him and took the child in her arms. She was doing her best to coach it into not crying. So far it was working. When the woman saw her baby in the arms of an intruder, she struggled against King with the strength of a man. But King was able to hold her down, and he was able to muffle her cries. He didn’t want to hurt her, but he might have to knock her out to keep her from getting herself killed.
King pulled the woman over to the wall. There was a towel lying on a small table. He set the pan down, grabbed the towel, and tied it in her mouth around the back of her head to stop her from screaming. But she was still making noise, and it didn’t take much out there to be heard. He had no choice: even though it was the last thing he wanted to do, he put his gun to her head.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he whispered. “I just want Saajid. Tell me where he is, and we’ll be gone in minutes and your baby will be fine.”
The woman continued to breathe heavily, struggling against him. Tears ran down her cheeks. He knew she wouldn’t give away Saajid’s location, but he had to ask. She didn’t, so he was forced to move on to the plan B that he’d thought of on his way toward the village.
“Find some matches,” he whispered to Sam.
Sam was bouncing the small child as she walked over to the table where a few pots and pans were stacked. No lights were turned on, but their eyes had adjusted enough to see big objects. Finding something like matches would prove impossible.
When a shadow passed in front of the only window facing the dirt road, he knew it didn’t matter. This was happening without a plan. When King stood, he noticed Sam was already setting the baby down. She had seen it too. They were about to go to war.
Sam looked at him and nodded.
There was no one in the world he’d rather have by his side.
Chapter Forty-Three
Sam slid over and crouched at the back wall directly in front of the back door. King moved to the wall right beside the front door. He’d taken the knife from his pocket and thumbed open the blade. King and Sam spoke without words. He knew he was to take the kill. Sam would only fire as a last resort. Though their presence was likely already known, there was no need to make any unnecessary noise, making a nearly impossible situation harder than it already was.
The woman was squealing in the corner. The baby was beginning to whimper from hearing the mother in distress. The door opened inward, and just as soon as it was wide enough, King saw the tip of the gun and kicked it to the right. He followed that with a blind stab that landed in the man’s shoulder. The man dropped his gun, but King couldn’t get to his throat before he screamed. When King stabbed the man’s larynx, his shout went hoarse. King dragged him inside, Sam shut the door, and King made sure the man would never make any sound again.
The woman squirmed away, trying to push herself up the wall. Her muffled attempts to scream were too loud. Just as he was pondering that they were going to have to shut her up, Sam rushed over and knocked the woman unconscious with the butt of her gun. But now the baby was really starting to wind up. They had no choice but to move.
“We have to find the underground bunker,” King whispered.
Sam stood. “We don’t have time to go door to door here.”
King crouched and searched the man’s pockets. He found a Zippo lighter, and plan B came back to the forefront.
“Can you cover me?” he said to Sam.
“Against what?” she whispered. “We have no idea how many people with guns live in this little messed-up place.”
She had a point, but it didn’t matter. He was going to have to take risks if they wanted to stop Saajid. Sam checked her phone. When she looked back up at King, he could tell it was more bad news.
“Three more bombs in New York.”
King was sick. He was right here, right next to the man who was killing King’s people on their own soil. It didn’t really matter what he had to do, he had to stop it.
“I’m gonna light this fire,” he said as he stood. “Cover me as best you can.”
“You can’t just run out there, X. I can’t—”
He was out the door before she could finish. He couldn’t debate with her any longer. If it cost him his life, so be it; this is what he signed up for. What he couldn’t take was hearing about more innocent Americans dying while he played hide-and-seek with a sick freak.
The wind blew through his hair as he streaked across the dirt road. As if nothing else existed, he focused on the pile of wood in front of him. He sprinted toward it with all he had, the lighter in one hand, his gun in the other. As he approached the pile, he could make out someone on the other side of it running toward him, about fifty yards away. King ran up behind the wood and crouched. He flicked the flint wheel, igniting the flame. After tossing the lighter into the embers near the middle of the pile, he took his gun in both hands. He stood, edged his way around the pile until he could see the person running for him. A spray of bullets forced him back behind the pile.
Behind him came bullets as well. He whipped his head around and found it was Sam who was firing. The flame was just beginning to catch. Not fast enough. He laid down on his stomach and gently blew some air toward the flame. Sam continued to fire behind him. He heard a second set of gunshots coming from beyond the pile. He had to get this flame going. If they could see their targets, he and Sam were far superior shots. He gave it another blow, and the orange magnified at the bottom of the wood.
He popped to his knees and fired a few defensive shots in the direction of the shooters. Then he dropped back down and fanned the flame with more breaths. King wanted the shooters to have to decide which was more important: keeping the flame down or attacking their intruders. Either way it helped his cause. At the very least, the villagers would be distracted.
“We’ve got you surrounded!” a man’s voice, thick with a Middle Eastern accent, interrupted the gunfire. “It’s no use!”
Surely that couldn’t be Saajid. In no scenario did King ever think the coward, accustomed to killing people from afar, would ever crawl out of his hole and join the danger. There was just no way.
“It’s me you want,” the voice said. �
�Come out now and I won’t kill your entire family.”
Rage pumped through King’s system. He should have kept his mouth shut, but he fell for the terrorist’s bait.
“You already tried that last year,” King said. He blew on the flame again. Just like the fire that lit inside him when he heard the terrorist mention his family, the fire began to light in front of him. The wood was going to catch. Saajid was going to have to make a decision. “But I did kill every person you sent, you coward. You think I’m afraid of you?”
The fire was really starting to burn now. So much so that King could focus on the one thing he came for.
“So it is you,” Saajid shouted. “Very clever, convincing the world you don’t exist. Don’t worry, it doesn’t matter if you are alive or not. It hasn’t stopped a single one of my plans. In fact, you’re the reason for all of them today.”
King tightened his grip around his pistol. The fire was really going now. King had to take a few steps back. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Sam moving quickly from house to house, coming closer to his position.
“Why don’t you ask your brother if it matters if I exist?” King paused for effect. “Oh . . . right. You can’t. Just know, he begged for his life before I blew his brains all over the wall.”
Gunfire erupted from the other side. King dropped to his stomach. It felt good to be able to push Saajid’s buttons. If King could avoid being hit, this was the best-case scenario. It would cover Sam’s movement and pull all of their focus toward him.
If he could keep this up, Sam might have the chance to end this right here, right now.
Chapter Forty-Four
The fire in front of King was raging. It lit up the entire village that Saajid had built in his effort to disappear from society. King himself was completely exposed out in the open. He searched the night behind him for any sign of movement; he found none. Sam was in position now. He couldn’t see her, so he would have to react to her gunshot. It would be easy to tell hers from all the others. Sam’s gun was the only one that wasn’t a rifle.
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