Manny shrugged and led him through the parking lot to a beat up silver Nissan Sentra. The walk to the car was pleasant and Abdullah was surprised at the climate. The thin air reminded him of the mountains of Afghanistan. When they got in the car, he asked, “Would you mind if we listened to the radio?”
Manny shrugged. “Whatever, man.”
He dug through the channels until he found an English speaking newscaster. He listened intently as they drove through the heavy traffic of Mexico City, the crisp air thick with pollution. “How long to the border?”
“You kidding? A long time, man. Shit.”
Abdullah resisted the urge to smack the young man. He may not be a Muslim, but he was a cousin of Mahbeer, and Mahbeer promised that Manny would smuggle him over the border.
The man on the radio spoke about two American soldiers tortured in Iraq, beheaded, their bodies desecrated. Abdullah grimaced. Killing for Jihad was one thing but desecrating the dead? That was unacceptable.
The newscaster was interrupted by a bulletin about a bombing in Germany, devastation at the scene, many dead, and the manhunt to find the culprits. Manny gave him a sidelong glance, then turned backed to the packed streets of Mexico City.
Eric sat with the rest of the team in the briefing room. The flight back from Germany sapped their energy, leaving them drained, but it was important to continue the investigation. He dreaded the answer, but he asked anyway. “How many dead?”
Clark turned to him with weary eyes. “Two hundred and thirty six.”
“Why?” John asked. “Why target a hospital?”
“Who knows,” Deion said. “Could be a target of opportunity. Could be to spread fear.”
Eric nodded. It felt right. First the attack on FOB Wildcat. Then the Landstuhl Medical Regional Center. “Does it occur to anyone else that he’s targeting primarily military installations? What do we know about the collaborators?”
Karen displayed their bios on the screen at the front of the room. “Terrill Johnson, 26, by all accounts a mediocre Airman, converted to Islam three years ago. Hector Guardado, 25, converted to Islam about the same time. Their service records were undistinguished. Guardado’s the most probable source for the C4, they’ve found discrepancies in the inventory going back years. Greg Johansen, 25. He was a quiet one, no known Islamic ties, recovered footage shows that he drove the ambulance. He was vaporized in the blast. We’ve tracked their movements as best we could. There were no red flags, no reason to think they would do something like this.”
“But they did,” Nancy said, her face a stony mask. “What about Abdullah?”
“No sign of him. DNA samples taken from the wastebasket in the bathroom of the apartment shows two other men were there. Best guess, they left before you arrived. I’ve flagged all flights from Europe to the US, but I don’t have to tell you how many people were in the air. We’ve got agents tracking down those loose ends, but I doubt we’ll find anything.”
“What about other destinations?” Eric asked.
Clark shrugged. “Working on it. Canada had quite a few flights that day. Mexico’s not helpful. The narco-gangsters have too much influence and you can’t get good intel. It goes downhill after that. We get nothing from Venezuela, of course.”
Eric nodded. “Focus on Canada.”
“What if he’s headed back to Afghanistan?” Martin asked.
“There’s always a chance,” Eric said, turning to Karen. “What else?”
“I’ve got an intelligent agent watching the militant websites, it’ll flag any new posts.”
“Keep at it,” Eric said. “We’ve got to find this guy.”
John sat on his neatly made bed, moaning softly. He was on the edge of remembering something important, but had no idea what. He remembered the IED in Iraq as if it just happened, but everything after was a blur.
There was a hole where certain things should be. He remembered his parent’s funeral, bits and pieces, but the service itself was hazy.
He remembered a man holding him down, beating him, drowning him. He remembered other men, their hot breath in his face, asking about bombs. No, a bomb. The bomb.
What bomb?
He shrugged off his clothes and lay on top of the covers. It was the hospital in Germany that haunted him. He could still smell it, burning rubber, dust, and everywhere the smell of death. Then, the two Airmen, the machine gun fire.
Every dead body was tearing away at him.
He wanted out.
The more he thought about the bodies the more nauseous he became until he ran to the bathroom, retching, emptying his stomach into the toilet. He spat and swished water from the sink in his mouth to remove the taste.
The bombing.
There was more than just PTSD or a concussion, like the Docs claimed.
Something about Eric and Deion. The recruitment. It was so fuzzy. His body was stronger than ever, but his mind was a blur of fuzzy images, and none made sense.
I’m going crazy. Do they still lock crazy people away?
He stretched out on the bed, hoping for sleep, but repeatedly jerked awake to check the clock until a fitful sleep claimed him.
His sleep was disturbed by the dream. He watched as the building and school bus were consumed in an explosion, so sudden, not like TV or a movie, just a bone shaking whump. The shockwave knocked him down into the loose rock on the rooftop. He remembered being surprised. He struggled upright, looking down upon the devastation.
The Red Cross. The children. The dead.
He came awake as his memories returned, like a puzzle coming together.
The Red Cross.
It was me! Oh god, it was me!
He remembered the anger and hate, to tear flesh from bone with his teeth. He wanted to lash out, to make them suffer!
And Deion. Deion was not his friend. Deion had tortured him.
He’d made it home, just as planned. It was all over the news, but he was too excited to watch. He spent the night in bed, listening to his police scanner, as the emergency crews responded to the bombing. He was leaving his apartment the next day and opening his truck door when he heard the noise behind him. He turned but strong hands smashed his face into his truck door, then slipped a bag over his head. They threw him into a vehicle — a van, maybe. He hit the floor so hard he thought his ribs cracked.
He struggled up and the men punched him in the stomach, then bent him over and hog-tied him. He cursed and kicked his legs, but there was a sharp pinprick in his neck and that was all he remembered until he woke, hot and sweaty, the air chokingly humid. He was tied to a chair in a concrete room, men glaring at him.
Americans.
Deion was there, asking him questions. Why did he bomb the Red Cross? Who helped? How did he do it?
How did they find me? He asked and someone beat his legs with a stick, and the questions started again. Why did he bomb the Red Cross? Who helped?
Oh, how he wanted to kill them. He fantasized about breaking free, tearing them apart with his bare hands.
They lifted him from the chair and left him hanging from chains in the ceiling until his shoulders burned and he howled in pain until his voice cracked.
They beat him, sometimes with sticks and sometimes with boots. They slapped him across the face. They put him in a little box and he felt like his heart would burst, his body crushed in the tiny space.
They removed him from the box and held him down, covering his face with a cloth and pouring water over it. He choked, frantic, and when he started to black out they pulled the wet cloth off his face and rolled him to his side so he could retch out the water.
He broke. He told them about his request for emergency leave. He told them about the Red Cross. He told them about how the country was falling apart.