Oblivious to the reason for the question and the smile, Stewart offered a last warning:
“You need to understand that although NM-13 has a seventy to eighty percent chance of being stopped, it also has a twenty to thirty percent chance that nothing will work.” Stewart’s tone became somber. He stood directly in front of Parker, so as to allow no escape, and looked him directly in the eyes. “Once that packet is open and you feel it in your hand, you have, at the outside, twelve hours before you started with a headache that you wish you could find a gun to blow your brains out with, then your neck will feel like it had been welded in place, and then you die limb by limb, piece by piece.”
CHAPTER 13
As with most days, William Parker rose and left the lodge well before dawn.
Unlike other days, however, this time he wasn’t coming back. Nor was he packing for a normal trip. In fact, in his top dresser drawer he left his watch, wallet, and all of his other personal possessions.
This should be interesting, Parker thought as he drove away from the darkened lodge. The thought of some state trooper stopping him and his explaining that he didn’t have a lick of identification amused him as he descended the mountain.
Clark has Stidham’s number.
Comforting as far as her safety went, though no emotional consolation for either of them. He thought of her, still in bed, pretending to be asleep, and he began to regret his decision. They hadn’t said anything about it the night before. She didn’t want him to go, but she also knew it would be a mistake to do anything but let him complete the mission.
Parker shook his head and reminded himself it was too late to rethink the situation. No, all that mattered now was that if Clark needed help, Shane Stidham would move heaven and earth to assist her.
Parker pulled his truck out onto the highway, heading north. A deep ache began to throb in his shoulder. He squeezed his fist, again, and then a third time.
Rain.
Like all wounded, Parker knew when the barometer was dropping.
North to Atlanta. Leave the truck there in long-term parking. He laughed. Maybe very long-term.
Parker didn’t want anything that could be trailed back to the lodge. A flight with his twin airplane might leave a record on the several Internet sites that tracked the movement of aircraft. From Atlanta, Scott would have a Gulfstream waiting at the FBO.
No trace, no trail.
Every move involved some level of risk. Parker knew that. It didn’t bother him. William Parker wasn’t a fearful man.
He rubbed his face and the stubble of his new, growing beard with one hand as he drove past the Chevron station in Cusseta. Pickups had stopped at each of the pumps, coughing up clouds of exhaust in the cold, predawn morning. Several had trailers with four-wheelers, all heading toward the woods, all trying to get to their deer stands well before the first light.
And Sadik Zabara? Parker thought as he headed north.
Where is he?
CHAPTER 14
Ali Sitwa continuously played with his short beard, unconsciously twisting the hair as he stood, waiting, under the arrow sign. The meeting point was Heathrow’s arrow sign, which was just beyond the customs release gate. Everyone knew of the arrow sign, and if by chance one didn’t, the crowd of waiting people just beyond the gate made for an unmistakable signal.
Sadik Zabara was a stranger to Sitwa. But he, like everyone who worked at his London newspaper, was familiar with Zabara’s reputation. Zabara had survived the worst of the ethnic cleansing of the Bosnian war, becoming a Muslim legend. His posts to the Oslobo
enje newspaper recorded three years of the brutal bloodshed, during which time Muslims were dragged out into the streets on a daily basis, begging for their lives, only to be knifed or shot or raped by the drunken Serbian death squads. Zabara and his wife managed to escape the purges in the attic above a neighbor’s shop, like a modern-day Anne Frank, living on cold kupus and grah. His host, a Serbian farmer who couldn’t stomach the death squads, became, like few in mankind’s history, a hero who protected a fugitive family from its predators. It was truly a miracle that the Muslim journalist had survived.
Al-Quds Al-Arabi had become the media lifeblood of hundreds of thousands of Muslims in Great Britain. Readers as far away as Scotland and western Europe followed the paper’s daily report of Muslim affairs. Zabara would extend Al-Arabi’s already broad reach, perhaps dramatically.
A lanky man accompanied by a woman carrying a toddler on her hip pushed their luggage cart through the arrivals door. There could be no mistaking Zabara, though he appeared taller than Sitwa had expected. More expected was the poorly cut sandy hair, tight to the extreme on the sides and long and wavy on the top, and the stubble of several days’ growth. Zabara’s outfit — an off-green plaid shirt and brown trousers — appeared well worn and looked like the garb of someone who lived day-to-day in a poor country.
Sitwa had been told that Zabara was a pale Caucasian. This had come as a surprise. It was Mansoor’s own prejudice to assume that a Muslim must be darker-skinned. At least he was able to recognize that prejudice and let it only be a passing thought. But it wasn’t only the skin tone that raised Sitwa’s eyebrows. As Zabara came closer, he looked much more fit than the newsman had expected.
The wife, however, had the look of a once-attractive woman who had lived through too many years of war and nights of fear. The baby girl, with her round face and large brown eyes, hung closely. But she didn’t resemble either the mother who held her or the father who stood nearby. Her red, curly hair, in fact, seemed quite her own. Nor did she match their relatively advanced age.
Sitwa looked more closely at Zabara’s wife. She was well-proportioned for a woman in her mid-forties, although her shape was well camouflaged by an oversized orange-and-blue coat that looked like a decade-old ski jacket. Where it hung open, Sitwa could see a rather slim waist. She carried two stuffed plastic shopping bags marked with the name of some store in Sarajevo, and he pushed a cart that carried three bulging suitcases that were well worn and frayed on the edges. Stacked on top of the suitcases were two rolled-up prayer rugs tied tightly with hemp.
“As sala’amu alaikum, Sadik Zabara.” Much shorter than his newly arrived employee, Sitwa looked up into Sadik’s light blue eyes.
“Walaikum as sala’am.”
The two men briefly hugged as Zabara’s wife looked on. She seemed sad, and her eyes were flat and distant.
“You must be Mr. Sitwa of Al-Arabi?”
“Yes, I am, and welcome to Great Britain. We are all excited about having you on at the paper.” For now, both Sitwa and Zabara spoke broken, heavily accented English.
It had surprised Sitwa when his usually cautious editor had suggested hiring the Bosnian journalist. Sitwa’s boss was a man who always chose the safe route, eschewing stories about jihad for the tame lifestyle articles that pleased advertisers. One day, though, when an argument over the paper’s vision heated up with his editorial board, the editor told everyone to submit a list with three names on it.