One Rough Man

“Of course I didn’t keep the addresses with the passwords. I’m not that stupid. They’re just e-mail addresses. They won’t mean anything to anyone at Miguel’s estate. Even if someone goes to them, they’ll get nothing.”

Bakr appeared to be mollified and let it go.

“We need to figure out how we’re going to get to the temple and package the weapon. From Eduardo’s description, it sounded like anthrax or ricin, only it acts instantly. Judging by the way Eduardo described the victim’s distress, I’m almost positive it must be drawn into the respiratory tract and doesn’t act on contact with the skin. Since it’s not made by modern man, it should have particles large enough to be filtered by the 3M masks we brought.”

Sayyidd had some training on WMD, but very little. Bakr had specialized in them at training camps in the Bekaa Valley of Lebanon, and thus Sayyidd deferred to him.

“If you say so.”

Bakr smiled at Sayyidd’s trusting ways. “I said I believe it must get into the respiratory tract, but I’m not sure. It could just as easily be some sort of nerve toxin that kills on contact. Are you willing to risk that?”

“If it’s Allah’s will that we die, then we die. I don’t believe He would get us this far only to kill us deep in the jungle. I’m willing to risk it. Are you having second thoughts?”

Bakr internally cringed. Sayyidd’s blind faith left him wondering how Sayyidd had lived for three days in Iraq, much less three years.

“No. This path isn’t any more dangerous than what I’ve done in the past. I believe I’m correct. We should be protected.”

Sayyidd pulled out the GPS.

“It looks like the temple’s only twenty kilometers from here. We should be able to rent a four-wheel drive and get within ten kilometers before traveling on foot. If all goes well, we should have the weapon within a day. The only thing we’re missing is food for the trip.”

“We need more than simply food,” Bakr said. “We need to purchase some equipment that will allow me to decontaminate whatever we find. Start thinking about what we’re trying to do. We aren’t going out to pick flowers. You don’t follow my instructions exactly, we’ll both be killed.”

46

I woke early the next morning, while it was still dark. I was disoriented for a minute before remembering where I was. I snapped completely awake. I hadn’t thought I was in my own bed, at my old house. I hadn’t thought my family was still alive. I had no split second of happiness. I also had no gut-wrenching letdown. I’ve lost my happiness. I wasn’t sure what to make of the trade-off. I didn’t want to lose Heather, and that split second was all I had left.

I lay in bed thinking about the shift that had just occurred. Before I could get too melancholy, the last twenty-four hours of my life came back with a vengeance. I thought about the absolute insanity of what I had done, and the fact that I was still walking. It made no sense to me. How I had been allowed to live when I had practically begged God to kill me in the maelstrom of Machete’s compound? Why had my family been taken when they’d done nothing more than go about their daily lives? It wasn’t fair. I should be dead. I looked over at the other bed, watching Jennifer snoring softly. We should both be dead. I watched her roll over and felt a weird twinge, an unfamiliar pang. Maybe it’s payback for Heather.

Dawn was starting to break. I slipped silently out of bed and went to our small bathroom. I splashed water on my face and stared in the mirror for a half minute. Well, I’m up now. What to do?

I went to the door and looked at Jennifer’s slumbering form again. The twinge came back, making me feel uncomfortable. Making me think about Heather. Like a magnet repulsed, I wanted out of the room, away from the feeling. I went through the sliding door to our little outside courtyard, watching the sun break the horizon.

I sat down, enjoying the view for no other reason than it allowed me to focus on something else. I lost track of time and was startled out of my reverie by the sliding glass door opening. Jennifer came out, still dressed in the long-sleeved cotton shirt and sweatpants. She’d cleaned up the blood but still looked pretty ragged.

“How’re you feeling?” I said.

“Better than I would have been, I’m sure.”

She stood there for a moment, then said, “I’ve got something I want to talk to you about.”

“Okay…”

She said nothing, clearly wrestling with the issue in her mind.

“Well? You have to speak if you want to talk to me.”

She hesitated a second more, then said, “I think something bigger is going on than just us running from El Machete. I meant to bring it up last night on the drive, but it slipped my mind.”

I walked to the door of our room. “What do you mean?”

She said, “Uh, well, how do you know that Arabs took the MP3 player?”

Please. Not this again. She must have really loved that thing. “I thought we were dropping that. I’ll buy you a new one.”

“No, no. It’s not that. I just think that something’s going on. I don’t want you to think I’m crazy, and maybe it’s nothing.”

I shrugged. “I heard them talking. They spoke Arabic. No doubt in my mind. Now, what’s the big secret?”

Jennifer hesitated, like she was embarrassed to say what was on her mind.

“Come on. Spit it out. What’s up?”

“Well, don’t laugh, but I don’t think it was a random mugging. I think those guys attacked you for the MP3 player so they could find the temple. So they could ransack it and steal what my uncle rightfully discovered.”

I looked at her like she had a second head. I figured she was going to have some stupid theory on how her uncle had survived and was now being held by terrorists in Beirut.

“Huh? What’re you talking about?”

“While I was held, Miguel — El Machete — told me the story of my uncle finding the temple. He said that a native entered first, but died from being exposed to the contents of some type of sack protecting the entrance. This fits my uncle’s theory exactly. The story had to have come from my uncle, because Miguel wouldn’t know to make that up.”

I didn’t hide my disdain, forcing her to race to get the rest out. “Wait, I know it sounds crazy, but the room where I got my clothes had a Quran and two different passports for the same guy. One passport was from Saudi Arabia with an Arabic name, and one was issued by the United States to some guy named Carlos. Now, you tell me that you were mugged by Arabs in Guatemala. What are the odds of that?”

I considered that. I had thought it just about as strange as getting mugged by a couple of Girl Scouts but put it into the category of “strange things happen.” I knew there was no way that WMD had been created by the Mayans, and even if it had, it wouldn’t have lasted for a thousand years.

“Look, I don’t know why I was mugged by Arabs. Maybe they got stranded and needed some cash. Maybe they thought they were doing their part for the jihad. It really doesn’t matter. We have no proof whatsoever of a giant plot, and even if it’s true, there’s nothing we can do about it.”

“Why would Machete lie to me? He was about to kill me. There was no reason to lie. Why did the Arabs quit as soon as they got the MP3 player?”

“They didn’t quit because they wanted to, they quit because I was about to rip their heads off. As for Machete, he may believe what your uncle told him, but we have no idea what yarns your uncle was spinning. He lied about the FedEx package for starters, he may have lied about some mythical protection simply to keep Machete from going after the temple. Don’t build this up into some giant terrorist conspiracy. Our first priority is to get back to the U.S.”

“I’m not saying they’re terrorists, but those guys are up to no good. Staying as