at a backwater post. They won’t—”
“There’s the van,” Keshawn said.
Carl swung around and hit the gas, causing the car to jump out into the two-lane highway. Keshawn looked to the rear.
“You’re clear. No cars coming behind.”
Carl rode right up on the bumper of the van, flashing his lights and waving his arm out the window. The van tapped its brake lights and slowed, then continued on at the reduced speed.
Keshawn said, “Need to get them to stop before we reach the town of Bowling Green.”
Carl swung into the left lane and pulled abreast of the driver. Keshawn leaned out the open window and frantically pointed at the rear of the van, as if something catastrophic was about to occur. He saw the driver, an obese woman of about fifty, look wide-eyed at him for a second, then nod with understanding.
“Get back behind her before she rolls down the window and asks what’s wrong.”
Carl slowed, letting the van continue on. It traveled for about a quarter mile before pulling into a dirt road threading its way into a swamp.
Carl pulled in behind it, blocking any exit back to Highway 301.
Keshawn said, “Everyone take a weapon, but only the two silenced ones can shoot. Understood?”
The men, now grim at the coming task, nodded. Rafik started to say something when Keshawn cut him off. “Let’s go.”
All four doors swung open, the attackers boiling out quickly, two on the left and three on the right. Keshawn ran straight to the driver’s-side door, stopping it before it could open. He dropped any pretense of a charade, pointing his suppressed Ruger Mark II at the driver’s head.
“Get out of the van. I don’t want to hurt you.”
She threw her hands in the air, stuttering nonsense.
“Shut the fuck up or you’re dead.”
She lapsed into silence, her eyes wide and wet. He moved her to the rear of the van and turned her security over to another man. Walking back to the front, he saw four men on their knees with their hands behind their back. Looking closer, he saw they were really just boys. None over the age of twenty. Three black and one white. Two of them were looking around with grins on their faces, apparently unaware of what was occurring.
Carl said, “Let’s get them tied up and into the woods.”
Keshawn pulled him out of earshot of the boys, Rafik following close behind. “We can’t just tie them up,” Keshawn said. “They’re not going home.”
“Huh? Keshawn, those two are simple. They didn’t do anything. We said we’d tie them up and do the robbery. No unnecessary killing.”
“It’s necessary. They’ve seen our skin. They’ll blow our getaway.”
Carl grew agitated. “These guys are the people we’re trying to help. They’re not a bunch of rich fat cats. They’re the people getting fucked over. The reason we’re stealing the explosives in the first place.”
Keshawn said, “I don’t want to do it either, but your plan is the only way we will succeed now, and the plan is based on the police chasing a ghost. They’ve seen us. They’ll be able to break the deception we want. I’m sorry.”
Carl paused for a moment, then said, “I’m not killing a bunch of kids. You want to do it, you do it.”
Rafik spoke for the first time. “Keshawn is correct. Sometimes the good must be sacrificed along with the bad. That’s just the way of it.”
His words brought back a memory of Beth, sending a bolt of rage through Keshawn. He whirled and jabbed his pistol at Rafik, holding it by the barrel.
“You keep talking about sacrifice like we don’t know what the fuck that is. You’re so pure, you fucking kill them.”
Rafik grew rigid, staring hard at Keshawn for a moment. He took the pistol and held it in the air, the barrel pointed in between the boys on the ground and Keshawn himself, as if he were making a decision. Keshawn felt a trickle of fear, but didn’t back down. Abruptly, Rafik turned and walked back to the group, kicking the nearest boy in the back.
“Get up. All of you get up. Start walking down the road.”
Carl remained quiet until the group was out of sight around a bend.
“Man, I don’t know about this,” he said. “This isn’t what the chaplain talked about.”
Keshawn kept his gaze down the road where the boys had disappeared. “It’s exactly what he talked about. I’ve sacrificed too much already. We’re on the path now. No turning back.”
62
Sitting in the back of the van, Rafik felt his adrenaline rise as he saw the approaching gate, feeling exactly like he had at the Alexandria airport only days before. On the short drive to the post, Keshawn had managed to get the men back under control and back on the mission. Rafik himself had wisely said nothing. He was pleased that his prison recruitment had provided so many unintended benefits, such as the knowledge of A.P. Hill, but he was growing increasingly concerned at their commitment. They had no sense of the history of Islam, no inherent belief in its righteousness, and appeared to be straddling their old world and his new one. Having not grown up in a Muslim society, they were unlike Adnan and other recruits who inherently knew Islam was the path, only needing to be convinced of the merits of jihad. It was a complication he hadn’t fully considered before.
On top of that, every one of these American dogs had a rebellious streak, as if they were serving at their own pleasure instead of God’s. It made him rethink the need to keep everything compartmented, even within this cell.
As the van pulled abreast of the gate guard, Rafik lowered himself behind the driver’s seat, where it would be hardest for him to be seen, keeping his eyes on Keshawn in the passenger seat.
He heard the guard speak. “What’re you doing back?”
The driver said, “Hey, Bill, one of my boys left his Nintendo DS at the headquarters building. Can I run back up there? We just left five minutes ago.”
Rafik heard her voice quaver and warble, sounding to him about as disingenuous as possible. He wondered if she was sweating and wide-eyed at the thought of Keshawn’s pistol in her belly. He tensed up, gripping his own pistol in preparation for the coming fight. Instead, he felt the van begin to roll forward, hearing Carl say, “All right! Head to the police station.”
They took their first left and wound up a hill, driving past the headquarters building before stopping in front of a squat, one-story brick structure that housed the post police. In a rehearsed move, Carl and Rafik exited the rear of the van, bringing along two mop buckets and mops.
They entered the building with Carl leading the way. Ahead, Rafik could see a woman manning a central desk. Behind her he could see a man in the room Carl had described as the JSID alarm monitoring station. Otherwise, the place appeared empty.
The woman said, “We’ve already been cleaned today. You guys can go home.”
Carl stopped with his bucket while Rafik continued past the desk to the room beyond.
“Hey, I said we’ve already been done today. Stop.”
Carl reached down into his bucket and pulled out the other Mark II, shooting her in the back of the head, the hollow-point.22 long rifle mushrooming in her brain but not exiting the front. She dropped like a stone, the loudest noise from the assault occurring when her equipment belt cracked onto the hard floor.
Rafik continued straight ahead, entering the far room. The man inside stood up, saying, “You guys aren’t supposed to clean in here. It’s a controlled area. Someone should have told you—”
His words were cut off by Rafik’s suppressed pistol spitting out two rounds, one cratering the man’s nose while the other entered his forehead.
Rafik didn’t bother checking the body. He locked the door from the inside, leaving the mop bucket and returning to find Carl moving the woman’s body to a closet.
“We need to haul ass,” Carl said. “Anyone comes in here while we’re at the ASP and we’ll be in a world of
