away now, fifty, twenty-five, ten. And then he was close enough to touch. Kill him now, Wells told himself. Drop him and break his neck. Or take the gun from Qais and shoot them both.
Instead Wells merely smiled and held out his hand, as Khadri had at their initial meeting. Wells thought he could probably take Qais, but he couldn’t be certain of getting them both. Khadri might have a gun too. Again he remembered those hunts growing up. He would have only one shot at Khadri. He had to be sure.
To Wells’s surprise Khadri ignored his outstretched hand and hugged him instead, gripping him close, running his hands down Wells’s back in a quick frisk.
He let go of Wells and stepped back. “Jalal.” No one had called Wells that name since Peshawar.
“You look different.”
“I, ah — I grew out my hair. To blend in, you know.”
Khadri looked at Wells’s shirt. “Did you go to the jazz festival?”
His perfect English accent grated on Wells’s ears. “For a couple of hours. They have it in this park, over there.” He pointed west.
“You like jazz?”
Wells shrugged. “Sure. It was fun. It was something to do.”
“While you waited?”
“While I waited.”
“And Qais? No problems at the airport?”
Qais merely shook his head. He had retreated a couple of steps, but his hand was on his hip, casually, a few inches from his pistol.
“Shall we stroll, Jalal? Such a nice evening.”
They walked slowly along the jogging path, Qais a few steps behind, out of earshot.
“It’s pretty, this place,” Khadri said. “I read it was designed by the sons of the man who built Central Park in New York. But Central Park is much bigger.”
Wells wished he knew if Khadri was probing for something or just thinking out loud.
“You passed through New York on your way here, Jalal.”
“Yes.”
“What did you think?”
“New York? I thought it was one big target,” Wells said truthfully. He wanted to grab Khadri’s neck and squeeze until the man’s face turned gray and his eyes rolled back in his head.
“Didn’t you think it was exciting? Times Square?”
“Sure. It was exciting.”
“But not your kind of place.”
“I grew up in Montana, Omar. I had mountains to myself.”
“How about this?”
“It’s pretty, like you said.” Khadri was just talking, Wells realized. Chatting about America. Even he must need a break sometimes.
“It’s strange that some places are so — pretty — and others so awful, isn’t it, Jalal? Your people, they live so easily.”
“Too easily,” Wells said. “They ought to notice the world’s misery. So much ignorance is evil. And they’re not my people.”
“You always say the right thing, Jalal. Just right. You always sound like one of us.”
This was the moment, Wells knew. If he couldn’t convince Khadri now he never would. “Because I am. I don’t know what else to say. Whatever you ask, I’ll do.”
Khadri stopped walking and turned toward Wells. “I want to trust you, Jalal. Otherwise I wouldn’t have come here. Do you believe that?”
“Yes.”
“You can be incredibly valuable to me, to us. We have big jobs ahead. And I have so few good men—” Khadri broke off. He had problems he didn’t want to reveal, Wells thought.
“In any case,” Khadri went on. “You are unique. You fit in here”—Khadri waved his hand at the city around them—“in a way that I never will, Qais never will. It is a great gift.”
“Yes.”
“You’ve never given us reason to doubt you. In Chechnya, in Afghanistan, in Pakistan.”
“I’ve always tried to do what’s necessary.”
“And yet. I don’t understand you, Jalal. I have talked about you with the sheikh himself. And after we sent you here, I asked the men who knew you on the frontier about you. For all those years you studied and prayed and trained. You were never impatient—”
“I was impatient,” Wells said.
“If you were you never let anyone see it. You never complained. You never took a drink or a smoke or had a woman. The perfect soldier. But I see that discipline and it frightens me. I wonder, how do I know whether you are fighting for us — or them?”
Wells gripped Khadri’s arm, pulling the smaller man toward him. Qais strode toward them, but Khadri waved him off.
“Omar. I’m not the perfect soldier. The men who died in Los Angeles, who sacrifice themselves in Iraq every day. The martyrs. They are. All I’ve done is wait. I only want the chance to serve. And if I must I’ll wait forever —”
Wells stopped. He had made his point. No need to go further. He let Khadri go, but Khadri did not step away. Instead he leaned toward Wells, looking up into Wells’s face. Finally he nodded. “You want the chance to serve? Then you will have it.”
Wells bowed his head. The drawbridge had dropped. He was in. All the years, all the waiting, they’d finally paid off. Was this how it felt to rise from the dead? “Thank you, Omar.”
Khadri tapped his chest. “I must go. Qais will explain the mission. He speaks for me.”
“Thank you,” Wells said again.
Khadri walked away, up the hill. He crossed out of the park and disappeared.
“He looks like he knows exactly where he’s going,” Wells said quietly to Qais.
“He always does.”
AT THE GARAGE Sami waited in Wells’s pickup.
“So you’re with us.”
Sami smiled and tossed Wells back his keys.
WELLS DROVE THE Ranger, Qais in the passenger seat. Sami followed in the Lumina.
“Where’s your hotel?”
“No hotel. We’re staying at your apartment.”
“The neighbors will wonder.”
“We aren’t staying long.”
Wells waited for something more, but Qais didn’t explain further.
“Who trained you, Qais?”
“The Saudi Mukhabarat. And I spent six months at Quantico with your FBI.”
“No wonder.”
“Thank you.”
“So…” Wells said in Arabic. “You and Sami didn’t come to Atlanta just to see me, did you?”
Qais laughed. “No. Nor just to waste gasoline.”
