“What?”
Bashir saved his breath and ran, step-step-step, through the woods, lifting his legs as high as he could, thinking of the soccer drills that he’d done as a kid, bouncing the ball off his knees. A thin cloud cover had blown in but the stars still threw off enough light to reveal the contours of the rolling earth under the snow.
Step-step-step.
“Stop!” Yusuf yelled again, his voice stronger, angrier. “You can’t escape. Be a man.”
The truth. No false promises of safety. The glare of Yusuf’s flashlight caught Bashir again, more powerfully now, and Bashir knew he must be only a few steps ahead. A surge of adrenaline and fear powered through him and his steps came more quickly, and though his shoulder and arm and chest were slick with blood, somehow he drew away. Behind him, he heard Yusuf stumble and curse, and for the first time since the stable lights had snapped on he thought he might live. He reached the bottom of the hill and the creek and turned and—
His right leg slipped through the thin creek ice and onto the slick stones underneath. He lost his balance and fell and landed square on his shoulder and the charcoal in his back burned hotter than ever. He screamed, a vicious sound that seemed to come from somewhere outside him, and he knew he needed to try to stand, but the pain was overwhelming.
The flashlight caught him and he heard Yusuf coming down the hill. He made one more try, grabbing the trunk of a birch beside the creek with his good left hand and pulling himself up. He reached his feet and stumbled forward in the thin snow alongside the creek.
But the light got stronger and stronger and he knew the tiger had him now.
Then his feet were kicked out and he crashed down and knew he wouldn’t be getting up again. His burial ground would be a bed of pine needles in a country that wasn’t his.
“Turn around,” Yusuf said above him, and Bashir didn’t argue. The time for argument was through. He pushed himself against a log and rolled over and stared into the blinding glare of Yusuf’s flashlight. Behind the light, Yusuf’s breaths came fast, and despite his terror Bashir congratulated himself for making Yusuf run.
Yusuf reached down for him and Bashir promised himself that whatever happened he wouldn’t beg and then—
Yusuf reached under his good left arm and pulled him up and frog-marched him back to the stable, retracing his steps. Bashir could hardly see the path and twice needed to lean against a tree to rest. He supposed he was going into shock from the blood he’d lost.
The third time he tried to rest, Yusuf reached over and squeezed his bad shoulder and the pain brought him back to reality for a few seconds. “Coward,” Yusuf said. “We’re almost there.”
IN THE STABLE, Nasiji waited for them.
“Sit down, Bashir,” he said, and Bashir stumbled gratefully down.
“Stable floor,” he said. “No better or worse than pine needles.”
“Shut up and look at me,” Nasiji said. Bashir raised his head. “Are you a spy, Bashir?”
“No. Are you, Sayyid?”
“Then why?”
“It’s too much,” Bashir said. “Much too much.”
“So you tried to destroy all we’ve done? All of us, you included? Yusuf always said you were weak.”
Bashir’s head drooped. But he did mean to ask something. What? Then he remembered. “Did Thalia—”
“Tell us? Of course she did.”
Bashir closed his eyes. “Do what you want with him, Yusuf,” Nasiji said, and Bashir heard him walk away. And then Yusuf’s steady breathing was the only sound in the stable.
“You shouldn’t have run,” Yusuf said. “I would have made this easier. Traitor.”
Bashir opened his eyes to see Yusuf whetting a blade.
“Don’t worry, Yusuf,” he said. “It’ll be easy enough.”
And when Yusuf kneeled astride him and dug the knife into his gut and tore open skin and sinew and arteries—
And then repositioned himself and raised and lowered the blade into Bashir as rhythmically, mechanically as a jackhammer cutting concrete.
Bashir didn’t argue, didn’t even scream. He just closed his eyes and saw the tiger in the Cairo zoo. And, sure enough, the pain rose like the whine of a teakettle and then disappeared.
THEN ONLY A MAN and a corpse were left in the stable, twined as lovers, and Yusuf’s breath came fast and hot as he worked the knife into Bashir’s throat and face. Yusuf chopped until the body underneath him no longer had a nose or ears or eyes or a mouth. Even then Yusuf wasn’t satisfied, even then he wanted to do more, but he couldn’t think of anything else. So he dug the blade into Bashir’s chest and left it there and stood and walked out of the stable and into the clean white snow.
35
Wells opened his eyes and woke, as sharply as a bat snapped in half over an angry batter’s knee, to find Exley standing over him. He didn’t know how long he’d slept but he felt strong and ready, his reflexes fueled by the sure knowledge of combat to come.
“Time is it?”
“Eight.” Six hours. He’d been out longer than he thought.
“Did you sleep, Jennifer? You shouldn’t push like this.” She looked slack, exhausted, her face shiny with sweat. Even as he stood up, she sagged against his desk.
“We tracked them into the country,” she said. “They flew from St. John’s to Newark. January 13. Canadian passports.”
“We’re sure.”
“Checked their pictures with the crew on the
“These guys.”
Exley closed her eyes. “FBI has every agent between Boston and Washington hitting rental companies, see if anybody recognizes their pictures. They’re trying to get them done by noon, then on to hotels and motels. Meanwhile we got a warrant for the credit card companies. But those databases are so big it’ll take some time to check their names.”
“Anything else?”
“All the toll takers at the bridges and tunnels into New York and up and down Ninety-five have their pictures. Though if they have an E-Z Pass, it won’t make a difference. We put some radiation sniffers on the Beltway and the tunnels, too, but if the bomb’s properly shielded, they won’t do much. Specially if it’s HEU and not plutonium.”
“So basically if we can’t find them before they leave whatever safe house they’re at. ”
Now Exley looked at Wells. “The odds are bad, yes. Not impossible, but bad.”
“The Germans get anything yet?”
“The kid, Bernard’s son, Helmut, he’s talking, confirms he saw one of them. The guy who came in under the Jad passport. Says the guy spoke German and that Bernard always called him Sayyid. But nothing more, no phone numbers or e-mails or anything.”
“How about Penn State? Anything there?”
“Nothing yet.”
“So when do we go public?”
“Hasn’t been decided.”
“What about the Russians?”
