All that was left were bones and bloody clothes. The walls, floor, and ceiling were stained deep red with the blood of two dozen men.
Alan looked into one of the closed cells and saw the same thing. Stains of black appeared around the sinks and toilets in each. It suggested that that was where the villain emerged.
At the end of the hallway, the remains of a guard were hanging from a fire door left slightly ajar. The magnetic lock was clicking angrily, frustrated at being left unlatched.
Alan thanked the Lord for small favors and raced straight for it. He tried to avoid stepping in the blood as he went, but this proved impossible. Still, it didn’t seem to be burning through his shoes, so he kept going.
When he reached the fire door, he kicked it open. The empty and, more importantly, dry stairwell extended down to…somewhere. Hearing more slams and screams below in the cafeteria, Alan took a deep breath and raced down the steps.
• • •
As the candles flickered in her parlor, Sineada did her best to parse the cacophony she was hearing on the other side. It frightened her. She tried to extend her voice to any one individual, but the rush of anguish shut her out completely. Fighting against it, she concentrated on one idea and pushed aside all others, trying to find its match.
When she did not, she breathed out a sigh of relief. She looked across the table at Mia and smiled.
“Your daddy’s fine. He’s got a ways to go, but for the moment, he is safe where he is.”
Mia nodded furtively but didn’t seem as relieved as Sineada hoped she’d be. There was something else hiding behind her eyes, troubling her mind.
Chapter 13
Muhammad thought it would be easy when he got to America.
He would learn English, he would present his impressive credentials (a bachelor’s and a master’s in computer engineering from a prestigious college in Kharagpur) at the right company, and he’d get a marvelous job.
He’d heard anti-Muslim sentiment described as “the last socially acceptable prejudice in America” but had spoken with a few former colleagues in Houston who said they never felt. They didn’t grow out their beards, and their wives might wear a hijab to cover their heads but never a burqa. They joked that Muhammad would be at a disadvantage because of his name.
Mostly, Muhammad was told, he’d be lumped in as “Indian” and taken for someone who believed in reincarnation and the sacredness of cows.
But then they arrived just after the mass migration into Houston following Katrina and Muhammad had been unable to find an engineering position. He blamed his lack of English. His wife, Fadela, was better at meeting people than he was and quickly discovered the temp agency that supplied assembly line workers to Deltech. By hiring temps, the State of Texas didn’t require the company to pay health and social security benefits to its factory employees until they worked 750 hours. The workers were complicit in this arrangement, working their 750 as quickly as they could. Double-shifting, working overtime, people did whatever it took to finish their Deltech tour in just three or four months, bank the money, and then work a second seasonal job the rest of the year like driving a truck or roughnecking on a rig in the Gulf.
Some just stayed home and collected unemployment, stretching the money as far as they could.
Muhammad, however, looked at it as an opportunity. He wanted to do a good job and get noticed by the corporate bosses. His partner at the test station, Mukul, had warned him away from this belief, saying that Deltech never promoted from the floor. There was just a separation between the two. Mukul was banking his money to buy into a convenience store franchise that relatives of his had some success with in Houston and invited Muhammad to join him.
Muhammad was determined to work in his field, however, and had declined.
“You gonna be okay running ‘test’ by yourself today?”
Muhammad nodded to Big Time as the big man walked down to his station from pack.
“Guess Mukul didn’t need the money,” Big Time offered.
“He drives in from Baytown. Hour and a half both ways.”
“Is that right?” Big Time asked, realizing this was the most he’d heard Muhammad ever say.
“Yes. Would be twice that with this typhoon.”
“Well, if it gets too much, I’m sure I can find someone to pick up the slack,” Big Time said, noticing Scott walking by. “You know ‘test,’ right?”
Scott scowled, eyeing Muhammad.
“No fucking clue.”
Big Time rolled his eyes. He knew Scott could be a racist fuck, but also knew that without any supervisor around, it was highly unlikely that they’d be getting any real work out of him that day.
A couple of months back, a group of observers from a consulting firm were brought on to measure the line’s efficiency. They went from line to line, timing each station. When they reached Scott’s, he spent the entire twelve hours creatively dragging his feet to such a degree that it skewed the results for entire factory.
Big Time was dismayed that Scott wasn’t reprimanded. What he soon learned was that the observers didn’t give a shit any more than Scott did. They were there to start and stop a timer and report their findings. While the rest of the workers had doubled their efforts under the watchful eye of the consultants and earned near-impossible daily quotas, Scott was handed one that allowed him to get paid the same for goofing off most of the day.
Big Time was among many who were simply impressed by Scott’s foresight.
“Regardless of my friend’s bullshit, if you need help, we’ll find it for you,” Big Time told Muhammad. “Cool?”
“Cool.”
Big Time headed back to pack, leaving Muhammad to ponder the strangeness of America. A black man who was close friends with a
