Hakim knew he wasn’t exactly in the best frame of mind to be dealing with such a question, but it was no longer possible to ignore the obvious. Had he been the one who had changed or was it Karim? Was it both, or had he simply drifted away from their radical world-view-the myopic one the Wahhabi clerics had brainwashed them with? It was so foolish, Hakim thought as he looked back on his testosterone-laden late teens and early twenties. They had been indoctrinated like brainless fools.
Even so, there was another question that was more troubling. Was Karim a monster? Hakim thought of the father and son who had showed up at the farmhouse and asked permission to hunt by the river. He had had the situation handled. They were not federal agents or local law enforcement. They were just a father and a son such as you would find anywhere in the world, and if Karim had been able to keep his ego and anger in check everything would have been fine.
The sinking feeling he’d had when he heard the screen door open came back. Hakim replayed it all in his mind, but without any sound. For some reason the audio wouldn’t play. It was just the cold, harsh visual of bullets hitting flesh and bodies falling in slow motion to the gravel. The agony on the father’s face. The fear on the son’s. And all for what? What had they gained? What had Karim gained with his obtuse, inflexible methods? They were now on the run-foreigners in a land where everyone was looking for them.
Hakim had calculated their chances of escape many times, and he was convinced that nothing offered more hope than the house in Iowa. It was the last place anyone would look. He had even told Karim not to worry if someone should stumble upon them. He and Ahmed were to stay out of sight. Hakim’s cover story was solid. He would be able to deal with anyone, possibly even law enforcement. It had all been discussed and rehearsed many times.
Hakim was in the midst of asking himself why his friend would be so reckless when the floral curtain that separated the rear sleeping area from the rest of the RV slid back a half foot. Hakim looked up to see a pair of large, almost childlike eyes staring down at him. It was Ahmed. The Moroccan pulled the curtain back a little more and then stepped into the sleeping area and let the curtain close behind him. He had a damp washcloth in one hand and a bottle of water in the other.
Ahmed placed the washcloth on Hakim’s forehead and then, holding the water in front of him, asked, “Thirsty?”
Hakim began to shake his head but it hurt too much. He winced in pain and tried to speak but that hurt as well. He moved his tongue around in his mouth and realized he was missing at least two teeth.
Ahmed leaned in close and softly said, “I am sorry for what happened.”
It was obvious by the way he spoke that he was afraid of being heard by Karim. Hakim saw fear in his eyes, the kind of fear a man shows when he is in over his head. Through puffed lips caked with dried blood and a swollen and possibly broken jaw he managed to ask, “Where are we?”
“I am not sure. I think still in Iowa.”
“How long have I been unconscious?”
“I’m not sure. But it was a long time. I was afraid you might be dead.”
“What time is it now?”
Ahmed held up his black digital watch. It was twelve-fifty-six in the afternoon.
Hakim worked his way backward and figured he’d been out for over five hours. “How long have we been on the road?”
The Moroccan shrugged.
Hakim suddenly noticed a familiar, but much stronger odor on Ahmed. “You smell like a fire.”
After looking over his shoulder, Ahmed nervously said, “Karim had me put the father and son in the house. The basement. I then set fire to it.”
“Why?” Hakim asked in near disbelief.
“He said it would destroy the evidence.”
“And bring the police. What did you do with all the supplies in the barn?” Hakim watched Ahmed shrug and then flinch as he heard Karim call his name from the front of the RV. He was obviously driving.
“I will come back and check on you later.”
“What about their vehicle?”
Ahmed didn’t understand.
“The car that the hunters drove?”
Ahmed shrugged his big shoulders and said, “I don’t know.” Then he was gone.
Hakim slowly rolled his head back to his left. As he closed his eye and tried to rest, he wondered how long it would take before the police figured out who had been staying at the house. He doubted they would remain at large very long, and part of him was fine with that.
CHAPTER 29
RAPP woke up on descent, about an hour out, as he almost always did. Takeoffs put him to sleep and landings woke him up. He’d never figured out exactly why, but he guessed it had something to do with the way takeoffs kind of pinned him back in his seat. The end of the flight was easier to understand. When the pilots eased back on the throttles and started their descent it was as good as a flight attendant placing a gentle hand on his shoulder.
On this flight, however, there was no flight attendant. Just two sixty-plus-year-old former Air Force jocks at the controls, and Rapp riding in back. All three men knew how to keep their mouths shut. That left fifteen open seats. Rapp had logged countless miles in the service of his country, and at least early in his career, they were rarely in such comfort. The Gulfstream 550 was a beautiful bird from top to bottom and a far cry from the noisy C-130s he used to fly around in. The old military transport had been in service for over fifty years, and while it was robust and dependable it was not designed for comfort. Zero noise suppression, minimal insulation, web seats along the sides, a latrine that consisted of a curtain on a wire and a funnel on the side of the plane, plus four of the loudest turboprop engines known to man. Rapp had flown all over the damn world on the things and the end result was always the same. The thing vibrated so much it shook your senses right out of you. It was a wonder units could deploy on them and still shoot straight.
It was all those darn C-130 hops that had enabled him to take this new development in stride. In the days after 9/11 Rapp understood almost immediately the full extent of what had happened, and where it was all headed. He knew the public outcry of his countrymen would be nearly uniform, and for that delusional 5 to 10 percent who wanted to blame America for the attacks there was nothing he or anybody else could do to convince their illogical brains otherwise. But Rapp had read enough history that he could see part of the future. The population’s support for the War on Terror would wane over time, and it had, but the one thing he never fully expected was just how low the politicians would stoop. This little trip to the middle of the Atlantic was proof that their actions had far-reaching and unintended consequences.
Just a few years ago all of this could have been handled with a secure conference call or an encrypted message. Those sanctimonious politicians, however, with their chant that the people deserve to know the truth, had turned the intelligence community on its ear. The British and French had been crucial in the war against Islamic extremism, far more so than the American people and most politicians in Washington understood. In many ways they had done the heavy lifting. They had more experience in dealing with some of these characters, and at least in the case of the British courts, they took a more pragmatic view of what the people deserved to know.
With the politicians in America and their various left-wing special-interest groups demanding investigations, hearings, and trials, the British and French, and a good number of other allies, began to reassess what they were willing to share. They had participated in many of the same terrorist interrogations. The far left was now screaming to see the tapes and notes of those not-so-pretty sessions. It is a fundamental tenet of any intelligence organization to keep its means and methods a secret, so when federal judges starting ruling in favor of the ACLU and other groups’ requests for the release of information under the Freedom of Information Act, some very important allies in Paris and London got nervous.
Kennedy and Rapp flew to both cities and met with their counterparts. Each group of professionals was
