He raised his firearm, asked Allah to guide his aim and fired the modified semi-automatic at the family, hoping the drizzling rain would not badly deflect his bullets.
The wife and the daughter, strolling in the front, fell screaming. He could see that the girl was dead in an instant, a bright cloud of blood settling on her skull; the wife shrieked, badly wounded. The professor – He Who Must Die – stumbled, trying to catch his family, a dawning horror on his face.
The gunman fired again, another spurt of fire, bullets drumming through tender flesh and mortal bone. The three of them lay sprawled in the blood and the cleansing rain.
He had just killed an entire family and for a moment the realization cut to his heart. Then he thought: Good. Well done.
They had dropped in front of a wine bar and a man ran out, a woman stumbling behind him, trying to help the family.
Stupid or brave? The gunman thought. It did not matter. The gunman shot them both, biting his lip again, not caring now. He didn’t want to be seen, didn’t want his license plate noticed. He revved onto Sunset Boulevard, drove fast, blasted through two red lights, turned onto side streets. He had stolen it earlier that morning, changed the plates with a car at the airport. Now he drove the car to Orange County, parking in the shadow of a mosque, his breathing returning in even tides. He had committed a most brazen mass killing, in full daylight, and escaped. Now. He could be part of Hellfire, his worth proven.
He made the phone call. He was told there was a change in plans, that he would not go to Houston, that he must check an email account that he had never seen before. He went to a computer at a public library and opened the account.
The message read: CHICAGO.
He had been chosen, not just by Allah, but by his brothers in arms, his fellow warriors, whoever they were. He lowered the window as he drove east, letting the damp air refresh his skin and nourish him for the battle and the glory that lay ahead.
31
Bridger lay bound and tied in the car trunk; Henry looked at him with a gaze free of pity. Snow’s ex had been turned in by a Night Road member he knew, one that Bridger had run to in Alabama, begging for money and a place to hide. Per Henry’s orders, the man drove Bridger in the trunk up to a rural field in northern Virginia.
Standing under the gleam of the stars, Henry wanted a cigarette for the first time in several years. The conversation with Luke had unnerved him badly. He had thought before that Luke would at least be willing to hear him out. If he could simply get a word in, he was sure he could make Luke understand. Barbara kept crowding into his thoughts, her final words to him much like Luke’s: I know what you are . She had said them right before the crash, when he’d only grabbed the steering wheel to get her to pull over, so he could work his magic, convince her that she was wrong. If she’d only listened, the car wouldn’t have plowed through the guardrail, somersaulted down the hill. He had kept his eyes open during the whole crash, screaming Barbara’s name, watching her die.
If only Luke would listen, a certain tragedy would be avoided.
Barbara had only found a phone in his desk. A cell phone he kept for contacts in the Middle East. The balance sheet for the think-tank had grown thin, and he spent long hours re-reading his 9/11 papers, wondering when I saw 9/11 coming, why did no one believe me? He would ignore that he had failed to include so many vital details that actually happened in the attack. His anger at being overlooked would heat like a fever and he would think, like a bullied child, I’ll show them all. He would sip his whiskey, grow morose. He knew many people in the Middle East, some of them with loose connections to the terrorists he’d interviewed and psychologically dissected. He had sent out feelers, calling them, asking for meetings, trying to find a solution to his problem: how he could predict terrorist attacks with greater accuracy, how he could win wider acclaim, grow his business, be seen as a power player.
He’d finally realized he’d needed someone that could help him make his vision work.
She’d found the phone and she’d listened to a voicemail he’d forgotten to erase, from an associate of the Arab billionaire. Stupid of him. But he had been listening to it when she interrupted him and he’d just switched off the phone. But she knew it wasn’t the phone he normally used. What had possessed her to pry, to listen to the voicemail? Had she been afraid he was unfaithful, that the phone was used for contact with a mistress? He worshipped Barbara. He knew how lucky he was. And she had waited until they were in the car, a day later, to confront him. He should have denied it all while they were driving but he was too rattled.
He would not make such a mistake again. It had cost him Barbara; it would not cost him his son.
He had driven to the deserted field from his Alexandria home, careful that Drummond or someone else was not following him. There was no sign of a shadow; then he reminded himself that if Drummond was still part of the government, then they could simply train a satellite on him and follow him.
You’re not that important, he told himself. And that is your strength. If they’d realized you were important maybe you’d still be with State. Maybe you’d be where you started, on the side of the angels.
Then the little stinger of his conscience: if you had been treated as important, then none of this would have happened.
‘I need to speak with him alone.’
‘I’ll take a walk,’ said the young Alabama man who’d delivered Bridger. He strolled off into the darkness. Henry dragged Bridger out of the trunk, propped him against the car’s bumper. He still wore the leather jacket with its emblazoned eagle.
‘I’ve had a very bad day,’ Henry said. ‘You know, in my business, I have to email out position papers on policy and theory to some of the most powerful people in the world.’
Bridger stared.
‘I’ve warned my clients about all sorts of impending attacks today: a follow-up on the chlorine bombing, an assault on our fuel supplies, a rise in neo-Nazi hatred. Everything I’ve predicted is coming true.’
Bridger moaned behind the gag.
‘I’ve had violence on my mind, Bridger. And you know, thinking about violence can make one more violent. That’s unlucky for you.’
Bridger’s eyes widened with terror.
Henry unwrapped the gag, let the fabric fall from Bridger’s mouth and he screamed for help.
‘No one can hear you,’ Henry said. ‘God, that feels good to say that. You’re the best part of my day, Bridger.’
Bridger, to Henry’s disgust, started to cry.
‘Your mouth is what’s gotten you in trouble.’
‘I didn’t do nothing, honest.’
‘You didn’t do anything because your Quicksilver contact got killed before you could sell us out.’
‘No. I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘You’re on the Houston traffic intersection tape we accessed, son.’
‘It ain’t me, it ain’t me.’ He was not a brave man, in any sense of the word, and his stark fear shuddered off him in waves, as though it had its own energy his skin could not contain.
‘It’s you. Even if we hadn’t pulled your face off the tape your extremely bad-ass leather jacket with the embroidered eagle on the back is too tasteful and refined to belong to anyone but you, Bridger.’
Bridger hung his head.
‘You’ve broken Snow’s heart.’
‘She… you don’t need to hurt her.’
‘I don’t blame her for your betrayal. Plus, she’s useful. She’s already found a guy to fill your shoes and to warm her bed.’ Henry’s smile shifted. ‘When you don’t amount to much, it’s easy to replace you.’ He smiled to himself. He knew this truth. Warren Dantry hadn’t been much of a father or husband, in Henry’s eyes, and he’d slipped into Warren’s life with an astonishing ease.
‘Now. We can be friends again, and the Night Road can forgive you.’ Henry squatted on the cool grass next to him. ‘If you tell me who Quicksilver is.’
‘I don’t know that name.’
