The Firstborn (24 page)

She looked at the crowd as they moved out of the beautiful mosque. There’s so many, she thought.

She’d lived in the city but never in a community with Muslims. It still shocked her to think that there could be so many. Of course there had to be a lot of them—but in America?

It was silly, she knew, but she had grown up in a predominately Christian community. In her mind everyone was still a Christian—or totally godless. To see people—not foreigners or pictures from a magazine—real American citizens walking out of their mosque, practicing a faith she didn’t understand—it was staggering.

A husband and wife walked past, not three feet away from her car window. The wife had a scarf over her head, dark green with yellow stripes—she was so beautiful. He was tall and thin, glasses on his face, curly hair and a goatee. He held their baby son as they walked down the street. The baby boy saw her, looked her in the eye, and smiled big, giggling uncontrollably. His body shook as he laughed.

She smiled back.

They were people, real people—not ideas.

Hannah scanned the crowd and saw another set of eyes—deep and handsome. His hair was long and curly, a tight blue T-shirt clinging to his muscular body.

She felt a chill wash over her, and she saw—

The young man in the darkness of his home, building a bomb. Preparing to kill. “Tariq, you must be prepared to martyr yourself for Allah…”

“Turn around,” she said.

“What?” John was dumbfounded.

“Turn the car around—that’s our guy.”

“Who?”

“The guy with the long hair—his name is Tariq.” They had to do this. Finish it, and then go home. “Turn the car around.”

“I can’t—there are police all over the street—”

This was everything she had worked so hard to run from. But now it was staring her in the face.

She opened the car door.

“What are you doing?” John demanded.

Hannah climbed out of the vehicle, John shouting after her.

She slammed the door and began to move—following the man into the crowd.

Tariq Ali moved quickly down the sidewalk.

Dupont Circle was the nearest Metro station. That would take him home.

He looked back at the mosque. Something had happened—shots had been fired. Someone was trying to kill Muslims.

America hated Allah—hated the Quran.

They would learn their lesson soon enough.

Hannah walked, resolute across the Washington DC landscape, through Embassy Row. Tariq walked with a swagger a hundred yards ahead.

She could see him ahead. She couldn’t lose him. Do this and go home, she thought, do one more terrible, horrifying thing, then go home to a normal life.

Past a line of embassies she clipped, one after another, her quarry just ahead.

He looked back.

He saw her.

Did he know she was following him?

He kept moving.

Hannah told herself that she would follow until she couldn’t anymore—even if that reason were death. It was always a possibility.

Her hands began to shake—but her feet kept moving.

Devin finished his statement and the officer nodded, dismissing him.

As far as the police were concerned, he was just a passerby in the wrong place at the wrong time. The bomber had tried to beat him up, and the wounded security guard shot the bomber—end of story.

He walked to the curb and watched as they loaded ambulances—the guard in one, Alex in the other.

His heart sank. He hadn’t known Alex Bradley very well. He knew the poor guy had lost his wife in the 9/11 attacks and had always been a bit of a loner—but the same could be said about Devin. He felt what was coming for Alex—these were his last seventy-two hours on Earth.

Anguish began to well up in him as he considered it—his heart feeling like it was physically sinking—

Then he felt it—Hannah was in danger. She was walking into a trap.

John could feel her as he drove down the street. She was near, very near.

He scanned the street, then saw her—Dupont Circle. She was moving down into the Metro.

“Oh no.”

She went down the steps in threes, moving past the advertisements for alcohol and cologne.

A decadent country, she thought. America had degraded into a land of commercial consumerism. Where were the values? Where was the justice? Where was God? Not here, she thought.

The Metro station looked like something from a science-fiction film. The ceiling was tall and vaulted. Mist rising from sweating human bodies lingered in the air—blue light shining in bright, undefined shapes through the haze.

He was ahead—moving down the steps toward the train.

She headed to the turnstile, then realized she didn’t have a Metro pass. He must have had one already. Hannah moved to the counter to purchase a pass.

She glanced to her left—she was losing him. There was a whistling shriek as the train approached, screaming to a stop.

She paid, taking her pass.

The doors opened. He was already on the train—the doors would close any minute.

The pass was little more than a ticket. She slipped it into the slot and the turnstile spun, welcoming her to the public transit station. She pressed her way down the escalator toward the man she sought. The crowd grew around her, thick like weeds. “I’m sorry,” she announced as she pushed between people. “Excuse me. Sorry.” Someone shouted in anger.

The doors were just ahead. They began to slide shut—

Hannah lunged forward, wedging herself between the closing doors. They clamped down on her—

Someone shouted at her to get out of the doors. An electronic system announced to her to do the same.

The doors slid open again and she moved into the Metro car.

There was a snapping sound as the doors finally came together and the train began to move forward.

She sat—then looked up.

A jolt shook her body from her core, sending a shockwave of adrenaline through her limbs. The man, Tariq, was sitting there across from her.

He looked at her. It wasn’t a glare or any other look of hostility. It was almost neutral. Something in his eye glinted—almost as if he were attracted to her.

She felt something—a whisper on her spine.

The young man as a boy.

His father—big and jolly, laughing.

Family gatherings.

Food. Warmth. Love. Death.

The little boy sobbing. Tears running down his tiny face.

Pain. Anger. Rage.

Revenge.

Hannah tried to break her gaze with him, but she couldn’t. There was pain haunting him. A past filled with grief, loss, and disillusionment. A feeling of being lost and helpless—not knowing his place in the world.

He smiled at her. Then looked at the train floor.

A moment passed and the train stopped, the doors opening. Tariq stood, moving with the crowd, and stepped out. Hannah took a deep breath, her knees jumping, hands quivering. She stood and followed.

The people in the station swirled in a thick swarm. Her eyes moved across the swell of human traffic, trying to pick up on the young man through the shifting maze of human heads, but he was nowhere to be seen.

She’d lost him.

Maybe it was for the best—maybe now she could go home.

Hannah moved toward the escalator. They had done their best—but maybe that was all that could be asked of them. Her part in all of this was over.

She turned around—piercing eyes bore into her.

He was behind her.

Her face snapped forward again, trying not to gasp, trying not to let on that she was watching him.

She stepped off the escalator and through the turnstile, moving with the human crush. Hannah stole a glance back—he was still right behind her.

The crowd moved up the Metro steps toward the afternoon sun.

Hannah stopped, reaching down to her shoe, pretending to tie her laces. Her fingers trembled as they played at her shoes. There was no way for him to stop there without drawing attention to himself.

She looked up.

There he was, caught in an eddy of the churning stream of people, pulling away from her up the stairs.

A moment later the rush had passed, only a few stragglers now moving up the steps. She followed, reaching the top of the steps.

Hannah afforded herself a cautious look—everyone was gone. She began to walk down the street to find a pay phone. As she walked she berated herself—how had she been so silly? He wasn’t following her. She was only paranoid because of her kidnapping. He had simply ended up behind her in the crowd—that was all.

Then she looked back—and a hundred yards away saw him following.