So far, the digging had exposed only an old stone and mortar wall under the barn. But now they’d come to a wooden frame of some kind, and beneath that, the beginnings of a steel panel. Or maybe a door.
I could hear the first soldier talking with the SAC now. He was excited, and his voice carried above all the other chatter around me.
“Sir, I don’t think we’ve been digging out the root cellar all this time,” he said. “I think we just found it!”
EVERYTHING INTENSIFIED AS our focus narrowed. Nobody said much while the crew cleared material out of that hole faster than ever. A bucket brigade went up, passing the dirt out of the barn, hand to hand.
Several times, the digging stopped and the soldiers pounded on the door with a shovel.
“Anyone there? Ethan? Zoe?”
So far, there was no answer.
As soon as they’d cleared enough space to cut a hole, two of the crew scrambled out and another soldier climbed down with a reciprocating saw.
A couple of seconds later, the barn filled up with a grinding, squealing sound as he drilled straight in. Then he changed direction and started slicing right through the steel.
It didn’t take long. Once most of the panel was cut, the soldiers used a pry bar to pull it back into the hole, rather than letting it fall through.
Then they cleared out and two EMTs took their place. I was less than six feet away from the digging. Several more medical staff waited nearby with a crash cart and two gurneys. There were also three ambulances in the yard, and two Sikorsky helicopters with aeromedical teams waiting out on the road.
One EMT got down on his belly and crawled straight back into the dark. The other handed through a medical field kit and then followed behind.
Everyone else seemed to hold their breath at the same time. In the silence, I said a prayer.
God, let them be there. Please. Let them be okay.
THEN ALMOST RIGHT away, one of the EMTs called up to us. His voice was hoarse — and excited. “Someone’s in here,” he said.
We waited. Everything was silent now. Everyone hopeful … yet afraid.
“We’ve got ’em. They’re both here.”
The rescuer kept his voice low, maybe for the kids’ sake, but I don’t think anything could have stopped the cheer that went up in that barn.
There were handshakes, and hugs, and tears on more than a few faces. The feeling of relief was indescribable. Mahoney gave me a hug. Then so did Sampson. Then even Peter Lindley did.
Agents Wardrip and Daya took over from there. They had the work lights turned way down, and they excused the military crew. Then they climbed into the hole to help bring Ethan and Zoe up themselves. A few minutes later, word came that the kids were ready to be brought out.
Zoe came first. It was a moment of true joy mixed with heartbreak to see the young girl, trembling all over and clinging to Wardrip as he carried her up the ladder.
Her clothes were just filthy rags, and her eyes were wide and glassy. But they weren’t vacant. She knew where she was.
They got Zoe onto a gurney and started oxygen and a saline drip right away. Then they covered her with a heavy blanket all the way up to the shoulders, until you could barely even see her anymore.
Wardrip stayed right there, speaking softly to her while they brought Ethan out.
He looked about the same as his sister, but smaller, more vulnerable if that was possible. As he came up from that prison where they’d spent the last two weeks, he was mumbling something against Daya’s shoulder, over and over.
I could see his dry, cracked lips moving, but I couldn’t hear him.
The second he was on his own gurney, Zoe reached out from under her blanket and took Ethan’s hand. Nobody tried to stop them or separate them.
They stared at each other like no one else was there, and her mouth started moving with his.
It was only as they were wheeled out past me, still holding hands, that I heard what they were saying.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you. Oh, thank you.”
The words couldn’t have been simpler, or more eloquent.
I WASN’T THINKING about anything but Ethan and Zoe when I came out of that barn. I wasn’t even thinking about Rodney Glass until I realized they’d already taken him away.
The car where he’d been held was gone, and somewhere in the confusion, I’d lost track of Mahoney and Sampson, too.
Then I saw Ron Burns. Or more specifically, he saw me. “Cross!” he yelled, and wagged a finger.
As I came toward him, he turned and walked farther off, away from the hustle and bustle in the yard. The rescue mission was winding down while the investigative crews were just kicking into gear.
Evidence Response Teams had already started unpacking their vans, photographers were snapping everywhere, and a couple of total-station techs were setting up their equipment — the little black shoebox, I call it — to start a 3-D rendering of the entire farm.
I caught up to Burns at the foot of the porch stairs at the old ruined house. I could see he was already steaming.
“Rodney Glass tells us he has no idea how he got out here,” the FBI director started right in. “He also maintains he knows absolutely nothing about the kidnapping.”
I wasn’t sure where to start. Burns and I have some history together, not all of it good. But all in all I’d always trusted him.
“Ron, I —”
“Not a word,” he said. “The less you say right now, the better off we’ll both be.” He pushed the tail of his jacket back with both fists. I was a little surprised to see he was armed.
“Whatever it was you got from Rodney Glass, and however you and your little A-team got it, none of it’s going to be admissible. You do understand that, right?”
I knew better than to answer.
“As it stands right now, we’ve got nothing substantive to hold Glass on. We’ll be able to detain him for twenty-four, maybe thirty-six hours, but unless something new turns up here, he’s going to be out by tomorrow night.”
I couldn’t hold back anymore. “Ron, I’m not done with Glass,” I said. “We’ll get him. I’ve already got a surveillance crew up and running. We can put a GPS on his car —”
Burns put a hand up. “Seriously, Alex. Does anyone ever tell you that you talk too damn much?”
He took a deep breath then. It seemed to let a little of the air out of his tires, and his tone came down as he went on.
“No one’s pretending this is just cut-and-dried,” he said. “It’s likely those kids wouldn’t have survived if it weren’t for you, and you’re going to have the gratitude of some very powerful people. Obviously. So I’m not too inclined to start turning over any rocks that don’t need turning over, understand? As long as Glass doesn’t file a complaint — and he’d be a goddamn idiot if he did — I’d say this was your chance to shut up and walk away.”
He pointed over to where someone had moved my car. I saw Sampson was there, too, leaning against the fender and watching us.
“I don’t want to walk away,” I told Burns.
He just shook his head like he felt sorry for me and started back toward the barn. “Yeah, I know,” he said over his shoulder.
AS THE SUN slowly rose over the horizon, Hala could see that they had arrived at the ocean, the powerful, very gray Atlantic. They were in Massachusetts, maybe. Or this could be Connecticut. Once they’d gotten off the highway, it had been much harder to track the road signs.
A row of shuttered cedar cabanas sat along the beach. Beyond that, waves broke onto an empty shore in the early morning light.
Actually, the beach wasn’t quite empty, Hala realized. A man was there, bent toward the water — toward Mecca — in prayer. She could see only the figure of him, no distinguishing characteristics. Presumably, it was his silver Mercedes parked next to their 4Runner. The rest of the dusty lot was deserted.
Tariq raised his head from her shoulder. His hand was still badly swollen, but he was at leas
t hydrated, with a fresh bandage and the first course of antibiotics in his system.
“Where are we?” he asked.
“We’re … here,” Hala said. It was as much of an answer as she had. For that matter, where seemed less important than who they were here to see right now. Whoever this man was, they’d driven all night to get here.
Neither of the two in the front seat spoke. They waited for the stranger to finish his prayers and only then opened their car doors to get out. Hala and Tariq followed.
The four of them came around and stood by their vehicle while the man walked slowly up from the beach, shaking the sand from his prayer rug as he came.
He was elderly — older than Uncle had been, but fitter. His snowy hair was brushed straight back over his head, and he wore the kind of tracksuit an American businessman might wear on the weekend. Dark blue with a single white stripe. His feet were bare, and he carried a pair of Adidas scuffs in one hand.
Hala could feel the excitement rising in her chest. Before they’d come to America, no one had even suggested that advancement within The Family was possible. But that was before they’d met Uncle. Now, it seemed, anything was possible.
She grinned at the ground. America really was the land of opportunity, after all. The irony in this amused her.
The old man smiled as he came close. He walked right up and embraced Tariq, kissing him on each cheek. Then he shook Hala’s hand warmly but respectfully.
“It is good to meet our famous warriors from Washington, DC,” he said in a thick Najdi accent. “The Family owes you a tremendous debt of gratitude for what you’ve accomplished.”
“Thank you for the opportunity,” Hala said. She’d learned not to appear too proud. “And thank you for saving us. It was more than we deserved.”
“Psh!” The man waved a hand in the air. “You were clever to make that phone call. A risky move, yes? But here we are. It is good.”
He was even more ingratiating than Uncle had been, Hala thought. The fact that he addressed her more than Tariq said quite a bit about what he must already know.
“Excuse me,” she said, “but if I may ask — who are you, sir?”
“I would have thought someone as clever as you might have guessed,” he answered. “In any case, it is not important who I am. In this country, we are all just nameless, faceless monsters. Isn’t that so?”
Hala allowed herself to laugh. And before the man spoke again, she realized all at once who he was.
“You may call me Jiddo if you like,” he said.
Jiddo. It was the first word of Arabic any of these strangers had spoken to them, and exactly what she’d expected to hear.
It meant Grandfather.
“I LOVE THE ocean,” Jiddo said. “As close to a view of home as we have here, yes?”
Hala and Tariq stood with him at the edge of the beach, looking toward the water. The air was cold, but the sky was a brilliant blue with just a few wisps of cloud floating near the horizon. Seagulls rode the breeze over their heads.
“I’ve never seen the Atlantic before,” she said.
“Ah. Well, now you have,” he said, in a way that told Hala the topic was about to turn back to business. Tariq took hold of her hand and stayed quiet. It was unusual for him to take the lead, but that’s what he did now, signaling for her not to talk anymore.
“Our Washington operations are over,” the old man said. “Rather, I should say they’ve been suspended for the time being.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Hala said honestly. “We would have liked to have gone much deeper.”
“Don’t be sorry. You are invaluable, an impressive soldier. We trained you quite well, it seems.”
“Yes,” she agreed.
“The jihad is not over. America is only just beginning to kneel. While they lick their wounds on one side, we will attack them from another. It will be like that until they are defeated.”
Hala smiled again. It excited her to hear him speak this way. “I hope there will be a role for us,” she said.
“Of course,” he said right away. “In fact it begins right here.”
Hala turned to see the younger man pulling a familiar case from the trunk of Jiddo’s Mercedes. It was the laptop computer she and Tariq had brought from Saudi Arabia. The one she’d been forced to leave behind at the Four Seasons.
She stared. “How did you —”
“Psh!” Jiddo said again. “Please don’t be surprised. That would disappoint me.”
The assistant carried the computer over and opened it on the hood of the car.
“We created a very secure system for ourselves,” Jiddo told them. “Perhaps too secure. With the man you know as Uncle out of circulation, our access to certain information has been … somewhat restricted.”
Hala understood immediately. “You need for me to open my files,” she said, to an approving smile. She stepped over to the laptop, where a flashing cursor waited on the blank screen. It took only a moment to still her racing mind. Then the sixteen characters she needed flowed out of her fingers as if by muscle memory: 23EE4XYQ9R21WV0W.
The screen blinked once, then repopulated itself with a familiar series of icons. Hala scanned through them quickly, making sure everything was as she’d left it — target names, home addresses, public schedules, maps, security contacts.
“I believe it’s all here,” she said.
“Very good,” Jiddo said. “And now —”
Tariq spoke up all at once, in a voice that was oddly grave. “Hala!”
She turned around and saw the other couple standing behind them. The man had his hand out. In his palm were the two cyanide capsules that had been removed from her pocket earlier.
The woman stayed to the side, covering them with her Sig from the opposite angle.
“And now,” Jiddo said again, “we must ask for one last act of dedication to The Family.”
HALA STARED AT the old man, understanding everything – and understanding nothing at the same time. The Family was supposed to be smart, wise.
“You can’t be serious,” she said.
“I believe you’re familiar with the terms,” he answered. “It is preferred that your deaths be deemed a suicide by the authorities.”
The words hit Hala like scalding water. And the reversal of it all. She remembered the night at the Harmony Suites Business Hotel, when she’d said virtually the same thing to the other couple. The ones she’d thought were traitors.
The ones she’d been told were traitors.
“How can you do this? After all of our service? All we went through?” she said.
Jiddo was unperturbed. “You came to this country prepared to die at any time, isn’t that so?”
“For the cause!” Hala spat back. “Not for this! Not for The Family’s convenience.”
“And how exactly are those different?” he asked. “Please make the right choice. If I’m not mistaken, there are … two little ones at home? Is that correct?”
“You wouldn’t!” she said. But of course, she knew that they would.
“Hala.” Tariq was there now, and as he spoke, there was more clarity in his voice than she’d heard in days. Maybe ever. “We have to, Hala. Fahd and Aamina will be taken care of. Your parents —”
“This can’t be happening!” she said.
“I won’t warn you again,” Jiddo told them.
Like something out of a waking nightmare, she watched as Tariq reached over and took the capsules from the other man. He pressed one into her shaking palm and closed her fingers around it. Then he kissed her, unapologetically. There were tears in his eyes, but love as well. So much love.
“We’ll see each other again,” he said.
“Tariq, no!”
BUT IT WAS too late. He shoved the capsule into his mouth and bit down on it. She saw him wince, as the glass cut into his gums. Then the trickle of blood from his lips. Now it was just a matter of time before he was dead. Her Tariq was already dying.
 
; Hala turned to face the old man. She looked from the suicide pill in her hand back up to his pathetic, wrinkled face. The arrogance in his eyes.
“There was one thing you said before,” she told him. Her voice broke more than she would have liked, but she pressed on. “One thing, anyway, that was true.”
“Yes?” Jiddo said solicitously. “And what was that, my child?”
“I was very well trained,” she said.
Hala turned all at once and landed a grip on the other woman’s wrist. She snapped it easily with one clean motion. The woman screamed.
When the gun dropped from her hand, Hala was right there to catch it. Her finger found the trigger, and she shot the woman. Point-blank. In the face. No hesitation.
There were no idle or slow thoughts now. Only intentions. And fast actions.
She fired again, into the younger man’s chest as he came at her. Jiddo had started toward the cover of his car, but Hala put a round into the back of his head before he could get there.
He sprawled onto the hood, sending the laptop flying, then he slid off the Mercedes’s expensive finish to land next to it on the dusty ground. Only a broad paint stroke of red was left behind.
By the time Hala turned back to Tariq, he’d already sunk to his knees. The convulsions had begun. His head hitched with every attempt at a full breath.
“Go!” he wheezed at her. “Go … now!”
“I can’t!” She knelt next to him. For the first time since their so-called mission had begun, she was frozen, unable to act.
Then something moved behind her.
Tariq’s eyes went wide. “Hala!”
She rolled and fired instinctively. The bullet caught the younger man in the temple.
Blind rage took her. Hala was back on her feet. A wild, animal scream sounded in her ears as if it were coming from someone else while she emptied her magazine into their bodies.
Then she kicked and railed at their torsos, their limbs, their heads — even their faces. There was no amount of damage she could do to pay them for their sins, but still, she didn’t stop. They would arrive in the afterlife looking nothing like themselves.