Dark Zone

61

Mussa backed the van into the garage, nudging the gas for just a moment after slapping the vehicle into park. It was an old habit, taught by his uncle when he’d learned to drive. He’d heard a dozen times that it was bad for the car — and certainly unwise in a garage — but the habit was difficult to break.

Mussa got out of the truck. A surge of paranoia crept over him as he locked the garage, and he walked around the outside of the rented house, carefully checking to make sure that no one was lurking in the shadows. Satisfied, he let himself in, then checked each room, including the closets and under the beds, scanning for bugs. Satisfied, he sat in the living room and turned on the AOL instant messaging device he had obtained specifically for tonight. There was one message waiting:

Yes.

It meant that the brothers were ready to proceed.

Tomorrow’s itinerary was now set. Even if one element failed, the overall effect would be a masterpiece.

Mussa turned off the device and slid it into his pocket. He set three alarm clocks to wake him; one was a radio, another a CD player attached to a clock, the last a windup device that would go off even if the electricity failed. Little things could undo even the most elaborate plot, and Mussa did not intend to be undone.

Nostalgia replaced paranoia; he thought of the great difficulties he had overcome during the past few years and even the slights that would now be avenged.

The greatest was the murder of his father, but Mussa did not dwell on that. Nor, surprisingly, did he think about the sneers of the Frenchmen he met every day, the heathens who thought no believer could be their equal. He thought. instead of the smirks he had gotten from the Saudis when he had first expressed his desire to prove his faith and earn his place in Paradise.

They saw him as a useful idiot, a man whose network might be used — or, to put it more honestly, a man whose greed might be convenient but whose courage and faith were lacking.

He would laugh at them tomorrow.