Act of Terror

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Some men killed for pleasure. Some, like Mujaheed Beg, were blessed with a righteous cause. To hold another’s life in one’s hands was enjoyable enough, but to kill an American-that was such a pleasure as to be sinful, unless the cause was a holy one.

The Mervi ran an olive hand through his hair, combed back like a wood duck. He squinted at the sun. It was nearly noon. His target would arrive at any moment.

A cloud of insects hovered like pepper tossed into the air a few feet off the paved jogging trail. Cicadas buzzed in the thick foliage along the shore of a small lake, ticking out their last few calls of the season. A swimming beaver cut a long V in the brown surface, disappearing under a raft of lily pads.

A creature of the desert, Mujaheed had been unaccustomed to such an abundance of life. He swatted a mosquito that landed on his cheek. A striped lizard scuttled along the paved asphalt trail before darting into a tuft of brown grass.

A car door slammed on the far side of the lake, echoing off the water.

Beg looked at his watch. So predictable.

Lake Artemesia Park was a stone’s throw from the Beltway and adjacent to the College Park Metro station. Though it was in the city, the little gem of a park was tucked in among the trees and connected to miles of wooded trail. A peaceful lake beckoned University of Maryland students like Grace Smallwood who liked to run in the woods.

Mujaheed leaned against the cedar post of a small gazebo off the trail, pretending to stretch his calf muscles. He was dressed in a pair of gray running shorts and a black T-shirt. Apart from a small cardboard box in his right hand, he looked like any other jogger.

Most visitors preferred the cool of the evening and the park was nearly empty. One other runner-a young Asian man with a South Korean flag on his T-shirt-and a gaggle of young black women pushing baby strollers had passed him a few moments before. Beg gauged his timing so he’d meet Grace Smallwood coming from the opposite side of the lake, well away from the mothers’ gossip group and the other jogger. The sight of so many women out in the open with their heads uncovered disgusted him. They deserved the rewards they reaped.

Mujaheed counted to twenty, then fell into an easy trot along the trail. He went counterclockwise around the lake trail to meet Grace Smallwood as far away from the others as possible.

Mujaheed had found the Russian woman the night before bland as a wet cloth. She’d fought, but not as well as he had hoped, considering she was supposed to be trained in such things.

He’d changed his shirt after he’d finished with her, and then taken some time to look through her bedroom. When there was an opportunity, he liked to get a feel for the life he’d just ended. He’d found little but a few photo albums and an inordinate amount of sewing crafts. A small framed photo of Arbakova beside a Native American man sat on a bedside stand. They both wore Secret Service T-shirts. It was the only evidence that she had any sort of a social life.

Mujaheed had lain back for a time on the soft sheets of her bed, watching a news program with a volatile U.S. congressman named Drake. The politician spoke in inflammatory sound bites about the evils of the Islamic world and the dangers of the U.S. weakening its ties with Israel. Mujaheed pointed his finger at the screen as if it were a pistol. He turned the channel to Jeopardy! before drifting off, the scent of the woman he’d just killed lulling him into a deep, dreamless sleep.

The doorbell had awakened him with a start.

It took a few precious moments to get his bearings and remember where he was. There’d been no time to chide himself for his stupidity. He’d barely had time to slip quietly out the back door as a dark, intensely beautiful woman came down the hallway. She’d called for Arbakova by name, as if they were friends.

He’d paused to peer back in through the kitchen window, cursing that he couldn’t stay and spend more time with this one. The slight bulge at the ankle of her tan slacks told him she carried a pistol. The danger of the weapon had aroused his appetite all the more. The sure way she moved, the hard gaze in her eyes, told him she possessed all the fighting spirit Nadia Arbakova had lacked.

He’d resolved to get to know this woman someday soon. But before he could do that, there was the matter of Grace Smallwood from Lincoln, Nebraska. He’d been watching her too, getting to know her and the little secrets that made her vulnerable. Smallwood’s death had to be an accident, and though Mujaheed Beg preferred the more intimate work of the garrote, his specialty-the skill the doctor paid him for-was accidents.

The diminutive Nebraska native was a picture of intelligent perkiness. She’d graduated with honors from the University of Maryland and then stayed on as a Terrapin to work on her graduate degree in public policy. One of her professors had introduced her to a particular senator, who had, in turn made introductions to a particularly well-placed family within the government. It didn’t hurt that she was as cute as she was smart and that the senator who’d introduced her had a thing for brunettes with pixie haircuts. She had the pizzazz and brains to write her own ticket in Washington.

It was up to Beg to see that Smallwood never got the job. Another student, one more friendly to the jihad, would be hired after her untimely death.

She was listening to music on her iPod when she rounded the corner, head bobbing to the decadent beat of her song. She wore red shorts and a loose U of M basketball jersey that showed far too much of her skin for Beg’s moral sensibilities. A small black fanny pack hung around her waist.

Beg approached from an intersecting side trail, timing his entry onto the main path so he crashed directly into the startled girl. As they collided, he opened the tiny cardboard box in his right hand and dumped the contents down the loose neck of her jersey.

“I’m so sorry,” he sputtered. “How clumsy of me.”

He offered a hand as they pushed away from their awkward clench.

“I’m okay…” She crawled to one knee before launching into a series of short screams, swatting feverishly at her chest.

“Bees!” she gasped. “I’m allergic to bees!”

She clawed at her waist for the EpiPen that would stop her attack.

“Is this what you’re looking for?” Mujaheed smiled, still playing the innocent. He unzipped the fanny pack and retrieved the yellow plastic tube containing her epinephrine.

Smallwood fell back against the pavement. Clutching at her throat, she gasped for air. She nodded emphatically, groping blindly for the pen. “Hurry… Can’t… breathe…”

Mujaheed looked up and down the path. When he was certain there were no witnesses, he pressed the pen into the trail, activating the automatic injector and emptying the medication onto the path. He dropped the pen on the ground beside the stricken girl. It would be found later by authorities, who would believe she had panicked and wasted the drug that could have saved her life.

The girl looked on in horror. Her mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water. Horrific red blotches blossomed on her face and neck. Eyes that had shone brightly moments before grew bloodshot and vague. Flecks of spittle frothed from swelling lips. Her head slammed against the pavement with a violent crack. She began to writhe, kicking so hard at the edge of the trail, she lost a shoe.

The black women walking with their children would find her in a few moments. By then Grace Smallwood would be past the point of rescue-and Mujaheed Beg would be gone.