Capitol murder

Chapter Fourteen

A week before the NFL exhibition season started, Steve drove the members of the cell to FedEx Field, where the Washington Redskins play. Ali Bashar thought the stadium looked like a massive, elongated pottery bowl whose size was accentuated by the empty asphalt parking lots surrounding it. On a game day, bumper-to-bumper traffic would move at a snail’s pace down the street leading to those lots, while exuberant fans surged toward the entrances. But there had been no game that day, and FedEx Field was eerily quiet.

Ali had been told to report to Jose Gutierrez, who ran a concession stand for the company that leased it from the Redskins. Gutierrez told Ali what he would have to do and when he would have to show up. Then he’d brought him to the security office, where his picture was taken, an ID card was issued, and his fingerprints were scanned into a computer.

Weeks later, two hours before kickoff, on the morning of the second exhibition game, Steve dropped off Ali and the others in the employee parking lot across the street from the stadium. A bus drove the employees to Gate D, where a security guard compared Ali’s features to the face on his ID card before Ali placed his finger on a scanner that matched his prints to the ones on record. A wave of sound hit Ali when he got off the bus, and the din was worse when he was inside the stadium. Rock music blared at a level high enough to cause deafness but was almost drowned out by the noise caused by ninety thousand fans yelling to be heard over the cacophony of sound. All of this noise bounced off the stark gray concrete walls and floor of the concourse that circled the stands. Bordering the concourse were concessions selling hot dogs, bratwurst, hot chocolate, hot pretzels, and cold beer.

Ali went to the vendors’ room, which was next to the entry gate. He was wearing his own clothes, but he picked up a shirt provided by the concession. It resembled a referee’s shirt but had stripes in the Redskins’ burgundy and gold colors. The vendor’s room was a big concrete square filled with refrigerators stocked with cold beer and soft drinks and machines that were constantly cooking hot dogs. Mr. Cooper, the owner of the concession, had brought in the hawkers’ trays the day before, and Ali stocked his with Coke-filled cups. When he sold all of the cups, he would return for more after handing in the money he had collected.

H alfway through the fourth quarter, the Redskins took the lead over the Indianapolis Colts, and the stands at FedEx Field erupted. As the teams prepared for the kickoff, Ali sold the final soft drinks in his hawker’s tray to a father and son wearing Redskins jerseys. When the sale was complete, Ali headed for the concession stand to cash out.

Vendors stood in a long, narrow space behind the bar where the customers shuffled up to place their orders. Behind the vendors were soft-drink machines, toasters that kept the pretzels hot, and rotating ovens that constantly grilled the meat. As soon as he got to the stand, one of the female vendors smiled at him, and Ali found he was smiling too. Women had always been a sore subject with him. He was a virgin who believed subconsciously that any attempt to have a girlfriend would only result in rejection and disappointment.

“Hi, Ali, how did it go today?” Ann O’Hearn asked cheerfully.

“Good,” he said as he lifted the empty tray over his neck and set it on the concrete floor.

Ann was the personification of everyone Ali Bashar had been trained to hate. In the remote mountain village where he had been raised, the teachers in his all-male madrassas had drummed into him that his only concerns in this life were the Koran, Sharia law, and the glorification of jihad. O’Hearn was a blond, blue-eyed female, she was a Catholic and therefore an infidel, and she was not deferential to men. Yet try as he might, he could not hate her. He actually liked her.

“You must be happy,” Ali said.

“You mean because the Redskins won?”

“Of course.”

O’Hearn laughed and it sounded to Ali like bells pealing.

“I couldn’t care less about football. I work here to pay my tuition. I’m into soccer.”

“You are?” Ali had answered, surprised that an American girl would be interested in a game most Americans found boring.

“Sure. I’ve been playing soccer since I was a kid. I’m on my college team now.”

“I too play soccer, but we call it football in my country.”

“I know that. What position?”

“Goalie,” Ali answered.

“Whoa. You’ll never catch me in goal. That’s the toughest position on the field.”

Ali blushed and shrugged. “I enjoy playing in the goal.” He did not tell her that none of the other children in the village wanted to play that position. On the rare occasions he was included in the village games, goalie was the only position he was given.

“I don’t know how you stand the pressure. And you’re always the goat if your team loses.”

One of Ali’s jobs was to help clean up after the game. He and Ann continued to talk about soccer until their work was done and the crowd had cleared out. Ali rode the bus to the employee lot with Ann. When they got to the lot, Ann smiled and said, “See you at the next game.”

Ali smiled too, and it was not a duplicitous smile aimed at creating a false confidence in someone he wished to betray. To his surprise, it was a genuine smile of friendship. Then Ali remembered that Ann had said she’d see him at the next game. As soon as her back was to him, Ali stopped smiling. He did like Ann O’Hearn, and that made him sad, because she would die a horrible death if his mission succeeded, and his mission would succeed because it was blessed by Allah.