Jihad

CHAPTER 105

The bus stopped in front of a store that sold tractor parts. Marid Dabir descended the steps confidently, pretending he came to the small northern Ohio town once or twice a week and knew exactly where he was going.

In truth, it looked as foreign as the moon. He began walking back in the direction of the cluster of businesses they had just passed a half mile away. Small houses bunched together on both sides of the highway, their roofs shimmering in the afternoon sun. Dabir reached a gas station which doubled as a convenience mart and went inside. Thirsty, he took a bottle of water from the cooler and brought it to the counter.

“How do I get to the town library?” he asked the clerk as he paid.

“Black Mountain Highway, next to the town hall,” said the girl.

“How do I get there?”

“Well, um, let me see. Chris?” she yelled to one of her coworkers near the back of the store. “Library. How do you get there?”

The clerk, a woman in her mid-thirties who stood about five foot, came up the aisle. “Go up 55, take a left and a quick right, two miles to Black Mountain Highway, make a right, three miles on your left.”

“Is there a bus there?”

“Bus?”

“I don’t have a car.”

The clerk gave him a suspicious look. “There’s a taxi service in Redstone. The number’s on the phone outside.”

“You need to go to the library?” asked a woman in her mid-thirties. She slid a bag of potato chips onto the counter.

“I’m supposed to meet a friend there,” said Dabir.

“We’re on our way there. We’ll give you a ride.”

“Thank you,” said Dabir. He took a step back, making way for the woman’s child, a four- or five-year-old who leaned up against the counter and retrieved the bag of potato chips.

“Let me pay for that before you take it,” the woman told the child.

Dabir followed them outside to a small red SUV. The woman strapped the boy into a car seat in the back.

“Go ahead, get in,” she told Dabir. She held out her hand. “My name’s Debra.”

“Thank you. I’m Robert,” he added, using a name from one of the credit cards.

“Really? That’s my son’s name.”

“A good name.”

“You don’t live around here.”

“My father did. I’m visiting an old school friend.”

The woman’s cotton dress rode up on her thigh as she backed out of the parking space. Dabir wondered if the Lord had put her here to tempt him, or to help him.

Perhaps both.

“I thought you were from overseas,” said the woman. “Because of your accent. Somewhere in the Middle East. We visited Egypt last year.”

“My family was from Egypt,” lied Dabir. He knew it was his dusky face that had tipped her off as much as his accent. “We moved here when I was eight.”

He thought of killing her and taking her car. He would have to use his bare hands, but it was not difficult; he had killed two men that way, and both were twice her size.

“Where do you live now?” asked the woman.

“Detroit,” said Dabir.

“You took the bus?”

“Yes,” said Dabir.

The boy in the back dropped his bag of potato chips and began crying. As the woman reached across the seat to retrieve it, she brushed against Dabir’s shoulder.

The Devil is tempting me, he thought, holding his breath.

They turned down an empty rural road. Dabir decided that he would kill her here. But as he turned to grab her neck, a siren sounded behind them.

He jerked back in his seat, absolutely still. Debra slowed and pulled toward the shoulder. The police car closed in behind them, then passed, lights flashing.

“Probably just going to lunch,” muttered the woman, pulling back onto the highway. “He startled me.”

“Yes,” said Dabir. He said nothing the rest of the way to the library.

A story on a Detroit newspaper’s website that Dabir read at the town library said the police had no new leads in the murder and suicide in the city two days before. While Dabir still did not entirely trust the American media, these reports gave him hope that the brothers had in fact accomplished their mission and then were caught by the police and either forced to kill themselves or did the honorable thing. In any event, Asad bin Taysr had been killed. Dabir could go back now, not to Europe but to Pakistan, and take his rightful place at the Sheik’s side.

Dabir booked a flight from Cleveland to Boston in three days; he couldn’t find a direct flight with open seats and opted for a connection at an airport in New York state. Using a different card, he booked a flight two days after that from Boston to Dublin, Ireland. He had friends there who could ferry him the rest of the way.

The breaks between the flights were partly to throw off anyone looking for him. But he also needed time to obtain IDs to match the credit cards.

When he was finished, Dabir deleted the history file in the web browser, then went to the desk to find out how to get a bus for Cleveland.