Jihad

CHAPTER 71

Dean found himself on the ground near the garden at the center of Taksim Square. He couldn’t hear anything. At first he thought it was because the blow had knocked out his hearing. But in fact silence had descended on the square, a moment of sheer, collective shock.

Then the screaming began. Then the sirens.

Dean jumped to his feet. The woman he’d bumped into a moment earlier lay on the ground ten feet away. He went to her, took her arm and lifted gently, expecting that this time he might get a thank you.

But instead he saw an immense gash where her nose and left eye had been, the center of her face a black knuckle. He set her down, thought of doing first aid, but didn’t know where to begin. When he pried open her mouth, two teeth fell out, along with part of gum and bone. He tried CPR anyway, pumping at her chest though it was clearly hopeless.

People were running in every direction around him. Police were moving down from behind the dump trucks. Dean saw a pair of soldiers running up, the first ones he’d seen.

“Charlie? Charlie are you all right?”

“I’m all right, Marie. The suicide bomber. A kid in a big sweater, one of the bodyguards — Katib, I think. The Syrian.”

“Are you all right?”

Had the woman changed direction because he’d bumped into her? Or had that been her chance to change her fate — if she’d stopped and spoken to him, she’d be alive.

And maybe he’d be dead; whatever had struck her in the face might have hit him instead, smack in the chest.

Even when they knew—knew—what was going to happen, sometimes it wasn’t enough.

“Charlie?”

Dean stopped pumping and stood up to take stock — to see if he really was all right. His clothes were intact, spotless, aside from the blood and dirt on his knees.

“Yeah, I’m definitely okay,” he told Telach. “I’ll get to the airport.”

As Dean walked toward the dump trucks, he saw an SUV with its doors open across the square; it looked like one of the vehicles Asad’s bodyguards had used the first day the terrorist had arrived.

“That truck,” he told a nearby policeman. “I think the bomber may have come from there. You better be careful — it may be packed with explosives.”

The policeman either couldn’t hear him or didn’t understand him in the din around them.

“Marie — I need a translator. I think one of the bodyguard’s SUV is nearby. It may be booby-trapped.”

“I’m here, Charlie,” said the translator. She gave Dean the words in Turkish, but the policeman continued to stare, too stunned to act.

Dean caught hold of another policeman nearby. This one understood, immediately calling for backup on his radio and then running toward the truck, waving his arms and shooing people away.

“A suicide bomber,” Dean told the cabbie when he reached him. “A crazy man.”

The taxi driver nodded sadly.

“Airport?” he asked, his voice cracking.

“Yeah. I gotta get back to work.”