Jihad

CHAPTER 95

When Kenan saw the three blue sedans and four or five squad cars blocking the street in front of the mosque, his heart began pumping like an out-of-control machine. He turned quickly into the small delicatessen at the end of the street, nearly knocking over an old black woman as he entered. He circled around the lone set of shelves at the front of the store, so panicked he couldn’t think.

He grabbed for something to buy, an excuse to be here; he’d buy something, then walk out in the other direction, turn the comer before running.

He grabbed what he thought was a can of soup and started for the cash register. As he did, he turned the label and saw it was a can of pork and beans, not soup. Kenan saw the word “pork” on the label and dropped it to the floor. In his panic he had grabbed a forbidden meat, nearly blaspheming against God.

The motor that had replaced his heart spun even faster. He lowered himself to his knees, hands shaking as he retrieved the can and returned it to the shelf. He took a Campbell’s Tomato Soup can from the row above it and walked to the counter, where the owner eyed him suspiciously. Kenan dug into his pocket, fishing out dimes and nickels to pay. He had plenty of bills in his wallet — too many, for the sheik had given him a supply to run errands with, and he didn’t want to flash them.

“You owe me another ten cents,” said the man at the counter after Kenan finished sliding out the coins.

Kenan began to protest. The man put his hands on the edge of the counter and leaned toward him.

“Give me a dime or get out of here.” said the store owner.

Kenan fled without the soup or his money.

Kenan knew that he must not use a phone under any circumstance. He guessed that his car would be watched as well. This was easily abandoned; the imam had arranged for him to use it and Kenan had no idea who owned it.

Gathering his wits, Kenan walked a few blocks to calm his heart, then took a bus in the general direction of the motel. The closest he could get was two miles away; he walked so quickly that he could feel stitches at the top of his thighs by the time the motel sign came in sight.

His heart began pounding again when he saw the van and police cars in the lot. He got close enough to make sure they were directly in front of the room Asad had taken, then, as calmly as he could, turned and walked in the opposite direction. His heart thumped crazily, and his head floated in the disturbed ocean above it, bobbing with the rush of the cars as they sped by.

The imam had warned that the crusaders would attack when he least expected it. Those who were complacent would find themselves upturned and in misery. Kenan did not believe that he had been complacent, but surely his world had been turned upside down.

He walked down the road until he came to a diner. The smell of the fried food in the vestibule sickened him, but he forced himself to take a place at the counter and ordered a Coke, fearing that tea would make him stand out and give him away.

As he drank the soda, he worked out what to do. If the police had arrested the imam and the sheik, then it was very likely that they would come looking for him. Most likely they were looking for him now.

When Asad had given him the shopping list, he had pressed a small Koran into his hand as well. Kenan had felt tremendous joy; he realized that it meant he had been chosen for the mission, though of course the sheik had said nothing.

Kenan took the small book from his pocket and began leafing through the pages. There was no message in the Koran, per se; rather, the book was a sign that he should proceed with a plan that had been told to him several weeks before: board a bus for Indianapolis in the morning. There he was to make his way to the airport, board a plane for St. Louis and finally catch a flight to Mexico, where he would receive further instructions.

But surely the police would be watching the bus station. They were probably already doing so.

Kenan ordered another cola, stirring the ice with his straw and thinking of what to do. Finally he decided that he would go to Indianapolis, but by car, not bus. The only problem was getting one.

Three hours later, Kenan trudged down a deserted suburban street roughly ten miles from the diner where he had started. There were no streetlights, but he could have found the house with his eyes closed. His family had lived in the raised ranch his entire life.

Kenan didn’t have his key with him, but he knew from experience that the door at the back of the house could be jimmied open with a thin card. After carefully checking the neighborhood to make sure there were no police cars staking it out, he went to the backyard and used one of his false identity cards to slip open the lock.

Kenan’s chest tightened as he walked inside. Everything was his enemy here, familiar and yet foreign at the same time.

In the first days after he had heard the Prophet’s word, Kenan had foolishly tried to share his joy with his parents and younger sister. But they had been incapable of understanding, and after a few arguments he realized they were hopelessly enmeshed in the Devil’s world, beyond salvation. He walled them off, seeing them only when absolutely necessary; he had not made the mistake of talking to them about God and the need to live according to the fullness of the Koran for more than three years. Returning now, he felt like a ghost, visiting not his parents but his old self; he half expected not his father to loom from the shadows but the boy he had been, the wannabe baseball player and nerdy geek who’d taken top honors in math at high school graduation. A thousand memories flooded back, the stale taste of beer mingling with the smell of warm cookies his mother baked every Saturday morning, her own form of religion. Kenan dodged them as surely as he dodged the rack of freshly laundered white shirts in the hallway, passing stealthily through the den as if he were five again, playing hide-and-seek on a rainy afternoon with his mother and sister.

The house was silent. His parents’ room was directly above him, but he heard nothing, not a snore or the creak of the bed-springs.

Kenan slinked up the stairs to the kitchen. The car keys were sitting on the counter in the kitchen; the cars had changed over the years, but the keys were always there, along with his father’s wallet.

The wallet tempted him. Kenan had plenty of cash, but he didn’t have a credit card, and a credit card could be very useful.

He wasn’t sure how long it would take for his father to realize the card was stolen. A great deal of time, he thought — his father noticed very little, either about himself or the world around him. But surely, sooner or later, he would find that it was gone, and then it would be a liability, telling the enemy where he was. Kenan left the wallet and took the key ring, patiently removing the key for the Malibu and leaving the rest.

At the hallway he listened to the sounds of the house at rest: a clock ticking, someone’s soft wheeze — his mother, he thought.

It was a shame that he couldn’t save her. But Allah had a plan, and he must trust it.

Outside in the driveway, the radio blared on as soon as he started the car. Kenan fumbled before finding the switch to kill the sound. Then he backed out of the driveway and drove off as quickly as he could without screeching the tires.