The Wrong Man

99

Randall Manning pulled his truck out of the storage unit he’d rented, in cash, over six months ago. The unit was directly north of the target, ten blocks away. He was about two miles directly west of the commercial district.

The first intersection he hit was Rovner Street. It was a red light. Manning stopped the vehicle, saw nothing unusual ahead of him, and reached between his legs, under the driver’s seat, and engaged the first fuse, the five-minute fuse.

He hit the timer on his watch to correspond: 4:59… 4:58… 4:57…

He closed his eyes for just a moment and thought of each of them, one last memory that lingered above all others. His son, Quinn, at a Little League baseball game, crashing into the catcher at home plate and crying when he realized he’d given the catcher a concussion. His wife on their wedding day, so pure and sweet in her white gown, the way her eyes lit up when she squeezed his hand and said, “I absolutely do.”

He remembered Langdon Trotter, back when he’d just been elected governor, and how he shook Manning’s hand and said, “Randy, I couldn’t have made it here without you. If you ever need anything, I’ll be there for you.” That was before he became the big-shit U. S. attorney general, where he breathed the Washington air that polluted a man’s soul, turned him into a coward, allowed him to forget the debt he owed to Manning and led him to decide not to chase a jihadist who had murdered Americans, including Manning’s son.

Payback is a bitch, Lang. Let’s see how you feel after your son is blown to bits today.

The light changed and Manning moved his You-Ride truck forward. Unlike the other trucks, which were canary yellow, Manning had painted this one fire-engine red and put a corporate logo on the side. But he wasn’t delivering flowers today.

If, in fact, the government and that lawyer had gotten far enough to be on the lookout for an assault today, Manning hadn’t given them anything to play with. His vehicle was disguised, and it hadn’t appeared in the open until just now, just five minutes before the truck was going to explode. Even if they were on top of their game, they probably couldn’t stop him.

He did wish he had Cahill and Dwyer, though. The others were three-man teams and he’d wanted one, too. Especially him. Because unlike the other teams, which would try to escape before the bombs detonated, Manning had no intention of leaving. He-and if they hadn’t been arrested, Cahill and Dwyer-planned to pick off anyone who tried to escape, just as the Brotherhood had done to Manning’s family and others at the Adana Hotel.

He’d even brought a machete.

The five-minute fuse having been triggered at Rovner, all that remained was the two-minute at Dodd Street, just a block away from the mosque at Dayton Street.

His heartbeat ratcheted up as the truck passed street after street, catching a couple of lights.

“I understand that the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. I understand that revolution is not only a right but an obligation. I understand that bigotry and hate cannot be answered with tolerance, but with intolerance. I understand that those who take up arms against us cannot be answered with peace but with like arms.”

When Manning hit Dodd Street, a red light, he began to lean down to access the two-minute fuse. Up ahead, movement caught his eye. The mosque, a block away.

People were running away, fleeing as if As if someone had called in a bomb threat.

“No!” he cried. He slammed his foot on the accelerator, driving through the red light at Dodd and picking up speed as he headed toward Dayton Street and the Masjid al-Qadir. There was another red light at Dayton. As he got closer, Manning could see more clearly than ever the congregants fleeing from the mosque, running onto the grass and up the sidewalks.

There were still plenty of them to hit. And the blast-well, it wouldn’t kill everyone, but the numbers would be high enough.

Then he made a decision. Forget the fuses. Forget about picking them off as they fled. He was going to crash the You-Ride directly into the building and blow the whole damn thing up in an instant.

He floored the accelerator and held his breath. He steeled himself as the truck ran the red light at Dayton. As he approached he saw a spattering of people pouring out the front door of the mosque, a man carrying an elderly woman in his arms-a white man Kolarich?

Kolarich.

Manning pushed down with all his might on the gas pedal and cried out for his wife, his son, his entire family.