Trust Me

30

The Night Road was cutting its path through the heart of America, as Luke headed toward New York.

The high school football game in suburban Kansas City had been targeted because the attacker was a neo-Nazi and the high school had been named for a soldier who died early in the war in Iraq. The soldier was Jewish. The neo-Nazi hated seeing the Jew’s name on the sign when he drove past every morning on his way to work.

The football game was a close one, and the neo-Nazi sighed in relief: a rout might have led to more people leaving earlier. Instead the game – he could hear the distant rumble of the announcer, voice tense with excitement – had been decided in the final three seconds by a field goal. The target school’s team had won. The neo-Nazi rubbed at the dark tattoo across his neck – a highly stylized swastika – gritted his teeth and thought: And no one will remember that. As the crowd spilled out into the lot, waving flags, banners, girls laughing and clutching at boys’ arms, he pressed the first button.

The trunk of the car he’d parked in the middle of the lot popped open.

He saw a white girl, holding onto the arm of a boy who looked Mexican, glance over at the popping hood. The neo-Nazi gritted his teeth again. The world would go mongrel in two generations, if people didn’t realize they just couldn’t do what they wanted, he thought.

He waited until a bigger mass of people had spilled out into the lot, but before many of them had gotten into the protective cocoons of their cars.

He pressed the second button.

The bomb was not big; it had been built the month before by Snow. The neo-Nazi, who had picked it up from her the previous week, packed her creation with nails, bolts and screws.

Chaos. A flash that burned his eyeballs. Screams and a distant heat and, he imagined, the whistle of thousands of flying blades whittling through flesh and bone. And then he heard the screams, much worse than even he had dreamed they would be. A glimpse of hell.

He got into his car and drove away, careful to stick to back roads. The emergency responders would be creating a traffic headache. He drove south and dialed a phone number. ‘Mine is done with success,’ he said by answer. ‘I get to be in Hellfire.’

Henry Shawcross – but the neo-Nazi did not know him by this name – said, ‘There has been a change in plans.’

‘Is Hellfire canceled?’

‘No. Check the following email account.’ Henry gave him a Gmail account name and password. ‘It will contain the name of a city. Drive there, call on a fresh prepaid phone when you arrive, and await further instructions.’

‘When do I get my money?’

‘Follow instructions.’ He hung up.

The neo-Nazi bit his lip. Not even a word of congratulations? His contact sounded like he’d lost the stomach for this battle. The neo-Nazi did not like that answer but what could he do? Complain? The mission first, that had been driven into his brain ever since he met the man with glasses and the rumpled gray suit at a coffee shop. He’d spent so much time complaining about the damned Jews (and various other groups) and their plots to eviscerate America on websites, it felt good to meet with someone who recognized his unique potential. And with the first wave of attacks nearly done, now they could truly hurt this hated world. He drove for a while – he felt the need to put distance between him and the school – and stopped ten miles later at a suburban coffee shop that offered free internet access. He opened his laptop, checked the account.

The email account’s one message simply said: CHICAGO.

He checked the news websites. The bombing was, of course, the lead news story. A smile, a bubble of laughter, rose from his chest and heat traveled along his skin. It felt good to make a fist for justice and throw a hard, savage punch. And Hellfire was going to be so much more than a little punch. He trembled with excitement. With his promised cut of the money, he could recruit new adherents. Buy automatic weapons. Buy better material for bombs, higher-quality explosives, and much more of it. He could set up operations throughout the Midwest.

He could be somebody who shaped the world.

He was tempted to go onto the Night Road site, but no. Not now. Not here. There were a few patrons lingering over their lattes. And the barista, she looked Jewish to him, and she kept trying to see what the sharp-edged tattoo on his neck was. He suddenly didn’t want her looking at him.

He got back in his car and drove north toward Chicago, the screams playing in his head like a symphony he’d written himself, a masterpiece.

The second attack took place in Los Angeles, California, outside a small restaurant off Sunset Boulevard. It had, unusually, been a stormy day in Southern California. Rain fell in broken wind-blown curtains and the wind hissed like steam, and the young man in the car waited on a side street. He had never killed before and his hands shook with fright at the thought of what he was about to do. He opened the file folder next to him, although he had studied it for hours in the past several days, when he wasn’t praying at the mosque or trying to hide his activities from his mother and his father, who would disapprove.

The target’s picture was drawn from his books, which outlined how the war against Islam must be waged, and sold in the hundreds of thousands to the unbelievers. His advice was being cited in Washington; he had the ear of powerful people who might act contrary to Allah’s will. He was a history professor at UCLA, a specialist in terrorism and the Middle East, an educated man who apparently knew nothing. His words could not be allowed to continue, and he had been talking and writing more and more about the possibility of American Muslims being seduced into violence, as had happened in France, Germany and Britain, becoming home-grown carriers of terror.

Then the young man saw the professor. Walking with his wife and his teenage daughter, hurrying, huddled under an umbrella. The rain had eased in the past fifteen minutes, Allah smiling on his mission.

The young man lowered his window. Fifteen feet away.

The gun was ready in his hand. Ten feet away. He had to do this, he had to keep his nerve so he could qualify himself for a much greater battle.

He raised his firearm, asked Allah to guide his aim and fired the modified semi-automatic at the family, hoping the drizzling rain would not badly deflect his bullets.

The wife and the daughter, strolling in the front, fell screaming. He could see that the girl was dead in an instant, a bright cloud of blood settling on her skull; the wife shrieked, badly wounded. The professor – He Who Must Die – stumbled, trying to catch his family, a dawning horror on his face.

The gunman fired again, another spurt of fire, bullets drumming through tender flesh and mortal bone. The three of them lay sprawled in the blood and the cleansing rain.

He had just killed an entire family and for a moment the realization cut to his heart. Then he thought: Good. Well done.

They had dropped in front of a wine bar and a man ran out, a woman stumbling behind him, trying to help the family.

Stupid or brave? The gunman thought. It did not matter. The gunman shot them both, biting his lip again, not caring now. He didn’t want to be seen, didn’t want his license plate noticed. He revved onto Sunset Boulevard, drove fast, blasted through two red lights, turned onto side streets. He had stolen it earlier that morning, changed the plates with a car at the airport. Now he drove the car to Orange County, parking in the shadow of a mosque, his breathing returning in even tides. He had committed a most brazen mass killing, in full daylight, and escaped. Now. He could be part of Hellfire, his worth proven.

He made the phone call. He was told there was a change in plans, that he would not go to Houston, that he must check an email account that he had never seen before. He went to a computer at a public library and opened the account.

The message read: CHICAGO.

He had been chosen, not just by Allah, but by his brothers in arms, his fellow warriors, whoever they were. He lowered the window as he drove east, letting the damp air refresh his skin and nourish him for the battle and the glory that lay ahead.