Brian Freeman - Marathon

When she crossed over Amity Creek, where she’d hiked a hundred times as a teenager, she heard the next update. Witnesses at the scene had reported seeing a gun during a violent altercation at the market.

“Rashid should be considered armed and dangerous. Use extreme caution.”

Gayle went faster, which wasn’t safe in the rain, but she didn’t care. She sped around a broad curve, and she was almost back in the heart of the city. Her sixth sense tingled. Every investigator knew that feeling, when something was about to happen. She was in the right place at the right time.

Headlights loomed ahead of her, and she knew . The car flashed by her in an instant, but she caught the streak of yellow in the rainy glow of her headlights. It was a yellow cab. It was Rashid. She shoved her brakes hard and spun the wheel, but she was going too fast. Her car did a 360 once, then twice, and she finally slid to a stop on the shoulder, pointed north.

She grabbed her radio and reported Rashid’s position.

Then she chased the taillights of the cab.

Khan’s first thought was to seek protection at the Muslim center near UMD, where he knew many of the students and faculty from the local mosque. Someone would know what was going on. Someone could help him convince the police that he’d done nothing wrong. However, when he stopped at the red light on Woodland at the intersection of Snively Road, he saw the whirling glow of police lights heading directly toward him. His cab was impossible to miss.

He ignored the red light and made a sharp left, heading along a high ridge. If he went far enough on the country highway, he knew a back road that would cut through the woods and take him to the city just north of his house. He could get home to Ahdia and Pak.

And then what? He didn’t know.

Khan found a news station on the radio, and he caught the announcer in mid-sentence: “... still don’t know whether the man in the photograph that has gone viral really has any connection to the bombing. We’ve had no confirmation from the FBI that this man is a person of interest, but that hasn’t stopped activists like Dawn Basch from declaring that the bomber has been found .”

His heart sank.

He knew what had happened: He was the man. He was the suspect. Khan thought about the fat man in the parking lot at the store, shoving a photograph on a phone screen in his face: “ Is this you? Because it sure looks like you.”

Oh, Ahdia, Ahdia, what have I done? They’re going to kill me. When they find me, I’m dead.

He sped through the rain. Gauzy lights shined from houses on his left and in the valley to his right. People were home with their families, living quiet lives, which was all he’d ever wanted for himself. He tried to think about what to do. Where to go. Confusion and panic filled his mind.

For nearly a mile, he had the road to himself, but then another car passed him like a rocket flying in the opposite direction. Through the thunder of the rain, Khan heard the squeal of brakes. In his mirror, he saw headlights going around and around as the other car spun. He didn’t need to ask what would happen next; the car came after him. Word had spread.

Look for the yellow cab.

Look for the bomber.

Khan made an immediate left turn from the highway. He found himself on a suburban street, and he drove fast with one eye on the mirror. Trees and lawns whipped by on both sides. He didn’t see the other vehicle behind him yet. He drove four blocks, squinting to see past the end of his headlights, and he almost piled into a tree ahead of him as the road split. He jerked the wheel right. The asphalt vanished and became a dirt road. The ruts and mud made the vehicle vibrate like a roller-coaster.

He kept looking behind him. One block. Two blocks. Three blocks, deeper into the woods.

No lights.

Ahead of him, the road ended in a T. He was going too fast to stop. His tires clawed at the wet dirt, and the cab shimmied, riding up a short slope and crashing into a metal fence, which caved beneath it. He jerked into reverse and hit the accelerator, but the cab rocked and refused to move. The mesh of the fence trapped the car like a net.

Khan tried to open the door and couldn’t; it was blocked shut. He rolled down the window and slithered through the small opening. Where he landed, sharp prongs from the broken fence tore his skin and drew blood. He had no idea where he was. The dirt road continued westward but dead-ended in the other direction. Behind him, on the other side of the fence, was a long stretch of darkness. Low-hanging fir branches blew in his face, and the storm pelted him.

Half a mile away, down the original stretch of the dirt road, he saw headlights getting larger and closer. The roar of an engine rose above the rain.

The car was coming for him. He was trapped.

Khan stood by his cab, paralyzed. He had to move. He clambered onto the hood of the cab and jumped over the fence into the weeds and flowers on the other side. Getting up, he ducked past the arms of the evergreens and started to run. Spongy wet grass sank under his feet. Rain blew into his face.

Lightning split the sky, turning night into day.

He was in a large cemetery, and he sprinted through rows of tombstones.

Officer Dennis Kenzie heard the radio update from the FBI agent who was on the trail of Khan Rashid.

“ Suspect is on foot, heading west through Park Hill Cemetery. Requesting backup at this location .”

Kenzie, who’d been heading toward the Woodland Market in response to multiple 911 calls, brought his cruiser to an immediate stop. He’d just passed the entrance road leading into Forest Hill Cemetery, which butted up against Park Hill on the west, making one of the largest graveyards in the city. He did a quick U-turn, turned off his siren and lights, and headed silently up the entrance road into Forest Hill.

If Rashid was heading west with Special Agent Durkin in pursuit, Kenzie was perfectly positioned to intercept Rashid by heading east.

He called in his plan and got out of his cruiser into the rain.

Kenzie was young and single, twenty-four years old, with the beefy build of a high school football player and a fuzz of Nordic blond hair on his square head. He’d joined the Duluth Police only six months earlier. He was a Bemidji boy, growing up in the shadow of the town’s Paul Bunyan statue, and he’d gotten his criminal justice degree at Bemidji State. But his hometown wasn’t hiring peace officers, and Duluth was. Out of a hundred applicants, he was one of only four officers hired that winter.

In six months, he’d issued hundreds of citations for everything from speeding to indecent exposure. He’d intervened in domestic disturbances. He’d arrested a drug dealer outside the Seaway Hotel. He’d rescued an injured eagle on the Lester Park Golf Course and arranged its transport and rehabilitation through the local Wildwoods organization.

One thing he’d never done was draw his weapon.

Until now.

The grip of his gun was wet, and so was his hand, but he clutched the weapon tightly and kept it pointed at the ground.

“Assume that Rashid is armed and dangerous. Use extreme caution.”

In a flash of lightning, Kenzie saw the cemetery spread out in front of him. Graves climbed the hillside in terraced rows among the evergreen trees. He jogged up a narrow asphalt path and made his way past crypts that surveyed the valley like a series of royal thrones. He kept wiping rain from his eyes with his free hand. With each lightning strike, he looked for the silhouette of Khan Rashid, but the gravestones, the evergreens, and the summer trees offered cover everywhere for someone who wanted to hide.