Brian Freeman - Marathon

“I don’t understand anything,” Khan replied. “Nothing makes sense.”

“Well, I can’t leave unless you give me your word that you will stay put. Do not walk out that door. You may think you’re alone, but I’m here to help you, and others will do the same.”

Khan glanced around the shut-up house, which already felt like a prison. Two days here had been an eternity. A life sentence. Inside or out, he was an innocent man in jail.

“And what do I do if you don’t return?” he asked.

“I will.”

Khan put both hands on Malik’s face. “Not if you’re dead, my friend.”

“Okay, if the night passes and I don’t come back, assume I’m dead or arrested. There’s a backup plan — a plumber named Abdul who lives in Chester Park. Call him and tell him you have a flood in your basement and give him this address. Tell him there is so much water, you thought you heard Noah pleading with his son not to stay with the Unbelievers.”

Khan’s eyes narrowed. “What?”

“It’s a code. Abdul will understand. He’ll know it’s an emergency. He’ll find a way to get you out.”

“Malik, this is crazy,” Khan said.

“The world is crazy. I’ll leave you an extra phone, but don’t use it unless you need to reach Abdul. That should be your one and only call. And assume that somewhere a federal agent will be listening. Act natural, and don’t use your name or mine. It’s just a call about a leaky basement. Understand?”

Khan felt overwhelmed. “Yes.”

“One more thing,” Malik said. He got up and retrieved a small shoulder satchel from the other side of the room. He dug inside and found a silver flip phone, which he tossed to Khan. Then he brought out something else and cupped it in his hand. It was a gun. A pistol with a black barrel and wooden handle.

Khan shook his head. “No.”

“I have a gun,” Malik said. “You need one, too.”

“I’ve never fired a gun in my life. I don’t even know how.”

“I’ll show you.”

“ No . No gun. If I have a gun, then I become exactly what they say I am — don’t you see that?”

Malik acted as if Khan hadn’t said a word. He picked up the gun and demonstrated how to prep it, taking the magazine in and out, cycling the slide, and loading a cartridge. How to aim. How to fire. Then he reversed the process, emptying the weapon. He did it twice and made sure Khan was watching the whole time.

“See? That’s all you do.”

“Under no circumstances will I ever fire a gun,” Khan said. “Take it with you.”

Malik ignored him. Khan’s protests meant nothing. He put the gun on the floor next to Khan and yanked the satchel over his shoulder. “Hopefully, you won’t need it, but I’m leaving it here for you, anyway. Do you understand the plan?”

Khan nodded without replying.

“Good,” Malik said. “I’ll be back as soon as I can, and I’ll have a way out of Duluth for you. Trust me, my friend.”

Malik left, but Khan barely heard him go.

All he could do was stare at the gun on the floor.

Maggie blew the black bangs out of her eyes.

“Minnesota is just not a donut state,” she said to Guppo, pressing pause on the video feed. “What’s that about, anyway?”

“What are you talking about?” Guppo replied. “I love donuts. I can plow through a dozen chocolate cake donuts in a sitting.”

The two of them sat on opposite sides of a conference table in front of computer monitors. They’d already spent hours reviewing footage of people buying gas in Duluth in a five-mile radius around the site of the gallery firebombing. Watching identical clips of cars and trucks coming and going from the pumps had made them punchy.

“Yeah, okay, but where do you buy your donuts?” Maggie asked.

“I don’t know. Super One sometimes. Holiday or SA, if I’m filling up.”

“See, that’s my point. Grocery stores and gas stations do not sell donuts. Donut shops sell donuts. Go anywhere else in the country, and there are actual donut shops that sell actual donuts. Duluth is a donut wasteland. The whole state is a donut wasteland.”

Guppo, who resembled an enormous filled donut himself, leaned back in the chair, which groaned precariously under his weight. “Yeah, I still miss House of Donuts. Those were the days.”

“You and Stride and House of Donuts,” Maggie said with a sigh. “How many decades ago was that? Anyway, at least Dunkin’ finally came back to town. That’s progress. And don’t get me started on the lack of pancake houses, either. When Troy and I went to Chicago in the spring, we passed pancake houses every other block. Up here? Nothing. I mean, I love Duluth Grill, but I also want a place that sells Swedish pancakes and silver dollar pancakes and Dutch apple pancakes and blueberry pancakes and buckwheat pancakes. And I want them to have a logo of a pancake with a happy face on it. That’s a pancake house.”

“You sound crabby,” Guppo said.

“I’m sick of watching people buy gas.”

“Well, here’s another guy filling up a portable gas tank,” Guppo told her. “Monday afternoon, 3:45 p.m. at the Spur on Central Entrance.”

“Just one tank?”

“Yeah.”

“What does he look like?”

“I think he’s about eighty,” Guppo said. “He’s wearing a short-sleeve plaid shirt, shorts, and sneakers with black socks.”

“I’m going to take a gamble that our firebug is not a great-grandfather, but print it out, tag the feed, and add it to the stack.”

“Done.”

Maggie rolled the feed on her laptop again, reviewing footage from a Holiday station on Arrowhead Road. Each store had multiple cameras; each camera had multiple hours of video, starting from Monday morning. It was a long job. They’d found dozens of people filling up portable tanks, and they’d kept records on each purchase, but so far, they hadn’t identified anyone whose behavior looked suspicious.

Eventually, she knew they would have to run down each buyer individually, in order to cross them off the suspect list. She also knew that she and Max might be heading down a dead-end road. Someone planning a firebombing might have been smart enough to use gas stations outside the city, where there was less likelihood of being spotted. Or maybe they had gallons of gas already stored in their garage for lawn mowers and snowblowers. Even so, for now, this was their best chance at finding a lead. If the bomber was angry enough and emotional enough to lash out violently on the spur of the moment, then maybe he wasn’t overly careful about covering his tracks.

Another half hour passed as they studied the videos in silence. The only noise was a low belch from Guppo and the occasional hum of the printer when they found a clip of someone filling a portable tank. When Maggie did long video review sessions alone, she usually played Aerosmith, which kept her adrenaline pumping late into the night. But Guppo, like Stride and Serena, was a country music fan, and Maggie categorically refused to listen to country. The only compromise that worked between them was no music at all.

“So what’s up with you and Troy?” Guppo asked as he dipped a rippled potato chip into a tub of Dean’s onion dip. “Are you guys serious?”

“Did Stride ask you to grill me about that? Or Serena?”

“Both.”

Maggie chuckled. “Troy and I are taking it one day at a time.”

“Hey, if you’re eating donuts and pancakes together, that sounds pretty serious, for you,” Guppo said.

“Yeah, but the man refuses to try a McRib sandwich. I don’t know what the deal is with that. He may have some kind of serious character flaw.”

“Hey, Maggie?” Guppo said.