Brian Freeman - Marathon

“ When we open the door, do not move. If you move, you’ll be shot .”

And by then, we will all be gone.

Malik waited. He wished he could pray aloud, but he knew his prayers would be a warning. His lips moved, but his voice was silent. Instead, the verses ran through his head. He could hear them as clearly as if his brothers were there with him, reciting them in unison.

By the Glorious Morning Light,

And by the Night when it is still

Your Guardian Lord has not forsaken you, nor is He displeased

And verily the Hereafter will be better for you than the present

And soon will your Guardian Lord give you what shall please you.

Outside, the boots of the police splashed and thundered. He didn’t know how many there were. They crept toward him inch by inch, and they shouted at him, and their armor and guns clattered as they came closer.

So close.

So very, very close.

“They’re moving in,” Special Agent Maloney said.

Three different oversize monitors in the conference room tracked the progress of the SWAT team. Stride could see the Woodland yard lit up like daylight by the hot klieg lights on the street. A camera atop the black tactical van broadcast the panorama of the scene. Uniformed men converged on the metal shed from three sides. One camera, mounted on the helmet of the lead officer, shuddered as he moved, giving them a real-time perspective on the assault.

Stride could see them getting closer. The command center was as silent as a church. Beside him, he realized that Agent Durkin was holding her breath.

At that moment, he felt his phone vibrating in his pocket. He wanted to ignore it, but when he slipped it into his hand, he saw that the 911 call center was trying to reach him. He got out of his chair and found the remotest corner of the room, where he answered the phone and murmured, “Stride.”

He recognized the voice of the 911 supervisor for St. Louis County.

“Lieutenant, I’m sorry to bother you, sir, but we’ve got a caller who insisted on being forwarded to you. He claims it’s an emergency, and he says he won’t talk to anyone else.”

“What’s his name?”

“He won’t give us a name, but he says he’s a friend of Khan Rashid. That’s the only reason I thought I should check with you.”

Stride’s eyes were glued to the monitor.

“Put him through,” he said.

“Yes, sir.”

He heard a clicking on the line and then the sound of someone breathing rapidly and frantically.

“This is Stride,” he whispered.

The phone line was silent except for the breathing.

On the monitors, he saw the SWAT team within ten yards of the shed. Among them were men he’d known for years. He trusted them and their training. Move in, throw open the door, immobilize the suspect.

“Who is this?” Stride continued. “What do you want?”

Finally, the man spoke. “It’s a trap.”

“What?”

“It’s a trap. He’s wired. Keep your men away!”

Stride threw his phone to the floor and shouted, “ Pull them back! Pull them back! Pull them back! ”

But he was too late.

The monitors went white with light, blinding them. An instant later, the noise of the explosion erupted through the speakers. Chaos and screams followed. When the scene revealed itself again, they could see only smoke, but as the smoke drifted, they could see the bodies of good men on the ground.

Serena studied the closed door to Cat’s bedroom from where she sat. She hadn’t knocked. She hadn’t gone inside or listened at the door. It was nearly midnight, and she wanted more than anything to know whether the girl was still there. Either Cat was asleep in bed, or she’d slipped out her window to go to Curt’s party.

If Serena got up and opened the door, it was like admitting that she would never really trust Cat to do the right thing.

She was sitting at the dining room table of their cottage, papers spread around her. Phone records. Calendar printouts. E-mails. She’d been there for hours, working her way through the chain of events the previous Tuesday at the marathon headquarters. Somewhere in all the people coming and going from the building was the person who had disconnected the street camera. Hours later, someone had placed the bomb inside the Duluth Outdoor Company shop.

For all the research she’d done, for all the phone calls she’d made, she had to admit to herself that she was nowhere close to finding a lead. Nothing leaped out at her. The sheer volume of visitors inside the marathon headquarters that day made it almost impossible to identify a likely suspect. All she could do was go down the list name by name and number by number.

Her phone, which was sitting on the table, buzzed. She picked it up and saw that Jonny was calling.

Her husband.

A smile crept onto her face, but when she answered and heard him tell her what was going on, her smile vanished. She closed her eyes. A quiet moan of anguish escaped from her throat.

“How many?” she asked.

“Two dead, eight injured,” he said.

“Do you need me there?”

“No. I’ll be home when I can.”

She could hear the sheer exhaustion in his voice, and she wished she could help him and hold him. It wasn’t just the days without sleep. It was the weight of violence. It was the hopelessness of one man pushing against a glacier.

“I love you,” she murmured.

“I love you, too.”

Then she was alone in the silence of the cottage again. She couldn’t work anymore. She got up from the dining room table and went into the great room, where she sat in the red leather chair by the fireplace and stared into space. The lights were low. The room was warm. Part of her wanted to sleep, but she couldn’t. Part of her wanted to drink, but she couldn’t do that, either. Part of her wanted to believe in God, but judging by all the evidence around her, God had left the building.

She’d run out of anger. She was numb, and that was the scariest thing of all.

People never changed.

Then the door to Cat’s corner bedroom opened. Cat, the most beautiful teenager Serena had ever seen, padded in her bare feet into the great space. Her chestnut hair was mussed, and her face was full of sleep, with no makeup, not that she needed any. She wore her usual roomy pink nightshirt. It had a stenciled slogan on the front: PRISONER OF LOVE.

“Hey,” Cat said. “You still up?”

“Yeah.”

Serena couldn’t stop herself. She began to sob. She’d never been the kind of person to cry, but she cried, anyway. Cat, her face alarmed, ran across the room and slid to the carpet in front of her.

“Serena, what’s wrong?”

Serena shook her head. She could have said that everything was wrong. There was absolutely nothing right with the world. And yet that wasn’t the truth. She didn’t know how to explain that she wasn’t crying because she was sad. She was happy. It made no sense at all, but in the midst of everything, at that moment, she was happy. Cat was still there. She hadn’t gone out.

“Do you know what I’d like right now?” Serena asked.

“If I had to guess, chocolate,” Cat said.

“That’s exactly right.”

Cat grinned and got to her feet. She disappeared toward the kitchen, but a moment later, when Serena looked up, Cat stood in the dining room doorway. She leaned her head against the frame. Her face was serious.

“You thought I was going to go to Curt’s party, didn’t you?” she asked.

Serena smiled. Cat was always a step ahead of her. It was scary sometimes.

“Honestly? I had no idea what you were going to do.”

“Honestly,” Cat said, “I didn’t know myself.”