Brian Freeman - Marathon

Haq glanced around the sprawling lawn to be sure they were alone. “Was it Malik?”

Khan nodded. “I tried to stop him, but I was too late.”

“Malik was beyond rescue,” Haq said. “Don’t blame yourself.”

“Do the police think I’m dead?”

“For the moment, yes, but it won’t take them long to figure out the truth. You realize it’s not safe for you to be here. You could be recognized. Whether you wanted him to do it or not, Malik gave you a head start to escape the city. My advice is that you take it.”

“Guilty men run,” Khan said.

“So do smart ones.”

Their heads both turned as a car engine rumbled from the nearest driveway. Instinctively, Haq backed into the shadows, and so did Khan. Beyond a green hedgerow, an SUV backed out of the driveway and headed down a spur toward Skyline Parkway. There was no way the driver could have seen them, but they waited until the car was gone before they spoke again.

“We’re as bad as everyone else,” Haq said with an ironic smile.

“What do you mean?”

“How do you define a conspiracy? Two Muslims talking.”

“That’s not funny,” Khan said, frowning.

“No, it’s not, because the rest of the world thinks it’s true.”

Khan was silent. Then he said, “Malik claimed that he wasn’t responsible for the marathon bombing.”

“Do you believe him?”

“He swore to me.”

“I’m not sure the word of a suicide bomber means very much, Khan,” Haq replied. “Did Malik know who really was responsible?”

“He said no, but he might have been protecting his friends in Minneapolis. Why, do you know who did it?”

“You’re assuming it was one of us, too.”

“I guess I am,” Khan admitted.

Haq bent down and retied his shoelaces. He was tired. He wanted to go back to his house and put on Egyptian music and purge his soul of anger. Every time it built up, he needed a release. He put a hand firmly on Khan’s shoulder. “Listen, my friend, I need to ask your forgiveness.”

“For what?”

“I tried to save Ahdia and Pak. I was the one who went to your house and told Ahdia she needed to leave. I hid them at Goleen’s gallery because I thought they would be safe there. Instead, they died. It’s my fault.”

“It’s not.”

“I shouldn’t have interfered,” Haq said.

“You had their best interests at heart. You couldn’t have predicted what would happen. Besides, we both know who was really responsible for their murders, don’t we?”

Haq’s eyes narrowed. He didn’t like what he heard in Khan’s voice. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, Iblis walks among us. The Devil is right here in Duluth. You know who I’m talking about.”

Haq did. He knew exactly who Khan meant.

“And as the Qur’an says, do you intend to fight the friends of Satan?” he asked.

“Yes, I do.”

Haq shook his head. “No, Khan. You should leave. Go. Start a new life. Forget all the tragedies here.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Why not? Why make this your fight?”

“Because Allah put me in this whirlwind for a reason,” Khan replied. “The last four days led me to this place.”

Khan lifted up his shirt, and Haq saw the gun concealed in the loop of his friend’s belt. Haq wanted to scream. It never stopped. Hatred led to violence. Violence led to hatred. If only there were a way to stop this sickening ride long enough for everyone to get off.

“I can’t help you,” Haq said. “I won’t help you. Not with something like that.”

“I just want information. That’s all. If you really think you need my forgiveness about Ahdia and Pak, then that’s the price of it. This is my journey, not yours.”

Haq felt a weariness that never went away. “All right. What do you want to know?”

“I have only one question,” Khan said. “Where is Dawn Basch right now?”

Wade descended into the bowels of the Third Avenue building.

He knew every inch of the tunnels that wound like a maze under the streets. Ordinary people took the skywalks. He preferred the subbasements. The dripping water, the smell, the hum of machinery, the rough brick walls — they were all old friends to him. The calendar on the nearest wall was his own. The supplies on the shelves and the traps on the floor were his. Aside from Travis, almost no one else came down here; he could spend hours all by himself. He joked that it was like his Florida office, right down to the humidity and the giant roaches.

He used a flashlight in the corridor, rather than turn on an overhead fluorescent light. Mortar chips and plaster dust littered the damp floor. The ceiling, which was a web of pipes and wires, was low. If it was eighty degrees outside, the temperature was nearly one hundred down here, and the air didn’t move at all. He was sweating, but he didn’t mind the heat.

Key West. That was where he needed to go. Uproot, leave the winters behind, and get drunk and stay drunk in Margaritaville. He’d always said he’d head for the steamy South someday. This was finally the time.

He reached another dark tunnel. He dodged around steel support columns and plastic-covered pallets. The bricks here were covered in green mold. He turned a corner and found a flickering light illuminating one of the underground rooms. Plywood walls made storage enclosures for the building’s tenants, but most of the doors were open, with boxes stacked as high as the overhead pipes and filing cabinets stuffed with paperwork from decades-old contracts. He figured all the secrets of Duluth were buried down here somewhere.

Not far away, he heard music. Something loud and modern. That was Travis. Stupid kid didn’t know to keep quiet anywhere. He found Travis at an old desk, next to a boom box playing a raspy track of Van Halen. Wade had spent hours working at that desk, listening to cassette tapes from the 1980s. His supplies were stored in paint cans on top of the dusty filing cabinets. The fluorescent light flickered; it was near the end of its life. Travis’s face went in and out of darkness.

“Thanks for coming, man,” Travis said.

Wade shrugged. “Yeah, whatever.”

“Did you tell Shelly what’s going on?”

“No. The fewer people who know, the better.”

“Right, you’re right.”

“Where are you planning to go, Travis?” Wade asked.

“I don’t know. Arkansas, maybe. I was in Little Rock once. I can get settled under a new name, and maybe Shelly can come down and join me. She’s going to need help.”

“Yeah, she is.”

“You’ll tell her, right? I’ll send for her when I can?”

“Sure, I will.”

Wade knew it was all a pipe dream. Travis didn’t have the smarts to run or to hide out or to live under a false name without giving himself away. He’d last a month. Maybe two. And then somebody would figure out who he was, and the police would come and drag his sorry ass back to Minnesota.

He stared at Travis’s face. Sweat poured down from the kid’s hairline like a waterfall. Oh, yeah, he’d last a long time in Arkansas.

“We had fun, huh?” Travis asked.

Wade laughed. He saw a dead rat under the desk. Half a dozen cockroaches were stuck in a glue trap. “Yeah, killing shit is a blast, Travis.”

“You think I should leave now or wait until dark?”

“Whole damn city is looking for you. Wait until dark.”

“I hate to ask, man, but I need cash. A few hundred.”

“I’ve got money for you,” Wade told him, “but if it ever comes up, I didn’t help you at all, right? You didn’t get nothing from me.”

“Right, yeah, I got it. What about a car?”

“I know a guy in Mora. I’ll call him. A couple hundred will get you a beater, no questions asked. You can drive it until you’re out of state and then ditch it for something else.”