Brian Freeman - Marathon

“Why? What did he want?”

“I told you, Jonathan. Even good men have their limits.”

Stride heard alarm bells in the man’s tone. “Haq, what is Khan doing?”

“He wants revenge. I tried to dissuade him. He wouldn’t listen.”

“Revenge against whom?” Stride asked, but he already knew the answer. “Dawn Basch? He’s after Dawn Basch?”

“He has a gun,” Haq told him. “He’s going to kill her.”

Stride clapped a hand on Haq’s shoulder. “Thank you, my friend.”

He headed for the front door, his phone in his hand, but Haq called after him. “Jonathan.”

Stride stopped. “What is it?”

Haq came to the doorway.

“I want you to remember something. This wasn’t easy for me, not after everything that’s happened. But you told me you believe in my judgment, and I believe in yours. So please do the right thing. Keep Khan safe.”

Stride nodded. “I’ll do my best. You need to remember something, too.”

“What’s that?”

“Building trust between us isn’t a sprint,” Stride said. “It’s a marathon.”

Khan sweated in the shut-up space of the Taurus. He had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, because he didn’t know whether he had the courage for what came next. He was terrified and filled with doubt. When he stared at the gun on the passenger seat, he struggled with whether he could actually take it in his hand again.

He was parked in a small lot near the loading dock of the Radisson Hotel. The hotel’s cylindrical tower rose above him. He’d backed into a parking space in the shadow of a concrete retaining wall. Near the loading dock, he saw green trash bins and empty laundry carts. The noise of the physical plant made a roar through vents in a brick wall. Every few minutes, an employee came through a gray metal door to take a cigarette break, and he caught the aroma of smoke.

Whenever he saw someone, he hunched low behind the wheel. Everyone in Duluth knew his face, and despite the changes in his appearance, he was afraid of being recognized. He kept an ear on the street, expecting to hear sirens coming for him. He checked the clock on the dashboard and saw that the man who was supposed to meet him was late. Maybe he wasn’t going to come at all. Khan couldn’t blame him if he didn’t want to get involved.

Five more hot, interminable minutes passed.

Near the loading dock, the metal door opened again. Another hotel employee came out, looking nervous. He was tall, his skin very dark, his wiry hair buzzed short. He wore black slacks and a crisp white dress shirt, and he carried a plastic laundry bag. His glance shot around the parking lot and then landed on the burgundy Taurus.

Khan turned his lights on and off. He put the gun on the driver’s seat between his legs. The man hurried toward him, his head bobbing left and right to be sure no one was watching. Khan could feel the man’s impatience, as if his mission couldn’t be over fast enough.

The man climbed into the passenger seat. His eyes examined Khan, trying to match the face to the photo he’d seen everywhere.

“You know who I am?” Khan asked.

The man nodded. He didn’t offer his name, and Khan didn’t ask.

Khan had used his burner phone to call the emergency number Malik had given him. He’d reached the plumber named Abdul and used the code phrase about Noah and the Unbelievers to let the man know he needed help. Abdul had called back almost immediately, on a phone he said was secure, and Khan told him what he wanted.

Someone who could get him inside the Radisson Hotel.

The man in the car handed him the laundry bag. “Put on this uniform. It should fit. If you come out of this alive, you stole it, yes? You didn’t get it from me. You never met me. Are we clear?”

“Yes,” Khan replied.

“I have a family,” the man said.

“I understand. I’ll keep you out of it. Is the woman in the hotel?”

“She just arrived at Astor’s. That’s the revolving restaurant on the top floor. She’s in a booth by the window, but you’ll have to walk around the circle to find her. Take the service elevator. Go through the kitchen. Act like you belong there, and no one will challenge you. Do what you have to do, and get out.”

“What about security?”

“Her guards aren’t with her. She must think she is safe with you dead.”

“Okay. Good.”

“Regardless of whether you succeed, you know you are likely to die,” the man told him. “Sooner or later, the police will kill you. Are you prepared for that?”

“If I die, I’ll get to see my wife and child again,” Khan replied. “It’s a blessing.”

“ Allah u akbar .”

The man checked the parking lot and then climbed out of the car and hurried back inside the hotel. They’d been together for less than a minute. Khan was alone with his gun, his waiter’s uniform, and his plan. He bent forward across the steering wheel and stared up at the floor-to-ceiling windows of the restaurant on the top floor of the hotel.

Dawn Basch was up there.

Their destinies were about to collide.

“Shelly Baker?” Serena asked.

The woman in the hospital bed turned her face from the window. She was heavyset with curly brown hair that lay on the pillow like a deflated balloon. Without makeup, she looked older than her age, which Serena guessed was mid-thirties. Her nose was flat and wide, and her eyes were rimmed in red.

“What do you want?” Shelly asked.

“My name is Serena Stride. I’m with the Duluth Police.”

“I already talked to that other cop, the Chinese woman,” Shelly replied in a voice that made it clear she didn’t want to be bothered.

“Yes, I know. I’m sorry. This won’t take long.”

For an entire day Serena had been working her way through the list of marathon contacts from Tuesday morning. Shelly Baker was just one name among dozens of phone calls, but she was also a victim of the bombing, and that was enough of a connection for Serena to investigate. Not that she suspected Shelly of being involved. She wanted to ask the woman a few questions, cross Shelly off the list, and move on.

“Is this about my brother?” Shelly asked. She half lifted her torso off the mattress, causing a shock of pain that made her face twitch. “Did something happen to Travis?”

“No, Sergeant Bei is still trying to find him,” Serena told her.

“You have to understand, Travis does stupid things sometimes, but it’s not because he’s a bad person. Think about what he went through in the past few days. His sister’s a cripple, and Joni’s dead. Travis thought he should be dead, too. He felt guilty that God spared him and not us. He can’t even look at me.”

Serena sat down in the chair next to the bed. “I’m very sorry for what happened to you, Ms. Baker.”

“Don’t be sorry for me. There’s no point in second-guessing God’s plan. I put my faith in Jesus. I always have.”

Serena didn’t say anything. She’d given up on God years earlier, as a child, at the hands of her mother’s drug dealer. It was hard to trust in God after something like that. If Shelly Baker could still believe that Jesus was looking out for her, after everything that had happened, then Serena admired her faith.

“You know what Travis did, don’t you?” Serena asked. “You know he set fire to that gallery. A mother and child died.”

Shelly blinked over and over. Her big lips pressed into a thin, unhappy line. “Is that why you’re here? So I can help you put my little brother in jail? I’m sorry, I won’t do that. I won’t say a word.”

“No, that’s not why I’m here,” Serena told her.

“If Travis did anything, then it was an accident . I mean, I’m heartsick about that poor woman and her son, but I’m sure nobody meant to hurt them. Not like me. Not like Joni. Whoever put that bomb at the marathon knew that people were going to die. It was deliberate. It was murder. The three of us happened to be the ones standing there. We were in the path.”