Jeff Abbott - Trust Me

The email account’s one message simply said: CHICAGO.

He checked the news websites. The bombing was, of course, the lead news story. A smile, a bubble of laughter, rose from his chest and heat traveled along his skin. It felt good to make a fist for justice and throw a hard, savage punch. And Hellfire was going to be so much more than a little punch. He trembled with excitement. With his promised cut of the money, he could recruit new adherents. Buy automatic weapons. Buy better material for bombs, higher-quality explosives, and much more of it. He could set up operations throughout the Midwest.

He could be somebody who shaped the world.

He was tempted to go onto the Night Road site, but no. Not now. Not here. There were a few patrons lingering over their lattes. And the barista, she looked Jewish to him, and she kept trying to see what the sharp-edged tattoo on his neck was. He suddenly didn’t want her looking at him.

He got back in his car and drove north toward Chicago, the screams playing in his head like a symphony he’d written himself, a masterpiece.

The second attack took place in Los Angeles, California, outside a small restaurant off Sunset Boulevard. It had, unusually, been a stormy day in Southern California. Rain fell in broken wind-blown curtains and the wind hissed like steam, and the young man in the car waited on a side street. He had never killed before and his hands shook with fright at the thought of what he was about to do. He opened the file folder next to him, although he had studied it for hours in the past several days, when he wasn’t praying at the mosque or trying to hide his activities from his mother and his father, who would disapprove.

The target’s picture was drawn from his books, which outlined how the war against Islam must be waged, and sold in the hundreds of thousands to the unbelievers. His advice was being cited in Washington; he had the ear of powerful people who might act contrary to Allah’s will. He was a history professor at UCLA, a specialist in terrorism and the Middle East, an educated man who apparently knew nothing. His words could not be allowed to continue, and he had been talking and writing more and more about the possibility of American Muslims being seduced into violence, as had happened in France, Germany and Britain, becoming home-grown carriers of terror.

Then the young man saw the professor. Walking with his wife and his teenage daughter, hurrying, huddled under an umbrella. The rain had eased in the past fifteen minutes, Allah smiling on his mission.

The young man lowered his window. Fifteen feet away.

The gun was ready in his hand. Ten feet away. He had to do this, he had to keep his nerve so he could qualify himself for a much greater battle.

He raised his firearm, asked Allah to guide his aim and fired the modified semi-automatic at the family, hoping the drizzling rain would not badly deflect his bullets.

The wife and the daughter, strolling in the front, fell screaming. He could see that the girl was dead in an instant, a bright cloud of blood settling on her skull; the wife shrieked, badly wounded. The professor – He Who Must Die – stumbled, trying to catch his family, a dawning horror on his face.

The gunman fired again, another spurt of fire, bullets drumming through tender flesh and mortal bone. The three of them lay sprawled in the blood and the cleansing rain.

He had just killed an entire family and for a moment the realization cut to his heart. Then he thought: Good. Well done.

They had dropped in front of a wine bar and a man ran out, a woman stumbling behind him, trying to help the family.

Stupid or brave? The gunman thought. It did not matter. The gunman shot them both, biting his lip again, not caring now. He didn’t want to be seen, didn’t want his license plate noticed. He revved onto Sunset Boulevard, drove fast, blasted through two red lights, turned onto side streets. He had stolen it earlier that morning, changed the plates with a car at the airport. Now he drove the car to Orange County, parking in the shadow of a mosque, his breathing returning in even tides. He had committed a most brazen mass killing, in full daylight, and escaped. Now. He could be part of Hellfire, his worth proven.

He made the phone call. He was told there was a change in plans, that he would not go to Houston, that he must check an email account that he had never seen before. He went to a computer at a public library and opened the account.

The message read: CHICAGO.

He had been chosen, not just by Allah, but by his brothers in arms, his fellow warriors, whoever they were. He lowered the window as he drove east, letting the damp air refresh his skin and nourish him for the battle and the glory that lay ahead.

Bridger lay bound and tied in the car trunk; Henry looked at him with a gaze free of pity. Snow’s ex had been turned in by a Night Road member he knew, one that Bridger had run to in Alabama, begging for money and a place to hide. Per Henry’s orders, the man drove Bridger in the trunk up to a rural field in northern Virginia.

Standing under the gleam of the stars, Henry wanted a cigarette for the first time in several years. The conversation with Luke had unnerved him badly. He had thought before that Luke would at least be willing to hear him out. If he could simply get a word in, he was sure he could make Luke understand. Barbara kept crowding into his thoughts, her final words to him much like Luke’s: I know what you are . She had said them right before the crash, when he’d only grabbed the steering wheel to get her to pull over, so he could work his magic, convince her that she was wrong. If she’d only listened, the car wouldn’t have plowed through the guardrail, somersaulted down the hill. He had kept his eyes open during the whole crash, screaming Barbara’s name, watching her die.

If only Luke would listen, a certain tragedy would be avoided.

Barbara had only found a phone in his desk. A cell phone he kept for contacts in the Middle East. The balance sheet for the think-tank had grown thin, and he spent long hours re-reading his 9/11 papers, wondering when I saw 9/11 coming, why did no one believe me? He would ignore that he had failed to include so many vital details that actually happened in the attack. His anger at being overlooked would heat like a fever and he would think, like a bullied child, I’ll show them all. He would sip his whiskey, grow morose. He knew many people in the Middle East, some of them with loose connections to the terrorists he’d interviewed and psychologically dissected. He had sent out feelers, calling them, asking for meetings, trying to find a solution to his problem: how he could predict terrorist attacks with greater accuracy, how he could win wider acclaim, grow his business, be seen as a power player.

He’d finally realized he’d needed someone that could help him make his vision work.

She’d found the phone and she’d listened to a voicemail he’d forgotten to erase, from an associate of the Arab billionaire. Stupid of him. But he had been listening to it when she interrupted him and he’d just switched off the phone. But she knew it wasn’t the phone he normally used. What had possessed her to pry, to listen to the voicemail? Had she been afraid he was unfaithful, that the phone was used for contact with a mistress? He worshipped Barbara. He knew how lucky he was. And she had waited until they were in the car, a day later, to confront him. He should have denied it all while they were driving but he was too rattled.

He would not make such a mistake again. It had cost him Barbara; it would not cost him his son.

He had driven to the deserted field from his Alexandria home, careful that Drummond or someone else was not following him. There was no sign of a shadow; then he reminded himself that if Drummond was still part of the government, then they could simply train a satellite on him and follow him.