Стивен Хантер - Game of Snipers

“So what do you recommend, the towels with water? I will undergo that. Many of the faith have.”

“I can only recommend what I’ve initiated, which is a detailed interrogation session, and these men will vet each answer on the Internet. It will be a long night. There will be great psychological pressure on you, if you are a spy, to avoid a mistake. We will see if you can stand up to it. When your story collapses, we will deal with what remains.”

She didn’t know if she could do this. The slow grind of it all, the utter concentration it would take to keep her details in trim, the mental effort against the deep fatigue — it would be too much.

Crack the button, she thought. Get the cops in here. Shake this place down, see what’s cooking. Smack el-Tariq and his pals around. Get them to talk. Get Juba that way. Find him, get him, kill him . You killed my Tom, and I turned into a different woman and I tracked you down and I killed you dead.

But — if she pushed the button, and they found nothing, the word would get out that the FBI was hunting a certain terrorist in Dearborn, and, if he were here, he’d know and vanish. Instead of hurting him, she’d have helped him.

“Mrs. Abdullah, you blacked out there.”

“I took a little nap,” she said.

The door opened. A man came in and set something on the desk. It was a file. He leaned and whispered to the imam, who listened intently, nodding.

“All right,” said the imam. “Perhaps this may move things along.”

He pulled out a picture.

A knife cut into her heart. How had they gotten it?

It was taken on November 12, 2002. Boys’ Latin had just beaten Gilman in football, and Tom, a tight end, had made a spectacular catch, late, to keep the drive going, to keep the ball away from Gilman’s offense. There was Tom, his helmet under his arm, his arm around her, on the happiest day of his life. His radiance was like the blaze of the setting sun at the end of a stormy day, promising much for tomorrow.

How had they gotten it?

“A handsome boy, Mrs. McDowell,” said the imam. “It’s a shame what happened to him. But perhaps we will now proceed with the truth.”

She cracked the GPS bead in her hijab.

Detroit Metro

We’d better get back there,” said Jared.

“Give me your phone,” said Juba.

He took the thing from the young man, set it on the pavement, and crushed it with the heel of his shoe. He removed the SIM card and put it in his pocket for later disposal in river or fire.

“Wh-what are you doing? How can I call my mom?”

“We will not go back there. Ever. It no longer exists for us. That phase is ended and must not be revisited. It is compromised, everything in it is tainted and potentially of lethal danger. We must think clearly and move quickly. How much money do you have?”

“I don’t know,” said the boy.

They stood on a street corner somewhere in the revitalized Tomorrowland of downtown, so sleek that it was devoid of human beings. A few retail outlets remained open — a Subway, a McDonald’s, an old auto-themed pub, a late-night Sprint — hopeful of snagging a few late customers. The glow of each establishment spilled out onto the dark sidewalks, while mute monoliths that by day were full of suburbanites loomed blankly overhead.

Jared pulled out his wallet, checked the cash, and saw that he had about thirty-five dollars in bills.

“But I have this,” he said, pulling out a red Bank of America card. “I have a thousand in my checking account. We can get eight hundred dollars out tonight, from an ATM machine, the other two hundred tomorrow.”

“Get the eight hundred now. Then the card is to be destroyed. It may have GPS. Our goal is to leave Detroit as quickly as possible.”

“To go where?”

“Away. We will need money and an automobile.”

“I can’t just walk out of my life. I have to call my folks, I have people I have to say good-bye to. I suppose I could borrow some money, but we’ve got to get a car, and that will take some time. I have contacts, and—”

“You’re an idiot child. Assume that in a short while they will know everything about you. Your picture will be flashed to every policeman in the state. They will net you by noon tomorrow. You will talk, giving them explicit description of me and an account of our conversations. You will cooperate with an artist, and a drawing will emerge. I will be the most famous man in America by five-thirty tomorrow afternoon.”

“I don’t—”

“Assume and operate on the principle of the worst of all possibilities. No other course is safe but immediate escape and evasion. Now, where can we get a car and ten thousand dollars?”

“I … don’t know.”

“Well, I know. In this city, in certain areas, there are many drug transactions. We will rob one of them. Do you understand? They will not go to the police. Eventually the police will hear, but by that time we will be long gone.”

Jared could not keep the look of fright off his face, or the series of dry gulps coming out of his throat or the clumsiness overcoming his limbs.

“Those guys are really tough. They will not take any shit lying down. It’s well known in the community that you do not fuck with them. Fuck with anybody, but do not fuck with dope guys.”

“Little American boy, you say you are a jihadist. This is jihad. It is about action, commitment, discomfort. It is about will. Your faith should give you that. You cannot talk and posture and affect any longer. You must become my right hand — and, thus, Allah’s right hand. You have been chosen. Now you must contribute.”

Oh, fuck, thought Jared.

The car was not a problem. Juba selected a ’13 Taurus out of a parking lot, jimmied the lock with his knife, ripped the plastic shielding off the keyhole, did some fast wire twisting, and the thing came to life.

The car led to the ATM, which led to eight hundred dollars in crisp twenties. Next stop: Drugland.

“You’re sure this eight hundred dollars isn’t enough? We can get a long way—”

“Suppose we need to bribe? Suppose we need a new vehicle? We will need new clothes, we will need money for motels. The one thing necessary for surviving on the run is cash. I know, I have been on the run many times. Do not think of your old life and how things used to be. You have given your life to Allah. He will do with it as He chooses.”

Great, thought Jared, who was finding transfiguration from the theoretical to the actual more troublesome than he ever imagined.

His mood was not improved by the ghastly terrain south of Seven Mile Road. Abandoned crumbling houses, lawns overgrown, the stiff grass blowing in the wind off the lake. Now and then, the fluorescent, dead-bone illumination of a late-night mart or liquor store turning anyone caught in it into a zombie. Abandoned cars, broken toys, gardens that looked jungly and foreboding. About a tenth of the houses were occupied.

You didn’t want to be out here if you weren’t really good at the game. This was the big league. Predators or guppies, nothing in between. You could tell the whores from the dealers easily: the dealers looked better. They were everywhere, like specters, standing in the wind, oblivious to its chill. A hoodie over a T-shirt, baggy jeans, big white sneakers off some astronaut’s moonwalk, ball caps worn backwards.

“These guys?” he asked Juba. “They look uncooperative to me.”

They discussed strategy, Jared smiled and licked his dry lips, and, in time, they found their mark. Jared rolled out.

“Yo, little A-rab boy,” said the dealer. “Whatcha yo’ wanna be here fo’? You wanna score? If not, git yo’ ass outta here or some brothahs gonna turn yo’ shit to hurt.”