The Americans’ unmanned aerial vehicles would be committed to the north. They were deadly, but Umarov had timed this well. A movement of his fellow soldiers to the north, above the Khyber Pass, would attract the Americans and their UAVs. Even the Americans had a limit to their assets.

  Yousef had picked out the target after his return from Riyadh. The trip was important, Yousef had told Umarov. But Umarov doubted it. And Yousef had seen the doubt in his face.

  Umarov didn’t like the idea that his leader would go home when summoned. But he had kept his counsel, not daring to question Yousef aloud.

  Even so, Yousef had decided to explain. “Never forget: there are more princes than the secretary. We will need the House of Saud to be divided when we move. We need voices that will approve of our new state. They must know we are serious.”

  The explanation had satisfied Umarov. Yousef ’s vision was clear. He knew his path. He knew that when word passed in Riyadh that Yousef had been home and had met with the secretary, others would return his e-mails and send money. Just the meeting would cause a stir.

  But Umarov didn’t like the trips this close to the operation. Chicago wasn’t needed. He knew the target. Fortunately, he convinced Yousef to stay far away from the cell and Canada.

  Secrecy didn’t matter. Not for this operation. He would rot in Guantanamo for a decade before they got anything out of him. And by then, this would all be over.

  “Is it time?” The boy stayed low, below the rocks, touching Umarov’s boot from behind to get his attention.

  “No. Go back.” The Chechen didn’t respect the boy. He was no more than fourteen and was here for the money. The kid would fire his rifle and run. Umarov knew that the boy would be killed, but more important, he might get Umarov killed as well. He wasn’t a Chechen, not a true warrior.

  “There he is.” Umarov saw the truck sitting next to the house on the far end of Spin Boldak. It was a white Nissan with oversized tires and a roll bar behind the cab. It was too new to be owned by just anyone from Spin Boldak. It had been paid for with drug money. It was owned by the son of Abaidullah.

  The trucks that left Afghanistan, after dropping off their cargo, brought back another cargo on their return. And Abaidullah ensured that they were safe on their trip when they passed through Spin Boldak and crossed the lawless land back into Pakistan. But Abaidullah had become too brave. He enjoyed a new pastime. He enjoyed killing the soldiers of the Taliban. After one horrific firefight, Abaidullah had the bodies piled up in a dump truck and taken to the border. There, just into Pakistan, the bodies were dumped in a pile, just like gravel or even worse, garbage, on the side of the two-lane highway. The stench had dogged drivers for days.

  “Boy.” Umarov slowly signaled with his hand below the rocks.

  The boy looked up at the Chechen. The fourteen-year-old had an odd face, tanned and dark, but with clover-colored green eyes. He wore his brown fleece pakol pulled down around his ears. A powderlike dust caked his face and the pakol. His hands looked like hands of an old man, nails caked with dirt, used for any task and never cleaned.

  “Yes, Chaac neen?” It took some time for them to learn to say the word. It didn’t sound right.

  “Come here.”

  The boy slid up in the hillside of the ravine they were hiding in, slowly moving his head up to its edge.

  “There will be dogs. You hear them?”

  The sun was beginning to set, and as it did, barking dogs began to howl in the distance. The sweltering heat had kept them hiding in ditches and ravines and in boxes discarded on the side of the highway, anything that provided some protection from the brutal sun.

  “Yes.”

  Umarov was close to the boy. Even in the lowering light, he could see the boy’s eyes were glassy. Heroin abuse was commonplace now. They would inject it just before the fight. It made them bulletproof. It also made them foolish.

  “Take the dead dog. The one we brought. Move slow. Put it in that ravine to the side there.” Umarov pointed to a cut, short of the rocks, to the far right of their position. The boy would cut the dog’s belly so that the last of its blood would gush out onto the dry earth, attracting the other dogs. The arsenic would kill off the scavenging pack in minutes and the valley would become quiet.

  Umarov watched as the boy moved from rock to rock, dragging the carcass by its leg. In daylight, the boy would have revealed their position. He would have been killed by either Umarov or the French. But the light was low and Umarov could hear the clanking of pots from the French compound. The sound of music accompanied the laughter as well. He knew the French. They were good fighters, tough, cold, but they loved to eat. The Americans would eat their combat meals packaged in plastic, but the French would prepare meals with bread and wine.

  The dogs saw the boy cutting across the ravines and began to follow. Umarov then saw the boy slip back up the ravine. Fortunately, by then, the pack had picked up the smell of the blood and followed the trail to the carcass. Soon they would be dead.

  Umarov checked the blade he carried on the side of his calf. He had lost count of the men who felt the razor steel pull across their throats. Several were boys, Russian boys, some younger than the boy with the dog.

  “Let’s go.” He signaled to the five men down below him in the ravine. They all had the same glassy eyes. Umarov noticed two needles lying on a rock next to the men.

  The Chechen didn’t say much on these missions. He wouldn’t, but more important, he didn’t need to. He had trained them over the last several months. They would move slowly, in coordination, aware of where the others were at all times. They worked their way down the ravine, past piles of sagebrush, slowly moving down to the house with the white truck. They weren’t there just to kill the man.

  Two of the fighters moved to the side of the white truck, looking in, seeing the keys, and signaling back to Umarov. It was what he had hoped for. No one in the village would dare steal the truck of the son of the chief of the Afghan Guard. It made the plan possible.

  Umarov was here to do the killing. The others would ensure that no one came up the alleyway or to the other side.

  Umarov pulled the door open to the house behind the truck, hearing the music of Ali Omar on the radio. In the past, music had been banned.

  The son of Abaidullah lay asleep on the couch.

  “Don’t say a word.” Umarov pulled the boy’s head up by his hair as he slid the blade underneath his chin. Umarov could feel the boy’s body jerk as he awoke from his sleep to feel the steel cutting into the flesh of his neck.

  “Come with me.” He dragged the boy, struggling to keep up with the blade holding his head in place under Umarov’s arm. Outside, one of the other fighters taped the boy’s hands behind him. He was dragged into the bed of his truck as another of the killers taped the boy’s feet and then his mouth and eyes.

  Umarov slipped in behind the steering wheel and quietly started up the engine. He pulled the truck out from in between the houses, into the alleyway, and turned down the road. The other men jumped into the bed of the truck. He drove it in the dark, without the lights, going between the buildings, while the others in the back held down their victim. Even if someone saw the truck, they would recognize it and let it pass. The white Nissan of the son of the commander would never be stopped.

  Several miles out of Spin Boldak, heading back to the east in the direction of Pakistan, the truck pulled off the highway and changed directions to the north. The rocky trail cut through the ridgeline and eventually led to a ravine that was wider and farther than the others. Near the end of the ravine, a truck trail cut up through the mountains heading east, farther into Pakistan. After several miles, curving through the pass, they came upon a cave that was cut out of the limestone. It was more of an overhang than a true cave, but it served its purpose.

  Umarov pulled the boy out of the truck by his hair.

  “Wait a moment!” A man came out of the cave. It was Yousef.

  Umarov nodded to his leader.

  “Go and get the cameraman,” Yousef barked to one of their younger soldiers.

  “I have it, brother.” A small, thin boy, still a teenager but with the face of a man, came from within the cave with a video camera in a clear plastic bag.

  Yousef took the camera from the bag, blew away any remaining dust, and set it up on a tripod.

  “All right, I am getting ready to film. So pull up your scarves.”

  Each of the men pulled their scarves up, wrapping them around so as to only let their eyes be seen through a small slit.

  “Pull that worthless piece of dog into the light.” Yousef pointed to some gas lamps that stood well within the cave.

  The teenager sobbed, but his cries were muffled by the layers of tape wrapped around his face. Umarov and the others dragged him to a rock no larger than a coffee table. And there they began to beat him mercilessly while the camera taped.

  Finally, after they had beaten the boy to a near pulp, Yousef held up his hand.

  “How much is left on the camera?”

  “Ten minutes at the most,” said the teenaged soldier.

  “Umarov, show them what Nidal taught you.”

  “Is there enough light?” Umarov knew that this could only be done once.

  “Yes, pull the light closer. Pull it near the hole.” Just beyond the boy, a shallow grave had been dug into the soft floor of the cave. The hole wasn’t any deeper than the waistline of a man standing in it.

  “First, I want to say something.”

  Umarov had to hand it to Yousef. He was bold. Abaidullah would see this tape and swear to pursue his son’s killer to the ends of the earth. But Yousef knew that. And he knew that the killing would galvanize the men of the Taliban behind him. The sons of the men in the pile beside the road would pledge themselves to Yousef ’s cause, speaking Yousef ’s name with reverence. And they would die to defend him. It was the first of many steps on his part to consolidate his power, solidify his following. The tribes of Afghanistan would be either behind Yousef or the Americans. Those behind the Americans would die.

  Yousef spoke to the camera. “To the men of Abaidullah, I say: He could not protect his son. Why do you believe he can protect you? Or your children? Do not take up arms against us.”

  Yousef spoke the words coolly, without passion. Again, Umarov admired his style.

  “Okay.” He pointed to the hole.

  Umarov was off camera, but before he came into view he pulled his scarf up over his face. His pakol was pulled down, and his black scarf was pulled up tightly so that only his eyes were visible. It didn’t matter. Even now, everyone had heard of the Chechen. He was much bigger than the others. He stood out.

  Umarov pulled the boy into the full view of the camera and cut the tape off his mouth and eyes. Again, he pulled the boy up by his hair, still whimpering and sobbing, so that the camera could focus in on the face. Bloodied and swollen as his face was, no one would doubt that this was the son of Abaidullah. Umarov dragged the kid into the hole and then pulled a piece of plastic pipe out of his rear pocket. He would do this just like he saw Nidal do it to the man that Nidal called a traitor. With his boot on the boy’s chest, he pushed the tube into the boy’s mouth. The camera picked up the sound of the gurgling.

  “Begin.”

  Umarov stepped out of the hole as the soldiers buried the boy alive. Shortly, only the tube stuck up from the pile of dirt.

  “Abaidullah, you son of a dog,” Yousef cursed on the camera as he began to pour water, in small amounts, down the pipe. “Come here.” Yousef signaled to the cameraman to come closer. The camera panned in closer to the hole, focusing on it as Yousef poured water down the pipe. He didn’t put much, only enough that in desperation the boy would swallow the water and dirt as quickly as he could. Gasping in the black hole, with the dirt crushing down on his chest, trying to breathe through the hole while the swallows of water stopped.

  “Abaidullah, this is your fate as well.” Yousef let his voice grow more intense. The glow in his eyes made him seem possessed. He pulled out a small pistol and fired down the pipe. He kept firing the pistol into the tube. He pulled the trigger until, finally, the weapon only clicked.

  The camera light went black.

  Umarov smiled. Abaidullah would remember the face of Yousef until the last breath passed. So would many others. In fact, with the release of the video, the entire world would know what Yousef al-Qadi looked like.

  CHAPTER 24

  New York City

  The Verrazano Bridge would be the worst of it. Thousands of runners, pushing and shoving, like salmon making their way upstream. Later, as they moved through Brooklyn, the runners would spread out, making one continuous stream that would last for hours.

  Despite the crush, Clark felt the adrenaline as she moved outside, crossing the bridge. On the far outside lane she could glimpse north, seeing the boats on the East River. The weather was meant for marathoners. A chill had descended on the northeast that caused her teeth to chatter just before the gun went off. She knew that her body would warm up fast as the sun began to burn off the chill, but she would be miles into the race before heat became a problem.

  Clark felt a breeze cutting up the East River. Helicopters covering the New York Marathon zoomed over the bridge. She felt energized; happy, even. Happier than she had felt since Parker had left.

  Boston had no effect. The runners were a sea of red, white, and blue. There seemed to be more energy than a nuclear reactor’s core. They were not to be deterred.

  It surprised Clark that she had the energy even to let her mind wander. Parker would have wanted her to concentrate on the race, not him.

  God, he has really trained me for this. She was holding a solid pace, already starting to pass other runners. Clark could feel lightness in her stride.

  She passed the ten-mile mark.

  I need to keep the liquids. William had reminded her that early on the energy would feel limitless. The adrenaline would be pumping. This was her first marathon and the lack of humidity in the north would energize her even more.

  Clark cut over to the water station at mile twelve and forced herself to slow and grab a cup. Again, at the end of the tables, she grabbed a Gatorade and a Power Gel. She drank as much of the liquid as she could force down.

  I feel so alive! She laughed at herself. I sound like a commercial. The others in the courthouse had made fun of her for weeks now. The general consensus was that she’d collapse after mile ten. She laughed at that thought as the fifteen-mile marker passed by.

  I’m over halfway. A little thirsty, but nothing bad. Clark was even maintaining the same pace. She looked at her watch. 7:45-minute miles. That can’t be right, 7:45? She was ahead of her targets. And this was mile sixteen.

  Clark realized that two of the runners had kept the same pace with her now as they neared the eighteenth mile. They were slightly ahead of her when she came across the Verrazano. It looked like a father and son, a gray-haired man with a runner’s body but legs white as a newborn child. He obviously had trained in the far north, where the cold rarely let one run without his sweatpants. The son, in his early twenties, inherited more from his mother than his father. He almost appeared to be Cajun, with a dark complexion. At first they chatted as they ran, but as they crossed the Queensboro Bridge, they became increasingly quiet.

  “You still with us?” the son asked Clark as they passed by milepost eighteen.

  “Oh, yeah.” She still had the energy to smile. “Are you slowing down?”

  “Don’t make me laugh, it hurts too much.” He smiled at her, but you could see the beginnings of it being a forced smile.

  William had warned her of the gap between milepost twenty and twenty-five. It would be there that she’d be truly tested. Clark started to pull apart from the others as she passed the sign 20. Now she was passing fewer runners. Runners would occasionally pass her. It was here that she’d have to reach deep. It wouldn’t be easy.

  Dad would be there. Standing at the side. Smiling with that ridiculous pipe stuck out of the side of his mouth. Her legs were burning now. Somehow, some way, she was still passing a few other runners. Some looked desperate, soaked in sweat. Now her mouth was dry, like she had swallowed a cup of dust, and her lungs began to burn.

  Just don’t ever let the thought of giving up get into your brain. Not for one second. William had said that repeatedly, again and again, when the runs had gotten longer. Don’t stop. Don’t let the word stop exist.

  The Madison Avenue Bridge was coming. Now, the legs would feel even the slightest incline. It would burn as she came up the bridge’s elevation, but she would be back in Manhattan for the final time. Clark tried to keep her head up as she passed through the bridge, looking at the people cheering, pushing, and prodding her on. They were generous. She could feel their energy.

  A man stood next to the bridge abutment on the Manhattan side. She glanced at him, but when she looked up again he was gone.

  No, it can’t be. God, I’m losing it.

  It was then that the pain began to worsen. Her pace was slowing down now as she crossed into Central Park. The trees were such a change. It reminded her of the runs on their hill trail.

  I’m going to make it. She was getting close.

  Marker twenty-five was just ahead, with water and ice, but Clark knew now she was in the danger zone. A stop, even for a split second, for a cup of ice-cold water or Powerade could result in her stopping for good. Like an ocean liner that comes to rest, the force of energy required to move again could be unattainable.

  No, Clark Ashby would not stop. Never. One foot would move in front of the other. Now it took too much effort to look up. She stared at the pavement in a continuous trance, watching her feet, in a trance, moving forward one at a time, one after another.

  It was then that she heard the noise. A band was playing and thousands of people were yelling. The crowds on both sides were now layers and layers deep. Little children held signs for their mothers or fathers. No, stopping now was not an option.