Don't Look Back (20 page)

In 2007 public outcry forced Usama to apologize. To scold his followers for fanaticism. To urge them to avoid the extremism displayed by the butchers in Iraq. Dirty linen aired for the world to see. Fortunately, the world was not interested in seeing this. The world viewed them as one, gathered behind a single face. Usama’s.

One crisp winter day, Ayman al-Zawahiri sent for Bashir. The journey took several days beneath skies luminous with bombs. Bashir arrived at the stark bunker anxious and hungry. He was greeted with a kiss on each cheek by al-Zawahiri. And some dire news. Cracks and rifts had spread through the Base. It was crumbling. Definitive action needed to be taken before it was too late. Pakistan alone provided hope. Bhutto had been assassinated. Attacks on the urban centers were pushing the state machinery to the breaking point.

This success could be duplicated.

Bashir would go to Mexico. He would put the operation into place one porous border away. Wait until the time was right. Then execute.

Now here he was. No guns, no grenades. A man with a machete. He preferred it. The simplicity. The sword of Muhammad. The hand of Allah.

A light patter had started up. Lightning sparked. He strode through the door into his house. Jay’s mouth immediately resumed its movement.

“Okay, I
wasn’t
the one there. On the cliff. It wasn’t me. Wait—I swear. Just wait. I don’t know who it was, but it wasn’t me. And the camera—no one saw the camera. I found it myself, okay? But I didn’t show anyone. Hang on. Please? Just … please? I’m telling you—”

Bashir walked into his small bedroom. Shut the door. He could hear Jay beyond, words turning to sobs.

His prayer rug unfurled neatly, facing Mecca. He stood, taking care not to look at his feet. Not during prayer. Folded his arms. Prayed the first two
rak’ah
aloud. His voice drawn out into almost-song.

Jay’s pleading penetrated the thin walls. Bashir prayed louder.

He knelt, fixing his eyes only on the spot where his forehead would kiss the ground. He sensed the ghosts of his brothers all around him, praying with him as in the camps. The Chechens with their milky skin and clear blue eyes. Now dead. The Arabs with their schooling and untamable spirits. Dead. Tajiks, Kashmiris, Uzbeks with no education but hands made for weapons. All dead.

He finished the
rak’ah.
Next was the Retreat. He retrieved his Qur’an. Gripped it so tightly that his fingers cramped. He set it before him on a mat of twigs so it would not touch the ground. He sat again, legs crossed. Pulled a sheet of linen over his head, covering both his face and the Qur’an. He could see nothing but the words of Allah.

The sobs from the next room faded. There was only the sound of his own murmurs. He rocked, meditative. Trancelike. The world did not exist aside from him and the holy book. Fifteen minutes passed. Or thirty.

He arose, refreshed. Beside the prayer rug, the machete waited.

He opened the door. Returned to the lantern. Heated the machete’s blade on the exposed flame.

Jay tried to raise his head from the plywood. His voice hoarse from weeping. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you everything.”

Bashir went to his captive. Crouched over him.

He said, “We can agree that this is wise.”

Chapter 27

Curled printouts in hand, Eve stormed down the bamboo walkway, rain tapping her face. Up ahead she saw two figures. In a show of privacy, Neto and Lulu had convened outside the adobe dwelling in which the others were gathered. She shouted at him as he stood with his head bowed, water running down his face. Her words were indistinct but the body language clear. Lulu marched inside, slamming the door hard enough that it wobbled back open. Neto gave the gray sky a doleful look and slid in after her.

Eve approached, paused outside the door, and drew in a wet breath that tasted of leaves. In her mind’s eye, she saw the movie-heroine version of herself, standing firm, vowing to search the jungle single-handedly, to save Jay and vanquish the bad guy. The curled papers trembled in her hand, a patchwork dossier on surely the most dangerous man she’d ever encountered face-to-face. Someone like Bashir Ahmat al-Gilani could visit a kind of violence upon them that seemed almost unimaginable. In fact, he’d spent a lifetime mastering the skills to deliver harm with proficiency. As a nurse she was all too familiar with the fragility of life, the cosmic rug-pull, the shadow on the X-ray, but she felt now a sudden, bracing reacquaintance with her own impermanence. She was a speck in the wind, a sidewalk ant in the shadow of a colossal being armed with morbid curiosity and a magnifying glass. Possibilities swarmed her.

She pictured someone else waking Nicolas in the morning, driving him to swim practice. Or him disembarking at the international terminal in Amsterdam, suitcase in hand. Or—
Stop.

Exhaling, she shoved through the door. The wan faces lifted as one. Will looked up from slotting D batteries into a Maglite flashlight. Sue lay pillow-propped on the bed, her lips pale, gummed at the corners, Harry stroking her forehead.

“What?” Claire said.
“What?”

Eve tossed the badly printed articles onto the bed.

The others huddled around the mattress, snatching pages from hand to hand, tilting their heads to read. The news settled over them heavily. Sounds of paper crinkling, of throat-stifled exclamations. Lulu threw down one of the pages and stepped back, muffled a cry with her fist.

“You’re kidding me,” Claire said. “You are fucking
kidding me
with this Clash of the Civilizations shit
here.
”

“What if there are more of them?” Sue said. “An army or … or a terrorist training camp?”

“There is no
army,
” Neto said with disgust. “No
camp.
It is him alone. Me, Lulu, the
indígenos
—I think we would have heard if these hills were crawling with crazy Arabs.”

“Thanks,” Claire said, “but you no longer have a right to an opinion.”

Harry said, “If this man is who these articles say, he doesn’t want to be—
can’t be
—seen by anyone. He wouldn’t allow it.”

“He thinks
Jay
saw him,” Lulu said.

A morbid air hung over the mattress, the scattered printouts. Jay’s disappearance had raised so many questions. The face glaring up from the Egyptian booking photo provided the answers.

“Who says he hasn’t figured out that he’s on
our
radar by now?” Sue asked.

“I’m sorry, Will,” Harry said. “Given what we know now, there’s a better-than-strong likelihood that Jay’s not alive anymore. And even if he was,
we
couldn’t help him.”

Will cast an imploring look at one person after another. He didn’t seem to like what he read in their faces. “We can’t leave him,” he said. “We cannot leave him.”

Harry pointed at the damp papers, that face glowering up from the rippled page. “This man is number twenty-three on the FBI’s most wanted list. He’s one of the world’s leading experts at mountain warfare. If he decides to come after
us,
we can’t do a damn thing to stop him. We’ve got to get out while we still can.”

Fortunato stepped forward from the group of
indígenos,
his solemn nod directed at Neto and Lulu. “Go,” he said. “Before the
tormenta
resume. I will close down
aquí.
”

Neto glared holes through him. Fortunato drew himself up a bit straighter and met Neto’s gaze. For the first time here in the lodge, he looked as he had when he was leading Eve through the jungle, a young man confident of his place on the mountain. Neto broke off eye contact first.

“Yes,” Lulu said. “Okay.”

“That’s it?” Will’s voice cracked. “No one?” He looked across at Claire.

“I haven’t given up on Jay,” she said. “Either.” She stood tall, despite the braces.

Eve felt something inside her crumble away.

“How do we decide, then?” Neto asked.

“A vote,” Harry said. “Who wants to leave now?”

He, Sue, and Lulu lifted their hands. Neto shook his head, kept his arms folded.

Acid flicked at the walls of Eve’s stomach. Her chin quivered. Seven years of memories distilled into one: a view from the doorway, Nicolas in pajamas and a cowboy hat playing Legos on the carpet, early-morning light suffusing his still-closed blinds.

Thanks for letting me sleep, Little.

When he looks up, the hat bobbles loosely around his little-boy head, knocking his glasses askew.
Hi, Big. I’m hungry.

Eve raised her hand, too.

Will and Claire looked at her, shocked.

“What the fuck, Eve?” he said. “You’re just gonna
abandon
Jay?”

“I have a boy,” Eve said. “At home. I don’t care if there’s a tempest. I don’t care if we have to leave all our stuff behind. I am going to him
now.
” She met Will’s stare. “Understand?”

“Four to three,” Harry said. “I’m sorry.”

The tension came out of Will as if someone had given slack to the strings holding him up. He sank to the bed, shoulders hunching.

“Passports,” Lulu said. “The Jeep. Three minutes.”

Neto caught Eve’s arm at the door. He spoke quietly, through clenched teeth. “You
had
to,” he said. “Had to keep looking, keep prying. Look what you’ve done.”

She shook him off roughly and rushed to her hut. Halfway there, she leaned over the bamboo railing and vomited into the lush greenery.

Chapter 28

The Wrangler coasted more than drove, the tires clinging to the trail, every turn a minor miracle. They were squeezed into the seats, sitting in laps as they had on their way to the rafting trip. That sunshine-bathed journey downriver, with its paddle high fives and seating quibbles, seemed from another life. The air now felt crowded with limbs and faces, breath and body heat, the sultry jungle encasing them like a green-tinted hothouse.

Eve sat in Will’s lap, and he wrapped her midsection with his arms, helping prevent her shoulder from knocking the glass with each lurch. His touch, firm and proficient, held none of the warmth she had known it to hold. She didn’t blame him.

Sue lay in the cargo hold, curled in the fetal position, murmuring, “I don’t feel so good.”

A few branches kissed the doors. Vines slap-skidded up the windshield, their residue washed away by the quickening rain. Neto drove on. They skipped over a bump and landed, the Jeep rearing, throwing mud but going nowhere.

“Stop!” Will shouted. “Stop! The back tires are spinning. You’re just gonna dig us deeper.”

He shoved at the door, and Eve half fell from his lap into the rain. He was at her side, searching the fringe of the jungle. “Look for a branch. We need something for the wheels to grab hold of.”

She found one and dragged it over to him. Then they were on their knees in the sludge, wedging it beneath the stuck tire to provide traction, rain splattering their backs.

He worked the branch in and out, ramming it farther beneath the tread. Eve reached over and touched his arm, and he did not recoil.

“I get that you’re mad at me,” she said. “
I’m
mad at me.”

“I’m not mad at
you.
” He gave the branch a last violent shove, then paused to wipe his hands on his thighs. “I’m mad that you’re right.”

Heavy drops plunked the trail, kicking up buttercups of mud, setting the ground dancing. They watched the small-scale ballet for a moment, Will blinking against the moisture. “He’s dead.”

She stayed crouched, watching him. A tuning fork of lightning appeared in the visible sky, all at once, as if it had been pressed through the clouds of a single piece. Thunder rattled her rib cage.

Will stood, offered her a dripping hand. She took it and rose.

He knocked on the side of the Jeep. “Try it now. Slow.”

Neto eased on the gas, and the rear right tire spun over the moist bark of the branch, then finally snagged, the Jeep lurching out of its rut at an angle.

Eve and Will climbed back in, and the jalopy ride resumed. She felt his hands tighten around her waist, felt his forehead press to the spot between her shoulder blades, and she understood his grief and need for contact. She gripped his wrist tightly at her belly. Claire noticed and for once kept her thoughts to herself. For a few minutes, the rocking ride lulled Eve into a false sense of calm.

Then the Jeep crested a rise, bucked like a horse, and slid sideways on a steep downhill. Lulu screamed. Eve’s cheek slapped the window, and she reoriented to see a muddy sheet scrolling beneath the two right tires. Ahead and closing fast, a steep bank beyond which frothed the rising river.

The ball of Eve’s stomach leapt up, crowding her throat. Time compressed and expanded simultaneously, the Jeep’s slide seeming to last forever even as the remaining firm ground whipped beneath the chassis. She put both hands on the glass, trying in vain to push herself up, as though the added inches of buffer would help if they rolled into the river. As the lip neared, the Jeep slowed, slowed, plowing mud until there was none left, until Eve was staring directly down into the furious blast of the water and she knew that it was going to rush up to meet her.

Slowly, she came aware that they had stopped.

The right-side tires were perched at the very brink of the riverbank. Eve remained piled into the door, the window like ice against her brow, foaming white current filling her field of vision. Breaths jerked through her chattering teeth.

Claire kneed open her door, her metal brace hammering the panel, and they unpacked from the safe side of the Jeep. Eve slid across to get out, fighting panic until she felt her shoes sink into earth. Trying to calm her breathing, she took a step and then another just because she could.

Harry helped Sue from the back. “Why’d you hit the brakes?” he barked at Neto. “That sent us into a skid. Why’d you—”

He saw.

The narrow bridge ahead now met the road at a severe angle, the front section thrust upward on the right side, several feet higher than the ground. The middle and back of the bridge still held, giving the effect of a spiral that had run out of steam. Had Neto driven forward, the Jeep would’ve hammered over the raised tilt of the lip, then slid sideways off the bridge and plunged right into the river.