LITMIR.BIZ

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into the camera with an earnest, worried expression on her face.

      “…deeply regret that Israel was forced to take this action by Iran’s continued refusal to allow United Nations inspectors in its nuclear facilities. I spoke to the Prime Minister of Israel a short time ago, and he personally assured me that it was imperative action be taken now, without delay. According to information received by the Israeli intelligence services, Iran was less than a week away from launching a missile carrying a nuclear warhead at Tel Aviv.”

      “See?” Nate said. “A nuclear warhead.”

      “That doesn’t mean there’s going to be a war,” Allison told him.

      But if it was true, it meant that Israel and Iran had come damned close to a war. And it might happen yet if Iran tried any sort of payback for the Israeli air attack. Allison didn’t keep up with politics all that much—Nate and her job kept her too busy for that—but there was such a bombardment of news and information all the time now that you couldn’t help but be aware of what was going on in this crazy world. Today especially, TV and radio had been full of stuff about what was going on in the Middle East. As usual for that region, things seemed to be teetering on the brink of Armageddon.

      “Maybe you should go on to bed,” Allison suggested. “You’re already up past your bedtime.”

      “No! I wanna watch the rest of this.”

      “You don’t really care about somebody making a speech, even the President.”

      “Well…there might be somethin’ good on afterwards.”

      Not likely, Allison thought. All the talking heads would have to yammer for another hour about everything the President had said. Politicians and military experts from both parties would be interviewed. The ones from the President’s party would agree with everything she said; the ones from the opposition party would disagree. And none of them would see that if the situation had been exactly the same—hell, if the words of the speech had been exactly the same—and only the party affiliation had been reversed, then their reactions would have been exactly the opposite. That was what Allison hated about politics and why she didn’t bother to vote anymore.

      “I don’t think there’s going to be anything else good on tonight,” she told Nate. “You go on to your room. I’ll be in to read a story to you in a few minutes.”

      “I can read to myself, you know.”

      “I know you can.” She put an arm around his shoulders and hugged him to her. “But I still like to do it. Let me do it for a while longer, okay?”

      “Okay.” He trudged off toward his room. He didn’t have far to go because the apartment was so small.

      Allison leaned back against the sofa cushions and watched the last few minutes of the President’s speech. It was full of flowery rhetoric about respecting the rights of sovereign nations and abiding by the rule of law and not allowing ourselves to descend once more into barbarism. All that stuff meant that the President didn’t want to go to war. Everybody knew that. The woman’s antiwar credentials went way back. And everybody had seen what had happened in Iraq as soon as she took office, too. She had cut and run, choosing sure defeat over possible progress someday. Allison couldn’t really fault her for that; that war had been poorly run, from what little Allison could see from her civilian standpoint.

      That was just it, she thought as the President signed off with the usual “Good night, and bless the United States of America.” She, Allison Sawyer, was a civilian. All this stuff going on didn’t have anything to do with her. She worried about her son, and her job, and coming up with enough money to pay all the bills at the end of the month…with maybe a little left over for an occasional treat. Christmas was coming up after all. It was only a few days until Thanksgiving, and then it would be less than a month until Christmas, and Allison hadn’t even started her shopping yet.

      But luckily, there was a new MegaMart, one of those giant UltraMegaMarts, only a few miles away, on the Interstate between Fort Worth and Denton, and it was about to have its grand opening on Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. There would be a lot of sales and specials—there always was on what was traditionally the biggest shopping day of the year—but the prices would be even better at the UltraMegaMart on that day. Allison tuned out the talking heads on TV and started thinking about what she might be able to get Nate for Christmas. There would be a huge mob there, of course, but she might have to brave it anyway.

      She would do whatever was necessary to make this a good Christmas for her son.

      CHAPTER 6

      Although the Prophet had taught his followers to practice moderation, Hamed al-Bashar’s reaction to what he was hearing and seeing on the television had no moderation to it.

      Indeed, he wished he were there in the Oval Office with a sword in his hand—the holy sword of Islam—so he could kill that Zionist bitch.

      Hamed had little use for Iranians, of course—they were Shiites, and he was Sunni—but right now his hatred for the Shiites was subordinated to his even greater hatred of the filthy Jews. At the training compound in the hills of Pakistan, his superiors in Hizb ut-Tahrir had taught him that tribal differences had to be put aside for now, because all of Islam faced an even greater threat. It was the goal of the West to wipe out the entire Muslim world, the leaders said, to obliterate all the Prophet’s holy teachings, and that was why the cause of jihad was so important. That was why the infidels had to be wiped out first.

      The Jews’ attack on Iran was just one more example of lawless aggression against the Muslim world. And instead of condemning it, the American President was supporting Israel. In fact, she was sending warships to the Persian Gulf to further suppress the Iranians and interfere with their right to enforce their will in their own waters.

      It made Hamed seethe with outrage. He wanted to pick up one of the new Adidas shoes he had bought earlier in the day and throw it through the television screen. Instead, he sat in his apartment in Kansas City and fumed.

      After a while, his anger faded and was replaced by depression. He had been in America, living and working with these godless devils, keeping to himself and not doing anything that might make anyone suspicious. Those had been his orders, and he had followed them faithfully. He assumed that the other members of his cell, scattered through the Midwest and the South, were conducting themselves in the same manner. They were probably feeling the same frustration he was.

      He was ready for action, ready for the call that would summon him to his mission, whatever it might be. Ready to strike back against the Great Satan.

      Ready to die for his holy cause. Eager to die. Eager for the day when he would inflict the same sort of pain and suffering on the Americans as they had inflicted on his people. On his brothers—using the word loosely—in Iran, and in all the other places where Westerners had attacked Muslims. Eager as well for the beautiful virgins who would be waiting for him in paradise, but really, that was just a minor consideration. What was important was striking back against the Jews and the Americans. The same thing really. They were all Zionists. Filthy Zionists.

      The shrill ringing of the cell phone in his pocket made Hamed jump.

      He had bought it in a drugstore in Crosby, North Dakota, not far from the Canadian border, on his first day in the United States. Along with it, he had bought a time card that was good for a year, and had activated both the phone and the card from a computer in the public library that was connected to the Internet.

      Then he had written the phone’s number on a piece of paper, put it in a get-well card he had also bought at the drugstore, sealed the envelope that came with the card, addressed it to Bob Wilson at a post office box in St. Petersburg, Florida, bought a stamp from a coin-operated machine in the local post office, and dropped the card in the mail.

      There was no Bob Wilson, of course. Well, there probably was, almost certainly was in a country like this, but the owner of that post office box in St. Petersburg most assuredly was not really named Bob Wilson. But once the get-well card arrived, he would have the number

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