Blink of an Eye (17 page)

“Go! Hurry, go!” Miriam shouted.

“I'm going!”

The Cougar's tires kicked up a cloud of dust.

“Believe me, I'm going.”

“Did you hurt anyone?” she asked.

“No. The waitress will have a few bruises, but she'll live.”

“How do you know?”

They peeled onto Balboa and roared for the freeway.

“I just do.”

chapter 15

y
ou saw the future,” Miriam said. “You really saw the future again?”

Seth veered down an exit. “I'm cutting across to the 210. We have to get to the State Department. The police know what the car looks like; if we don't change things up a bit, they'll pull us over before we get downtown. I'm not sure I'm ready for a full-on chase.”

“I don't understand.” Miriam pulled one knee up on the seat and sat sideways to look through the back window. “We're going to the State Department; why don't we just let the police take us?”

“Because”—he paused and glanced at his mirrors—“because, in every outcome I saw with the cop, you ended up dead.”

She stared at him. “I . . . what do you mean, dead?”

“I mean slumped over in the backseat of his car with a hole in your head. Hilal's obviously not the timid type.”

“You said outcomes. You saw more than one future?”

“Yes.”

“How many?”

“Many. A hundred.”

She tried to understand this. To see into the future was possible. Many mystics and prophets had seen visions. But this idea that a person could see more than one future—she'd never heard of such a thing.

“Why did you throw the ball?”

“Because the future in which I threw the ball was the only future in which you survived.”

She turned from him and stared ahead. How could she believe such a claim? He drove on, somber.

“I don't understand it any more than you do,” he said. “I only know that prior to a few days ago, I'd never experienced anything remotely similar to clairvoyance. Then my mind short-circuited or something, and I began to see glimpses. Now I'm seeing what I know are possible futures and I'm seeing more than one at a time. I was sitting at the table and I saw Hilal in the bathroom with you. How else would I know to bust in like that?”

“And you saw me dead? You saw many possible outcomes of the situation, including the arrival of the police, and the only one in which I wasn't killed was when you threw the ball?”

“Yes.”

“But . . .” It still made no sense to her. “What if the ball had bounced somewhere else? Then the waitress wouldn't have fallen.”

“Right. Which means that I'm seeing what actually
will
happen given certain conditions, not what might happen. Small distinction maybe, but pretty mind-blowing. I didn't
make
a future to save us; I
chose
the one that saved us.”

“And what if none of the futures provided an escape? You couldn't do something to change it?”

He shook his head. “I don't know. Maybe not.”

She sighed and put her face in her hands. Twice now he had saved her. She couldn't be sure about the intentions of the man at Berkeley, but the look in Hilal's eyes was unmistakable. The realization weakened her. She removed her hands and looked at him.

“You haven't . . . seen anything else?”

“No. No, I don't have a clue what's next. I just see in spurts. We're going to the State Department.”

His face was pale. A bead of sweat ran past his temple. The agnostic in him was shaken, she thought. God had sent him to save her— it was the only thing that made sense. As a Muslim she'd always been taught that whatever happens is God's will. So this stranger had been put in her path to save her from certain death. At least for the moment.

Miriam gazed out the window, awed by the truth of it. Her fleeing was in vain. She'd been
meant
to flee. Maybe Samir was on the way at this very moment, and Seth was keeping her until then. She breathed a prayer for her safety.

“This is crazy,” he said.

She couldn't disagree.

“This'll make the propeller heads go ballistic. Do you have any idea what this means?”

“It means that God is speaking to you.”

“No. This means that God can't exist. He's—”

“Don't be absurd,” she said.

“By definition, an omniscient God
must
know the future. If God knows
the
future—if he has seen into the future and knows what will in fact happen—then the probability of there being another future, other than the one God knows, is zero. By definition there can only be one future. Follow?”

She thought about it. “No.”

“If God knows that I'm going to cough in exactly ten seconds, then I'm going to cough in ten seconds, right?”

“Unless he changes his mind.”

“And he would
know
that he's going to change his mind. He would still know the end result, regardless of what caused it. Right?”

“Okay.”

“That's the future an omniscient God would know, the one that will ultimately happen. That's what it means to be God.”

“That's what you just said.”

Seth paused. “But that means any
other
future has a probability of zero, that there's only one
possible
future, and that's the future God knows.”

“I think you're repeating yourself.”

“But I've just seen more than one actual future. I didn't just see
one
. I saw many, and I know for a fact that they were all possible. Therefore, there can't be a god who knows only
one
. Yet a god, by definition, would know
the
one.” Seth looked at the horizon. “Unless there is no God. I do believe I've just proven atheism.”

“This makes no sense,” Miriam said. “I understand your logic, but it all falls apart when you bring more than logic to bear. Have you considered the fact that you only seem to see these futures when you are with me?”

He stared at her. Obviously not.

“Except for the first two, you're right. That's true. So maybe you affect me somehow.” He looked at her and smiled. “You make my mind . . . I don't know . . . crazy.”

“Perhaps it's women. They do that to you.”

“Women?”

“Yes. Your exceptional understanding of women and love, remember? It's evolved to the point where when you're with one, you can actually know what they are going to wear and say before they do. You're nothing less than the supreme male.”

He blushed. As he would say, she'd scored, but she hardly felt satisfied by it. The fact was, despite his spiritual misguidance, she felt safe with him. He was true to the bone. Genuine.

“The woman has a brain after all,” she said, smirking in spite of herself.

“Not bad, princess. Not bad at all.”

“And this woman with this brain thinks your logic, though arguably sound, is still somehow flawed.”

“An oxymoron,” he said.

“Nevertheless, my heart tells me that what I'm saying is true. Do you trust my heart?”

He had not expected that, she thought. They were sparring—he with his mind, she with her heart. No, not with her heart, because her heart belonged to Samir. Both with their minds, then.

“I'll have to think about it,” Seth said.

“Then think with your heart,” she said.

“Do all Muslims think with their hearts?”

“No. Do all Christians?”

“No.”

They drove for over an hour, switching freeways several times, slowly closing in on their destination. Although Saudi Arabia covered as much territory as the western United States, her population was no larger than this one city. Los Angeles. Seth made passing remarks about the massive metropolis, but for the most part they were cynical and hard to grasp. Miriam felt alien in this crowded land. Lonely again.

Samir, Samir, my dearest Samir. Where are you, my love?

A knot rose into her throat. She could have planned to flee with Samir, but they had no time. Perhaps once the Americans gave her safe harbor, she could contact Samir.

She had left most of her money at Hillary's house. Maybe Sheik AlAsamm would send money with Samir. But what would the sheik do? He was in his own bid for power. He'd sold her into the king's house for power in the first place. He wanted her to marry Omar! How could she ever trust him? No, she would have to make contact directly with Samir. Maybe through Sultana.

“Okay. Here we are,” Seth said. “That gray building across the street. See it?”

“Yes.”

Seth pulled into a parking spot, muttering that the vacancy was a miracle. She was tempted to ask him how miracles could exist without a God, but she knew he'd used the word only as a figure of speech. He turned the engine off and sat staring at the building.

“What if they aren't friendly?” Miriam asked.

“I don't see any reason why they wouldn't be. You're seeking political asylum—they can't just pull out their guns and shoot you.”

“You could choose better words.”

“Sorry.”

“I'm not worried about being shot. But being sent back to Saudi Arabia and that pig Omar would be worse than being shot.”

“I won't let that happen,” he said. “At least if you go back, Omar's behavior will be exposed.”

“And why should I trust you?”

He looked at her, dumbstruck. “Because I've saved you twice already. Or maybe because I actually care about what happens to you.”

“Do you?”

Apparently he hadn't expected the comeback.

“Yes.”

She looked at the doors across the street. “Then I'll trust you, Seth Border.” She opened her door and stepped out.

They walked in, an inconspicuous couple, she thought. Seth was just another American citizen, dressed in his corduroys, black canvas shoes, and orange T-shirt. His slightly disheveled hair was not so uncommon, she'd noticed, at least in California. She felt at ease in the blue jeans and white blouse, not because she was accustomed to wearing them, but because they made her feel like a woman. A woman free of that beast, Omar, walking into a public building with an unmarried man.

They stopped inside the swinging doors and gazed across a large lobby crowded with people of all races. Seth took her arm and guided her toward a desk under a large sign that read Information.

She was aware of his warm hand on her elbow, only the second man ever to touch her skin. She wondered what he thought of her bare arms.
You're being silly, Miriam. You've been tied up in the black sack so long
that you don't know what it means to be touched innocently by a man
.

A woman with black-framed glasses who wore her hair in a bun eyed them from the information counter. Three security guards stood behind her, legs spread and arms folded, at ease.

Her mind returned to Seth's hand. Here she was, about to entrust herself to the Americans, and her mind was distracted by the touch of a man. Juvenile, but true.

The first time Samir had touched her was in Madrid, in a park—she couldn't remember the name. His fingers lightly brushed her right cheek, and a gentle wave of warmth spread down her spine. She threw her arms around him and wept.

They sat trembling in each other's arms for an hour. She learned then that love was like a drug. Although they didn't find another opportunity to be alone on that trip, the intoxication of that one hour melted the two remaining days into a dizzying, forbidden pool from which she thought she would never emerge.

Feeling Seth's fingers on her elbow now was like putting her toes back in that pool.

What has gotten into you, Miriam! You may be a woman on the outside,
but you're a foolish girl—

Seth's grip on her elbow tightened.

“What is it?” she asked.

His eyes were wide, fixed on the guards. They blinked.

“What? Seth?”

He turned toward her and forced her around. “Just walk out. Don't look back, just walk.”

The urgency in his voice said enough. She walked. Stride for stride with him, tense from head to toe now.

“What—”

“Don't speak.”

She swallowed.

At the door, a guard she hadn't noticed lifted his radio and spoke into it. His eyes met hers. The guard walked toward the door to cut them off.

Seth stopped. His hand released her elbow.

“You're frightening me,” she said. “There's a problem?”

“We have to get out of here!”

“I thought—”

“Don't move! Don't speak, don't breathe.”

“Please—”

“I'll be right back. Please, Miriam, don't move. If you want to live out the day, do not move.”

Seth left her side, stepping toward one side of the atrium. The guard saw him and stopped. Miriam's heart beat steadily. She glanced back—two of the guards from behind the counter walked toward her. Don't move? She should be running!