The Chimera Sequence (25 page)

“Don’t you worry, I’ve got too many of my own.” The policeman handed the documents back through the window. “Why don’t you get out of here and go find that daughter of yours.”

“Thank you,” Haddad said. “You are a good man.”

“Just be careful out here.” The officer turned and took a few steps back to the cruiser, then stopped. “You know, Mr. Haddad, I hope you don’t mind me saying, but it’s really nice to come across someone with your…” He paused, and Haddad knew what was coming. “With your background, someone who embraces American culture like that. Kinda refreshing.”

If he only knew.

Haddad pulled away, driving under the speed limit in the right-hand lane. He hated himself, knowing he was really in the process of doing just the opposite. Affirming all the stereotypes. He wanted nothing to do with this project—this horror—growing only a couple of miles down the road.

But now it was personal. Smart guys, these visitors from home.

And that would make any chance of escape much more difficult.

Cole threw himself down onto the loamy soil and wriggled into a narrow cavity against the old tree trunk. Not ideal, but it would have to do. He looked out just in time to see Proper Kambale’s dark green uniform disappearing into a patch of wild celery. Innocence and Bonny were gone too, but Cole knew the bloodhound would be their biggest liability. As good as her nose was, she simply wasn’t trained to hide out quietly like the military dogs he was used to working with.

The voices grew louder, then stopped completely. The men couldn’t be more than fifty feet away now, and it would be easy for them to see the fresh boot prints and trampled vegetation along the path. Cole and the Kambales had not made any effort to conceal their tracks—there shouldn’t have been any need, not this far from the main trails. Now hushed voices started up again, accompanied by the sound of more deliberate footfall fanning out through the clearing. Bonny would sound the alarm before long. He silently adjusted the butt of the rifle into a better position against his shoulder. Maybe it wasn’t such a smart idea to hide after all. It would only make these guys think there was a reason to be suspicious. But the look the brothers had exchanged when Innocence returned moments earlier said it all. The odds were not good, eight men against three. Especially if they were really LRA.

So now they were hiding, and they were about to get found. Cole held his breath. Someone was walking along the opposite side of the tree trunk.

With the element of surprise on their side, they might have been able to take out a few of these guys first. Pretty decent chance of coming out on top. But that wasn’t how war worked anymore. Unless there was confirmed evidence that this was really the enemy, acquired ahead of time and approved up the chain of command, American soldiers were not allowed to shoot first. Rules of engagement. And as hard as it was to hold back and wait, Cole cared too much to try to pull a Rambo here. If only the bad guys held themselves to the same standard.

A shout, and a scramble of tearing leaves and breaking stems.

Then Bonny’s lusty bray filled the forest.

Game on.

A heavy combat boot landed in the dirt right in front of Cole’s face, followed quickly by a second. A man had climbed over the fallen tree, and he was about to take off running towards Proper’s hiding spot. Cole acted instinctively, grabbing out with his free hand for an ankle just as it lifted off the ground. There was a surprised shout, and the whole leg swung back at his face.

Too slow.

Cole pushed out of the cavity, caught the boot squarely in the chest, and kept driving forward until he felt his right shoulder connect with the back of the man’s knees. The man buckled, body folding over Cole’s back and head whipping through the air until it connected solidly with the tree trunk behind them. Cole let go of the legs and spun around. Not the prettiest tackle he’d ever made, but it did the job. The man was unconscious, a trickle of blood coming from one nostril.

One down.

The clearing was alive with the chaos of confusion. Shouting from every direction. Bonny’s frenzied barking. Bird cries and monkey screams sounding the alert across the forest.

Cole raised the rifle and caught another man in his sights. This one was running toward him, pistol turned sideways in an outstretched arm, a wild look in his eyes. He wore the same dark green camo as the first one. The debate flashed through Cole’s mind in the millisecond it took to make a decision. He had no doubt these guys were up to no good, and a burst of automatic fire behind him confirmed the assumption. Cole moved his finger to the trigger and began to squeeze, tracking the man’s running legs. It would take him down, but not kill him.

“Stop!” The word broke through the chaos, but it was too late. The old rifle bucked against his shoulder as a single round tore through the air. Cole released the pressure on the trigger and watched the man’s momentum carry him a few feet further until he collapsed in a screaming heap. Cole brought the weapon around ninety degrees to the direction of the voice and immediately dropped it down against his chest.

They had Innocence. Three men surrounded the park ranger. Two of them with the muzzles of their rifles trained against his head, while the third was aiming directly at Cole.

“Put your weapon down and raise your hands in the air.” Most Congolese didn’t speak any English, so this was surprising. One more vote for the LRA hypothesis. Cole followed his directions. No reason to die yet.

But where was Bonny? He hoped with everything in him that those shots had not been directed at her.

“How many are you?” The short dark man spoke again, now striding quickly over to where Cole stood. He wore the same forest camouflage as the others, quality stuff but with no names or insignias anywhere. Not the uniform of any legitimate fighting force, but still a lot more professional than the Salvation Army look sported by most of the rebels in the area.

“Two.” Innocence called out to him. “Only the two of us.”

The man stopped and turned back toward Innocence. “I was not asking you, dirty fool.”

“Well my answer would have been the same,” Cole said. He couldn’t believe none of the rebels had seen Proper, still hiding in the tall wild celery on the other side of the clearing. “We are scientists, working in this park with valid government permits. Please free us now.”

The short man snickered. “Scientists, carrying loaded weapons?” He looked over to the wounded younger man, moaning on the ground and gripping a blood-soaked lower leg. “And shooting at my men? No,
monsieur
, I cannot believe it is like this.”

Cole clenched his teeth. He should have taken charge from the start—confronted this group out in the open. But it was too late for second-guessing. “I fired only in self-defense. This soldier of yours was going to kill me.”

“Maybe you will wish he succeeded, before we finish with you.” The leader smirked, a deranged smile that reminded Cole of a psychopath serial killer, then signaled to three other men. “Come, tie them. We can reach the camp tonight.”

Myriam, my daughter.” She stood against the only bare wall left in the small storage space. Haddad closed the distance between them in three long steps, but she put an arm out, hand extended, and turned her face away. “Did they harm you?”

She held her silence. It had always been her most effective tool, but now it hurt worse than ever. He gently pushed her hand down and put both of his own on her shoulders. More slowly this time: “Did they harm you?”

Myriam shook her head from side to side and started sobbing. She wasn’t completely gone, then. Haddad turned back into the room and took in the scene for the first time. The two visitors sat on folding chairs against an old wooden desk they had scavenged from the office, staring at him with calculated passivity. They couldn’t have been older than thirty, not even born when he left Lebanon to start this long waiting game that was finally coming to fruition. The two men both wore close-cropped beards and looked like they were better suited to a seaside cafe in Beirut than the rocky hillsides of the Bekaa. But what did he know anymore?

His throat caught when he saw movement at the door. Was it a trap after all? No, almost worse. His cousin Adel strode in, gave a curt nod, and quickly averted his eyes from Haddad’s gaze. It was obvious. He was complicit, but ashamed of his role. Haddad felt utterly alone.

“I couldn’t say no, Fadi.” Adel reached into a white box on the floor and pulled out a form-fitting face mask. “They could have done much worse.”

He held it out for Haddad, who only then noticed the others were already wearing them.

“
Shukran.
” Thank you. Haddad reached for the mask and continued in Arabic. “What do they want with Myriam?”

“Ask them yourself.” Adel had immigrated to the States with him in the early eighties, two undercover Hezbollah operatives striking out together, part of the organization’s unprecedented surge of sleeper cell creation that was barely utilized but always ready and waiting. Theoretically ready and waiting, at least. Haddad suspected that more than a few of their counterparts, scattered around the U.S. and Europe, had gone completely native after being neglected for so long. But somehow he and Adel had stayed true, kept up communication with their faceless handlers as one decade spilled into another. As the comforts and security of a successful American life piled up around him, Haddad knew it would be hard to finally answer a call to action. Adel was different, though. He had never married, never really integrated himself quite so fully or shown much appreciation for their new life. Now Haddad wondered if he should have done the same.

One of the younger men stood up. He had introduced himself the day before only as Ahmad. “Your daughter is our insurance. We could not be confident in your cooperation without more leverage.”

“Confident in my cooperation?” Haddad didn’t want to believe they were so perceptive. “Haven’t I provided everything you asked? Risked my own business and safety to support this Jihad?” He almost said
cowardly Jihad
but caught himself.

The other man, Faisal, spoke from his chair. “Risked your own business and safety. . .” He paused. “Yes, I can see that we were right. You have lost perspective, my brother. Do you want to know what we have not only risked, but lost?”

Haddad lowered his eyes. He realized that in all the fear and stress of preparation he had never stopped to wonder why this attack, why now.

“You are not unaware of recent events in our home, I don’t think. First these foreign rebel Sunnis in Syria reaping destruction across our borders. And now the Zionists come from the south again, terrorizing our villages with their tanks and missiles.”

“I know. And I cry with you over the innocents lost.” This was true, and Haddad welcomed the rush of emotion caused by the man’s words.

Ahmad spoke again: “They are not nameless innocents to us, brother, though they may be now for you, so long removed from our realities. Three weeks ago, a missile flew through the window of my own home while I was away, fighting outside Damascus. Killed my sleeping wife and two daughters, just like that.” He spoke through clenched jaws, the muscles in his cheeks pulsing. “And do you know where this missile came from?”

Haddad only shook his head.

“Yes, maybe it was fired by a Zionist pilot, but the weapon itself, and even the jet it flew out of, they are all from America. Manufactured here, then given so generously to their friends in Israel.”

Faisal stood now. “My brother was killed also, by a sniper on the border. And for what? He was only a boy, making foolish pranks with friends.”

“Then why do you come here?” Haddad said. “Why not take the fight to Jerusalem, where it belongs?”

Faisal spit at his feet. “We have been taking it to Jerusalem for sixty years. You should know that.”

“Now we must bring justice to the
kafirs
of America. Maybe they will learn to choose their friends more wisely.”

“Or maybe they will come back to Lebanon for revenge,” Haddad said. “That would not be a good solution for any of us.” He had a hard time believing Hezbollah’s leadership could really be behind such a foolhardy mission as this. But he had no way to know. Nothing but the anonymous words in his Gmail account.

“Let them try, after we are done with them.” Ahmad gestured to the rows of shelving that took up a quarter of the room.

Haddad looked more carefully at the setup. He recognized his egg boxes lined up along the shelves. Forty-eight eggs to a tray, eight trays deep in each box. Almost eight-thousand eggs altogether. The sight of the space heater plugged into the wall made him realize he was sweating profusely. It must have been almost a hundred degrees in the small space.

What was growing in those eggs, injected so carefully into each one with a tiny needle that didn’t even break the shell? And what would they do with it all, supposedly ready for use in just a few short days? He knew they had already gone to his cousin’s workplace the night before to scout things out, but otherwise the ultimate plan was a mystery. They must have doubted his conviction from the start to keep him in the dark like this. Haddad didn’t care, though. The less he knew, the better.

“I’m taking her with me.” Haddad walked back to Myriam and put a hand on her arm.

Ahmad took a step toward them, then stopped. “No, brother, I’m afraid we cannot allow that. We are honorable men. She will not be harmed, unless you prove yourself a traitor.”

Haddad looked to his cousin, who again avoided eye contact. “You can’t just keep her here, a captive.”

“We can,” Ahmad said. “And we must.”

“You will bring her food, and whatever else she needs from home to be comfortable.” Faisal looked her up and down, spending too long on the tanned legs and shoulders left bare by a tank top and skirt even Haddad was ashamed of. “Make sure you bring her something appropriate to wear. This girl is our sister, even if she has abandoned the faith.”

Myriam sobbed once beside him. Haddad looked at her, wanting to embrace this sweet daughter whose world was changing forever. But the hatred in her eyes kept him away. He had failed her.