Free Dark City (Repairman Jack - Early Years 02) by F. Paul Wilson

padded across the room.
    Someone at his door? This could not be good. He knew almost no one in Jersey City—certainly no one well enough to feel they could visit him unannounced.
    He stopped halfway to look out the window. The street outside was empty—no idling car, no sign of anyone watching. Jersey City tended to be quiet on a Sunday night.
    He approached the door and gave a quick, cautious look through the peephole, then pulled away. A young woman in a dark khimar stood in the hall. She knocked again.
    “Kadir, are you home?”
    He peeked again, taking a closer look. Most of her face was visible and looked familiar, reminding him of—
    “Hadya?” He pulled the door open and stared at the woman. A battered suitcase sat next to her on the floor. “Hadya, is that you?” he said in Arabic.
    She smiled. “Yes, of course it’s me. But why are you so surprised?”
    “Why wouldn’t I be?”
    “But didn’t you get my letter?”
    “What letter?”
    He pulled her inside and shut the door. A hallway in a foreign land was no place to be talking to his younger sister.
    She looked confused now. “I wrote you a letter to tell you I was coming.”
    “I never received it.”
    Her hand flew to her mouth. “Oh, no! I thought you’d be expecting me.”
    Kadir was baffled. “But why are you here? Did something happen—?”
    “No-no. Mother and father are fine—still struggling to make ends meet, but healthy. I came because Uncle Ferran said I could work in his bakery.”
    Their mother’s brother owned a bakery on Kennedy Boulevard. Kadir had worked there when he first came over, until he learned how to run a cigarette stamping machine for Riaz Diab. The Ramallah Bakery was very successful and Kadir knew his uncle was expanding … but Hadya?
    “You came all the way to America to work in a bakery?”
    “As did you. There is nothing back home, Kadir. Nothing.”
    “It is hard work, and you must rise long before the sun.”
    She smiled. “I am not afraid of hard work or long hours. I am glad for any work and any hours. There is no work in Jordan, Kadir. And you know how Uncle Ferran likes to hire family.”
    True. Uncle Ferran had no children of his own, while Kadir and Hadya were two of nine. Kadir had been born shortly after the Six-Day War in Israeli-occupied Palestine, Hadya three years later. They grew up under the Zionists. His father finally moved the family to Jordan where he went to work in a clothing store. But as for Father’s children … no work, no future. Kadir blamed Israel … and the Americans who made Israel possible.
    And worse, when the PLO supported the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait last year, the Kuwaiti government expelled every Palestinian it could find—nearly half a million people. Most of them flooded into Jordan.
    How terrible things must be back home for Father to allow one of his daughters to travel alone to America.
    “But I had no idea you were coming.”
    Fear flitted across her features. “You’ll let me stay, won’t you? At least until I can find a place of my own.”
    He forced a smile and embraced her. “Of course, of course. You’re my sister.”
    Would this complicate his comings and goings? He didn’t know how Hadya would feel about jihad in America.
    “Oh, thank you, Kadir. For a moment I thought—”
    “My home is your home. I just wish I had known. I would have prepared the bedroom for you.”
    “Do not trouble yourself. I will sleep on the couch.”
    “I will not hear of it. The bedroom is yours.” He stepped back. “Let me look at you.”
    She was clothed with proper modesty in accordance with al-hijab—a khimar over a dark abaya , leaving only her hands and face exposed. His little sister had grown into an observant Muslim woman.
    She might prove very useful.

 
    9
    Cristin covered her mouth as she laughed around a mouthful of beef and broccoli in garlic sauce. “I can’t believe you’re such a klutz.”
    Jack didn’t look up. He was concentrating on