Free Sabotage by Dale Wiley

driveway. Caitlin heard the wife loudly sighing all the way, but she didn’t care at all. They were headed to Harrah’s, and she was still alive.

 
     
     

     

Eighteen
     
     
    N aseem closed in on St. Louis, coming from the west and about to cross an antiquated bridge over the Missouri River. The sun sunk lower in the sky, mixing with the harmless clouds that lingered near the horizon. Because he headed downtown instead of heading away into the never-ending suburbs, he was making good time. He would be there shortly. He had traveled this route the other direction, on the way to what he had believed was his certain death. He had Ashlee and her friends with him. They rode in a rented limousine; all part of the cover he began to like. They bumped music by Lil Wayne, The Game, and the now-dead Pal Joey, another of his targets. These people were the antithesis of his religious training, of jihad. They liked different music, different than the muscle music he liked growing up in the US like Van Halen and Guns N’ Roses. But their music was sometimes smart and alive and defiant in a way that his former life found treacherous and deceitful. He delivered those girls to their death. They were tried and convicted by him, and though he tried to save them at the very last minute, little good that did. They were too far gone, and he had been deceived by the greatest of deceivers.
    Or was he? Maybe there was something in Naseem that wanted to take the anger in him and release it almost anywhere. Maybe he was an easy mark.
    He expected to hear back from Grant but hadn’t yet. He knew he would at some point, but, right now, Grant was probably still baiting the hook. Naseem understood this. He played this game on both sides: the fisherman and the fish. Right now, driving through Middle America, he felt like the bait. He cringed every time a car passed him. He stood out in this land of white and black, not as conspicuous as he would have been twenty years earlier but still far from blending in. He was too dark to be Hispanic and too tall to be Indian. He was well-built, and that too added attention in this land of flabby and shabby. Ashlee called him the new exotic while running her hands along his smooth chest, swaying and bobbing to an MIA song. Ashlee, who because of listening to him, no longer existed and was blown in a thousand directions. She was one more soul on his soul. He winced and looked at the phone again, wanting not to remember.
    As he did, the phone lit up. It was Grant.
    “What took you so long?” he said gruffly.
    “Just trying to clean up this mess you said you created.” He hissed at the phone and then caught his breath and his temper and waited for any reaction from Naseem. He got none. “We got Denver evacuated just before it blew.”
    “You heard me. Charleston will be soon.”
    “I heard you. We’ve got people on it”
    “I am in the Chesterfield valley. Where are you?”
    “Okay, look, here’s some ground rules. I am the agent. I am willing to meet with you, but I call the shots, not you. I will get you out of the way of scrutiny for the time being, but this is my show.”
    Grant felt he needed to say all these things, although the pace of the last few hours did nothing but show that anyone having any information that would do what Grant did in Denver was clearly in the stronger position. Grant used his intel to call a well-positioned source in Boulder, who relayed to the non-ass-kissing agents in Denver. They weren’t injury-free, but the death toll was much less than in any of the other attacks of the day. The police liaisons in each city were led to spin the story that authorities evacuated high-impact targets. Whether it would work was anyone’s guess. Grant thought it was marginally better than not mentioning the attacks at all.
    “Okay.” Naseem said. The adrenaline that coursed through his veins and carried him over half the state evaporated. He needed to rest. “Tell me what to