The Terrorist Read online

  She patted her blue canvas bag. Inside she had traditional travel goods: paperback book—as if she could concentrate—crossword puzzles, new toothbrush, change of clothes.

  Jehran hung on to her leather bag, totally ruining her look. Instead of being an anonymous eleven-year-old, she looked like an eleven-year-old who had just stolen a rich old lady’s handbag.

  “What do you think I’m going to do?” hissed Laura. “Steal your ten thousand dollars?”

  There was lots of room between them and their driver, who was playing a gypsy radio station, and they talked beneath the music.

  “I feel better holding it myself,” Jehran said, keeping it on the far side of her body as if Laura might grab it.

  “The police will think you snatched it.” Once more Laura unzipped her fanny pack, checked the passports, fingered the tickets. Kissing her parents good-bye, she had known herself to be a traitor. The trust they placed in her! The worries they carried!

  “Say hi to Edinburgh for me,” her father had said, afraid to let go, and forcing himself.

  What would her parents do if something went wrong?

  Would they be scared to death?

  “We’re here,” said Jehran in her most English accent. How could she pull off an American boy act when a sentence as short as that gave her away? Laura had to get Jehran to New York.

  Laura paid the taxi driver.

  Luggage carts were all over the place, like grocery carts in American parking lots. Laura had worried over the baggage part. “It’ll look funny if we don’t have baggage,” Laura said to Jehran. “We’re supposed to be going for a week.”

  But Jehran could not pack much or her brother would have been suspicious.

  Laura had considered bringing two real suitcases from home, one for herself, one for Jehran. They’d have to be full, because luggage got weighed; authorities would pause over two kids checking empty suitcases. But Laura had no way to get two suitcases out of the flat without her parents noticing.

  If the duty officers questioned why Laura and Billy were traveling so light, Laura would say they were going to buy a whole new wardrobe while they were in America.

  Laura was hurting at her joints, as if worry were arthritis. She shook her hands in the air to relieve the pain in her wrists.

  Inside, Heathrow was jumbled and confusing. Laura struggled with signs that weren’t there or contradicted each other: At last she found British Air.

  “Plenty of time,” she murmured to Jehran. “Hour and ten minutes before the flight leaves.” She puffed out air in a hard little spout, as if she were preparing for a foul shot. “We’re good to go.”

  A hot smile was on Jehran’s mouth. For a moment, Laura had the odd, and unwelcome, feeling that Jehran was laughing at her. Don’t be silly, thought Laura, it’s her brother she’s laughing at, and the old man she won’t have to marry.

  Carts jangled, children whined, metallic announcements blared.

  They began the lengthy procedure of international flight.

  Just to enter the passenger area, they and their luggage must pass through metal detectors.

  Laura’s hands were now cold as well as painful. Her spine was a rod of ice leaning on her back.

  An Asian family—women in saris, children as dressed up as if they were going to a wedding, men wearing turbans—were talking to the official. He waved them through, and up went a man with a red and white kaffiyeh on his head like a knotted-up picnic tablecloth.

  Directly in front of Laura and Jehran were two creepy men who might indeed be suspected of having dismantled submachine guns in their luggage. Their clothing was strange, their posture was odd, and their language sounded like ducks quacking.

  “Did you pack this yourself?” said the officer.

  The two men nodded.

  “Did anybody ask you to carry something for them?” droned the officer.

  The two men shook their heads.

  Jehran switched the two bags, after all, taking Laura’s navy canvas bag. It was Jehran’s leather carry-on that Laura placed on the conveyor belt “Did you pack this yourself?” said the officer. He hardly looked at her.

  For a moment, Laura could not breathe. Then she said, “Yes.”

  “Did anybody ask you to carry something for them?”

  Laura Williams was carrying an entire person. She was not smuggling drugs, or emeralds, or gold. She was smuggling a person.

  But she said, “No.”

  Con Vikary stared into the railroad station phone as if there were a script written on it. “The Edinburgh trip?” she repeated.

  “Yes. She left about an hour ago, Consuela,” said Laura’s father. “She’ll be back late, day after tomorrow.”

  Con’s pulse drummed inside her head. It made her ears hurt. “Okay. Um. Thanks.” She could not think how to end the conversation with dead Billy’s father. Have a Happy New Year did not sound likely. “Talk to you later, then, Mr. Williams,” she managed. She continued to stare at the phone after she’d disconnected.

  A German tourist behind her cleared his throat irritably. Con stumbled away.

  Laura wasn’t on the Edinburgh trip. Mr. Hollober didn’t have her on the list. Nobody was expecting her. No hotel room and no roommate had been assigned to her.

  Jimmy and Mohammed were signaling. The rest of the class group had boarded. The train wasn’t leaving yet, but nobody liked standing on the platform; they liked finding their seats and settling in, getting cozy for the hours of staring out the window.

  Con could not lift an arm to wave back Laura had arranged two days away from home. She had lied to her parents. What for? Where was she? This had to be what she and Jehran were planning.

  Con tried to think what friendship meant. Laura was sixteen and could make her own decisions, and if they were bad ones, she’d live with the results.

  But bad decisions in the Williams family had once led to death.

  Laura, if you had confided in me, I would have backed you up, thought Con. But she was not sure she would have, and not sure she could now.

  Mohammed and Jimmy jogged over to her.

  She was so afraid for Laura, and so mad at Laura, that she could not seem to speak, and all she could do was pluck at Mohammed’s jacket.

  The check-in counter had six clerks: women dressed in the fashion of airline personnel worldwide: crisp and tailored and somehow annoying.

  A long queue of passengers curved back and forth, divided by ribbons on metal stands. People in line clutched tickets and examined passports yet again, reassuring themselves that the priceless little booklet was still there. Their passports were a different color from Laura’s, and more booklike.

  Laura had checked the tickets in her hand ten times to be sure she was handing over the right set, but she did not have the passports out. Americans were always faintly surprised to have to show identification, so Laura, too, must be surprised. She must frown a little and dig.

  The line crept forward.

  Passenger after passenger turned over plane tickets, and then passports, so a seat could be assigned and a boarding pass issued.

  You have to be who you are, or you cannot get on a plane. You have to match the photograph in the passport.

  When their turn came, Laura walked up to the counter without looking back to see if Jehran was being Billy.

  The clerk had the kind of fingernails Jehran had had a few hours ago: long and hard nails that tapped noisily on the computer keyboard. “You and—?” said the clerk.

  “My brother,” said Laura. “Aisle seats, please, but we don’t have to be across from each other.”

  The clerk nodded, typing away, finding a seat combination. “Traveling without your parents?”

  “We’re going to our grandmother’s for a week.”

  “Suitcases to check?”

  “No.”

  The woman looked up at this. They always looked up at anything unusual. “Traveling light,” she observed.

  “We’re going to buy
new stuff once we’re home,” Laura explained. “Grandma lives near a great outlet mall. We’ll come back with way too much luggage.” Her smile felt like a strap across her teeth.

  The clerk lost interest. “Passports, please.”

  Laura produced them.

  The woman nipped through the passport pages slowly, as if expecting to learn something truly fascinating.

  Laura looked at the little booklets upside down. The color of Billy’s complexion, eyes, and hair were Jehran’s. There seemed no resemblance beyond that. But their own mother had seen it. Would the airline personnel?

  A kid’s passport lasted five years, but kids change a lot in five years. A photograph that didn’t quite match would not be unusual for a kid.

  The clerk looked back and forth between the photograph of Billy and the person of Jehran. Laura’s teeth got cold. Jehran turned the Red Sox cap in circles on her choppy hair, paying little attention to the clerk.

  The woman handed back passports, tickets, and the precious boarding passes. “Boarding in thirty minutes.”

  “Thank you,” said Laura Williams. “Come on, Billy.”

  CHAPTER 15

  JIMMY WAS HORRIFIED BY Con’s face. Her mouth drooped as if she’d had a stroke. Her eyes were way too wide, as if her skin were splitting.

  “I was on the phone,” said Con, pointing, as if Jimmy and Mohammed had forgotten what phones were. “I was nervous, and I just felt like checking. Laura isn’t home. Laura’s told her parents that she’s on this trip.”

  Jimmy’s blood turned to glue. He felt himself slow down inside. That explained the plane tickets. What a horrible thing for Laura to do to her poor parents! Lying about something as huge as this, disappearing, when her mother and father had just had their only son disappear forever.

  “I didn’t tell. I just hung up,” said Con. “I didn’t know how to handle it.”

  Jimmy did not quite trust Mohammed and he didn’t quite trust Con and he didn’t quite trust his own judgment.

  But together, the three of them, classmates of Laura’s, he trusted them as a group. “Listen to me. I’ve been so worried about Laura that when she was behaving exceptionally screwy last week, I followed her. She went to this sleazy travel agency and bought two round-trip flights to New York, in her name and Billy’s. The plane leaves in an hour from Heathrow. She’s lost her mind. She’s planning to fly to New York with Billy’s ghost.”

  Con and Mohammed stared at Jimmy. Con’s face was coming back together, skin tightening along with her thoughts.

  “I’m worried about her sanity,” said Jimmy.

  “Laura is not so crazy with grief,” said Mohammed slowly, “that she believes Billy can fly to New York with her. She’s bought that ticket for somebody else.”

  Jimmy had never thought of that. It was a hard thing to think of. What somebody else? How could there be a somebody else?

  “Somebody else?” said Con. “But Mohammed, you have to travel with a passport that matches the name on the plane ticket.”

  “Yeah, Mohammed,” said Jimmy, “you go through at least two—sometimes three or four—passport inspections.”

  “Then the person flying on Billy’s passport looks like Billy,” said Mohammed.

  Jimmy could hardly follow this explanation. “You mean Laura has lost her mind so completely, she’s found a substitute for Billy? Some little kid she’s taking to New York?” Jimmy felt his way toward some sort of understanding, but he didn’t reach any.

  Con shivered. “That’s grotesque, Mohammed. You mean you think Laura is—like—adopting some little boy? Some little middle school kid to be Billy for her? But—but why? Who?”

  “I don’t think Laura’s been in the middle school much,” said Jimmy doubtfully, “where she could find a kid to substitute for Billy. She’s been busy with her new friendship with—” Jimmy broke off. His image of Jehran, elegant in silk, faded to Jehran in her gym suit: skinny, boyish … Billy-ish.

  “With Jehran,” said Con.

  Jimmy’s mind was glue now. Each thought stuck to the next without making sense.

  “I wonder,” said Mohammed, “if Laura has managed to follow Billy’s footsteps.”

  “You mean she really did figure out who Billy’s killer is?” said Jimmy. “And this is some insane scheme to capture the killer by herself?”

  “No,” said Mohammed. “I am not fearful that Laura has found Billy’s killer. I am fearful that Billy’s killer has found Laura.”

  Airports were about lines.

  About terrorists.

  About fear.

  Now came the second set of metal detectors, passengers walking through one, carry-on luggage going separately through another, and then they would be able to approach the gates.

  Laura thought of the doomed Lockerbie flight, also a Christmas flight. It had been blown up over Scotland, throwing wreckage across eight hundred square miles. Every passenger on Pan Am Flight 103 and every carry-on had gone through metal detectors, but the bomb had been in baggage. Terrorists had checked a suitcase that contained a plastic explosive: semtex.

  Ahead of them, person after person was setting off the alarm. In America, they used a handheld wand to run up and down your body in order to locate the keys or belt buckle or whatever had set off the detectors.

  In England, they patted you down. They were serious about it. They frisked every inch, armpit to ankles.

  Laura went through the detector first, and did not set off an alarm. Jehran followed, and did not set off an alarm.

  Laura was so relieved, her legs were weak, as if she’d run for miles.

  Their two bags moved slowly toward them on the conveyor belt for carry-ons. Jehran took back her leather bag, stroking its bulging sides, reassuring herself. Laura was also reassured. If there had been anything wrong, the man watching the X ray of each bag would have stopped them.

  Jehran looked gender-free. Strangers would try to guess: pretty boy or crudely dressed girl?

  Jehran was not looking at Laura. She was looking through the crowd: nervous parents keeping track of exhausted children; terrified foreigners with no idea what to do next; frequent flyers faded with boredom; flight attendants with their sharp high heels stabbing the floor as they strode to their gates, dragging their little suitcases on wheels like pets on leashes.

  Jehran was not looking to see if anybody was following her. Jehran was not scanning the crowd for a hidden threat. She was neither afraid nor relieved.

  Jehran was amused.

  What is funny about people caught in exhaustion and worry? thought Laura. Why am I more afraid than she is? She should be terrified, because what if her brother parked his car and went into St. Pancras and checked with Mr. Hollober, what if even now he and his men are guessing where Jehran is? Talking their way past the inspectors?

  Jehran caught the bill of Billy’s Red Sox cap and pulled it down over her brow to hide her expression.

  Americans might laugh over nothing. They got silly easily, and in public, too. But Jehran was completely not American. She wouldn’t laugh over nothing. So she was laughing over something.

  Like what? thought Laura. We aren’t through the worst yet. We haven’t gone through Passport Control.

  They entered the upstairs limbo: duty-free shopping. A floor on which to kill time. The world kill filled Laura’s brain. She swept it out. “Burger King,” she said, pointing to a welcome sign. “We’ll get Whoppers. No telling how long we’ll be airborne before they get around to serving a meal.”

  Jehran was scornful. “I don’t eat hamburgers.”

  “Billy, you adore hamburgers. You’re an American. Burger, fries, and shake is your motto.”

  Jehran shook her head, insulted.

  She’s not refusing hamburgers, thought Laura. She’s refusing to be an American.

  It was such a shock to understand, Laura was physically jolted; thrown backward. I was right the first time, she thought. Jehran is completely not American. In fact, Jehran is anti-A
merican. She’s always been anti-American. So why does she want to go to New York? Where did she get ten thousand dollars in cash? Dollars, not pounds. What kind of family would have that much cash lying around in foreign currency? Money a teenager could pick up and take, without being noticed? Why would a younger sister inherit anything at all, when there’s an older brother alive to inherit?

  Why did Daddy think he was talking to Jehran’s father, when Jehran’s father is dead?

  Why is Jehran in school if her family doesn’t care whether a girl gets an education? If they hate Americans, why a school where fifty percent of the students are American? Why did they let her have a slumber party and invite Western girls?

  Laura was seeing spots. Flashes like distant cameras broke in her eyes.

  Jehran wrapped herself around Laura in a very feminine way, not at all like a little brother. “I’m so sorry, Laura. I’m scared. Please forgive me for being rude.”

  The apology was fake. Laura was a long-term expert on somebody—namely, the real Billy—apologizing without meaning it.

  “I have never been anyplace in my life without an escort,” said Jehran. “I have never done one single thing alone. All by myself I must learn America, from the moment you leave me in Kennedy Airport. I am so terrified.”

  But she was not terrified. Jehran was calmer than Laura, and at the back of her eyes, amusement remained. “I promise to learn to like hamburgers, Laura,” she said.

  On an international flight, you had to fill out a landing card: you had to write in your name, address, and occupation. Laura’s father had a theory that nobody ever checked these, and he enjoyed giving himself unusual occupations. Pickle Taster. Global-Warming Manufacturer. No angry immigration official had ever arrested him for illegal filling-out-of-forms, so apparently he was right. Nobody checked.

  What would Jehran’s occupation be?

  Laura fought with a word whose cruel letters wedged into her mind.

  Terrorist?

  Laura’s head puffed. If she were to look in a mirror she would see a big white beach ball in place of her usual head.

  Bombs and weapons could be made of plastic, not metal. Detectors depended on metal, but terrorists could not be depended on to use metal.