The Terrorist Read online

  “Time to go to the gate,” said Jehran. “Oh Laura, Heathrow is so frightening. I am so very, very grateful that you will be with me at Kennedy. How would I navigate without you?”

  Up a wide, purple-carpeted ramp they went. A large sign read, Passengers Only. Laura’s worry-thritis was now attacking her hips and knees and ankles. At this rate, she’d have to crawl on the plane.

  In front of them was Passport Control.

  Uniformed men and women practically lined the walls.

  What would I say to them, thought Laura, if I said something? I know I am wrong. I must be wrong. I want to be wrong.

  Laura looked longingly at those uniforms. She wanted them to stop her; she wanted them to make this decision. She would look foolish if she were wrong, and it would hurt Jehran’s feelings, and everything would be ruined—they’d be caught—Laura would have to admit to her parents the depth and breadth of her lies—Jehran would be returned to her brother—

  Jehran pressed against Laura as if she really were a little brother, afraid of getting separated. Billy had never worried about getting separated; the rest of the family had had to work to hang on to him.

  We failed, thought Laura. We didn’t hang on to Billy.

  Who am I failing now?

  Jehran?

  My parents?

  Or my fellow travelers?

  “So what have we decided here?” said Con. Her brain was swerving like a test car among orange cones.

  “We agree there is a resemblance between Billy and Jehran,” said Mohammed, “and we have felt for weeks that Jehran is using Laura.”

  “But we don’t know that there’s anything actually dangerous or wrong,” said Con.

  “Why would Jehran want to get on an international flight without using her real name,” said Mohammed, “unless she’s going to do something she doesn’t want discovered.”

  “Like what? What are you thinking of, Mohammed?” cried Con. “My thoughts aren’t going wherever yours are going.”

  “Bombs,” said Mohammed, “have been close to Laura before, have they not?”

  Yes, of course. Bombs had killed her brother. But—

  “So bombs come to mind,” said Mohammed.

  Bombs.

  On a plane going home after Christmas.

  Con was horror-struck. She actually felt slapped. Her face hurt. But she could not tolerate Mohammed’s suggestion. “Come on. You’re leaping from nothing to everything, Mohammed. Laura flips out, and you decide Jehran is—is—” Con could not say the sentence out loud: Jehran is putting a bomb on a plane? No.

  “It doesn’t feel logical,” Con argued. Her voice felt strangled. Her throat hurt.” It isn’t enough.”

  Mohammed shrugged. “Why should it be enough? Why should it be logical? Was there logic in your own Oklahoma, when a man bombed a day-care center?”

  When Jimmy spoke, his voice had a gasping quality, like somebody choking on food. “Are you implying that Jehran killed Billy, Mohammed? I can’t believe that! Why would she do that?”

  “Perhaps she wanted this passport I think she is using.”

  “A passport,” said Con, “is a piece of paper!” She tried to throw away Mohammed’s silly talk. “Jehran wouldn’t kill a little kid just for a piece of paper, would she? Jehran knew Billy. She couldn’t pick out a kid she knew, could she? That’s evil!”

  Mohammed said patiently, “Terrorists are evil. Terrorism is evil. Evil is what Laura has been hunting for, and that, I believe, is what she has found.”

  What had Mohammed’s life been, that he could come to such a conclusion?

  Mr. Hollober came up behind them. “I have everybody aboard except you three,” he said fussily. “Now get on the train.”

  Nobody even looked at him.

  “Jehran despises Americans,” said Mohammed. Mohammed often thought the worst of people because in his experience, the worst happened. “Her genealogy is based on hating Americans. Her country, which she loves, even though it will not have her, considers America to be Satan. So why is Jehran suddenly best friends with the very American Laura Williams? Laura Williams, the most naive of the naive.”

  “Why would Laura let Jehran use her, though?” As much as Con wanted explanations, she did not want Jehran to be the explanation. Strangers could be evil, but a girl who invited you to her slumber party, whose food you ate, whose books you borrowed, whose pencil you used—this person could not be evil.

  “Maybe it’s that Wild West image you cherish. Jehran spins a tale, and Laura wants to believe. Americans are easy targets.”

  “You don’t have to be anti-American about it, Mohammed.”

  “I’m not, Con,” he protested. “I love that about Americans. It’s touching to go to school with Americans who really believe that deep down, everybody is good.”

  Con Vikary had become best friends with Laura on the first field trip of the school year. They’d gone to the medieval city of York, which was surrounded by a moat. The guide had explained that the moat had never been filled with water. It was a flaming moat. You filled the ditch with dry branches from the forest and set them afire to keep attackers from getting in.

  “How would that work?” Laura had said, being difficult. Americans were always being difficult, and the Williams children were better at it than most.” I mean, what if it rained and the twigs got wet? And it’s England, so it would rain. The bad guys would stroll into the city while the locals were still trying to light a fire.”

  Con could hardly wait to be best friends. She had invited Laura to sleep over, and they’d stayed up giggling and talking about boys, and now they could both face the school year eagerly: they had a best friend.

  Billy was dead.

  He would never again be difficult, or happy, or anybody’s best friend, or talk about girls.

  Sorrow filled Con’s entire body: grief so huge, it did not fit.

  Deep down, not everybody was good. Was Laura going to run out of time to learn that? Could Mohammed possibly be correct? Was a bomb, once more, close to Laura?

  Mr. Hollober was not interrupting. Not contributing. Just standing there, gaping at them.

  Con Vikary was shaking. Not trembling. Shaking. Her teeth had begun to chatter. If Mohammed was right, the plane must be stopped. But Mohammed couldn’t be right, could he? They didn’t even know that Jehran was with Laura! This was all a string of bizarre guesses. I went to a slumber party at Jehran’s house! thought Con. She can’t be a—Con still could not use the word “terrorist.” What if we act on this? she thought. What if we’re wrong? What if we go and do something that shuts down the airport for London, England, and we’re wrong?

  Laura will be so mad at me! My father will go crazy! The whole country will be so mad at me!

  But what if Mohammed is right?

  There was no time to gather actual facts. The plane was probably boarding.

  Con’s shakes vanished.

  “I have Mr. Evans’s phone number,” she said, and ran back to the rank of telephone booths.

  The Passport Control man was exhausted and bored. Definitely not in love with his job or his fellow man. “Traveling alone?” he snapped at Laura.

  Laura nodded.

  “You and your brother?” said the man.

  Laura nodded.

  How quickly the man flipped pages. How easily he waved them through and beckoned to the next person in line.

  And that was that.

  They would show their passports and tickets to get into the actual gate waiting room, but it wouldn’t be a serious check. Just procedure.

  They were home free.

  Laura had an American dream: kids on the block back home playing hide-and-seek, kids under her maple tree, kids making it safely to base, shouting, Home free!

  A thought blazed through Laura like a fire in the fireplace: welcome and sparkling. I’ll turn around here. I won’t go to New York, I’ll go home.

  Yet another long, wide, carpeted hall lay before them. Fellow
passengers hiked on to the gate, dragging carry-ons, children, garment bags, briefcases, and computers. Laura Williams stopped walking.

  The risk of terrifying her mother and father, of having them find out she was not in Edinburgh, was too great. She couldn’t do it to them. And she didn’t have to.

  Jehran had not set off any metal detectors, so the horrible thought that had blindsided Laura could be set aside. “Jehran, she said softly, “I’m turning around here.”

  “What?” The huge soft eyes narrowed and hardened.

  “You don’t need me. You can manage the rest yourself.”

  “I do need you! If you don’t make the flight, they won’t let me on.”

  Laura shook her head. “Nobody cares if a passenger doesn’t make the flight. That’s their problem. But my problem is, my parents would be scared to death. It was necessary for me to give you the passport, but it’s not necessary for me to come.”

  “No!” said Jehran, in a whisper that screamed. “Laura, you have to come! I didn’t go through all these weeks of planning so that you could back out now!”

  The racket and chaos of the airport filled Laura’s brain and heart. They had not been planning this escape for weeks. The thing that had happened weeks ago, the thing that would have required planning, was Billy’s death.

  “Weeks of planning?” said Laura slowly.

  Nobody had found a reason for Billy to die.

  So many people had puzzled over that: why choose Billy?

  If there were weeks of planning … then Jehran had not thought of using Billy’s passport after Billy’s death. Had she thought of using Billy’s passport before Billy died?

  “Oh Jehran!” whispered Laura. It was not a whisper for keeping a secret, but a whisper because her lungs had leaked, like yesterday’s balloon.

  Laura remembered what she had wanted to do to Billy’s killer: good ways to die.

  The single thing Laura Williams wanted was to take Billy’s Red Sox cap back and walk away.

  She could not stand next to, or think about, or touch, a person who would take a child’s life in exchange for a piece of paper.

  “You didn’t kill him yourself, did you?” said Laura dully. “You had it done. Those men in your house—maybe even the man you pretend is your brother—they did it, didn’t they?”

  Jehran did not agree—but she did not disagree.

  A normal, nice person would be shocked, horrified, to be accused of murder.

  Jehran was not, therefore, a normal, nice person.

  I went looking for Billy’s killer, thought Laura, and I found her.

  If Jehran was responsible for Billy’s death, then she had figured out how to escape using Billy as well. For what had Laura agreed to do? She had agreed to smuggle Jehran out of the country. No wonder Jehran was amused. Laura was not catching her brother’s killer: she was rescuing her brother’s killer.

  Jehran touched the zipper of the elegant swollen leather satchel of which she had been so protective. She traced its tiny railroad tracks with the pad of her finger. She smiled her hot secret smile. “Now, Laura,” said Jehran, “I need you, and you don’t want to die the way Billy did.”

  CHAPTER 16

  LAURA YANKED THE LEATHER case from Jehran’s hands. She used all the strength she possessed, thinking Jehran would have a serious grip on something so important to her, but Jehran had not dreamed Laura would have enough guts to seize it and was holding it loosely. Laura staggered backward, possessor of the leather bag.

  Jehran tried to get it back, but Laura kicked her against the wall and this, too, was effortless because Jehran never dreamed that Laura would actually fight.

  “You don’t have a bomb in here,” said Laura scornfully. “You have money. If you had a bomb, you wouldn’t be fighting to get this back in your own hands. You’d be laughing yourself sick because I’m the one hugging the bomb. Just like my brother.”

  Jehran, whom she had thought so beautiful and exotic. Only her selfishness was extraordinary. The extraordinary ego of evil.

  “You don’t have a Cause, Jehran,” said Laura. “Your Cause is yourself.” Laura had thought she would rip Jehran to pieces, but one kick was enough. Finding Billy’s killer was good—but Billy was not back. Laura was sobbing, her voice was choked and broken with despair. “When I cut your hair, and you said ‘I’m ready,’ you didn’t mean that you were ready to die, Jehran. You were ready to have a new life. You are not ready to blow up a plane you’re about to board.”

  No passenger was too tired to miss this sentence.

  People stopped walking.

  People began backing away.

  “You murdered my brother, Jehran,” said Laura Williams. “And all for a piece of paper with a photograph on it, so you could become a New Yorker, while Billy became dust.”

  People screamed, ran, or dropped to the floor. They tried to find exits where there were only flat walls. They hid their children behind their backs. They protected their faces with their laptops.

  Jehran knew when to give up and start Plan B. She simply turned and walked away. In the midst of this terrified crowd, she would be just another little kid in a jeans jacket. Airport security assumed you wouldn’t dare race past them. Jehran, however, would dare anything. She’d run through Passport Control, vanish in the crowds, dart among the luggage carts and the endless lines. She would not get to America … but she would get away.

  Laura was about to set the carry-ons down, to run after Jehran, when she knew what Billy had known, in his final terrible moment. If Laura’s guess was wrong—if Jehran’s intent was an explosion, if Laura did hold a bomb in her arms—did it matter whether they were on the plane?

  She, Laura, could not do less than Billy. Whether the case contained money or a bomb, Laura Williams could not set it down.

  The crowd changed color.

  Laura could not figure out what was happening, why hundreds of people suddenly looked alike and went from wall to wall, all the way across, like a row of soldiers.

  Well—because they were soldiers. Airport security, anyway.

  Dozens of stiff people gripped Jehran, and dozens more surrounded Laura. “Miss Williams?” They were stiff, she realized, from fear. “Please don’t open the bags. Just stand very still.”

  People were asked to leave the area quickly and quietly.

  Never were people more cooperative. In seconds, there was security, and there were two passengers: Laura and Jehran.

  Laura was calm for the first time since Billy’s death. Jehran was not getting away with murder after all. And if Laura did not have all the answers, at least she had some answers. There was not nothing. There was something.

  “She had my brother slaughtered,” said Laura. “Go to her house. It’s full of soldiers, and I believe she paid one of them to put a bomb in my brother’s hand.”

  “What are you talking about?” cried Jehran. She could make no gestures, because her hands were tightly held, but her beautiful face spoke for her. “I thought you were my friend, Laura.” How feminine she looked, in spite of the haircut and the lopsided Red Sox cap. How frail. How innocent.

  And how clever, thought Laura.

  Laura knew how it was done now—easily. You make friends first, and Laura was an easy friend to make. You chose a friend who didn’t listen, didn’t want warnings, couldn’t add up clues.

  Jehran had found a perfect set: the passport that resembled her and me friend who would fall for it.

  A squadron of men took Jehran’s leather carry-on and Laura’s blue one. Then they walked the girls through a door marked Authorized Personnel Only and into a room crowded with people; crowded with anxiety and anger.

  Laura thought: I did this. I can’t blame this fear and trouble and canceled flight on Jehran. I was angry with Mr. Evans and Mr. Hollober and Con’s father and Mohammed … as if being annoyed is a reason to keep secrets!

  Billy was man enough to know what was happening and to die to save the people around him, but I was
a child, and risked the people around me.

  I was an accessory to evil.

  How young and innocent Jehran looked between these guards. Incapable of throwing a baseball, never mind a bomb. Indeed, the people who surrounded both girls did not look convinced. They were giving Jehran the benefit of the doubt. They were about to let go of those slender wrists. Poor little thing.

  Never had Laura been so glad to see a thin man in a large jacket. “Oh, Mr. Evans!” she cried. Nobody stopped her when she ran up to him.

  Mr. Evans barely stopped himself from taking Laura’s shoulders to shake the stupidity out of her. “You should have called me,” he said, “when Jehran first asked for Billy’s passport.”

  “How did you know she asked for anything?”

  “Your overachieving school friends are not just sitting around doing calculus, Laura. They’ve been terribly worried about you. They even followed you and found out about the plane ticket you bought in Billy’s name. But did they call me right away? No! They waited till the very last moment, too!”

  “Who called?” said Laura.

  “Con, Jimmy, and Mohammed.”

  I was so rude to them, thought Laura, and they stuck by me.

  “Dear Mr. Evans,” said Jehran, in her beautiful convincing British speech, “I, too, am so glad to see you. Please ask your people to let go of me. You are unnecessarily alarmed. There isn’t a bomb, just money. I am faced with a sad personal problem, and Laura volunteered to help me leave the country. Laura came up with a brilliant plan. Laura wanted to do this to honor her brother.”

  Laura was outraged—and afraid. What if they believe her? thought Laura. I believed her. “No!” said Laura. “You killed Billy. But it wasn’t necessary, Jehran! If you wanted Billy’s passport, why not just come to my house and take it?”

  And then, after so much time trying to see the truth, Laura guessed some of it. “Those men downstairs in your house,” she breathed. “They are terrorists, aren’t they? That is their occupation, isn’t it?”

  Jehran said nothing.

  Laura felt her whole body flying apart, her rage demolishing her, as if she were stoning herself. “Were they going to kill some American, anyway, Jehran?” shouted Laura. “Is that why they sent you to school with Americans? Was it your job to find a target?”