The Legend of Kareem (16 page)

He sighed, feeling the remnants of his hangover still pummeling his brain and his split lip throbbing every few seconds. He was able to open his right eye, but it caused him a moment of pain each time he blinked.

One of his cellmates, the one sitting, leered at him. “What’s your story?”

“I have no story,” Omar said.

The man flexed his biceps and cocked his eyes at Omar. “Two tours in Afghanistan, that’s mine.”

“Congratulations,” Omar said, closing his eyes.

The American jumped to his feet. “What’d you say to me, you fucking Haji?”

A guard yelled out, and the cell doors rolled open with a jarring clank. And there, standing in a business suit, was Kareem, a deep scowl darkening his face.

“Omar, time to go,” he said.

Omar stood, feeling the shame squeeze his insides. He hadn’t seen his brother for two years or more, not since he’d attacked his roommate in the trailer during Kareem’s visit.

“Why are you here?” Omar said.

Kareem waved an impatient hand. Omar left the cell as the angry American seethed. Kareem led him to a desk, where a uniformed officer gave Kareem a plastic bag containing Omar’s clothes and the other items he’d come into the jail with.

“Thank you, officer,” Kareem said. Kareem nudged Omar, but he refused to offer his own thanks. The policeman paid no mind.

Omar took the bag and walked the yellow line painted on the floor to the bathroom to change, then he and Kareem followed the green line which would lead them out of the police station. When he pressed open the door, he wasn’t surprised to find the sun had already set. He’d guessed correctly, it had been nearly a day.

“You are welcome,” Kareem said, joining him on the front step of the police station. “Do you understand what I had to do to get them to drop these charges?”

“I did not ask you to come here,” Omar said. “I did not ask for your help.”

Kareem gritted his teeth. “I cannot believe you, little brother. After everything that has happened, you must still make complications?”

Omar laughed and pointed a finger at Kareem’s chest. “And
you
used to be the one always in trouble. Is it not poetic?”

“Drinking. Brawling in a bar. Why?”

“I had a bad day. Drinking after a bad day is a traditional American custom, do you not know that? I have been in this country long enough, I thought I might try to adopt a few of their customs.”

Kareem pursed his lips.

“Why are you here, Kareem? Why have I not seen you for years, and now you have appeared as my white knight to save me?”

“I was already in the country. I was looking for someone.”

“But not me,” Omar said. “You were not looking for me. You do not care enough about me to come looking for me unless it serves your interests.”

“Omar,” Kareem said, reaching out to his brother. A blue car sped past, then a police cruiser across the street flashed its lights and took off after it.

“No,” Omar said, slapping Kareem’s hand away. “I will no longer be your dirty secret. I am going to walk away now, and I wish not to see you again.”

“At least let me take you home, little brother. Where are you living now?”

“I need nothing from you. No further help.” Omar stepped close to Kareem, just inches away from his face. “And when the truth about what happened all those years ago comes out… the truth about the things we did in Dallas… I will require no help from you at that time, either.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

I tried to fall asleep, but ended up only shifting around in the bed, unable to find the right angle. I attempted to avoid looking at the electronic clock on the nightstand, but I couldn’t resist. 11:30. 12:05. 12:50. Time ticked on, and I didn’t sleep. If I’d had my phone, maybe I could have watched some streaming video or played some mindless video games. But the phone was back in Three Rivers with that crazy redneck Jed.

Omar’s story puzzled me, for a few reasons. I knew that he had insight into IntelliCraft’s dirty business, but his story almost made it seem like he’d been directly involved in it. And then there was the detail that Kareem had been in this country just a few months ago, looking for someone. Had he been looking for me?

Probably not, because I wasn’t exactly hiding.

Something crashed. Sound of crunching, or maybe glass breaking.

I threw back the covers and tumbled out of bed. Slipped on my pants, then sidled next to the bedroom door. I waited, the pulse of my heartbeats the only thing audible. I leaned out the door, and the darkness of the hallway greeted me. With a squint, I tried to bring the living room into focus.

“Candle?” Omar said. “What was that sound?”

I shushed him, then sneaked across the hall to the master bedroom, careful to let the hallway shadows mask my movement. He was sitting upright in bed, holding the sheets under his chin. Staying perfectly still, like a cat frozen by a sudden sound.

More noises, and the sound of voices. At least two, maybe three.

“Are they here for us?” Omar whispered.

“I don’t know. But get your stuff together. We might have to go out the back.”

He held out his hands. “I have no stuff.”

“Right, I forgot. Just sit tight, then.”

I went back to the hallway, found the messenger bag, and slipped the gun in my waistband. I saw some motion through the living room window. A flickering shadow.

I drew the pistol but kept the nose pointed at the floor. I crept foot over foot through the hallway and into the living room. Since there were windows on two sides of the room, I ducked down and waited for any further motion. Nothing came.

I eased forward until I was close to the front window, and carefully peeled back one of the drapes. Spanish Trail seemed quiet, lit only by the dim glow of one streetlight at the end of the block. A porch light on a house three doors down cast a small area of light, but too many shadows shrouded the rest of the street.

Omar joined me, crawling on his knees through the living room. “Do you see anything?”

“No. It’s too dark out there.”

“Why would they come for us now? Why not yesterday, or tomorrow?”

“I don’t understand anything IntelliCraft does.”

I saw something change. A pair of eyes across the street, appearing disembodied at first. Then I noticed a dark shirt and black pants in the space below those eyes. This person was crouched behind a palm tree in the yard across the street.

I squinted, taking in all the light I could. Two more darkly-dressed people joined the first. They slinked up from the bushes and knelt next to him. One of them wore a backpack, which he dropped on the ground in front of them.

I raised the pistol and pointed it at them through the window. They were too far away to get a good shot at them, but maybe I could scare them off if I caught them off guard.

Who was I kidding? I couldn’t take these people in a gunfight.

Omar panted. “Should we go?”

“Not yet,” I said. “But get ready. When I say, we’re going out the back.”

The three dark figures reached into the backpack, and each of them withdrew something white. Cylindrical.

One of them stood, raised the object above his head, and prepared to throw.

Maybe I’d have to shoot anyway. I wrapped my finger around the trigger.

He launched the white cylinder into the air, and as it flew toward the house next door to my dad’s, I noticed a long white tail streaming behind the cylinder. Was that smoke?

The other two people also stood and made throwing motions. As the objects neared the house next door, I got a better look at what they were throwing.

“Son of a bitch,” I said, lowering the gun. “Toilet paper.”

They each withdrew a few more rolls and hurled them at the house next door, and now I could hear them cheering. I chuckled.

“I do not understand,” Omar said.

“It’s just kids, Omar. They’re playing a prank on whoever lives next door.”

I breathed out a sigh of relief, and Omar seemed to catch on.

“You were brave,” he said. “I am glad you are here with me.”

An involuntary smile curled my lips. A big step from where we were two days ago, him demanding that I pull over so he could flee into a truck stop.

“Yeah, me too. Just one more day, and then this is all over.”

He grinned at me with that strange mix of fear and hope in his eyes, and I knew that whatever happened next, I was responsible for Omar Qureshi’s safety.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Jed’s enormous truck got terrible gas mileage. I was burning through the money stashed in my sock quicker than I’d planned. At least when this was over, I could use my credit card to get home because then it wouldn’t matter anymore.

At least, it shouldn’t. With Omar safe and me out of the loop, I couldn’t imagine any reason for them to continue hunting me.

We entered Brownsville in the late afternoon. The town seemed to have ballooned in size over the years, now full of shopping malls, four-lane highways, and the same kind of billboards that marked the rest of Texas.

I hadn’t been there since college, when some friends and I had whirled like a tornado through Padre Island, Corpus Christi, and into Brownsville to cross the border to Matamoros for cheap beers. We treated Mexico like a playground in those days. Drove through the border checkpoint so drunk that they should have thrown us in jail. We acted as if our lives were only going to keep getting better, and we had no reason to think they wouldn’t.

I drove to the southern edge of the city and back around to the east to find this tiny little town of South Point. I hadn’t been near the border since before the big fencing of south Texas. Along the outskirts of Brownsville, a big metal fence kept the town sequestered, just north of the Rio Grande River. But as I followed the fence around, I noticed several sections missing, or replaced with shorter fencing. What good would it do if you could drive a car through it or hop over a section only tall enough to secure a yipping backyard dog?

When we entered South Point, the fence devolved into a series of rusted metal girders. There were breaks for gravel roads. The compact suburb of South Point was little more than gravel and dirt roads and the occasional house, jutting up against what looked like a vast jungly forest.

I found Alaska Road and the turnoff for the pond, along another break in the fence. Made me wonder the point of spending five grand on this coyote. We could just drive south, wade across the river, and be done with it. I hadn’t seen much in the way of border patrol. Or maybe they were hiding, hoping some dumb illegal would think the same thing.

Yellow fields of corn blanketed our approach. I parked the truck where Alaska ended, at the edge of a thick collection of trees. I assumed the pond was beyond it.

“Do we get out now?” Omar said.

I turned on the prepaid phone and checked the time. We had an hour or so until sunset. “Not just yet.”

I got the feeling that parking along this road wasn’t the smartest thing to do, so I drove the dirt road a bit to the north and found a more secluded spot to wait between the trees.

Then we sat back and stared at the dashboard. Each minute, I felt my heart rate scratch a little higher on the chart. “Back at Palm Grove, you told me we had to escape, but we could have walked out the front door, right?”

He cast his eyes at the floor of the truck. “Yes.”

“Why did you make me go through that crazy escape plan with the faking-seizure guy and everything?”

Omar turned his head away. “I am embarrassed. I do not wish to speak of it.”

“Embarrassed?”

He sighed. “I forgot.”

“You forgot what?”

“I forgot that I was allowed to leave at any time. The seizure medications they give me confuse my head at times. So, I forgot.”

This answer satisfied me, or at least it made sense. I didn’t feel the need to interrogate him any further, so we sat in the car as the crickets chirped and the sun drifted across the sky and dipped below the horizon. The red flame of the sunset blazed across the flatlands for a hundred miles in every direction.

Finally, when the sky started to darken, I cleared my throat. “Okay, let’s go find this pond.”

Omar reached out and grabbed my hand before I could open the door. “Thank you,” he said. “I could not have done this alone.”

“Just watch out for yourself down there. Wherever you end up, you’re going to have to keep looking over your shoulder, all the time. If you get complacent, Omar, they’re going to catch you.”

“I understand.”

We got out and waded through the thick vegetation for a couple minutes, until we came to a break in the trees. Mosquitos, something I was unaccustomed to experiencing in winter, buzzed around my head and tried to steal a bit of blood from my exposed neck.