THE HUSBAND-AND-WIFE TEAM OF HALA AND TARIQ AL DOSSARI HID inside their dingy room at the Wayfarer Hotel, waiting for instructions and watching the insipid, repetitious news coverage about the kidnapping of the president’s children while they did. They wondered whether the abduction had something to do with The Family, and thought that it might. Whatever was happening now, it was meant to have historic implications.
“There’s a good likelihood our people took those two spoiled brats,” Hala said. An image of the Coyle children’s smiling faces from some happier time played across the television screen, but all she felt was contempt. No one in this country was innocent. No one was exempt from retribution for America’s so-called foreign policy.
“I’m sure The Family’s plan is the correct one,” said Tariq, who was a good man, but not a complicated one.
“President Coyle’s thinking will be clouded. That’s good for us,” Hala said. “We should eat something. It wouldn’t hurt to get some air, so our thinking doesn’t get clouded.”
When she rose from the bed, Tariq stood up to follow. Hala was in charge in America.
Back home, marriages were still arranged in some families—including their own—and Tariq knew exactly how well he’d done for himself. Hala was a medical doctor, while he was merely an accountant. She was beautiful, especially by Western standards. He was plain and fat, by just about any standard one used. His wife had even come to love him, in time, and had given him two beautiful children, Fahd and Aamina.
Will we ever see our children again? Tariq wondered. It wasn’t a question he allowed himself too often, but all this waiting around was driving him crazy. It felt good to get up and leave their stuffy hotel room for a little while.
Outside, the streets were almost empty. On Twelfth Street they had trouble finding anything acceptable to eat. They passed McDonald’s, Pizza Hut, Dunkin’ Donuts, and then Taco Bell, whatever it was they sold there. What would bells taste like?
“Junk food and nothing else,” Hala said with derision. “Welcome to America.”
They were standing beneath an overhang to an office building, when a man suddenly stepped out from the shadows. He had a pistol in his hand and waved it at them. “Give me the pocketbook. Wallet. Loose change, watches,” he growled.
Hala put her arms across her chest and spoke in a high-pitched voice. “Please, don’t hurt us. We’ll give you our money—of course. No problem there. Just don’t hurt us!”
“Shoot you both dead, motherfuckers!” said the thief.
In their country, there were few men as desperate as this, Hala thought. A criminal like him would have his hand cut off if he were caught.
“No problem, no problem,” she answered, nodding. She offered up her knockoff Coach handbag with one hand, and then with the other—pepper spray! She doused the young fiend’s eyes with it.
He screeched and raised both hands to his face, trying to scrub away the burning poison. But his pain was only just starting. Hala dropped the spray and easily grabbed his gun.
She was so angry now. She sent a sharp kick to the boy’s kneecap, buckling it in the wrong direction. He went down screaming, and she kicked at his chest, fracturing a few ribs while she was at it.
Hala’s movements were fast and instinctual and athletic. She never seemed to be more than a foot or two away from the boy. He moaned on the ground—until her foot snapped into his throat. She kicked him in the forehead. The jaw. She broke bone there, too.
“Don’t kill him!” Tariq said, placing a hand on her arm.
“I’m not going to,” she said, and she stepped back. “A dead body would raise too many questions. We mustn’t draw attention. Not yet.” She leaned down to speak directly to the boy on the ground. “But I could have killed you—easily! Remember that the next time you put a gun in somebody’s face.”
They left the moaning boy in the shadows and crossed the street, then hurried back to the Wayfarer. There was nothing decent to eat out there anyway. This country was like the desert—just an arid wasteland that ought to be destroyed.
Without a doubt, it would be soon.