Ali looks disheveled, tired. I don’t speak except to ask him for water. I work at his kitchen table, devising a simple plastic explosive trigger than he can set himself. Every few minutes he comes to me, touches my shoulder, recites verses from the Koran, praising me as a good Muslim. I try not to think about anything but the mechanics of what I am doing. After several hours I explain the trigger to him. He presses me to configure the signature detonator his paper describes in both English and Arabic—as a back up.
“I won’t go with you,” I say.
“I know,” he says softly. “But you will leave this country.” He places a piece of paper on the table next to me, an airline itinerary for flying to Dubai via Vancouver. “It will be better for you, for your sons, if they cannot find you in America.”
The flight departs tomorrow. Ali places a Canadian passport on top of the paper. The photo inside is me, the name belongs to another, matches the name on the airline itinerary.
Ali pulls out his phone. “Look at the camera, Rashid.” I look up, surprised. He snaps a photo of me sitting with my tools, the detonators I have assembled. He presses a few buttons.
I reach up to grab the phone. He slaps my hand back. “I have already sent it. My Egyptian friend will be sure it goes to the proper authorities if you cause any trouble.” He pauses, waiting for me to understand his seriousness. “Now, you will travel with this passport as far as Dubai.”
“No, I can’t go tomorrow.” What will I tell Kathryn? I need to see the boys again.
“When the time is right Sheikh Omar will be able to help you in Pakistan.”
“Sheikh Omar?”
“You’ve met him. Everyone in the CIA would like to get as close to him as you have been.”
“Abu Omar’s son,” I whisper to myself.
Ali recites an address in Pakistan’s southern port town of Karachi, makes me repeat it a half dozen times until he is sure I won’t forget. He refuses to write it down.
The sun has set and Ali pulls back the curtain. No street light shines in. “The darkness will cover us as we load the truck.”
I look up, distraught. I haven’t thought about loading the truck.
Ali shakes his head. “Don’t even think about complaining, you’ve come this far. I still need your help with this.”
I only want to sleep. I close my eyes and pray for this whole scene to disappear.
“Now!” Ali roars, suddenly livid.
I look up, astonished.
“Please, habibi,” he softens.
I stand, follow him to the truck, listen to his explanations for how we will pack the canisters, with shrapnel—nails, ball bearings, nuts and bolts—above the explosives. I do as he tells me, he has planned more carefully than I believed possible. I don’t speak, only think of how I can warn Kathryn, get word to her father.
Near dawn Ali closes the back doors of the truck. He opens the driver’s side door, shows me a small metal safe on the front seat. “Fireproof,” he says proudly. He opens the door, places a Koran inside. He holds out his hand, “Your ID, Rashid Siddique. You won’t want to be that man after tomorrow.”
“But if you have my ID, it will look like I was in the van with you.”
“Exactly, brother. If they think you have blown up with me, they won’t go looking for you.” He talks to me simply, my mind must reach across the chasm between our thinking to understand him. “I’m giving you a chance. A chance to go safely. A chance to go someplace. You can call your wife and children to you later, insha’allah.”
“No. No.” I can only shake my head.
“Brother, you can’t resist your fate. Come.”
He takes my arm and we walk inside the house. He closes the door, locks a padlock from the inside.
Ali drives me to the airport departure level. All of my identification, my phone, even my wedding ring, sits inside the fireproof safe between us. A small suitcase with clothes Ali has provided; a wool coat, a change of shirt, some socks, rests at my feet. He has filled my wallet with enough cash to see me through a few weeks. I stare at my image in the Canadian passport, trying to memorize the spelling of this other man’s name.
Ali’s clothes are immaculate, a white button down shirt—perfectly ironed—and a pair of black dress pants. He has trimmed his beard and washed his hair. I feel a strange intimacy with him, as if I have been with him the night before his wedding. He is nervous and excited.
The freeway delivers us to the airport dangerously fast, inexorably in one direction. And here we are. Ali pulls up to the curb.
“Please, just wait a day, Ali. Just one day.”
He doesn’t want to stay too long at the curb. “Fly away, brother. May the blessings of Allah be upon you.”
I don’t move. He starts to look irritated.
“All right. Sure. I’ll give you 24 hours. What does one day mean when I’m bound for heaven?”
I nod. “And blessings upon you too.” I step out, turn back. “There will be no shame if you change your mind.”
But he is already looking over his shoulder to pull into the next lane. I recite the license plate number.
I proceed to a computer kiosk for my boarding pass. Once I am safely past security I will find a phone, alert the authorities, call Kathryn. Or when I arrive in Vancouver, once I am safely out of this country. I have 24 hours, don’t I?
I stand in the security line, my shirt sags with perspiration. A businessman stands in front of me, grumbling about the inefficiency of the TSA. Two teenaged girls chatter meaninglessly behind me. I see a Sikh man in a turban reach the conveyor belt, remove his shoes, belt, jacket, steel bangle. I have no turban, no bangle, how can I pass as a Sikh man?
My hand trembles as I show my boarding pass and passport to a woman in a blue shirt with a black badge. She shines her light on the passport, looks me in the eye. I blink. The girls behind me snap their gum. She looks again at the passport, scowls. Her latex glove-covered hand scribbles with a pen on my boarding pass. She nods and I move through.
I follow the business man, who is already setting his shoes in a plastic tray. “I sure do feel protected from the terrorists with this extra security,” he says in disgust. He pulls out his belt, holds both ends the same way I had once seen my father loop his belt before he struck me for disrespecting my mother. I freeze, feel myself a teenager again, wonder if he will whip me for my behavior. Then the man throws his belt in the tray and the girls shove their own trays onto the conveyor belt. And I am through.
I walk quickly to the gate, avoid looking anyone in the eye. The plane is on time. I have time, I can call. I just need a phone. When did the pay phones all disappear from the airports? I hear a woman announce the boarding for my flight.
I glance around, notice a mounted television screen. A live helicopter shot shows a plume of smoke, flames rising toward the sky. Scrolling across the bottom of the screen …car explosion on the 10 freeway at the 405, unconfirmed reports of several fatalities.
“Oh my God,” a woman near me covers her mouth
I close my eyes, bow my head. He didn’t wait. He knew he wouldn’t wait. He did this. He couldn’t have done it without me.
I can only move in one direction. I join the queue to board.