“Me, too,” he admits. “But I’m counting on you, honey. You were brave, putting the gum in the lock. But you have to be brave again. And if I tell you to run, run!”
He stands up, takes her hand, and they’re out the door.
Tom takes two steps, looks to the left and the right. Where now?
Move, he thinks. Don’t be frozen by indecision.
Move.
He takes his daughter’s hand, starts walking quickly. They’re both in bare feet, and if they’re someplace warm, he needs to get them both outside. If this is somewhere in the tropics, being outside in bare feet will fit in. But not in a building’s basement.
More pallets, more construction equipment. There’s a corridor to the right and he takes Denise down the corridor and—
It ends in a jumble of piles of Sheetrock and metal frames.
Damn it!
He backs out and there are voices, and he picks her up and pulls her behind a pallet of shoulder-high cardboard boxes, wrapped in light-green plastic.
“Shhh,” Tom says, “stay quiet.”
It seems like two men walk by, arguing in a foreign language, and Tom can’t believe it, but he recognizes a couple of the words the men are using.
Pashto.
The language of people in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
What the hell?
The voices fade away.
“Come on,” he whispers, and he holds her hand, and when Denise shrieks, it hits him like a blow to the back of his head.
CHAPTER 29
GOOD GOD, that shriek…Tom thinks it’ll be a miracle if no one within a mile has noticed it.
“Shhh, what’s wrong, what’s wrong?” he says, and Denise goes, “Ow, ow, ow…I stepped on something!”
She lifts her right leg and there’s blood on the bottom of her foot, and he sees a discarded piece of scrap metal his girl has stepped on.
“It hurts, it hurts, it hurts,” and he has a flash of memory from two years back, in northern Syria, after a mortar attack, a poor wounded Kurdish fighter saying the same thing, It hurts, it hurts, and Tom had the brutal realization back then, Well, better you than me, pal, as he ran to a trench for safety.
There is no running here, no safety.
This is his little girl. He can’t run away, can’t leave her.
“Shhh,” he whispers. “Please, be quiet. Let me see.”
He gently puts her down, examines her right foot, notes a widening splotch of blood. He presses his handkerchief against it, removes it, tries to wipe away more of the blood, as Denise moans and tightens her tear-filled eyes.
“Daddy…”
“C’mon,” he says, “we’re still leaving. I’ll carry you.”
He picks up Denise and she squeezes him tight, burrows her head into his shoulder, and he starts walking fast, knowing it’s only up to him now, that if things go bad, he can’t rely on Denise running to safety with that cut on her foot.
He has to make it.
He has to.
Tom catches a smell of salt air, maneuvers past piles of long plastic pipe, sees light up ahead.
Move, move, move.
The light is coming from an open roll-up door.
Open to the outside.
His bare feet slap on the concrete as he kicks up his speed. Denise is as light as a feather. He has no real plan, just the base, raw emotion of getting his girl out of here, into the daylight, and finding someplace safe, any place.
“Yes,” he whispers, and now they’re outside.
A parking lot.
Dump trucks.
Two white vans with tools and construction equipment inside. He quickly thinks of checking to see if the vans have their keys inside, but both vans are occupied, one by a guy drinking a cup of coffee, the other by an older guy checking his cell phone.
He keeps on moving, slowing down. Running attracts attention. Can’t do that.
Denise lifts her head. “Daddy?” and her voice is stronger.
“Almost there, hon, almost there.”
He gets them out of the parking lot, and now they’re in a set of little green parks, walkways, other parking lots. Palm trees. Spiky bushes. Men and women and children walking around, almost all in beach gear. His heart is thumping so hard he’s sure that Denise can feel the vibration in her chest.
Where now?
The beachgoers are looking at them with open curiosity, and it’s easy to see why, for they’re not dressed for rest and relaxation, haven’t bathed in a while, and the panic on both of their faces is probably as clear as a siren cutting through the night.
“Almost there,” he whispers. “Almost…”
But where the hell is “there”?
There are four- or five-story resort-type buildings, with brass numbers on the doorways, but if they are in some foreign land, can he waste the time to try to talk to whoever’s on duty, to find a phone, to find someone in authority?
Now they are on a smooth paved road, curving to the right, that leads to a metal gate and a high stone wall, but the gate is open iron and there is a crowded street out there, with lots of pedestrians and traffic, and yes, that’s where they are going. Get lost in the crowd. Find out where the hell they are, find a phone, or a cell phone, or a goddamn telegraph station.
Next to the large gate is a smaller opening allowing pedestrians in and out, and at the gate is a black SUV with dark windows, and the gate starts rattling to the right.
Fine, he thinks, fine.
We walk past the SUV, get through the pedestrian gate, and we’re out, we’re free.
Tom kisses the top of Denise’s head.
“Just a few seconds, hon, just a few seconds more.”
“Daddy…my foot really, really hurts…”
“I know, I know,” he says, and now the weight of his ten-year-old girl has suddenly materialized, and he realizes how damn bone-tired he is, but seeing the open street out there and the lines of people…
Make it, he thinks. We’re going to make it.
Just a few yards more.
He can hear the people out there talking as they walk by, the rumble of the traffic, a few horns.
Just a couple of yards more.
He squeezes Denise’s waist, hunches her up more so her legs are wrapped around his waist, and then—
The rear passenger door to the SUV suddenly opens up.
He dodges to the left, and a man is blocking his way, smiling.
Pelayo Abboud is blocking his way, wearing a light-blue linen suit, crisp white shirt, a wide smile on his face, holding a glass Coca-Cola bottle in his beefy hand, a straw jutting out.
He lifts up the bottle in a salute.
“Are you sure I can’t offer you both a drink?” he asks. “You two look very, very thirsty.”
CHAPTER 30
TROOPER CLAY Hancock from District Two, Troop C, of the Tennessee Highway Patrol spots a black Jeep Wrangler with Virginia license plates pulled over on the side of southbound I-75 and slows down his white Chevrolet Caprice. He switches on the overhead light bar and pulls in right behind the Wrangler, lifts up his Motorola radio handset, and calls in the traffic stop.
He waits for just a second, to see if anyone’s in the area. Nope, the near grassy strip is clear, which means the driver hasn’t let a passenger out for an unofficial rest stop. There also doesn’t seem to be anyone lurking in a nearby grove of trees. The driver has both hands on the steering wheel and is looking back at him via the Jeep’s rearview mirror.