VIRGINIA
Mrs. Hansen's first name was Julia. It turned out she was the mother of four kids, all of whom now lived in other parts of the country. Mr. Hansen's first name was Tom, and by the time he arrived home the vehicles had been stashed and they were waiting for him. The cab was parked in his spot in the garage and a riding lawn mower and several bikes and trikes were moved to make room for the pickup truck. The trailer was left outside on the far side of the detached three car garage.
It had been fairly easy to subdue Tom Hansen. He was after all seventy years old, and not accustomed to having to defend his home. This was civilization, not some remote frontier outpost back in the 1900s. He had driven down the hill in his big Cadillac, returning from the local hardware store where he'd gone off in search of a bolt to repair a loose section of the dock. Tom Hansen was a fastidious man, and with several of the grandkids coming tomorrow, he wanted things just right.
They got him when he opened his garage door, during that moment when he stared in perplexity, wondering why in the hell someone had parked a cab in his spot. They appeared quickly, one man on each side of his big Cadillac. The doors were yanked open, and he was pulled from the vehicle before he could do anything to defend himself. They handled him roughly, one man on each arm, dragging him toward the house and warning him to keep his mouth shut.
By the time they reached the front door, Tom Hansen was in cardiac arrest. He'd suffered his first heart attack at the age of fifty-two. Too many cigarettes and too much fatty food, his doctor had told him. He quit the smoking, but didn't give up the unhealthy diet completely. Eight years after that he underwent an angioplasty, and just recently he'd been told by his cardiologist that it was time to consider bypass surgery while he was still young enough to recover fully. That was never going to happen.
They dropped him on the floor of the kitchen at the feet of his bound-and-gagged wife of forty-six years. Tom Hansen looked up at her, clutching his chest, a bewildered expression on his face. Behind her, on the refrigerator, he could see the photos of their grandchildren, nine adorable faces, the center of their universe. Not his or hers, but theirs. They were a couple, a team who shared everything, especially a devoted and unyielding love for their children and grandchildren.
Julia Hansen struggled against her bonds frantically, but could not break free. She knew it was his heart. She had been subtly trying to help him for years, cooking healthier, engineering long walks together, giving him disapproving looks when he lit up those damn cigars with their two boys. Now she saw the agony on his face and knew that he would not make it. When the color began to drain from his face, as if his very life was being sucked from him, she began to weep.
Al-Yamani watched this with the detachment and moral clarity of a true believer. He'd had seen plenty of people die during his life, and compared to what he'd witnessed on the battlefield this was mild.
It was five in the evening, and according to the woman, she and her now-deceased husband weren't expecting any visitors until one of their children was to arrive from Philadelphia with her husband and kids in the morning. Al-Yamani wanted to know the details. How many and when?
There would be five of them and they were to arrive around ten in the morning. Al-Yamani had been in the kitchen and listened to the answering machine when the daughter had called to check in. The daughter's message confirmed the woman's story. She ended by saying there was no need to call back, and that they'd see them in the morning. So good was their recent turn of luck that it was as clear as always to al-Yamani that Allah himself was guiding their mission.
They left the old man on the floor in front of his wife and went into the living room. Al-Yamani looked at the scientist and asked, "How long will it take you to get the bomb ready?"
Zubair had already taken the packages out of the back of the trunk and examined both the fire set and the explosives charges that he had crafted during his brief, surreptitious stay in Iran. "Everything looks good. It should take no more than two hours to have everything assembled and ready for transport again."
"Can you do this by yourself?"
"No." Zubair shook his head nervously.
"Of course not." Al-Yamani could recognize a coward when he saw one. The Pakistani didn't want to expose himself to the poison. He looked to Hasan and Khaled. "Is the boat ready?"
"Yes," answered Hasan. "It is fully gassed and in good working order."
"Good. Grab a blanket off one of the beds upstairs and use it to wrap up the old man, then go out to the garage and help Imtaz with the assembly of the weapon. We'll leave as soon as it is dark and dump the old man's body in the river."
The three men left, leaving al-Yamani and Mohammed alone. Mohammed looked at his old friend and said, "Mustafa, what are you up to?"
Despite the dull pain coursing through every vein in his body, al-Yamani smiled. "We are about to strike a glorious blow for Islam, Mohammed. A glorious blow."
In Mohammed's wildest dreams, he would have never guessed that his friend possessed the destructive power of a nuclear bomb. "Who are you going to kill?"
"The president," al-Yamani said proudly. "The president, himself."