to America and, on an inside page, about a new wave of stabbings in Israel. She burned with rage. She rejoiced.
Presently, the crackle of a boarding call brought her to her feet. She had been given a seat on the right side of the aircraft against the window. The seat next to her remained empty long after the economy passengers had boarded, instilling in her the hope she might not have to spend the next seven and half hours with a complete stranger. That hope died when a business-suited man with coal-black hair and matching eyeglasses lowered himself into the seat next to her. He didn’t appear pleased to be sitting next to an Arab woman in a hijab. He stared at his mobile phone, Natalie stared at hers.
After a few seconds a message appeared on her screen.
LONELY?
She typed, YES.
WANT SOME COMPANY?
LOVE SOME.
LOOK TO YOUR LEFT.
She did. The man with coal-black hair and matching eyewear was still staring at his phone, but now he was smiling.
“Is this a good idea?” she asked.
“What’s that?” asked Mikhail.
“You and me together?”
“I’ll tell you after we land.”
“What happens then?”
Before he could answer, an announcement instructed passengers to switch off their mobile devices. Natalie and her seatmate complied. As the plane thundered down the runway, she placed her hand on his.
“Not yet,” he whispered.
“When?” she asked, pulling away her hand.
“Soon,” he said. “Very soon.”
52
HUME, VIRGINIA
IN WASHINGTON THE RAINS HAD finally ended, and a blast of cold, clear air had scrubbed the last remaining clouds from the sky. The great marble monuments glowed white as bone in the sharp sunlight; a brisk wind chased fallen leaves through the streets of Georgetown. Only the Potomac River bore the scars of the deluge. Swollen by runoff, clogged with tree limbs and debris, it flowed brown and heavy beneath Key Bridge as Saladin drove toward Virginia. He was dressed for a weekend in the English countryside—corduroy trousers, a woolen crewneck sweater, a dark-green Barbour jacket. He turned right onto the George Washington Memorial Parkway and headed west.
The roadway ran along the bank of the river for about a quarter mile before climbing to the top of the gorge. Trees in autumn leaf blazed in the bright sunlight, and across the muddy river traffic flowed along a parallel parkway. Even Saladin had to admit it was a welcome change from the harsh world of western Iraq and the caliphate. The comfortable leather seat of the luxury German sedan held him with the tenderness of a cupped hand. A member of the network had left it for him in a small parking lot at the corner of M Street and Wisconsin Avenue, a painful walk of several blocks from the Four Seasons Hotel. Saladin was tempted to put the machine through its paces and test his skills on the smooth, winding road. Instead, he kept assiduously to the posted speed limit while other drivers rode his rear bumper and made obscene gestures as they roared past on his left. Americans, he thought—always in a hurry. It was both their greatest strength and their undoing. How foolish they were to think they could snap their fingers and alter the political landscape of the Middle East. Men like Saladin did not measure time in four-year election cycles. As a child he had lived on the banks of one of the four rivers that flowed out of the Garden of Eden. His civilization had flourished for thousands of years in the harsh and unforgiving land of Mesopotamia before anyone had ever heard of a place called America. And it would survive long after the great American experiment receded into history. Of this, Saladin was certain. All great empires eventually collapsed. Only Islam was forever.
The car’s navigation system guided Saladin onto the Capital Beltway. He drove south, across the Dulles Access Road, past the shopping malls of Tysons Corner, to Interstate 66, where he once again headed west, toward the foothills of the Shenandoah Mountains. The eastbound lanes were still clogged with morning commuter traffic, but before Saladin stretched several car-lengths of empty asphalt, a rarity for the metropolitan Washington motorist. Again, he kept diligently to the speed limit while other traffic overtook him. The last thing he needed now was a traffic stop; it would put at risk an elaborate plot that taken months of meticulous planning. Paris and Amsterdam had been dress rehearsals. Washington was Saladin’s ultimate target, for only the Americans had the power to unleash the chain of events he was