“Can you see them?” he asked. “How many?”
“Eighteen.”
“What about the flowers?” asked Zen, pointing to the nearby flower bed.
Stoner looked, then turned to him. “Yeah?”
“Bree likes flowers,” said Zen, searching for something to say. “Teri, too. My daughter. Teri. You have to meet her.”
Stoner didn’t reply.
“Good day for baseball,” said Zen.
Stoner remained silent. Zen tried to get a conversation going, talking about baseball and football, and even the cute nurse who passed on an adjacent path. Stoner had apparently decided he wasn’t going to talk anymore, and said nothing else. After they’d been out for about fifteen minutes, Dr. Esrang came over, looking at his watch.
“I’m afraid it’s time for Mr. Stoner’s physical therapy,” he said loudly. “If that’s OK, Senator.”
“It’s OK with me,” said Zen. “Assuming Mark feels like sweating a bit.”
Stoner turned toward the building and began walking. Zen wheeled himself forward to catch up with him.
“Maybe we’ll take in some baseball, huh?” he asked. “If you’re up to it.”
Stoner stopped. “Baseball would be good.”
“Even if it’s the Nats?” joked Zen.
Stoner stared at him.
“Their record is — well, they are in last place,” admitted Zen. “So, it may be a tough game to sit through.”
“Baseball is good,” said Stoner.
“That went very well,” Esrang told Zen after Stoner had returned inside. “Very well.”
“You think so?”
“He talked to you. He said a lot more to you than he’s said to anyone.”
“He said three or four sentences. Then he just shut down.”
“It’s what he didn’t do that’s important,” said Esrang. “No rage, no attempt to run away. I think he’s slowly coming back to his old self.”
“Maybe.”
“I would say he might be able to go to a ball game, as long you’re under escort,” said Esrang.
Zen was surprised, but he wasn’t about to disagree. “I’ll set something up. You coming?”
“Absolutely… The Nationals will win, right?”
Zen laughed. He’d started to wheel into the building when he heard Jason Black clearing his throat behind him.
“Excuse me, Doc. We’ll find our own way out.” Zen turned back to his aide. “What’s up?”
“Steph needs to talk to you,” said Jason. “Like as soon as you can.”
Zen pulled his BlackBerry from his pocket. There were half a dozen text messages, including two from Stephanie Delanie — Steph — his chief legislative aide. The Senate Intelligence Committee had scheduled an emergency session for eleven o’clock — they’d just make it if they left right now.
“Grab the van, Jay,” said Zen. “I’ll meet you out front.”
“What’s up?”
“Just the usual Senate bs,” said Zen.
Chapter 7
Twice Amara came to checkpoints manned by government soldiers, and twice he drove through them, slowing then gunning the engine, keeping his head down. He’d learned long ago that most times the soldiers wouldn’t risk trying to actually stop a pickup, knowing they faced the worst consequences if they succeeded in killing the driver: whatever band he belonged to would seek vengeance immediately. The Brothers were especially vicious, killing not only the soldiers but any relatives they could find. It was an effective policy.
Besides, the soldiers were more interested in bribes than checking for contraband. Their army salary, low to begin with, was routinely siphoned off by higher-ups, leaving the privates and corporals in the field to supplement it or starve. Amara knew this from his older cousin, who had been conscripted at twelve and gone on to a varied career in the service until dying in a shoot-out with the Brothers at sixteen. By then his cousin was a sergeant, battle-tested and the most cynical man Amara knew, a hollow-eyed killer who hated the army and admired the Brothers, though eventually they would be the death of him. He had urged Amara to avoid the army, and warned him twice when bands were coming to “recruit” boys from his village—“recruit” being the government word for kidnap.
His cousin’s influence had led him to the Brothers. Amara lacked the deep religious conviction many of the Brothers and especially their leaders held. He joined for survival, and during his first action against a rival group, found he liked the adventure. His intelligence had been recognized and he was sent to a number of schools, not just for fighting, but for math and languages as well.
He liked math, geometry especially. His teachers told how it had been invented by followers of the one true God as a method of appreciating God’s handiwork in the world. To Amara, the beauty was in the interlocking theorems and proofs, the way one formula fed to another and then another, lines and angles connecting in a grid work that explained the entire world. He sensed that computer language held some of the same attractions, and his one regret in killing Li Han was that the Asian had not taught him more about how it worked before he died.
Amara’s promise was so great that he had won the ultimate prize: an education in America. Handed documents, he was sent to a U.S. college in the Midwest to study engineering. He was in well over his head, simply unprepared for the culture shock of the Western country. He was not a failure — with effort and struggle he had managed C’s in most of his classes, after dropping those he knew he would fail. But within two years the Brothers recalled him, saying they had other jobs. Someday, he told himself, he would return, only this time better prepared.
The black finger of an oil-drilling rig poked over the horizon, telling Amara he was nearing his destination. He slowed, scanning both sides of the road. Here the checkpoints had to be taken more seriously; they would be manned by the Brothers rather than soldiers, and anyone who didn’t stop would be targeted by an RPG.
He found the turnoff to the hills, then lowered his speed to a crawl as he went up the twisted road. Moving too fast was an invitation to be shot: the guards had standing orders to fire on anything suspicious, and they were far more likely to be praised for caution than scolded for killing a Brother who had imprudently alarmed them.
Amara spotted a man moving by the side of the trail. He slowed to a stop, and shouted, “As-Salamu Alaikum wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatuhu.”
The shadow moved toward him. Two others appeared on the other side of the trail. Then two more behind him. Amara was surrounded by sentries, all of them four or five years younger than himself. They were jumpy and nervous; he put both his hands on the open window of the car, trying with his body language to put them at ease.
“I am Amara of Yujst,” he said in Arabic, naming the town he had taken as his battle name. “I have completed my mission.”
“What mission was that?” snapped the tall man he’d first seen. He was not necessarily the oldest of the group — he had only the outlines of a beard — but he was clearly in charge.
“The mission that I have been appointed. It is of no concern to you.”
“You will tell me or you will not pass.”
“Are you ready for Paradise, Brother?” said Amara.
The question caught the tall one by surprise, and he was silent for a moment.
“One of you will ride with me,” Amara continued. “You will come into camp. The rest will stay here and guard the pass.”
“What gives you the right to make orders?” said the tall one, finding his voice.