The Camel Club (Camel Club 1)

A half mile farther up the road another police cruiser blocked the way. Djamila saw this and pulled off the asphalt and drove across the grass. The cruisers were about to follow but then stopped as Djamila turned the van around so it was facing back toward the road. She unfastened her seat belt and climbed into the backseat.

“What the hell’s she doing?” one of the cops said. “You think she’s gonna hurt those kids?”

“Who knows? What’s the status of the sniper?”

“I took it as a really bad sign when the dispatcher laughed when I asked for one.”

“There’s no way we can chance a shot with those kids in there.”

“So what do we do?”

“Look! The side door of the van’s opening.”

They watched as an arm appeared and the baby was set on the ground still in its car seat. Next the two older boys were likewise deposited on the ground.

“I don’t get this,” the cop in the passenger seat said.

“If she makes one move to run them over, you take out her tires and I’ll try for a head shot through the windshield,” the other replied.

The men climbed out of their cruiser; one had his pistol out, the other held a pump shotgun.

However, Djamila had no intention of hurting the children. She glanced at them each in turn as she settled back in the driver’s seat. She even waved to the oldest boy.

“Bye-bye, Timmy,” she said through the window. “Bye-bye, you naughty little boy.”

“Nana,” was all the tearful boy said back as he waved his hand at her.

As much as Djamila had disliked Lori Franklin, she was relieved she hadn’t had to kill the woman. Children needed their mothers. Yes, children needed their mothers.

She took a moment to write something down on a piece of paper that she pulled from her purse. She folded it carefully and then gripped it in her hand.

She put the van in gear, started rolling forward and pulled back onto the road.

Another police cruiser had joined the hunt now. Djamila headed toward the two policemen who were standing outside their cruiser.

“Stop the car!” one of them said over his portable PA.

Djamila didn’t stop. She accelerated.

“Stop the car now or we’ll open fire!” Both officers aimed their weapons. One cruiser closed in on the rear of the van while the other cruiser broke off and got the boys safely in their car.

“Shoot the tires out,” one of the cops said as Djamila bore down on them.

They both fired and took out the front tires. Still, Djamila kept coming. She gunned the motor, and the van hobbled along at a fair clip on the shredded wheels.

“Stop the van!” the cop yelled again through his PA.

The cops behind the van shot out Djamila’s rear tires, and still she rolled on. The van was weaving and lurching but was still headed directly for the two policemen.

“She’s crazy!” one of the cops cried out. “She’s gonna run us down.”

“Stop the car! Now!” the cop shouted again. “Or we will open fire on you!”

Inside the van, Djamila didn’t even hear him. She was chanting over and over in Arabic, “I bear witness that there is no God but God.” For an instant, as she hurtled forward, her thoughts careened to a young man named Ahmed who didn’t know her, despite having captured her heart. Ahmed, her poet, who was dead, and surely now in paradise.

Djamila thought of the Prophet Muhammad climbing the miraj, or ladder, that fateful night, until he reached the Farthest Mosque, the hallowed “seventh heaven.” It was the promised paradise and it would be so beautiful. Far better than anything here on earth.

She pushed the gas pedal to the floor, and the crippled van shot forward.

The shotgun and pistol roared together. The van’s windshield exploded inward.

The vehicle immediately weaved off the road onto the grass and hit a tree.

The van’s horn started blaring. The cops rushed over to it and cautiously opened the driver’s door. Djamila’s bloodied head was resting against the steering wheel, her eyes open but no longer seeing. As the officers stepped back, a piece of paper floated out of the van. One of them stooped and picked it up.

“What’s it say?” the other asked. “Suicide note?”

He looked at it, shrugged and handed it to his colleague. “I don’t read Chinese.”

It was actually Arabic. Djamila had written something down.

It was the date and exact time of her death.

CHAPTER

57

CARTER GRAY SAID NOTHING IN the chopper ride back to Washington. Hemingway didn’t attempt to break into the man’s thoughts; he had quite enough of his own.

They landed at NIC, and Gray climbed out of the chopper.

“Do you want to go home, sir?” Hemingway asked.

Gray looked at him incredulously. “The president is missing. I have work to do.”

He walked into NIC headquarters as the chopper lifted off again. Hemingway spoke into his headset to the pilot.

Tyler Reinke confirmed this command and they headed west.

Hemingway glanced down at the floor of the chopper. In the cargo hold a foot under him, President James Brennan was sleeping peacefully.

Within a few hours even the most remote parts of the world knew at least some of the details of what had happened in the small town of Brennan, Pennsylvania.

The Secret Service had immediately implemented its continuity of government plan, securing all persons in the chain of command down to the secretary of state. The vice president, Ben Hamilton, had assumed the duties of the chief executive in accordance with the Twenty-fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, the first time it had been invoked in response to a kidnapped president.

And the newly installed acting president was not a happy man.

Hamilton had verbally eviscerated the director of the Secret Service. Next he’d summoned the heads of every intelligence agency to the White House and took them to task for having been so totally oblivious to an operation that had clearly taken enormous planning and manpower. It was well known that the VP had presidential aspirations. He obviously thought that, aside from the damage the kidnapping had caused the country, it was probably not beneficial to him to assume the top spot in this way.

Then he ordered Carter Gray to come to the Oval Office that night.

By all accounts, Gray handled the tirade thrown his way in stride. When Hamilton finished, Gray calmly asked him if he could now go about the business of finding the president and returning him safely. His new boss’s response, according to the sources who’d heard it through the very thick walls, was not printable in any newspaper.

At Kate’s invitation Adelphia and the Camel Club reconvened back at her carriage house on their return from Brennan. Adelphia still carried a horrified look. Kate gave her some water and a cold cloth, but the woman just sat there staring down at her hands and slowly shak

ing her head.

Kate said, “Alex is okay, but I haven’t been able to see him, only talk to him on the phone for a few minutes.”

“I’m sure he’s being debriefed,” Reuben replied. “He was right in the middle of it all. He might’ve seen something that could help.”

“What did we all see that might be useful?” Stone asked.

“A lot of shooting, people dying and cars on fire,” Caleb listed.

“And the president being carried away,” Milton added.

“But there was something wrong with him before that,” Caleb said. “I saw it on the big TV. He was clutching his chest.”

“Heart attack?” Reuben suggested.