berserk from shrapnel and blood loss and everything he’d seen. He crashed into Omar, smashing him onto the bar’s wooden floor. The AK came loose from Omar’s hand and bounced sideways, firing two shots into the ceiling before the trigger came loose. Omar frothed at the mouth, concussed and barely conscious.
Robby pushed himself to all fours and then his feet and looked over at what was left of Josephine the flight attendant. He very carefully put his boot on Omar’s neck, feeling the bones of Omar’s larynx under his heel. “We’re not all the same,” Josephine had said, and sure as death she’d been right. Omar mumbled something Robby didn’t understand and wrapped a weak hand around Robby’s ankle, and a woman yelled “Don’t,” and Robby smiled and put all his weight into his heel. Omar kicked against the floor and a terrible wet half-gasp slipped out of his mouth as he tried to breathe through the useless blocked straw of his crushed windpipe, until he finally gave up and died.
Then Robby found a chair and sat and wiped the spit off the side of his boot. Most of the televisions had been destroyed in the attack, but a couple still played, and Robby tilted his head to watch Man City and the Spurs until the cops finally showed. He knew he shouldn’t have killed the Arab, but he didn’t have the strength to care. He wondered vaguely if he’d go to jail.
But of course the world didn’t see it that way. He was a hero, Robby Duke. He’d saved at least twenty lives and killed a terrorist. In the days to come, the BBC and The Sun and everyone else would call him a hero. And as soon as the doctors let him out of the hospital, he said no to all the interview requests and the free trips to London and went straight back to work. Robby didn’t thank God for much anymore, but he was grateful to be able to work with kids who had no idea who he was or what he’d done.
YET EVEN WITH ROBBY’S last-minute valor, Omar and his team did terrible damage. The Bahraini police found the bar so covered in blood and brains that they asked the Fifth Fleet to send a hazardousmaterials response team to sterilize it. Forty-one people were killed that night, not counting the four attackers. Six more died over the next two weeks. And the attack on JJ’s wasn’t even the deadliest terrorist attack on the Arabian peninsula that night. In Riyadh, the Saudi capital, a car bomb tore off the front of the Hotel Al Khozama, killing forty-nine people. And just off Qatar, fifty miles east of Bahrain, a speedboat filled with explosives blew itself up beside a supertanker loaded with millions of barrels of Saudi crude. Fortunately, the attack failed to ignite the oil. But it killed four sailors, breached the tanker’s double hull, and spilled one hundred fifty thousand barrels of crude into the Gulf.
Even before the sun rose on Saudi Arabia the next morning, a claim of responsibility arrived at Al Jazeera and CNN from a previously unknown group—the Ansar al-Islam, the Army of Islam. The group’s spokesman wore a mask and gloves, and stood before a black flag painted with the Islamic creed .
“Our warriors protest the endless corruption of King Abdullah,” he said in Arabic. “He and his supporters live as infidels. They steal the treasure that Allah has given all Muslims. They desecrate the Holy Kaaba”—the cube-shaped building inside the Grand Mosque in Mecca that served as the center for Muslim prayer. “We reject them. And make no mistake. We will never stop fighting until we drive them from these sacred lands.”
CHAPTER 3
MONTEGO BAY
WELLS AND GAFFAN SPENT TWO DAYS TRAILING THE DEALER FROM Margaritaville. They didn’t know his name, so they were calling him Marley. He drove a black Audi A4 with tinted windows and a roof rack for surfboards. He lived in a gated community in the hills east of Montego, near the Ritz-Carlton and other four-hundred-dollar-a-night resorts. The development, called Paradise East, was still
Robby pushed himself to all fours and then his feet and looked over at what was left of Josephine the flight attendant. He very carefully put his boot on Omar’s neck, feeling the bones of Omar’s larynx under his heel. “We’re not all the same,” Josephine had said, and sure as death she’d been right. Omar mumbled something Robby didn’t understand and wrapped a weak hand around Robby’s ankle, and a woman yelled “Don’t,” and Robby smiled and put all his weight into his heel. Omar kicked against the floor and a terrible wet half-gasp slipped out of his mouth as he tried to breathe through the useless blocked straw of his crushed windpipe, until he finally gave up and died.
Then Robby found a chair and sat and wiped the spit off the side of his boot. Most of the televisions had been destroyed in the attack, but a couple still played, and Robby tilted his head to watch Man City and the Spurs until the cops finally showed. He knew he shouldn’t have killed the Arab, but he didn’t have the strength to care. He wondered vaguely if he’d go to jail.
But of course the world didn’t see it that way. He was a hero, Robby Duke. He’d saved at least twenty lives and killed a terrorist. In the days to come, the BBC and The Sun and everyone else would call him a hero. And as soon as the doctors let him out of the hospital, he said no to all the interview requests and the free trips to London and went straight back to work. Robby didn’t thank God for much anymore, but he was grateful to be able to work with kids who had no idea who he was or what he’d done.
YET EVEN WITH ROBBY’S last-minute valor, Omar and his team did terrible damage. The Bahraini police found the bar so covered in blood and brains that they asked the Fifth Fleet to send a hazardousmaterials response team to sterilize it. Forty-one people were killed that night, not counting the four attackers. Six more died over the next two weeks. And the attack on JJ’s wasn’t even the deadliest terrorist attack on the Arabian peninsula that night. In Riyadh, the Saudi capital, a car bomb tore off the front of the Hotel Al Khozama, killing forty-nine people. And just off Qatar, fifty miles east of Bahrain, a speedboat filled with explosives blew itself up beside a supertanker loaded with millions of barrels of Saudi crude. Fortunately, the attack failed to ignite the oil. But it killed four sailors, breached the tanker’s double hull, and spilled one hundred fifty thousand barrels of crude into the Gulf.
Even before the sun rose on Saudi Arabia the next morning, a claim of responsibility arrived at Al Jazeera and CNN from a previously unknown group—the Ansar al-Islam, the Army of Islam. The group’s spokesman wore a mask and gloves, and stood before a black flag painted with the Islamic creed .
“Our warriors protest the endless corruption of King Abdullah,” he said in Arabic. “He and his supporters live as infidels. They steal the treasure that Allah has given all Muslims. They desecrate the Holy Kaaba”—the cube-shaped building inside the Grand Mosque in Mecca that served as the center for Muslim prayer. “We reject them. And make no mistake. We will never stop fighting until we drive them from these sacred lands.”
CHAPTER 3
MONTEGO BAY
WELLS AND GAFFAN SPENT TWO DAYS TRAILING THE DEALER FROM Margaritaville. They didn’t know his name, so they were calling him Marley. He drove a black Audi A4 with tinted windows and a roof rack for surfboards. He lived in a gated community in the hills east of Montego, near the Ritz-Carlton and other four-hundred-dollar-a-night resorts. The development, called Paradise East, was still
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