The Lion

There are different degrees of mental impairment, as I knew, and I had to prepare myself for anything from mild impairment to… whatever.

Another half hour passed, a few nurses came by, and one of them brought me a cup of coffee. I asked for a pen and pad so I could make some notes.

I used the time to recall, in detail, the events of three years ago, and try to apply that unhappy learning experience to what lay ahead. I wished that Kate was helping me with this, and I was sure she had some ideas that we could toss around.

I was about to get up and take a walk in the corridor, but I thought I saw her move.

I stood near her bed and watched her closely. She moved her head, then I saw her right arm move. I was going to press the call button, but I decided to wait.

Every few seconds, she moved an arm or a leg, and her head rolled from side to side.

I leaned closer to her and touched her arm. "Kate?"

She opened her eyes, but kept staring up at the ceiling.

"Kate?"

She turned her head toward me and we made eye contact.

"Kate. Can you hear me?"

She didn't show any sign of recognition.

The breathing tube kept her from speaking, so I took her hand in mine and said, "Squeeze my hand if you can hear me."

After a few seconds, she squeezed my hand. I smiled at her and asked, "Do you know who I am?"

She stared at me, then nodded tentatively.

I said to her, "Squeeze my hand if you know why you're here and what happened to you."

She pulled her hand away from mine.

"Kate? Nod if you know why you're here."

She raised her right arm and made a shaky movement with her hand that looked like a tremor or the begi

I grabbed the pen and pad from the nightstand and put the pen in her right hand and the pad in her left hand.

She held them both above her face and wrote something, then turned the pad toward me. It said, Why are you asking me these stupid questions?

I felt my eyes get moist and I bent over and kissed her cheek.

PART IV

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Asad Khalil looked across the aisle at the west-facing window of his chartered Citation jet as it began its descent into Long Island's Republic Airport. In the distance, about sixty kilometers away, he could see the skyline of Manhattan Island. He checked his watch. The flight from Sullivan County Airport had taken twenty-six minutes.

From his window on the port side of the aircraft he could see a vast cemetery with thousands of white crosses and headstones standing in rows across the green fields. In Libya, the dead did not need such fertile land because the Koran promised that their souls would ascend to a Paradise of flowing streams and fruit trees.

His two brothers, two sisters, and his mother, all of whom had died in the American bombing raid, had been buried in simple graves at the edge of the desert, beside his father who had been killed five years earlier by the Zionists. They were surely all in Paradise now, because each of them had been martyred by the infidels. And he, Asad Khalil, had been given a special status by the Great Leader, Colonel Khadafi, as the sole survivor of a martyred family. And with this status came a great responsibility: revenge.

The copilot's voice came over the speaker. "We'll be landing in two minutes, Mr. Demetrios. Please make sure your seat belt is fastened and your seat is in the upright position."

As the aircraft made its final approach, Asad Khalil reflected briefly on his interesting parachute jump. He had two thoughts: one was that he could not be absolutely certain that he had killed the woman; his second thought was that he should have taken the opportunity to shoot the man named Corey.

As for the woman-Corey's wife-she had struck his hand, and he had not been able to complete the cut across her throat. He was not accustomed to women who used physical force against a man, and though he knew this was possible, it had nevertheless taken him by surprise. Still, he had severed her artery, and she undoubtedly bled to death before she hit the ground.

As for Corey, the plan had always been to leave him until the end. Khalil wanted to prolong the man's suffering for his dead wife and to engage him in a game of wits that would end when he, Khalil, delivered to Corey a mutilation of the face and genitals that would be worse than death. And yet… something told him he should have changed his plans right there and shot this man as he hung from his parachute-using his wife's pistol.

The Citation touched the runway and the aircraft began to decelerate.

The copilot, whose name Khalil recalled as Jerry, a

Why, wondered Khalil, did the pilots always welcome him to a place that had no meaning to them, or to him? They had done the same thing when he had begun his journey from Santa Barbara in California, to the refueling stops in Pueblo, Colorado, and Huntington, West Virginia. And finally, when he had landed at the Sullivan County Airport, he was again welcomed by the copilot, who also said to him, "I hope you have a successful business meeting."

To which Khalil, the Greek businessman, had replied, "I am sure I will."

The Citation taxied toward one of the hangars in the small private airport.

Khalil looked out the window, trying to determine if somehow the authorities had discovered his means of transportation and his destination. When he had landed at Sullivan County Airport on Saturday evening, Khalil told the pilots that he would be flying to Buffalo on Sunday, so he was certain they had filed a flight plan for that city. But when he returned from his business of killing Corey's wife, he a

The pilots had informed their passenger that no flight plan needed to be filed because it was a clear day, and because they would avoid the New York City restricted airspace zone, and they would also stay below the altitude where a flight plan would be necessary. VFR-visual flight rules-they explained.

Khalil knew all of this, but nodded attentively, and within fifteen minutes they were airborne. Ten minutes into the flight, he made a pretense of using the airphone, then a

So, Khalil thought, the pilots had no time to speak to anyone on the ground at Sullivan County Airport, and there was no paperwork filed as to their new destination. This lack of official involvement in private flights had amazed Khalil the first time he was here three years ago. Even more amazing, he thought, was that a year and a half after the martyrdom of his fellow jihadists on September 11, it was still possible to fly around this country in private aircraft and leave little or no evidence of the journey, or of the passenger on board. All that was required was a credit or debit card that ensured the payment to the charter company.

The only way the authorities could know he was on this aircraft would be if the police guessed that he had arrived at Sullivan County Airport with a chartered aircraft, and departed in the same ma