Dead on Arrival Read Free

fertilizer were obviously of Middle Eastern ancestry, too young to be likely principals in any business and visibly nervous during the pur chase. He was on the phone to the FBI before the young men and their truck had exited his parking lot.
    But instead of answering Omar’s question, Clark asked one of his own. ‘Why did you and Bashar decide to become martyrs? I mean, do you guys really believe all that virgins-in-paradise bullshit?’
    ‘Martyrs?’ Omar said. ‘We weren’t going to be martyrs.’
    Then Omar explained. Their plan had been to drive the truck and another car – the car Muhammad had escaped in – into the tunnel, punch out the tires on the truck so it couldn’t be easily moved, and flee the scene in the second vehicle. They would have been miles away when the bomb exploded.
    That’s when Clark unveiled the part of Muhammad’s plan that Omar obviously didn’t know.
    ‘Omar,’ he said, ‘your pal Muhammad had set the timer to deto nate the bomb two seconds after you armed it.’
    Senator William Davis Broderick, Republican, the junior senator from Virginia, waited impatiently for his turn to speak.
    In the two weeks since those Muslim boys had tried to explode a bomb in the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel, Broderick had listened to his colleagues say all the usual and expected things. Some senators grumbled that controls for bomb-making materials like ammonium nitrate were still lacking. Yada yada yada, Broderick said to himself.
    Others complained that our borders were still too porous, that ter rorists could obviously enter and leave the country at will. Shake-ups at Homeland Security were coming, they promised. Hearings would soon be held, they warned.
    Yeah, like that was gonna help.
    But what Broderick really liked was that the senator currently speak ing had just given him the perfect lead-in to his speech. Patty Moran, the senior senator from Oregon, had just said that the federal gov ernment was continuing to underfund those poor cops and medics who would be first on the scene the next time al-Qaeda attacked. And then she said the magic words. She said them as if she’d been given an advance copy of Broderick’s speech. She said, ‘We must adequately fund our first responders, senators, because, as we all know, it’s not a matter of if there will be another attack, it’s only a matter of when.’
    Oh, Patty, if you weren’t a Democrat I’d kiss you .
    Finally, Broderick was at the podium. He went through the obliga tory will-the-senator-yield litany and then took his speech from the inside pocket of his suit, knowing he would never look at it. He had this one nailed.
    ‘My friends,’ he said, ‘we just heard the good gentlewoman from the great state of Oregon say what we’ve all heard so many times before. In fact, I’ve heard it said so many times I’m sick of it. She said that another terrorist attack is not a matter of if but when . Well, ladies and gentlemen, I’m here to tell you it’s only a matter of if – if nothing changes.’
    Broderick’s aide, Nick Fine, had written the speech, and Broderick had to admit the man had done a good job. He knew Nick didn’t like him – hell, the man hated him – but when writing this particu lar speech ol’ Nick had really put his heart into it.
    ‘Senators,’ Broderick said, ‘I’m here today to propose changes, real changes, changes that will make this great country safer. It’s time to stop being po litically correct. It’s time to stop being afraid to speak the truth because someone will be offended. It is instead time for somebody in this body, this body chosen to represent and protect the people, to stand up and say what needs to be said. And I’m gonna say it.
    ‘The first thing I propose to change is that we quit calling this a war on terrorism. We’re not at war with terrorists. We’re at war with Muslim terrorists. It’s time to quit making redheaded schoolchildren and their grandmothers take off their shoes at