Perspectives, An Intriguing Tale of an American Born Terrorist Read Free Page A

a few seconds and returned with a new bag with a different mixture of narcotics. Jonathan struggled to remember more, but his head felt consumed with pain and ready to explode like a volcano getting ready to spew molten lava.
    She could see in his eyes that he was confused. “There was a horrible explosion at your building and you were hurt; they airlifted you and Carly here.”
    He was stunned by the word Carly.
    “Is she okay?”
    Mary nodded. “She’s fine, you saved her, you know. They found her wrapped in your arms without even a scratch, no broken bones. It took 3 of them to get you to let go of her. It’s a miracle that someone can hold another person so tight that it took 3 firefighters to pry her free and yet there wasn’t a bruise on her. How did you do that? It was like you squeezed an egg with all your might and didn’t break the shell.”
    “I don’t know, maybe she’s tougher than you think. Can I see her?”
    “She’s with my sister.”
    “What about Matthew?”
    She stopped, remembering the doctor’s words, but he read it in her eyes. She saw that he recognized this and then shook her head no and started to cry, not able to say the words.
    He closed his eyes with the weight of her unspoken words. She put her head gently on his chest and they didn’t say anything for the next ten minutes, finding comfort only in each other’s presence. Finally Jonathan was the first to speak.
    “Did he suffer?”
    Mary shook her head no and then said, “I don’t think so.”
    Jonathan nodded telling her that she had said enough.
    “How long have I been here?” he whispered.
    “A little over two weeks, actually fifteen days.”
    “Please give me more details and tell me again what happened.”
    She looked at him with pain in her eyes, “The Federal building was attacked.”
    Jonathan was once again stunned and lay quiet. Finally his mind caught up with his grief, “How many people hurt?”
    “Almost 1500.”
    “Dead?”
    “All of them, except a handful. There were 700 hundred from the Federal Building killed and 400 still missing. 350 of the people were killed in the street all standing around, watching some accident.” She stopped and then looked at him with horrified eyes, “Five hundred children! They killed 100 children! What type of people target children! What kind of God Damn monsters kill helpless children! They killed our baby!”
    Jonathan closed his eyes to shield himself from the searing heat in her words, his memory flashed like frames in a 50 year old 16 millimeter black and white film between the poundings in his head; most of the details were lost in the snow and the fuzz. A clear segment of the film floated through his mind, “Of course. Children and Virginia, they’re an easy, unprotected target and then they get the added benefit of destroying the operation. They must have found out about our operation.” Mary’s eyes looked at him to see if he was babbling from his injury or speaking rationally. She lifted her head from his chest and sat upright in the chair and then her eyes turned ferocious. “What do you mean operation?”
    Jonathan didn’t have the mental fortitude to be clever. He stuttered, “I meant that federal offices are always targets for terrorists.”
    “But you said your operation. What were you doing there? Jonathan, tell me you’re not responsible for this? Oh Jesus Christ, tell me that you weren’t in there using our children as cover for some crazy operation of yours? We’ve been married all these years and I trusted you when you told me that you worked for the government and couldn’t talk about your job. But now, I have a need to know, so you can stop lying.”
    “Please don’t cry, Mary. Certainly you must have suspected I worked for the CIA?”
    “And why would I do that? Marriage is based on trust, Jonathan, and you told me you were a Procurement Officer. But now Matthew is dead, and your little make-believe world has become very real to me,