Born of War by Anderson Harp Read Free Book Online Page A

other hour.
    Omar was correct about the time. It would be an easy trail to follow. Everyone knew that Eddie was a friend of his. As soon as Eddie was identified as the bomber, Omar would be next on their suspect list.
    They will be knocking on my parents’ door tomorrow.
    He could see his father’s rage when the news hit. The first wave would be the coworkers turning up their radios when they heard of a bombing in Mobile. Then they would learn that the suspects were two young Muslims. The knock would only confirm what his father suspected.
    The mosque in Mobile was the first place where he had heard of the Islamic conference in Canada. Eddie had gone before him. But Omar had followed quickly after that.
    Then Omar had traveled to his father’s homeland of Syria for the first time when he was in ninth grade.
    â€œYou have not been to Syria.” He spoke to his wife as if he didn’t really know her.
    â€œNo.”
    â€œI have many cousins there. I joined my uncle for prayers. Five times a day!”
    She nodded her head. The wife only listened.
    â€œSyria changed me. I went back to Mobile and it was a different world.” Omar watched a Yukon truck pass. A young blond woman was behind the wheel. In the instant he saw her he was reminded of why he took this different path.
    â€œI hated Mobile after that. The drugs, television, the stupid people. They had no direction.”
    High school became miserable. And he fought it and everything school and his broken family stood for.
    â€œI wore Islamic dress to school.” He laughed. She smiled.
    â€œThey all laughed at me.” His tone changed again as he remembered how quickly his world had changed. “My teacher changed. Mrs. Hughes taught me to be liberal in thought, but when I confronted her with the teachings of Muhammad she became angry.”
    Another person in his world who had pushed him further away. His faith became his anchor.
    But Mrs. Hughes wasn’t the only problem.
    Omar looked out on the buildings of Toronto in the distance.
    He had lived there, on and off, for years. He reached behind his seat for the suit jacket and pulled the Air Canada ticket out of the front pocket.
    They had driven through the night stopping only for gas. “The flight leaves in just a few hours.”
    The flight was direct to Barcelona leaving at 1:00 P.M . It would stop in Montreal and then Zurich. It was intended to go on to Barcelona, but he would leave the airport in Switzerland and take a train across the border to Milan. From Milan, Omar had another plane ticket, which would take him on to Cairo. It was only in Cairo where he could wander into the crowd and feel safe.
    â€œThey probably are tracing Eddie’s trail to me by now.”
    Eddie and Omar used a patch of grass near the high school parking lot for their prayers. The one thing his father had done was go to the principal and insist that his Muslim son be allowed to do his daily prayers. It was the only thing his father had done on behalf of his son’s Islamic beliefs.
    â€œIf I hadn’t gone to Toronto I would be in medical school by now.” He was talking out loud to himself. “It was what my father wanted me to be. It was his dream. An American Muslim and a doctor but not a Muslim of the true faith. He wanted a Muslim for show.”
    Omar looked on his past like turning the pages on a family album.
    â€œHe will hear of the bomb and soon realize it was Eddie.” Omar was correct. A photograph taken from the church’s parking lot security camera had already been downloaded, enlarged, and cross-checked. It would not be a hard crime for the FBI to figure out.
    Faud had promised at least forty-eight hours before Al Shabaab would announce to the world that their soldier was responsible. A terrorist plot deep in the American South, masterminded by an American jihadist, would spin around the world’s news networks a million times. And with it, donations