The Twelfth Imam Read Online Free

I’ll run over someone. Is that what you want?”
    A young woman—no more than seventeen or eighteen—was pouring something all over their car.
    “Of course not,” Claire said. “I’m just saying . . .”
    Charlie smelled gasoline. He knew what was coming next.
    At that moment, Claire cried out, doubled over, and grabbed her abdomen.
    “Honey, what is it?” Charlie asked.
    Claire didn’t look up. She was screaming in pain.
    Just then one of the students took a steel pipe and smashed the passenger-side window. Glass flew everywhere. Blood streaked down Claire’s face. Then the student grabbed her and tried to pull her out of the car. Claire, tangled in her seat belt, screamed louder.
    Charlie was screaming too. He grabbed Claire’s arm, the one closest to him, and tried to pull her back into the car. But then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw the young woman who had poured the gasoline light a match and toss it onto the now-soaked hood. Suddenly the car was engulfed in flames.
    The heat was unbearable. Charlie feared the Buick’s full tank could explode at any moment. Seeing his briefcase on the floor by Claire’s feet, he reached for it, ripped it open, and pulled out the pistol.
    He saw another student heave a brick through their back window. More flying glass filled the car.
    Charlie pivoted, took aim, and fired at the attacker, dropping him with a single shot. Then he turned back to the student mauling his wife and double-tapped him to the head.
    Three shots in three seconds—the crowd began to scatter. But the gasoline-fed flames had now reached the rear of the Skylark and were already consuming the backseat. Charlie knew he was out of time. He threw open the driver’s-side door, jumped out, moved quickly to the passenger side, and pulled his wife’s limp body out of the flames and laid her down on the sidewalk as far from the burning car as he could. She was covered in blood. It wasn’t just the cuts to her face. Something else was terribly wrong.

4
    Charlie feared the worst.
    He crouched beside the woman he loved, the woman who had swept him off his feet the moment they’d first met at a Harvard Crimson football game. She wasn’t moving.
    Charlie’s eyes blurred as he carefully rolled her onto her back, wiped blood from her mouth, and pushed strands of her brown hair from her eyes. His hands trembled as he held his breath and checked her pulse. Finding one startled him and gave him a shot of adrenaline. She wasn’t dead. He scanned the suddenly deserted street. He could still see a huge crowd of students demonstrating on the campus. But that was a ways off. Everyone in the immediate vicinity was gone—except the bodies of the two he had shot. The gunfire had scared everyone away.
    Then he saw the VW bus. It was still running.
    He scooped his wife up in his arms, carried her to the VW, and set her carefully on the floor in the back. Then he jumped into the driver’s seat, locked the doors, slammed the vehicle into reverse, and gunned the engine just as the Skylark exploded into the sky.
    Charlie knew fire trucks and ambulances would be there soon. So would the police.
    Still driving backward, he got a safe-enough distance away from the raging wreckage of their Buick, then carefully slowed to a stop, did a three-point turn, jammed the VW into second gear, and sped away from the scene of the crime. He was now convinced that Claire was having a miscarriage. He needed a hospital and knew he was just blocks away from Sayeed-ash-Shohala hospital, one of the city’s best. But he couldn’t possibly take her there now. No hospital or medical clinic was safe. He couldn’t run the risk of being exposed and captured by forces loyal to Khomeini. Especially now that he’d just gunned down two student radicals. They’d hang him or put him in front of a firing squad, either of which would be merciful compared to what they’d do to his wife.
    Panicked and helpless, Charlie drove aimlessly through the