Jack_ Secret Vengeance - F. Paul Wilson [1]
“Yeah. What they’re calling a ‘suicide bombing.’ Same thing happened to a French barracks a few miles away. They think the dead count is going to reach three hundred.”
Jack was aghast.
“Are they crazy? I mean, blowing themselves up?”
“Well, the kamikaze pilots during World War Two went on suicide missions, but that was in battle, during a war. These kids were all part of a peacekeeping force.”
“But … why?” He couldn’t fathom anyone doing this.
“Who knows? Some reporter said it was like Pearl Harbor—a sneak attack at dawn on a Sunday morning. But the Japs had the decency to declare war first. And they had a country and an army and a navy we could strike back at. Some group called Islamic Jihad is taking credit for this. Who the hell are they? No one seems to know a thing about them, except they also claimed credit for that U.S. Embassy bomb back in April.”
Jack had heard about that but had been only peripherally aware of it. This seemed different, and was so much worse. He could tell from his father’s expression and tone that he was steamed.
He remembered the Iran hostage crisis of a few years ago, now these suicide bombings. What was going on in the Middle East? Had they all gone insane?
Mom coaxed Dad away from the tube with a promise of sausage and eggs. An almost funereal breakfast followed, the silence broken only by Mom’s futile attempts at conversation and Dad’s muttered remarks about the “inexcusable lack of security” at the barracks.
Jack couldn’t remember ever seeing his father like this. He was a Korean War vet who never had anything good to say about the army. He’d always made it very clear that he didn’t want either of his sons anywhere near the armed services. But he seemed deeply shaken by the deaths of so many U.S. soldiers. Maybe he made a distinction between servicemen and the armed services. Maybe some automatic brotherhood sprouted between guys who had been to war. Like at the local VFW post.
After breakfast he went right back to the TV, and Jack headed for his bike.
2
He beat her to the Old Town bridge, a narrow, one-lane wooden span over Quaker Lake, which wasn’t really a lake, just a good-size pond. It finally had returned to its normal level after all the rains last month.
He sat on his BMX and wiped an arm across his sweaty forehead. A hot day, despite the clouds, and despite it being late October. The 1983 Farmer’s Almanac had predicted a cool fall for the area. In Jack’s experience that meant keep the swimming trunks handy.
He looked around at the place where he’d spent all his fourteen years: Johnson, New Jersey, a small town in Burlington County. It began on the west side of Route 206 and ended where it abutted the western edge of the Jersey Pine Barrens. Nobody knew exactly when the town was settled, but it had changed its name from Quakertown to Johnson after President Andrew Johnson spent the night here sometime in the 1860s.
He saw Weezy round the corner off North Franklin and roll his way along Quakerton Road on her banana-seat Schwinn. Louise “Weezy” Connell was probably the best of the few friends Jack had, but he hadn’t seen much of her in the weeks since the Cody Bockman fiasco. Though only four months older—she’d just turned fifteen, while he’d have to wait till January—she was a full year ahead of him in school. He was a lowly frosh, while she was an experienced sophomore.
She wore—surprise!—black jeans, a black T-shirt, and black sneakers. Her dark, shoulder-length hair was pulled into a ponytail that swung back and forth as she pedaled.
When she got close enough for him to see her face, he knew something was wrong. First off, no eyeliner—the only makeup she ever wore. This was the first time in the past year he could remember seeing her without it. Her expression was strange.
“You okay?” he said when she reached him.
“No.” She rolled past onto the bridge. “Talk to you in the woods.”
He followed her into Old Town, the original settlement, which Weezy said was much, much older than anyone thought, part of what she called