Read Any Means Necessary: A Luke Stone Thriller (Book 1) for Free Online

be wheezing. His eyes were bloodshot.
    Eldrick glanced at their surroundings. Ezatullah’s physical state had given him an idea. The idea flashed in his mind like lightning, here and gone in an instant. It was the safest way to think. People could read thoughts in your eyes.
    “Where are we?” he said.
    “Baltimore,” Ezatullah said. “Another of your great American cities. And a pleasant place to live, I imagine. Low crime, natural beauty, and the citizens are all healthy and wealthy, the envy of people everywhere.”
    In the night, Eldrick had been delirious. He had passed out more than once. He had lost track of time, and of where they were. But he had no idea they had come this far.
    “Baltimore? Why are we here?”
    Ezatullah shrugged. “We are on our way to our new destination.”
    “The target is here?”
    Now Ezatullah smiled. The smile seemed out of place on his radiation-poisoned face. He looked like death itself. He reached out with a trembling hand and gave Eldrick a friendly pat on the shoulder.
    “I’m sorry I was angry with you, my brother. You’ve done a good job. You delivered everything you promised. If Allah wills it, I hope you are in paradise this very day. But not by my hand.”
    Eldrick just stared at him.
    Ezatullah shook his head. “No. Not Baltimore. We are traveling south to strike a blow that will give joy to the suffering masses throughout the world. We are going to enter the lair of the Devil himself and cut off the beast’s head with our own hands.”
    Eldrick felt a chill all over his upper body. His arms broke out in goose bumps. He noticed that his own shirt was soaked in sweat. He didn’t like the sound of this. If they were headed south and they were in Baltimore, then the next city was…
    “Washington,” he said.
    “Yes.”
    Ezatullah smiled again. Now the smile was glorious, that of a saint standing at the gates of heaven, ready to be granted entrance.
    “Kill the head and the body will die.”
    Eldrick could see it in Ezatullah’s eyes. The man had lost his mind. Maybe it was the sickness, or maybe it was something else, but it was obvious he wasn’t thinking clearly. All along, the plan had been to steal the materials and drop off the van in the South Bronx. It was a dangerous job, very difficult to pull off, and they had done it. But whoever was in charge had changed the plan, or had lied about it since the beginning. Now they were traveling to Washington in a radioactive van.
    To do what?
    Ezatullah was a seasoned jihadi. He must know that what he was hinting was impossible. Whatever he thought they were going to do, Eldrick knew they weren’t even going to come close. He pictured the van, riddled with bullet holes, three hundred yards from the White House or Pentagon or Capitol Building fence.
    This wasn’t a suicide mission. It wasn’t a mission at all. It was a political statement.
    “Don’t worry,” Ezatullah said. “Be happy. You’ve been chosen for the greatest honor. We will make it, even though you cannot imagine how. The method will become clear to you in time.” He turned and slid open the side door of the van.
    Eldrick glanced at Momo. He was finishing up the rear license plate. Momo hadn’t spoken in a while. He probably wasn’t feeling too well himself.
    Eldrick took a step backwards. Then he took another. Ezatullah busied himself with something inside the van. His back was turned. The funny thing about this moment was another one like it might never come. Eldrick was just standing there in a vast open lot, and no one was looking at him.
    Eldrick had run track in high school. He was good at it. He remembered the crowds inside the 168th Street Armory in Manhattan, the standings on the big board, the buzzer going off. He remembered that knotted up feeling in his stomach right before a race, and the crazy speed on the new track, skinny black gazelles jockeying, pushing off, elbows high, moving so fast that it seemed like a dream.
    In all the