Shaheed shifted in the seat again and tried to find a more comfortable position for the cast running from his left wrist to almost the top of his shoulder. The C-4 explosive Ahmed had caked on his arm to mold the cast was heavier than he thought it would be. The lady in the blue business suit slowly lowered the Wall Street Journal she hid behind and stared at him.
       "I'm sorry," he said trying to disguise his Arabic accent. This damned thing is such a nuisance."
       "How did it happen?" she asked.
       Shaheed's mind processed the question and delivered a safe answer. "Skiing," sounded to him like a typical American event that would cause such an injury.
       The woman lowered the paper to her lap, now eager to start a conversation with the handsome young man with dark black hair and olive complexion. If she recognized his Middle Eastern descent, it didn't seem to bother her. "Where do you go?"
       "Uh, out west," Shaheed responded wishing he had picked some other injury that wouldn't have tested his knowledge of the geography of a country he had lived in for only a year.
       "Colorado?" she persisted.
       Beads of sweat formed on Shaheed's forehead and he again shifted in his seat. He needed to be making his peace with Allah, and he had no time for this idle chatter. He looked down at the black plastic watch strapped to his right wrist. There was only about five minutes left before Ahmed would be dialing the number on a cell phone that would activate the microprocessor embedded in the cast Shaheed wore.
       "I'm sorry, but I have a major presentation to make this morning, and I really do need to prepare myself mentally," Shaheed said as politely as possible.
       The woman made a funny sound with her throat and hid behind the paper again. Shaheed closed his eyes and let his mind wander back to his homeland. He flinched as the face of his mother and father captured his thoughts. His father walked across the tiny room toward the front door to their apartment and eased the front door open. Smoke from the latest Israeli missile that had exploded too close for comfort drifted into the room.
       "Can you tell where it hit," his mother asked as she moved cautiously to her husband's side.
       Just as she reached the door and leaned toward the opening, a massive explosion shook the apartment. Shaheed watched in horror as his mother and father were hurled across the room. He closed his eyes and wrapped his arms around his body as the stench of burning flesh and wood filled the room.
       Shaheed was accustomed to the smell of death and destruction, but it had never been from someone as close as his parents. He let his eyelids slowly rise and prayed silently to Allah that the two bodies lying on the floor in front of him would get up and tell him everything was alright. They did not move.
       "Mama," he murmured. Silence. "Papa." Still silence.
       He stared at the cloud of dark smoke slowly being sucked out of the apartment and back out into the street, now completely visible on the other side of the pile of rubble that had only moments ago been the front wall of the apartment Shaheed knew as home. An uncontrollable tremor ran through his twelve year old body as he stared into the morning sunlight. He fought against the overwhelming urge to rush to his parents and shake them until they woke up and told him what he must do now. But even at such a young age, he was well aware it would do no good. His parents had joined those of so many of his friends sent to Allah by the Israelis.
       Shaheed had listened on many occasions as his mother and father discussed their hopeless plight in the small village of Shatila. He tried to understand why his family had been forced to live in a country that didn't really want them instead of the one in which he had been born. It made no sense. He couldn't understand why the Zionists hated the Palestinians so much, and his parents never seemed to be able to explain it to him no matter how often he asked. All he knew was he was now alone in the country called Lebanon, and he was afraid. He was afraid of what would happen to him if the Israeli invaders found him alive. Would they kill him or would they torture him as his friends had warned him had happened to others captured by the enemy? He tried to think what to do now that he was alone. Should he leave his home and go to a friend's? Should he wait to see if someone would come to his rescue? Fear and frustration overcame him, and he began to cry.
       Another explosion rocked the building, and he pushed his body up against the wall as tight as he could. He winced as the pain shot through his left arm, and he saw blood dripping from his hand onto the floor. He tried to lift his arm to examine his wound, but it seemed to weigh a ton. He blinked his eyes and stared at the dull white material that covered his arm. Then, he realized he was sitting in the center of the commuter bus heading toward downtown Washington D.C. and not cowering in the bomb racked apartment in Lebanon. Shaheed glanced down at the watch and sighed as he realized he had less than a minute to live.
       "Praise Allah," he said under his breath as he prepared himself for the glory that would soon be his. The woman beside him was still hidden behind the paper reading about the companies that built the airplanes, and tanks, and weapons that killed his people. Soon justice would be his. Soon he would make a small repayment on the debt that had been created when he was only twelve. Soon the Americans would pay for their support of the enemy who had killed his parents and over 3,000 other Palestinians in Shatila Lebanon just a month before his thirteenth birthday.
       Shaheed wondered what his friends on the other buses were thinking about right now. Were they remembering their losses as well, or were they just preparing themselves for the glory that would soon be theirs when they went home to Allah. His thoughts turned to the reporters who in only a few minutes would be staring into the television cameras with fear in their eyes. He could hear their shaky voices as they described the deaths in so many American cities. He could hear the shrill cry of the sirens as police and firemen fought their way through the rush hour traffic to try and clear the wreckage of the demolished buses and cars that now brought these American cities to a standstill. He smiled at the thought that once again those who cared so little about the deaths of his people would now weep and shake with fear at the deaths of so many of their own.
       Then, he felt more than heard the faint clicking sound inside the cast on his arm, and he was reunited with his mama and papa. A massive amount of gas and heat filled the bus like helium being pumped into a red carnival balloon. When the metal and glass that was the bus could no longer withstand the pressure it disintegrated into thousands of shards of flying weapons hurled against the sides and through the windows of cars creeping across the 14th Street bridge into Washington, D.C. Screams of pain and fear filled the air as commuters died or were wounded.
       In a small apartment not much larger than the one in which the lives of Shaheed's parents were taken, Ahmed Qasem tapped in ten new numbers on the face of his cell phone. He smiled as he pushed the small green button that sent the signal to the microchip embedded in the cast of the passenger on the commuter bus just making its way across the Wilson bridge over the Potomac river snaking its way into Georgetown. He waited no more than thirty seconds before sending the cell phone signal to the cast of the passenger aboard the commuter bus just crossing the Memorial Bridge into Washington. Another thirty seconds passed, and Ahmed punched in the numbers and pushed the send button to detonate the C-4 cast aboard the bus creeping along the four-lane street of the crowded downtown area of Atlanta, Georgia. If he was lucky, the bus should just be passing the CNN building.
       He sat back in the chair and relaxed for a few moments before lifting his wrist and watching the small second hand making its way toward the bold black 12 on his watch. As the hand passed the 12, he punched in the numbers to the microchip aboard the bus rolling through Hollywood California. He wondered if any of the Hollywood devils so fond of making their movies about murderous Arabs were close enough to the road to have their careers ended. If Allah were willing, it would be so. The next signal Ahmed sent would serve as a reminder to New Yorkers how vulnerable they were and how nothing their government did would protect them from those they had chosen to make their enemies. In less than fifteen minutes, Ahmed would dial sixteen numbers, and America would once again feel the pain that the Palestinians had felt for so many years now. Ahmed sent the last signal on its way and thanked Allah for allowing him to perform his Jihad. He quickly packed his things and made his way down to the streets below, now filled with the frightened faces of Americans who were becoming aware that Allah had again visited their country to teach them a lesson for the war they had begun against Islam.