He hadn't gotten far when he heard his wife, Aziza, scream, and he realized what a terrible mistake he'd made. “Ghedi! Ghedi!” He turned as the wild boys carried, then threw, Aziza into the waiting van. And then-his children! They were taking the children, too! All four of them were hustled into the van.

    Ghedi reversed direction quickly, and now he was screaming, more loudly than anyone in the crowd, even more than Aziza.

    A courageous man from the congregation took a swing at one of the kidnappers. The boy yelled, “Dog!” and shot the man in the face. Then he fired again, where the man lay spread-eagled and already dying on the sidewalk.

    Another bullet took down an elderly woman just as Ghedi pushed past her.

    The next shot found his leg, and running became falling. Then two of the boys snatched him up off the ground and threw him into the van with his family.

    “The children! Not our children!” sobbed Aziza.

    “Where are you taking us?” Ghedi screamed at the kidnappers. “Where?”

    “To Allah,” came the answer from the driver, the Tiger himself.

Cross Country

Chapter 12

    THE MYSTERY WAS deepening and getting worse each day, but much of Washington didn't seem to care, probably because this one happened in Southeast, and only black people were killed.

    Lorton Landfill is the final destination for much of Washington's garbage. It is two hundred and fifty acres of foul and disgusting refuse, so we were fortunate the bodies had been found at all. I drove the Mercedes in through valleys of trash that rose thirty feet high on either side. I continued on to where the response team was parked around an orange-and-white DC sanitation truck. The gauze masks they'd provided Bree and me at the gate didn't do much against the nauseating smell.