“I saw it fly by when we headed in a half hour ago. It’s still there. Farther out, but still. Could they have us?”

“Are you sure?” said Juba.

“Yes.”

“Go out, look about,” said Juba.

The boy sauntered out, pretending nonchalance, headed back.

“Okay,” he said. “I see the white roofs of police cars at major intersections. As if they’re . . . waiting for a signal.”

“How will they come?”

“God, I don’t know. Go to the car first, then sweep the mall.”

From far off, five squad cars punched out in a squeal and roar as they raced into the lot and blazed toward the sector where the Impala was parked, led by what looked like an Abrams tank but was some kind of black SWAT thing, moving too fast for its treads but clearly a war machine. All over the perimeter, gumballs lit up as officers moved to restrict access at intersections. The helicopter roared inbound.

“Okay,” said Juba, slipping his hand into the package he carried. “Little boy, you run away. When this is over, you surrender. You are no longer jihadi, you are kidnap victim.”

Jared was struck by this sudden mercy. The man had human graces after all and didn’t require of Jared his pointless death. But he knew it wouldn’t work.

“Not with my size tens on Oprah’s face. Come on, we can still make it out.”

He pulled the larger man to him, back to the main corridor, where they veered toward the Walmart at the end of the mall, while Jared said, “Call your friends, tell them we’ll be at the south end, down where the shopping carts are. The mall is hot, it’s about to be cop city.”

“No. I stay and fight. I take as many infidels—”

Jared saw his man walking down the corridor, methodically blowing up housewives and baby buggies and old guys with walkers until the State cops hosed him down with full auto. He’d have two hundred bullets in him.

“You don’t have to die today. Call them!”

As they moved, Juba dialed the number and spoke rapidly to the responder.

They reached the maw of the big store and plunged into Walmart, skidded past people loading up for the next seven months, past the Chinese menswear and the Filipino furniture and the Japanese electronics and the Brazilian shoes, turned hard, past many shoppers, skipped sideways and through the lines at the cash registers in front, hit the exit.

But instead of bulling his way directly out, Juba sidled up to a woman pushing a large shopping cart and said, in English, “I help,” and smiling, showed a crown of white teeth. It was there that Jared noticed something for the first time: Juba was a strikingly handsome man, square of face, strong of jaw, and regular of feature, and, with the baseball cap off, his shock of thick dark hair turned him almost debonaire.