Wrong Town: A Mark Landry Novel Read Online Free PDF

away at the man’s wife and children with his own knife.
    How much longer must I wait for the glory I have earned?
    “Two weeks,” the imam had said. “Two weeks of very special training for our most special martyrs. Then you will depart for the Dar al-Harb and fulfill your destinies.”
    Amir had bristled at the words. More training. More time.
    Be patient. God has chosen you.
    He had breezed through the training thus far and easily outperformed all the other chosen martyrs.
    “Now simulate the mission again, but this time only using your left hand,” the instructor had said to Amir with a smile as he pointed to the two-story structure on the other side of the fence.
    Child’s play.
    The former athlete vaulted over the fence, rapidly crossed the twenty yards or so between the fence and house, and scaled the corner bricks until he was high enough to disappear into a second-story window. This time the warrior playing the father of the family was awake, with a gun in one hand and a flashlight in the other.
    “Who is there? Get out of my house right now! The police are on the way,” he managed to say before having his throat slit from behind. Amir decided to save his bullets for the police and slaughtered the children in their beds with the knife—all with his right arm tied tightly to his side.
    Single targets. Multiple targets. Stationary targets. Moving targets. Intensive close-quarters battle training. Pistols. Rifles. Knives. Hand to hand. Two weeks without knowing the details of his holy mission. Two weeks to sharpen every skill and plan for every conceivable contingency. Two weeks of torturous waiting … now complete.
    The spiritual council awaited him on the other side of the door. He breathed deeply, checked his appearance one last time, and knocked twice.

Nine
    Agnes Landry’s house—now Mark’s—was a small colonial that sat directly at the end of a downhill cul-de-sac exactly four miles from the town center. The main floor had a kitchen with a small diner-like booth built into the corner, its straight-backed seats slightly more comfortable than church pews. There was also a family room that Agnes had called the “parlor” and a tiny half-bathroom. Next to the bathroom was another room just big enough to hold her desk, a few filing cabinets, and a rocking chair. Upstairs were two bedrooms of equal size and one full bath. Due to constant water seeping through the fieldstone foundation, the unfinished basement had been used only to store a handful of metal folding chairs that Agnes would lug upstairs when her guests outnumbered the seats available. There was no garage. Acres of protected forest abutted the back of the house.
    Mark turned on to Chestnut Lane and started the final descent to the house. He breathed deeply and let gravity do its work as he coasted past the few other homes that shared the wide street. As a child he remembered running to the top of the hill and letting all types of balls—even a bowling ball once—roll freely and find their own way down the hill. No matter where he released them, they would always funnel into his narrow driveway before ending up in the woods behind the house.
    Over the years, those woods had been the resting place of countless neighborhood balls, bikes, skates, toys, and (during one slippery winter) a poorly parked car that had slid all the way down from the first house at the top of the street and straight through the Landrys’ driveway before nearly shattering on impact with a cluster of deep-rooted walnut trees. “See that? It’s a good thing we don’t have a garage,” Agnes had said as she handed Mark a shovel and sent him out to clean off her snow-covered Buick.
    Mark climbed the wooden stairs that led to the side door and opened it with the key he had pinched between his thumb and pointer finger. He carried nothing else. His bags could wait until later.

Ten
    When Officer Luci Alvarez arrived at 39 Main Street and parked her cruiser, an impatient