Bookstore Links Author Spotlight Featured Publisher New Titles eBooks Categories AtlasBooks Bookstore BookMasters

A Limited Liability Corporation (LLC)
__The Best in Novels and Books __
Established May 2005

Other Books by Robert Powers ...
Trail of the Scorpion | The Perfect Season | The Wow Factor | Warrior Obsession

Excerpt

Chapter One
Nine Eleven

Krystal Karim looked forward to her classes. She enjoyed her studies at Cornell, but here at the Weill Medical School in Manhattan she had, for the first time in her schooling, felt challenged. It was early Tuesday morning on a bright day in September and she stretched her lithe body and looked in the bathroom mirror. She was clad only in panties and bra, and she could see why men stared at her all the time. Her bosom was full, her waist narrow, her stomach flat, her hips perfectly rounded and her legs long. Her Arab and Spanish parents looked back at her through deep brown eyes set in a rounded and beautiful face, framed by short brown hair that had shiny black highlights. There was deep hurt in the eyes that she could always see, though others probably could not. She knew its source, and she hid it well. She brushed her teeth, pulled on her loose fitting skirt and baggy sweater and went out of the bathroom and into the living room. She looked out of the window of her high rise apartment on to 61st Street near Central Park. The colors of fall were just beginning to show over Manhattan Island. She looked south and stretched again, inhaling deeply. Today, she would present her preliminary papers on the affects of chemical and biological warfare agents and the atrocities committed against the Kurds in Iraq by Saddam Hussein.

“Good morning,” came the voice of her room mate, Ismaila Khan. “You’re looking very happy today, Krissie.”

Krystal turned and smiled. Ismaila Khan was an Afghani woman whose father, Abu Khan lived in Jalalabad, Afghanistan. She was a tall, pretty girl with dusky skin and a cheeriness that was infectious.

“Good morning to you, Maila,” said Krystal in a vibrant voice. “Today, I’ll finally get to present my paper.”

“You’ve been working on that for a long time,” said Maila, walking to the kitchen and starting coffee. “What made you interested in so morbid a subject?”

“Well, when you’re studying physiology, such things are interesting,” said Krystal defensively. She followed Maila into the kitchen and poured them both a bowl of cereal.

“I bought some strawberries,” said Maila, sitting at the little breakfast table between the cubby hole kitchen and the small living room. She peered out the big picture window where the morning sun shown brightly. “Strawberries for a bright new day!”

“Wonderful!” said Krystal. She opened the refrigerator, took out the strawberries and put them on top of the cereal. “How’s the project in children’s infectious diseases going?”

“Oh, I think very well,” said Maila. “I hope to be able to begin field tests within a year… perhaps in Afghanistan.”

“That’ll be great!” said Krystal.

“Krystal…Charles has theater tickets this weekend,” said Maila coyly. “He has a friend who wants to meet you.”

“They all want to meet me,” said Krystal, her countenance darkening. “But I keep telling you, Maila… I don’t date… I don’t go out with men… I just don’t.”

Maila shook her head in wonder. “You know, Krystal, don’t you… that you are very beautiful?”

“I know what I look like,” said Krystal self consciously.

“You never have told me why you won’t date,” said Maila.

Krystal sat down and began to eat her cereal. Maila stirred the berries around in her bowl and looked at Krystal inquisitively.

“I’m too busy to get involved with some man,” said Krystal darkly.

“Have you had a bad experience?” asked Maila.

Ever since Krystal and her mother, Juanita, returned from Baghdad when she was thirteen years old, Krystal had refused all approaches by young men and sought the seclusion of her studies. Accusations of lesbianism were ignored. She knew who she was, and what she wanted. At least, that’s what she told herself. She blocked her experiences as a young girl in Baghdad from her mind. Krystal and her Mother escaped from Baghdad in 1988. They left her father Kamal, a surgeon, behind. It was right after the war with Iran ended and Juanita discovered that Saddam Hussein had turned his chemical weapons against Kurdish Iraqis in the northern village of Halabja. Juanita, a doctor, went to Halabja to aid the survivors and was horrified at what she found.

“Well, have you?” asked Maila persistently, interrupting Krystal’s thoughts. “Have you had a bad experience?”

“Yes,” said Krystal, her eyes tearing at the memory of the terrible nights in Baghdad. “And really, Maila… I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Okay… I’m sorry,” said Maila.

“It’s okay,” said Krystal. The thought of being with a man again made her feel strange… it made her feel somehow, dirty and subhuman. She knew she shouldn’t feel that way, but she did. No. She would stay away from men and concentrate on her studies. That was better! The intellectual experiences she was having were exhilarating, and that was enough. Someday, she would have her revenge for what had happened in Baghdad. Someday, but not now.

“I got a letter from my father,” said Maila. “He wrote to remember him to you. He liked you very much when he met you last month. He said that you are a very unusual young woman!”

“Your father is very kind,” said Krystal.

Abu Khan came to New York to visit Ismaila. He was a tall man with a long face and a short, black beard. He took an instant liking to Krystal. They played tennis and Krystal took him jogging in Central Park, a new experience for the very formal Afghani man. Abu wasn’t used to a woman who could outrun him and talk of worldly things as Krystal could. Abu told her that he was glad that his daughter had found such a good friend in America. He stayed with them for two days and then flew to Washington for some kind of business he wouldn’t talk about.

“My father invites you to visit him in Jalalabad when next I go there,” said Maila.

“That’s sounds exciting,” said Krystal.

“He thinks you are smart… and tough,” giggled Maila.

“I’m glad he thinks I’m smart,” said Krystal. “I don’t know about the ‘tough’ part.”

Maila laughed. “For him, that is a complement,” she said. “And you are ‘tough’, for a woman, I mean.”

“I’ll have to continue those karate classes I started,” said Krystal, “just to live up to that reputation when I visit your father in Jalalabad.”

“But it’s not a good time for women in Afghanistan,” said Maila. “The Taliban government is going backward… back to the old Islamic ways.”

“I’ve read about it,” said Krystal.

“But my father and I would be honored to have you visit us in Jalalabad,” said Maila.

“I’ll do it one of these days,” said Krystal.

“Oh!” exclaimed Maila, staring at the window behind Krystal. “There’s so much smoke!”

They both got up and rushed to the window. The busy island of Manhattan lay below them. Tall buildings rose above the bustling streets below, and to the south of them, a plume of dark, oily smoke rose into the blue sky.

“What is it?” asked Krystal in alarm.

“I don’t know!” exclaimed Maila.

“It’s near the World Trade Center,” said Krystal in a hushed voice, knowing that her mother was in an office there. Fear lashed at her.

“It is the World Trade Center,” said Maila. “I can see the tower! It’s on fire!”

Krystal’s cell phone rang. She took it from her pocket and fumbled to open it and push the “send” button. She put it to her ear and heard the voice of her Mother.

“Krystal… the airplane hit below us,” said Juanita in a voice that sounded too normal. “I don’t know if we’ll get out. There’s a lot of smoke!”

“Mother!” shouted Krystal into the cell phone, the tears flowing from her eyes. She looked out the window of her apartment and could see the smoke rising over lower Manhattan. “An airplane? What can I do?”

Maila flipped on the television. In front of her was an image of the World Trade Center North Tower with smoke pouring from it. An excited announcer was exclaiming, “It’s a terrible accident! Just how an aircraft could get that far off course is unimaginable. People are trapped on the upper floors… it’s terrible… terrible!”

“There’s nothing you can do except love me as I love you, hija mia,” said Juanita softly.

“Mother! I hear sirens!” shouted Krystal. “They’re coming to get you out!”

Krystal heard a crash and the sound of people yelling on the phone. Then the cell phone went silent.

“I’ve got to go there!” shouted Krystal.

“I’ll go with you,” shouted Maila, grabbing her coat.