Summary

The Children’s Crusade takes place a few years after the attacks of September 11th, 2001. Cat Martin is an African-American woman living in New York City and working as an employee of the city’s terrorism deterrence department. She works handling phone calls from people threatening to implement terrorist attacks. She is dating a man named Simon Dryden, who works in finance and is very successful. One day, Cat’s supervisor, Pete Ashberry, informs her of a terrorist attack that just occurred; a young boy walked up to a man in public, hugged the man, and detonated a bomb that killed both of them. The man was a financial speculator named Dick Harte. A few days earlier, a call had been directed to Cat. The caller, a young boy, said, “I’m going to blow somebody up” (103). He said he...