The Language of Secrets

by Ausma Zehanat Khan

  Comments about Mecca were so well-worn by this point that Khattak had ceased to notice them. His seniority helped. And the CPS promotion had allowed him to change his environment altogether—although he had known, just as Ciprian Coale did, that surveillance of the Canadian Muslim community would remain a cornerstone of his work.

  None of these thoughts appeared on Khattak’s face. His eyes followed the tap-tapping of Coale’s pen against the desk.

  “It seems to me your operation is time-sensitive,” Khattak said. “So hadn’t you better brief me on the cell you’ve been surveilling?” He shifted in his chair to face Laine Stoicheva. If unpleasant things had to be dealt with, it was best to face them head-on. “Why is Laine here? Surely, you’re not expecting us to work together.”

  His partnership with Laine Stoicheva had ended in acrimony. Laine’s sexual harassment claim against Khattak had taken months to resolve. Though decisively exonerated, Khattak remained the subject of innuendo. This bothered him less than the fact that Laine’s actions had divided him from his lifelong friend, Nathan Clare. She was a poisonous colleague, and everyone knew it. After the reprimand in Laine’s personnel file, she’d been shuffled around the RCMP. Over time, she’d rebuilt her profile. Outreach Coordinator was a plum posting. He wondered how she’d gotten it.

  Then he saw the possessive look that came into Coale’s eyes as he watched Laine, and thought perhaps he knew. Laine didn’t turn. She continued to face Ciprian Coale, a ploy Khattak recognized from the past because too many men had complimented Laine on the purity of her profile. She was dressed with restraint in a stark navy suit, her glossy hair pinned back, with no jewelry and little makeup.

  She didn’t need it. Laine Stoicheva was the most classically beautiful woman Khattak had ever seen. But still he found her presence abhorrent, a fact Ciprian Coale must have known.

  “Laine’s been on-site at Masjid un-Nur. As you can imagine, they don’t take her very seriously there.”

  Another crack at Khattak, this one aimed at the second-class status of women in the mosque. A rebuttal was pointless. Coale wasn’t interested in shadings of the truth.

  “She’s here to brief you on what she knows, but you won’t be working with her. You’ll be reporting to me.”

  A wave of cold anger washed over Khattak. His participation in Coale’s investigation had been sought out by INSET, not the other way around. Neither he nor Community Policing had been imposed upon the operation. Coale’s insults were needless, but perhaps they were intended to warn him away from the case. Or perhaps Coale was driven by a more subversive agenda. The rivalry had always been one-sided, unheeded by Khattak. Clearly, his inattention had rankled Coale. Shutting Khattak down at INSET would be the first step to convincing their more highly placed superiors that CPS was a miscalculation, superfluous to current law enforcement needs.

  Khattak folded his hands on his lap, refusing to be drawn.

  “I take it that Masjid un-Nur is the gathering place for the cell you have under surveillance.”

  Laine angled her face toward him, and in the dim winter light that floated through the windows, he saw that she was not as young as he remembered. Lines had begun to settle in the angular folds of her neck. The corners of her mouth drooped a little. Her dark eyes were bleary.

  The drinking had taken its toll.

  But her voice when she spoke had lost none of its allure.

  “Nur is a recent establishment, not as well-known or attended as any of the larger mosques at either end of the GTA. It’s small, privately funded, located to the north of the city. Not quite Markham, not quite Scarborough. It’s part of old Unionville.”

  “There’s already a sizable mosque in that area,” Khattak noted. In his capacity as head of CPS, he’d visited the Middlefield mosque often. It was a beautiful, spacious structure, its painted white arches paired with mirror-green windows that summoned the light, along with the faithful.

  “Yes, we know. We believe that Middlefield has become too small to support the size of the congregation in the area. Nur could have been built to accommodate overflow. Or it could well be that the climate at Middlefield was inhospitable to the ideology of this particular cell.”

  Khattak sensed discomfort behind her words, yet for the first time in recent memory, Laine was speaking to male colleagues without falling back upon a repertoire of mannerisms. Her white hand didn’t dash to her hair, nor did she smooth it down over the front of her jacket. Her jet-black eyes didn’t flash up at him, then away.

  It was a straight, bare-boned conversation, much like the one he’d just had with Martine Killiam. And Khattak didn’t trust it. Whatever Laine was doing now was just one more attempt at getting him to lower his guard.

  “What do the wiretaps tell you?”

  Coale scowled at the question. He hadn’t known that Killiam would be quite so frank about the operation.

  “Our surveillance began after Nur was established. We have no intercepts that speak to the founding of the mosque.” Laine cleared her throat. They had been speaking for less than ten minutes, yet she sounded depleted of energy. “Mohsin came to us. He said he’d been hearing things on the basketball courts in his neighborhood from young men who were attending prayers at the mosque. He didn’t think that Nur sounded like a healthy place to be.”

  “Meaning what exactly?”

  “There was a lot of negative talk, he said. More than just the usual summary of grievances: Palestine, Afghanistan, the invasion of Iraq. All of that, yes, but much more. There was concerted talk about the need for action—the need for a dramatic, decisive response.” Laine sounded like she was quoting someone. “To end the humiliation of Muslims worldwide.”

  Khattak showed no reaction to the tossed-off phrase “summary of grievances.”

  “So you infiltrated the mosque?”

  “We sent Mohsin in, yes. We asked him to find out if it was anything more than talk. It turned out that it was. They’ve been planning the Nakba for more than two years.”

  “Was Mohsin on your payroll?”

  “Yes.” Laine’s voice tightened. She knew what the question was aimed at. “That doesn’t mean he wasn’t reliable. He wasn’t doing it for the money.”

  That would depend, Khattak thought, on what the compensation had been. In any case, there were the intercepts. A two-year operation would mean there were thousands of them.

  “Why, then?”

  “Mo used to have a saying. ‘Let’s live together, brother. Let’s just live.’ In that big, booming voice of his, smiling that huge smile. He thought the members of the cell were crazy. He also thought they were dangerous. And he was right.”

  A nostalgic look came into Laine’s eyes. Khattak was familiar with it. It was directed at convincing him that Mohsin Dar was a person she had cared for, rather than used. That she had valued Mohsin, and now regretted his death. Khattak didn’t believe it.

  Coale cut in. “He’d won the confidence of a core group within a larger group, so much so that his reputation carried over to the second cell.”

  “How many people are we talking about altogether?”

  “Nearly two dozen. A lot of what you’d expect. Young kids, disaffected. But most without even that excuse.”

  “Who, specifically, are you looking at? No, wait.” Khattak held up a hand in disavowal before Coale could shoot him down. “Who should I be looking at?”

  Coale’s pen snapped against the desk with sudden force.

  “You’ll be talking to Andy Dar. Nothing more, nothing less.”

  “If I’m not seen to be investigating the scene, or at a minimum interviewing those who were with Dar’s son the night that he died, Dar won’t stay quiet for more than a day.”

  Laine intervened, sending Coale a look of entreaty.

  “He’s right, Ciprian. He has to be seen to be doing something.”

  Justice must not only be done, it must be seen to be done.

  Yet even Martine Killiam had hinted at the grea
ter value ascribed to the façade of Khattak’s investigation than to the actual truth it might uncover. He felt a pang of sorrow for Mohsin Dar, of no further use, discarded in death.

  Coale interrupted his thoughts, his glance moving between Laine and Khattak, a brooding speculation in it.

  “Laine has been withdrawn from the mosque. You won’t be working with her at the scene, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “It should be evident by now that I have no wish to do so.”

  Laine turned her face away at the words. She pushed her hands against the edge of her seat, the long fingers clasping each other. Her unvarnished nails were clipped short, another departure from her normal feminine elegance.

  Without looking at Khattak, she said, “Tell him about Hassan Ashkouri. And the other members of the cell.”

  A pleased glint came into Coale’s eyes.

  “Ashkouri is the ideologue, the ringleader. He’s of Iraqi background with Canadian citizenship, though he came here late enough to have had experience of the war, something he uses to considerable effect. He’s a frequent speaker at Nur mosque.”

  “What credentials does he have?”

  “Do these people need credentials? A few lines in Arabic are usually enough to win over a congregation. That and a bit of messianic charisma, and you have the makings of real trouble.”

  When Khattak didn’t respond to this, he went on, “Ashkouri was preparing to become an Islamic scholar. The war in Iraq curtailed his plans. He’s an engineer by training, financially quite successful.”

  “So he’s not the imam.”

  “No. Nur’s imam is a humble enough fellow, unworldly, inexperienced, too grateful to bite the hand that feeds him. He’ll say and do whatever the mosque committee tells him to say.”

  “Is he a member of the cell?”

  This time Laine answered. “No. In fact, the cell has made certain that the imam knows nothing about their private meetings. They have a word for them.” She withdrew her phone from within her blazer pocket and flicked through a series of screens. It was a delaying tactic. She would know the word by heart by now. “They’re called halaqas. The halaqas are a smoke screen for the organizers of the attack. When they meet, it’s to advance some aspect of the plot.”

  Khattak couldn’t agree. It didn’t make sense. A halaqa was a study circle, devoted to exploring and understanding theology. If a regular session was being held at the mosque, many of the mosque’s congregants would expect to attend it. How could Hassan Ashkouri expect to maintain the secrecy of his plot?

  He doubted that either Coale or Laine would be able to answer his question. And then he remembered what Martine Killiam had told him.

  “The superintendent said there were seven people at the training camp, along with Mohsin Dar. Ashkouri must have been there. But there were two women also, is that correct?”

  Laine nodded in quick response.

  “Were these women at the halaqas?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  Khattak frowned in thought. “Because halaqas in a mosque setting are typically segregated events. And they’re open to the general public. The superintendent said that you haven’t been able to determine if the women are members of the cell or not. That raises several questions: How did Ashkouri restrict attendance at these halaqas? Why wouldn’t the imam be part of a discussion on theology? And if the purpose of these halaqas was to advance the terrorist plot as you say, wouldn’t the presence of the women indicate membership in the cell?”

  Coale snorted. “Do you think we’re amateurs, Khattak? Or that we’ve been waiting for you to deliver the truth to us from on high? I’ve said as much from the beginning.”

  Laine rushed in to answer. “The intercepts have never confirmed it. And neither did Mohsin, though he was part of the halaqas.”

  “Then what did Mohsin tell you?”

  “That Hassan Ashkouri was an operator. He convinced the imam to let him run a series of private sessions, not all of which were meetings of the cell. Some had another cover—poetry, Middle East history, Ashkouri’s personal interests. He encouraged the attendance of women at the sessions. Given his generous donations to the mosque, the imam saw no need to object.”

  “I see.” But Khattak didn’t. The setup was unusual, burdened with unnecessary risk. And it didn’t answer the question of how the two cells were communicating. He found his interest in the national security investigation stimulated by the questions mounting up in his mind. Were he still a member of INSET, he’d have access to some, if not all, of the answers.

  “Do members of both cells attend these halaqas?” And then, to get around Coale’s insistence on blocking any information that could help him better understand Mohsin’s murder, he added, “Will they be among the suspects I’m to profile?”

  An indirect way of getting at the same thing, while paying lip service to Coale.

  “They haven’t yet. So you won’t have any contact with them.”

  Coale sat back in his chair. It was Laine who added, as if apologizing for Coale, “We don’t know how the two cells are communicating. It’s not by phone or private meetings, or we’d have surveillance to back that up. Whatever we’ve learned from Mohsin has come strictly from within Hassan Ashkouri’s group. But Ashkouri didn’t confide in Mo beyond a certain point.”

  “That’s not your problem, Khattak,” Coale interjected. “You’re to interview the people who were with Dar at the camp, but you’re not to ask what reason they had for going up there, or what purpose the camp served.”

  “What purpose did it serve?”

  Khattak found himself looking to Laine for the answer. She stood, sending her chair to the ground in her hurry. When he rose to right it, her cold hand brushed his. She withdrew it at once, as if stung by the contact.

  “I’ll bring you what I have on the people at the camp. The men were there for commando training—the use of weapons, surveillance tactics, personal combat. The women…” She shook her head, putting a finger to her lips, a gesture Khattak recognized of old. “One is just a girl. The other is a convert to Islam. Mo insisted they were not implicated.” A quick frown marred the smooth skin of her brow. “Naturally, we had to wonder.”

  “What about the weapon used to kill Mohsin? Has it been recovered?”

  “No. We know it was a nine-millimeter Herstal, but that’s all we know.”

  There was an odd hesitation in her voice.

  “Were there any other weapons at the camp?”

  “They had bolt-action hunting rifles, but we only know that from surveillance photos taken prior to the training camp. There were no traces of ammunition at the scene.”

  The camp had been a dry run then.

  “And that’s none of your business, Khattak. Keep it to yourself. You can go, Laine.”

  Laine made for the door, brushing by Esa as she did so. Drawing away, he held the door until she had passed. When he turned back to look at Coale, he found the other man on his feet, his eyes on Laine.

  It was time to quit fencing, to stop pretending that Khattak had any intention of abiding by Coale’s absurd restrictions. And Laine’s revelations had provided Esa with the opportunity to make his own position clear.

  “I’ll do as you say in terms of questioning those who were present at the camp. But we both know that whatever information I’m able to acquire will be limited. I’ve been authorized to send my partner in. It would be useful to have her join these halaqas.”

  Coale’s eyes narrowed. He knew that Khattak had just pulled rank on him. And whether or not he saw the value of Khattak’s suggestion, he didn’t like the suggestion at all. But neither did he seem as discomposed as Khattak had expected. There was a sense of triumph about Coale, a secret gloating as he fussed with the tails of his Hermès scarf.

  “She won’t be the only one you know at the halaqas, Khattak.”

  It was Khattak’s turn to take a step back, to ponder Coale’s implicit threat.

  “There’s a lot
you don’t know about Hassan Ashkouri,” Coale continued. “But I expected you’d have a better handle on your own household.” He smiled at Khattak’s uncharacteristic hesitation. “Your sister. I believe her name is Rukshanda. Ashkouri calls her Ruksh.” The smile faded, leaving behind a calculated menace. “She’s been under surveillance for some time now. I thought you might have known.”

  He dragged the words out, waiting for Khattak’s reply.

  A tightness in his face at the unwanted knowledge, Khattak swallowed the heated response on his tongue. This was Coale’s game, baiting Khattak into anger and indiscretion; there was nothing new in it. Hiding his impatience, Khattak said, “Just tell me whatever it is you have to tell me.”

  “Your sister,” Coale repeated, savoring the words. “I thought you might know. She’s engaged to be married to Ashkouri.”

  5

  On his way out of the INSET offices, Khattak paused to have a word with Gavin Chan, a former colleague. Chan had been a junior member of the team two years ago, especially gifted in telecommunications. If anyone would know about the intercepts, it would be Gavin Chan.

  Chan walked him to the elevator, a compact individual with a head of spiky hair and a ferocious sense of attention to duty.

  “You can’t tell me anything, I know. But if you’re part of the operation, you’ll have heard about my sister. I need to know if she’s in immediate danger. Is there any way I could have a look at transcripts of the intercepts?”

  Chan stared at the wall, dropping his voice.

  “It won’t help you. There’s thousands of them; you won’t have enough time.” He stretched his arms behind his back with an impressive display of flexibility. “I think I need a coffee. You wouldn’t believe the things that cross my desk.” He wandered away to the stairs, tipping his head at a side door as he passed. “Be careful,” he mouthed.