Then again, religion had no place in Rachel’s life. And it would definitely have no place if it meant she had to give up her hockey team. There was nothing she prayed for more than for the star-crossed Leafs to make it to the playoffs. The Stanley Cup was just a pipe dream at this point. The playoffs would be ecstasy enough.
A smirk on her lips, she followed Paula up the stairs to the second-story landing. She couldn’t help but notice that despite the fact that Paula was a sturdy woman, several inches shorter than Rachel, her movements were nimble and quick. The thick material of her all-encompassing gown did not disguise the fact that her body was curved and well proportioned.
She looked strong.
But then how strong did one have to be to shoot an unarmed man in the woods at close range?
The landing faced over a large salon attached to a kitchen half its size. There was no furniture in the salon. Five or six long, slender carpets were laid out in rows on the floor.
Rachel could hear the shrieks from the pond. The windows of the salon overlooked Toogood Pond. If the blinds had been left open, the prayer hall would have been swamped with light. Instead, the windows were shuttered, leaving the main floor cool and empty.
Men began to gather in the hall. On the upper landing, there was only one other person, an undernourished girl dressed in ripped black leggings, with an oversized jersey thrown over them. The logo of a music group was slashed against the front of the jersey in bold red letters: “BAD RELIGION.”
From the girl’s scowling face, it wasn’t meant to be ironic.
Her headscarf was the merest fiction above her head. Most of her blazing magenta hair was exposed. It fell in short, choppy waves to her shoulders. The girl’s throat was tattooed with a symbol so menacing that Rachel took a step back. It was a death head set above a pair of crossed swords, its forehead bound by a black banner. In the center of the banner was a single white star. The skull’s bony teeth were bared. Embedded in the teeth was a ring of silver staples.
The girl’s watery eyes were heavily lined and shadowed. Beneath the dark smudges of her eyes, cold bits of metal licked against her skin. Both of her nostrils were pierced with small rings. Her cheeks, chin, and eyebrows were studded with a succession of steel bolts. Only her lips were unpierced. It was as if she had done everything she could think of to ruin a perfect complexion. In the unmarked areas of her face, her skin was as thick and creamy as the petals of a camellia.
Catching Rachel’s attention, Paula said, “That’s Gracie. Don’t be frightened of her. She’s another one who’s just figuring things out.”
“Shut up, Paula. And don’t call me Gracie.”
If Rachel estimated Paula’s age as somewhere in her early thirties, she would guess at Grace’s as seventeen or younger. Not that she needed to guess at either. She had expected to meet Paula and Grace at the mosque today. Both had been at the camp with Mohsin Dar. And both had been comprehensively evaluated by INSET.
Looking at Grace, she was appalled at what the girl had done to herself. Political correctness and a general acceptance of youth culture would decree that Grace was an individual whose style of self-expression had to be respected. But Rachel didn’t buy it for a second. Whether it was an unfair judgment or not, Rachel was a police officer who had spent years searching for a lost boy on the streets. What she had learned was that that kind of mutilation on the outside often reflected much greater damage within. And even if her own gut instinct hadn’t told her as much, the INSET file on Grace Kaspernak revealed that she’d spent her life in foster care, until she’d dropped out of school and run away from home.
Grace had been living on the streets until she’d become a congregant at Masjid un-Nur, drawn to its ranks by her classmate, Dinaase Abdi. Dinaase Abdi was under surveillance as another attendee of the camp at Algonquin.
Rachel had made note of the fact that Grace Kaspernak had dropped out of school only after Abdi had done so. It appeared she had followed her friend and classmate to Masjid un-Nur.
“I’m Rachel,” she said to the others. “Rachel Ellison.”
“Ellison” was her mother’s maiden name, which was as far as she had gone in establishing her cover. Rachel possessed little previous undercover experience. She was meant to dig around without talking about herself except when it was essential to do so.
Paula shrugged, paying no attention.
Grace said, “So what?”
The call to prayer sounded in the hall, a muffled recording that barely reached the upstairs landing. The men below them assembled in two lines behind the imam.
Paula and Grace took their places at the front of the landing, looking down upon the hall. As soon as a lanky black boy shuffled his way into the hall, Grace appeared to relax. The hands that were clenched at her sides smoothed out to knock against her scrawny legs.
Paula was still tense, her eyes casting about this way and that.
Whoever she was looking for, she didn’t find. She turned on her heel and vanished back down the landing. Rachel took a tentative step toward Grace. She had counted on following Paula’s lead when it came to the congregational prayer. Now she’d have to rely upon Grace instead.
“Um—I don’t really know how to do this.”
Grace kept her eyes on the boy in the hall.
“Why is that my problem?”
Rachel cleared her throat. Grace’s rancor unnerved her a little.
“It’s not, I guess. I’d just heard that Nur was—a less threatening place for newcomers. Like it wouldn’t be as hard to fit in here.”
Grace Kaspernak spared Rachel a glance. Either her pale eyes were colorless, or it was the effect of the makeup she wore, overpowering her physical characteristics. Grace fingered the staples in her neck.
“Maybe,” she said.
The prayer had begun.
“Just do what I do, and if I screw up like I usually do, just copy whatever they’re doing.”
From Grace’s expression, Rachel was hardly worth a moment’s consideration. Yet something about Rachel’s comment on fitting in must have struck her because she unbent a little more. “Do you speak Arabic at all? If you don’t, you’ll be even less welcome here.”
She fell into the movements of the prayer and Rachel copied her, standing at Grace’s shoulder. She stood tall, bent over her knees, and genuflected as Grace did. Up and down several times, until the motions became familiar. As Rachel touched her forehead to the floor and breathed in the dusty carpet, she stifled the impulse to cough. When it was finished, she mimicked Grace’s gesture of raising her cupped hands in the air.
Grace’s technique was sloppy compared with that of the boy Rachel was watching in the hall below: Dinaase Abdi, whose parents had come to Canada from Somalia as immigrants, blue-collar workers whose lives consisted of family and community. Nur was not their mosque. Nor was there evidence of neglect inside the family home. Both parents worked several jobs to support the family, but their absence from the home couldn’t have been equated with neglect.
It was survival, the kind that attested to love. The chance to pave the way so the next generation could aspire to something better. Dinaase’s parents were based in Etobicoke, close to the Dejinta Beesha, the multiservice center that served a large Somali community. Nur was as far from that center as Dinaase could have chosen. He was the eldest of five siblings, and had been in Canada since his earliest childhood.
Why he would choose Nur, and its smaller, more fractured religious community, Rachel couldn’t guess. Unlike Grace Kaspernak, he was at ease in his surroundings. The motions of his prayer were fluid and natural—he sat back upon his heels with ease, turned his head side to side in an effortless rhythm. And then stretched his long limbs out at the end of it, bouncing to his feet, clapping the other men on their backs, smiling throughout.
He didn’t glance up at the women’s prayer section. Several of the other men did, frowning when they saw that Grace was leaning over the balcony for a better view.
“Why don’t you just go downstairs?” Rachel asked her. “Is that your boyfriend?”
“No.” Grace’s denial came out like a snarl. And carried an undercurrent of surprise. This was a girl who wasn’t used to thinking of herself as attractive or capable of drawing a young man’s interest. She yanked her headscarf down from her head, revealing that the magenta waves of her hair didn’t extend to the back of her skull, which was shaved bald and studded with another set of bolts. They descended down the back of her skull like the links of a railway track. The areas around several of the bolts were red and inflamed.
Rachel bit back the oath that would have expressed her alarm, thankful that the back of the girl’s skull wasn’t as demonically tattooed as her neck.
“What?” Grace said, widening the black smudges of her eyes. “You don’t like it?” Her tone was nasty, dismissive.
Rachel unfastened her headscarf with more care than Grace had shown, grateful that she could breathe again. She looked over the railing at the boy Grace hadn’t taken her eyes from.
“It’s not that,” Rachel said. “I mean—live and let live, right? It’s just—does he like it? The boy who’s not your boyfriend?”
And as she said it, she reflected upon Dinaase Abdi’s age. According to the INSET file, Dinaase would turn eighteen in January. He was a confirmed member of Hassan Ashkouri’s cell. If the INSET operation went as planned over the next two weeks, the boy would not be charged as an adult. Assuming he was arrested. If the tactical operation were delayed for any reason, Dinaase Abdi’s unmarred future would change for good.
“I don’t dress to impress any man,” Grace said. “Neither do you, right?”
A sarcastic comment on the baggy pants and baggier tunic Rachel had hoped would resemble mosque-attending attire. But she hadn’t dressed that differently than she usually did, despite the athletic figure beneath the ill-fitting clothes. For reasons different from Grace’s, Rachel hadn’t made much effort with her appearance. The condo was her first step in a new direction. Maybe later she’d have time to think of herself as a woman, and not just a police officer.
Grace pushed past her, giving Rachel a clear view of the back of her jersey.
The words “ANGRY FEMINIST” were stamped on the black shirt, this time in white letters that appeared to bleed down her back.
“Hurry up,” she threw over her shoulder. “They serve refreshments down in the kitchen. If you’re lucky, you might get to meet Hassan on your first day.”
Somewhat friendly overtures from a girl who didn’t appear friendly at all.
Rachel followed at a slower pace, wondering what had become of Paula.
In the main salon, twenty or so men were milling about chatting, while a handful of older women were busy setting up snacks in the small, updated kitchen. Paula was at the sink, filling a kettle with water.
She glared at Rachel’s bare head.
“You’re meant to keep that on in the mosque at all times,” she said, just as Grace muttered under her breath, “Ignore her.”
Halfheartedly, Rachel pulled the Maple Leafs scarf back up. Grace moved to the stove, stirring a small saucepan that contained a vivid, aromatic mixture spiced with cinnamon and cardamom seeds. When the liquid had thickened, she poured it into a crystal tea glass rimmed with gold and placed it in a saucer. Her eyes scanned the group of men in the prayer hall.
Paula wasn’t done. The kettle dispensed with, she turned her full attention to Rachel.
“If you’re really here to learn about Islam, Gracie isn’t the best example to follow.” Her blue eyes made a scorching assessment of the younger girl’s appearance that Grace Kaspernak ignored. Maybe because she was used to it.
Paula’s indictment didn’t bother Rachel. What was worrisome was her use of the phrase If you’re really here to learn about Islam. Why had she said such a thing? Had Rachel’s behavior aroused her suspicions already?
Another voice spoke from behind Rachel’s head.
“My dear sister Paula, if anyone knows how to make newcomers welcome at Nur, surely it has to be you.”
The voice was beautiful. It carried the faintest trace of an Arabic accent.
Paula was suddenly beaming, her face seized by a joy so rapturous that she became almost pretty. Her blue eyes shone. For a moment she couldn’t speak.
Rachel turned around to meet the owner of the voice.
He was shaking hands with everyone who crossed his path. Even Grace paused to give him a grimace of a greeting. The man’s own smile was generous in turn. He touched the crystal tea glass, then lightly tapped Grace’s nose.
“It smells divine.” He winked at Grace as he said it. “I can’t believe Dinaase hasn’t come running to you.”
Paula’s smile began to fade.
“Have it, if you want.” The words were ungrudging, but the man took a step to the side, as Dinaase Abdi approached.
“Take the qahwe you make with your own hands for Dinaase? I’m not such a terrible interloper as that. Din, come on. It’s hot and ready.” He made the name sound like “Dean.” And then he focused on Rachel.
“Assalam u alaikum, sister,” he said. “Welcome to Masjid un-Nur.”
* * *
He was the handsomest man Rachel had ever seen, possessed of every known physical grace. A lean and supple physique. Slim, elegant hands. Midnight-dark eyes tilted in a symmetrical face, the broad, smooth forehead balanced by the line of his jaw. Thick, curly hair in abundance. Eyebrows winged accents against an olive skin.
There was warmth and laughter and compassion in that face, just as the eyes seemed to glow with a secret awareness.
It was the enigmatic face of a poet anchored by something richer and deeper—a thorough and certain knowledge of himself.
No wonder Paula was starstruck.
Rachel cleared her throat. “Wa alaikum salam,” she said, trying the words out. She had practiced with Khattak. From the warm smiles all around, her pronunciation seemed to hold up.
She waited to see if the man would offer his hand, because she knew that handshakes between the sexes could be political. They pegged you to a specific place on the spectrum of conservatism. A man who refused to shake a woman’s hand would have strict views about gender segregation and the place of women in the mosque.
Ashkouri shook her hand, his handshake cool and firm.
“Hassan Ashkouri,” he said. “Am I right in thinking I haven’t seen you here before?”
“It’s my first time,” she said, then introduced herself. He was still holding her hand. She was appalled to feel herself blushing a little. She looked down at the floor, thinking that this might be some approximation of how a modest Muslim woman would behave under these circumstances.
Paula Kyriakou stepped right between Rachel and Hassan, edging close into his space, latching on to his arm.
Wrong again, Rachel thought. Modesty wasn’t what it used to be.
“You missed prayer, Hassan.”
There was a possessiveness about Paula’s manner that she didn’t trouble to disguise. If her grip was painful, Hassan Ashkouri gave no sign of it. His face was even more beautiful when he smiled.
“You remembered me in your duas, I hope.”
“You know that I never forget you.” She went on to list the precise nature of the supplications she had made on Ashkouri’s behalf.
As tiresome as Rachel may have found Paula’s recital, there was a genuine warmth in the way that Ashkouri attended to it. His eyes flicked to Rachel.
“I hope you remembered Mohsin as well.”
Someone in the group of people drifting through the kitchen went still.
An eerie, listening stillness.
Rachel tried to pinpoint the source without giving away her reaction.
It was Rachel whom Ashkouri had meant to test.
But someone else had fallen into the trap.
Rachel contrived an expression of mild puzzlement, waiting for someone to speak. Paula hurried to fil
l the silence, bustling about to make Ashkouri a cup of tea. A tall man in his sixties with a full beard and a woven kufi came to stand on the other side of the island. He snapped his fingers at Paula, who passed him the first cup of tea.
“I prayed for Mohsin. Imam Zikri made the supplication, and I recited the prayer of Yasin afterward.”
When? Rachel wondered. Paula had missed the prayer altogether. She now suspected that what had drawn Paula away was Ashkouri’s absence. Paula must have gone to search for him.
With that face, small wonder.
But would the woman dare to tell such a bald-faced lie in the mosque? When either Rachel or Grace could expose the lie for what it was?
Rachel caught Grace’s eye. Grace had splayed her hands at the bottom of her shirt, her fingers pointing upward.
Bad religion, Rachel read again. She almost laughed out loud.
“You are always dutiful, Paula. No one could fault you. But Grace here—” Ashkouri bestowed his bone-melting smile on the girl, who still held the glass in its saucer. “When there’s a woman to make qahwe for me, the way Gracie does for Din, I’ll know that Allah has answered my prayers.”
Grace didn’t protest at Ashkouri’s use of her nickname, as she had done with Paula. She gave the glass to Dinaase Abdi, who took it without thanking her. Like two of the other young men on Rachel’s list of members of the training camp, his attention was on Ashkouri.
Rachel would have found the whole thing cultlike were it not for Ashkouri’s remarkable face. The INSET photographs had not done him justice.
And then another thought occurred to her.
If Ashkouri was the leader of a terror cell whose base was the Nur mosque—why was he clean-shaven? Was his vanity a greater calling than religion? Or was she generalizing her idea of what a Muslim male should look like? Khattak was clean-shaven too, for that matter. But Khattak wasn’t a violent extremist masterminding a lethal attack on New Year’s Day.
Rachel helped herself to a small piece of baklava from one of the snack plates. She could feel Ashkouri’s eyes on her back. She ignored the man who had snapped his fingers at Paula. The man’s name was Jamshed Ali. He was another of Ashkouri’s proven confederates. Instead, she asked one of the older women if she could help herself to a cup of tea.
The Language of Secrets Page 7