The Language of Secrets

by Ausma Zehanat Khan

  Under this list was an invitation to see more on successive pages.

  One of the links was an invitation to visit a chat room. Laine Stoicheva clicked on the link. A group of photographs sprang from the screen. Each was the image of the outcome of an attack, this time perpetrated by jihadists. Visitors to the chat room were asked to rate the images on a scale of 1 to 10. The more graphic the image—American soldiers dragged through the streets of Somalia, the beheadings of journalists and aid workers, Muammar Qaddafi beaten to death—the higher the rating.

  At the bottom of the site, a crawl crept across the screen, typed over a ribbon of green.

  Hummers are hard to assemble and easy to disassemble at the hands of the mujahideen.

  An Afghan warrior with a Kalashnikov poised on his shoulder stared back at the viewer from the corner of the screen. He was standing on top of a burnt-out Humvee.

  If I had a rocket launcher.

  “As you know, this is the website used by Hassan Ashkouri’s group to solicit new recruits. You won’t be surprised to learn that many jihadist websites are hosted by Internet service providers in the West, who often are unaware of the content on the sites. Yahoo, Google, Microsoft—they’ve all done it. Many of these jihadist sites are shared before they’re taken down, allowing them to be folded and restarted. And we know that jihadist groups are continually refining the techniques they use to keep messages and information hidden online.”

  Several of the team members nodded.

  “The home page for this website is in Arabic. There’s an encryption code that allows those who can pass a preliminary examination onto the English-language pages. It’s aimed at a very exclusive group of young people who are targeted by specific messages—you know the purpose of narrowcasting, but for Inspector Khattak’s sake I’ll clarify.”

  All eyes in the room turned to Esa Khattak.

  He kept his attention on the screen.

  The clarification was unnecessary. He’d spent nearly ten years with INSET. It was a tactic of Laine’s, designed to unsettle him. To an end that would play itself out in time.

  “Narrowcasting is an Internet technique used to attract identifiable segments of a population. In the case of the Rose of Darkness, it encourages the idea that new recruits—specifically young people born, raised, or educated in the West—are critically important to the success of the jihadist mission. Those in the West are in the optimal position to strike—to take revenge for what the Rose of Darkness calls the ‘new Crusades,’ the wars waged by imperial powers on the Islamic world. Think of the invasion of Iraq. Or the current occupation of Afghanistan. Or Israel’s attacks on Lebanon and Gaza.”

  When some of the team members bristled, Laine went on, “The website uses this language to attract young people to the cause of jihad. And to persuade them to participate in revenge attacks on the West.”

  Laine drew a breath.

  “Most of you have known about the Rose of Darkness since the start of this operation. There’s been a new development.”

  She began to scroll through a conversation in the chat room. The time code identified it as having taken place the night before.

  HAWIYEGANGSTA:

  What about Mo?

  RDSB:

  Not here.

  HAWIYEGANGSTA:

  It’s gotta be here. It’s driving me batshit. You gotta tell me. Now.

  RDSB:

  Hold it together. Not long now.

  HAWIYEGANGSTA:

  Can’t hold it together. What. Happened.

  RDSB:

  Pull it together, mujahid. It’s all in your hands now.

  HAWIYEGANGSTA:

  You threatening me? Is this some kind of joke?

  RDSB:

  No threat. Have patience, sabr. Nine days left. Stay on target.

  HAWIYEGANGSTA:

  I’m not doing a fucking thing until I know. Fuck the whole thing.

  RDSB:

  Offline. Now.

  HAWIYEGANGSTA:

  You wanna see me skywrite? I’ll skywrite. Tell me did you kill him?

  HAWIYEGANGSTA:

  Did you kill him, I said? DID YOU KILL HIM?

  HAWIYEGANGSTA:

  I loved him, man. I really loved him. You hurt him, I’m done.

  RDSB:

  Don’t know what happened or why.

  HAWIYEGANGSTA:

  How’d you not know? How’m I gonna believe you?

  RDSB:

  Wallahi. God’s own truth. Will find out after it’s done.

  HAWIYEGANGSTA:

  You swear? On your life?

  RDSB:

  Wallahi. No reason to lie.

  RDSB:

  You on track?

  RDSB:

  You still with us?

  RDSB:

  Hawiye?

  RDSB:

  Hawiye?

  RDSB:

  Do it for your friend. He called you his best mujahid.

  RDSB:

  Don’t let him down.

  RDSB:

  Hawiye?

  HAWIYEGANGSTA:

  Yeah, ok.

  Laine signaled for the lights to be turned up again. Several of the team members blinked, rubbing at their eyes.

  If I had a rocket launcher—

  Laine muted the sound on the website.

  “So. Thoughts? Conclusions?”

  Coale watched his team, his fox face intent and alert.

  A young man put up his hand.

  “‘Hawiye’ is a common Somali tribe name. That has to be Dinaase Abdi.”

  Laine nodded. “Good. Yes, we’ve traced the connection to Abdi’s phone. What else?”

  “They’re talking about the Nakba attack. For the first time. Online. They’ve hardly bothered to encrypt it.”

  Nine days from now was New Year’s Day.

  It fit with everything Khattak knew of the case.

  Coale’s eyes flicked to him, and then away.

  But Khattak caught the look. That look. And felt the subtle distancing of some of the other officers, though not from his former teammates.

  “Do we know who RDSB is?” someone asked. “Or what the acronym stands for?”

  “The connection was made at the public terminal at Nur. But we don’t know by whom. It could have been anyone who was at the mosque last night. Jamshed Ali. Ashkouri himself, which would suggest a desperation about shutting Din Abdi down before he could say anything else. We’re still going through the surveillance footage. And then we’ll know if this is a communication between the different groups, or within the same one.”

  Khattak shook his head. Laine responded at once.

  “Do you have something to add, Inspector?”

  Khattak looked around the room. Seeing many friends. And a few nominal adversaries. Men and women Coale had handpicked for his team.

  “It’s Ashkouri. Or someone he instructed.”

  “How do you know this?” Coale demanded.

  Khattak spoke to Laine.

  “The name of the website. Do you recognize it?”

  Laine made a quick scan of the screen. Her gaze returned to Esa’s face.

  “No. We ran it through all known databases. It doesn’t suggest anything, except a taste for the theatrical. And that’s common to these sites. Color, drama, danger, intrigue. It pulls young people in.”

  Coale stalked closer.

  “No known jihadist groups, no cross-references on the watch list. Spit it out, Khattak. What are you getting at?”

  “It’s something Ashkouri said to my partner at the halaqa yesterday.”

  “No, it isn’t.” Coale contradicted Khattak without compunction.

  Khattak’s eyes narrowed. The team gathered in the room knew this for what it was: a showdown between the old guard and the new. And only one man would emerge as the victor.

  “Not in those exact words. If you were able to listen to Ashkouri, you must have heard him use the phrase ‘mud and crime.’”

  “So?”
/>
  “The words are from a poem. The poem is called A Grave for New York.”

  Silence enveloped the room, the murmurings hushed.

  “That isn’t the name of the website, Khattak.” Coale spoke with a fine condescension.

  Her face pale, Laine interrupted Coale.

  “A grave for New York? Is that a reference to September 11?”

  It wasn’t. Step by careful step, Khattak provided a summary of the poem, describing its context. The poem predated the 9/11 attacks by three decades. The richness of its themes, the scope of its imagination, the remarkable expressiveness of its language—none of these could be captured by a jihadist website, let alone in some essentialized form.

  Khattak had the attention of every member of the team. He told the story of A Grave for New York, its drama and darkness, its prosody to the Arabs, its unrelenting indictment of Western materialism, in as plain and simple a language as he could.

  The words shocked his audience, and he understood why. The poem was a declamatory work that built to a thunderous crescendo.

  New York + New York = The grave and anything that comes from the grave.

  New York − New York = The Sun.

  And then Khattak quoted the closing lines of the poem. The quiet denouement.

  The words hung suspended on the air, a stillness upon an immensity of snow.

  But,

  Peace be to the rose of darkness and sands,

  Peace be to Beirut.

  Ciprian Coale was speechless.

  Esa Khattak pointed to the moniker on the screen.

  “RDSB. The rose of darkness and sands. The ‘B’ stands for Beirut.”

  * * *

  Khattak took the opportunity to stride to Killiam’s office, and to close the door behind him.

  Coale wanted an audience for his temper.

  Khattak refused to provide it. Let Coale stew over the fact that Esa had just contributed something to the investigation that no other member of the team could have found, the manifest reason he’d been appointed to head CPS and asked by Killiam to consult on Mohsin’s murder.

  For the prodigal understanding of someone inside the fold.

  Something that stuck in Coale’s craw now.

  He’d been looking for a way to humiliate Khattak.

  His manipulations had backfired.

  “Well?” Khattak asked.

  He walked to the window in Killiam’s office, studying road conditions that insisted everyone should have been sent home hours ago. The Nakba group were just as constrained by the weather as they were.

  From Unionville to INSET headquarters, Khattak had driven through whiteout conditions. Coale lived near Port Credit. He wondered how the man was planning to get home. At Esa’s repeated insistence, Ruksh had texted him the words “at home.” Misbah had replied with more concern for Esa’s situation. She’d told him to book a room somewhere and stay overnight.

  And the glimmer of an idea had come to Khattak.

  He wanted to check on Rachel as well, but feared that his inquiry might smack of sexism.

  If he’d understood his partner a little better, he would have known that Rachel would value the thought that he worried over her safety, regardless of her status as a gun-toting policewoman.

  Because what use was a gun against the Canadian winter?

  * * *

  Following Esa, Coale managed to keep his temper in check. He barked at Laine over the intercom.

  “You should have caught that, Stoicheva. Now get in here, and then maybe Khattak can explain to both of us what the hell he thinks he’s playing at.”

  Khattak turned from the window. When Laine entered the room, he nodded.

  “You’ll have to be more specific. I’ve no idea what you mean,” Khattak said.

  Coale’s unstudied elegance was at the mercy of his displeasure. An angry hand had yanked at his five-hundred-dollar tie. In his slate-blue ensemble, he should have appeared as cool as the decorous snowfall beyond the window. Instead, a vein throbbed at the base of Coale’s neck. One hand was clenched around his Bulgari pen. He threw it across the desk.

  It skidded to a halt in front of Laine Stoicheva, who pocketed it without a word.

  “You’ve no idea, have you? Because you were preoccupied with upstaging me out there.” Coale jerked his head at the meeting room they had just left. “Tell him, won’t you, Laine?”

  “Andy Dar spoke to the media today.”

  The news didn’t shock Khattak as much as Coale had hoped. Keeping Dar quiet had always been chancy. He was the person Khattak least expected cooperation from.

  “You had one job, Khattak. One job. Keep Dar quiet, and get out of our way.”

  Khattak suppressed the urge to tell Coale he couldn’t count.

  He glanced at Laine, wondering what her contribution to events was meant to be. Audience? Sycophant? A form of Dutch courage, taken straight up?

  “He called a press conference in front of police headquarters. Apparently, he sent out a press release in advance, accusing the powers that be of racist dissimulation.”

  She recited the words by rote, her face inscrutable, siding neither with Khattak nor Coale.

  Khattak glanced at the snowfall outside.

  “And people came?”

  “It’s everywhere. Online, television, radio.”

  “Can I see it?”

  Laine gave Khattak her phone. He scrolled through the press release, less than half his attention on it. He was thinking ahead to a task that Rachel could undertake.

  It was the same kind of material Dar published on his blog. Bombastic, polemical—opinions without hard evidence, indiscriminate generalizations that had made Dar popular with a certain segment of the hard right.

  His blog ran under the phrase “The Trouble with Islam Is Islam.”

  This was more of the same, with the spleen directed at a new target—Esa Khattak.

  But there was nothing substantive to Dar’s accusations. Dar wanted to know why Khattak wasn’t investigating the scene in Algonquin; he demanded his son’s body back for immediate burial. Beyond that, there were shadowy insinuations about the life of a Muslim homicide victim being considered less valuable than that of a white Canadian. He called Khattak’s assignment to the investigation a pacifier. And he accused Khattak of attempting to buy his silence. But Dar was a man who wouldn’t be silenced, not when he had truth on his side. He didn’t want Khattak investigating his son’s death. He wanted no one less than the police commissioner on the job.

  But he’d left the Masjid un-Nur alone. Coincidence? Providence? Neither seemed to apply. More likely that Dar was keeping something in reserve, something to stir up media interest down the line.

  The blizzard would be the lead news item tonight. And Dar wouldn’t want the spotlight to fade quite so soon. Which meant there had to be something in reserve.

  “The headline’s unfair, Esa,” Laine said.

  Khattak hadn’t read it. And he suspected Laine’s attempt at commiseration.

  He scrolled back to the top of the press release.

  “The Trouble with Islam Is Inspector Esa Khattak of Community Policing, Says Well-known Broadcast Journalist Andy Dar.”

  “We’re not here to hold each other’s hands,” Coale barked.

  Khattak handed the phone back to Laine.

  “I spoke to Dar. He gave me assurances that he would wait forty-eight hours to go public.” Khattak held up a hand before Coale could interrupt. “I didn’t take that as a guarantee, but you’ll see that he hasn’t mentioned the Nur mosque. This could work to our advantage.”

  “And how do you figure that?”

  “It takes the pressure off Ashkouri. If I’m under attack, and my murder investigation is hobbled, he’ll be emboldened. It may help if he sees me as weak.”

  “Did you speak to him?”

  “Not yet.”

  “What are you waiting for, man? You think the solution is going to be handed to you?” Coale mimicked an
effeminate voice. “‘Please, Inspector Esa, may I confess to you?’”

  “No.” Khattak held on to his patience. Coale was goading him for a reason. “As I remember it, you asked me to proceed without causing undue alarm at the mosque. I’ve interviewed four of the five people who were at the winter camp with Dar, and my partner has spoken to both women. Ashkouri dodged the questioning today.”

  “I should take you off this right now,” Coale threatened. “You’ve failed from start to finish. On top of that, you’re hopelessly compromised.”

  This time Khattak took the bait.

  “Meaning?”

  “Your sister, Khattak. She’s engaged to Ashkouri. They’re as thick as thieves.”

  Khattak’s reply was icy. “Have you any evidence to support that claim? Among your thousands of intercepts?”

  He wanted proof of what he’d found in Gavin Chan’s office. Rukshanda Khattak: Cell 1.

  Coale didn’t answer. He thrust his hand into his collar. If he’d had anything against Ruksh, he would have played his hand by now.

  “Then I want my sister out of this.”

  “Oh no, no.” Coale took a special pleasure in denying the request. “Just because we haven’t found anything doesn’t mean there isn’t anything. And if you remove your sister from the equation, that’s as good as sounding Ashkouri a warning bell. No, nothing changes except you. We don’t need you anymore, and I’m not sure you can be trusted with an operation of this magnitude. It requires careful police work, Khattak. The kind they don’t expect from CPS—which let’s face it, is just political correctness run amok.”

  And there it was, beneath the words. The slow-burning resentment that Khattak had been the one to leap ahead, leaving Coale behind, until Coale’s own promotion had come through much later.

  It explained a great deal, not least Coale’s simmering antagonism.

  “That’s not your call to make. And if you have nothing but this press release, I suggest that neither of us wastes any further time. I have leads I need to pursue.”