The Language of Secrets

by Ausma Zehanat Khan

  A young officer knocked at the door to Killiam’s office. “We have something, sir,” he said to Coale. “We’re moving on the fertilizer delivery.”

  Ciprian Coale brushed by Khattak, a dismissal. And then he turned at the door, with an actor’s instinctive grasp of how to make an exit.

  “You set another foot wrong, and you’re finished, Khattak. You’re going to find that you’ve used up all your rope.”

  * * *

  Laine and Khattak looked at each other.

  “Why am I really here?” Esa asked her. “Has something happened?”

  She didn’t answer this.

  “You know we hear everything that happens at the mosque. But we wouldn’t have understood about the poem. That was an incredible step forward for us.”

  “And?” Then realization cut deep, as he sorted through her words. “Is Rachel in danger? Does Ashkouri suspect her?”

  Laine moved as though she wanted to reach for Khattak’s arm. She checked herself before the gesture could be completed. Familiarity was no longer possible between them.

  “It’s not about your partner. It’s Ruksh. You can’t get her out—she won’t listen to you. But maybe I can. I could talk to her, Esa; she knows me.”

  But Ruksh had no reason to trust Laine Stoicheva, and both of them knew it. Ruksh had been a front-row witness to the claim Laine had brought against Esa. And to the two-year silence between Esa and Nathan Clare, his closest friend—Laine the issue of contention between them.

  “And risk the operation?” Khattak examined Laine’s flawless face. He read nothing save the solemn desire to help. Which was how Laine lured otherwise sharp-witted officers into her ambush. “Why would you do that? Why would you want to do that? We’re not friends. There’s nothing between us.”

  A hand inside his jacket pocket switched on the recording function on his cell phone.

  Laine shrugged her slim shoulders. A lock of dark hair fell across her face, giving her the appearance of a downcast angel.

  “We don’t need complications. This is a complication I could remove.”

  And what if she said that Khattak had warned Ruksh off, in defiance of explicit orders? He wouldn’t put it past Laine. Her behavior was unpredictable, even at her best.

  “I don’t think so. I don’t need your help, Laine. I can manage my own family.”

  “I’m not your enemy, Esa. I don’t know why you still see me that way. We used to work well together.”

  Khattak raised both eyebrows.

  “Is that a serious question, Laine? After everything you did? After what you did to my friend?” He precluded her attempt at an answer. “Let’s not dig up the past. Whatever you’re doing now, whatever this attempt at reconciliation is—it’s not working. Leave it alone.”

  Laine studied Khattak’s shuttered face in turn. Whatever she saw in it convinced her that this wasn’t the time to press the subject. She moved to the door, one hand clasped on the knob. She spoke over one shoulder, in an unconscious imitation of Coale’s departing gesture.

  “Maybe something good came of your presence at Nur today. When Ashkouri left without talking to you, I mean. You’ve distracted his attention from the fertilizer delivery.”

  But she didn’t tell him anything further, and Khattak chose not to ask.

  16

  Rachel had pulled over to a side street to wait out the storm when Khattak called her.

  “Where are you?”

  “Not far from where you left me. Blizzard’s out of control. It’s supposed to ease up later tonight.”

  “Could you go back?”

  Rachel decided not to ignore the note of strain in Khattak’s voice.

  “To the mosque? No problem. What’s going on?”

  “Throw yourself on their mercy. Tell them you need a place to stay. And make sure they know you’ve told several people where you are. I want you to nose around a little. Maybe you’ll find something that tells us how the two cells are communicating. Or something that connects to the murder.”

  Rachel could almost hear Khattak second-guessing himself.

  “I’ll be fine, sir, don’t worry. You’re thinking they’re on to us? The wiretaps caught something?”

  “Not that exactly. Someone at the camp has already killed once. Whatever their reasons, the murder was cold and rational. If they knew about Mohsin, it’s possible they suspect you. I don’t like to think of sending you into a pit of vipers by yourself. Someone still has that gun.”

  “Well, they won’t all be staying over at the mosque, will they? And I’ll have the chance to search for the gun. You don’t need to worry about me. You know that I can handle myself.”

  The words came out sounding more personal than professional. Rachel hurried over them before Khattak could notice.

  “What happened with INSET?”

  “Several unpleasant things.” Khattak filled her in on the Rose of Darkness website, and its connection to Ashkouri. He went over the chat log in some detail.

  Rachel scratched at her ear, thinking.

  “So if Hawiye is Din Abdi, doesn’t that put him in the clear? If he’s demanding answers about Mohsin Dar’s death? And doesn’t it sound like he expects that if anyone did this, it was Ashkouri himself?”

  She heard Khattak sigh. And wondered how he planned to get home. The road closures had multiplied. Cakes of snow were wedged inside her windshield wipers.

  “Yes to the first. I don’t think it is Din. He doesn’t possess that kind of coolheadedness. If he’d been the one to murder Mohsin Dar, he’d have fallen apart by now. You get a sense of it in the transcript as well. He’s unraveling. As to Ashkouri—it sounds like it, but RDSB used the public terminal at the mosque.”

  Rachel pondered this. “So it could have been someone else. Listen,” she said. “I had a thought about Mohsin Dar. And what he might have been doing at Nur.”

  She spoke for several more minutes without interruption. When she had finished, Khattak confirmed her suspicions.

  “I’ve been thinking the same thing. And wondering about the RCMP role in all this.”

  “Too laid-back?” Rachel offered. “Too wrongheaded? Wearing blinders? Fatally misunderstanding their man?”

  “All of the above.”

  Rachel started her car. The wipers moved back and forth across the windshield, bumping slightly over the hardened snow. She turned on the defrost.

  “What else, sir? There’s something more, isn’t there?”

  She had a feeling she knew what it was. And she wondered if Khattak would choose to tell her. After a moment, he did.

  “I don’t like working with Laine. Ciprian’s a known quantity, I know what his agenda is, what he wants, why his feelings are bruised. I can’t say the same for Laine.”

  Despite the falling temperature, warmth bubbled inside Rachel. The words were a sign of trust, a sign that her partnership with Khattak was expanding, deepening. She caught herself in the rearview mirror with a ridiculous grin pasted on her face. She wiped it off with a frown.

  “She’s trying to obstruct you? Get in your way somehow?”

  “The opposite. Twice now she’s offered me her exclusive help. And access to inside knowledge. It doesn’t add up. Not with what I know of her.”

  Rachel chewed on this. “She’s up to something. She’s just not ready to play her hand.”

  “I think I should go and see her. Somewhere away from headquarters.”

  Rachel sat up straight in her seat. Switching over to Bluetooth, she eased her car off the shoulder and back onto the road. A passing driver in a pickup truck made an obscene gesture as she cut him off. She turned on the lights of her siren. The driver sped away.

  “I think that’s the last thing you should do. You’d be playing right into her hands.”

  “The INSET operation is too finely balanced as it is. It won’t survive whatever form of sabotage Laine has in mind. Shouldn’t I get in front of this?”

  Rachel hesitated. Khattak
’s awareness of his magnetism could be subliminal at times.

  “Her interest might be more personal than you’re imagining, sir.”

  She heard the sharp intake of Khattak’s breath over the noise of the traffic.

  “Then what do you recommend?”

  “Stay away,” Rachel advised. “No matter what. I can talk to her if the need arises.”

  “Laine offered to get Ruksh out of this.”

  “That’s a trap, sir. If you need help with Ruksh, maybe you should talk to your friend. He’s close with your sister, right?”

  Nathan Clare. The friend Laine Stoicheva had used without a qualm.

  When Khattak didn’t answer, Rachel continued. “Or maybe you should just sit tight, let things play out. It’s what we’ve been ordered to do anyway.”

  She swore as she narrowly missed a collision with a winter-challenged driver.

  “Sorry about that, sir. I’m two minutes from Nur.”

  “Be careful, Rachel.”

  “You, as well.”

  * * *

  It wasn’t dark yet. It was that twilight time when the sun had dipped down from the sky for the day, and blues and grays skirted the soft outline of its rays. The yellow house was folded between white rimples of snow. A small light burned beside the door. And beyond, the streets fell away from gently banked hills.

  A Catalina blue drifted across the landscape.

  To Rachel, it felt like a burden, reminding her of so many evenings without Zach, wondering where her brother was, whether he was safe or loved or ever coming home.

  And then one day he had.

  She tried the door. It gave way at her touch.

  There was no one at Paula’s desk in the reception area. And no one in the prayer hall, though she could hear the tender sound of music. Textured voices layered over each other. A calling and sounding back of multitonal rhythms, the sound of devotion. It was a recording of religious hymns known as nasheeds.

  Rachel stowed her boots in one of the caddies. She hung up her winter coat. Then she padded up the stairs on stealthy feet. Paula and Grace were not on the landing, nor was anyone else. The space was deserted, the partition a dull reminder of exclusion. Rachel peered around it.

  The kitchen was as deserted as the rest of the main floor. Rachel waited several minutes. No one came. The hymns continued to play. Under her breath, Rachel hummed along.

  Khattak had said to undertake a search. Where should she start? She glanced up the stairs to the second floor. She could explain her presence on the main floor of the house more easily than she could if she were caught searching the bedrooms upstairs. Khattak had told her the bedrooms were used for guests of the mosque who were visiting from out of town. Best to be quick then. Not giving herself time to think, she scurried up the stairs.

  Five doors led off the hall, two on each side, one at the very end. The door at the end was closed. The two on the right were open. Both led into bedrooms, one with an attached en suite. Rachel began with one of those, a slow, methodical search. The room was decorated with a lemon-yellow counterpane, folded back on a French country bed. The pillowcases that matched it were frilly, the lamps rustic. A chest of drawers was tucked away into a corner.

  Rachel searched the drawers. She found numerous sheet sets and more pillowcases. Successive drawers were occupied by gleaming prayer rugs woven of heavy silk. She checked under the mattress. Then she checked out the second bedroom, which was equally uninhabited.

  The two doors on the left were closed. She nudged one open. A third bedroom, this one showing signs of occupancy. A battered backpack was flung over a small wooden table that served as a desk. The backpack was covered in heavy lapel pins and buttons. Death heads, crossbones, political slogans, a white star in a blue circle, the Palestinian flag. A dozen buttons in a row with the word “Misfits” stamped above a grinning black skull.

  A stack of cassette tapes with handwritten labels divulged a list of punk rock bands. Bad Religion. The Casualties. Social Distortion. The Suicide Machines. Black Flag. Rancid. The Damned. An unappetizing selection of names. And one that was out of place: An-Nahda Hip Hop. Rachel pocketed the tape. An-Nahda meant “the awakening.” And was possibly connected to Ennahda, Tunisia’s long-suppressed Islamist political party.

  The drawers contained a meager selection of underwear and socks, and a few additional T-shirts in a style Rachel thought she could safely ascribe to Grace. The Jack and Jill bathroom took her to the fourth room, which was set up as an office.

  Here was the public terminal. Computer, printer, and a set of loudspeakers. A gaming system. And a not-inexpensive digital turntable with an accompanying mixer. Thousands of dollars’ worth of equipment.

  Rachel switched on the desktop computer. It booted up with a groan of protest and she shut the door. She turned her attention to the desk drawers. They were stuffed with notebooks and CDs—too many for her to sort through when she could be discovered at any minute.

  She used her cell phone camera to take a rapid series of pictures. She photographed the computer setup, the electronic equipment, the contents of the drawers. Then she moved to the notebooks. One was a sketchbook. Rendered by an amateur architect, it contained a selection of crudely drawn structures and floor plans. None represented the Nakba targets. One was simply the drawing of a skating rink, two crescent moons that faced each other hanging over it.

  Rachel glanced out the window to the pond below.

  A figure detached itself from the trees that circled the pond.

  She drew away from the window quickly.

  The light from the computer would give her silhouette away. Up until now she had used the light from her cell phone.

  The computer was still cycling, running through updates.

  She chose another notebook at random.

  Notes for the Friday sermon.

  Most of the writing was contained within the notebook’s borders, but someone had scrawled down the side of one page, “Marginal notes on the book of defeat.” Rachel photographed the page, along with consecutive pages of the sermon.

  “Do not delay your prayers. Do not perform good deeds only to be seen. Remember the care of the downcast, the lonely, the orphans, the forsaken, the hungry and the poor. And do not refuse the gift of small kindnesses.”

  She scanned the rest of it and could see nothing that served a jihadist interpretation. And Nur’s imam wasn’t on INSET’s list.

  She returned her attention to the computer. First, she checked the documents folder. It was empty. Then the recycling bin. Empty as well. Nothing on the desktop itself. No recently saved documents.

  In the search window, she typed the words “rose of darkness.”

  No matching results were found.

  Now she connected to the Internet. And checked the bookmarks bar. The list was some forty or fifty sites long. Her eyes ran over them quickly. YouTube videos of Mecca during the Hajj. Nasheed sites. A link to Muhammad Asad’s translation of the Qur’an. Several punk music videos. Numerous sites on the history of Somalia. A long selection of news articles on the 2002 invasion of Iraq. Some on ISIS. Some on Syria and the tyranny of Bashar al-Assad.

  And one item that caught her attention. Someone had bookmarked websites where bolt-action hunting rifles could legally be purchased. Mausers, Winchesters, Sakos, Brownings, and several other models. Someone had been comparing the accuracy and durability of the rifles.

  But there was nothing else. No blueprints, no schematics, no instructions on the construction of a fertilizer bomb, not a single map of the city of Toronto.

  Rachel photographed the bookmarks bar, planning to check the search history next.

  A footfall on the carpet outside the bedroom door gave her a two-second warning.

  She dropped her phone into her pocket, shoved the notebook back into the drawer.

  Into the Google search bar, she typed the single word “GO” and hit “Enter.”

  The door opened behind her.

  Casual
ly, she turned around.

  She was face-to-face with Jamshed Ali.

  * * *

  He closed the door behind him.

  Rachel remembered her unabashed grin from the car, the grin she would have been mortified for Esa Khattak to witness, and tried it on Jamshed now.

  “What are you doing here?”

  He moved a step closer.

  Rachel sank down into the office chair, affecting an attitude of unruffled friendliness.

  “The blizzard has made a mess of traffic; I was checking timetables for public transit. Paula mentioned there was a computer for public use upstairs.” She tried for a tone of injured innocence. “It wasn’t password-protected.”

  Paula had mentioned nothing of the kind. Rachel prayed the woman had gone home. It would give her time to regroup before her lie could be exposed.

  And then she remembered that part of her cover at the Nur mosque was that she lived locally. She hoped Jamshed Ali hadn’t heard this.

  His rancorous eyes moved to the screen behind her shoulder.

  The green-and-white symbol of the GO Transit system flashed up against the screen. A list of train and bus timetables ran down one side of the screen.

  “And where are you going, Miss Ellison? I understood that you lived in this neighborhood.”

  Sweat broke out on the back of Rachel’s neck. His commonplace words were laden with foreboding.

  “That’s right, I do. But I’m supposed to meet my girlfriends in the city. I just called them. They’re meeting me at Union Station.”

  She swiveled the chair. Her eyes darted to the screen.

  “I was just checking the time of the next train from Unionville.”

  Jamshed Ali leaned down. He braced one hand on Rachel’s chair. She could smell the qahwe on his breath. Cardamom and cinnamon, and the scent of smoke. He was reading the screen in front of her.

  “The GO trains do not run after rush hour, Miss Ellison. If you were to take the bus, you would encounter the same difficulties on the road as if you had driven yourself. The snowfall makes no exceptions.”

  Rachel pretended to dither.

  “I didn’t realize that, but I guess you’re right. What should I do? Maybe ask my friends to come and get me?” Wondering if she was overdoing it, she pinched her temples. “No, that doesn’t make sense. They’d have as much trouble as I’m having. Is it possible—that is, Paula said you often let guests stay overnight. Do you think I could crash here until the snow lets up?”