The Language of Secrets

by Ausma Zehanat Khan

  Sehr’s phone call to Rachel had been a garbled mess, something much stronger than friendly concern in her voice.

  He’s hurt. He’s bleeding. He’s not waking up. Rachel, what do I do?

  Frightened herself, Rachel had kept up an imperturbable front of calm, assuring Sehr that Khattak would be fine, he was a tough nut to crack.

  “Don’t tell anyone who you are,” Rachel had warned her. This wasn’t the same woman Rachel had spoken with earlier, calm and decided in her judgments. When Rachel met Sehr in the emergency room, her pale face was streaked with tears, her eyes fearful and wide.

  Sehr left unwillingly, texting Rachel often.

  And she’d said something else, something significant, before she left.

  “There’s something I need to tell Esa about the case. I called earlier; he didn’t answer.”

  “You can’t tell us anything, you know that,” Rachel said.

  Sehr disregarded this.

  “When he wakes up, ask him to call me. At once. Please, it’s important.”

  Rachel didn’t think that less than a minute of wakefulness counted. The phone call to Sehr Ghilzai could wait.

  * * *

  It was five in the morning when Rachel received the call that galvanized her into action. It was Misbah, Khattak’s youngest sister. Rachel had called to let Khattak’s family know that he would be working late on a case. The phone call had been intended to allay any worry or suspicion. And she’d offered her own number in exchange, remembering what Khattak had told her.

  My sisters know they can reach me whenever they need me.

  Rachel still wasn’t sure if she had done the right thing by not telling them.

  “I can’t reach my brother and I don’t know what to do,” Misbah said, her voice strained.

  “What’s the matter? Tell me and I’ll do my best to help.”

  Misbah drew a deep breath. “It’s Ruksh. She asked me not to tell my brother, but I’m worried.”

  She’d found out, Rachel thought. Somehow Ruksh had learned about the attack on Esa.

  “I don’t understand. What did Ruksh tell you?”

  “My brother told me not to have anything to do with the people from the mosque. He wouldn’t even let me meet them.”

  “All right, yes. I knew that. Has someone come to your house? Is your security system on?”

  “It’s not that.” The young woman’s voice cracked. “Ruksh was planning this all along.”

  Sweet Jesus, Rachel prayed. Don’t let her have eloped with Hassan Ashkouri.

  Her prayer was answered with something much worse.

  “She’s left for Algonquin with Hassan.”

  * * *

  Conscious of the escalating pressure of time, Rachel considered her options. She still hadn’t learned why Ashkouri was heading up to the camp, but it was a moot point now. He was on his way, with Ruksh as his willing hostage.

  She glanced over at Khattak, asleep in the hospital bed. His stitches stood out sharply against his green-tinged skin. There were harsh shadows under his eyes and a drawn quality to his expression in the depths of his slumber.

  What would he want her to do?

  Family was everything to him, more important than the case, more important than Mohsin Dar, but was it more dear than the outcome of the operation?

  She called Martine Killiam again, without success. She didn’t have Coale’s number, but she remembered Khattak’s phone. She keyed in his password to unlock the screen, scrolled through his recent calls. She saw the missed calls from Laine Stoicheva and Sehr Ghilzai. And the call to Laine without a reply.

  Should she call Laine and ask for her help? Or was that precipitating Khattak into another kind of danger?

  Coale’s number flashed on the screen. He was her best bet, Rachel decided.

  A voice with a sneer in it answered the call.

  “What do you want, Khattak? I thought you were in the hospital.”

  Rachel disliked him at once.

  “He is. Inspector Khattak’s under observation. This is his partner, Rachel Getty.” Quickly, she outlined the recent developments in the case to Coale. “We need backup. You need to send officers to the park.”

  Coale’s voice was filled with a vicious satisfaction.

  “You don’t give me orders, Getty; you have no role in this operation. Did you honestly think we’d flush down two years of work because of Khattak’s sister? She knows what Ashkouri is. She’s made her bed, now she’ll have to lie in it. Which I think is what she was after anyway.”

  Rachel sucked in her breath.

  “With all due respect, sir, have you any proof of that?” Coale was silent. “I didn’t think so. Which means that as far as your operation is concerned, Rukshanda Khattak is an innocent bystander, and a civilian in harm’s way. You have to do something to protect her.”

  “My tactical team is in position, Getty. The operation is priority one.”

  “That’s two days away, sir!”

  “It could be a month away, my answer wouldn’t change. And I’m surprised that Khattak used you to do his dirty work.”

  Rachel ground her teeth. She couldn’t risk being called out for insubordination.

  “Fine,” she said. “I’ll speak to the superintendent directly.”

  “I’m afraid you’ll find that a little difficult,” Coale said, not troubling to disguise his gratification. “She’s gone to Ottawa to brief the minister.”

  “She has a meeting with Inspector Khattak in a few hours.” Rachel checked her watch.

  “I’ll be taking that meeting on her behalf. And as of this moment, you’re off this case.”

  “You can’t do that, sir!”

  “I’m the ranking officer,” Coale said pleasantly. “I think you’ll find that I can.”

  * * *

  Five in the morning. December 31. New Year’s Eve was nineteen hours away. And Grace had told Rachel to get to the mosque by six a.m. if she wanted to come with the group to Algonquin for the spiritual retreat. There was still a chance that Rachel could make it to Unionville, if she left right now and used her siren all the way.

  But what to do about Khattak and his meeting, assuming he was recovered enough to be discharged? What if his injuries were worse than they appeared at first blush?

  She was reading through Khattak’s contacts on his phone without paying close attention. Now one name leapt off the screen.

  Someone she could trust. Someone who would understand the nature of her difficulty without demanding information she couldn’t give.

  She called Nathan Clare.

  From the fuzzy quality of his voice, she knew she’d woken him from sleep.

  Groggy at first, he soon picked up on the urgency of her tone.

  He was at his door before Rachel ended the call.

  25

  Rachel kept a duffel bag in the trunk of her car. It contained a change of clothes, a flashlight, and two sets of thick outerwear in case her car broke down in a snowstorm. There were also three or four pairs of skates in her trunk, one of which was intended for figure skating. The thick leather of the skates would be frozen and intractable, but Rachel didn’t have time to move her gear into the backseat. She had no contact information for Grace. If she didn’t make it to the mosque in time, she’d have no idea which campsite the group was headed to.

  Algonquin Park covered a massive amount of territory, some three thousand square miles in all. This was no peaceful advent into the wilderness. She was speeding like a demon through freezing rain, the roads heaving like a slippery current, cursing Ciprian Coale as she drove.

  This was what Khattak hadn’t told her—the ridicule, the condescension, the lofty superiority. Khattak hadn’t shared a word of it, updating her on each of his meetings with INSET in as logical and focused a manner as possible. She had thought that Laine Stoicheva might choose to cause him some difficulty or unpleasantness. Instead, it was Coale who thwarted cooperation, watching catlike from the shadows,
waiting for Khattak to fall from his tightrope.

  How did Khattak bear it? she wondered, fuming on his behalf. Khattak should have refused the case the moment he knew his sister was involved. He should have thought of something, spirited Ruksh away on a family trip, dreamt up a plausible excuse.

  The lights are for my sister’s wedding.

  He’d looked bleak as he’d said it, and now she understood why. Ruksh was headstrong and foolish, too certain of her own judgment in the face of her brother’s long and distinguished experience of police work. Why hadn’t Ruksh heeded his warning?

  How frustrated Khattak must have felt on all fronts, and how alone—without comfort or support from those who should have understood him best. Powerless to do anything to change the course of events, except by getting to the bottom of Mohsin Dar’s murder.

  Rachel had to give him credit. He had concentrated all his efforts to that end, and he had done so without speaking of the things that must have weighed upon him so personally.

  Successfully? He’d put a stop to the machinations of Andy Dar, but otherwise it was too soon to tell.

  Hunger gnawed at Rachel’s stomach.

  She found a couple of Rice Krispies squares in her glove compartment and munched them down, one hand on the steering wheel. Her car skidded into the slow lane. She wheeled left to recover, cutting her speed by a third. Two more exits to the mosque. But she hadn’t thought her plan through.

  What she wanted was exact directions to the campground, along with the ability to convince Din and Grace to remain behind.

  If the halaqa at Khattak’s house the other night was an indication, Ashkouri would drive Paula and Ruksh. She didn’t know about the two young men she hadn’t spoken to, Zakaria and Sami. Jamshed Ali would bring Grace and Din. Rachel didn’t want any of them being alone in a vehicle with Jamshed Ali. Not when Khattak suspected him of being responsible for the assault in the dark.

  If her boss had been struck a little harder on the skull—she swallowed back her fear.

  She tried to remember where she’d seen that distinctive mark that had appeared on Khattak’s forehead, the small circular depression that had been punched against his skull. It wasn’t a tire iron. It was something compact and precise.

  Not ski poles, because their length would have made them unwieldy. And Khattak had recounted that he’d been struck twice in the same spot with two rapid blows.

  She pulled off the highway, rehearsing her approach.

  If she made it in time.

  * * *

  The parking lot beside the mosque was black and silky with rain. A green SUV idled in one of the parking spots, Grace and Din standing at its rear amidst a collection of camping gear, backpacks, and two large coolers.

  The rain had begun to thicken into a slushy snow. The air felt mossy against Rachel’s unprotected cheeks. She parked her car and loped over to the SUV, the extra Maple Leafs toque in her hands.

  “You sure you want to go in this weather?” she asked Grace, tossing her the toque.

  No sign of Jamshed Ali yet.

  And she noticed something else. Grace had removed the studs from the back of her skull. A row of painful red dots trailed from the crown of her head to the nape of her neck. When Grace noticed Rachel looking at them, she stuffed her streaky hair under the toque.

  “You came after all. I thought you’d changed your mind.”

  “I didn’t want to let you down when I’d promised to teach you how to skate. But this doesn’t seem like a good idea, does it? The roads are pretty bad.”

  “Hassan says they’re better once you get out of the city. The weather’s clear up north.”

  “You want to drive with me?” Rachel nodded at Din. “Both of you?”

  She’d stashed her siren and anything else that could identify her as police.

  A glance passed between them—Din stuffed into a duffel coat that enveloped his rangy body, the kaffiyeh wrapped around his head in a new style that suited him as well as the scarf’s previous incarnations, Grace with her leggings tucked into a pair of ragged mid-calf boots and an equally threadbare coat in navy blue that skimmed the tops of her thighs.

  Grace wasn’t dressed for winter camping.

  She wouldn’t survive the night in a tent.

  But there were no tents stowed with the gear that was assembled by the car.

  Din began to pack the SUV, leaving Grace to deal with Rachel.

  “Din won’t let Jamshed drive alone. He’ll want to give him company.”

  The wind blew a blade of scarlet hair into Grace’s eyes. She fished it out with an impatient gesture. It flicked against her mouth instead.

  “That’s okay,” Rachel said. “You can keep me company, then. There’s plenty of room in my car.”

  Grace cast a skeptical glance at Rachel’s tiny Neon.

  “No offense, but that’s not a great vehicle to drive to the park. The roads aren’t usually plowed up there.”

  “You’re back again, Miss Ellison,” a voice said from behind Rachel’s shoulder. She couldn’t help her instinctive flinch, any more than she could help herself from stealing a glance at Jamshed Ali’s boots.

  Not steel-toed, but thick-soled and solid.

  He had the grubby look of a man who’d been up most of the night, yet his eyes were clear and alert. Did he suspect Rachel of knowing about the early morning attack on Esa Khattak? She couldn’t tell.

  “I’m back,” she agreed. “I’m looking forward to teaching these two to skate. What about this weather, though?”

  He made the same demurral that Grace had.

  “I’ll follow behind you, then,” Rachel said. “You coming, Grace?”

  Grace shook her head.

  “I’m gonna go with Din. He likes it when I’m around.”

  From the heavy scowl that marked Jamshed’s forehead, he didn’t agree. But nor did he want Grace to accompany Rachel.

  “Where’s Paula?” Rachel asked. “Maybe she could come with me.”

  She was puzzling over Grace’s response.

  It wasn’t that Grace wanted to go with Din, she thought. It was that Grace didn’t want him alone in Jamshed’s company, any more than Jamshed wanted Grace to travel with Rachel.

  Did Grace know more about the Nakba plot than any of them had suspected? Was she, like Mohsin, trying to get Din out? If so, Rachel didn’t want to leave Grace with Jamshed Ali, even with Din there

  “Paula left with Hassan.” Jamshed didn’t volunteer anything other than that, which left Rachel wondering where Zakaria and Sami were, and whether she would find them at the camp.

  “That’s too bad,” Rachel said. “I enjoy talking to her.”

  “Do you?”

  Jamshed wasn’t fooled, Rachel realized. Perhaps that had been a stupid thing to say, given Paula’s abrasive demeanor. On the other hand, Grace was just as abrasive, in her own way.

  Din finished packing the car. He pulled down the rear door, stamping his feet in the cold. He was more sensibly dressed for the weather than Grace. And that made Rachel wonder why he didn’t see that Grace was shivering beside him in the snowfall? Was he blind to everything except his mission?

  “Coming, Gracie?”

  “I don’t think you need to follow us,” Jamshed spoke to Rachel. “We can take one more, if you’re determined to come, as no one else is coming with us. But perhaps you should reconsider the weather, Miss Ellison.”

  Rachel considered her options. Should she go in the SUV with Jamshed and Din Abdi? She’d have no recourse to backup, and no way of getting herself out of the park—or anywhere else, if they decided to strand her on an empty stretch of highway in the dark.

  And Rachel’s gun was locked away in her glove compartment, with no easy means of removing it privately to stuff it into her duffel bag.

  She saw a flicker of hope flit across Grace’s face.

  And decided.

  “If you’re sure you don’t mind.” She waved a hand at Din. “Could you open t
he back again? I’ll load my gear.”

  “What gear do you have, Miss Ellison?”

  “Won’t you call me Rachel?” She smiled blandly into Jamshed Ali’s face. “My duffel bag, and the skates.” She moved to her passenger door. “And I’ll just grab my phone charger.”

  “You won’t have any use for that,” Jamshed told her. “There’s no cell phone reception at our campsite.”

  He was watching Rachel, weighing her. And possibly trying to scare her off.

  Or just as probable, calculating what to do with her once they were en route to the park.

  And like Khattak, she asked herself the same question.

  Why was Ashkouri’s Nakba cell returning to Algonquin, the day before the attack?

  * * *

  The Lake of Two Rivers Campground was officially closed for the winter. Jamshed drove the SUV off the main road to a twisty, snow-covered dirt track that ran parallel to the tree line.

  The vehicle bumped over ruts in the track, jostling its buckled-in passengers. Much to Rachel’s surprise, she had slept on the drive north, Grace a sullen presence beside her in the backseat. From time to time, there would be murmurs from the front seat, the low, masculine voices of Dinaase and Jamshed, their conversation muted and private.

  Rachel had listened for her name or Khattak’s before drifting into an uneasy rest. The long night and the worry over Khattak had taken its toll on her stamina.

  When she woke, it was with the refreshed air of a police officer accustomed to grabbing snatches of sleep where and when the opportunity arose.

  She found herself gazing out upon a wonderland of snow.

  Canyons of snow, caverns of snow, great polished pastures of snow, the imperial majesty of the pines perched high above them on the rise.

  The campground wasn’t part of the old-growth Algonquin forest, with its increasingly scarce hemlock and birch. The ancient trees were part of an ongoing logging dispute. Logging was legal in sections of the park, under cautiously managed five-year plans. But modern forestry plans were premised on hundred-year rotations, without taking into account the forest’s irreplaceable great age. The park was one of the last refuges of sugar maples, yellow birch, and hemlock. Logging in the recreation-utilization zone of Algonquin was a subject that had sorely exercised Rachel’s father, police superintendent Don Getty.