The Language of Secrets

by Ausma Zehanat Khan

  Don Getty had spent the summers of his childhood canoeing and camping in Algonquin’s pristine wilderness. Rachel’s grandfather had been a conservationist who had taught his son early lessons in the destructive nature of the human footprint. Rachel’s father had passed the lessons on to Rachel and her brother.

  “There are three things that don’t belong together,” Don Getty was fond of saying. “The call of the loon, the tracks of a moose, and the harvesters of loggers. It’s our oldest provincial park; if we don’t protect it, who will?”

  Gazing upon the undiminished hinterland, Rachel understood the lesson better than she had as a child. She recollected Ashkouri’s fixation with poetry, and she thought, the park was a genuine, truthful poem. You could measure yourself against its beauty. And you would know what kind of a person you were from the imprint you left behind.

  As she stepped from the car to feel the satisfying crunch of the snow beneath her boots, the air held an unforeseen sweetness, soft and kind against her cheeks. She was struck at once by the crisp tang of the jack pines. The campground was deserted, the campsite office closed. Firewood was stacked in neat bundles at its rear. The Lake of Two Rivers, partially frozen over, was to the west, the Old Railway bike trail to the east. There were no tents or cabins at the site.

  “We have to go around,” Jamshed explained. “The river is to the north. There are some abandoned cabins on its banks.”

  Which didn’t sound right to Rachel.

  The park was meticulously managed and maintained. They were trespassing if Two Rivers was closed. Ashkouri must have chosen it for that reason. The Mew Lake Campground was open year-round, and could be counted on to be populated, even in winter.

  But the two campgrounds were less than a mile apart, just off the highway, at the heart of a system of lakes with beautiful names like Littledoe, Longspur, Misty Lake, and Burnt Island. The park encompassed some twenty-four hundred lakes altogether, and more than seven hundred miles of lake-fed rivers and streams. The Lake of Two Rivers was its most popular campground.

  Jamshed motioned Rachel to the car. He had stopped to collect two bundles of firewood.

  Now they traveled deeper into the park’s interior, away from the highway, away from the long, deep trough of the lake, past the wide spread of its wings, toward the muffled roar of the Madawaska River. It was snow-crusted, dipping well below its banks. Rachel took note of the river’s narrow margin of winter frost. The river was beginning to thaw. It wasn’t safe for skating on. And she realized that any evidence that might have connected members of the camp to Mohsin Dar’s murder was probably long gone—either buried in the snow or thrown into the river.

  Jamshed drove them through the wild backcountry, where the track was now forged by the wheels of the SUV. The blue sky of night was in retreat, the pallor of dawn creeping into its place. A lusterless gold limned the pines and the undressed maples.

  Rachel was losing her bearings. She hadn’t thought to bring a compass, but the GPS tracker in her phone was active. She cast a surreptitious glance at it. They couldn’t have traveled as far into the wilds as she’d thought; her phone was still receiving service.

  She texted her last known location to Khattak, and as an afterthought, to Sehr Ghilzai.

  And in case she didn’t get another chance, she added the words, Haven’t found Ruksh, but think I’m close.

  Their car pounded the snow for another mile until they reached a clearing of jack pine and spruce, mantled beneath slow-forming ice. Just beyond the clearing, Rachel made out the murky outline of a series of cabins. They had lost the river, a cottony thread that wound beyond the trees into the crackling distance. A black SUV was stationed east of the cabins. Jamshed parked his vehicle beside it.

  They tumbled out of the car, eager to stretch their legs—and in Rachel’s case, more than eager to find Ruksh Khattak, her mind running through various scenarios. She’d have to steal the keys to one of the cars, somehow coerce Ruksh and Grace into it, and get herself to Huntsville, twenty minutes away, to liaise with the local police.

  She’d figured out what to tell Ruksh.

  She had no idea at all how to convince Grace, or whether she should bother.

  Grace was in no immediate danger.

  She couldn’t say the same for Ruksh.

  Ashkouri must have brought Ruksh with him for one reason. If he was identified in connection with the Nakba plot, he must have thought he’d need a hostage to fight his way out.

  Not much suicidal inclination there, Rachel thought. Nor any particular desire for an immediate ascension to paradise.

  Ashkouri had sacrificed younger men to that end, and in that he followed the pattern of jihadist commanders, who preached the glories of martyrdom without partaking of those glories themselves.

  The young were sent to die, their mentors exempt from the same prescribed sacrifice.

  Rachel didn’t know the identity of the members of the second cell. She reckoned, however, that it would be a bunch of kids not much older than her brother Zach. Stupid, gullible, alienated kids looking for something to hold on to, something to believe in, and ending up in the clutches of Ashkouri and Jamshed. And then rationalizing the violence as if it were a video game with a tally of kills in the right-hand column.

  If I had a rocket launcher.

  If they had a rocket launcher, she knew what they would do.

  It wasn’t enough to say that the same faith that had produced Hassan Ashkouri had also produced Esa Khattak, good and evil sketched out in broad strokes

  It wasn’t easy and two-dimensional like that. It was nuanced, complex, difficult—it required an understanding of history, of the power vacuum that erupted in the aftermath of invasions, of the longue durée outcomes of occupations and looted capitals, of bombs that leveled the infrastructure of cities, of drones that did their killing without accuracy or due process, of those who rose to fill the vacuum of the deposed and despised, of the dialogue between civilizations, of the decades-long struggles for rights and democracy, of the stultification of independent thought by those who were steeped in authoritarian traditions.

  Like Hassan Ashkouri.

  With her limited knowledge, Rachel thought of all those things, and she didn’t see Esa Khattak.

  And she wouldn’t reduce it or him by saying, He must be one of the good ones.

  What else was Community Policing about, if not seeking a greater understanding of diversity? And respecting those who themselves respected a nation of communities, bound together by the things they held in common. All the things, so many things.

  Ashkouri had chosen a different path, a different means of addressing his anger and grievances, his choices vindicated by his reading of history. Something could be beautiful, humane, encompassing. Or it could be made ugly. And maybe that was the lesson. We bring to a tradition what is already within ourselves, however our moral compass is designed, whatever our ethical training is. And then the tradition speaks.

  It was on that basis that Ashkouri had set his plan in motion.

  The New Year Nakba.

  And there was an evil in that that Rachel wasn’t sure Esa Khattak recognized.

  She couldn’t accuse her boss of having been partisan about anything connected to Mohsin Dar’s death, setting aside his reasonable concern for his sister. And she hadn’t expected that he would be. Khattak was the counterterrorism expert, not Rachel.

  Rachel was the one who found herself thinking along the same lines as Mohsin Dar. She didn’t want these kids to be swept up in the plot. She wanted to get Paula and Din out; and if not Din—if he was too deeply implicated, if he had killed Mohsin Dar at Ashkouri’s command—then at least Grace.

  Was it wrong of Rachel to see the innocence in Grace, the injured spirit? Was it wrong to want to rescue her?

  Would she always be partial to the young and dispossessed, because of Zach?

  Wasn’t that the very quality that made her so good at her job?

  Wasn’t tha
t the one aspect of her approach to policing that Khattak had never asked her to moderate?

  She had disobeyed a direct order from Ciprian Coale not just for Ruksh’s sake, but also because of Grace. And maybe Paula.

  She didn’t believe that these women had no agency of their own. They had made foolish choices, each for the same reason—Paula’s infatuation with Ashkouri, Ruksh’s dubious relationship with the same man, and Grace clinging to Din like he was the only thing that connected her to the world. Because without him, the world was cruel and uncaring.

  Rachel didn’t know what that felt like.

  The most intense love she’d known in her life had been for her brother Zachary.

  But she was possessed of a fertile imagination.

  And all that poetry at the mosque—passionate, dramatic—had to spring from somewhere, something.

  A very real depth of feeling.

  And then a thought struck Rachel.

  Paula Kyriakou was the only one who hadn’t mentioned poetry or recited it.

  Paula, the pragmatic one.

  Hassan Ashkouri’s faithful admirer.

  On cue, the woman bustled out of the nearest cabin, trudging her way through the snow to their SUV.

  “Give me the firewood, Jamshed. You have no idea how cold it is.”

  Paula had changed her comfortably loose robe for a full-length down parka with a furry white hood that framed her round face. Without the scarf pulled tight around her forehead and chin, and with the crispness of winter bathing her cheeks, she looked lively and pretty.

  If still of the same sour disposition.

  Jamshed unloaded the firewood from the back of the car. He carried it into the clearing.

  “Where’s Hassan?”

  “He’s taken Ruksh for a walk.” Paula firmed her lips as she shared the news. “They shouldn’t be alone together.”

  Jamshed broke off an icicle from the branch of a spruce tree. He held it up to Paula.

  “What can they get up to in this weather, Paula? They’re grown-ups. You don’t need to police them.”

  His eyes slid to Rachel.

  Din smirked at Grace, perhaps in recollection of his last trip to the park. The night that Mohsin Dar had died, when the two of them had been alone in the woods of Algonquin.

  And from the slight emphasis that Jamshed had placed on the word “police,” Rachel understood that Jamshed Ali knew exactly who she was.

  And if he did, there was no reason that Rachel shouldn’t make a bolder move.

  “This clearing is so pretty,” she said. “Hassan said you intend to hold a memorial for your friend. The one who was killed in the park. Is this where he died?”

  Paula stared at Rachel with distaste. Grace answered before Jamshed Ali could speak.

  “No. He was up beyond the rise, near the river. That’s why no one heard him cry out after the gunshots. If he did cry out, that is.”

  Her voice began to shake.

  “When someone has returned to God, we do not mourn his passing.”

  It was an indictment. Delivered by Jamshed with no regard for the fact of a young girl’s sense of loss. Rachel had witnessed Islamic funeral rites before. She knew they could be gentle, a comfort to the bereaved, in the hands of a capable preacher.

  There was a sternness and rigidity to Jamshed Ali’s construal of his faith that was consistent with the nihilism of his worldview. If he wished that for himself, Rachel wouldn’t have faulted him. But she suspected the real power and pleasure of his orthodoxy lay in his ability to constrain the happiness of others.

  Including Grace, however little she may have been wanted at the mosque, or on this trip.

  The tears formed muddy tracks on Grace’s face, her eyeliner and mascara streaming down her cheeks in two ragged trails.

  “Whatever,” she said, trekking off in the direction of the cabins. She glanced back at Din. “Coming?”

  He caught Jamshed’s eye, shook his head.

  His refusal made Grace angry. She swore loudly enough for them all to hear, Paula clucking her tongue behind Grace’s back. Rachel started after her.

  “Leave her,” Paula said to Rachel. “She liked Mohsin the least of all of us. I don’t know why she bothers to pretend. Help me build the fire instead.”

  Rachel shuffled over to Paula’s side. As they busied themselves over the fire pit, Din and Jamshed retreated under the cover of the trees.

  Paula issued a series of instructions that Rachel, who was an excellent camper, chose to ignore. She had the fire roaring at the center of the clearing in short order, casting a professional glance over their stores of firewood.

  “That won’t be enough,” she warned Paula.

  “We can drive back to Two Rivers for more in the evening.”

  “When’s the memorial?” Rachel asked.

  “Tonight. Over the bonfire. Hassan will lead us in a halaqa. He says it won’t be like anything we’ve experienced before. He says we should think of death as a celebration.”

  Rachel found a stick in the snow to prod the fire.

  “Don’t you find that a little creepy?” Rachel asked. “Or disrespectful?” But she saw that she had taken the wrong tack with Paula by criticizing the man she idolized.

  “How did you get into this?” Rachel waved a hand at the campsite. “Your exploration of Islam. You never said.”

  Paula began to unload the rest of the supplies from the car.

  “Work,” she said to Rachel. “Don’t talk.”

  “Can’t I do both? I’m curious to know if your experience has been anything like mine.”

  Paula paused by the SUV’s rear door, one mittened hand on her hip.

  “I didn’t run away from home like Grace, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  Rachel pawed at her toque, pushing it back on her head.

  “Neither did I,” she said. “I was just in pain. From not having answers.”

  Rachel found it interesting that Paula didn’t question her further. The other woman couldn’t seem to summon up an interest in any subject other than Hassan Ashkouri.

  Paula carried the heaviest pack to the closest cabin.

  “You can share with me,” Paula said. “I don’t want to room with Ruksh.”

  Rachel expressed her thanks, though truthfully, she’d hoped to find herself with Grace. She had no desire to spend the night in either Ruksh’s or Paula’s company. On the other hand, she didn’t know how else she was going to get Ruksh away on her own.

  She grabbed her gear from the car and stowed it inside the cabin, under the nearest bed, after a momentary dilemma. She needed it close at hand, in case she had to run. But that also meant that anyone who slipped into her cabin would find it at once.

  Then again, she’d left her gun back in her car, parked at Masjid un-Nur. Her cell phone—the other object that could have given her away—was on her person.

  Paula didn’t answer Rachel’s question about her past, so she tried another.

  “You don’t like Ruksh very much, do you?”

  Paula spread her sleeping bag over the bed farthest from the door. She sank down on top of it, the bag deflating with a quiet sigh. The cabin was ice cold.

  “Hassan brought heaters,” Paula told her. “He thinks of everything. He thinks of everyone. That’s why he shouldn’t be with Ruksh. She thinks only of herself.”

  Rachel sat down on her own bed, feeling its chill through the layers of her coat.

  “You think he should be with someone like you instead? Someone who shares his vision?”

  Paula seemed flattered by the comparison.

  “I had a boyfriend once,” she confided. “He was Turkish, which wasn’t an easy choice for me. He expected all kinds of things from me in terms of more conservative behavior—he wanted me to change how I look and behave and speak. I did those things for him—all those things. I mean, look at me. And then he left me to go clubbing with a twenty-year-old in a miniskirt. A girl not that different from Ruksh.”<
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  “But Ruksh is an observant Muslim, isn’t she?”

  Paula’s rejoinder was sad.

  “It’s not what you eat or don’t eat. It’s not what you drink or how short you wear your skirts—it’s not just being born to something. It’s committing yourself—your inner self. Maybe I didn’t understand that before, but I do now. I don’t think Ruksh is committed to God. I do know that I am.”

  Paula’s blue eyes were candid.

  She was telling the truth.

  She had taken a step beyond Hassan Ashkouri.

  And Rachel saw a way out.

  She leaned across and patted Paula on the knee.

  “Maybe I can help you,” she said. “I’ve been wanting to talk to Ruksh—you know, about being a newcomer at the mosque, and not fitting in. Maybe if I ask her those questions, she’ll realize that she’s not committed, as you say. Not in the way that she should be.”

  Paula snorted.

  “Good luck with that. Hassan doesn’t let her out of his sight.”

  Another reason for Rachel to worry.

  “Maybe you could distract him. Keep him busy with something so I can get Ruksh alone.”

  But Paula wasn’t convinced.

  “Why would you do that?”

  Rachel thought about her reasons—what she could share, what she couldn’t.

  “I think that you and I are a little bit alike. Both of us are on the outside, when maybe we don’t deserve to be.”

  Paula stood up, brushing her hands down her coat, her eyes not quite meeting Rachel’s.

  “Most of the women at Nur don’t like me.”

  And Rachel heard in Paula’s voice the same lost note she’d heard when Grace had spoken of Jamshed and Din.

  She gave Paula a tentative smile.

  “There are deeper things than popularity. They haven’t had to learn that, I guess.”

  * * *

  Grace, Ruksh, and Paula. Rachel needed to get the three of them out.