Quicksand

by Carolyn Baugh

  “What, Fatma? What happened next?” Nora felt her own heart thumping, and her breathing was hard coming.

  “So many, many things happened at once.” Fatma mopped at her eyes with the edge of her scarf. “The imam, he heard the shouting, and he ran in, and one man caught him and held him. The imam was yelling at them that it was a mosque, that there could be no guns, no violence there. That they had to leave right away. And then he saw the one with the sunglasses, and he got very scared. And that man started talking to the imam, very fast, very serious, telling him that he had already threatened him, and that he knew what he could do to him and his wife if he defied their gang.”

  “Already threatened him? So the imam knew what was going on?” choked Nora, furious.

  “I only know that the imam was very scared, terrified … in a way that surprised us all. And although he begged them to stop what they were doing, he … did not attack them, did not threaten to call the police, did not do anything. And the one man said to him, I guess you will know how to control this lot—and he gestured to us. No one here saw anything. Nothing happened here, the man said. And then the imam just watched as the men took both of them.”

  “Took them?”

  “The one holding Hafsa yanked her scarf off her head and tied it in her mouth as a gag. He held her by her hair, and was telling her that she would learn what it means to strike one of them. She would learn some respect. And the girl, the little girl … the other man told her … he told her…”

  Fatma looked as though she would collapse, and for a moment she held her face in her hands. Then she looked up at Nora, her face filled with self-loathing. “He said that if the man they’d sold her to wasn’t still waiting, he would make her watch as he killed her ‘protector’.”

  Nora stared at her, unable to move or speak.

  “When they had gone, the imam came to us, and he told us what to say if someone came, rehearsed it with us, drilled us on it, made us swear never to tell any version but that one. He told us that these men had guns, that they had threatened him and his wife—that he lived in terror. They knew where he lived and every move he made. That they had settled in the area and would not be leaving—and that the best thing to do would be for us to help them and live in peace, or to leave, to find somewhere else to live, because they were trained killers.”

  Fatma sighed, brushing away her tears with her gloved fingers. “These men are demons. But our fear has made us demons, too, may God forgive us.”

  CHAPTER 10

  “You gonna handle it?” Nora was asking again.

  John Wansbrough nodded. “I already said I can handle it.”

  “Because you know how upset I am right now.”

  John glared at her, then waited for an elderly couple to exit the elevator on the hospital’s fourth floor. When they were alone, he said, “I’m sure that you will be handling yourself with utmost professionalism. Use your Arabic, but don’t threaten him with crazy stuff that no one’s gonna be followin’ through on.”

  Nora couldn’t keep from smiling. “You’ve figured out my MO, Agent Wansbrough. It only took six months, too.”

  They exited the elevator at floor six, and walked side by side down the long corridor with its overpolished floors. “Speaking of figuring you out, how are things with your dad?”

  “I told him this morning I was moving out.”

  That stopped John in his tracks. “Seriously?”

  She nodded, continuing on toward Anwar al-Islahi’s room. “Yep.”

  John followed after her. “He angry?”

  “Well, of course he’s angry. But also confused, because he’s embarrassed. And I’m the victim here—me and Ahmad, not him. So I think he’s still sorting through how to handle it.”

  John said, “Will you be okay?”

  “Of course, Agent Wansbrough. I have a gun!” She rapped on the door to room 407, then pushed it open without awaiting an answer.

  The shaykh was lying on his back, the IV hooked up to an arm that was otherwise entirely bandaged. He turned his head to see who had entered, then turned it away again.

  “As-salaam alaykum,” Nora said pleasantly.

  “Wa alaykum as-salaam,” the shaykh answered automatically.

  “We were wondering if you would like to revise your story about Hafsa al-Tanukhi,” Nora said.

  “Why?” he asked, immediately on guard. “What has happened?”

  Nora opened her mouth and then closed it again, as John stepped forward. To handle it. As they had agreed, he spoke about the women’s statements: “After listening to the statements of the women at Unity Masjid, their similarity on certain points gives us reason to believe they were scripted, and we believe that you are the one who scripted them.” As the imam made to protest, John continued. “We have received testimony that you knew exactly what happened to Hafsa al-Tanukhi on the day she disappeared, and that you knew exactly who took her away, and that you knew about the sex and drug trafficking activities of a certain group of natives of Somalia.”

  The shaykh was already pale, but now he blanched. At last he said, “What do you want from me?”

  “Information,” John said. “Aiding and abetting criminals is a crime in this country. You said you hadn’t come here to die, but you should know that we can see to it that you go to prison for a long, long time for attempting to cover up a crime, for perpetrating a conspiracy, and, of course, let’s not forget lying to federal investigators.”

  “I’m a dead man anyway if they find out I’ve talked to you.”

  Nora felt her nostrils flare in anger. John gave her another look that said, Give me a chance first.

  “Imam Anwar. Who took Hafsa al-Tanukhi?”

  He swallowed, then turned his face to stare out of the gray window. His silence was prolonged, and John was about to repeat his question, when the imam began to speak.

  “His name is Asad. Despite his injury, he couldn’t get refugee status because of a criminal record in Somalia. He eventually got himself smuggled in on a container ship. He lived for a while somewhere else, not Philadelphia, I think with some cousins, some friends. He came to the mosque three weeks ago. He came to my office after the last prayer to speak with me in private—it was just as I was about to lock up the mosque for the night. He was very tall. Wearing sunglasses … dark lenses, dark rims, even though it was night. He said he was a businessman new to the area. He said he wanted to make some connections that could help his business grow.”

  “What did you say to that?” John asked.

  “What anyone would say. It’s a tough time in the whole country. But that I wished him well and welcomed him to the mosque.”

  “And then what?”

  “Well, he laughed. He said he wondered what America would do if it really saw a tough time; he said he had seen tough times and he knew how to survive them. And then he was more specific. He said he wanted to get into a particular business. And that he had collateral. He had contacted some business leaders in his field and was finding their cooperation to be—minimal. So he was pursuing other avenues.”

  Nora could be silent no more. “What business? What collateral?”

  Imam Anwar kept his gaze focused on John Wansbrough. “He wanted to know what I knew about some of the worshippers at the masjid maybe being involved in drugs. He knew it was a rough part of town, and that even the Muslims were sometimes involved in … illegal activities.”

  “Do you know of people in your mosque who are involved in the drug trade?”

  The imam nodded. “Of course. Many of the young men come to Islam in prison. Their intentions are good, but sometimes the roots of their previous lives cannot be pulled out. I encourage them to stop, but there’s only so much one voice can do. And life in our neighborhood is not easy…”

  “What was this Asad’s angle exactly?” John wondered aloud.

  The imam gave a mirthless smile. “He said that the most lucrative business in this country was selling drugs, and that he would
only sell them to the kuffar. Because they would then destroy themselves. This is how he asked for my aid.”

  “Kuffar?” John asked, glancing at Nora.

  “Non-Muslims,” Nora said, feeling nauseous.

  “He said that everything is war, every day, and that the fools who can’t fight every front—even in the smallest way—are the ones who will die. And he called me a fool.”

  The agents looked at each other, wondering how far the Somali was willing to take his warfare.

  “What was this collateral he talked about?” John asked.

  “Girls,” the imam answered. “He was trading in young girls, sluts, he said, from situations so desperate they would do anything for pennies. And he knew how to get many, many more.”

  John leaned forward, his eyes flashing. “So what did you tell him?”

  “I tried to throw him out, of course.”

  John surmised, “But he wouldn’t be thrown out?”

  The shaykh shook his head.

  Nora asked softly, “What did he threaten you with?”

  “Everything. He told me what he would do to me, to my family. My honor. My future children. I told him … I told him I feared only Allah.”

  Nora realized that tears were streaking his cheeks.

  “Asad said that was unfortunate. He said that at home, in the war, he had learned for certain that there was no God. And then he pulled off the sunglasses and showed me that one of his eyes had been dug out. He said he feared nothing and no one. And so, he said, I should fear him much, much more than I feared Allah,” the imam said, unable to hold back a sob.

  Nora looked from him to John and back again, as John said, “Did he assault you? Physically?”

  The man’s voice was faint. “In a way that … he knew that I could never bear to tell. Could never bear to explain.”

  Both Nora and John were staring at the shaykh in stunned silence.

  “And so, I gave him a name.”

  * * *

  The door crashed open as the agents streamed in, guns at the ready.

  Lenora Baker struggled to pull herself to a standing position, as she sputtered, “What the hell—” just barely louder than the television. Agent Jacobs crossed to her and began escorting her out of the house, reading her her rights. Little by little her voice escalated, the disbelief compounding until she began to shriek, “Rashid, Rashid!”

  By then, however, Nora and John were racing down the stairs into the dank basement, with Ben and Laurie on their heels. Burton had drawn backyard duty with Agent Lin.

  Ben Calder stopped short at the bottom of the stairs. “Oh my God. Nobody shoot anything. We’ll all go up in a ball of flame,” he said, staring at the giant bottles of acetone and phosphine. “It’s an entire meth lab, right here in the basement.”

  They were all scanning the musty basement for Rashid. Lin and Jacobs had been staking out the house after the imam’s tip, and had been certain that Rashid was there. But the basement was a labyrinth of equipment and makeshift work surfaces, jugs and glass bottles. Small, grubby windows let in a choked light, and Nora’s eyes fought to adjust to the dimness. The floor was hopelessly littered with tools and trash.

  “Coal cellar!” John murmured, nodding behind them, and they followed him deeper into the dark, fanning out. The coal cellar was in the northern corner of the basement, and Calder approached the heavy door slowly, but then suddenly shoved it open. It swung open with a loud groan. Nora crossed to it, and her gaze fell on a makeshift bedroom with a filthy mattress, a metal desk and a folding chair. A single lightbulb in a lamp with no shade cast a dull light; it was rigged with an extension cord from the main area of the basement.

  In the center of the coal cellar, a thin girl shivered, eyes wide, wrists bound, a dirty bandanna tied around her mouth. She wore a gray, stained camisole. The room reeked of sweat and urine. Nora nearly rushed in, but John held up a hand, determined to make certain that no alternate exit or entrance existed for the tiny room. He had just stepped inside when they heard a voice.

  “Y’all find what you lookin’ for?”

  All four agents froze. Rashid Baker’s voice was coming from very near the stairs they had descended. He emerged from behind a set of shelves that were laden with fat jars of chemicals.

  Laurie Cruz was closest, and she raised her gun automatically, training it on Rashid.

  “Whatcha gonna do with that?” Rashid asked, laughing softly.

  “I’m a very good shot,” Laurie said fiercely.

  “You would need to be. Go ahead.”

  Calder said firmly, “Come out of there with your hands up. It’s over, Rashid.”

  Rashid laughed again. “That would be too easy, wouldn’t it?”

  “Come on, Rashid,” said Nora. “You know this isn’t how it should be.”

  He looked at her, and she could see the loathing even from the distance between them. “You’re right. It’s not how it should be at all.” In a flash, he pulled out a gun, and shot the bottle nearest to him.

  CHAPTER 11

  The first thing that Nora saw was Laurie thrown backward against the stairs from the force of the explosion. Then Rashid Baker’s body arced up into the air, only to be caught and tossed back and forth by the string of explosions that ensued. Nora felt strong hands grab her collar, dragging her over the threshold of the coal cellar, and the slam of the coal cellar door as John and Ben threw themselves against it.

  “Cover your face, cover your face!” Ben was shouting, but the poison in the air had already begun penetrating the tiny room.

  “Laurie,” Nora cried, trying to pull Ben out of the way.

  “There’s nothing you can do for her now!”

  Chest heaving, Nora tried to force her brain to function. Her eyes fell on the girl, and she scrambled to the mattress and tugged the girl’s bandanna up and over her nose, then yanked off the ties that bound her wrists.

  The heat in the room was unbearable, and Nora began to feel dizzy. She yanked off her jacket and was tying it around her own head as Wansbrough began to yell, “Find the coal chute!”

  Nora was the first to spy it—“There, John!” She pointed to the small trapdoor in the ceiling that once had received wheelbarrows full of coal, poured in from the backyard.

  Calder shoved the huge desk under the trapdoor. John was the tallest, but he couldn’t reach the trapdoor. He jumped, stretching, to no avail. They all scanned the room for an object to shove upward, but found nothing at all.

  “Lift Nora!” Ben croaked out; he was gasping for air as his eyes watered from the powerful gasses. The sound of sirens penetrated their prison from outside.

  Eyes streaming, Nora scrambled up onto the desk and into John’s powerful arms. He held her aloft, and her fingertips just brushed the rusty trapdoor. “Stand on my shoulders,” he coughed.

  As he held tightly to her legs, Nora thrust herself upward, pounding against the door. Rust cascaded into her eyes, but she kept pushing and pushing. “John,” gasped Nora—“Squat down and thrust yourself up—I can’t get enough force—”

  “Hold on,” and she felt her partner lower himself slightly, and then, with a loud grunt, he pushed up hard with his legs. Nora put every ounce of force she had into her open palms, and was relieved to feel the trapdoor fly open, ushering in a shaft of cool air. She began screaming with all the sound she could muster, and had never imagined she could be so happy to see Eric Burton’s face.

  Burton immediately flopped onto his stomach and extended her his arm—

  “The girl—” Nora gasped, looking down into the cellar.

  “Just go!” Wansbrough choked out. “I’ll lift her up next!”

  Nora scrambled through the trapdoor, and up onto the cool, wet grass of the Bakers’ backyard, gasping for air. An emergency worker appeared almost immediately, handing her a gas mask, then forcing one onto Burton’s face even as he remained on his stomach attempting to catch the thin girl’s wrists.

  “We need a ladder!” Nor
a screamed, and was stumbling across the yard in search of one when she finally passed out.

  * * *

  She awakened in the back of an ambulance some distance from the Bakers’ house.

  The girl, Rahma, was next to her, unconscious on a stretcher, a fat oxygen mask strapped to her face. Nora tugged at her own mask, and the EMT worker tending them held up his hand. “Hold on, there, ma’am.”

  Nora shook her head. “My team—where’s my team?”

  “Next ambulance over. They’re gonna be fine.”

  Nora was just struggling, trying to rise from her own stretcher, when Ben Calder appeared at the ambulance’s open door. He had a portable oxygen tank, with a tube hooked up to his nose.

  Nora gazed at him, her eyes brimming. “Laurie?”

  He shook his head. “They’re still putting out the flames. They won’t be able to bring her out for a while yet.”

  Hot tears streaked Nora’s face as she looked beyond him to the still-blazing fire. “John’s okay?”

  Ben nodded. “Bleeding a lot after using a wounded arm to push you through a ceiling. But okay.”

  Burton appeared at Ben’s side. “Hey, Nora,” he said, his face concerned.

  “Eric,” she said, holding his gaze. “Thanks, man.”

  He shook his head. “That was a close one. I’m glad you guys made it out okay.”

  “I’m glad you were there,” she said. She let her gaze fall on the little girl at her side. But then a dark realization crept across her still-reeling brain. “With Rashid dead, how are we going to find the Somalis?”

  CHAPTER 12

  They were all struggling with respiratory problems, but all refused to be admitted to the hospital. For Nora, it was the loss of Laurie Cruz that made it hardest to breathe. She walked slowly to work the next morning, the downtown streets blurry as she blinked back tears. Armies of strangers brushed by her as Nora fought the urge to sit down on the curb and walk no further. Laurie’s body crashing against the stairs replayed in her head with every step. Nora had missed something along the way, she was sure, and she could not shake the feeling that she was to blame.