Amy emerged from her bedroom to an empty apartment. Fatima must have accompanied Soraya down to look for Ibrahim. That her housemate’s deception involved nothing more than trying to protect family and husband was one good thing that had come out of this day. Maybe even a new understanding between Amy and the Afghan woman.
Now if the remaining mystery could be resolved, so that invasion force would leave and New Hope be restored to its tranquility. I’ve still got to call Mr. Korallis to let him know what’s happened. He’s going to freak out. Especially since we’ll end up paying repairs.
Which, like the injuries, could be worse. In the office, Amy had found her laptop case knocked over under her desk, Soraya’s keyboard dangling from its cord. But farther from the blast, Amy’s quarters had been hardly touched, a few books off their shelf, pictures on the living room wall now crooked.
Amy stepped over cushions to straighten a framed photo of her family. Her parents’ two-dimensional faces smiled at her, and Amy found herself fiercely envying Fatima, who could retreat to lay an aching head on her mother’s shoulder, surrender herself to loving arms soothing and fussing away this day’s grief and fear. A wave of homesickness swept over Amy such as she hadn’t felt since blithely setting off on her first overseas adventure.
I’ll go home for Christmas. Even if it’s just for a few days. Even if New Hope hasn’t found me a deputy yet. I need to go home.
Then Amy caught her reflection in the mirror above the TV. Electricity had been down since the explosion, so she’d done her best with a cold sponge bath and changed into fresh clothing. But the black eye Steve had pointed out was in full bloom, her forehead mottled purple and green above it. Amy’s grimace hurt as she rubbed at a lingering rust streak along her jaw. But not until that’s improved or they’ll never let me come back.
“The mirror does not tell the truth, Ameera-jan.”
Amy’s spin was so hasty she knocked into the TV. She grabbed to keep it from falling to the floor. “Jamil, what are you doing here?”
Amy would never expect her assistant, like Soraya’s husband, to step into her private quarters, and she found herself taking a step backward, snatching her scarf over her head with a haste that snagged at her bandage. She took another step back as Jamil closed the door behind him, not latching it but leaving no more than a slit to maintain propriety.
“Please. I did not mean to startle you.” Something in his voice halted Amy in her tracks as Jamil crossed the living room. Setting a large sack on the table, he pulled out an antiseptic wipe and tore open the packaging. Then he’d been to the bazaar. Amy had been so preoccupied with Soraya, she’d forgotten his earlier request. Her eye fell on the bundle she’d left just inside the door. Of course, he’d come to retrieve his belongings.
Amy stood stock-still as deft fingers dabbed the dried blood from her jaw. “There. Does it hurt? Did Miss Becky leave you medication for the pain?”
“I took ibuprofen.” Amy’s voice was shaky as he dropped his hand. “But I’m not sure it’s kicked in because I feel like I’ve been run over by a truck.” Her mouth crooked ruefully. “And despite your kind words, I’m afraid I look like it too.”
“What you look is hurt. Here—please sit.” Pulling a chair out for Amy, Jamil crouched on sandaled heels so that his head was tilted up to hers.
Amy suddenly realized what was missing in him. The diffidence and quiet aloofness of a subordinate. And her assistant hadn’t called her by his usual punctilious Miss Ameera, but the familiar and affectionate Ameera-jan by which the children and women of New Hope addressed Amy.
“But hurts will heal, and you will never be less than beautiful, Ameera-jan, because your beauty is inside. A gentle and quiet spirit—is that not what your holy book calls beautiful? That is what I see when I look at you.”
“I—thank you.” Amy looked down at Jamil’s uptilted face. He had bathed today, his beard freshly trimmed, dark curls under a cap shining with a health that hadn’t been there when they’d first met. His hunkered-down posture held coiled tension, but the wide-spaced dark gaze was free of shadow as Amy had never seen it in these weeks, a tenderness that had been there when Jamil swabbed her cheek still curving his mouth. Had he any idea, Amy wondered with confusion, how much he looked like so many artists’ renditions of the Isa Masih who interested him so?
She made a sudden movement to get up. “Let me get your pack. I brought it up because I was afraid someone might carry it off. And I owe you money for those supplies.”
Jamil’s hand went out to stop her. “No, please, don’t move. I knew you would have brought my things here. But that is not why I came. I-I did not wish to leave without saying good-bye and thanking you for all you have done.”
“Leave?” Amy repeated blankly. “To the bazaar again?”
“No, I am leaving New Hope—and Kabul. I . . . I should have gone before. But when I saw what had happened, I could not leave without being certain that you and the children and others would be well. Only now I must go quickly. I sought to speak with you before, to tell you this. But it has been difficult to encounter you alone.”
Because Steve Wilson had turned up. And at the sound of his voice through the paneling, Amy remembered now, Jamil had turned the conversation to his bazaar trip. “But I don’t understand. Why would you leave? If it’s Steve, the American soldiers, the fingerprints—no, wait, you said you were planning to leave even before the explosion. Haven’t you been happy working here?”
“I have been happier these weeks here than for as long as my memory can reach.” The flat statement held reassuring conviction. “Than I ever thought to be again.”
“Then why are you leaving?”
It had to be exhaustion that brought tears springing to Amy’s eyes. Only now was Amy recognizing just how much she’d come to lean on Jamil’s steady, quiet, uncomplaining support. No, not just his support. Somewhere in these last weeks of working companionably side by side, Amy had come to think of the man before her not as a hireling unexpectedly competent to help her make a success of her project but as a friend.
A friend such as Amy had once envisioned—perhaps because she’d been so lonely, and they shared a citizenship and culture, and the security contractor had been kind in his own brusque fashion—that Steve Wilson might be. Amy’s hand across her eyes was not only to press away the weariness. “I . . . I don’t want to see you go. I don’t know what I’d do without you, especially after today. This job is too big for me. If it isn’t the fingerprints, is it finances? Would a raise help? You’ve earned it a hundred times over. Just tell me what it would take to make you stay.”
“Oh, Ameera-jan.” Jamil’s rare smile lit thin features to sweetness. “Do you not think I would stay if I could? that my heart cries out to say yes? But you do not truly need me anymore. You have Rasheed and Wajid and Soraya and Fatima and little Farah. And you no longer need my voice to speak for you to my people.”
Amy could hear his determination as clearly as the regret. “And it is for your well-being and the others too that I must go. There are things I have not been free to tell you. Things that may perhaps cause you to think ill of me. I pray only when I am gone that you will believe, whatever others may say, I would do nothing to cause harm to you nor anyone under your charge.”
“Going somewhere?”
There’d been no warning of Steve entering the living room, the apartment door hitting the wall behind it with enough force to send a chip of plaster flying. A hard gaze swept the apartment, and Amy took in with disbelief the pistol in the security contractor’s hand. Only this time it was not aimed toward the sky.
Behind him, blue gray uniforms poured into the room, weapons unslung and aimed.
Jamil had not so much as straightened up from his stooped position, but Amy was on her feet, taking an indignant step past her assistant. “Steve Wilson, what do you think you’re doing?”
Instead of lowering his weapon, Steve snaked out a free arm and yanked Amy to his side.
“On your feet, Jamil!”
The soft, hard command was as deadly as the Glock in the security contractor’s hand, his other arm a barrier of steel holding Amy back. Jamil straightened slowly, hands in the air.
“Now lose the blanket.”
The patu slid to the floor. Ian moved forward to run his hands over the prisoner.
“I am not armed,” Jamil told him quietly.
“Excuse me if I don’t take your word for it.” Ian gingerly nudged Jamil’s pack out of reach with his boot, then looked over at Steve. “All clear.”
Amy found voice again. “Why are you doing this? How dare you come barging into my apartment!”
Steve didn’t look at Amy. The narrowed eyes he’d fastened on Jamil were two chips of gray steel. “Your pal here knows why. Oh yes, we’ve already processed those fingerprints. Maybe you’ve never heard of a database scanner, or I’m betting you’d have hit the road by now. Downstairs with the others!”
A police uniform yanked Jamil’s hands behind his back and twisted nylon flexicuffs around them. Amy stepped out of the way as gun barrels prodded him to the door. But now Steve had turned those steel-gray chips on Amy, his hard mouth twisting. “Oh no, this time you’re coming too.”
Ian straightened up from Jamil’s pack. “Nothing here, boss, but personal items and a few books.”
“Leave it.” Steve’s grip on Amy’s elbow was no longer supportive but a shackle as he propelled her down the stairwell.
When Amy entered the schoolroom, she could see it had now become a tribunal. Like judges, an older, blond expat contractor and an Afghan police officer sat behind Fatima’s desk near the rear wall. The blond contractor was one who’d arrived with the Afghan police force. Jason, Steve had called the man. Around the room, expat contractors and police uniforms held unslung weapons. Amy was relieved to see Steve’s friend Phil among them, but the medic didn’t return her uncertain smile, his expression holding cold disbelief as he stared at the man he’d worked beside all afternoon.
As Steve forcibly propelled Amy to an empty chair, she saw more uniforms ushering in Rasheed and Soraya’s husband, Ibrahim. Amy noticed her housemate out in the hallway, proud features frantic. The two men were also bound with flexicuffs, and unlike Jamil, who’d withdrawn to that invisibility with which Amy had become so familiar, they both appeared furious. This time Amy took one look at Steve’s unyielding face and made no protest.
After Steve took his place with the other two “judges,” the Afghan officer turned to Ibrahim. “You were arrested in a forbidden place, and other residents testify that your tale of visiting family is a lie. You will tell the truth here or at Pul-e-Charki.”
Catching the tears pouring down Soraya’s cheeks, Amy jumped to her feet. “He was not in a forbidden place. He is the husband of my assistant, and their living quarters are upstairs.”
The Afghan officer looked surprised at the intrusion of a foreign woman.
Steve turned a cool gaze on Amy. “For real, or is this another of your rescue bids?”
“No, Ibrahim is just moving in. That’s why Rasheed and the others don’t know him yet.”
Steve murmured into the Afghan officer’s ear, and the police uniforms cut Ibrahim loose.
As he hurried out to Soraya, Jason picked up a sheet of notes and turned to Rasheed. Amy’s hands twisted in her lap. Had her earlier fears about the chowkidar turned into reality? “A week ago you offered certain delinquents hospitality. An employee working on their truck overheard you agreeing to absent yourself for the night, giving them opportunity to break in. He also says money changed hands. Is there any reason we shouldn’t hold you responsible as well for today’s assault?”
To Amy’s astonishment, Rasheed’s defiant expression immediately crumpled. “It is true. I am responsible for the bombing. I am deeply ashamed. Allah will judge me.”
Steve leaned forward to demand in sharp Dari, “Wait, are you saying you put the bomb in the storeroom? Or took money to let someone else in?”
“Nay! Nay!” Rasheed shook his head. “But I allowed my brothers in the faith to retrieve their wayward woman. They swore an oath to Allah none would be harmed, that they wished only their lawful rights in which the foreigner had interfered. I never thought they could do such evil as this—hurting children and women under my protection. Nor, as Allah is my witness, do I know how they gained entrance this time. Perhaps they paid another. But the guilt is mine for ever permitting these evil men into this place.”
Rasheed’s fierce gaze was actually pleading as he looked at Amy. She found herself believing him. The same strict code of a devout Muslim that had forced Amy into a burqa and found merit in handing over a runaway female had left Rasheed devastated over betraying his duty as host and protector to Amy and her charges. It hadn’t been anger eating at Rasheed all day but shame and remorse.
“He’s telling the truth,” Steve said. “He may be a jerk, but he’s no killer.” That last had switched to English as he looked at Rasheed sternly. “And you weren’t responsible for the bomb getting in, which doesn’t let you off the hook. We’ll deal with you later.”
Rasheed looked more reprieved than worried as he hurried out. Now only Jamil’s straight, bound figure was left in the center of the room, a resigned expression giving away none of the discomfort those flexicuffs digging into his wrists must be causing. Like Jesus standing before his accusers was an inevitable parallel.
Which made Steve Wilson a furious, stony-faced Pilate or Herod. Amy’s mind was still reeling at the security contractor’s unbelievable actions. Had Jamil been right in his apprehension about the former American soldier? Should she tell Steve how Jamil had earlier saved the compound, that his behavior toward her assistant was as intolerable and unwarranted as toward the other two men just released?
But Steve had already turned to their final captive, and his hard tone became glacial. “You see, we already know who planted that bomb, don’t we, Jamil? If that’s really your name.”
Amy was on her feet again, and the pain throbbing at her temples and catching in her chest no longer physical. “What are you saying?”
“What I’m saying is that your pal here is our bomber.” Amy could not tell whether Steve’s biting contempt was for her or Jamil.
“No, it isn’t true.” Amy’s denial came in a whisper even as a horrible realization gripped her stomach as she took in Jamil’s expression. Defiance, sadness, even relief were there.
“He is telling the truth, Ameera-jan. I am the bomber you seek.”
What tip-off did I miss?
The disgust knotting Steve’s stomach was as much at himself as the man standing across the room, a calm resignation on his face Steve itched to wipe off. From the beginning, he’d had misgivings about this man, even as honesty compelled him to recognize they were founded on no more than Jamil’s own antipathy toward himself. If nothing else, Steve could have sworn the man’s emotional attachment would never permit him to bring Amy harm.
That the bomber he’d been pursuing all these weeks had been living and working with Amy and her charges, that he’d narrowly missed killing or maiming any number of them, a flashback of Amy pallid and not breathing on the ground, sent a wave of cold fury over Steve that burned away the self-disgust.
Or was it the softness in Amy’s face when Steve had burst into the living room, the frantic horror there now, that was responsible for both his fury and disgust?
“I have nothing more to hide.”
Brave words. Except if Jamil knew his fingerprints might come up in the system, he was less acquainted with how quickly American technology could process them, or he’d have skipped that bazaar run Steve had considerately arranged with two Guats before leaving with Jason. Though how he hoped to get past Steve’s guards if he’d planned to skip town as he’d told Amy was hard to fathom.
Which just showed Steve was losing his touch. What else had he missed? Well, that he was about to find out.
“We’ve got you cold wi
th fingerprints on two bombs. So just tell us who you really are and who you are working for. Al-Qaeda? Taliban?” Steve could have made his demand in Dari, but he did so in English, in part because those uniformed grunts crowding around didn’t need to hear this interrogation but mostly to put the prisoner on Steve’s turf and not his own. “And where were you earlier this morning? Trying to get through security at the new Counternarcotics Justice Center, maybe?”
“Boss.” A flurry in the hallway was Ian. He walked in with a bundle. “You said to check the perp’s quarters and any vehicles he’s been driving. The quarters were clean—nothing but a tushak, not even personal gear. But one of the mechanics was happy to point out a Corolla. These were stuffed inside the lining of the backseat.”
Ian held out an Afghan counternarcotics police uniform, a light brown wig, and an ID badge.
“Wait a minute.” Jason leaned forward, his gaze shifting from wig and uniform to Jamil’s face. “I’ve seen this guy. He didn’t try to get through security. He was inside. Right near Waters and Khalid in the loya jirga.”
But Steve too had now put the pieces together. This was what he’d missed. The nagging familiarity of that guard, that uneasy disquiet he’d dismissed, the light hair and green eyes under that deliberately tilted cap were all wrong. Disposable contacts, he’d hazard now.
Steve had glimpsed Jamil only a handful of times before today, always fleeting or at a distance. Which Steve knew now was not because of Jamil’s distaste for a former American soldier—or even any perceived relationship between Steve and his employer. Amy’s assistant had known whom Steve protected, and he’d feared recognition.
And that too must be how he’d planned to slip out of this compound. In the uniform of the very police trainees now on guard, he’d receive no more than a second thought.
“There’s more. A second bomb. Or another Army surplus parka we’re assuming is a bomb. I’ve sealed off the vehicle and called for the K-9s.”
“You don’t need to worry. The dogs didn’t even whimper.” Roald had also formed part of the emergency response team. Steve stiffened as he walked in with a thick camouflage coat. But as the German held it up, he could see the lining slit open. Inside was not C-4 but Play-Doh.
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