"Were there female students at your college?"
"Yes, many, in some classes more than half."
"Do they wear the hijab?"
"No."
She was entranced by the thought of a country where she could walk down the street with the sun on her face. More questions followed. He started to bring in his textbooks, history and political science and even algebra. She devoured them all, and pelted him with questions that taxed his learning to the utmost.
He would have been lying if he had said he hadn't been attracted to her. Of course he was. She was beautiful, with dark-lashed eyes, luminous skin, and a skein of silken black hair with intriguing bronze highlights, the mere presence of which was in itself exciting because he was unaccustomed to seeing anyone other than his mother and his sister without the hijab. He had avoided contact with the women in his classes in Boston, shocked at their free ways and even more so by the display of skin. His four years had been spent buried in his books, and he had been in such a hurry to get home he hadn't even waited for the graduation exercises, arranging for his diploma to be mailed to him and flying out the evening of his last examination.
He never learned if Husn had been attracted to him. He had always been careful never to so much as touch her hand. When he gave her a book, he held it out by one corner, and she took it by the opposite corner, standing far enough apart so that their arms had to stretch to reach. Conversation took place always in the kitchen or the sitting room, with him on one side of it and her on the other. Mrs. Gilbert, who had not taken well to the Muslim life, and who had made no secret of her contempt for the way the women in it were treated, seemed to believe she was conniving at a romance and took advantage of every opportunity to leave them alone.
Of course they had been caught, if caught was the right word. The cook had walked in one day when Husn was reading something out loud in English. The cook must have gone straight to her husband, who had in turn gone to Husn's husband.
And a week later they had come for him, and for Adara.
He looked across at Zahirah. Her father had wanted her to be raised a good Muslim woman, but he had wanted her to be more than that. She was educated, independent, bare of head and face. She would wither and die in a place like his village. She would be stoned to death in a day in a place like Afghanistan.
She gave him a questioning look. He returned a slight, unrevealing smile and bent again over his plate.
Later that evening there was a soft knock at his door. He hesitated before getting up to answer it, fully intending to plead tiredness as an excuse not to admit her.
But it wasn't Zahirah, it was her mother.
"Mrs. Mansour," he said, startled.
"Mr. Sadat," she said. She looked grave. "May I speak with you?"
"Of course." He stood aside to let her in.
She came in and stood, her hands folded primly in front of her, and waited until he closed the door. "Forgive me for being so blunt, Mr. Sadat, but it has not escaped my notice that you and my daughter have become very close."
So much for subterfuge. He bent his head in wary acknowledgment, and perhaps a little in apology, too.
She took a deep breath. She looked nervous but determined. "I am very sorry, but I am afraid I must ask you to leave this house. You must never return, and you must promise me that you will never seek out my daughter again."
There was a moment of strained silence. "I see," he said at last.
"I'm glad," she said. "I'm sorry if it gives you pain to hear it, Mr. Sadat, but you will not do for my daughter."
He couldn't resist saying, "You're saving her for a rich man?"
Her eyes flashed. "Indeed, sir, I am not. If Allah wills it and a rich man captures her fancy, so be it. It is foolish beyond permission not to imagine that in this world enough money commands an easier life. But she will choose, and my Zahirah does not hanker after riches. She wants the companionship of a like mind, a partner in life. And that you will never be."
Again, he couldn't resist. "And why not?"
"For one thing, you are far too old for her. I will not have Zahirah living out her life caring for an elderly husband, as I did."
She stopped. He prodded her on. "And?"
"And." She gave him a narrow-eyed look. "I don't know why you are here in the United States, Mr. Sadat, or what your purpose is."
He stiffened in shock.
"I only know that you are not who you say you are."
"I-"
She raised a hand. "I don't care to know. You have resided under my roof for six months with a false name and a false identity. You are not Egyptian, Mr. Sadat, and may I say I find your taking of that good man's name in very poor taste. You appear to have had no friends in the area before you arrived, and you appear to have made none during your stay. Your supervisor-did you think when I saw you growing closer to my daughter that I would not inquire?-your supervisor says that while your work is satisfactory you seem merely to be waiting. Waiting for what, Mr. Sadat?"
He opened his mouth, and nothing came out.
She gave a grim nod. "Yes. Well. We Muslims here in the United States of America have had quite enough of that sort of thing. Your kind have generated a constant threat to any of our race and religion who reside here. We don't need you stirring up more trouble."
Again he was able to say nothing.
"I cannot prove anything against you beyond my suspicions, Mr. Sadat," she said, "and it is undoubtedly very unfair of me, but nevertheless I want you gone from my house and my daughter's company by tomorrow morning. Am I understood?"
His mouth a hard line, he said, his voice clipped, "You are."
"Good. Then I have no further need to be here."
She went to the door, waited for him to open it, and swept out. A small part of him was able to admire her style while the rest of him clanged the alarm, even as he moved to pull his case out of the closet and begin packing. What had given him away? How had he betrayed himself to Mrs. Mansour? How could she know he wasn't Egyptian?
He brought himself up short. Would she give him away? Was she even now calling the authorities?
He wasted nearly five minutes thinking about this. No, he decided. If she was going to betray him, she would not have confronted him. She had no proof to offer the authorities anyway, she had said so herself.
He was leaving tomorrow morning, on a ticket purchased with a credit card account that no longer existed. He had planned to come back after he saw the cell off on their mission. Now he would go somewhere else.
Sternly repressing the thought of Zahirah, he filled the small bag with a haphazard collection of clothes, the selection unimportant as it was only to lend him credibility with TSA and would be abandoned upon arrival at his destination.
He finished quickly and cast a glance about the room. His newly opened eyes saw how at home he had become here, that insidious feeling fostering the collection of various knickknacks. The stuffed bear Zahirah had won the day they attended the carnival. The small bookcase filled with books. The poster of the Everglades, bought at the shop the day they had taken the tour. He shook his head, tossed his computer on top of the clothes-there was nothing incriminating on it but it would look odd if he left it behind-and zipped the case closed.
He let himself out the side door and stepped softly down the sidewalk to where an elderly beige Ford four-door sedan was parked. He put the case in the trunk and slid behind the wheel. The engine started without fuss and he pulled away from the curb, willing himself not to look in the rearview mirror.
He parked in the garage at Miami International in the deepest, darkest corner he could find, and killed the engine.
From the backseat came a whisper of sound and he whirled instinctively, throwing his body over the gearshift and thudding into the passenger seat. He launched himself into the backseat in a continuation of the same movement and came down with all the force of a sledgehammer.
"Daoud!" she said, the barest breath of sound left to
her after he slammed into her chest, his hands around her throat and squeezing.
"Zahirah!" he said, astonished.
She choked, pulling feebly at his hands, and he loosened them. He sat up and drew a shaky hand through his hair. He tried to collect his scattered thoughts, to regain some semblance of his customary equilibrium. "What are you doing here?" he said, and marveled to hear his voice shake over the words.
She bent over, wheezing as she tried to catch her breath. He couldn't help himself, he patted her back soothingly. "It's all right," he said, "it's all right now. I'm sorry, I didn't know it was you."
She looked up, her breath still coming fast, her eyes frightened. "Why did you attack me like that?"
"I didn't know it was you," he said again, very gently. "I'm sorry. Zahirah, what are you doing here?"
She blushed. He could barely see it in the dim light of the garage. She looked down, and her voice dropped to a whisper. "I-was coming to talk to you. My mother was there before me. I heard what she said to you. When she said you had to leave tomorrow, I knew somehow you would leave tonight. I went out and hid in the back of your car." She waited, head bent, for him to say something. When he didn't she looked up again. "Oh, Daoud, how could she have been so cruel?"
His mind had been racing while she spoke, the thoughts chasing each other like rats in a cage.
"Daoud?" she said timidly. "I want to be with you, and I know you feel the same way." When he didn't respond, only stared at her with a stone face, she said, "Please, Daoud, won't you say something?"
At last his expression broke. A smile of a sort spread across his face. She looked relieved. "That's better," she said with a trace of her old spirit. "For a minute I thought you weren't happy to see me."
"I am always happy to see you, Zahirah," he said.
She blushed again, her love making her deaf to the mournful note in his voice. "I am happy to hear it."
He felt his hands slide of their own accord around her waist. His head bent to hers, and she raised her face eagerly to meet his lips in their first kiss. Her lips were warm and wide and smooth, and he thought that in another life he might have been able to lose himself in them forever.
He deepened it, pulling her to him so that her breasts pressed into his chest. The soft curves were so warm and full against him, he'd never felt anything like it. He stretched out backwards so that she lay full length against him and her legs naturally fell to either side, so that the feminine heat of her was pressed full against the erection that had suddenly and inexplicably manifested itself.
"Oh!" she said, raising her head to stare down at him.
He pulled her back down into another kiss. He didn't want to talk.
She was as virgin as he was. There was a breathless bit of fumbling with unfamiliar fastenings and undergarments, a matter of deciding what went where, but they managed. He was trembling with the need to be inside her but he forced himself to wait, to play with her gently until she was slippery with desire. She stiffened at the sharp pain of his entry and he summoned up all his willpower to hold himself still, letting her become accustomed to him before he began moving again. When he did he moved very slowly, in and out, going as deeply as he could on the down-stroke, pulling out almost all the way, continuing so until he felt her hands on his back pulling him down. He began to move faster, and she pushed up to meet him, gasping, eyes staring blindly up. When her climax came she squeezed around him, milking him, sucking on him, and his own end came with a shout he muffled in the musty fabric of the seat next to her head.
"Oh," she said some moments later. "Oh, Daoud. I didn't know it could be like that."
He raised his head and slid his hands to her throat, his thumbs caressing the hollow beneath her chin. He was still inside her, his wetness and her own such a warm haven. She kissed him, with a tenderness that brought tears to his eyes. "I didn't, either," he said.
Her neck-such a slender, fragile stem-broke easily when he twisted it. The cracking vertebrae sounded like distant gunfire.
17
MIAMI
Back in port, Cal turned everyone loose, which since they were only temporarily homeported in Miami didn't mean much. They all knew working the shuttle launch was more of a PR mission than it was a real job, and crew was bailing right, left, and center. D7 was keeping Munro in bravo-24 status, available for recall and sailing within twenty-four hours in the event of urgent tasking, but when the "Liberty, liberty, liberty!" call went out over the pipe most of the crew scattered to cheap motels and holed up for three days, leaving a skeleton crew just large enough to respond to an emergency behind. Cal hoped they managed to stay out of trouble when they started checking out the bars. He remembered some pretty wild times as an ensign in Miami, assigned to a 110 off the Everglades. Lots of opportunity for a Coastie to get into trouble if he or she wasn't careful, but these were grown men and women and it was pretty much up to them. The XO cautioned them against sailing into stupidland and turned them loose.
It was a great honor to work security during a shuttle launch, no doubt, but the crew was homesick, discouraged that people had died during their last patrol and they had been unable to save them, and that they hadn't responded to any SARS or made any drug busts on this one. "I guess all the smugglers have up and moved ops to EPAC," the XO said, inspecting the map of the Caribbean Cal had duct-taped over the map of Alaska in the wardroom. He looked around and smiled. "Damn, we're good."
"Yeah," Cal said, without enthusiasm. "How many left on board as of liberty this morning?"
"Forty-four."
"Okay."
"You taking off?"
Cal thought about Kenai in Houston. "I don't know yet. Probably not."
"When do we leave?"
"Three days."
"The thirtieth? Why so early? Won't take us a day to get up there."
"Oh, uh, let me think. Because we're Munro, short for Douglas Munro? The only Coastie recipient of the Medal of Honor, in whose honor you will recall we are named? Related to Kenai Munro, a member of this particular shuttle crew?"
"Uh-huh," Taffy said, not without foreboding. "And this means, what, exactly? Sir?"
Cal gave a sour smile. "It means a tiger cruise, only instead of family riding along we get the press and a bunch of NASA honchos. Also Kenai Munro's parents. It means a couple of receptions on shore when we get there, and it means-"
"Dress uniforms," the XO said with a groan.
"There might also," Cal said painfully, "have been mention made of a band."
"Oh, Christ no," the XO said.
"I'm afraid so," Cal said.
"Allah be merciful," Taffy said.
"God could help out a little, too," Cal said.
"If we got the two of them working together, maybe they could scrub the launch," the XO said hopefully.
"Jesus wept, don't even say that," Cal said, blanching at the thought of Kenai's reaction to the suggestion.
He and Taffy adjourned to a great little Thai restaurant they knew from previous inports. Command had selfishly not shared that information with the rest of the crew, so they saw no one they knew. Cal had a beer, Taffy had tea, and they both ordered entrees with four peppers next to them on the menu. "What are we going to do about Riley?"
"Let him go," Taffy said. "OSC told him not to make any decisions based on his domestic affairs, but his wife won't go back to Alaska, and he won't leave her."
"She's not kicking him out?"
"He says not."
"What about Reese?"
"What about her? The investigators say there is no case. Her story lacks credibility, and to be fair, though an acknowledged weasel, no complaints have been made against Riley of a sexual harassment nature until Reese."
"How is she taking it?"
"Philosophically. I don't get the sense that there's a lot of repressed anger there."
"Does she want to come back to the ship?"
"She says yes."
"What does EMO say about her job perf
ormance?"
Taffy shrugged, spearing a shrimp. "It's better than what OSC says about Riley's. Says his work product never was that good, and lately it's fallen off in a major way. He's counseled him numerous times, he says, but it looks like the only thing that might get the kid's attention is a bad set of marks."
"So we're looking for another OS," Cal said, sighing. "Been a run on Combat positions this tour." He took a bite of panang gai and made an approving sound. Thai food didn't count unless it made his nose run. "They're probably bored."
"So am I, but it's the job, Captain," Taffy said, draining his tea and signaling for another. "It's what we're tasked with, it's what we're paid for. If you don't like it, you can always resign."
"That does seem to be the currently popular option," Cal said.
The waitress brought the XO more tea, lingering a little for him to try it, evidently to be the recipient of a grateful smile. Cal didn't think he even registered on her peripheral vision. "Taffy?"
"Captain?"
Cal nodded at the tea. "You ever take a drink?"
"Against my religion, sir," Taffy said.
"The Muslim religion," Cal said.
"That's right." The XO bent his head over his plate again. He was a southpaw, and the gold wedding ring gleamed on his hand.
Taffy didn't talk about his private life, and he didn't socialize a great deal. "Were you raised Muslim?"
The XO nodded. "Both parents."
Cal took a bite of spring roll. "I'm curious, and if I step in it let me apologize in advance."
The XO grinned. Across the room the waitress sighed. "Go for it."
"Does your mom wear a veil?"
The XO laughed out loud. "Not hardly. She's an EMT A veil might get in the way."
"So they're pretty modern."
The XO shrugged. "They're Americans. Their religion is important to them-it is to me, too-but they're acculturated. Just not secularized."
"Oh." Cal drank beer. "Wasn't time to ask in New Orleans, but…" He hesitated.
"What?"
Cal gestured at the XO's wedding band. "What happened to your wife? Wait, let me back up a little. For starters, what was her name?"
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