Across the street, Anna noticed a black Lexus coupe with tinted windows. Her instincts kicked in immediately. Without breaking stride, she continued to the end of the block, where College Lane ran into Shiloh Street. Turning left at the stop sign, Anna kept walking slowly. The neighborhood changed almost immediately. Instead of well-groomed lawns and the privileged spaces of the college campus, there were older houses falling into disrepair. A Doberman was barking behind a chain-link fence, and two boys on skateboards came down the sidewalk toward Anna, swerving past her with fixed expressions of bored insolence. Several of the homes were flying American flags, and one yard was full of plastic Easter bunnies, most of which had toppled over. An obese couple sat on a porch with two Siamese cats on their knees. At the next crossing, Anna took another left and headed back around the block until she reached the end of College Lane again. The Lexus was still there. Taking out her phone, as if to read a text message, Anna clicked three pictures of the car.
The day before, arriving at Cleveland’s Hopkington International Airport, Anna had noticed the John Glenn NASA complex at one end of the runway. From Delhi, she had flown Air India, direct to New York, and then connected to an American Airlines flight into Cleveland. As they taxied toward the terminal, Anna saw several hangers with PEREGRINE painted on the side. The corporate logo combined a stylized falcon and an arrow, streaking toward the earth. Afridi had briefed her before she left Delhi, explaining that he believed there was a connection between the aeronautical company and Guldaar. The founder and CEO of Peregrine was a man named Roger Fleisch mann, whose company was based in Ohio. One of Peregrine’s main facilities was located in Eggleston, on the outskirts of town. Fleischmann himself was born here and attended Bromfield College before dropping out in his junior year. Having founded Peregrine in his parents’ barn twenty years ago, he was now the single largest employer in Eggleston. Though Fleischmann never graduated from Bromfield, he was a major donor for the college. One wing of the library was named after his mother, and the new Peregrine Science and Engineering Block was fully funded by him. Professor Verma held the Isabel Fleischmann chair in Political Science, which was named after Roger Fleischmann’s wife.
Driving in from the airport yesterday, Anna had been struck by the pastoral beauty of the rolling farmland—freshly plowed fields patched together with stands of oak and maple. She tried to imagine what this landscape must have been like before any settlers arrived, but it was impossible to picture Ohio except under cultivation. Approaching the outskirts of Eggleston, she saw a couple of signs for the Peregrine facility. On one of the billboards was a photograph of Roger Fleischmann, with a boyish, toothy grin, and a tousled mop of blond hair. In red, white, and blue letters was the corporate slogan: DEFENDING AMERICA ABROAD, REBUILDING AMERICA AT HOME. Off in the distance, a corporate jet was coming in to land at the company’s airstrip. A minute later, Anna saw another aircraft, flying low to the ground, thirty feet above the trees. It took her a moment to realize it was a drone. The sleek, aerodynamic shape, with sweptback wings and an engine at the rear, came sailing overhead like some sort of UFO. As Anna leaned against the taxi window, trying to keep the drone in sight, it passed above them without a sound. Though she knew it must be a test flight, Anna couldn’t help but brace for impact.
Returning to College Lane in the afternoon, Anna confirmed that the Lexus was still there, parked in the same place across the street from Daphne Shaw’s house. Anna retraced her steps until she came to a lamppost with an emergency call box and pressed the red button. After a couple of seconds, a man’s voice answered.
“Campus security. How can I help you?”
“There’s a fire on College Lane,” Anna shouted into the speaker, putting on an American accent.
By the time she’d made it halfway around the block, Anna could hear the sirens. Turning onto Shiloh Street, she could see the same couple, with their two cats, still sitting on the porch, though the Doberman had stopped barking and there were no skateboarders on the sidewalk. A police car raced past Anna, blue lights flashing as it turned at the stop sign. Slowing down, Anna listened as more sirens converged, howling in a chorus of alarm. When she reached the corner of College Lane, she could see two fire engines at the opposite end of the street with red lights flashing. Several people had come out of their homes and were watching from the sidewalk as the firemen went through their emergency routines. By now, they probably knew it was a false alarm, another college student acting up.
Anna could see the driver-side door of the Lexus open. A woman got out. She was about Anna’s height, with short brown hair, wearing a tan jacket and jeans. One of the firemen came over and asked her to move the car. The carpenter had finished repairing the door at number 33, but there was no sign of Daphne Shaw. When the woman from the Lexus turned around, Anna pretended to check her phone and was able to get a couple of pictures. The woman was arguing with the firemen but finally turned around and got back in her Lexus. A minute later, she drove off.
Twenty-Four
“Unlock the ocean.” Four letters. Starting with “q” and ending with “y.” Daphne studied the cryptic clue for a minute then penciled in the letters to spell “quay.”
Through the plate-glass window, she could see a man riding a lawnmower in circles. The sound of the engine droned softly but steadily like the purring of a mechanical cat. Facing the window, she sat, as she always did, in the chair next to her son’s bed. For the fifteen years he had lain in this room, Naseem had never once looked out the window. The few times his eyes opened, they stared straight up at the ceiling, vacant and without recognition. Whenever Daphne had looked into his eyes, it frightened her. According to the doctors, his retinas and optic nerves no longer functioned. The eyelids opening and closing was a reflex action, nothing more. Occasionally, a tear slid down his cheek, but there were no emotions, no sadness or anger, regret or love. His soul had died but his body remained alive.
While she sat with him, Daphne usually did the New York Times crossword puzzle, which she carried with her to the clinic. Assyrian Sun God. 23 Down. Seven Letters. Second Letter “H.” How was she supposed to know that? Daphne was sure that 15 Across was “Potash.” Alkaline Compound Containing Potassium. She remembered this from her high school chemistry class, though she couldn’t recall what it was used for. Why did some things stick in your mind and others evaporate instantly? 12 Across looked as if it should be easy to figure out. It might even give her a clue to the Assyrian deity, a dead god whom nobody worshipped any more. Colonial Shipping Line. Six Letters. Cunard. Yes, that was it! She filled in the squares with her pencil and looked across at Naseem. His lips were moving, though he did not speak, as if he were trying to help her solve the puzzle.
Just then, the nurse came in, a young African American woman named Grace who greeted her with a familiar wave.
“How are you, Daphne?” she asked, a casual question that required no answer.
“Okay,” she lied. “Just fine, thank you.”
The nurse began to check the monitors and typed something on a keypad. In the beginning, when Naseem was first admitted to the clinic, Daphne had wanted to know everything they did, but over the years she had learned to let the machines do their work of keeping her son alive, without asking too many questions. A doctor would arrive later in the afternoon and read the daily report before examining the patient. Nobody at the clinic expected progress or recovery. When the nurse finished keying in the data, she talked for a few minutes about a wedding she’d attended in Cincinnati, her cousin’s marriage. It was the kind of disconnected conversation that fulfilled a need to share moments of happiness amid the lifeless sorrows of the clinic.
When the nurse left, Daphne was aware that someone else was standing at the door. For a moment she thought it might be the doctor, but when she turned to look, it was a man she’d never seen before.
“Ms. Shaw?” he said.
She acknowledged him with her eyes but didn’t speak.
“So
rry to disturb you. I was wondering if I could have a word.” The glasses he wore were the kind that changed color with the light. “My name is Carlton Fletcher.”
“What’s this about?” Daphne asked.
“I’ve just driven up from Washington, and I had a few questions.”
He glanced at Naseem, and she could see his eyes studying her son.
“Is it important?” she said.
“I’m afraid it is.” He came around the end of the bed and sat down in the chair across from her. Looking into his face, she remembered a description from a novel that compared a man’s complexion to Stilton cheese, blue veins showing through the skin on his nose and cheeks.
“Does this have anything to do with the men who broke down my door last week?”
“Could be,” said Fletcher.
“Then I don’t have anything more to say. I told them all they wanted to know.”
“We were wondering if you’d heard anything from your husband?”
“I don’t have a husband,” she said.
“The father of your son,” said Fletcher, gesturing toward Naseem.
Daphne looked away and realized that the lawnmower was gone and there was silence.
“I haven’t seen him for fifteen years,” Daphne said.
“We have reason to believe he came to your house last week.” Fletcher sat forward in his chair, as if his back were sore.
“You can believe whatever you choose to believe,” she said, “but I haven’t seen him since I lived in Bombay, more than fifteen years ago.”
“After your son had his accident,” said Fletcher.
She nodded.
“The US government paid for him to come here for his treatment. Every year, it costs three quarters of a million dollars to take care of your son in this facility.” Fletcher paused for a moment, leaning back stiffly in his chair. “Do you have any idea why American taxpayers should foot the bill for his medical expenses?”
“Mr. Fletcher,” she said, “you’re from Washington, aren’t you?”
He gestured with one hand, an affirmative wave.
“Then why are you asking me?”
“I spoke with Senator McHale. I believe you know him. He’s taken a special interest in your son’s case. According to him, it’s a matter of national security, but he wouldn’t tell me anything more than that.”
“Senator McHale has been very helpful,” said Daphne.
“He’s retiring this year,” said Fletcher. “Do you think that might affect the care your son receives?”
“I don’t know,” said Daphne. His questions troubled her, but she tried not to let it show.
“Ms. Shaw, let me honest with you,” said Fletcher. “We believe that Senator McHale has used his influence on the Senate Foreign Relations and Intelligence Committees to look after your son. Furthermore, we believe your son’s father visited this country last week and met with Senator McHale at his home in Virginia, then spent a night with you here in Eggleston before leaving the country on a flight from Chicago. We would have arrested him at your home, but somebody tipped him off. Do you know who that might have been?”
“No,” she said. “The only thing I know, Mr. Fletcher, is that you should ask your questions in Washington, not here. This is my son. I am his mother. Beyond that, frankly, I don’t give a damn.”
Picking up the folded newspaper, she studied it intently. The veins in the man’s face had turned from blue to red, and he looked as if he were about to lose his temper. One of his hands reached up to touch the box of cigarettes in his shirt pocket, but he withdrew it self-consciously. A monitor attached to the comatose patient beeped softly twice, but that was the only sound. Finally, Carlton Fletcher rose to his feet and headed toward the door.
“Mr. Fletcher,” Daphne said, just as he was about to leave. “I have a question for you.”
He stopped, a look of expectation behind the amber lenses.
“Yes?” he said.
“Would you happen to know the name of the Assyrian sun god?”
Fletcher glanced across at the crossword puzzle in her lap.
“Shamash,” he said and left the room.
Daphne’s lips moved to form the words, “Thank you,” but it was left unsaid.
Twenty-Five
Luke was awakened by the sound of the rock being dragged aside. A flood of daylight entered the chamber. He had been lying with his back to the wall, and his eyes were blinded by the brightness, though he could see the shapes of men above him, peering down. One of them lowered a dented plastic bottle full of water and a bowl of greasy broth with two flat cakes of bread. The water was murky and the bottle filthy, but he drank a little and ate the food. Though the soup smelled faintly of mutton, it was tasteless except for the salt.
The men left the hole open, and there was enough light for him to see the contours of the vault in which he sat. It was rectangular in shape, about twice as long as it was wide. The walls were made of rough concrete, and two cracks converged in one corner. A fine layer of silt covered the floor. He realized that it was an old water tank, which had probably been damaged by the earthquake, useless now, except as a prison. Above his head was a small aperture, like a large bullet hole, through which a half-inch pipe must have entered, filling the cistern from a nearby stream or spring.
Remembering the events of the night before, the lantern-lit room full of armed men, he wondered if this was a village or shepherd’s camp, though he couldn’t remember seeing anything on Ibrahim’s map to indicate settlements farther up the valley. He had no idea who these men were. Jihadis, of course, but there was no way of knowing which faction they supported, or where their loyalties lay. Some of them seemed to be foreign fighters. The leader, with the injured arm, looked like an Afghan. It was hard to tell from his accent. His Dari sounded like a dialect from the north. Luke wondered if anyone beyond this valley knew that he had been taken hostage, or that Ibrahim and Mushtaq were dead. It would take several days before someone came to search for them. Without any form of communication, it could be a week or more before the rest of the world realized that they were missing.
A little later, the men came back and took the bowl, handing him a rusted canister to use as a toilet. The chamber was sealed again with the stone. Luke was too disoriented to be afraid, focusing on his immediate circumstances rather than worrying about what would happen next. His watch showed that it was 8:22 a.m. and Tuesday, only forty-eight hours since he was captured, but he felt as if much more time had elapsed. The cistern was dry but cold. After eating, he huddled himself into a corner and closed his eyes. Every time he made a noise, coughing or scraping his boot on the floor, the sound echoed inside the cistern. Luke wondered, would anyone hear him outside if he shouted?
His mind began to drift into random thoughts and memories, recalling incidents from his childhood in Murree, disjointed images of games he’d played as a boy, pretending to be a soldier, creeping up a hillside to capture a flag. He thought of Ruth and Poonam in West Virginia, with the baby. They didn’t know that he was here, trapped inside a concrete tomb. Nina’s face appeared in his mind, a look of innocence and fragility. And then, he thought of Fletcher in the airport lounge at Dulles, the menacing tone of voice, a man he’d thought was dead, the threat to his sister and her family. There were times when Fletcher seemed like a malevolent ghost, an ominous, invisible presence. He would probably be the first to learn that Luke had been abducted. Maybe he already knew. When would they find his corpse? He would be like the anonymous man in the coffin that he’d accompanied back to Washington. Would his tortured, mutilated body be shipped to America or would they bury him in Pakistan, maybe in the graveyard in Murree next to his mother? Perhaps he’d never be found and this concrete cistern would serve as his grave.
For several minutes, Luke drifted into sleep but woke almost immediately with a suffocating sense of desperation. He imagined the tank filling with water, a clear, cold stream trickling through the inlet overhead, then pooli
ng at his feet and slowly rising up the walls, until he finally drowned. The sudden panic woke him out of this dream. Sweating, he shivered inside his coat. The codeine from the night before still blurred the lines between waking and sleep.
On the wall across from him, Luke saw a disc of light, eight or ten inches across. In his disoriented state, he thought it was a window, for he could see the profile of a mountain with snow on top and faint ridgelines, as well as clouds. The window was circular, like a luminous portal into another world where everything was upside down. For almost a minute, he stared at this vision, thinking it was part of his dream, like the icy water rising to his throat. But the shapes seemed real, even if the mountain was inverted. His mind struggled to comprehend the image until he finally realized what it was.
A beam of light was projected through the aperture above his head, casting the image on the wall, like a giant camera obscura. Looking up, he could see where the sunlight flowed through the pipe hole, shining against the opposite wall and creating an image of the mountains. Luke crawled closer and saw the layered shapes of clouds, the play of light and shadow on the ridges. It made him remember science experiments when he was a child, pinhole cameras made out of shoeboxes. There was a simple magic to the optical illusion that appeared in front of him. He watched it for almost half an hour, the bright circle moving slowly up the wall before it faded into darkness. A phenomenon so simple, yet so utterly real, it gave him hope.
Twenty-Six
Pushing her grocery cart down the aisle of the supermarket, Anna kept the woman in sight while choosing a box of granola from the shelf. She already had a carton of 2 percent milk, some blueberry yoghurt, and half a dozen bananas, which was all she needed. The woman she was following had grabbed some fruit and was heading for the bakery section. Gauging the time it would take her to round the aisle, Anna circled back and approached from the other side. As they maneuvered their carts past each other, Anna smiled at the woman and greeted her.
The Dalliance of Leopards Page 13