“Damn it!” he cursed. He cuffed Biehn again, this time digging the cuff in so tight it drew blood. He couldn’t leave the cuff like that forever or the man would lose his hand. But for the moment he was taking no chances. Jack pulled his second pair of cuffs out again and resecured Biehn’s feet.
He jumped up and vaulted the bed to check on Dortmund. The priest was in the middle of convulsions, gagging and clutching at his throat. Jack reached for the small lamp on the nightstand and turned it on. He pulled Dortmund’s hands away from his throat. A deep bruise was already forming there, and Jack knew what had happened. Biehn had crushed his throat with the blow. Dortmund was choking to death.
“Calm down. Calm down!” he said, slapping Dortmund. The man’s thrashing was not helping. Shit, he had to do something. If he didn’t, he was an accomplice to murder. Jack pulled open the top drawer of the nightstand. It was a gallimaufry. He dug through the odds and ends, shoe polish kits and old watches, until he found a Bic pen. Using his teeth, he tore the top off it and plucked out the ink tube in the middle, until all he had left was a hard plastic straw.
Dortmund was turning blue and clutching at his throat. Urgent, terrified, gurgling noises came out of him, and his eyes were shiny with tears and fear. “I’m trying to fucking help you!” Jack said, shoving him back down on the bed. He stuck the tube between his teeth and pulled a knife out of his pocket. It was a small folder. He snapped it open and held it over Dortmund. He made his voice calm. “Don’t move. This is going to hurt. But it will help you breathe. Understand? Don’t move.”
Dortmund nodded but couldn’t stop from twitching. Jack jumped on top of him, straddling him, his knees pinning the priest’s arms to his sides. With his free hand, Jack grabbed Dortmund’s forehead and pushed it hard into the pillow and mattress. Then, quick as he could, he touched the tip of the knife to the throat below the bruise. He made a quick incision. There was blood, but not much because Jack hadn’t come close to the carotid arteries. Jack put down the knife and snatched the pen tube out of his mouth. Lining it up with the hole he’d just made, he pushed it, driving it steadily through the resistance he felt. A second later, a wet rasping sound emerged from the outer end of the tube. Dortmund’s chest heaved and the wet sound was repeated. After a moment, the priest’s natural color returned. He moved his mouth but could not speak.
“Don’t try,” Jack said. He touched his own throat. “Your throat was crushed. I gave you a kind of tracheotomy.”
Dortmund’s hands probed his throat.
“Don’t touch. It’s a pretty bullshit emergency rig. You need to get to a hospital.”
The priest looked at Jack with something like tearful appreciation. Jack sneered at him. “Don’t thank me. You’re a piece of shit and you probably deserve to die. But I don’t have time to deal with it right now.”
The door opened on Nina’s second loud knock. The man who answered was in his mid-forties, with a well-trimmed dark beard and soft black eyes behind a pair of wire-framed glasses perched crookedly on his nose. He was still arranging a robe about his body as he looked at her. “Are you aware of the time?” he said indignantly. “What is this?” “Mr. al-Hassan, Nina Myers again,” she said. “I have more questions for you.” “I’m sorry, who are you? Why are you here so late?”
Nina was annoyed that he didn’t remember her. She held out her Federal identification again. “Federal agent Nina Myers,” she reminded him. “I questioned you once before.”
“Oh!” he said, rubbing his eyes as though just coming awake. “Ms. Myers. I’m sorry, I was asleep.
I… may I ask what is going on?” “I’d like to come in.” “Of — of course.” He stepped aside, and she entered. “What hap
pened to your arm?” she asked. His left arm was in a sling.
“I fell,” he replied. “Off a curb on the street. I hit my arm on the curb and broke my arm, if you can believe it.”
“I’m not sure what to believe, Mr. al-Hassan,” she said bluntly. “Why didn’t you tell me about the conference in Peshawar?”
Abdul al-Hassan looked genuinely shocked. “Peshawar? What conference?”
She put her hands on her hips, which brought her right hand that much closer to the gun at her hip. “The one you attended. A month or so ago.”
“In Peshawar,” al-Hassan said, as though piecing together clues. “The Muslim union!” he said at last, his eyes lighting up. Nina swore that he was legitimately pleased with himself for figuring it out. “The reconciliation conference in Peshawar. And I didn’t tell you about it?”
“It’s late to play games,” she said impatiently. “Would you rather I take you into custody and we do this in a less comfortable situation?”
“No, no,” al-Hassan said, recovering his composure. “I’m sorry, Ms… Myers. I had simply forgotten. I’d forgotten I hadn’t told you about that conference.”
Nina glared at him. “I specifically asked you if you’d had contact with any Islamic fundamentalists recently and you said no. I believe at that time you might have mentioned a trip to a hotbed of radical Muslim beliefs.”
The imam shook his head gently. “Ms. Myers, the problem is just that our definitions of ‘radical Muslim belief’ are different. The conference was a debate between Sunni and Shiite clerics. An effort to unify the Muslim community. To me, that is hardly a ‘radical’ notion. It would not have occurred to me to connect that meeting with any discussion of terrorism.”
“But Peshawar—
“Yes, I apologize,” he said sincerely. “To you, northern Pakistan must seem like the end of the world.”
“Don’t patronize me,” Nina snapped. Something about al-Hassan seemed different than her memory of him. If she recalled correctly, he had been superficially stern, but ultimately cooperative and concerned for justice. Now he seemed much more deferential on the surface, but harder underneath. “I understand the region pretty damned well. If I were going somewhere to meet with a terrorist organization, Peshawar would be ideal.”
“And if I were going to confront a schism in my religion,” al-Hassan retorted, “I would choose a place just like Peshawar, in Pakistan, which has seen much violence between Sunni and Shi’a since the 1980s.” He shrugged at her. “Light does its best work in a dark room, Ms. Myers.”
“I don’t believe you,” Nina said simply. “I don’t believe you just forgot. I think you’re hiding something from me. Tell me more about your brother.” She was fishing now, but she wanted to keep him talking, and al-Hassan had proved in the past that he was more than willing to talk about his brother.
Al-Hassan’s eyes flashed. “My brother. Someday, by the will of Allah, he will understand the truth. Until then, his actions are his own. I have not spoken with him in years.”
“Do you think he is still involved with radical fundamentalists?” she asked.
“Most assuredly.”
“And where is he?”
Al-Hassan shook his head. “I have no idea where my brother might be, nor do I care. If I had any such information, I promise I would tell you.”
Marwan al-Hassan listened to the woman ask several more of her questions. He answered them in the voice he had known from childhood, the voice he hated so much. The voice of his ridiculous embarrassment of a brother, that poor excuse of a Muslim who tried so hard to make peace with the nonbelievers.
Despite his disdain, Marwan played his part well. He tucked his filial dislike into a secret place within him. There was plenty there to keep it company, not least of which was fury at being forced to answer questions from a woman. As far as he was concerned, she should be beaten. Instead, he stood there smiling innocently and answering her questions. Patience, he told himself. Patience. The time would come when Allah would give the faithful the opportunity to bring real Islam to this country.