“Benjamin Muoki. From the NSIS. He’s got to have it.”
“Benjamin?” Kwambai grinned. “Well, well. Benjamin.”
“You go get it. Or I’ll get it myself. Then I-”
“Tell me the codes.”
“They’re,” Paul began, then stopped. “I’ll type them in.”
“We can’t risk you typing some emergency signal. Tell me the codes now,” said Kwambai. “Please.”
Paul looked up at his fleshy face. “If I told you, I’d need some assurance that I’d be safe.”
Kwambai blinked at him then, and suddenly began to laugh. It was a deep, room-filling laugh. “Of course, of course.” He shook his head. “You didn’t think we were going to kill you?”
Paul tried to remember the man’s words. No, he hadn’t said that Paul was going to die. He’d never said that. Just hint, nuance. Threat. He exhaled loudly, then, closing his eyes, recited the key combination to connect to the bank, the ten-digit number that accessed the accounts section, and then the holding account number.
“There’s nothing else?” asked Kwambai, a smile still on his face.
“No. That’s all.”
“Good.” Again, the politician patted his shoulder. “You’ve been very cooperative. Aslim Taslam will be sure to let your family know.”
And he was gone. The logic of that last sentence didn’t arrange itself in his head until Daniel Kwambai was closing the door behind himself and the two men were putting out their cigarettes in the crystal ashtray.
Paul began to say more things, but no one was listening. He couldn’t see the men’s expressions as they approached; fresh tears made details impossible to make out. He remembered Sam saying, We’re not all cut out for this kind of work. You never were. Then, as the two men neared-one had already taken out his pistol-he realized they hadn’t tied him down. He was just sitting there, waiting for death. They hadn’t tied him down!
He stood, knocking the chair over, feeling a burst of hope that remained even as he felt the hammer of the first bullet in his chest. He stumbled, tripping backward over the chair. The breath went out of him; he couldn’t get it back. His wet arms floundered on the floor as he tried to find a handhold, and even when the two men appeared, looking down on him, his wet hands didn’t stop trying to hold on to something, anything. They kept slipping. The two men spoke briefly to their god.
“Don’t,” Paul managed, thinking of a damp couch and a beautiful girl who could see his secret soul. Then they all disappeared-the couch, the girl, the soul-as if they had never been.
NABIL
The Imam reminded him of those unnaturally serene Afghans who first taught him the Truth behind the truth. The hairs of his long beard were thick, black wires that paled to white as they traveled down his robe. Around his lips they were stained yellow by hours spent around the communal water pipe.
His Arabic was fattened by his Kurdish accent, but his grammar was beautifully precise. It almost seemed out of place in this tenement building on the outskirts of Rome. “You have brought your offerings to me, young Nabil, and for this I thank the Prophet (praise be upon him). Though few in number, your people seem to me to be a worthy addition to our holy fight. It is not your heart we question here, but your abilities.”
Nabil, sitting cross-legged on the rug before him, kept his head low. “We are gathering weapons, Imam. We have communications abilities and the support of three major tribes in Punt-land.”
“That is good,” said the old man. “But what I refer to is the ability of the mind.” He smiled and tapped his weathered skull. “How does one discern truth from deception? How does one know the right path from the wrong, or the easy, one? Even the heart softened with love for Allah must be like stone when facing the infidels. The eyes must be clear.”
Nabil wanted to have an answer ready but didn’t. He was a fisherman’s son. He had no special qualifications beyond the fact that he loved his faith and had learned to speak English like a native. So he waited.
After a moment of silence, the Imam said, “Young Nabil knows when to hold his tongue, which is not only a virtue but a sign of wisdom.” He looked at the other men in the room, the young Kurds who now lived as his Roman bodyguards. By this look he seemed to be requesting their input, but they gave none. “And I believe you came to us via our mutual friend, Mr. Daniel Kwambai?”
“We’ve known him for some time. He is sometimes of use.”
“Yes,” the Imam said, pausing significantly. “But do not confuse use with friendship.”
“We endeavor to know the difference, Imam.”
“Those who can help are welcome, but those whose help takes too much from us, those should be dealt with harshly.”
Again Nabil nodded but could find no words.
The Imam leaned back and patted his knees. “Let us agree first of all that one does not give one’s hand without first knowing the other hand intimately So it shall be here. We will come to you, young Nabil. You may or may not recognize us-that is of no concern. You should act as you believe correct. That is all we ask. Once we have observed your sense of right, we will come to our decision. Does that strike you as satisfactory?”
“It strikes me as a blessing, Imam,” Nabil said, though his chest tightened. How much longer would this go on? He’d brought the money Ansar al-Islam had demanded, had given them a layout of the entire organization, and had even let them keep one of his men. Yet here he was, still feeling very much like the darkest man in the room.
“You are very patient for a man of your age,” the Imam told him, as if he could read his thoughts. “This does not go unnoticed.” He folded his hands together in his lap. “There is something you can do for us today, in fact. Something that would move things along more quickly.”
“However I may be of service,” said Nabil.
A smile. A nod. “Downstairs, in the basement of this very building, are two men. They became our guests only yesterday. Through questioning we have learned that they work for the
Americans. One is an Italian, while the other is more despicable because he is not even European. He is Moroccan. A foul, homosexual Moroccan, in fact. What they attempted to do to Ansar al-Islam is not important; it is only important that they failed. I would consider it a great kindness if you would kill them for us.”
One of the guards, sensing his cue, stepped forward. He held a long cardboard box, the kind used for long-stemmed flowers, and opened it on the floor in front of Nabil. Inside was a rather beautiful sword.
Four days later, on Sunday, after he’d finished his Dhuhr prayer and was packing to return to the continent he understood, where when you left you could say exactly what you had accomplished, the American knocked on his hotel room door. He found a light-haired but dark-eyed man in the spy hole who said, “Signore Nabil Abdullah Bahdoon?”
“Si?”
The man peered up and down the corridor, then lowered his voice and spoke in English. “My name is Sam Wallis. I’m here with a business offer. May I come in?”
Though his impulse was to send the man away, he remembered, We will come to you, young Nabil, and opened the door.
Once inside, Sam Wallis was surprisingly-perhaps even refreshingly-straightforward. He wanted information on the pirates. He represented some companies interested in securing their shipping lanes through the Gulf of Aden. “I don’t know what your rank is,” Sam told him, “but I’ll lay odds that the money I can give you will move you upward.”
“Upward?”
“In your organization.”
Nabil frowned. “What do you think my organization is?”
“Does it matter?” Sam said, flopping his hands in an expression of nonchalance. “There’s always some position above our heads that we’d prefer to fill.”