Ibn Azziz nodded. “It is good you behave thus. I am a man inclined towards mercy when it is merited. Your insolence makes the task at hand easier.”
Angelina bowed. “It is my pleasure.”
Ibn Azziz stood up, jabbed a bony hand at her. “You will tell me where I can find the whore. You were the only mother she had. She would not have run away without telling you where she was going.”
“I love the girl as my own, but I don’t know where she is.”
“You love her, but she must not love you. To wallow in sin and leave you to explain her actions. She must think you a fool.”
Angelina watched as he stroked his wispy beard. A pathetic excuse for a beard. An even more pathetic excuse for an imam.
“I almost caught her in California a few days ago,” said Ibn Azziz. “She was in my grasp but escaped. Allah must have his reasons-”
“What do you think Redbeard will do when he finds out that you have taken me? What do you think the people will do when they find out you have desecrated a mosque?”
“I’m not afraid of Redbeard or the people. I am only afraid of God.”
“As you should be.”
“Be silent, woman!” Ibn Azziz paced the room. Thinking. Nervous as static electricity.
In all her years with Redbeard, she had never seen him as unraveled as Ibn Azziz. What was he expecting, some frightened housewife begging for mercy? An intimidated moderate with knees of jelly before the leader of the Black Robes? Angelina had been beaten before. She feared only God, and she had nothing to fear from Him.
“You will tell me where to find the whore,” said Ibn Azziz. He stood quietly now, watching her, and his nervousness was gone. “If you do not, or can not, then you will be brought before the religious court. We will charge Sarah Dougan with fornication and blasphemy in absentia. You shall be the primary witness against her.”
Angelina started to speak. Held her tongue.
Ibn Azziz seemed almost disappointed. “Make no mistake, you will testify against her. It is only a matter of how much pain you wish to endure.”
Angelina’s eyes shimmered. The man was right. They both knew it, and the pleasure it gave him was obscene. She hung her head. Asked God for courage. Looked up at Ibn Azziz. Lips quivering. “I will tell you where she is.”
Ibn Azziz sat back in his chair. He looked so young. “Speak.”
“I…I can not bear to hear my own words.” Angelina looked at the men around her. “I will not speak in front of them.”
“I will not send my guards away.”
Angelina took a deep breath. “She is…she is…” She lowered her voice, the words inaudible now.
“Speak up!”
“I love her, Mullah. The sound of my betrayal will burn my ears for eternity.”
Ibn Azziz looked at his bodyguards. Saw them indicate that she had been searched. He beckoned to her.
Angelina took a halting step. She spoke again. The words even softer than before.
“Closer!”
Angelina was two feet away. Near enough to count his eyelashes.
“That’s close enough. I can’t bear the stink of a female.”
Angelina lowered her head. Whispered.
Ibn Azziz smacked his hand against his leg, sent his black robe fluttering.
Angelina stepped forward muttering. They were close enough now that Ibn Azziz could hear the words. She was praying. Asking God to give her strength. Asking for God’s blessing for what she was about to do.
Ibn Azziz started to shout but it was too late.
Angelina launched herself at him. Hooked one of his eyes with her forefinger, drove it deep behind the jelly and scooped it out. He screamed, struggled to escape her, but the chair held him in place, and fifty years of housework had made her hands strong. Fifty years of prayer had given her courage. The eye she had torn out flopped against her wrist as she clawed at his face, seeking the other one. The eye was like a grape. A muscat grape peeled for a pasha. Such things were done in the old days. She gasped as the knives entered her body, but the thought of Sarah made her hang on, raking his face with her nails. Such screaming from Ibn Azziz. Again and again the bodyguards stabbed her, and she felt her body shudder. She wished…she wished she had been granted the gift of seeing Sarah and Rakkim marry. To see them kiss. To hold their baby in her arms. The knives…the knives hurt, but not so badly as she feared. The pain was bearable. Above all else, Allah was merciful.
CHAPTER 51
“Sorry, mister, I’m still not seeing anything.”
Rakkim stood with his arms outstretched in front of the MRI screen. “Run it again. Maximum sensitivity.”
The tech looked at Sarah. “It’s already maxed.”
“Just do it.” Sarah watched over the tech’s shoulder as the scan progressed. She turned to Rakkim, shook her head.
Rakkim let his arms drop. He should be happy. He had been certain the Old One would have implanted some sort of tracking device inside him during surgery, but the MRI body scan showed nothing. Nothing metallic. Nothing of a foreign or nonbiologic nature. Neither had Sarah’s watch registered any electronic signature. They had run a full-spectrum check with it before going to the MRI lab of the hospital. He watched Sarah pay off the tech. It wouldn’t have been hard for the Old One. Fedayeen tracking devices were as small as a poppy seed, and his wounds offered easy access for implantation. He had plenty of old scars that could have hidden the insertion point. So why had the Old One passed on the opportunity?
Sarah and Rakkim eased out the side door and into the stairwell. It had been three days since he’d woken up in the hospital and had his halting conversation with the Old One. Rakkim was dressed in some new clothes she had bought in downtown Las Vegas, ugly clothes he wouldn’t have been seen in back in Seattle-Spanish-style, black trousers with little balls running up the side seams, and a yoked Western shirt with red parrots embroidered on the chest. In a city of tourists, dress like a tourist. He still hated looking in the mirror. Her clothes were typically modern-blue leather, knee-length skirt and a short-sleeved comfort sweater that adjusted its weave depending on the ambient temperature.
“Why am I dressed like a matador?” said Rakkim.
“I thought it would cheer you up.”
“You thought it would cheer you up.”
“That too.” She squeezed his hand. “How are you really feeling?”
Rakkim started up the stairs, taking them two at a time. Sarah was right behind him. They stopped at the eighteenth landing, the top floor, both of them panting. Rakkim gave it a count of five, then started back down. When they got to the bottom, they did it again.
“That’s enough,” Sarah gasped, back at the eighteenth-floor landing. “After lunch. We can run up Mount Everest. Or swim. Swim the Pacific.”
Rakkim bent slightly forward, rested his hands on his knees. He spit into the dusty corner. There was a tiny spot of blood in it.
They walked down the stairs and out the door on the main level. Stepped out into the morning sunshine. Eighty-six degrees and no humidity. Hot-air balloons drifted in the distance, not the dull security blimps that ringed Seattle, but brightly colored balloons from which tourists could appreciate the landscape.
“I still don’t understand why we’re still alive,” said Sarah as they cut across the green lawn to the sidewalk. “Why didn’t the assassin just kill us? If Fancy had any proof of her father’s part in planting the fourth bomb, it’s gone now.”
Rakkim glanced around as they walked. He hadn’t been outside since he was shot and the open air smelled clean. Vegas was beautiful-the air crystalline, the Spring Mountains to the west set in high relief against the deep, cobalt blue sky. Rakkim had never seen such clear skies, either at home or in the Bible Belt. If anything, the Bible Belt was more polluted than the Islamic Republic, due to their dependency on coal. He looked back at the hospital, shielding his eyes. There was no way to appreciate how big it was from the inside. Open too, with plenty of glass and a lobby that faced the street. He had never seen a hospital without protective barriers around it to guard against truck bombs.