She sighed. “My mother says the same thing.” She looked up at him. “No, I can’t.”
His eyes focused on her and seemed to harden into black dots. “It is your choice, and I respect that.”
Zehra raised her arms and dropped them at her sides. “Mustafa, I’m an American. I’m faithful in the way I think is proper. Traditionally, women wore hijab to ‘protect’ them from men. Actually, in my experience, I can handle most of them easily.” Tension rose inside her until she looked up at his face and felt everything wilt within.
“I am sorry,” he quickly explained. “I was carried away. Of course, American women have their own rights.”
“No, that’s not it exactly. I interpret the Qur’an the way Allah gives me understanding. In my opinion, that’s a ritual determined long ago and really doesn’t apply to me today. There are so many more important issues in Islam to focus on. Some that we can work on together.” When he frowned, she continued, “Like, how do we get a basically Christian nation to see that we’re different from the Muslim terrorists that get in the news so often.”
Mustafa nodded and turned toward the condo. “I understand.” He started to walk inside until he spotted the plant by the corner of the door. “Beautiful. Hibiscus, is it not?”
Zehra let her breath escape. She walked to the plant. “Yeah. Look at the deep green of the leaves.”
“And those huge, red flowers. They are stunning. You should pick one and put it in your hair, then you would both look stunning.”
“Do you want to know something weird and beautiful about them?”
“What?”
“Hibiscus flowers bloom once during the day and then every night, the spent blossoms fall off and die.”
Thirty-Three
Paul forced the meeting with Conway. They crowded into his office at seven in the morning, along with the first deputy, Tony Valentini. Without drinking his coffee, Paul started, “I know you’re pissed off at me, Bill.”
With his arm propping up his wrinkled face, Conway scowled at Paul.
“Tony said it himself-‘I like the smell of this.’ We’re onto to something.” Paul looked at Valentini for support.
“That’s right, Bill. You’ve gotta admit we’re into it now. Something big.”
When Conway dropped his eyes and sat motionless, Paul knew him well enough to stop talking. Conway’s mind, always sharp, was probably clogged with facts, suspicions, pressures, and fears. He struggled to put them into a logical order. Reluctantly, he fought the obvious truth and Paul could imagine Conway testing the truth from various angles.
Conway sighed and looked up from Paul to Valentini. “You’re right.” He heaved his body up and shook his shoulders. “Shit! I thought we had this sucker wrapped-up. Okay, now what?”
Paul stood up from his chair with his finger extended toward Conway. “We need to find Ammar. Obviously, he’s led a double life here.”
Conway nodded. “How about the mosque? We’ll carpet it with agents. What’s our time frame again?”
“Friday. We should also follow-up on the interview I had with the kid at the school and his friends. Find out where Ammar was going to meet them. Stake it out and grab ’em when he shows.”
“That’d be the high percentage play,” Valentini said.
Conway turned to Paul. “You get back to the school and get that kid to tell you all about the next meeting. I see that as priority number one.” He walked closer to Paul so that the smell of cigarettes wafted over him. “And I don’t want you to Bogart this thing. You got that, agent?”
Paul started to laugh until he realized Conway was serious. “Right.”
“No one talks to the press without approval from me. Tell that to your support, too. I’ll fire anyone’s ass that leaks one goddamn word.” Conway scowled again. He let out a huge breath and ran his hands through his hair. “This is frightening enough for the public. For now, at least, they think we’ve got the bad guy in jail, waiting for trial. I don’t want any possibility of a panic on our hands. This is probably the last big case of my career, and I’m not gonna screw it up.”
When Conway turned, Paul knew the meeting was over. They reached for files and empty coffee cups. At the door, Paul stopped. “Bill, I got something I’m wondering about.”
“Yeah?”
“What do you know about the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Disease?”
“Never heard of ’em.”
“Someone from their agency was at the crime scene of the murder.”
Conway’s eyes opened wide. “What? Why didn’t we know about that?”
“Not only that, they picked up some crime scene evidence.”
“Son of a bitch! Who are these guys?”
“Can you get a meeting with them ASAP?”
Conway grabbed for his phone. “Damn right. I’ll call now. If I have to, I’ll call the director himself to move some asses.” He fumbled with his phone. “What the hell’s going on with this case? I don’t know anything.”
Paul called Gennifer Simmons at Hiawatha High School and asked her to have Abraham available for another talk-alone.
Within thirty minutes, he arrived at the school. Simmons and the boy waited in a lounge area at the entrance to the school. Paul hurried in and followed them to an empty room. He closed the door.
“Abraham, all the things you’ve told us are very important. I don’t want you to be scared, but the FBI thinks this scientist who meets with you and your friends is someone we’d like to meet also. Could you tell me more about where you meet?”
Abraham looked at Simmons and back at Paul. He took a deep breath. “Well, it’s the mosque in Burnsville, near the mall. There’s a community room that people meet in and, well, our group meets back there once a week. He is going to meet us tomorrow.” He was so thin, Paul worried that if the clothes draped around him were removed, Abraham would collapse.
“You sure?”
“Yeah. He’s really a nice guy. Me and my friends like hanging with him. He talks to us about lots of stuff about being Muslim.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, maybe you wouldn’t understand, but my parents work all the time. I never see them. Most of the kids at school, when they hear I’m Somali, they walk away. They don’t like us. And the American blacks don’t like us … so, it’s kind of lonely. Mr. Kamal was nice to us. We talked about things like that.”
“What were you going to do at your meeting?”
Abraham shrugged. “All my friends want to go, so I guess I want to go, too.”
As Paul took notes, Abraham gave him the directions to the mosque. Satisfied he’d gotten all the information he could from Abraham, he said, “I don’t think it’d be a good idea for you to go back.”
Abraham’s face twisted.
“I know you want to, and there may be times in the future you can but not this time, okay?”
Abraham’s eyes came up to meet Paul’s, but he didn’t agree.
Simmons broke in. “Abraham’s going to present his project at the Science Fair tomorrow night.” She turned to him and smiled.
“What’s that?” Paul asked.
“All the high schools in the area are having Science Day to promote math and the sciences. Hundreds of students participate, and it’s open to the public.”
Before Paul left the school, he pulled Gennifer Simmons aside. “Do you know his parents?”
“I’ve never met them. Most of the Somali parents work very hard and don’t have much time to come to school conferences. That’s why these kids are so lonely and cut-off. They’re desperate to fit in somehow. These families are close and loving but the parents have to work two or three jobs to support them. I’ll try to find Abraham’s.”
Paul gripped her arm. He looked at her. “Even if you have to take him home with you the next couple nights, you should do whatever you can to keep him away from the mosque. Trust me, it’s dangerous.”
Color flushed into her cheeks, and she took a sharp breath. “Okay.”
Paul left the school and drove toward the mosque. While he turned onto the freeway, his cell rang. It was Zehra Hassan. She was crying. “What’s up?” he said.