Sayed asked them what they were doing in Frankfurt and Nagib said that they were on vacation in Europe and also planned to travel to Turkey. When Sayed enquired what they did for a living in the US, Alia replied that she worked in the office of the chemical firm in which Nagib was employed as a scientist. This was, of course, true but did not reveal the fact that they had worked in one of the most secret facilities in the US, and certainly did not disclose that they were wanted by US authorities for espionage and high treason. Nagib said that they were robbed on their way to Germany and their credit cards were stolen so were very short for cash as they could not access their bank accounts. He asked Sayed if they could stay with him for a few days until they replaced their stolen credit cards by new ones. Sayed said that he lived with his wife in a studio apartment above the store and had no room there but his son, Ammer, had a large house in a nice suburb just a few kilometers from the city center. He got on the phone and called his son explaining the situation. Ammer said that they were welcome to stay with him and that after work he would come over to the store and pick them up and take them to his home. Nagib and Alia were overjoyed to hear that and said they would go back to their hotel and bring their stuff back to the store in the afternoon.
They had spent most of the day in a park that was very popular with Muslim women with babies, toddlers and young children. Some of the children were obviously also Muslim but there were quite a few that were fair haired and others that that were evidently of African origin. They found a bench in the shade that was slightly removed from the playground that the noisy older children used. Nagib sensed that Alia was in a thoughtful mood and scarcely responded to his words. He followed her fleeting looks at the children and recognized what was on her mind. He held her hand in his and gently caressed it, saying that the world wasn't a good place for children and their mission was more important than raising a family. Their successful completion of this mission will bring immense joy to many children and adults. A tear formed in the corner of Alia's eye and she asked Nagib to hug her tightly and rested her head on his shoulder.
It was early evening when Alia and Nagib were taken by Ammer to his house, which was a large single family home. His wife, Zenab, met them at the door with a big smile and welcomed them. She showed them the way to the guest bedroom that until a couple of years earlier was their teenage daughter's room, who was now a student at the Free University of Berlin. She offered them tea before dinner, and although Nagib would have preferred a chilled beer he refrained from mentioning it in case his hosts were devout Muslims. Alia had told him that Sayed was now a follower of the Ahmadiyye sect after converting from Christianity but they had no idea what Ammer and Zenab believed in until Sayed told them earlier that they were Muslims. After the four of them sat down and had a traditional dinner that consisted of a tasty chicken dish with rice, called Maglouba, and had sweet pastries and dark, bitter coffee for dessert, they chatted. Alia and Nagib repeated the story they had told the old man about being on vacation in Europe and enquired what their hosts did for a living. Zenab said that she had been a school teacher, but after her two kids left the house she volunteered in a Muslim welfare organization that provided advice and modest financial support for immigrants who came from Arab countries to Germany. The work was organized by a community center that operated side by side with a mosque. Zenab added that her husband was very pleased with her job and, secretly, that he was one of the biggest donors of money to the organization. She told them that she was born in Germany but that her parents came from a refugee camp in Gaza to which her grandparents had fled in 1948 when the Israelis drove them away from their home in Jaffa. Ammer said that after he had met her he, too, became a Muslim. That was more or less at the time his father had also abandoned his Christian faith. He said that he had great respect for his father, Sayed, who had emigrated from Palestine when he was a young man, actually just a teenager, and established himself as a merchant in Frankfurt. He said that the sign "Sayed and sons" was no longer accurate, as he himself did not work in the store and his only brother had died in a traffic accident while driving on the autobahn under the influence of alcohol. Ammer told them that he was an electronic engineer by training and an entrepreneur by profession and his own company was one of the major suppliers of communications equipment to the German police and military. He added that his company had over 50 employees, almost all of them of Arabic origin, but said that they had a few native Germans in the sales and marketing division and, of course, in the front office and on the board of directors. He was the founder, owner and CEO of the company. Nagib asked if he had international connections and Ammer replied that his company did a lot of business with the Muslim world, especially with Iran, Turkey and Egypt and that they also dealt with North Korea. Working with North Korea and Iran was especially lucrative as they could charge a premium on merchandize that these countries could not buy on the open market.
The women cleared the dishes and the men lit cigars and continued to talk. Nagib probed Ammer gently and asked what he thought about the situation in the Middle East and particularly in Palestine. Ammer responded in a detached manner without committing himself that the situation was not good and was getting worse. Nagib said that he felt that he was brainwashed by the American media that was generally biased towards Muslim-bashing and that objective news was hard to find, and wondered if Ammer could bring him up to date on what really was going on there. He added that his own family's history in Palestine was very sad and described how the Israelis bulldozed his parents' house and murdered his brother, Yassir the martyr, in cold blood. Ammer asked him if he intended to get back at the Israelis or forget about the injustice inflicted on his family and settle down in America. Nagib said that he was a proud man and would certainly not behave like a lamb as generations of Palestinian had done, and hinted that he may have a way of avenging the mistreatment of his people. Ammer asked what he had on his mind, but Nagib would go no further. Ammer then said that he had connections with all kinds of elements that were similarly motivated to make a point for the just cause of the Palestinian people and Islam.
Ammer and Nagib knew they were on slippery ground and behaved in the manner that two porcupines made love — very carefully. Nagib then told Ammer that he had obtained sensitive, highly valuable, classified information that could be used for bartering with suitable partners. Ammer enquired what kind of partners and Nagib responded that he would have to sleep on it before taking the next step. Meanwhile the women returned from the kitchen and joined them and the conversation shifted to other topics.
Brad, the NSA operative, called Eugene and told him that the phone call from Frankfurt to Alia's parents was not recorded as the phone number was not considered as important and no "trigger words" were used. Eugene knew that by "trigger words" Brad referred to words that would obviously imply acts of terror like "bomb", "explosive", "detonate", "target" etc. or those that are indicative of illegitimate deeds like "kill" or even "eliminate", or "numbered bank account" for example. This may have worked in the Twentieth Century before even the most stupid terrorists and dumb criminals knew about the extensive network of eavesdropping by "big brother" but would not be very useful nowadays. Although the system was now operative in many languages there were very few fish that were caught in the net — the big ones avoided using electronic communications completely and the small ones got through the large holes in the netting. Eugene said that he was disappointed but not surprised as Nagib and Alia were sophisticated people who knew all about the NSA and its powerful algorithms. He said that he would send an FBI agent to interview Alia's parents and try and find out where she was calling from and what they discussed.