The Godless One (12 page)

"
The reward for proper groundwork
,"
Ari nodded. "
But you were caught within
three hours of leaving Maryland, as I understand
it
."

"
I don’t know how. I’m sure the GPS was switched off and the
LoJack was disabled. I took back roads, where there shouldn’t have
been too many policemen
."

Ari laughed.
"
Seeing you behind the wheel of a
Murciélago
, I would have
pulled you over, myself. Where were you delivering
it
?"

"I was supposed to park it
at a gas station in Cumberland. Someone would be there to take me
back to Maryland. Then the new owner would come and pick up the
car."
Samir thumped his head with his
hand. "
But I hardly made it past Culpeper
before some runty girl in a Crown Victoria pulled me over. A
Ford
!"

"
You mean a cop in a police cruiser
,"
Ari grinned.

"
If I’d known it was a girl, I would have stepped on the gas
and left her miles behind."

"
I’m sure you would have. But she had a gun, and you
didn’t
."

"
What a country!"
Samir
moaned.

From the sound of it, Ari doubted Samir
Salman knew there were now female cops in Iraq, too. He decided
against bringing him up to date. Swiveling in his chair, he
lavished Jenny with his most courteous smile. Her eyebrows floated
upward, as though she wanted to be seduced, but needed something
more practical.

"This man indeed drove a stolen car
across state lines," he told her. "That means he goes to the
Federal institution. I believe that is the result the Deputy Warden
was hoping for: one less mouth to feed."

"Never mind what Finley wants. Just
tell me the facts."

Picking and choosing, twisting facts
and confabulating new ones, Ari gave the lawyer a brief synopsis of
the interview. The rectangular blanks in Jenny’s notes begged for
solid words, and since Ari fluffed out his story with featureless
air, her forms ended up almost as unmussed as when the session had
begun. There was certainly no mention of Naji Turabi or his exotic
car dealership, and Samir’s relatives in Canada were perfectly
excluded. But having a name and nationality contented her enough
for the time being. It was, considering the hostility of her
client, more than she had hoped for.

"
Remember
," Ari said to Samir Salman
as the guard came in to take him away, "
I’m Italian
."

The prisoner smirked.

"
You might also want to consider making this your permanent
residence. You won’t be as safe outside as you are inside these
walls
."

The smirk sagged into dread. The guard
bared his teeth and pointed at the door.

Finley and Grainger were in the
hallway. The minister was not looking very divine, while the Deputy
Warden was beatific to a fault. Always the war between Insider and
Outsider, Ari thought, with the insider smugly pulling the
strings.

"Any progress, Jenny?" Finley asked the
lawyer as she preceded Ari into the corridor.

"Sure—plus," she said. "You can move
him out of here."

"To the BOP?"

"To the stockade. He’s Iraqi. He’s here
illegally. He might be an enemy combatant."

Ari had suspected he had been a
participant in a preliminary show trial, but had not anticipated
this result.

"What!" The Deputy Warden was genuinely
alarmed. "I have to call upstairs. This man needs to be put in
solitary."

"What an excellent defender of the
downtrodden you are," said Ari blandly to Jenny as Finley unclipped
his radio.

"I’m a patriot and no fool," was her
response before she shuffled down the hall.

Pastor Grainger was staggered by the
outcome, but composed himself quickly.

"Well, that’s that, I’m afraid," he
told Ari. "I guess we won’t need your services again until the next
non-English-speaking Arab is incarcerated. I’m sure the Army has
its own translators."

"Will they let him grow his beard
back?" Ari asked.

"That’s important, isn’t it?" Grainger
shook his head. "I don’t know. They’ve allowed the prisoners at
Gitmo to grow their beards, I’ve heard. So maybe…"

"Do you think this prisoner will end up
at Guantanamo?"

"I shouldn’t think so, but…" Grainger
gave him a look of rueful helplessness. "I don’t seem to know much
about anything at all, at the moment."

"But you know Mustafa Zewail’s
address."

"Yes, of course. Were you thinking of
going out there? You’re welcome to try. I called, drove out to his
house and knocked, called his workplace…but he’s completely
disappeared, him and his wife."

"The prisoner told me he had received
threatening letters."

"Hate mail. He told me about it. But he
wouldn’t show me the letters, for some reason. I asked him to call
the police, but I don’t think he ever did."

CHAPTER FOUR

Ari lifted the garage door and wind
like a cold shout almost knocked him backwards into his car. He
took a few steps into the driveway for a better look down Beach
Court Lane. To his left, the James River rumbled with floodwaters
from the Alleghany Mountains. To his right, he could just glimpse
Howie Nottoway’s house through a filter of winter-stripped trees.
Straight ahead were more trees, a patch of forest that thinned to
the east until it burgeoned once more at the Pony
Pasture.

This was the usual moment when Sphinx,
if outside, would dash for the house. Ari called out the cat’s name
(first, his name for him, then Diane’s) and waited a full two
minutes in the bustling wind. Unrewarded, he got into his Scion xB.
After backing into the driveway, he laboriously got out and closed
the garage. There was a receiver on the wall but he had never found
the remote for the automatic garage door opener. When Abu Jasim
came with his money, a new opener would be among his purchases. As
he drove past Diane’s house he slowed and scanned the yard for any
sign of a yellow tabby.

He was about to turn onto Forest Hill
Avenue when a car pulled up behind him. The driver honked. Ari
looked into his rearview mirror and saw the irate face of Deputy
Karen Sylvester. She made a slashing gesture across her throat. Was
she threatening to kill him? When she repeated the gesture, he
realized she was telling him to terminate his trip. The light ahead
had turned green. He crossed the road to the Food Lion parking lot
and found an isolated spot next to a defunct pharmacy. Karen pulled
up next to him and barged out of her dark blue two-door
Civic.

"Where the hell do you think you’re
going?" she demanded when Ari lowered his window."

"As you see," Ari said, nodding at the
grocery store.

"No you weren’t. You were getting ready
to turn. You had your signal on."

"May I emerge?" he inquired.

"Yeah, sure, emerge
yourself."

He turned off his engine and got out.
Karen stood close, refusing to be intimidated by his height, or her
own shortness.

"May I ask how you knew I had left the
house?" Ari said with a bemused smile, as though asking a magician
the secret to a trick. "Even if you are tracking me through the GPS
device in my car, you got here very quickly."

"I was coming to see you and spotted
you on the road."

"Ah." Ari glanced at her car. "Is this
an official visit? Where is Deputy Fred?"

"I came to tell you how close you
are…this close…this close…" She held up her thumb and index finger
so that he could clearly see the microscopic gap between
them.

"I’m sorry?"

"To fucking everything up! You visited
a prison yesterday. A fucking prison! That’s almost the number one
rule not to break when you’re in Witness Protection or whatever the
Army is calling this operation. You idiot! Where’s your common
sense!"

"How did you know—?"

"You filled out a Visitor Application
when you went inside Powhatan. We’re connected to the Virginia DOC
database, because you’d be surprised how many numbnut crooks try to
visit their goodfella buddies in jail when they’re supposed to be
in hiding."

Ari had not filled out any forms. And
then he remembered Pastor Grainger saying he would take care of the
application for him. He winced inwardly. There were so many ways to
get caught.

"I was already working on a warrant to
get you permanently tagged."

"That doesn’t sound good," Ari said,
his bonhomie chilling.

"I want an ankle monitor
on you. The federal judge keeps putting me off. Maybe one of your
military handlers had a brain fart and put in a good word for you.
I thought I had you yesterday, I really did. Visiting a state
prison! But when I checked, I found out a goddamn
minister
took you there.
To
translate
!
Like some fucking
do-gooder
! You know what would
happen if I asked the judge to tag you now? He’s a regular holy
roller. He would put me in a little red wagon and roll me out of
the courthouse."

"Deputy Karen, I sincerely apologize
for any—"

"Deputy
Sylvester
, you
muttonhead!" She was fuming. She was flaming. The wind flared her
short blonde hair into a satanic halo. "I
will
get you, Mr. Ciminon. I
will
have you contained,
even if I have to order a straightjacket. I will have no one going
off half-cocked on
my
watch!"

The wry grin that this inevitably drew
from Ari was completely lost on the irate woman, whose need for
restraint was obvious. She appeared to have no concept of seemly
behavior—a propensity Ari had found all too common in his current
environment. He took out a cigarette, which inflamed her
further.

"You enjoy choking yourself in front of
me, don’t you?" she complained hotly. When she stood back to avoid
the first inkling of smoke, she finally had a good look at him. "Oh
Christ, Ari, look at you!"

"I’ve been told I look like shit," said
Ari after another puff. "But I shaved."

"You’ve lost weight. You
look
gaunt
. Are
you sick? Are you trying to die on me?"

"I feel perfectly healthy," he said,
annoyed that his body chose this moment to stick a wad of phlegm in
his throat, forcing a small cough.

"Uh-huh. That would look real cheery on
my CV: ‘custodee died while under the supervision of Deputy Karen
Sylvester.’ You’re trying to ruin my career."

"Your concern excites me," said Ari,
who immediately reconsidered his choice of words, then decided it
was too late to take them back.

But Karen seemed to realize Ari was not
as sharp as usual and forced herself to calm down. "I really don’t
want you to croak, Ari. You’re important to the war effort, it
seems. I’m not being mushy. You’ve grown on me, like an inoperable
cancer."

Ari chuckled, pleased that a
reconciliation was at hand.

"There’s something called ‘delayed
acute capture myopathy’ in deer. I wonder if something like that is
what’s happening to you."

"I admit to looking a little bit like
Thumper."

"I think you mean Bambi. You saw a lot
of American movies back home?"

"Some. I preferred Bollywood movies,
because of the music. But Hollywood has its own distinct, feeble
charm."

"Steven Spielberg thanks you, I’m
sure." Karen’s hot glow had subsided, as if the light of reason had
to be dimmed in order to work. "Anyway, captured deer begin showing
signs of severe stress. They lose their fur and…I know about it
because I grew up on a farm and my father trapped…forget
it."

"But it’s most interesting," Ari
protested.

"Do you feel like a captive,
Ari?"

"Of course."

"I mean, like in a prison?"

"Certainly."

"I mean…shit, I guess
you
are
sort of a
prisoner." Karen grimaced. "And here I am talking about tagging
you."

"I feel the myopathy descending upon
me."

"Great." Karen's face had a curious way
of going blank when deep in thought. "Is there anything we can do?
I mean, to make you feel more at home?"

"You can let me go where I
want to go without following me," said Ari in a tone that said he
knew he was asking too much. "Plus a lifetime subscription
to
Ahlan! Arabia
for my wife."

The last time Ari had brought up the
subject of his wife to Karen he had almost killed the deputy. She
veered away from the topic.