Unholy Code (A Lana Elkins Thriller) (5 page)

Sufyan had refused to consider the church choir, and after the two had been seeing each other for six weeks Emma stopped going to Sunday school and began attending services at Sufyan’s mosque. She’d also taken up Quran studies. All of this was a sharp departure from the churchy comforts the young woman had clearly enjoyed last year.

Emma still made it to weekly services at Capitol City Baptist, which was mandatory for choir members who, after all, were there to sing. But Lana wondered how long Emma would continue under the spiritual and musical direction of Pastor Barnes. Already Emma’s closest friend in the choir, Tanesa, had grown distant from her.

Lana pulled into the garage and watched the double door shut behind her, always conscious of her personal security—she was now licensed to carry a concealed weapon in Maryland and DC—and walked into her gracious home, steeling herself for whatever might follow.

Don was standing by the kitchen island, mixing himself a coconut rum drink, maybe reminding himself of his high life in the Caribbean. Since last year’s high-seas adventure, Don had been assessing flood damage in harbors on Chesapeake Bay. Pretty sedate for a man who’d been accustomed to flight-or-fight gigs, first by moving tons of bud from Colombia and Mexico, then, following his arrest, as a DEA informant.

He smiled at her and held up the Bacardi. She shook her head. “Scotch, straight up.”

“Oh, one of
them
days, I see.”

“Yup, one of them days. You?”

“Don’t ask.”

Even as he’d settled into domestic life he maintained the pleasantly shaggy appearance and sun-bleached strands of a boatman. Brackish scents of the sea still rose from his skin and collar when she kissed him. She wouldn’t mind if he’d shave every day but he did wield a soap brush and razor when it counted, and it counted often enough that she had no cause for complaint in their bedroom.

She set her computer case on a counter and glanced at her phone, trying to put aside the winning pair of jacks that still tugged at her attention. She settled on a stool at the island. “So what’s our spawn up to? Or dare I ask?”

“My guess,” Don lowered his voice, “is they’re rutting like crazed weasels, no matter what his religion thinks they should be doing.” He made an unseemly gesture and grimaced.

“She’s seventeen. She’s responsible about birth control.”

Don shook his head.

“Don’t be such a dad,” Lana said. “You weren’t a virgin at that age either.”

“But at least I had the decency not to do it with my father twenty feet away.”

“You’re not twenty feet away. They’re upstairs and I don’t hear a thing.”

“I’d rather Sufi,” Don’s pointed nickname for Sufyan, “took his sex drive and religion elsewhere.”

“The more you push her on that stuff, the more she’ll push back.”

“It’s not me I’m worried about, it’s
his
father, or uncle, or whatever he is.”

“Uncle.” Which Don knew; he was just being difficult. Sufyan’s father had been killed in the Sudanese civil war, which spurred the family’s emigration to America. Amazing what Don could try to forget, which was just about everything when it came to the Hijazi clan—except that they were Muslims.

Lana lifted the tumbler and let the Scotch warm her chest and belly before going on: “You’ve got to be careful, Don. You’re starting to sound like a bigot. It’s not appealing.”

“I don’t care about his skin color—”

“I know, but it’s still—”

“You can’t tell me you’re happy she’s going to a mosque. Studying the Quran.”

“I’m working on my attitude, okay? I’d rather have a good relationship with a Muslim daughter, if it comes to that, than no relationship. I want her to have the life she wants, not what you or I might want. And moderate Muslims are getting it from all sides these days. I don’t want any part of that. Not from you, not from anyone.”

Lana looked him in the eye. No sense dancing around the subject any longer. She’d been warming up to Don. Well, more than warming up, but his attitude toward Sufyan was starting to harden. Don was better than that, or at least she hoped he was. Bigotry was a deal-breaker for Lana. “How long have they been up there?” she asked, changing the subject.

He looked at his watch. “Ninety-four minutes. But who’s counting?”

That did ease a smile from her.

“And it’s a
school
night,” he pleaded playfully.

“I’m sure their hormones noticed.” Lana finished her drink with a gulp. “I’ll go.”

She walked upstairs to Emma’s room, listening closely as she approached. She found them quiet as church mice.
Or mosque mice
, she thought. Lana knocked gently. “It’s me, Em. It’s getting kind of late, don’t you think?”

“Yes,” Emma squeaked.

Definitely sex
. “I think you’d better call it a night.”

“Why, Mom?”

More bold than breathy now. Probably the first time Emma had used the breathing exercise Lana had taught her for steadying her nerves. Now if she’d only think about that when her temper flared.

The front doorbell chimed.

“Don, would you get that?” she called down the stairs. A final tap on the bedroom door: “So please finish your homework and come down. Sufyan, I’m sorry but it’s time to go.”

Homework? What a euphemism.

“Where is he?” Lana heard in a loud, distinctly African cadence downstairs.

“Sufyan, your uncle is here,” she said before heading back down.

Tahir Hijazi stood erect as a soldier in the tiled entryway, a tall bald man with skin as perfectly smooth as burnished mahogany. His eyes rose to her, unblinking, intense. Hunter’s eyes. This was only their second meeting. The first had been outside the high school. He’d been curt as a bodyguard, which Lana suspected was the role he’d taken with the young man. If possible, he appeared even less pleased now.

“Are they up there in a bedroom?” he demanded.

“They’re coming down,” she replied evenly, doing her best to avoid his question. Her words quickly proved insufficient to that task.

“Were you supervising them, or was your … daughter alone with my nephew?”

Lana bristled as she stepped into the living room, having no difficulty imaging how he’d almost described Emma:
Whore
.
Kafir
. Which meant infidel.

“I believe they were upstairs doing their homework.”

“So Sufyan has been alone in her
bedroom
. How long?”

Lana glanced at Don, who looked ready to explode at Tahir. She tried to warn him with her eyes, but Don’s were glaring at the man.

“We’re not keeping a clock on them,” Lana replied.

The pair started down the staircase. Emma looked flushed, hair unkempt, face moist. 
Christ
,
could she have been a little more obvious?
And Sufyan looked as rumpled as a laundry basket.

“Get in the car,” Tahir snapped at the young man, who remained by Emma’s side. “And you,” he pointed a long finger in Emma’s face. “Stay away—”

“Put your hand down or I’ll break it,” Don said, moving toward Tahir as he spoke.

“No, Dad!” Emma cried.

“Please,” Sufyan said softly to his uncle.

Tahir lowered his hand, but not his voice or eyes. “You stay away from him. You are not his kind. You are not our kind.”

Sufyan stared at his uncle. He looked scared.

“I love him, and he loves me,” Emma said, taking Sufyan’s hand. “So good luck with that attitude.”

Lana, for the first time, was happy to see her daughter’s defiance. Tahir had not only insulted her, he’d come close to slandering Emma.

“Keep her away from him,” Tahir growled at Lana. “This is dangerous.”

Don seized Tahir’s arm as the man started for the door. “Don’t you ever come in here again and start threatening anyone.”

Tahir looked down at Don’s grip, then gazed at both of Emma’s parents. “You really don’t know, do you?” He ripped his arm free and pulled out his phone.

“Know what?” Lana demanded, no longer so even-keeled herself.

Tahir raised his phone, showing them the Steel Fist website. At the top of the screen clenched fingers gripped a brutal-looking band of chrome knuckles. Right below it was a photo of Emma and Sufyan. Scrolling down, he revealed an angry command: “Ammo Up!”

“Now they want to kill you, too,” he said to Lana. “But you are grown up. He is not. His life is ahead of him. I saved that boy when he was nine. I took him away from soldiers who were killing everyone in our village. His father was already dead. I brought him and his mother to America. I am not going to have him die for the love of
her
.” He stared at Emma, then pointed to the screen. “See, they show how they go to school. To
school
.”

His voice shook, no longer with anger but agonized fear, and in that moment Lana understood how much he loved his nephew.

“You, too,” he said to her, regaining his composure. “They show how you get to work and come home.” But he wasn’t through with Emma. “Wrong skin,” he said to her. “Wrong religion.
Wrong
.”

He threw open the door. A single glance at Sufyan drove the young man out the door.

“What was that picture?” Emma asked as soon as her dad locked up, pulling out her own phone. “Why was he showing you that? And what’s Steel Fist? You’re going to stop them, right?”

“Yes, we’ll stop them,” Lana said, putting her arm around Emma. “Come on, let’s get some sleep.”

Her daughter pulled away. “I’m not going to stop seeing him. No way.”

“Can we talk about all of this in the morning?”

“No,” Emma said, bolting toward the stairs. “Not if any part of the discussion involves my not seeing him.” She pounded up the stairs and disappeared behind her door, no doubt to grab her phone and find out about those photos.

Lana turned to Don. “From now on, we need to start double-checking all the locks and the alarm system. I’ll talk to Holmes about getting you licensed to carry. Meantime, we’ll keep the 12 gauge on your side of the bed. I’ll hold onto my Sig Sauer.”

Lana had taken firearms training at the FBI Academy at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia. Don’s martial tactics had been honed less formally among dope dealers and armed guerillas in the jungles of South America. Over the summer, they’d upgraded their home security with steel doors and polymer-coated windows to stop bullets. Don had yet another idea to up their defenses:

“We need a protection dog. It’s too easy to short-circuit alarms.”

“I’m all for it,” she said. “Can you look into it?”

“I’m on it,” he replied. “Who’s Steel Fist?”

“The worst,” Lana replied, pulling out her laptop. “The worst.”

I’M THE GUARDIAN ANGEL.

It’s such a Christian idea—and so at odds with my own beliefs—that I take particular delight in using it. But it’s true: I’ve been looking over Steel Fist’s shoulder for almost four years. Actually, let’s use his real name—Vinko Horvat—and dispense with the juvenile theatrics of his macho
nom de guerre
. I have one, too: Golden Voice. But it’s a tool to me, nothing more, whereas Vinko takes his pseudonym seriously. He believes he’s penetrated CyberFortress and the NSA, and he did, but only after I left him a trail of cyber breadcrumbs. Without me, Vinko would be nothing but another American demagogue shouting into the vast echo chamber of the Internet.

Instead, he’s championed by millions because he—
I
—give them what they want most in a time of devastation and deprivation: an eager outlet for their grievances against their government. And let us not overlook the importance that naturally underlies their most vociferous complaint—the legitimate fear that the U.S. military can’t protect them from the forces now killing citizens with abandon.

To put it yet another way, the people Vinko reaches and enrages really do have reason to hate their leaders, and he plays off their anger with the mordant skill of a born Machiavellian.

Their loathing grows daily, and hatred is a great galvanizing force. It not only brings angry, frustrated people together, it sticks to everyone it touches—just like the blood it spills, which is as red as the fires I stoke every night.

I built this home on a mountain ridge in central Washington state nine years ago, carefully crafting wood forms for the fireplace and chimney. Hard work was better than grabbing an automatic rifle and finding a bell tower, though that impulse—born of good reason—haunted me long enough to buy the weapon and search out possible locations.

But I stuck to homebuilding, at least for awhile, pouring a ton and a half of cement to make that chimney rise up. The wood grain is visible on the concrete that faces me now. I never covered it with tiles or metal cladding. I like the bald utilitarian appearance. It’s at one with the Douglas-fir logs I used for the home itself, eight hundred square feet. But don’t go confusing me with the Unabomber because this is no shack, and I cared nothing for his anarchism. By comparison to his hovel, my home is like living in a finely constructed armoire with cedar walls, fir floors, cherry wood cabinets, and a three-hundred-foot sleeping loft.

The chimney draws smoke smoothly. Nevertheless, I prod the logs every now and then with a wrought-iron poker just to see sparks fly. They might have inspired me because it didn’t take me long after settling in here to realize that I could also prod Americans every day by stoking their fears, and that my best weapon wouldn’t be an Army-issue automatic rifle but an even deadlier weapon: the computer. And I’d been well-trained to use it.