The Language of Secrets (27 page)

O homeland/O heartache/There is no retreat.

O homeland/This heartache/ends in defeat.

Whose defeat? She didn't think she wanted to know.

“So what song do you like then?” Rachel asked.

“‘Bring on the Night.'”

It was another quiet threat.

Because wasn't that just what Ashkouri was doing?

Bringing on the night?

And did he realize that the lyrics of that song were about the execution of a man who had murdered two people?

There was a clever self-awareness in those dark eyes. Of course he knew.

Ashkouri looked around the club, at the writhing bodies wrapped together under a blanket of smoke and noise.

“Where is your brother?” he asked Rachel. “Why don't you bring him to the mosque? Young believers are the backbone of our community.”

Even if Rachel hadn't been taking on the role of an undercover cop, she never would have brought the kid brother she loved within a thousand miles of Hassan Ashkouri's ambit.

Grace blinked several times, the silver eye shadow resembling two flat metal coins. Rachel recognized her panic. Though Rachel had no claim of friendship over her, Grace was trying to warn her.

Don't bring your brother to the mosque. And don't come yourself either.

Or was Rachel imagining it because she was growing fond of the girl?

“Mark goes his own way,” Rachel said. “He's not too keen on the path I've been exploring.”

Ashkouri bared his teeth.

“It's more than an exploration, I think. You've been with us quite often of late. Wherever I go, there you are.”

O homeland/O heartache/This life's just a cheat.

O homeland/O heartache/In
Junnah
we'll meet.

Rachel tried to look innocent.

“I guess I like poetry, just like you.”

Ashkouri moved close enough to Rachel that she could feel his breath on her neck. He might have mistaken her for another Paula, entranced by his good looks and glibly sibilant tongue. But Rachel had been in the company of attractive men before. Her boss was one such. Nathan Clare was another. Hassan Ashkouri repulsed her. The handsome façade couldn't disguise his true identity, the persona she wasn't meant to see. The man who gauged life and death by some other calculus.

She'd had enough of Ashkouri.

She wanted to be there when INSET arrested him.

And if a murder charge could be brought to bear in addition to the terrorism charges, even better.

Rachel checked her phone.

“Looks like my brother can't make it.” She held up her car keys. “Grace. You want a ride uptown?”

Grace chewed her lip, her gaze darting between Rachel and Ashkouri. It was clear that there was something she wanted to tell Rachel, that she was starting to open up, but it was also clear that she wouldn't take another step in Rachel's direction as long as Ashkouri was around.

He bowed his head politely.

Din was still rapping from the stage.

You calling this a bum rap/you calling this a heart attack/you don't know what's loaded up and waiting on the tarmac/downfall coming, no jack/new year's rain is night black/do you hear the ice crack/worse than any hijack/speeding down the wrong track/call this one a death hack.

“I'm okay,” Grace said at last. “I've gotta wait for Din.”

“He's good,” Rachel said. Her phone was still recording. She'd palmed it in her hand. “Tell him I said so. Oh, and Grace. I brought these for you. I thought you could use them because you said you like to make your own mixtapes.”

Rachel groped inside her bag until she found the cassette tapes.

“I can't believe they still sell these anywhere.” She handed them over with a grin.

Grace shoved them into her backpack with muttered thanks.

And Rachel looked up to face the cold rage in Hassan Ashkouri's eyes.

*   *   *

Why was he angry? And not just angry, but furious?

She shivered as she hustled her way back to the car. What had she done to cause such an overt reaction? Ashkouri couldn't tell that she'd been recording Din on her cell phone. Or that she had been worried by Din's spoken word.

You don't know what's loaded up and waiting on the tarmac.

It was like a dangerous forecasting of future events. But Rachel had thought that the would-be bomb materials were being delivered by truck. Trucks on the tarmac? Had the ammonium nitrate been switched out for the inert material yet? She wished that Coale would put them out of their misery and keep them apprised of developments with the INSET operation.

New year's rain is night black/call this one a death hack.

She swallowed the lump in her throat.

What rained down from the sky in this context wasn't a remotely detonated bomb brought in on a truck.

The lyrics suggested a missile attack.

And surely to God that wasn't possible.

Because that was the first thing Mohsin Dar would have told his RCMP handlers.

Who hadn't understood Mohsin's objectives at all.

But where would the missiles have come from? How could they possibly have entered the country? Did INSET know? Why hadn't they acted to confiscate the missiles? And if they didn't know—because they still didn't know how the two cells were communicating—wasn't there a possibility of not just the plot INSET thought they had neutralized, but of a real Nakba?

Rachel wiped a hand across her perspiring forehead.

There was another connection there—a connection between the insistence on poetry and the use of the public stage. Maybe something to do with the Dixon City Bloods, maybe not. She'd swept the club with her cell phone and sent the video to Khattak. Maybe the open mic night was the method of communication. A coded message in a public gathering picked up by members of the second splinter cell.

But if Ashkouri and Din were under surveillance, surely INSET would have tumbled to that long ago. The poetry wasn't difficult to decode.

In
Junnah
we'll meet.

Junnah
was the Arabic word for “paradise.” The end goal of a suicide bomber, the language plain as day.

Her questions were mounting up.

She needed to tell Khattak. He would tell her if she was on the right track or not, and whether they needed to consult with Ciprian Coale and his team.

Unlocking her car door, she tried Khattak's number. Once. Twice. It took her a third try to remember that Khattak had been heading to the offices of CBC News. If Andy Dar's interview was live, Khattak would have shut off his phone.

Maybe she should drive down there and meet him in person. She'd have to cut across the downtown core, through a tangle of traffic and construction, but this couldn't wait.

She left a message on Khattak's answering machine, keeping it brief.

“I need to talk to you urgently. There's something you need to know.”

She threw her bag onto the passenger seat and tossed the cell phone down beside it.

A firm hand gripped her wrist before she could climb into the driver's seat.

Hassan Ashkouri had followed her to her car. The car she had parked on a dimly lit side street instead of the public parking lot across the street from the club.

His smile was bland.

“I wonder what could be so urgent, Miss Ellison.” He'd dropped the pretense of calling her Sister Rachel. “And I hope that you'll take a moment to tell me.”

 

22

Khattak stood in the shadow of the CN Tower, catching its reflection in the glass building that housed the Canadian Broadcast Corporation's headquarters. The red gem of the CBC logo leapt out from a field of blue, branded in Khattak's memory as it was in most Canadians', along with the theme music of
Hockey Night in Canada
. Rachel's tirade about the loss of the rights to the beloved classic and the ridiculous contest for a new theme song still rang in Khattak's ears.

Grinning at the memory, Khattak showed his ID to a South Asian girl with a laissez-faire attitude, who handed him a visitor's badge and directed him to the newsroom. He hoped he wasn't too late to deter Andy Dar from his course of action, a course of action he didn't understand.

Yes, it would put Dar in the spotlight again, a spotlight the man craved—but the exposure would come at considerable cost. A cost he had warned Dar about. And he questioned whether Sehr's advice would be useful in this context—would it silence Dar, or even slow him down? The man was an enigma to Khattak. His actions couldn't be written off as a means of ingratiating himself with members of the right.

Dar had to have some personal feeling for his son, some spark of compassion for his daughter-in-law. A diatribe against Community Policing, and law enforcement in general, wouldn't bring about a swift conclusion of the investigation into his son's murder. It would have the opposite effect: hardening the attitude of those investigating Mohsin's death, ensuring a lack of cooperation with the family, slowing the entire law enforcement apparatus down. While at the same time, whoever had murdered Mohsin would be buttressed by a feeling of safety—of the spotlight turning elsewhere, to a secondary sideshow.

Khattak exited the elevator and headed in the direction of the CBC set. A bank of television screens glowed red and blue against a dark backdrop. Two swivel chairs had been placed at either end of the curvilinear desk. The news anchor was on the floor, speaking to his producer through a headset. Andy Dar was nowhere to be seen. A young reporter whose name tag read “Vicky D'Souza” pointed Khattak to the green room.

“His daughter-in-law is with him,” Vicky said. And then proved how clever she was, by asking, “You're not planning to say anything to him that would derail our big interview, are you? That would be interfering with freedom of the press. And it wouldn't look good for the police.”

Khattak's response was weary. “At the moment, my only concern is the continuing freedom of the person or persons who murdered Mr. Dar's son.”

Vicky seized on that with alacrity. “‘Persons'? Can I quote you on that, Inspector?”

“It's a general description. And no, you cannot quote me.”

*   *   *

The green room was neither green nor a room. A small space had been eked out behind the rows of cubicles where news was collected and collated. It consisted of a beige love seat, two club chairs, and a coffee station beside a lighted mirror.

Alia Dar was seated in one of the chairs. Andy Dar had taken the other and repositioned it in front of the makeup counter. A white napkin was tucked into his collar as a makeup artist dusted his face with powder. Khattak asked the young man to leave them alone.

Nervous and agitated, Alia Dar jumped to her feet.

“What is it? Do you know something? Did you find out anything? Did you believe me?”

The questions came at Khattak one after the other, a rapid-fire series of words.

Khattak was about to do something he despised himself for. Yet he could see no other way. Andy Dar had to be contained.

“Sit down, Alia,” Esa said. “I'm here to talk to your father-in-law. Your questions will have to wait.”

Andy Dar snatched the napkin from his throat and dropped it on the makeup counter. He stood toe-to-toe with Khattak.

“You can't intimidate me, Khattak. I intend to say whatever is on my mind, and there's nothing you can say that will influence me otherwise.”

“What happened?” Khattak asked him. “You were supposed to arrange a memorial for Mohsin at the Nur mosque. You said you would assist with the investigation.”

“What investigation?” Andy Dar roared back. “What exactly have you accomplished in terms of finding the murderer of my son?”

Reporters at the surrounding stations looked up at the sound of his raised voice.

Khattak examined the fleshy face that must once have been handsome. There was no real rage in it, just a studied calculation. He was hoping to provoke Khattak into some kind of revelation, though Dar had no true idea of what that disclosure might be.

“I promised that you would be able to announce the arrest on your program before anyone else did. I didn't offer you anything else, and surely you don't expect me to discuss the investigation while it's still ongoing. That would be a violation of professional ethics.” Esa's tone was dry. “And I understand that a lack of professionalism is one of your main criticisms of CPS.”

“You won't get me that way, Khattak. I have a platform and I intend to use it.”

Alia moved closer to both men. She took hold of her father-in-law by the elbow.

Dar shook off her touch. “Don't. I don't know why this man bewitches you, but there's no place for you in this discussion.”

“That's where you're wrong,” Khattak said. “There's a lot about Alia's role in this that you don't know. That you should know.”

Shocked, Alia took a step back.

“What is this, Khattak? Some game? What could Alia possibly know? She doesn't do anything. She doesn't go anywhere. She's not capable of thinking an independent thought.”

“Tell him,” Khattak said to her. “Before he makes a fool of himself on national television. Before he destroys Mohsin's reputation. Tell him what you know. Tell him what you think Mohsin was doing at Nur.”

Andy Dar took a step toward Alia. Khattak immediately pushed him back.

“You're going to listen. And that's all you're going to do. You think your son was killed by radicals at Nur? You think they killed him for some reason of their own? You want to go on CBC and tell the whole country that extremists murdered your son, when you don't have any proof? And that you're the Muslim who'll stand against them all, calling them out for their barbarism? Because that's what you were planning to do, wasn't it? That's why you couldn't be bothered to arrange a memorial for your only child.”