James Grippando - Afraid of the Dark

Habib went to the dresser for his crocheted kufi, then stopped. Even after washing his face and hands, the smell of sex lingered, which made Ghusl-the cleaning of the whole body-mandatory before prayer. The removal of such impurities involved a certain step-by-step ritual, but he asked for Allah’s forgiveness and simply jumped in the shower.

The drafty apartment had a perpetual chill in winter, and the hot water felt so good that Habib could have stood there for another thirty minutes. But he had missed Magrhib as well as Zuhr and Asr, so he was determined to be timely about Isha. The starting time changed each day; it began when complete darkness arrived. Some Muslims were quite scientific about it, setting the time at precisely when the sun had descended at least twelve degrees below the horizon. But no one could pinpoint the commencement of Isha better than a man who thought of dusk as dawn-a man who, for the past three years, had called himself the Dark.

Habib peered through the shower glass and looked out the bathroom window. The city lights had a certain glow when it was truly nightfall, and by his estimation, he had at least another fifteen minutes. He squeezed a glob of shampoo from the bottle, his mind awhirl as he worked the lather through his hair.

The news from Shada had surprised him. It had come while they were lying naked on the bed, his heart still thumping from an intense climax. Out of the blue, she’d told him about Paulo. Habib had pressed her for details, but she’d denied that it was a prearranged meeting, and she’d offered up nothing in response to his questions:

“What is Swyteck doing with him?”

“No idea.”

“How did they track you down?”

“I swear, I don’t have a clue.”

Habib still wasn’t sure if he believed her. His initial reaction had been to blame her for being careless and somehow blowing their cover. On reflection, however, perhaps it was his own damn fault.

Could they know about the e-mail?

He was thinking about the e-mail to Jamal’s father. “I killed your son. I wanted you to know that.” Sending it had been risky. But he couldn’t help himself. Memories of his sister-of how Jamal’s father had gotten her to “volunteer” for martyrdom in Mogadishu-still burned like a firestorm.

I’m glad I sent it.

The bathroom light switched on, and the blast of brightness was more than he could stand.

“My eyes!” he shouted.

“Oops, I’m sorry,” said Shada, and the light cut off.

He closed his eyes, soothing them with darkness, and then he opened them slowly. It was all he could do since the explosion. Sleeping by day. Working by night. Living in shadows. Running from the sun. Showering in the dim glow of a tiny night-light. Photophobia was what the doctors called it, a diagnosis that spoke more to the symptoms than the cause. For three years he’d suffered, and even though it was his own bullet that had punctured the propane tank and unleashed the destructive flash of heat and light, there was only one person to blame.

This is all your fault, Paulo. Even if you did get the worst of it.

He turned off the water, stepped out of the shower, and toweled himself dry. The bathroom window had darkened. It was past Isha, but he didn’t feel like praying. His friends at the mosque would have told him he wasn’t a good Muslim, and they would have been right.

I am The Dark.

He pulled on a bathrobe and went to his computer. Shada was only pretending to be asleep, but he didn’t care, so long as she left him alone. A three-year-old anger burned inside of him. Vince Paulo had already lost his sight in the same explosion, and the Dark had shown him the mercy of leaving it at that. But if Paulo had come here like a blind fool thinking he could settle an old score, it was the Dark’s intention to make him pay an even steeper price. And just as he’d done with Jamal’s father, the Dark wanted the pleasure of telling him so.

He entered a stolen user ID and password to log on to an e-mail account. It wasn’t the same account he’d used to contact Jamal’s father, and he used a new screen name as well. One that would definitely mean something to Vince Paulo. He banged out a quick message, then stopped.

FMLTWIA. The simple act of typing in the screen name-seven letters that summed up his work for the past three years-triggered a brainstorm. The work had begun with McKenna, but it was ongoing, as enduring as the memory of what had happened to his sister in Mogadishu. He was suddenly thinking of the other little whore in the cellar, of her breach of security during his trip to Miami-her phone call to Swyteck.

That’s why Swyteck is here.

Maybe she had reached out to Shada, too. The thought chilled him, but he quickly calmed himself. There was no way. It would have taken a major breakdown in his spyware for any communication to Shada to have gone undetected. And Shada would never have set up a LMIRL hookup with kitty8 if she knew about a sixteen-year-old runaway in the cellar.

Assuming there really was a kitty8.

He retrieved Paulo’s e-mail address from the Miami Police Department home page before putting the finishing touches on the draft message. It didn’t matter if Swyteck had brought Paulo to London, or if Paulo had brought Swyteck. They were here together, and that made for a single threat. The draft e-mail seemed fine, but he didn’t want to fire off anything in knee-jerk fashion. He took a couple minutes to get dressed, then returned to the computer to read it again.

Perfect. He hit SEND, then started across the bedroom.

“Where are you going?” Shada asked from the bed.

He put on his coat-the one with the key to the cellar in the pocket-and turned to face her in the darkness.

“Taking care of business,” he said.

“What does that mean?”

He stepped closer to the bed, his expression deadly serious. “It means none of your business,” he said, letting her feel the weight of his stare for a minute. Finally, he turned and left the room, closing the bedroom door behind him.

Jack was glad to hear Andie’s voice on the line. It was lunchtime in Miami, and she had only a few minutes. Vince had gone down to dinner by himself to give Jack time alone to talk in the room. Jack wanted to tell her how much he missed her, but Andie wasn’t one to get all sloppy on the phone in the middle of her workday.

“Theo wants to know if you’re planning to hit the Tanqueray distillery,” she said.

Theo was like those relatives up north who expect you to bring them back a bag of grapefruit every time you visit Florida. Jack would rather fork over twenty bucks with directions to their local grocery store. He changed the subject.

“How’s Grandpa?”

“He’s doing surprisingly well. We’ve had some good talks since you left.”

“You have?”

“It’s weird. Your trip to London seems to have energized him. Or at least triggered some long-term memory.”

“Are you telling me there really was a General Swyteck?”

“No, but Grandpa was convincing enough that I did some research on your family.”

Jack caught his breath. An FBI agent doing research on your family could be dangerous, even if she was your fiancee. “What did you find out?”

“No General Swyteck, but it turns out there was actually a Czech general who went into exile in the U.K. right around the time period your grandfather was talking about-early 1940s. And his last name was Petrak.”

“Is it the same Petrak as my grandmother?”

“I haven’t gotten that far yet.”

The landline rang. Jack’s first thought-that Vince had gotten lost in the lobby and was calling for help-was a stupid one, as he quickly realized that somehow Vince had managed to survive pretty well without him for the past three years. He put Andie on hold and picked up. It was Chuck Mays.