Dana Stabenow - Prepared For Rage

Patrick couldn't believe his eyes. "You're sure this is Yaqub Sadiq?"

In answer Ahmed tossed a photo across the desk. "We tracked his IP address to an apartment in Toronto. That's a photo we took of him on the street outside. And you're gonna love this."

He tossed another photograph to Patrick, and grinned. "That's his German passport photo."

Patrick still couldn't believe it. "He actually used his own name?"

Ahmed sobered. "If what you've learned is true, if Isa is operating independently of bin Laden, then he has to be recruiting from outside the organization. Al Qaeda has a pretty discriminatory recruitment process. Fanatics get in. Dummies don't. If it's like you said, Isa doesn't have that discretionary process to draw on anymore."

Patrick still couldn't believe it. "Which means he's hiring morons?" Ahmed grinned, white teeth gleaming beneath a flourishing black mustache. "Let us say rather that young Yaqub Sadiq is very probably not the sharpest tack in the box." He stood up, cramming a wad of paper into his jacket pocket. "Wanna go for a ride?"

TORONTO

Until now, his decision to join with Isa had seemed the single most romantic action of his life, a joyous response to a call to adventure. He cast off the shackles of home and family with a light heart-an added benefit was an escape from the increasing suspicions of Janan's husband-and followed where Isa led, first to England where he had thoroughly enjoyed seeking out and recruiting the young men who now looked to him and Yussuf like prophets, then to the camp in British Columbia where he had found the training much less amusing, and now to Toronto, where, using the identity papers their forger had prepared, he had found a job as a barrista in a Starbucks and rented a room in a boarding house.

After a month he had moved in with Brittany, the blond night baker who provided the coffee shop's pastries. She was starry-eyed in love with him, and he with her, too, of course, that went without saying. He was particularly in love with her working nights, as it left her side of the bed free for a rotating cast of young women picked up across the espresso bar, attracted to his dark and (he fancied) dangerous good looks. He played fair, he told them firmly that his heart belonged to Brittany, but he did not discourage them from trying to change his mind.

He'd never suffered from a lack of feminine attention, even in the more strict Muslim community of Düsseldorf in which he was raised. In England his eyes had been opened to the possibilities for casual sex in Western culture, but in Toronto he felt as if he'd discovered a gold mine.

No, he'd never been more content, and he was grateful from the bottom of his heart to Isa for plucking him out of a world where the consequences for sex absent marriage could place one's life in literal peril. He was mindful of the debt he owed; he checked his email religiously, following Isa's diversionary instructions to the letter. He'd written them down, strictly against orders, but they were so complicated he was afraid he would forget them, and he'd taped the scrap of paper to the bottom of a drawer in Brittany 's jewelry box where, amid a tumble of rhinestones and sterling silver, it would surely never be found.

Six months later he felt increasingly at home in the West, and it was a rude shock when he checked his email one evening and found the command to move on waiting for him. He went online and bought the ticket to Mexico City, and made reservations for the second flight, but the adventure seemed to have leeched out of his relationship with Isa. When Brittany came home the next morning, fragrant with yeast and sweat, and launched herself at him with her usual lusty joy, he made love to her with a single-minded ferocity that at first surprised her and then subsumed her. "Wow," she said after she caught her breath. "Where'd that come from?"

"I love you," he said, raising his head. "Let's get married."

She looked surprised and pleased. She was also a little puzzled. "Why now?"

He bent his head to kiss her. "I can't wait any longer."

"I didn't know we'd been waiting," she said.

He made love to her again without answering, and that afternoon they dressed and drove to Niagara and were married. It was a nondenominational service and therefore unrecognized in his religion, but he was nevertheless enchanted with the whole notion of Brittany forsaking all others but him so long as they both should live. They drove home and celebrated in bed, and she was late for work that night.

Naked, he got up and went to Brittany 's computer and logged on to the Internet from home, something else Isa had strictly forbidden. He checked his email. Nothing more from Isa, but a message from Yussuf, a discreet reminder to bring currency, as all of their transactions after they bought their airplane tickets would be in cash.

On impulse he emailed Yussuf back (also forbidden) to the same email address (again, forbidden). Suppose they didn't go?

He had a reply less than an hour later. Four words. He will kill you.

"He won't find me," he said out loud. Isa was brilliant, no question, but by his own orders Yaqub had assumed the alias on his forged papers, papers ordered and bought by himself and Yussuf. Isa had never seen them. He had deposited the modest (almost meager, he had thought at the time) stipend Isa had doled out before they parted into a credit union, and sank without a trace into Toronto 's millions. Again by Isa's orders, they communicated only by email, and that sporadically and from continually changing email addresses and computers. No phone numbers to trace to a physical location, no paper trail in a name Isa would know, a different IP address for each email. His identity appeared to be bulletproof. So long as he didn't draw attention to himself, he could live here indefinitely. As of today, he was even a married man. Children would undoubtedly follow. He smiled to himself. And as he was now married to a Canadian, Canadian citizenship would surely be that much easier to acquire.

A second email followed almost immediately, and his smile faded. He will kill us.

He felt a cold finger run down his spine.

Would Isa kill Yussuf for Yaqub's defection?

He thought of Isa then, a tall man with neat habits and a perpetually stern expression that made him appear much older than he was, livened only occasionally by a charming smile that Yaqub privately thought Isa should make a lot more use of.

Isa's sense of purpose was unmistakable and persuasive, almost hypnotically so. His loyalty to Islam was on the face of it without question, although Yaqub did wonder now and then if Isa wasn't a little less fanatical than your average Islamic freedom fighter.

He did not, however, doubt Isa's single-minded determination to accomplish his goals. He decided, regretfully, that Isa would kill Yussuf, thinking that where one was tainted by betrayal, both would be. Isa didn't like witnesses. Yaqub remembered very well how Isa had dealt with Basil back in Düsseldorf.

Yaqub and Yussuf had separated after they left Isa and Basil in the flight from the mob. In his panic he had taken a wrong turn and chance had found him on their heels. He would never forget the speed and strength the older man had shown in tripping Basil and throwing him in front of the mob. Yaqub himself had gone into an instinctive retreat, backpedaling around a corner and fleeing down a convenient alley. He had never told Yussuf what he had seen, but his awe at the display of murderous efficiency was what had tipped the balance in him following Yussuf into service with Isa.

It never occurred to him to wonder, then or after, why Basil had been disposed of in such ruthless fashion.

At present he was focused firmly on the matter at hand. If he had no doubt of Isa's reaction, the question then became, was Yussuf friend enough that Yaqub would sacrifice his newfound sense of contentment to save Yussuf's life?