Стивен Хантер - Game of Snipers

“As a visitor,” she said, “I like to learn of new places. This city is almost a shrine in itself. To walk the streets, to buy from the shops, to hear the calls to prayer, it’s like the trip to the homeland I’ll never make.”

“Many of the men here are suspicious. My suggestion is, enjoy the closeness of Allah but not the closeness of men. It seems Imam el-Tariq has surrounded himself with some tough ones. I tell you this only for your own good. I should not even be seen talking to you. But God be with you, sister.”

With that, Janet was abandoned.

She waited a bit, put her socks back on, and turned to the domed prayer chamber. A few prostrated solitaries were there, but none paid her any attention. It was as if the place were deserted.

She went to an outer circle of the chamber and went to the mat herself before Allah, His name be praised, and she praised it aggressively. No watcher, if there were any, could doubt her ardency. She prayed hard, believing if her goals were not the goals of her coreligionists, they were still the goals that the true Allah would find virtuous. When she had been there for some minutes, she felt safe, under His protection.

She rose and made as if she was headed for the door but diverted to the women’s restroom instead, went in, washed, calmed herself, again absorbed the silence of the place, listening for signs of habitation but heard none. She exited the room, but instead of turning left, to the door, to escape, she turned right and came to a corridor. It was empty.

She turned down it and made her way tentatively as if lost. She peeked in each door, finding an office of some sort, nothing of any ramification. Finally, she came to a stairwell.

Don’t do this, Janet, she told herself. Don’t.

But she did it anyway.

Courageous or not, she learned nothing on the second floor. It was just another office corridor, with doors along each side, from where the imam ran his enterprise, made plans to visit the sick and the lame, gave comfort, supervised goods for the bake sale, coached his basketball team, and raised money, much as any other clergyman did in any other house of worship in America. She turned, started back down the hall, when a flash of movement jerked her out of serenity, and, in a second, she realized that she was confronting a man with a strange package in his hand.

It was a pizza.

“Mogdushani?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Nobody up here now. Maybe downstairs.”

“Thanks, lady,” he said.

He was young and black, and he turned and bounded down the steps. Someone working late wanted a pizza, the universal snack. Yet … it did seem odd. Why would someone in a mosque order a pizza, especially long after the hours of administration. Who but her would be here so late?

She followed her nose. Tomato, cheese. Terrorists? Juba the Sniper? To the main floor, then a quick look in the stairwell, darting down it just to make sure, then a quick turn, another corridor — nothing — another turn and—

“May I help you, sister?”

The man was Arabic, dressed casually.

“I just got confused,” she said. “I’m just trying to find the way out.”

“This way. I’ll show you.”

“Praise be His name.”

“Praise be.”

He led her back to the upstairs, where they ran into the pizza man.

“Hey, thanks,” he said again, and departed.

“You were here before?” asked her escort, pausing a second.

“Ah, I blundered about, in my confusion. I ran into that young man. I didn’t really help him, I only told him to go downstairs.”

“But what were you doing upstairs?”

“As I say, I was confused.”

He thought about this intently for a bit, decided it was problematical, and said, “I think you should see the imam.”

“Oh, I hate to bother him. I’m just a visitor. I’ll leave now, and that’ll be that.”

Again, concern clouded his face, and he said, “I do not wish to offend, but something here is amiss. I must ask you to accompany me. I just want to make sure he’s comfortable with this.”

“Why, there is nothing to be comfortable with. I tell you, I merely lost my way and—”

“Please, madam,” he said, and took her elbow, “humor me, or I will make the imam mad at me.”

Not force, exactly, was applied against her, but strength, communicating his need to fulfill his instructions versus her feeble explanations, and he took her this way and that and into an office of no particular significance, no RPGs or sniper rifles lying about, just desks, one messy, one not so much, and asked her to sit. He vanished. Was the door locked? Was she a prisoner? But to investigate would be suspicious, the actions of a spy, so she simply sat, waiting, feeling her heartbeat increase.

He returned.

“This way, please,” he said.

“Of course,” she said, and followed him into the well-appointed office of Imam Imir el-Tariq, who was sitting behind his desk, in his robes but with his hair uncovered. A handsome, bearded man in his forties, as befit his rank, with the face of the earnest and the committed, but with brown eyes that were not the sort to be found in zealots.

“Madam, please,” he said, gesturing to a chair. “We’re not comfortable with strangers wandering about. We have no secrets, of course, but, alas, we do have enemies, and many nonbelievers hold us responsible for things over which we have no control.”

“I assure you, Imam, I have no agenda save the faith.”

“May I ask for credentials of some sort.”

She handed her purse over.

“Here, examine the whole thing. I have no secrets either, and I hope I have not given offense.”

He looked at her driver’s license.

“Mrs. Abdullah. Yet you are not Arabic.”

“My husband was. And, under his auspices, I joined the faith.”

She told her story.

“I am sorry for your husband, sister. Many have died unjustly. The pox of our times.”

“If I enter the houses of worship, great or small, it helps me find peace,” she said. “I am content here, and the emptiness in my heart is not so severe.”

“Allah, His name be praised, is merciful.”

“His name be praised, He is always merciful.”

“I hope you will not mind if I give your license to an assistant to run a check.”

This was the best news. Her legend had been constructed by professionals of the highest quality, and she was assured that it was invulnerable to scrutiny.

“Of course. I should have offered it to you earlier to save time, Imam.”

He touched a button, the assistant entered, took the license, and departed.

Simple chitchat followed.

First time in Dearborn?

What did you think of the Great Mosque?

I hope you will wisely stay out of the bigger city. It can be dangerous.

It went on for a bit, seemingly untethered in time, and she kept up with the insignificant patter easily, fully confident that, as promised, her license would check out, the backstory would stand up to vetting, and she’d be on her way in a bit.

The assistant returned and whispered to the imam.

The iman nodded and turned back to her. She heard three more men enter.

“I am confused,” said the imam. “Indeed, your husband’s name is carried on the Maryland Board of Psychologists, as is the date of his death. All seemed perfect. But then—”

“Is there a problem?”

“I have a very good assistant on the computer. We try to stay up to date. In any event, he was able to get into the Social Security database, and though we found over forty Susan Abdullahs, we were unable to find one living in the Baltimore area. Are you new to the city?”

“No, no. Actually, I think my Social Security number might be listed under my maiden name. I never worked again after I married my husband. I tried to be a good Islamic wife, you see.”