Стивен Хантер - Game of Snipers

“Our position is unassailable: the woman discovered to be representing herself under false identification was asked to discuss her presence on private property after hours. She agreed to do so. That discussion was ongoing when the officers — well, we can’t say burst in, since no bursting was necessary through the unlocked doors — but they strolled in. That is all that happened.”

“If Mrs. McDowell represented a threat to you, you had recourse to the law: merely phone the police. She would have been taken into custody, examined, and her case processed as the law found. You had no right to take her captive, to threaten her — verbally or nonverbally — with violence, and to detain her. This is true whether she’s an FBI contract employee or not. It further seems that your true methodology here was deprivation, as you meant to wear her down by denying her sleep. That is torture, by any definition. It is actionable, if we deem it appropriate.”

Kasim replied that Mrs. McDowell was hardly irreproachable herself. “It turns out she had appointed herself a one-woman crusade and has bedeviled your security forces with paranoid conspiracy stories of Islamic evil for years. We are sympathetic, given the tragic loss of her son, but only to a point. The fact is, her irrationality has been long documented, I am learning, and more evidence will be forthcoming. That makes her an unreliable witness. On top of that, I can promise you adverse publicity, demonstrations and other sorts of highly unflattering and bothersome attention, if you proceed with this issue. I hope you do. I think the good people of the United States would be interested to learn their tax dollars were being spent on wild-goose chases of purely anti-Islamic hate under the aegis of a crazy woman. I’m sure allegations of an out-of-control Bureau would not be welcome, given the situation you find yourself in.”

“Publicity cuts two ways, Mr. Kasim. I’m told there are many wealthy, conservative donors who support this mosque. Those donations could dry up if it became public the imam was involved in possible terrorist activities, to say nothing of kidnapping, intimidation, and torture. Moreover, the three other men in the room are not members of the dance committee but members of mosques known in the area to be far more radical in orientation. Two of them have prison records. Does the imam want that to become public knowledge? Whatever good he hopes to do his cause he cannot do if his position is lost and his reputation is tarnished.”

“Since we both have much to lose,” said Kasim, “perhaps it is incumbent upon the government to consider a less dramatic course of action than a terrorist trial against a Dearborn imam, certain to stir controversy and attract national attention no matter the outcome. There is no reason this has to go any further, and if the TV cameras go away before the noon news tomorrow, few will remember in a couple of days. All will be restored.”

“Restoration might be possible, but only if the imam cooperates with us. Judging by the quality of the other men, he is the only one of sufficient intellect to explain what was going on and to identify the mysterious visitor sleeping in the building. We have to understand who he was and why he was here.”

“Let me confer with my client, please,” said Kasim. He and the imam rolled away on their chairs to a far corner and, there, chatted for a bit.

When they were done and had returned to the table, Kasim said, “He might be willing to acknowledge certain unusual occurrences within the mosque over the past week. No names can be given, nor any telephone numbers, and no computers will be turned over, but we will work to inform you of what little we know, and you will see how misplaced your apprehension is.”

But at that moment, Chandler entered. She walked over to Nick, whispered in his ear, and deposited a folder in front of him. He nodded, opened the folder, and read the first document.

Restoration is possible,” Nick was saying on the screen, and Bob, in the television room, turned to Chandler and said, “See, this is where I’d attach the electrodes to his ears.”

She didn’t laugh. She just shook her head sadly and leaned past Bob toward the third member of the audience and said, “Mr. Gold, can you control him?”

“I believe the record shows nobody can control Mr. Swagger,” said Gold.

“Chandler, it was a … Oh, you were joking too, now I get it. No, I didn’t really mean to electrify him, and, no, you didn’t mean for Mr. Gold to stuff a sock in my mouth.”

“I get your point,” she said. “It’s boring. Laborious exchange of legalisms. So let’s speed it up. It’s time for my cameo.”

She smiled and rose.

“Pay attention, boys, you’re gonna like this!”

Nick set the folder down.

“Hmm,” he said. “Seems like the stakes have changed.”

But to draw out the theater of the thing, he nodded to the prosecutor and Houston, and they rolled backwards and muttered among themselves, while the defense attorney and the imam watched without a lot of enthusiasm. Then the threesome returned to the table.

“This just in. Our evidence team managed to collect some latent prints from the faucet of the lavatory immediately adjacent to the basement bedroom, and two more from the leather straps inside the suitcase, which was otherwise packed with newly bought underwear and shirts of Canadian manufacture, as if someone were trying to hide his origin. But fingerprints don’t lie. We ran the prints against not only our own but the Interpol database, and one print, the right thumb, came up with a hit. That print belongs to a former sergeant in the Syrian army named Alamir Alaqua. It turns out Sergeant Alaqua has quite a record, much of it in Israel, where the same fingerprint was found at the site of an atrocity involving the shooting deaths of seventeen children. Sergeant Alaqua is known by his work name, Juba the Sniper.”

“We had no idea—” started Kasim, but Nick cut him off.

“Juba is on Interpol’s list of ten most wanted international fugitives. Specializes in long-range shooting. Blamed for killings in most of the known world, except, of course, in America. So right away the charge against the imam jumps up to aiding and abetting. That’s a big one.”

He let it sink in.

“Furthermore, if we are unsuccessful in stopping Juba from whatever his mission in America is, we could nail the imam on accessory before the act. That’s a real big one. Suddenly we’re looking at twenty-five years.”

“If Allah so wills,” said the imam, “then let it be so.”

“Yes, easy to say now. You tell him, Mr. Kasim, what twenty-five without parole can do to a man. You’ve seen it.”

The two men said nothing.

“And yet still another possibility is that the Israelis will file charges against you for aiding in the escape of a terrorist wanted by them. Possibly they’ll file to extradite, and, with nothing to lose, I think we’d almost certainly comply without demurral. Off you’d go to Tel Aviv. I don’t think you would enjoy a visit with some very angry Israelis. I suspect they would go after any information you have a lot less civilly than we do. No friendly late-night chats in rooms with your lawyer present.”

Again, the two men were quiet.

The Israeli threat was enough to get el-Tariq’s mouth running,” said Nick to Mrs. McDowell in her hospital room the next day. “Now, I can’t tell you what the issue here is, as it’s classified, and you are not cleared. Sorry. But let me say again: we think you did a great job.”

“So — it was worth it?” she asked. “I didn’t pop the button too early?”