The Archangel Project by C.S. Graham

students were politically moderate, others more angry. Did that matter? Barid had no way to know.
    Then he was told to assign certain journalism students to certain projects. Again he reluctantly complied. Surely no harm could come from that? But the requests soon became more ominous. He was given the funds to buy a derelict house in the Lower Ninth Ward. Then he was told to rent another house, this one in the Irish Channel in the unflooded part of the city near the river. Because of the way the Scorpion phrased his instructions, Barid knew there were more men than the Scorpion involved. “This is the house we want you to buy,” the Scorpion would say. Or, “Here are the Korans for the group’s meetings. We want you to make certain each student has one.”
    Barid never asked why he was being made to do all these things. At first he hoped that if he did as he was told and kept his nose out of it, the men might spare him. But eventually he’d had to admit that he was only fooling himself. He might not know what these men were doing, or why. But he knew too much to be allowed to live.
    At one point he’d given some thought to going to the American authorities, but the memory of that SpecialForces tattoo always stopped him. He had no way of knowing whom the Scorpion worked for, and so he knew there was no one he could trust. Ever since 9/11, too many Americans treated Muslim citizens the way the Nazis had started treating Jews in 1930s Germany. If the Americans locked him up as a suspected “enemy combatant,” his family would be left completely vulnerable. And so for the sake of his children, he continued to cooperate. And he kept his mouth shut.
    â€œBarid?”
    He felt his wife’s hand touch his shoulder, slide down his arm in a gentle caress. “You’re doing it again. Watching them. Why?”
    He turned to enfold her in his arms and draw her close so she couldn’t see his face. He longed to tell her the truth, to say, I watch them because there are evil men out there who have threatened to kill my children if I don’t do what they say. And even though I have done all that they have asked, I know it won’t be enough. I know that one day they will kill me, if for no other reason than to keep me silent. And so I watch my children because I know that someday, soon, I will never see them again.
    Except of course he couldn’t say any of that to Nadia, because when he was gone, his children would need their mother, and he couldn’t do anything that might put her life in danger, too. So all he said was, “I watch them because it brings me peace.”
    And even though he knew she didn’t believe him, she said no more.

21
    The Coliseum Street Guest House lay on a narrow, cobble-lined block of Coliseum, across from Trinity Church and just half a block down from the official boundary of the Garden District. A narrow, two-story galleried building with thick brick pillars and transomed French doors, it had once served as the garçonnière and kitchen of a Creole plantation. The plantation house and its sprawling acres had long since disappeared, leaving the garçonnière looking like a bit of French Quarter architecture that had somehow strayed into a neighborhood of Yankee-built Greek Revival and Queen Anne–style mansions.
    The current owners had grandiose plans for someday turning the ancient building into an upscale bed and breakfast. But at the moment the place was still seedy enough that they had no problem taking in a guest who chose to pay cash, carried no luggage, and had a streak of dirt across her nose.
    Tobie was given a room on the second floor overlooking the deep backyard where a giant sycamore rubbed against the double hung window with every gust of wind. Dropping her messenger bag on the wicker chair that stood beside a chipped, white-painted iron bed frame with a sagging mattress, she caught sight of her reflection in an