sergeant.
Dampened by his self-assessment, he tore himself away from drooling over her and stalked to the bathroom, shutting the door intentionally loudly. He heard Eryn lurch from the couch and run for the stove.
“Shoot, shoot, shoot!” she cried, sounding distraught. The oven door groaned open. “Oh, yes!” she added, releasing a delicious aroma.
Ike met his gaze, dark with desire, in the speckled mirror. Get it under control, man.
Her appeal was eroding his resolve, and he couldn’t let it. If he wanted Stanley’s respect back, he needed to return his daughter to him, unscathed and untainted. That meant keeping his distance, no matter how badly she got to him.
Chapter Seven
Farshad studied the leader of the Brotherhood of Islam with contempt that he kept hidden behind a pious smile.
“Why does the media say we take credit for the bombing?” Imam Abdullah Nasser railed. He stood in the robes of a cleric before the kneeled gathering of devoted followers. “Did I order the persecution of General McClellan’s daughter?” His indignant voice echoed under the mosque’s domed roof.
The congregants, the majority of them moderate Muslims, murmured that he had not. Farshad tried to guess which young man in attendance was the one he was cultivating to replace Itzak .
In the online chat room where the extremists gathered every other night, his name was Vengeance. Farshad had coaxed him into a more private arena to feel out his loyalties. Eventually, he had passed him the user name and password to a fictitious, email account where they shared emails with one another, saving them in the draft folder without ever having to hit SEND.
Over the course of a week, Farshad learned that his new recruit was Shahbaz Wahidi, a twenty-three-year-old auto mechanic and a lover of violent video games. Shahbaz had been born in America, but his parents, illiterate and uneducated immigrants, had found themselves no better off in D.C. than in Pakistan. Isolated from their relatives, disillusioned and embittered, they had taught their son to hate everything American.
From where he sat, Farshad couldn’t see anyone with grease under his fingernails. Nor could he have picked out any of the other extremists who met online. Not even the informant, who’d mentioned the address of the safe house after Farshad had found it himself, was known to him.
Imam Nasser’s voice cut into his thoughts as it rolled out over the congregants. “Mustafa Masoud, are you here?”
“Here, your eminence,” said one of the worshipers.
“Stand.”
A slender Afghani-American rose to tower over his kneeling companions.
“Why does this rumor exist?” Imam Nasser asked.
Why would Nasser ask the man such a question? Farshad wondered. Was it possible that he was the informant, the man whose sister was married to an FBI clerk?
“Imam, The Washington Post received a phone call from someone in the Brotherhood claiming responsibility,” Mustafa explained. “They, in turn, called the FBI.”
Farshad’s hopes rose as his suspicions doubled. Knowing who the informant was meant he wouldn’t have to enter the online chat in order to question him about the whereabouts of his target.
Farshad would send Shahbaz to ask the man in person. Yes, it was time to put his new recruit to work, at no risk to himself. Shahbaz could not identify him anymore than he could identify the Shahbaz.
“This is a lie!” Imam Nasser railed, thrusting a finger in the air. “We are a peaceful organization seeking the creation of a global Islamist state! Our Ummah is governed by Mohammed’s law. Sharia forbids the murder of innocent people.”
Farshad hid a sneer. Your interpretation of the law is weak.
“Let all thoughts of persecution cease,” the cleric demanded with a stern gaze all around. “ Sharia
Dampened by his self-assessment, he tore himself away from drooling over her and stalked to the bathroom, shutting the door intentionally loudly. He heard Eryn lurch from the couch and run for the stove.
“Shoot, shoot, shoot!” she cried, sounding distraught. The oven door groaned open. “Oh, yes!” she added, releasing a delicious aroma.
Ike met his gaze, dark with desire, in the speckled mirror. Get it under control, man.
Her appeal was eroding his resolve, and he couldn’t let it. If he wanted Stanley’s respect back, he needed to return his daughter to him, unscathed and untainted. That meant keeping his distance, no matter how badly she got to him.
Chapter Seven
Farshad studied the leader of the Brotherhood of Islam with contempt that he kept hidden behind a pious smile.
“Why does the media say we take credit for the bombing?” Imam Abdullah Nasser railed. He stood in the robes of a cleric before the kneeled gathering of devoted followers. “Did I order the persecution of General McClellan’s daughter?” His indignant voice echoed under the mosque’s domed roof.
The congregants, the majority of them moderate Muslims, murmured that he had not. Farshad tried to guess which young man in attendance was the one he was cultivating to replace Itzak .
In the online chat room where the extremists gathered every other night, his name was Vengeance. Farshad had coaxed him into a more private arena to feel out his loyalties. Eventually, he had passed him the user name and password to a fictitious, email account where they shared emails with one another, saving them in the draft folder without ever having to hit SEND.
Over the course of a week, Farshad learned that his new recruit was Shahbaz Wahidi, a twenty-three-year-old auto mechanic and a lover of violent video games. Shahbaz had been born in America, but his parents, illiterate and uneducated immigrants, had found themselves no better off in D.C. than in Pakistan. Isolated from their relatives, disillusioned and embittered, they had taught their son to hate everything American.
From where he sat, Farshad couldn’t see anyone with grease under his fingernails. Nor could he have picked out any of the other extremists who met online. Not even the informant, who’d mentioned the address of the safe house after Farshad had found it himself, was known to him.
Imam Nasser’s voice cut into his thoughts as it rolled out over the congregants. “Mustafa Masoud, are you here?”
“Here, your eminence,” said one of the worshipers.
“Stand.”
A slender Afghani-American rose to tower over his kneeling companions.
“Why does this rumor exist?” Imam Nasser asked.
Why would Nasser ask the man such a question? Farshad wondered. Was it possible that he was the informant, the man whose sister was married to an FBI clerk?
“Imam, The Washington Post received a phone call from someone in the Brotherhood claiming responsibility,” Mustafa explained. “They, in turn, called the FBI.”
Farshad’s hopes rose as his suspicions doubled. Knowing who the informant was meant he wouldn’t have to enter the online chat in order to question him about the whereabouts of his target.
Farshad would send Shahbaz to ask the man in person. Yes, it was time to put his new recruit to work, at no risk to himself. Shahbaz could not identify him anymore than he could identify the Shahbaz.
“This is a lie!” Imam Nasser railed, thrusting a finger in the air. “We are a peaceful organization seeking the creation of a global Islamist state! Our Ummah is governed by Mohammed’s law. Sharia forbids the murder of innocent people.”
Farshad hid a sneer. Your interpretation of the law is weak.
“Let all thoughts of persecution cease,” the cleric demanded with a stern gaze all around. “ Sharia
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