The Faithful Spy

He slapped her again. She stumbled backward and banged against the kitchen counter. But she just shook her head and stood up straight, her brown eyes fierce. She was tiny, barely five feet tall, but as she reared back she seemed twice his size. “Yes, a boyfriend,” she said. “A kafir boyfriend. A real lover, not like you—”

And Tarik knew he would never have her back. He raised his hand to slap her again, but she put up her own hand. “Don’t—”

He spat instead, a white glob landing on her cheek.

“Bitch. Worthless whore. The infidels have filled your head with rot. I won’t divorce you.”

The spittle trickled slowly down her cheek. She raised her hand and wiped away his venom. Her eyes never left his.

“Then I’ll tell the police what you’re doing down there.” She pointed again to the basement. “Don’t you think they’d like to know?”

“You said you didn’t know.”

“Of course I know. Am I a fool? Maybe I’ll tell them anyway.”

then the knife was out of the drawer and in his hand. A big butcher knife with a black plastic handle. A fevered god spoke in his head and he obeyed. Fatima began to scream even before he landed the first blow, slashing across her stomach so the blood sprayed out through her clean white shirt.

She turned to run but he stabbed her in the back and she fell and he was on her. He cut at her again and again, plunging the knife into her tiny body, stabbing into her back and neck, cutting through skin and fat and bone until she stopped screaming and her blood covered him. She was dead in less than a minute.

the buzz in his ears faded to silence. A bird chirped in the night outside, behind the blinds that he always kept drawn. He stood and looked at his wife.

“Allah forgive me,” he said quietly. Had he really just killed her? He couldn’t believe it, and yet there she was, unmoving, her legs splayed, her blood pooling thick as paint on the kitchen’s white linoleum floor.

He dropped the knife. Already his rage was fading. He hadn’t wanted to hurt her. Didn’t she know he loved her? She shouldn’t have pushed him, shouldn’t have done this to him. She was to blame.

He knelt beside her and stroked her hair. “I’m sorry, Fatima,” he said.

What would he do? Had the neighbors heard her scream? What about the people in her office? Her boyfriend? All of them must know that she had planned to leave. Soon enough the police would come. Tarik could stall them for a few days, tell them that she had left Montreal to see friends. But the boyfriend, whoever he was, wouldn’t let this go. Eventually the police would come back with a warrant. And the basement would be the first place they would look.

Dear God. What had he done? His plans, his work. About to be lost. Because of this whore. Pity filled him, pity for her and for himself. He had nothing left now, nothing but a few days to work, not nearly enough time to take his revenge on this world. But he couldn’t give up. Not yet, anyway. Maybe he could salvage his plans, get his germs someplace far from the gray house, someplace the police wouldn’t find them. At least find a way to make use of the Y. pestis he had grown.

He turned on the faucet as hot as the water would go and washed his hands and face until his tan skin lost its reddish tint. He knew he would be bloody again soon enough. He would have to take Fatima’s body downstairs and wipe the kitchen floor. But for this moment he wanted to be clean. He pulled a cellphone from his pocket. He punched in a number he had been warned never to use except in the most serious emergency. The phone rang three times.

“Bonjour, mon oncle.” A moment passed, and Tarik wondered if he had misdialed the number. Then he heard Khadri’s voice, as calm as ever. “Bonjour.”

Tarik felt an immense relief. Everything would be fine.

14

“we’re sure we have the right apartment?”

“We’re sure. Sort of.”

“Because we’re about to ruin someone’s day if we’re wrong.”

“Either way we’re gonna ruin someone’s day,” Shafer said. He and Exley stood in the Secure Communications Presentation Center, watching a feed from Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn on the six-foot-wide main monitor. Right on schedule, two New York City garbage trucks appeared on-screen, rolling slowly down the street. The whine of their diesel engines rumbled through the screen’s speakers. Exley glanced at her watch: 5:12 a.m. They would go in three minutes.

“It’s too early for this,” she said to Shafer. She could feel her pulse pounding in her temples, a sure sign of a nasty headache coming on.

“It’s too early for anything.”

“No audio,” Vinny Duto snapped at a technician. Mercifully, the noise ceased.