True Allegiance

He turned his back on the suit and walked toward the door. He heard the padding steps behind him, opened the door, closed it, and then took the stairs half a flight at a time, his knees throbbing. Behind him, he heard the door slam open, and then the man’s voice: “He’s running. We’ll grab him in the lobby.”

Brett had no such intention.

Instead of exiting at the lobby level, he continued sprinting down into the basement area. He’d planned for this eventuality ever since he arrived at the hotel; in Afghanistan he’d acquired the useful habit of locating exits and scoping out his location. He knew the maze of hallways and doors in the hotel basement, and he quickly navigated them, waiting long enough to ensure he’d lost his pursuers. When he emerged onto the street, he found himself alone.

Nice try, suckers, Brett thought with a grim smile.

Hassan lived in the Washington Heights area of New York—the area nobody wanted to walk at night. He’d taken a small second-floor flat near the 168th Street subway station, an old building refurbished with cheap appliances and cheaper flooring. He’d furnished the apartment sparingly, except for a pair of floor-to-ceiling bookcases filled with religious tomes. When Brett arrived, sweating, Hassan nodded silently, then ushered him to a beat-up leather couch.

“Tea?”

“No, thank you,” Brett replied.

Hassan walked over to the bookcases, slid aside some of the volumes. Then he pushed one of the panels on the rear wall of the bookcase. It opened quietly. Hassan slid out a thumb drive, loaded it into his laptop, sat the machine on the coffee table before Brett.

“Do you know this man?”

A video file popped open. It showed a young, slim Muslim man, wearing jeans and a long-sleeved shirt, shaking hands with another thawb-wearing man at the mosque. Hassan hit pause.

“Do you recognize him?”

Brett nodded. It was Mohammed. “How did you find him?”

“You weren’t followed, of course?”

“Of course.”

He hesitated. “I have backdoor access to most of the security cameras in the New York mosques. It has taken me years.”

“How much of that is legal?”

“Under this president? Don’t ask if you don’t want to know.”

Brett sighed. “So tell me when that footage was taken.”

“It was taken four days ago.” Hassan anticipated Brett’s disappointment. “I know. Too long. But finding a man named Mohammed in a mosque in New York is like finding a Jew named Goldstein in a synagogue here. You’re bound to find some false positives. But this one stood out. That imam he is talking to—Anjem Omari—is trouble. He’s been under FBI surveillance on and off for years. Right now, off.”

“So what do you know about my man Mohammed?”

“Not much. I know that he has a close relationship with Omari.”

“Where does Omari live?”

Hassan laughed. “You can’t be serious. You want me to go over there and talk with him? It puts my entire operation at risk.”

“No,” said Brett slowly. “I want to go and talk with him.”

Hassan laughed even harder. Finally, he began coughing, pounded his chest until it subsided. “White boy, you’re out of your mind. You don’t know the first thing about him. Did you know he’s tight with Prescott? That he’s given opening prayers at the New York Stock Exchange? He’s high profile. And you think you’re just going to waltz over there and ask him some questions, and that he’ll answer you?”

Brett nodded. “Something like that.”

“Now why would he go and do something like that?”

“You leave that to me. What’s his address?”

It took Brett a bit over an hour to reach the imam’s home outside the I-287 loop. The imam actually lived on a rural compound off the road. In the dark, Brett missed the turnoff twice. The gravel clanked off the underside of the cheap Toyota Hassan had borrowed from a friend. The woods showed black against the early glimmers of rising sun. In the distance, Brett could see that the light was already on in the home—fajr prayers, the earliest prayers. By the time he drove up, the front door was already open. A thick oak of a man stood in the doorway, bearded, wearing a taquiyeh.

Brett stopped the car in a cloud of dust.

“Hello,” he said. “I’m here to see the imam.”

“It’s early,” said the man. “The imam’s office opens at 9:00 a.m.”

“Tell him the Teacher sent me.”

The mention of Ashammi’s nickname caught the oak man up short. He took a step forward. “We know nobody of that name.”

A hand crept up on the guard’s shoulder. Then the soft voice of the imam. “It’s all right, Mahmoud. I know this man.” The guard moved aside, revealing a white-bearded, fiftyish, willowy man. His deep-set eyes gazed out at Brett, seemingly looking beyond him. Brett found it slightly unsettling. “Come in,” said the imam.