reaching out when he was in Pakistan. For not killing bin Laden. He explained as best he could. But he knew he didn’t have what they really wanted: information about the last attack, or the next.
ACROSS THE TABLE, Exley felt her stomach clench. Duto had never met Wells before, so he couldn’t tell how much Wells had left over there. But she could. It wasn’t just the lines on his face or the scar on his arm. The confidence in his eyes hadn’t disappeared, but it was mixed with something else, a humility she hadn’t seen before.
And Wells’s story made sense. He had wanted to visit his family, to be alone for a few days. Maybe Duto couldn’t understand that, but she could. Those weren’t crimes. She wanted to grab Duto’s arm and say, Can’t you see he’s on our side? But she didn’t. She couldn’t conceive of a quicker way to lose what little influence she had. Duto had clearly decided that Wells was worthless even if he was still loyal. He hadn’t stopped 9/11 or Los Angeles, so screw him.
Telling Duto that she could see the truth in Wells’s eyes would earn her a transfer straight to Ottawa, for the glamorous job of watching the Canadian Parliament. So she kept her mouth shut and listened as Duto fired away. Then the door opened, and Duto’s assistant walked in and murmured something in his ear. “Be right back,” Duto said, and walked out.
WITH DUTO GONE, Wells looked at Exley and Shafer. He would have liked to know whether they hated him as much as Duto did. But he wasn’t going to ask in here, with the tapes rolling and the lawyer scribbling. He didn’t want to compromise them. Besides, he might not like the answer.
Exley leaned toward him. “John,” she said.
It was all she said. And it was enough. Wells felt a spring relax inside him.
DUTO WALKED BACK in holding a plastic bag, a clear plastic evidence bag sealed with a chain-of-custody tag. He slapped it on the table. “What the fuck is this?”
Wells’s Koran.
So they had searched his room. He had given them the name of the hotel where he had checked in that night, of course. “You get a warrant or just break the door down?” Wells said evenly.
Duto pointed to the book.
“I’m Muslim,” Wells said. “That’s my Koran.”
Shafer put his head in his hands.
“You’re Muslim?” Duto said. “When did that happen?”
“John,” Exley said. “Your file indicated you were studying the religion—”
“Shut up, Jennifer,” Duto said, without taking his eyes off Wells. Duto leaned across the table, nearly spitting his words: “You converted? When?”
Wells gave Exley a second to defend herself, but she passed on the chance.
“It didn’t happen all at once.”
“You admit you’re a Muslim.”
“Yes,” Wells said quietly. He wasn’t about to lose his temper to this asshole. “I’m guilty of being Muslim.”
“You dumbfuck.”
“Curse at me all you like.” Again his voice was quiet.
“I’ll do whatever the fuck I like.”
“Cool it, Vinny,” Shafer said.
Duto looked at Shafer but said nothing. Wells wondered if the two men were putting on some kind of show for him, a good cop/bad cop routine.
“Tell us what happened,” Shafer said.
“You know about my grandmother,” Wells said. “I pretended to believe to get in the camps. But the more I learned, the more kinship I felt.”
“So you converted?”
Fatigue and emptiness, the emptiness that had swept him as he knelt before his mother’s grave, overwhelmed Wells. But he wouldn’t show weakness at this table. His faith might be wavering, but he wasn’t telling Duto that. “Converted. Accepted. I don’t know what to call it. Islam is more holistic than Christianity — it’s not just a religion, it’s a way of life.”
“Yeah, if your way of life doesn’t include freedom and democracy,” Duto said.
“Turkey’s a democracy,” Wells said.
“Not if your boys have their way.”
“I hate them as much as you do,” Wells said. “They’ve perverted the Koran. Look, Christianity isn’t perfect either. Kill them all and let God sort them out. You know where that comes from?”
“Enlighten me, wise one.”
“Eight hundred years ago a Catholic army was attacking this splinter Christian sect called the Cathars in a French town. Beziers, it was called. But the army had a problem. There were Catholics in Beziers along with the Cathars. So the soldiers asked this abbot who was commanding them, ‘What do we do when we get in? How do we tell our own Catholics from the Cathars?’ Know what the abbot said?”
“Please, continue.” A flush crept across Duto’s face.
“He said, ‘Kill them all. The Lord will recognize those which are His.’”
Duto stood and leaned across the table, his face inches from Wells’s.
“Shut the fuck up,” he said quietly. “You come in here with stories, fucking parables, whatever they are, on a night when your buddies blew up Los Angeles? If I want history lessons from you I’ll ask. What, you looking for converts? You may be even stupider than I thought. Which would be tough.”
This time Duto wasn’t faking his anger, Wells thought. He wondered if he’d gone too far.
“Vinny—” Shafer said.
“If I were you, Ellis, I’d keep my mouth shut,” Duto said, not taking his eyes off Wells.
“Most Muslims don’t want bin Laden to win,” Wells said. “They only support him because they feel so alienated from us.”
“Like you.”
Wells wondered if Duto really believed he was a traitor. “That’s not what I meant.”
“Any more speeches, John?”
Wells said nothing.
“Good,” Duto said. “One last time. You know anything about last night?”
“No. But something’s coming,” Wells said. “Maybe not right away, but something.”
“Great tip,” Duto said.
“We could all use some sleep,” Shafer said. “We’ve got a room for you, John.”
Wells nodded. Sleep sounded like a very good idea.
“We want you on the box this afternoon,” Duto said.
WELLS NEEDED A second to remember what that meant. A polygraph. He looked across the table at his inquisitors. Duto had made his feelings clear. Shafer: a crumpled shirt, hair in all directions. Everything about him messy except his quiet eyes, looking at Wells like he was an experiment gone wrong. And Exley. Jenny. Worry creasing her forehead. Those beautiful blue eyes. He thought he saw compassion in them. But maybe he was wrong.
Now she spoke, quietly. “You don’t have a choice, John. And neither do we.” And fell silent, waiting for Duto to slap her down again.
She was right, he knew. The agency’s need to polygraph came from both bureaucratic ass covering and a genuine belief in the power of the box. The CIA liked to believe that the poly’s squiggly black lines offered truth, the rarest jewel of all. If he didn’t agree to take the test, they would never believe him again. They might arrest him. Though for what, Wells wasn’t sure. Possession of false documents, maybe. They might just put him in a corner somewhere. But they would never believe him again.
Of course, they probably wouldn’t believe him even after he passed the test. They knew he could beat a
