ridden the previous night. “The prison does not miss their vehicle?”
“The nation’s gaze is upon us. We could ask for use of the president’s palace and be made welcome,” Lahm replied. “You have heard?”
“My family mentioned something.” As had many of the parishioners.
“The radio and the newspapers and the television all carry the tale of the rescued children.” Major Lahm turned on the siren and the lights. “My briefcase is at your feet. A file inside contains the information you requested.”
The file was so bulky as to almost fill the case. Sameh opened the folder and lifted the first item. “But this is perfect!”
“Some of the children disliked the process,” Lahm said. “I never thought photographing forty-six children could be so taxing.”
The photographs were done with police precision. Clearly the children’s distress had returned over the unfamiliar experience. Even so, the file contained three eight-by-ten photographs of each frightened face. Leyla leaned forward to look. “The poor little ones.”
“They are the fortunate ones,” Lahm said, jerking the steering wheel to clear a donkey cart. “If you do not believe me, ask the ones who await you.”
Sameh glanced back to where Marc sat behind Major Lahm, staring out the side window, his face creased. Sameh started to ask if everything was all right, but then decided such a question was unnecessary. Miriam had the habit of asking questions that probed deeply.
The American surprised him by saying, “Something about all this doesn’t add up.”
Lahm glanced in the rearview mirror. “Explain, please?”
“Let’s go back to the beginning.” His eyes remained focused on the view outside his side window. But Sameh doubted he saw anything at all. “A gardener applies for a job with this client of Sameh’s. How long did he work there?”
Sameh was about to ask what difference that made when he noticed Lahm’s expression changing, clamping down so it resembled the American’s. Sameh tried to recall. “Hassan said it was a number of weeks.”
“Okay. So we’ve got a guy who comes in, does grunt work all day long. How did he get the job?”
Lahm reached forward to cut off the siren.
Sameh’s voice sounded loud in the sudden quiet. “He was referred to Hassan by a neighbor.”
“Do you know the neighbor’s name?”
“I spoke with the man. He owns a store where Hassan’s wife shops. By all accounts, a good man.”
“We need to ask again. Harder. More directly.”
Lahm was nodding now. “I can do this.”
“What is the point?” Sameh objected. “The child has been returned.”
“No, no, this is good,” Lahm said. “The American is asking the right questions.”
Marc said, “Why would the kidnappers stick one of their men in with Hassan? We found forty-seven children. Did all of them get taken by someone in the household staff?”
“Unlikely,” Sameh said.
“Impossible,” Lahm put in.
“So we have one family who was targeted. We need to know why. We need to know what else was different about this kidnapping.”
Leyla spoke up then. “They never asked for ransom.”
All three men studied her, Lahm through the rearview mirror. Sameh said, “They often wait a while. The family grows more and more distraught. Hassan’s family is very rich. They would have paid anything for Abdul’s safe return.”
“Maybe that’s it,” Marc said. “But what if they weren’t after money at all?”
One of Lahm’s men stepped into the street and waved them into a parking area. Sameh started to tell them they were still two blocks from his office, but it seemed a trifling issue in the face of what he was hearing. He asked, “You aren’t suggesting there is a connection between the kidnapped children and the missing four?”
“Excuse, please,” Lahm said. “Which four are these?”
“Four adults,” Sameh said. “Three Americans. And a friend of Imam Jaffar.”
“This is public knowledge?”
“Exactly the opposite,” Sameh replied. “We are constantly hearing that people in power want this to go away. Some even claim it did not happen at all. Which is why Jaffar asked me to help.”
As the Land Cruiser slid to a stop, Lahm’s policeman raced around and started to reach for the major’s door. Lahm lifted a hand. The policeman took a step back, almost quivering with impatience. Lahm turned in his seat and asked Marc, “This is why you are here?”
“Yes. Because there are people inside the American power structure who are pretending the four were not made to disappear. My former boss does not believe these stories about them taking a vacation. I don’t either. Alex Baird and the others were abducted. I need to know why, and how we can get them back.”
Lahm turned to again face forward. If he even saw his man’s urgent signals from beyond the vehicle’s manufactured coolness, he gave no sign. “It could be coincidence. The children and these four adults vanishing at the same time.”
Marc nodded. “Probably is.”
Sameh said, “There are people being made to disappear every day.”
“Even so,” Lahm said, “I for one distrust coincidences.”
“We need to look below the surface,” Marc said. “Just in case.”
Chapter Eighteen
A s they proceeded down the street toward his office, Sameh remained gripped by the thought that Hassan’s child might somehow be connected to the missing four adults. What was more, the American had come up with this possibility. The stranger. The one who had no experience in the Arab world. Seeing connections that were supposed to be invisible.
Sameh knew his people as only one could, who was both joined to them and yet forever at a distance. He was a Christian Arab, something the most conservative elements of his society sought to extinguish. He knew how much pride his people took in being forever misunderstood. They did not trust any outsiders who thought they knew the Arab heart. His fellow Arabs loved the hidden, the secret, the myriad intricate connections that made the past live alongside the present. It was impossible that Marc Royce could be identifying an unseen link such as this.
And yet the more Sameh pondered the mystery, the more certain he became that there was indeed a connection. How, he did not need to know. Not just then. His hunches had been proven right too often in the past. And the instant Marc Royce had spoken, Sameh had known the American somehow had pierced the veil.
Major Lahm interrupted his thoughts, speaking loud enough to be heard above the traffic. “We have managed to isolate the majority of the press. They did not like it, of course. Which has been the morning’s greatest pleasure.”
“Forgive me, I was…” Sameh’s voice trailed off.
The sidewalk ahead of them was a solid wall. People jammed the front gates leading to his office building and spilled into the street. Temporary barricades had been set up, forcing the traffic from four lanes down to three. A second barricade had been established just beyond the building’s main gates. A forest of cameras and lights and shouting reporters competed with the traffic and the bleating horns and the police whistles. And the crowds.
Major Lahm and his men formed a shield and forged their way through. People filled the lobby, the stairs, the upstairs hall and his own waiting room. They waved photographs and grabbed at Sameh. Their faces were creased with fear and woe. Their eyes were red, though most had no more tears to shed.
Once Sameh was safely inside his office, Major Lahm and Marc took over crowd control. Lahm and his men worked the building’s exterior and the street. Using Leyla as translator, Marc brought a semblance of order to the people inside. Occasionally, Sameh went to the office doorway and observed Marc’s natural authority at work. The man did not raise his voice. He simply expelled a family who refused to do as he instructed. The rest reluctantly