Sharaf propped two pillows against the creaky headboard and opened to his bookmark. Too bad Amina wasn’t beside him, showing the curve of her back. He wouldn’t even have minded hearing her complain about how he was leaving the light on too late and disturbing her sleep.
He began to read, while trying to recall where he had last left the story. The guilt-ridden Raskolnikov had committed two murders many pages ago and was still on the loose. The young man’s fevered torment was growing tiresome, but at least now a detective of sorts had come onto the scene, an examining lawyer named Porfiry. Sharaf read with growing appreciation as Porfiry interrogated Raskolnikov, using an indirect approach that was clever and disarming—the very way Sharaf might have done it. This fellow Porfiry even looked like him, Sharaf thought, as he read Dostoevsky’s description: “‘God has given me a figure that can awaken none but comic ideas in other people,’ Porfiry said. ‘A buffoon.’”
Perfect.
Sharaf began to relax. A few more pages ought to do the trick. Raskolnikov grew more agitated as the interrogation proceeded, especially when Porfiry began describing how he always lured guilty suspects to their doom, particularly the smart ones:
Have you seen a butterfly round a candle? That’s how he will keep circling round me.… He’ll begin to brood, he’ll weave a tangle round himself, he’ll worry himself to death! What’s more he will provide me with a mathematical proof—if only I give him enough interval.… And he’ll keep circling round me, getting nearer and nearer and then—flop! He’ll fly straight into my mouth and I’ll swallow him, and that will be very amusing, he-he-he!
Sharaf put the book down and looked up at the ceiling, suddenly giddy with insight.
He had it, his bolt of lighting, the tool they had been seeking, not only to stop the delivery but to bring its architects into the basket and up from the deep. With a little help, they would be able to pry loose the biggest pearl in the ocean, sharks be damned.
It was time to wake everyone in the house.
26
Laleh, Ali, and Keller sat before Sharaf at the kitchen table. They were in a grumpy stupor, and still wondering why he had awakened them so urgently at ? a.m. The recorder remained at the center of the table—silent, waiting. It was to be the main prop in his presentation.
Waking Laleh had been the hardest part. Thinking like a cop, he had dashed to her bedroom first, knowing she would have to play one more role in this final move. But at her doorway he hesitated, overwhelmed by a burst of fatherly emotion. Light from the hallway cast a shadow across her face. He stepped to the bedside and brushed back her hair the way he had once done when waking her for grade school.
“Laleh?” he whispered. “Laleh?”
A flutter of eyelids.
“Yes?”
She was almost instantly alert. He then realized that for all the exertion and emotional strain, a part of her was immensely enjoying the cloak-and-dagger aspects of the past twenty-four hours. She was a player in the arena, out where decisions affected lives. He smiled in spite of his worry, admiring how easily she had taken to this new role, even though he still would have preferred to have kept her out of it.
“I need your help, one last time.”
She sat up, propped on her elbows.
“What time is it?”
“After midnight. But this can’t wait. We have to begin planning now, all of us. So get dressed and come to the kitchen.”
She nodded, obedient. He went to wake the others. And now there they were, looking at him like he had lost his mind.
Sharaf began his spiel.
“Good news. Lightning has struck. We have found the candle to attract our butterfly. All five of our butterflies, in fact, if I’m reading things correctly.”
“Butterflies?” Ali rubbed his eyes. “Anwar, what in God’s name are you talking about?”
“Let’s just say I know now how to bait the trap in a way that might well produce instantaneous results. Here, listen to this part of the recording again.”
Sharaf hit the PLAY switch, and Hal Liffey’s voice began speaking in Russian.
“He is saying that in the corporate world they first learn what they can from the source of the trouble—through briefings, interrogations, surveillance. In this way, potential debits are turned into assets. Even then, they only liquidate after full consultation by all interested parties.”
He switched off the machine.
“So?” Ali said.
“Don’t you see? Interrogation, debriefing, and full consultation. If we can present them with an immediate and serious threat to their operation, that’s how they will respond. And given the timetable for delivery, I’m betting they’ll respond right away.”
“What kind of threat?” Keller said.
“Basma. At the first hour of business tomorrow she will telephone the police department and ask for their ranking authority on vice. She will of course be referred to Lieutenant Hamad Assad. She offers to share with him a most interesting tale of a human-trafficking operation using a new means to smuggle goods into the country. But she is worried, very worried, about her own safety, so she will only meet him on neutral ground, at a place of her choosing. Of course, that is the very sort of location Assad will prefer. The last thing he would want is to have her show up at the police station.”
