on Drexler and headed for the door. 'I'll be waiting to hear from you.'
He hurried down the hall, through the foyer, and out to the steps. As the cold air hit him he realized he was drenched with sweat.
7
As soon as Connell left, Ernst signaled to Fournier.
'Get Szeto.'
A moment later Kristof Szeto stepped into the room. He was dark, with short black hair; he always appeared to have five-o'clock shadow, even when he'd just shaved, and he liked black leather. Szeto couldn't be present during the meeting because he had already met Connell in the Myers woman's hospital room last summer.
'Did you hear?'
Szeto nodded but said nothing.
'Do you believe him?'
'Not a word,' he said in his accented English.
Ernst leaned back. 'Neither do I. But what's his purpose, do you think?'
Szeto shrugged. 'Perhaps no more than he says: He receives fax with sister's picture and wants to know why Order is looking for her.'
'But there's got to be more to it than that, don't you think?'
'Why? He had thorough backgrounding done before he was allowed in, and that showed nothing. Yesterday I go over his record in Order as soon as I receive his call, and it is completely ordinary: typical outer-circle member who pays dues on time and attends meetings.'
'But his sister is the woman who caused us so much trouble last year, the one who stirred up all those nine/eleven groups.'
Szeto's face darkened. 'And killed good men, some my friends.'
Ernst shook his head. Once they learned her maiden name yesterday they'd been able to fill in the gaps in her history, but could find nothing in her life that would imbue her with the skills necessary to kill Szeto's men.
'We're sure now it wasn't her, but rather that mystery man she hired as a bodyguard.'
Szeto ground a fist into his palm. 'She will know where to find him.'
'Obviously. But you will not be asking her. The instructions are clear: Find her, mark her location, and do nothing. Is that clear? Nothing.'
'Yes. Clear.'
'Good. You are following Brother Connell?'
'Of course.'
Ernst rubbed his eyes. He did not like the way this had circled back on him. The woman he had hunted unsuccessfully last year turned out to have crossed his path as an adolescent. Her brother turned out to be a member of the Order-invited in. Paths kept circling back to that nothing town on the edge of the Jersey Pine Barrens, which just so happened to play home to the Order's oldest existing Lodge on this continent.
Circles… Ernst didn't trust circles unless he created them. Was something else at work here?
And what of the woman's childhood friend, Jack? Ernst had never met anyone so ripe with the taint. And yet now he was… what? Connell had said he was a repairman of sorts. A waste of potential.
He turned to Szeto. 'Send someone to the Johnson Lodge and see if there are any records on a groundskeeper named Jack. I forget his last name. It would be late in 1983. Track him down. Find out where he is.'
'He is involved?'
'I have no idea. But he's a cipher now, and I don't like ciphers. He shares a past with the woman and her brother and I want to make sure he's not circling through the present with them.'
'And what about finding woman?'
'We'll find her. Last time we had only members of the Order looking for her. We've expanded the search exponentially. By now every brother in the Order, every Kicker, and every Dormentalist has seen her picture. Someone will recognize her or spot her. Not to worry. We'll find her.'
8
Munir sipped orange juice and wished he drank alcohol. He could pour it into the juice and not taste it. The oblivion it offered would blot out this constant, aching fear, quell the frustration at being so helpless.
In a sudden fit of rage he hurled his glass across the kitchen. It smashed against the wall, sending glass shards flying.
Now why had he done that? He'd have to clean up the mess before Barbara…
… came home.
He sobbed.
Oh, God.
Barbara… he'd always known she was strong, but never realized till now how much strength he drew from her on a daily basis. It had taken courage to marry an Arab after 9/11. Maybe she'd latched on to him at first as an in-your-face gesture to the world, but they'd developed deep feelings for each other. She was funny and self- aware and very much her own person. So unlike the Islamic women his family shoved at him. They were all about dowries and pleasing the man, and Barbara was more like How about you pleasing me as much as I please you… or maybe more?
He'd had to have her. No one else would do. They bonded. No, they fused. And when it came time to make their fusion official, neither family was enthralled.
His family was dismayed but accepting as long as she converted to Islam and the children were raised in the faith. Munir did not tell them that clerics would be shaving their beards and singing 'Hava Nagila' before that happened.
Her family-from outside Atlanta-had been aghast at her choice, but not terribly surprised. Apparently she'd been a rebel all her life. A devout atheist, she adamantly refused a church service and only reluctantly agreed to a reception. What a surreal scene that had been… with his imported family occupying one table and hers eight, his people not dancing and not drinking, hers carousing like New Year's Eve.
He and Barbara would probably have had little or no further contact with her family if not for her pregnancy. The birth of a grandson caused a dramatic thaw in her folks. They didn't see Robby often, but when they did, they doted on him.
Looking back, maybe it hadn't taken courage on Barbara's part. Maybe all it took was being Barbara. She was her own person and didn't care what people thought. She didn't let the opinions of others-family, friends, whoever-sway her. Maybe that was why they'd become such a self-contained unit.
Robby had inherited her strength. He needed it with a name like Habib in a New York public school-he was a constant target for bullies wanting to know if he was an Islamic terrorist. But Robby had learned to stand up to them, admitting only to being an American and giving as good as he got.
He thought back to their last exchange before he'd left the house Thursday morning. Barbara had bought a new outfit the day before and had modeled it for him. She had her own style-a tailored look she wore year in and year out, despite the vagaries of fashion. If he really truly disliked something, he supposed she would take it back, but that had yet to happen. He doubted it ever would-she'd look beautiful in a burqa.
The modelings had become a ritual with its own litany. She knew she had a good figure, but the litany demanded she ask…
Does it make me look fat?
Hmmm… what did it cost?
Nine hundred dollars.
