Prepared For Rage

She didn't smile back, a bad sign, but Arlene didn't give up easily. She sipped her coffee, closed her eyes in exaggerated ecstasy, opened them, and smiled again. This time there was a lightening of the woman's expression.

Encouraged, Arlene nodded at the podium and cast her eyes upward. This time the woman definitely smiled. Arlene gri

"You are a nurse, too?" The woman's English was heavily accented but easily understandable.

"I am," Arlene said mendaciously.

The woman hesitated. Arlene looked sympathetic and encouraging.

"Do you do the-" The woman gestured toward her back.

"Back injuries? Well, it isn't my specialty, but…"

Five minutes later they were ensconced in a dingy little break room over some very nice homemade lamb sandwiches in pita bread, and the woman, whose name was Nawal, was relating the problems she'd been having with lower back pain. Arlene listened attentively, and was even able to offer a few practical suggestions (there were few topics on which an experienced reporter could not offer an educated opinion), and by then of course they were boon companions.

Other hotel employees appeared and were introduced, and shortly thereafter Arlene was ru

Arlene ate lunch in the break room for the next two days. "It's so seldom at these things we get to meet real people," she said to excuse her presence, and they seemed to accept her as just another mad American.

The last day, she took a fond farewell of Nawal and went back to her hotel to pack. She alerted the front desk as to her departure and arranged for an early checkout the following morning.

She went to bed early, woke early, and took a taxi to the airport. After she checked in for her flight she called Hugh Rincon to report in. "There was a rumor in the hotel about the young officer in the Coast Guard uniform."

"How many Coasties were there?"

"They said only the two, Sara and Bayzani. Both American, you'll note."

He was looking at the list of attendees to the IMO conference. There had, in fact, been five Coasties present. If the hotel employees were identifying them by their uniforms, and if the Coasties had not dressed in their uniforms, then it was no wonder they missed them. He resolved to contact the other three, and made a note. This obsessive-compulsive propensity to tie up loose ends was one of the things that made him such a good investigator. "But?"

"But, number one, he didn't tip, which proves he wasn't American. Number two, he spent his last night in the hotel somewhere else. He just walked out the evening before and they never saw him again. He didn't even check his voice mail."

"He stiff them?"

"No. The room was paid for in advance, by credit card."

"You get the account number?"

"Yes, but you and I both know it won't do any good. Isa's way too crafty for that."

"What about his passport?"

"He collected it on his way out. He said he was going out to eat, and he'd return it to the desk when he came back."

"Was he carrying a bag?"

"He had a daypack over his shoulder, enough maybe for a change of clothes, according to the front desk clerk."

"He left everything else behind?"

"He did."

"Where's his stuff?"

She smiled into the phone. "In the hotel's lost and found. Or it was."

Hugh said sharply, "Was?"

She gave the anonymous little roll-on suitcase reposing at her feet a fond look. "I've got it now."

"I want you here on the next available plane," Hugh said.

"I'm calling from the airport. I land at Heathrow at three p.m. British Airways."

"I'll pick you up."

"I never doubted it," Arlene said. "Okay, see you then."

His voice caught her just as she was going to hang up. "If he wasn't American, did anyone have an idea as to where he was from?"

"They thought he might be Afghani. One of the front desk clerks who thought he detected an accent. I wouldn't bet the farm on that, though, he was the only one who felt that strongly."

"So, not Middle Eastern, but definitely Asian," Hugh said thoughtfully. "I was pretty sure he wasn't Jordanian, no matter what Chisum's people were telling us. But one of the Stans? How the hell did he get that high up in al Qaeda?"

"I'm guessing that was a rhetorical question," Arlene said dryly. "Something else, Hugh."

Her tone, sober and maybe even a little frightened, brought him up alert. "What?"

"I reached out to a couple of contacts I have here and there, and-"

"Here and where?"

"Here, in Istanbul. There, in Damascus, and in Peshawar."

"And?" Hugh said with foreboding.

"And I went to see my friend in Istanbul."

Her friend in Istanbul, Hari Assoun, lived in a third-floor flat in a crowded block that reminded Arlene of neighborhoods in Naples, or Brooklyn. Laundry hung above the street in lines strung between the buildings, kids played soccer between parked cars, and tables spilled out into the street from cafes on every corner.

Hari, a tall man with thi

They discussed her family ("Arlene, my dear, you got to get married. Who cares for you elsewise in your old age?"), his family ("My wife, she is with someone else now, but she will be back, I know this thing in my heart"), and world affairs ("Is this president of yours mad, Arlene? Is he blind and deaf? What is America thinking with this invasion, this war? We Turks know all about war, Arlene, we have Iraqi Kurds sitting across our border from Turkish Kurds, waiting to join hands and make their own country, and then what? Chaos! Anarchy! Apocalypse!").

After two cups of coffee, when Arlene could hear the blood sizzling nicely in her veins from the caffeine, she got to the point. Hari at first was obdurate. "No, Arlene, much as I want to help you always, this man I will not discuss." She coaxed and pleaded, and did not make the mistake of offering more money. Hari was for hire, not for purchase.

After some grumbling followed by dire warnings ("This is dangerous, my very dear Arlene. You could get hurt. I could get hurt. Your future husband could get hurt!") Hari allowed as how, yes, he did still come in the way of the odd bit of information, and yes, perhaps, on very rare occasions there might be a whisper of Isa.

"And what is the whisper, my very dear Hari?" Arlene said, giving him a soulful glance.

He made a face. "They are looking for him."

"Everyone's looking for Isa, Hari," she said patiently. "Who in particular this time?"

Hari met her eyes and said very soberly, "Al Qaeda is looking for him, Arlene, and, my very dear friend, you do not want to be caught in the crossfire when they find him."