Code White Part 20

"That's ... an understatement."

"You seem to be afraid. Afraid of him."

"Does it show?"

An image flashed before her, of an afternoon at her father's house in Queens. It was cold and drizzly. In the tiny backyard, two once-luxuriant j.a.panese maples had shed their leaves, leaving behind a skeletal cagework of branches, blackened by rain and the grime of the city. He stood beneath them, his sallow, tapering, serpentine face twisted in a defiant smirk, oblivious to the rain that dripped from his pointed chin. Yes, he said. Father has told you true. And in that moment, the featureless, unnameable nightmares of twenty years crystallized into panic. She could neither speak nor move, but her bowels and bones screamed for her, sounding out her horror and rage. Then you are no man, they cried. You are Satan, whose very whisper brings death. But I have not forgotten her whom you have destroyed. I will carry her cause through eternity, and lay it at the judgment seat of G.o.d.

She blinked, and the specter disappeared. In front of her she saw only the face of Harry Lewton, looking back at her gently. "Look, we all have our hobgoblins," he said. "As a rule, they grow bigger the more we turn our backs on them. Sometimes the best thing is to turn around and look 'em in the eye."

"Easily said."

"Listen, I won't let him hurt you physically. I'll be at your side. All I'm asking is that you try whatever you can do. The survival of this hospital might depend on it."

"I'm ... I'm not the person you think I am. I'm not strong like you."

"You don't think so? You cut into people's brains for a living. You're climbing up the ladder of the most male-dominated medical specialty there is. You must have had to get through years of insults and hazings and s.e.xual innuendos to get to where you are. And you want to tell me you're not strong?"

"I don't feel strong. I feel ... afraid."

"Trust me."

She looked out the window, envying the humdrum lives of the people outside. Even though they were walking in the shadow of a bomb that could end their lives in an instant, they did not know it, and not knowing it left them free to go on with the tacit self-a.s.surance people always had-the delusion of being destined to live forever. "I want to trust you," she said at last with a sigh. "I want to believe in someone right now. I'm tired of having to figure things out."

"You learn to trust by trusting."

Ali placed her hands over her eyes, then drew them down to her chin. "Oh, h.e.l.l! I'm a G.o.dd.a.m.n fool," she said. "But I'll ... I'll do it."

"Good," said Harry. He threw down the uneaten half of his sandwich and checked his watch. It was nearly half-past two already. "Time is running short. We'd better make our move."

Ali got up and Harry followed her down the narrow aisle. She walked briskly, taking quick, long strides like someone used to having places to go. From his vantage, half a head taller, Harry saw her l.u.s.trous black hair sway with each step, brus.h.i.+ng against the lean kite shape of her shoulders and upper back. As she negotiated the turns between the tightly packed tables, her shoulder blades would poke against the blue cotton cloth of her scrubs, alternating with the sway of her hips. Her slender arms seemed weightless, gliding effortlessly forward and back, as though their chief purpose were to buoy her shoulders up. This one's a thoroughbred, Harry couldn't help thinking. On any other day- They crossed the lobby and headed for the entrance to the ER. G.o.d, I hope this doesn't blow up in my face, Harry thought. He was about to seriously cross the FBI, and if his plan failed, what he was doing would look like collusion with a Federal witness, and it could land both him and her in hot water. Lee could make them sorry they were ever born.

Yes, risky as h.e.l.l. He'd have to move quickly, before Lee had a chance to stop him. But there was an angle to this story that was eluding everyone. Something big. Something not yet even thought of. And if he didn't figure it out fast, the FBI would be the least of his worries.

2:05 P.M.

Ali approached the isolation room as if it were the morgue. Indeed, the last time she had seen Rahman was at the ghusl, or ritual was.h.i.+ng of her father's corpse before his funeral. She had brought camphor, frankincense, and the traditional three pieces of white linen burial clothes. As a female, she was not supposed to go in to the body. But through the door she had seen Rahman standing in the place of honor beside her father's head. One look at him was all it took to make her throw away thirteen centuries of tradition and rush headlong into the room.

"Unclean! Unclean!" she cried out. "This monster is not to touch the body. Father himself forbade it." Immediately there was an uproar, for she had looked upon her father's nakedness. Rahman's face went pale. She saw that he was afraid-afraid of what she would do next-afraid that she would call out the name of the one he had wronged. But she could not utter it, although it was as near to her as her own. She felt paralyzed. She could neither weep nor shriek, only feel her knees buckle, her heart pound in its secret prison. The hot rage that coursed through her found no tongue. Mute seconds pa.s.sed, until she was ejected at last into the arms of the women in the adjoining room. The last thing she saw was Rahman, gloating at her, as the door was shut in her face.

Ali and Harry entered the small guard-chamber in front of the isolation room. Ali lingered in the doorway, breathing deeply to calm herself, while Harry sized up the three uniformed police guards and called out to one sitting at the table looking at a magazine.

"How's our man doing, Officer ... Dayton?" he said, reading the man's name off his badge. "Any peep out of him?"

"Naw. He's just sitting on the bed with his eyes shut, mouthing to himself in Arabic. Something like a rosary, from the sound of it."

"We need to have a look-see."

"Be my guest."

Ali shuddered as Harry took out his gun and laid it on the table. She didn't like guns and had never thought that he might have been carrying one. As he went to the inner door and keyed the combination, she eyed him charily. What other surprises might he have in store?

The ten-by-twelve-foot isolation room was mint green-green having been chosen by the psychiatrists as the most soothing color for the desperate and the deranged. There was a small bed with an iron frame and a thin mattress wrapped in taut military style with a green woolen blanket. Rahman was lying atop the blanket, his right wrist handcuffed to the bed frame. Even from a distance, the shock of seeing him gave Ali a knot in her stomach. The face of a man who could murder a thousand people. The face of a man who wants to kill my Jamie.

Rahman did not notice Ali, who hung back, watching through the doorway. He did glance at Harry as he came in, but then shut his eyes and continued his recitations.

Harry nodded to the guard who sat in a white plastic chair next to the bed. "Why don't you take five? We're gonna need to talk to him alone."

"Oh, thank you, Jesus!" said the guard. "I'm going nuts with all this chanting."

As the guard edged past him, Harry picked up the chair and moved it away from Rahman against the far wall, facing the bed. Then he signaled Ali to come inside. Her steps were almost silent, but Rahman seemed to sense a new presence and opened his eyes. As soon as he recognized her, he sat up abruptly.

"Aliyah, do you gloat to see me in the hands of the unbelievers?"

"What have you done, Rahman?" said Ali in an uncertain, reedy voice. "In the name of G.o.d, what have you done?"

Rahman jangled his handcuff mockingly. "Shall I dance for you, like a monkey in my cage?"

"You've gone too far this time!"

Rahman smiled at her-a smile dipped in strychnine. "Remember how we parted, standing over our father's shroud? You on one side, and I on the other. 'If I look on you again, may it be at your grave,' you said. Those were brave words, I thought. Not like women's words. How proud I was of you, even as I hated you."

"Is there really a bomb, Rahman?"

"Yes, there is."

"Here? In this hospital?"

"Why not?"

Ali's voice quavered, even as it swelled. "Because it is a place that is sacred to G.o.d. Warfare is forbidden here."

"I could show you hospitals in Gaza razed to the ground by these idolaters and Jews. Shall they wound us, and we not wound them?"

"Gaza be d.a.m.ned!" she exclaimed, so shrilly that Harry was taken aback. "You did this for money. Filthy money. You're a thief-nothing more."

"You talk of money! How much did you take to sell me to them?"

"I wouldn't take one cent for you. I would give you for nothing to the lowliest dog on the street."

Rahman grinned perversely. "So you did give me to them!"

"No, Rahman. Until this moment I would not have believed that you could get mixed up in such a thing as this. I didn't want to believe it, even of you."

Ali had been unconsciously edging toward the bed, and was already within reach of Rahman's free hand.

"That's close enough," Harry said. "Why don't you sit in that chair over there?"

Ali looked at Harry and Rahman, then grudgingly sat down on the very edge of the chair. "Why this hospital, Rahman? If you want to kill me, why do you have to do it this way? Why endanger all these others? There are innocent people here. There are sweet little children who have never thought harm to any living being."

"I don't have to explain myself to you."

"Do you know what it is we do here?" said Ali. "It is a house of G.o.d."

"Who are you to speak to me about G.o.d?"

"I know that killing is wickedness, and that a man one day answers for the evil that he does."

"In the Hadith it is written, 'G.o.d can change good into evil and evil into good.' What you call wickedness, I call devotion."

Ali's eyes flared. "You follow the doctrines of men, not G.o.d. When did G.o.d give men the right to change evil into good?"

Rahman waved his free hand in the air. "It is written, 'Slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them captives and besiege them and lie in wait for them ... Strive hard against the unbelievers and the hypocrites and be unyielding to them; their abode is h.e.l.l, and evil is their destination.'"

"That was written in the midst of war."

"We are at war now."

"Oh, Rahman! A man can justify anything. What you are doing is wrong. Every religion condemns it. Rationality condemns it."

Rahman dismissed her with a cutting motion. "It is written, 'O you who believe! surely from among your wives and your children there is an enemy to you; beware of them.'"

"I am not your enemy."

"Then why did you come here with this man?"

Ali started to rise, but Harry motioned her back down. "I asked her to," he said. "She's risked a lot to come down here and try to help you out by talking some sense into you before it's too late. She's trying to save your life, dumb-s.h.i.+t. You should kiss the ground she walks on."

"Why should I? She's your wh.o.r.e."

Ali shot out of the chair, and this time Harry couldn't hold her down. But instead of charging Rahman, she began to pace up and down the cell, finally stopping at the door and pressing her forehead against the tiny observation window. "Rahman, you're a fool," she said. "I never met this man until today. You always were one to judge others by your own lewdness."

"I see what I see." Rahman made a contemptuous hissing sound through his teeth. "I didn't ask you to plead for me. I owe you nothing."

Ali looked back over her shoulder. "What would Father have thought of this bomb?"

"Who are you to talk about Father?" said Rahman. "You dishonored him!" Rahman tried to slide to the edge of the bed, but was prevented by the handcuffs. After an angry tug on the chain, he moved back a little, with just his left foot dangling over the side. "He made a sacred promise, and you ... you ... s.h.i.+t upon it. A lawful contract of marriage, with a man of immaculate faith and reputation ... a golden consort ... forsaken by you, so you could go a-whoring after an unbeliever, a braying colt of an a.s.s."

"A-whoring? Aren't you speaking of my husband, Kevin?"

"He was no husband. Without Father's blessing, it was not a marriage-only wh.o.r.edom. And now you have deserted that man, too, and defiled yourself with another."

"What did you say?" Ali turned around and faced him with a startled look.

"I said you have deserted the man whom you call your husband, infidel though he be."

"What do you know of my affairs?"

"I know as G.o.d grants me to know. Listen to me, Aliyah, the Almighty is ever merciful. It is never too late to return to Him. If I could persuade you to do so, it would be the greatest happiness to me. It would be worth a hundred martyrdoms."

Ali edged toward him. It turned her stomach just to look on him, knowing what lay behind his sanctimonious smirk. "d.a.m.n you, you hypocrite! How dare you question my devotion! The pillars of my faith are as good as yours. They are to help G.o.d's children, to say 'Yes' to His created world, and to meet Him, not in the darkness of superst.i.tion, but with the totality of my mind and will. I question, because He made me to think. I live and love, because He made me to feel. I reach out to the sick and the dying. This, brother Rahman, is my Call. I submit myself to it in truth and humility."

"Justify what you will, you are still an apostate."

Ali edged closer, bending low, her face only a foot from his. "It's easy to accuse, brother, isn't it? But you are the libertine, not I. It is you who says, 'All is permitted.'"

"I do not betray my family and the traditions of my people."

"You betray mankind."

Rahman tugged at his handcuff. "You drove Father to his death. You defied him. For years you refused to speak to him. The torture of it broke his heart."

"I honored him in the highest way possible, by following in his footsteps."

"You killed him."

"No, Rahman. Do you speak of what broke his heart? You know full well what it was. He told me himself. Look me in the face! Don't hide your eyes from me! Say her name, Rahman! Say her name!"

"Go to h.e.l.l!"

"Wafaa! Tell me about Wafaa, Rahman! Wafaa! Her name was Wafaa! Even you cannot forget her!"

"You faithless wh.o.r.e!" Rahman lunged three times against his shackles, so violently that the bed slid along the floor. Unable to reach Ali, he pursed his lips and spat at her, hitting her with a slimy gob just below the right eye.

In a flash, Harry was on him, shoving him and the bed back against the wall. He swung his fist as if to pummel him, but Ali quickly stretched out her hand between the two men. For a moment, no one said anything. Harry stepped back, his fist still clenched. Rahman sat panting against the wall.

"Very brave of you." Ali's voice was quavering, but she spoke clearly and evenly, directing each word like a scalpel. She looked for words that would cut him to the quick. He deserved no pity. He had already killed one whom she had loved. And now, he had stretched his hands toward Jamie. "Save your courage, my brother. You talk of death as though it were an exercise in penmans.h.i.+p. But it is not death that awaits you. It is pain. Yes, pain. Did you not think that they would torture you? To save two thousand lives, will they not torture you? They will find out how weak you are, Rahman. They will, because I will tell them. I will tell how you shrieked like a baby when you cut your foot on a nail. I will tell how you let your teeth rot, for fear of the dentist. You have a woman's skin, Rahman. You fear pain more than anything in the world."

"Get out!"

If she could have, she would have poured boiling oil on him. But she had only words. "Look at you. See how you've broken out in a sweat. And this is just me, Rahman. When the torturer arrives, he will go to work on you in earnest. How long will you hold out then? How long before you lie on the floor, whimpering and begging for it to stop? You will tell everything, betray everything. And after they have broken you, after you have beheld the faces of the comrades you have dragged after you into prison, then let me hear how boldly you talk."

"Get out! Out!" shouted Rahman.

Ali was shaking. She saw terror in Rahman's eyes, and it made her want to hurt him even more. But that very desire turned against her and sickened her. She realized to her surprise that her fear of Rahman had never been about what Rahman might do to her. It was about this-the monster of rage and cruelty that lurked within her, waiting to take control.

The thought carried with it a wave of nausea. "Please let me out of here!" she said, turning toward Harry, while Rahman unleashed a guttural torrent of vituperation. "Now!"

At that moment, there was a noise behind her, and Ali turned to see the door open as two of the men who had presided over her interrogation-the short Asian and the tall African American-rushed into the room.

"What in G.o.d's name is going on here?" shouted Lee in a thin, strained voice.

Rahman was still at fever pitch. "So, you have all ganged up to kill me!" he shouted to Lee and Scopes.

Seeing Harry, Lee's eyes flared. "Both of you, out of this room! Now!" he said.