Abuse of Power - Michael Savage [66]
A moment later they lay still on the carpet, their breath labored, Abdal still struggling with his dark thoughts.
Before he could stop himself, he said, “I didn’t go to America on business.”
“I know,” she said softly.
Abdal was surprised. “But how?”
“I’m not stupid, Abdal. I know what you believe in, and I know you’re working with people who believe the same. You’ve been planning something together for several weeks now.”
He must have looked dumbfounded.
“You never tell me about the texts you receive,” she explained. “You do not speak to friends, do not appear to have any. You scan a restaurant, a park, the underground when we first arrive as though looking for someone—someone you hope not to find. You are not just a private man, Abdal, you work at it. You cultivate anonymity.”
He was stunned. She was better at this than he was. Abdal had never suspected she was studying him.
“Can’t you see that’s why this student’s death upset me so?”
“Yes,” Abdal said. “Yes, of course.”
“I don’t understand why you feel the need to keep it hidden from me,” she went on. “We both want the same thing. As the Koran tells us, ‘A life for a life, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and for wounds … retaliation.’ We both want retaliation.”
He nodded. She had obviously spent a lot of time considering this.
“I want to help you, Abdal. I want to be part of what you’re part of. To be one with you, just as we are when we make love. And if you’re to die, I want to die alongside you.”
These last words struck like a dagger. He had been on the verge of telling her everything but stopped himself, hard. It was one thing to risk his own life. He wouldn’t risk hers as well.
“I only hide these things to protect you, Sara.”
“You think I need protection?” she said sharply.
“It isn’t that,” he said. “I can’t bear the thought of anything happening to you. I won’t take that chance.”
“That is my decision to make.”
“Sometimes we are too close to our feelings to think rationally—”
“That too is Allah’s way. He will guide me. He knows that what we seek is right.”
Abdal was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “I’m sorry, Sara. I won’t. I can’t.”
She said nothing. Not with words. She just got to her feet, grabbed her bed shirt and disappeared into the bathroom.
Abdal waited several minutes, then pulled his clothes back on, went to the door, and knocked.
She didn’t answer, even after he called out her name.
A moment later the shower started and he knew she wanted nothing to do with him for the rest of the night.
She was, he thought, preparing herself for the inevitable.
Perhaps she was wiser than he.
Perhaps he should prepare himself as well.
* * *
Hassan Haddad stood in the shadow of a large oak tree, watching the woman’s window. It was dark up there, though he had an idea what was going on. He had seen Abdal’s woman enter the place two hours earlier. Sara Ghadah. He had followed her from the College of Islam where she worked, and he could only assume that they weren’t playing backgammon. He had seen Abdal arrive an hour later. He stayed for an hour more and had just left.
Alone.
Haddad was leaving the country soon, and there were things to be done, but this was the second night in a row he had come here. The second night in a row he had followed the woman. The second night in a row he had seen that fool Iranian come and go.
The first time he saw Ghadah, Haddad felt she was possibly the most alluring woman he had ever seen. It struck him as odd that she would be attracted to the likes of a weakling like Abdal. What could he possibly offer a woman like this?
It was then that Haddad became suspicious of her. He had decided that there must be another explanation for her presence in Abdal’s life. Yet when he had checked into her background he discovered nothing