“I’m not his son, I’m his nephew.”
“Good to know.” Ruth handed Savich a well-worn alligator wallet. Inside was a New York driver’s license, three credit cards, five hundred dollars in cash, and a photo of a woman with three children surrounding her. “So, Mr. Salila,” Savich said, looking at him, “you’re Samir Basara’s advance man. I don’t see this young man in the photo, so I guess he didn’t lie, you are his uncle. What is his name?”
Salila didn’t say anything.
Ollie shook his head. “No wallet on him. Ruth, keep an eye on him. I’ll check the drawers in that pigsty of a bedroom.”
“You will not call us pigs. We are men,” Salila said, and spat at Ollie.
“It won’t help you if you continue to be rude,” Ruth said, and punched him in the arm. “You’re already in very big trouble.”
“You are nothing but a stupid woman, you mean nothing. Look at you, dressed in your trousers, playing at being a man.”
She smiled, patted his blackened face. “You need to rethink that, Mr. Salila. I’m the one who has you handcuffed to a chair.”
Salila stared at each of them, at his nephew sitting on the sofa opposite him. “I demand you let us go. We have done nothing wrong.”
Savich raised his eyebrow. “Would you like to explain the six Glocks in the bedroom closet, or care to tell us what you’re doing with all that highly illegal C-4?”
Salila shook his head.
His nephew said, “We know nothing about firearms. Perhaps the last person who stayed here left them.”
Ollie came back into the living room, holding a wallet. “I found this under a dirty shirt. We’ve been talking to Mr. Asad Salila. So your uncle here, Husam Salila, has a brother. Is your father in the terrorist business, too?”
Salila said nothing. He frowned at his nephew when he started to speak, and Asad lowered his head.
“When is Basara to arrive?” Savich asked him.
Salila started, then grew very still. “I do not know any Basara.”
“Is that a fact? I see you live in New York. Did you help him with trying to bomb Saint Patrick’s? You were the handler for those three who tried to kill Agent Sherlock?”
He stayed silent, but his breath quickened.
“They sure mucked that up, didn’t they, Mr. Salila? Did Basara have no one else left to help him after he flew into Baltimore?”
Salila looked at Savich. “It is all impossible what you say. How do you know all this?”
“I also know Basara called you from the Four Seasons hotel at midnight last night.”
Salila’s mouth fell open. “That is impossible. You are lying to me.”
Savich reached his hand into Salila’s shirt pocket and pulled out his cell. He waved it in Salila’s face. “Your cell phone came to me and whispered all its secrets. Now let’s see what you’ve been up to since you arrived in Washington.”
Savich scrolled through the call list. There were only three. One from Basara and two to a number in New York. His family?
“Tell me, when Basara arrived here, were you planning to plant the C-4 around Agent Sherlock’s house and blow her up? You see, it’s also my house, and that of our five-year-old son.”
Savich saw the pulse pounding wildly in Salila’s neck. Savich knew he was afraid, he knew failure was staring him in the face, but he managed to hold himself together. “If that is so, what happens to your house is her own doing. Your fate is in Allah’s hands.”
“Whatever that means,” Ollie said.
“We are all in Allah’s hands,” Salila said. “And those who commit evil, Allah will see that they pay for their sins.”
Ruth said, “I can’t imagine Allah encourages you to murder innocent people, like the hundreds of people at that funeral in Saint Patrick’s in New York. So will Allah make you pay, Salila? Will Basara pay? Basara will come and we’ll catch him, you know.”
Savich knew he couldn’t ask Salila to call Basara, even if Basara was expecting him to call. Salila would warn him if given the chance, no matter how Savich threatened him. He also realized he could make as many threats as he could think of and Salila would never give him up. What had Basara done to earn such loyalty?
Salila closed his eyes and his lips moved in a prayer. Asad stared at his uncle, fear bleaching his newly shaved face bone white.
Salila’s cell phone rang. And rang.
SIXTEENTH STREET NW
Cal turned off the siren and flashers and seamed back into traffic as he turned right off Sixteenth onto U Street. “We’re close, maybe five minutes to Nyland.”