The Witness (26 page)

“I’m so sorry,” Marwan said, sticking his foot out to keep a cabbage from rolling away. He bent down to pick the vegetable up but realized he had no hands to lift it.

“Oh no,” Rima answered with a laugh as she squatted down and retrieved the bag’s contents. “It’s my fault.”

When she noticed what Marwan was carrying, a mortified look crossed her face. “Did my husband ask you to . . . ? Naheem Nour! How could you have—?”

“Please, Mrs. Nour. It’s not like that,” Marwan interrupted. “I asked to do it. I wanted to give them some time alone.”

Rima looked at Marwan for a moment, then nodded, although she still seemed only half-satisfied with that answer. Leaving the groceries by the front door, she took the tray from his hands and shooed him back to the couch with the others.

A minute or two later, she reappeared with the cups nicely arranged on a much newer and bigger tray. Along with the coffee, she had also placed several small bowls with nuts and dried fruits. With a chastising look at her husband, she served her guests. After passing her hand softly along her daughter’s cheek, she retreated to the kitchen.

“I didn’t mean to get you in trouble,” Marwan said to Naheem.

The older man just laughed.

Marwan leaned forward to grab a handful of nuts, while the other two sipped their coffee. He realized that it had been hours since he and Dalia had eaten, and he was famished.

“Well, you were only wrong about one thing.” Naheem held his cup toward Marwan and said in a conspiratorial whisper, “This coffee might actually be better than Rima’s.”

Now it was Marwan’s turn to laugh.

Naheem took another sip, then put down his cup and slapped his hand on Marwan’s thigh. “Well, Mr. Tariq Jameel, my daughter has been telling me a little about who you are and how you met. I have to admit, though, I’m still not totally getting what it is you do, possibly because it seems that Dalia is not even sure.”

Oh, great, here it comes. The Grand Inquisition.

“I’m a computer consultant, sir,” he offered.

“And this computer consulting takes you all over the world—Europe, Egypt, Lebanon, the Far East?

“Yes, sir. You see, I help banks and insurance companies and other multinationals develop security systems to safeguard their mainframes from hackers, viruses, Trojan horses, that kind of thing.”

Dalia’s father laughed out loud. “Well, God bless you, Tariq. I have no idea what you just said. But at least it sounds like something that provides a decent living.”

“It does indeed, sir.”

“You may be more of a godsend to me than you know. Every time I start up my computer, it seems to be taking longer and longer. When it does come up, I get all these different things popping up on my screen for programs I never remember purchasing.”

Thankfully, the conversation seemed to be going in a direction that would keep him away from questions along the lines of
“What are your intentions with my daughter?”
Marwan said, “A lot of that has to do with things that have attached themselves to your computer when you download something. Do you want me to take a look at it?” He began to stand.

But Naheem caught his shoulder with a surprisingly strong hand and sat him back down. “We have plenty of time for that later. You sound like you’ve got a bit of a Lebanese accent. Were you born in Beirut?”

Internally Marwan flinched.
How much can I tell him about my past without putting him and Mrs. Nour in danger? It seems that the less they know about me the better. But it’s getting harder and harder to lie to these good people.

Marwan knew he’d made a mistake coming here. If the people looking for him were able to trace him to Kadeen, they certainly would be able to track him to the Nours.
What an amateur mistake! I let my heart overrule my brain!

But then he saw Dalia, sitting under her father’s arm with her hand laid gently on his side. That’s when he knew there had been no other choice. This was meant to be. It was almost as if the force drawing them had simply been too powerful to resist.

Let’s just hope that same power can protect them if the bullets start flying.

57

When Marwan began speaking, he was almost surprised that what came out was the truth. “Yes, sir. I grew up in Beirut in the eighties. It was kind of a scary time to be a kid, as you can imagine, with the civil war and all. Everybody, Christians and Muslims, killed each other in the name of religion, each claiming God was on their side. And I hope this won’t offend you, sir, but the whole thing kind of soured me on religion. In my neighborhood, people who called themselves Christians were constantly blowing people up and destroying everything in sight. They weren’t the only ones, of course, but it all left a bad taste in my mouth.”

Dalia’s head lifted up from her dad’s chest, and Marwan could see a concerned look in her eyes. But he kept going.

“Because I grew up in a ‘Christian’ home,” Marwan said, air-quoting the word
Christian
, “I pretty much had to sympathize with the Christian fighters. But I kept away from the fighting. To be honest, I hated them all—Christians and Muslims alike. Which side do you choose when they are both equally evil?”

“That’s an impossible choice for a young man to make,” Naheem said.

“Then, when I was a teenager, I watched as a car bomb took my parents from my brother and me—a bomb placed by a Christian,” he said angrily. He didn’t know why he was working himself up so much, pouring his heart out to someone who, until an hour ago, was a total stranger. “So you can see where I’m coming from when I tell you with the utmost respect, sir, that although I greatly respect you as a person, I have no use for your beliefs.”

Dalia stared at him with horror. Marwan wondered if she was seeing all her hopes for a happy extended family flying out the window. He gave her a look intended to say,
What can I tell you? I have to be honest!

“I’m going to go see if I can help Mom,” Dalia said, getting up. Apparently her stress at the conversation was getting to be too much.

But for all the shock Dalia was feeling, Naheem just smiled a sad smile. “I’m so sorry for your loss, son. No child should see their parents taken like that. No child should
have
their parents taken like that. But please believe me when I tell you that those people who did that to your mother and father were not Christians.”

“Well, that would be news to them.”

“Yes, I’m sure it would be. But just because someone calls himself a Christian, it doesn’t necessarily make it true.” He leaned forward, plucked a nut out of one of the bowls on the table, and held it up to Marwan. “If I told you I was a pistachio, what would you say?”

“You’re crazy.”

“Why? What if I really believed myself to be a pistachio? What right do you have to say I’m not?”

“Well, because it’s obvious you’re not a nut—although it would be quite possible that you’re nuts,” he said with a laugh. “But I guess I would just say that you and a pistachio are so completely different that it would be absurd if you called yourself one.”

“Precisely! Jesus said that if we were truly his followers—true Christians—we would obey him. And what were the two things he told us to do? Love God and love others. Now, when you think about what those people did to your parents, how is it any more absurd for me to call myself a pistachio than it is for them to call themselves Christians?” And with that, Naheem peeled back the shell and popped the nut into his smiling mouth.

“Fair enough. It just seems like in all of history, religion and violence have gone hand in hand. That’s why I decided long ago I wanted nothing to do with religion.”

“How interesting. I remember making that very same decision.”

“What made you decide to come back to it?”

Naheem gave him a surprised look. “Back to it? Why would I ever want to go back to it?”

“But . . . I mean . . . well, aren’t you the pastor of a church?”

“Yes, I am,” Naheem said, taking a bite of a dried apricot. “But at my church, we don’t practice religion. Instead, we rejoice in a relationship. We don’t preach Christianity; we preach and worship Christ. And trust me, son, there’s a huge difference.”

Marwan sat silently, trying to process what the pastor had said and wondering at the feelings welling up inside him. This man was single-handedly breaking down all the walls he had built against the church. He was redefining what it meant to be a follower of Christ.

“Tell you what,” Naheem said, rising to his feet with two audible pops of his knees, “you look like you’ve got a little bit you need to consider. In the meantime, why don’t I show you that computer?”

Marwan gratefully followed him down the hall to one of the bedrooms that doubled as an office, happy to finally be facing a situation he felt he could actually handle.

58

Goddard was sitting in a small coffee shop in downtown Beirut when his phone rang. He checked the caller ID, then answered it anyway.

“Any progress with Accad’s brother?” the Skeleton demanded without so much as a greeting.

“Some,” Goddard said, pushing away the plate with the small pastry. Talking with Lemieux always made him lose his appetite.

“Did he break?”

“No.”

“He didn’t tell you where Marwan Accad is?” Lemieux pressed.

“No.”

“What did he give you?”

“Very little. So I threw him in jail.”

“You did
what
?”

“I threw him in jail. What did you expect me to do?” Goddard shot back, pushing away from his table and walking outside to avoid listening ears. The night was well lit by streetlights and signs, the air just beginning to cool.

“Make him give us his brother, you fool,” Lemieux retorted.

“That’s why I put him in jail. I don’t think a man like Ramy Accad is going to want to spend much time in a Beirut prison.”

“And I don’t think you give these Accad brothers enough credit. They’re smart, they’re dangerous, and they’re fiercely loyal to each other. If you want any information from Ramy, you’re going to have to be more forceful with him.”

Goddard wasn’t sure he was really hearing what he thought he was hearing. A car with its stereo’s bass thumping enough to shake its windows was slowly driving by. He waited until it passed before he said quietly, “Are you telling me to torture him?”

“No, you idiot! How dare you accuse me of that! What I am saying is that you are in Beirut of all places, where the rules of interrogation are different. If things happened to get physical, no one would ever know.”

“So you are telling me to torture him.”

“No! I’m telling you to get from him the information that we need. And if you are too squeamish to provide the proper encouragement, I’m sure you can find someone around there who is not.”

The city was noisy with horns honking and people talking and laughing, but an icy silence filled the line as Goddard worked through Lemieux’s words.

Finally the inspector spoke. “You said you made some progress, but it sounds like you’ve got nothing. Which is it?”

“I did make some progress,” Goddard answered, trying to put aside his rapidly growing disgust for his superior.

“Let’s hear it.”

“We tapped Ramy’s satellite phone account.”

“At last, an intelligent move. What did you discover?”

Ignoring the slight, Goddard continued, “It turns out he’s got a dozen armed men in the mountains outside of São Paulo. Guess who they’re holding?”

The line was silent.

“Inspector, did you hear what I just said?”

But Lemieux said nothing.

“It’s Mrs. Ramsey. They’ve got Claudette Ramsey,” Goddard said, dropping his bombshell and waiting for the reaction.

But there was none. The line was still silent.

“I’ve just dispatched one of my teams there to arrest them all and help rescue Mrs. Ramsey,” Goddard continued. “They’re coordinating with the Brazilian authorities even as we speak.”

Goddard waited for something—anything—but Lemieux said nothing.

“Are you still there, Inspector?” he asked.

“Yes, I’m here.”

“Do you understand what I’m saying? This could prove the Accads’ involvement in the kidnapping. Forty-eight hours from now, Mrs. Ramsey will be safely back in Monte Carlo, and I’ll be able to debrief her about everything. We have Marwan Accad dead to rights. So let me congratulate you, sir, on being right about him all along. Can I expect you to join us in Monte Carlo?”

“I’ll have to get back to you on that,” Lemieux said absently. Then the phone went dead.

Goddard stood on the street trying to figure out what had just happened. That conversation had definitely gone in a direction he hadn’t planned. He didn’t know what exactly it meant, but he did know that the alarm bells that had been ringing for a long time about Lemieux were rapidly increasing in volume.

59

For the next hour, Marwan deleted files and restructured the computer’s start-up.

“Please be more careful about the programs you download, Pastor Nour,” he said. “If you didn’t have such good antivirus software, your whole computer would be compromised by now. Also, I’ve installed an anti-spyware program to keep out all that extra stuff that finds its way onto your hard drive without you even knowing it.”

“Thank you.” Naheem patted Marwan on the back. “You have blessed me greatly, but you may have blessed my computer even more.”

Rima’s voice rang through the apartment, calling them to dinner. It was all Marwan could do to not run to the table. The smells had been gradually filling the home, and now the whole place smelled like an Arab spice market.

Marwan pulled out the chair for Rima, then did the same for Dalia, all the while noticing the amused look on Naheem’s face. Then Dalia’s father held out his hands, and everyone else followed suit, Marwan only slightly belatedly. Once everyone was linked together, Naheem prayed.

“Our Lord, you have blessed us today in a way we could never have imagined. You brought our daughter home. You truly are a God who answers prayer. Thank you for watching over her while she was gone. Thank you for never letting her out of your strong, loving grasp. Thank you . . .”