I wanted to howl at these assholes. What are you doing? He’s a sweet old man! He’s practically deaf! His son is missing! Don’t you have any humanity?
Detective Tim leaned over the car.
“Some of these detectives are going to talk to his parents down at the station….”
Amazing. He thought Mona was Amir’s mom. Amazing and gross.
“In the meantime, maybe you can help me out,” Detective Tim continued, slipping back into that same off-putting easygoing persona, as if this scenario weren’t some surreal horror, but just two people chatting. He began scrolling through his phone with his thumb. “You mentioned that Amir’s friends overseas were musicians….” He squinted into the screen. “But I have here in my notes that some—”
“No,” I croaked.
He paused and glanced down. “No, what? No, some aren’t musicians?”
“No, I’m not going to wait here with you.” I gripped the wheel with both hands, my gaze flickering between Detective Tim and Mr. Ammouri as he was hustled into a van. I glanced toward the front door. Mona’s path was blocked; she couldn’t accompany her own dad.
Detective Tim slapped the hood of the car. “Okay, then. That’s fine, Salma. I’d advise you to get some rest. I’ll be following up with you and your parents first thing in the morning.” Then he slipped me his business card. “In case you hear from Amir,” he said.
* * *
—
I knew I’d have to contact my parents at some point. But instead of heading home, I drove back to PC Galaxy. Right now Amir was my only priority. None of my WhatsApp messages were showing up as read. Delivered, yes, but not yet read. And if he wasn’t there…what next? He might be hiding out with Mr. Epstein. If his night had turned out remotely like mine, then anything was possible.
The parking lot was empty. Fear rose up inside, so I fought the only way I knew how: by focusing on the task at hand. Pining for the Jetta wouldn’t help him or me. I took solace in action: parking the Bolt, flipping my hoodie over my head, hurrying inside. The pudgy clerk at the front was still there. Still gaming. I pulled my phone out of my pocket, opened photos, and waved Amir’s face in front of him.
“Hey? Have you seen him tonight?”
“Huh?”
“Look at the screen,” I snapped.
He shot me a dirty look, his cheeks sagging, but obliged. “No, I haven’t,” he groaned, annoyed. “Feel free to take a look around.”
I tossed another few bucks on the stool. My phone told me it was 2:57 a.m., but my mind was hyperalert and my body seemed unaware of being depleted, as if it had simply abandoned the normal cycle of day and night. I paced the café. No sign of Amir, or anyone else. Deserted, it seemed darker and smellier than before. The stale air reeked of sweat and beer and leftover cigarettes. Smoking was prohibited, of course. I scowled at a beer can. It sat beside the mouse at a desktop, discarded after being used as an ashtray. It made me think of Mrs. Turner, the frantic way she’d put her cigarette aside and picked it back up again. I hadn’t even known she was a smoker.
Slumping down at the computer, I couldn’t fight the fear or the pining any longer. I willed Amir to reach out. I took a different sort of action: I typed three words into my phone, words I should have said out loud a thousand times.
I love you.
Delivered, but not read. Would it be enough? Would it carry some unseen weight or magic or barakah that could tip the scale? Provide the response I craved, insha’Allah?
Seconds later, the two little WhatsApp checks shifted from unread to read—from depressing gray to Morpho blue. My heart leapt. I texted again:
U there?
Text bubbles loaded and loaded and disappeared….Nothing was delivered.
I gripped the phone. My palms were damp; my hands shook. I typed his name.
Amir?
The message was stuck in the ether; only half of the process had been completed. One gray tick instead of two. The server had uploaded the data but couldn’t download it onto Amir’s phone. Which meant, he was…offline. Somewhere. With me, but not with me. Gone, just like that. I closed my eyes, trying to breathe again. I was no longer in physical pain, but my spirit was bound in barbed wire. And I’d been here before. Not in this awful place, but here. At a computer, fueled by anger, and with tools at my disposal.
Hang on, I typed.
I didn’t know when he would receive it, or if it would ever get to him. But I wouldn’t worry about it. Tucking my phone away, I sat down, powering on to start with what I knew—which wasn’t much. But the most crucial bit of knowledge: Mrs. Turner had warned me I was in danger just before Amir went missing. Clearly we were both in danger. But why and from whom? What did I, Salma B., have to do with Mr. Turner’s weird alias, or the stuff about the Seven Jewels and the Twelve Generals and the five-hundred-year war and blasphemy?
Focus, focus…
Google was the homepage, of course. Perfect place to start. I’d keep my searches simple at first, preferring not to access the Dark Web here. Yes, I was (basically) alone; besides, I’d keep my searches untraceable. Although who knew what surveillance the gamer had rigged up under his not-so-watchful eye? For a moment I closed my eyes, envisioning the Morpho in the garden, focusing on its beauty as I breathed in and out. I reminded myself who I was. I was a hacker. I was methodical. I’d go one step at a time. Maybe I should start with the totally incomprehensible and work backward. There was that Latin word she harped on; what did it mean? Inter-set…something. And Columbus.
As I typed, it popped right up on Google: Inter Caetera.
Reading the Wikipedia entry on Inter Caetera, a song from kindergarten popped into my head. Oh, Columbus…with the Nina and the Pinta and the Santa Maria, too. My mind and body might be succumbing to exhaustion after all. Delirium was kicking in. It was relevant, of course; Columbus sailed to America in 1492, and Inter Caetera was a legal document written by Pope Alexander VI right afterward. There was a link to the full document. I read that, too. I had to, if I were to remain rational, detached, methodical. I thought of Olivia Benson, how no clue, no matter how trivial or random, was ever ignored. I was open to any possibility, anything that would lead me to Amir, even a modern-day needle in a medieval haystack.
The language was archaic. The gist was simple enough to understand, though. God and the Church and Europe’s royal families—the document put them all on equal footing, above the rest of humanity—were happily bequeathing (the document’s word, not mine) all the lands to the “west,” aka “the Americas,” to Spain’s “beloved son”: the one and only Columbus. It was their divine right to do so because the nations of the new world were “barbarian” and therefore in need of such a “holy blessing.”
I thought of Titi. I knew from her that Berbers loathed being called Berber. It literally means the same exact thing: barbarian. The term isn’t theirs. It was thrust on them by the same sorts of people. I never took it that seriously or that personally. But sitting here at the computer, reading this grossly arrogant document, I felt the same disgust, the same anger she did. It suddenly and viscerally dawned on me how a single word or label can yield so much power. Berber. Barbarian. Infidel. All were weaponized. Connected. And so were these histories.
What else? Mrs. Turner had mentioned the “Ninety-Three-ers.” The papal document was written in 1493, the number inked on the Turners’ bodies. So it was an identity thing, a little subtler than a swastika, but basically the same message. I knew from tenth-grade AP History that 1493 was the height of the Spanish Inquisition, when Jews and Muslims were given the impossible choice of death, expulsion, or forced conversion. Right around the same time, the Crusades officially came to an end. Or so I remembered from my boring old textbook…although a thought dawned on me.
Maybe that book was more outdated than it looke
d. Maybe it was wrong, period. The Crusades didn’t end with the Reconquista. They simply turned in the opposite direction. To the West. Across the ocean to the New World. Home sweet home. Of course: the “five-hundred-year war” for America. The Turners were fighting it….“They believe it, and that makes it real enough,” Mrs. Turner had said. Did they want to convert me because I was white and Muslim? Was that it? I ignored the sting in my chest. Just yesterday (was it only yesterday?) Amir had tried to convince me to watch Kingdom of Heaven…had he been trying to tell me something, too? No, of course he hadn’t.
I needed to get a grip. My mind was spinning out of control and that damn Columbus song was still playing. A continuous eerie loop, in the back of my head. I couldn’t get it out. I felt ashamed that it was still there. Ashamed and pissed. Was it lodged in the brains of Yasmin and Hala? Were we all equally conditioned, state-educated sponges? Singing about one of the worst genocides in history as if it were all rainbows and butterflies?
Um…hello? Salma B.? You have no idea where your missing boyfriend is.
Onward.
I held my breath, and suddenly realized my phone was buzzing. I yanked it out of my pocket.
It was just after five and Mom was texting me.
BY THE TIME I made it back to Mason Terrace, the sun had cracked the horizon, scattering the cover of darkness. The curtains in the bay window were wide open. Mom was pacing back and forth in front of the sofa like she, too, was in need of a savior. There was zero point in trying to sneak in. Mom knew I was out. Her sparse text said as much.
Come home this instant.
As I pulled into the garage, I noticed that the minivan was gone. I was out for so long Dad was probably out there, losing his mind, looking for me. I parked the car and walked over to the house. A sparrow chirped. The sky brightened. It was tranquil, just another late-spring Sunday morning in Arlington. If only.
Steeling myself for a lecture, I pushed the front door open. I would take it.
Mom stood still. Hala and Yasmin were sprawled on the sofa, half-asleep and half-intertwined. It was Sunday. Why did she pull them out of bed? To make an example of me: Salma, the miscreant? The wild teen who stole the car, probably to liaise with her boyfriend? Salma the haram? Fine. There was nothing to do at this point but tell the truth.
“Thank goodness!” Mom screamed, running to my side. “You’re home! Safe and sound.”
I stared at her. Safe and sound? Thank goodness?
“Mom, I—”
“Girls!” she interrupted, clapping her hands at Hala and Yasmin. “Wake up! We need to get going.” She turned around and clasped my arms, looking deeply into my uncomprehending eyes. “I don’t care where you were. You can explain it to me later. Right now, Titi is all that matters.”
I felt as if I were in some parallel universe. “Why? What’s going on?
“Titi had a stroke. Sometime after two in the morning.”
At that point, sleep deprivation finally won. My knees buckled. I collapsed—luckily into Titi’s favorite chair, the one Grandma Thiede had given her as a welcoming present several years ago. A stroke, a few minutes after I left. Titi must have discovered I’d snuck out.
“But she’s okay, right, Mom?”
“It was a minor stroke, according to the doctors,” she said, nudging my sisters. “So that’s good? She’s weak. Very, very weak.”
“And Dad?” I asked.
“He’s there with her now—”
Just then there was a loud knock. A second, a third, and then dead silence.
Detective Tim, no doubt. I shut my eyes and nervously twisted my ring as Mom hurried to answer. Was he here to continue that conversation? Had Amir been found? Arrested? A thousand questions swirled in my head.
“Oh! Hi.” Her voice was high and welcoming. It was someone she knew; not the cops. My eyes popped open. Someone she…Amir? I rushed to her side—
Mr. Turner stood on our stoop. Hope evaporated. Not only did Mr. Turner look freakishly calm, but he had Drexler, on leash, like he was doing the morning walk. Mr. Turner never walked the dog. Mrs. Turner had made that abundantly clear.
Mr. Turner pulled his attention away from Mom, looked me in the eye, and tightened his smile.
“I saw an ambulance at your house last night. Is everything all right?”
I stared back. The subtext was clear to me, as clear as day. He did something to Mrs. Turner. He was up and watching my house in the middle of the night. His wife was missing. Amir was missing. He was the missing link.
“My mother-in-law, she…” Mom stopped, almost breaking down in tears. “She had a stroke.”
“Oh dear. That is awful,” he said, as if he even cared. “I’m so sorry to hear that. Can I do anything?”
“No, thank you,” Mom answered. “We are about to go to the hospital.”
“All of you?”
Mom nodded.
Mr. Turner’s crinkly eyes remained on me. “I’ve been through these ordeals before, waiting for my fellow vets to recover. I know what a strain it can be. I’m off this morning. Mrs. Turner is at home resting. Why don’t you leave the girls with me?”
“No!” I cried.
Mom shot me a disapproving scowl.
I tried to smile. “I mean…no thanks. We have two cars. We’re fine. Um, I can watch my sisters, and we’re just fine.” I reached for the doorknob.
“I think what Salma meant to say is that we thank you for your kindness,” Mom grumbled.
Kyle Sr. nodded, a bundle of fake concern. “Of course, I understand. But the offer stands—”
I closed the door on him before he could finish. Ignoring Mom’s aghast expression, I bolted the lock and stood on my tiptoes to peek through the six small windows at the top of the door—watching him as he trekked back to his own home. There were lights on in the dining room. Several people were gathered there, engrossed in a conversation. An odd hour to have guests. Someone stood and drew the shades. Someone who was not Mrs. Turner. I slumped at the door.
Fortunately, Mom seemed to have given up on me and had started gathering my sisters.
“Let’s get to the hospital, girls.”
* * *
—
With my sisters resting in the back of the Bolt and Mom intent on getting to the hospital as fast as possible, I reclined my seat and turned toward the window, cupping my phone to continue with my research. Even if Mom knew that I was on it, she would probably assume that I was sending Amir love notes. Let her think that. Let her punish me. None of it mattered now. Only the truth mattered.
After a few more dead ends, I stumbled upon something promising—not to mention ironic, considering I was now under my mother’s thumb. She, more than anyone, would appreciate it: a graduate thesis from Academia.edu entitled “The Dangers of Theocratic Politics and the Seven Jewel Mandate,” by Mary Whitaker. Academic jargon aside, the preamble hooked me. Members of the movement had embarked on a modern-day “crusade”—their code for domestic terrorism—against Satan, nonbelievers, and the army of -isms: multiculturalism, liberalism, feminism, secularism. According to Whitaker, they’d been at this for decades, by slowly infiltrating the seven jewels: religion, family, education, media, the arts, business, and government.
Right, thanks, Mary. Now I understood what 7J stood for. Apparently the seventh jewel—that of government, was the most precious. One jewel to rule them all.
Even crazier, they had so-called Prophets who gave orders to a standing army, orders that came from God Almighty.
How convenient. Maybe they could ask God where Amir was.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t dig deeper; the site wouldn’t allow it. Not one more word. Unless I paid. Mom’s credit card wasn’t handy. Her hands gripped the wheel, her lips in a tight line.
If Mr. Turner was a general in some wacked-ou
t underground movement, then this was…bad. As in dangerous. Maybe the Turners were on the same “Punish a Muslim” vibe as Michelle and Chris. Maybe Michelle and Chris were part of their movement. Or maybe I was paranoid and none of this was real. I mean, so what if the Turners might be a little nutty on the religious side? Crazy people aren’t always violent. Sometimes they’re just good old crazy. America is a free society. People can believe whatever they want to—that God speaks to them, that God has given them orders, whatever.
I slouched into the seat. This was pathetic. I was pathetic. Nowhere. Nowhere near finding Amir, who was still MIA. Nowhere near figuring out how the Turners and their mission were related to Amir’s disappearance. Besides, my discoveries were so wild and esoteric I had trouble believing them myself. I could see Dora and Boots spoofing my paranoia in one of their video parodies. Maybe even uploading it to—
YouTube.
Why didn’t it dawn on me before? Why didn’t I check the world’s second-largest search engine, also known as the worldwide pulpit, where everything from the sacred to the profane to the middle-of-the-road harmless animal video reached the masses?
Minutes later I stumbled upon a promising channel: “RealGenerals93.”
I patted my pocket. Good. Earbuds. I slipped them on and clicked play so Mom couldn’t hear. The top link featured a flabby man in a ski mask, no shirt, holding an assault rifle. Charming. He had a ghoul-white chest. Could he be the same guy I’d seen? I clicked Play, mostly to see if he had blue eyes. The video began with a close-up of a woman; she was pretty and fair, almost like a younger Kate Turner. She sat on a grassy lawn, like those real estate sites. As the camera zoomed out, ominous music kicked in: “There are truths we’d rather ignore, choices we’d rather avoid,” a deep voice intoned. “Neither is an option. We, the white tribes of the West, have seen our countries wounded by ghettos, migrating hordes, and internal parasites. By breeding communities that fail or refuse to integrate.”
No True Believers Page 17
