If you had a gun you’d shoot me dead, wouldn’t you, Shadid? But he kept himself silent. Sherlock gave a slight nod to Kelly.
Kelly picked it up. “Perhaps, Agent Sherlock, we’ve reduced the Strategist to using amateurs. I mean, after the three of you flew into New York yesterday, what did you do? Eat pizza and sleep in your rental car? Wouldn’t the Strategist and Imam Al-Hädi ibn Mirza spring for a cheap hotel room?”
“See here, Agent Sherlock,” Cal said, jumping to his feet, “enough of these puerile insults. You are not asking legitimate questions of this young man—”
Kelly snorted. “Maybe you’d better define puerile for him, Mr. Clark-Wittier, he doesn’t look very bright. His actions sure prove me right, don’t they? What will the Strategist say about you, Mr. Shadid, after seeing the three of you screw everything up?”
Sherlock said, “I don’t know if you care, Mifsud, but Kenza will never use her hand again, too many bones shattered from my bullet in her wrist.”
“The Strategist will kill you!” Mifsud yelled, and leapt to his feet, shaking his fist at them, his shackles clanging. “There was no way for you to know we would attack, we were very careful when we followed you.” Tears came into his eyes, choking him. “It was a trap, you were waiting for us to come, you wanted us to come. We couldn’t know there would be so many of you—”
Sherlock gave him another push. “Of course we knew you were following us. The Strategist failed you, didn’t he? As did your precious imam. They sent you into a trap. Which one of those brilliant men selected Nasim Conklin to blow up the security line at JFK? Which one of them sent the three of you?”
Shadid flew out of control. “You shut your mouth, you accursed woman! Your laws are absurd, sending two useless women to insult me. As for the imam, yes, I know of him. So does every true Muslim in London. He is a great man, a holy man. The British will never be able to arrest him, he is too well protected by their own laws.”
Kelly buffed her fingernails on her sleeve as she said in a bored voice, “Sit down, Mr. Shadid, calm yourself. You should know that Imam Al-Hädi ibn Mirza isn’t going to be giving any more orders. We’ve heard the good news that the imam has been formally arrested in London. MI5 is providing his lodging now, no cell phones or visitors allowed. Your great holy man has had his teeth pulled. Next comes his head,” and she made a chopping motion.
“There is no hangman’s noose in England!”
“Oh, yes, true enough, Mr. Shadid,” Kelly said. “But from where you come from, all you need is a knife, do you not, to cut off a hand, an ear, a head?”
Mifsud Shadid spat toward Kelly again, but Mr. Clark-Wittier’s leather case was in the way. “No, you are lying to me. What you are saying is impossible.”
Kelly shook her head at him. “Your counsel here can tell you it’s true. As we speak, MI5 is searching the imam’s office and home on Camden Street.” She rose and slammed her fist on the table in front of Mifsud. “Your imam was as convinced as you that he was untouchable. I doubt he took all the precautions. They will find names, times, and places. They will find your names, too, won’t they? Your precious imam will never again see the light of day, and neither will you.”
Kelly leaned close. “In spite of her tender years, Kenza will be imprisoned for life, or, more likely, she’ll get a shiv in her back within her first few months in prison. All civilized countries hate terrorists, and that includes their criminals in prison. Kenza won’t be able to protect herself, not with a shattered wrist. She’ll end up in a potter’s field, a cheap gravestone to mark where her bones lie.”
Mifsud was breathing fast and hard, his mouth working.
One more push, Sherlock thought, and said, “MI5 passed us a report that the Strategist has a young Muslim girl as a mistress. Is it Kenza?”
“No! That is a lie!” Mifsud leapt to his feet, chains banging against the table. Then he sank back down in his chair, lowered his face in his hands. “No,” he whispered, “that is another of your lies. Kenza hasn’t even met him. He is too important for the likes of her.” He raised his face to Sherlock. “She would not sleep with anyone, Kenza and I—” He shook his head, shut his mouth.
Cal rose. “Mr. Shadid, I am here to advise you. If you wish to survive, if you wish that young girl, Kenza, to survive, you need to tell the FBI agents everything you know or suspect or have heard about the people who sent you here. Otherwise”—he shrugged—“I shall not be able to help you.”
Sherlock sat back in her chair, tapped her pen on the tabletop. “Did the Strategist force her to sleep with him, Mr. Shadid? And did she tell you? Did it make you angry?”
Kelly said, “If you tell us what you know, I will personally ensure that Kenza is kept protected. I will not allow her to be killed.”
Shadid was shaking his head, crying. He swiped a shackled hand over his eyes. “She said nothing to me because you are lying, it’s all lies. Listen to me, the Strategist would never shame Kenza, she is honest and loyal, a fighter. He would never shame any Muslim girl, no, he consorts with an Englishwoman, a Christian noblewoman, he flaunts her in everyone’s face.”
Jackpot.
In the next room, the agents turned to their laptops and started pulling up London society pages and online social event calendars, looking for an English noblewoman on the arm of a rich Algerian who would turn out to be a terrorist.