“I don’t think I could ever forget you, miss,” the man said with a wink. “But fear not. Chivalry is not dead in Malta. Good luck.”
Jade breathed a sigh of relief as the cab drove away, but her sense of satisfaction at having made it this far was dulled by the realization that her next task was going to be far more challenging. Not to mention dangerous. She took a deep breath to muster her courage, and then marched up to the arched gate. She stood there for a few moments until a young man wearing what she assumed to be clerical garments came out to investigate.
His bearded visage was pinched, as if he was mildly constipated, though it was more likely that his discomfort arose from having to deal with this after-hours visitor. “Are you lost, ma’am?”
He spoke with a British accent, which sounded strange coming from someone dressed as he was, standing where he was.
“Is this the Mariam al-Batool Mosque?”
“It is.”
“Then I’m exactly where I want to be.”
“I don’t think—”
She interrupted before he could finish the brush-off. “I don’t need you to think. I need you to go get Atash Shah. I know he’s in there somewhere. He’ll want to talk to me. Tell him it’s Jade Ihara.”
Jade did not actually know for a certainty that Shah would retreat to Malta’s only mosque, but she figured the odds were good that, following the deadly encounter at the Hypogeum, he would seek the protection of fellow Muslims. Even if he wasn’t actually there, she figured someone inside would know where he was hiding out.
She was not wrong however.
The young man’s constipated frown deepened, but he reluctantly opened the gate and allowed her to step inside. “It is not appropriate for you to be here without your husband,” he said.
The scolding was half-hearted, as if he realized that her business with Shah was more important than this violation of protocol. “I say this for your own protection,” he added. “As well as to safeguard others from temptation.”
She bit back a scathing rejoinder, and simply said. “Thanks for your concern. I’m sorry, I don’t have a…scarf or anything to cover my head.”
“I will see that you are provided with one. Please wait here and do not speak to anyone.”
“Where else would I go?”
Shah’s first impulse was to run to the gate, gun in hand, and take revenge for the blood that had been spilled.
Two of the men that had accompanied him into the Hypogeum were dead. Another had been seriously wounded, and without adequate medical attention, would probably not survive the night. Whether he could get that at the Islamic Cultural Centre’s clinic facilities was anyone’s guess, but Shah dared not take the man to a hospital.
But killing Jade on the front steps of the mosque was not an option, and once his initial rage cooled a bit, his curiosity got the better of him. He could not decide if she was bold or arrogant or something else. Desperate, perhaps? Was she here to plead for her life?
Doubtful, but he was curious despite himself. He set aside his anger, along with his weapon, and headed out to meet her at the entrance. Although her hijab, provided for her by the gate attendant, framed her face and completely covered her hair, it was the first time Shah had been able to get a good look at her. He stopped and met her stare.
She did not appear to be desperate.
“I thought you’d look…” She paused, searching for the right word. “More radical.”
“That’s a hell of an icebreaker.”
She shrugged. “I meant it as a compliment.”
Shah turned to the attendant. “Give us some space.”
The young man gave a perturbed frown but moved away. Shah looked back at Jade. “Why are you here?”
“The truth? I need your help.”
Shah tried to conceal his surprise. “Help? Why would I help you?”
She folded her arms. “Why wouldn’t you? Do you even know why you’ve been trying to kill me?”
Her directness was disconcerting. “I…ah—”
“That’s what I thought. Someone handed you a BS story about how I was trying to destroy Islam, and you swallowed it whole. Did you even stop and think, just for a second?”
A red flush bloomed on Shah’s cheeks, not anger, but embarrassment. Jade had cut to the heart of it. He had let Gabrielle push him into a course of action that was so far beyond anything he had ever contemplated. He did not even recognize what he had become, what Gabrielle had turned him into.
“It wasn’t supposed to be like this. No one was supposed to get hurt.” The response sounded so pathetic that he couldn’t help but be defensive. “But you kept pushing. You brought this down on yourself.”
“Do you even hear what you’re saying? You have a hit list on your website. A hit list! What did you think was going to happen?” Before he could reply, she shook her head. “Look, I’m not here to fight this out. The truth is, you’ve been played. Roche wasn’t killed by one of your followers. You were set up.”
The statement left Shah stunned and speechless.
“My intern, Rafi…They killed him and then made it look like he killed Roche. Not only to distract everyone from what they were really doing, but to get leverage over you. Manipulate you into doing their dirty work for them. And you bought it. You chased me across half of Europe, and never even stopped to ask why.” Jade stared at him, narrowing her gaze to laser-like intensity. “You know I’m right, don’t you?”
Shah ground his teeth together. “Who? Who is doing this?”
Jade offered a tight smile. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”
Shah listened without comment as Jade related everything she knew or thought she knew about the conspiracy that had claimed Roche’s life and given Shah’s jihad the nudge it needed to become an actual terror campaign. She had expected incredulity, but Shah regarded her with a journalist’s inscrutability even as she fumbled for the right words to express something that was still hard for her to grasp. It was only when she started talking about Professor’s replacement that his demeanor changed.
His eyebrows came together in a frown. “How can you be sure it’s not really him?”
It was a valid question, and something Jade had not considered, but what struck her most about it was Shah’s tone. Some part of him had already recognized that she was telling him the truth.
“I…” She hesitated. Despite the fact that she had come to him for help, Shah was still the man who had effectively put a bounty on her. She needed his trust, but that did not mean she was ready to share intimate details of her life with him. “I just knew. There was something off about his behavior…I can’t really explain it. I just knew that it wasn’t the same man.”
“Could your friend have been brainwashed? Reprogrammed somehow?”
She shook her head. “It isn’t him.”
He let out a long sigh. “I think that…my partner…might be working with your Changelings. Maybe she’s even…even one of them.”
Jade could not help but notice his halting manner and the way he said the word “partner,” but she said nothing, silently prompting him to continue.
“Now that you’ve told me, it’s like the scales have fallen from my eyes. She kept pushing me to do more, to be more of an activist. I guess now I know why.”
“Is she here?”
He shook his head. “I sent her away already. I knew she was working with someone else, but she wouldn’t tell me who.”
Jade sensed that a chance to move things forward had arrived. “Well, we know who, sort of, but I don’t think we know why.”