“Abdullah,” he said. “Did you remember to offer Dr. Costello a Bible?”
“I did, Mustafa,” Abdullah said. “But you see how he’s sulking in there. He wouldn’t even look at the cart.”
Whatever other rights might be stripped from them in the name of state security, every prisoner was entitled to a holy book. This could be a thorny proposition where Christians were concerned, for while there is only one Quran, there are many Bibles. Woe unto the Muslim who gave an angry crusader the wrong translation or selection of apocrypha.
Sensing an opportunity, Mustafa had filled a library cart with as many different Bibles as he could lay his hands on: the Latin Vulgate; various incarnations of the King James; the Luther Bible; the Revised Standard; the Ignatius Bible; the Scofield Reference; the Reina-Valera; the Louis Segond. Mustafa’s goal was not so much to have something for everyone, but rather, by demonstrating an awareness of Christian sensibilities, to show respect, and thereby establish trust and good will. It was a surprisingly effective tactic, even with prisoners who refused all hospitality.
The observation room door opened and Amal and Samir came in. “Well?” Mustafa said.
“Gaza City PD came through,” Amal told him. “It was a convenience-store robbery. They faxed over the report and a photo of the crime scene.”
Mustafa studied the photograph Amal handed to him. It showed a woman sitting with her back against the door of a cold-beverage case, her head lolling to one side. Her close-eyed expression was peaceful, as if she’d just nodded off to sleep, but below the neck she was a bloody mess.
“So what’s the plan?” Samir asked. “You going to play the sympathy angle with this guy?”
“Something like that,” Mustafa said.
“Hello, Dr. Costello,” he began. “My name is Mustafa al Baghdadi. I’m here to speak with you about your recent activities.”
Costello sat with his elbows propped on the interrogation room table, his gaze fixed on the short length of chain that ran between the cuffs on his wrists. “I have nothing to say to you.”
“Perhaps you’ll just listen, then,” Mustafa said. “If you don’t mind, I’m going to speak Arabic. I understand you’re fluent in the language, and while I do have English, those who are observing us”—he gestured at the cameras, the mirrored glass—“are not so fortunate.”
Costello made no direct answer to this, but sat back in his chair with a sigh. Mustafa held up the folder containing Costello’s ICE file; he’d padded it with a couple hundred pages of unrelated office correspondence, so it made a weighty thump as he set it on the tabletop. “This is everything we know about you.” He sat opposite the doctor, and rather than open the folder, looked straight across the table and began to recite from memory.
“Your full name is Gabriel Brennan Costello. You were born in Boston in 1973. In 1988, following the death of your parents, you went to live in London with your maternal grandmother. In 1991 you received a visa to pursue undergraduate studies at Baghdad University. From 1995 to 1998 you attended the Ain Shams School of Medicine in Cairo. You completed your surgical residency at Jaffa Medical Center in Palestine. Four years ago you returned to Baghdad to work in the trauma unit at Karkh General Hospital. Since then, you’ve taken several leaves of absence to go on foreign missions with the humanitarian group Médecins Sans Frontières.
“I must say, it doesn’t sound like the résumé of a terrorist. Of course you’re an American, and a Christian, and those Doctors Without Borders missions have all been to help other Christians wounded in the German Volksaufstand. In the eyes of some of my colleagues, any one of these facts would be enough to brand you a threat, with no further explanation necessary. But I try to be more open-minded than that, and as a resident of this city, I’m naturally curious. You know, right after 11/9, all of Arabia asked itself Why? Why do they hate us? The rest of the country has tried to move on since then, but here in Baghdad, still living with the aftereffects of that day, we find it much harder to put the past behind us. We still want to know: Why do you hate us, Dr. Costello?
“Is it because you’re American? The War on Terror hasn’t been kind to your native country, it’s true, but you were young when you left home, and there’s nothing in your record to suggest a nationalist streak.
“Is it because you’re Christian? It’s tempting to believe that, but even if I didn’t know better, I can still count. There are nearly two billion Christians in the world, and if you were all wicked by nature, things would be very bad indeed.
“So what is it, Dr. Costello? What turned your heart against us? Arabia welcomed you in, gave you an education and a profession, a stake in a civilized society. Was there something else, some basic courtesy we failed to extend? Did we offend you somehow? Why do you hate us?”
Mustafa paused to give Costello an opportunity to respond—perhaps to take issue with Mustafa’s description of Arabia’s generosity. But Costello wasn’t interested in complaining about his immigrant experience. He slouched in his chair and stared at the table in silence, projecting weary resignation.
“Maybe instead of asking why I should ask when,” Mustafa continued. “On your residency application, you listed your own and your parents’ religion as Episcopalian. I confess, I had to look that up on the Library of Alexandria. LoA describes it as an American offshoot of the Anglican Church. Is that the answer to the riddle, Dr. Costello? Did the Church of England get its hooks in you during your time in London? Did the Archbishop of Canterbury brainwash you in one of his parish schools? You know the British prime minister has threatened to unleash a wave of destruction against the Muslim world if we or our allies interfere with England’s nuclear-bomb program. He claims to have sleeper agents in place all across Arabia and Persia. Is that you, Dr. Costello?”
A thin smile of derision appeared on Costello’s lips and he snorted softly. “What, you think it’s a funny idea?” Mustafa said. “I assure you, my superiors would have no problem believing such a thing . . . I’d be inclined to believe it myself, if this were 1981 and the Israelis had just blown up the nuclear reactor in Suffolk. But there’s been no new provocation, and for all his bluster, I don’t think either the prime minister or the men who pull his strings are really that eager to go to war with us.
“So no, I don’t suppose England is the answer. I have a different theory. I think the poisoning of your soul took place much more recently. I think it had less to do with faith, or politics, than with a woman.
“Tell me I’m wrong, Dr. Costello. Tell me this isn’t about your fiancée.”
Costello’s smile went away. But he was looking at Mustafa now.
“Jessica Lamar, of Texas,” Mustafa said, acknowledging the eye contact. “She was working as a physical rehabilitation specialist in Jaffa when you did your residency. Is that how you met, through work? Did you share a patient? Or did you meet at a chapel service? She was a member of the United Methodist sect, which I understand is another branch of Anglicanism, so that would mean you could worship together, yes?” Costello didn’t answer and after a moment Mustafa went on: “You applied for a marriage license in spring of 2005. By then you’d already been accepted onto the staff at Karkh General, so I guess the plan was you’d get married over the summer and move to Baghdad to start work in the fall. But in early June, you got a call from the police.
“She was visiting outpatients in Gaza City. Gaza . . . not the nicest part of Palestine. But because it’s so poor, plenty of residents join the military in hopes of escaping to a better life—and now, thanks to the war, there are plenty of injured veterans needing care. So your fiancée was on a mission of mercy to help soldiers wounded in the invasion of your native country . . . and her reward for this was to be shot down senselessly by a couple of petty thieves.”
A muscle started jumping in Costello’s cheek.