“You were here before?” asked her escort, pausing a second.

“Ah, I blundered about, in my confusion. I ran into that young man. I didn’t really help him, I only told him to go downstairs.”

“But what were you doing upstairs?”

“As I say, I was confused.”

He thought about this intently for a bit, decided it was problematical, and said, “I think you should see the imam.”

“Oh, I hate to bother him. I’m just a visitor. I’ll leave now, and that’ll be that.”

Again, concern clouded his face, and he said, “I do not wish to offend, but something here is amiss. I must ask you to accompany me. I just want to make sure he’s comfortable with this.”

“Why, there is nothing to be comfortable with. I tell you, I merely lost my way and—”

“Please, madam,” he said, and took her elbow, “humor me, or I will make the imam mad at me.”

Not force, exactly, was applied against her, but strength, communicating his need to fulfill his instructions versus her feeble explanations, and he took her this way and that and into an office of no particular significance, no RPGs or sniper rifles lying about, just desks, one messy, one not so much, and asked her to sit. He vanished. Was the door locked? Was she a prisoner? But to investigate would be suspicious, the actions of a spy, so she simply sat, waiting, feeling her heartbeat increase.

He returned.

“This way, please,” he said.

“Of course,” she said, and followed him into the well-appointed office of Imam Imir el-Tariq, who was sitting behind his desk, in his robes but with his hair uncovered. A handsome, bearded man in his forties, as befit his rank, with the face of the earnest and the committed, but with brown eyes that were not the sort to be found in zealots.

“Madam, please,” he said, gesturing to a chair. “We’re not comfortable with strangers wandering about. We have no secrets, of course, but, alas, we do have enemies, and many nonbelievers hold us responsible for things over which we have no control.”

“I assure you, Imam, I have no agenda save the faith.”

“May I ask for credentials of some sort.”

She handed her purse over.

“Here, examine the whole thing. I have no secrets either, and I hope I have not given offense.”

He looked at her driver’s license.

“Mrs. Abdullah. Yet you are not Arabic.”

“My husband was. And, under his auspices, I joined the faith.”

She told her story.

“I am sorry for your husband, sister. Many have died unjustly. The pox of our times.”

“If I enter the houses of worship, great or small, it helps me find peace,” she said. “I am content here, and the emptiness in my heart is not so severe.”

“Allah, His name be praised, is merciful.”

“His name be praised, He is always merciful.”