“I get your point,” she said. “It’s boring. Laborious exchange of legalisms. So let’s speed it up. It’s time for my cameo.”

She smiled and rose.

“Pay attention, boys, you’re gonna like this!”

•   •   •

Nick set the folder down.

“Hmm,” he said. “Seems like the stakes have changed.”

But to draw out the theater of the thing, he nodded to the prosecutor and Houston, and they rolled backwards and muttered among themselves, while the defense attorney and the imam watched without a lot of enthusiasm. Then the threesome returned to the table.

“This just in. Our evidence team managed to collect some latent prints from the faucet of the lavatory immediately adjacent to the basement bedroom, and two more from the leather straps inside the suitcase, which was otherwise packed with newly bought underwear and shirts of Canadian manufacture, as if someone were trying to hide his origin. But fingerprints don’t lie. We ran the prints against not only our own but the Interpol database, and one print, the right thumb, came up with a hit. That print belongs to a former sergeant in the Syrian army named Alamir Alaqua. It turns out Sergeant Alaqua has quite a record, much of it in Israel, where the same fingerprint was found at the site of an atrocity involving the shooting deaths of seventeen children. Sergeant Alaqua is known by his work name, Juba the Sniper.”

“We had no idea—” started Kasim, but Nick cut him off.

“Juba is on Interpol’s list of ten most wanted international fugitives. Specializes in long-range shooting. Blamed for killings in most of the known world, except, of course, in America. So right away the charge against the imam jumps up to aiding and abetting. That’s a big one.”

He let it sink in.

“Furthermore, if we are unsuccessful in stopping Juba from whatever his mission in America is, we could nail the imam on accessory before the act. That’s a real big one. Suddenly we’re looking at twenty-five years.”

“If Allah so wills,” said the imam, “then let it be so.”

“Yes, easy to say now. You tell him, Mr. Kasim, what twenty-five without parole can do to a man. You’ve seen it.”

The two men said nothing.

“And yet still another possibility is that the Israelis will file charges against you for aiding in the escape of a terrorist wanted by them. Possibly they’ll file to extradite, and, with nothing to lose, I think we’d almost certainly comply without demurral. Off you’d go to Tel Aviv. I don’t think you would enjoy a visit with some very angry Israelis. I suspect they would go after any information you have a lot less civilly than we do. No friendly late-night chats in rooms with your lawyer present.”

Again, the two men were quiet.

•   •   •