Here was her coat. Heather put her right arm in the sleeve. Terrorism? Rafik had talked about all kinds of things, when it was just the two of them alone, but terrorism? That was beyond illegal. They were normal people. They had a house, part of a house anyway; it definitely qualified as a two-bedroom apartment. They had jobs. Rafik had dabbled in hash and maybe some shoplifting, but that was a long way from something as out of this world as terrorism. Mourad was a security guard at the airport! Aziz—he was an angel.

Kamal was not. She was buttoning her coat. Violent, really violent. She had a really bad feeling about Kamal, always had. It was his idea to get the storage unit, wasn’t it? No, Rafik had it before Kamal.

She could see Kamal as a terrorist. But Linda had never met Kamal. She pulled on her gloves and the hat Ghazi had bought her. What a disaster. The money meant nothing to Linda! Mourad had saved and saved, not for Linda, but he wanted, really wanted Heather to give it to her. Ghazi, he must have given up all of his nest egg. Aziz brought out some squished cereal box he’d been hiding all these years and there was three thousand dollars in it. He put all of it in the envelope. It broke her heart. She should have stayed home and helped Mourad write sayings on Aziz’s cups. She’d told them maybe English sayings would work better. She’d left them some to copy before she left.

She opened the door of the restaurant. Two men were coming in.

“Heather Montrose?” It was Melhaney and the technician. They had handcuffs. The technician hadn’t made an arrest in years. He was thrilled.

“Yes?”

“You’re under arrest.”

April was at One Center Plaza in a room with Mark.

“I fucked up,” she said to him, covering the phone. They were on five calls at once.

Secretaries were dashing. The field office, the task force—New England law enforcement had mobilized. The director had been yanked out of homework with his boys; the attorney general was on his way to the White House.

“Can I put you on hold, sir?” she heard Mark say.

He got up and said something at the door. His pager went off. He looked at it for a while and then said, “Give me five.” He closed the door.

He walked over to her phone and stood there. The lines on hold were blinking. “Can I—can I? Yes. Can I get back with you?” April said. “Thanks. Thanks.” She said into the intercom, “Hold these for a sec.”

“You did fuck up,” Mark said, but nicely.

“I couldn’t make sense of it.”

“It takes time.”

“It was Montrose being like me.”

“I knew that.”

“She—I had to hear her.”

“That’s what I want to know. What you heard.”