“Yes. He’s here in Washington.”

Hashim stared at her.

“What is it?” she asked.

“How are you so comfortable with me? And why so willing to use your ability, and put yourself in danger?”

“Danger isn’t foreign to me.”

The gathering awareness of a deeper connection to him was something for which she had no reference.

From the open balcony doors, they looked out at the lake.

Moonlight spread across the ducks gliding over the quiet water. They immersed their iridescent heads beneath the surface, in search of food or whatever other adventure they bobbed for in the dimness of the tow.

He reached into his pocket and took out a piece of paper. He handed it to her.

She opened it and read it to herself. It was written in English.

There are stories we carry inside that have slipped beyond the veil of consciousness and wait until a certain time. And, as a falcon descends upon its prey, we rise up more fierce and hungry than the falcon, through ashes at the merest fraction of light, grasping, trembling for God, in order to heal the desire to destroy.

“You wrote this?”

“When I was a boy.”

In the grief of his eyes she saw he was still grasping for that fraction of light.

“Even from the blackest nights there can be salvation,” she said, and handed the poem back to him, but he held up his hand.

“Keep it in remembrance of who I once was and want to be again.”

He looked at her a long time. She didn’t avoid his gaze. A bridge had been created between them.

She held his poem like a prayer in her folded hands.

38

38

Tuesday, September 22

Her name was Isabel Chavez. She was a lawyer for the Department of Justice and had spent a week in Manhattan beginning to collect data the department would use to prosecute Hashim upon his capture. The agencies were sure they would find him, one way or another. It was still top secret that he was in America. A team of lawyers had been put in place for the trial that would follow. It would be a circus, but they needed to be prepared.

Isabel stared out the plane window, watching the afternoon sun beat down on the ground below as the plane made its approach to Dulles.

The wheels hit the tarmac.

The plane glided to its gate.

First thing Isabel did was turn her mobile back on.

There were text messages, emails and phone calls.

Isabel was startled when the first phone message she heard was from her younger sister. They hadn’t talked in months. Isabel listened to the message; afraid it might have something to do with their father. But Arama spoke, eager to tell her sister of the miracle that had happened in Cuzco, how she was called to help the young girl, and how Isabel would play a part.