The Language of Secrets Read Online Free PDF Page A

Coale. Shutting Khattak down at INSET would be the first step to convincing their more highly placed superiors that CPS was a miscalculation, superfluous to current law enforcement needs.
    Khattak folded his hands on his lap, refusing to be drawn.
    â€œI take it that Masjid un-Nur is the gathering place for the cell you have under surveillance.”
    Laine angled her face toward him, and in the dim winter light that floated through the windows, he saw that she was not as young as he remembered. Lines had begun to settle in the angular folds of her neck. The corners of her mouth drooped a little. Her dark eyes were bleary.
    The drinking had taken its toll.
    But her voice when she spoke had lost none of its allure.
    â€œNur is a recent establishment, not as well-known or attended as any of the larger mosques at either end of the GTA. It’s small, privately funded, located to the north of the city. Not quite Markham, not quite Scarborough. It’s part of old Unionville.”
    â€œThere’s already a sizable mosque in that area,” Khattak noted. In his capacity as head of CPS, he’d visited the Middlefield mosque often. It was a beautiful, spacious structure, its painted white arches paired with mirror-green windows that summoned the light, along with the faithful.
    â€œYes, we know. We believe that Middlefield has become too small to support the size of the congregation in the area. Nur could have been built to accommodate overflow. Or it could well be that the climate at Middlefield was inhospitable to the ideology of this particular cell.”
    Khattak sensed discomfort behind her words, yet for the first time in recent memory, Laine was speaking to male colleagues without falling back upon a repertoire of mannerisms. Her white hand didn’t dash to her hair, nor did she smooth it down over the front of her jacket. Her jet-black eyes didn’t flash up at him, then away.
    It was a straight, bare-boned conversation, much like the one he’d just had with Martine Killiam. And Khattak didn’t trust it. Whatever Laine was doing now was just one more attempt at getting him to lower his guard.
    â€œWhat do the wiretaps tell you?”
    Coale scowled at the question. He hadn’t known that Killiam would be quite so frank about the operation.
    â€œOur surveillance began after Nur was established. We have no intercepts that speak to the founding of the mosque.” Laine cleared her throat. They had been speaking for less than ten minutes, yet she sounded depleted of energy. “Mohsin came to us. He said he’d been hearing things on the basketball courts in his neighborhood from young men who were attending prayers at the mosque. He didn’t think that Nur sounded like a healthy place to be.”
    â€œMeaning what exactly?”
    â€œThere was a lot of negative talk, he said. More than just the usual summary of grievances: Palestine, Afghanistan, the invasion of Iraq. All of that, yes, but much more. There was concerted talk about the need for action—the need for a dramatic, decisive response.” Laine sounded like she was quoting someone. “To end the humiliation of Muslims worldwide.”
    Khattak showed no reaction to the tossed-off phrase “summary of grievances.”
    â€œSo you infiltrated the mosque?”
    â€œWe sent Mohsin in, yes. We asked him to find out if it was anything more than talk. It turned out that it was. They’ve been planning the Nakba for more than two years.”
    â€œWas Mohsin on your payroll?”
    â€œYes.” Laine’s voice tightened. She knew what the question was aimed at. “That doesn’t mean he wasn’t reliable. He wasn’t doing it for the money.”
    That would depend, Khattak thought, on what the compensation had been. In any case, there were the intercepts. A two-year operation would mean there were thousands of them.
    â€œWhy, then?”
    â€œMo used to have a saying.