Hoda and Jake Page 2

  Lou’s ham radio room—or “shack,” by long-standing tradition among radio enthusiasts—was a converted sun room. Insulated, it ran almost the whole rear of the house, and was better equipped than some commercial communication stations. There was an 80-foot tower in the woods behind the house, a wildlife preserve which was one of the main reasons Lou bought the house with the money gained by nearly losing his life in the car crash that landed him in a wheelchair.

  Rolling under the main operating position, Lou adroitly thumbed dials and flipped switches, turning on his amplifier. Voices emanated from a speaker, distorted to an untrained ear, but to Lou and Jake they were readily discernible as men they knew. The men gathered on 3.864 megahertz in the 75 meter ham radio voice band every day after work. Or, for most of them, after make-work: most were retired.

  After using his call sign to say hello, Lou thumbed the mic and said, “Gentlemen I give you a blast from the past.” And passed the mic up to Jake.

  “Kilo Mike One Golf,” said Jake. Three or four men whistled or otherwise expressed astonishment.

  “Where you been, Jake?” asked one.

  “You know, busy,” Jake said. “No rest for the wicked. Speaking of wicked, is Hendy here?”

  “Yep,” said a voice.

  “Good signal, Hendy. Hey I can’t stay, but do you ever see W1GWU?”

  “On occasion. He doesn’t check in that often.”

  “Do you have a landline for him?”

  “Sure.”

  “Well, I’m in a bind. Can you call him to say I’ll bring that package to lunch tomorrow?”

  “Uh, sure, Jake.”

  “Thanks. Gotta run.”

  “Seventy-threes, Jake.” Several other men offered their traditional ham goodbye.

  Everyone on frequency knew Jake Holman worked for Langley, and sometimes skirted FCC law by sending cryptic messages through the 3.864 group. It was hiding in plain sight: modern technology tracked cell phones, but no one thought of archaic old Amateur Radio.

  They listened to the group for awhile, Lou contributing here and there. Everyone knew Jake was still at Lou’s and listening, but they also knew he was finished talking. No one asked questions. It was understood. After about fifteen minutes, Hoda and Marwa joined them in “the shack.”

  “Wow!” Hoda said. “Looks like Fort Huachuca.” Huachuca is the home of Army Intelligence, where its branch school is located—as well as some of the most sophisticated electronic intercept facilities anywhere on the planet.

  “Not hardly,” said Lou, but you could tell he was pleased.

  “Hoda, can we talk privately? In the kitchen?”

  “Sure.” She followed him off to the side of the house, where a nice kitchen sat immaculate and largely unused. Lou lived off his microwave, but he also had a home health aide.

  “How’d it go up there?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, how is she?”

  “Doing fine, I guess.”

  “Prayers done?”

  “Oh, that. Yes, prayers done.”

  What Jake wanted to ask was, did Hoda pray, too? But he couldn’t very well ask tactfully.

  “What you really want to know,” Hoda said, “is did I pray?”

  Jake reddened. “Sort of.”

  “The answer is yes,” Hoda said. “And I used my own rug and hijab. Everything clear?”

  “Look, Hoda, I—”

  “Don’t bother. This isn’t a social outing, Jake. Mister Holman. And I’m not Mrs. Jake Holman.”

  Jake was nonplussed. Still, the gambit was worth it. He was a man, and unattached, and Hoda Abdelal was an extremely attractive woman. Now he knew more about her. And her being Muslim did not detract from her… presence. Try though she might to be just as good as any man, the fact was she was a woman. It couldn’t be overlooked, no matter how much she detested it. And detest it she obviously did. Jake was sure she wasn’t attracted to women. There was too much crackle for that.

  She’d hurt him, she saw. “What’s your plan, Jake? You brought us here. You must have had one.”

  “Stay tonight. That will throw everything off.”

  “It sure will. Won’t our bosses be frantic?”

  “Maybe. But if there’s a leak at Langley, or anywhere else, nobody knows where we are. And my friend will get that message through, the one I sent just now. Nobody will be tapping his phone.”

  “You hope. If something happens, we’re on our own.”

  “We’ve still got our cells. And Lou’s security is pretty good.”

  “Does Lou know your plan?”

  “Not yet. But I’m not concerned. He’s an old operator.”

  “Does that account for the Python?”

  “Nice piece, eh?”

  “A little heavy for a woman.” She smiled. Hoda actually smiled.

  “You should do that more often.” Was she blushing? She averted her eyes. Just like, Jake thought, Muslim women everywhere: modesty. Modesty above all.

  “What’s Marwa reading?” She read often, when she wasn’t listening to her iPod.

  “She’s reading. Aristotle’s Poetics.”

  “You’re joking.”

  “Have you read it?”

  “Hasn’t everyone? You, for instance?”

  Hoda didn’t answer. She was still avoiding his eyes. Hers were a beautiful, liquid brown. Like some exotic, deep hardwood. She had, in fact, read Aristotle, and was both surprised and impressed Jake had.

  “We’ll have to compare reading tomorrow, in the car,” Jake said.

  “Yes.” Quiet. Was this The Major? The — he hated even to think the words —green beret? Better back away, Jake’s mind added. They gradually transitioned to the living room.

  “We’ll probably order out for food. Do you keep halal?”

  “Thank you for asking. Yes, I do. And I’m sure Marwa does.”

  “We’ll see what we can do.”

  “Thank you. Marwa? Let’s go upstairs.” And Hoda climbed out of sight up the stairs, Marwa right behind her. Neither’s feet made a sound.

  ***

  Around midnight, out in the street, a hatchback compact pulled over to the curb not far from Lou’s address, where its swarthy driver could see the front of the house.

  ***

  As it happened, they didn’t call out for food; too risky. So, Hoda looked the kitchen over and conjured a salad to die for. She was impressed Lou had produce, and the men, Jake especially were impressed by her domestic skills. Chalk another one up to Middle Eastern culture, he thought. Hoda was lovely.

  She woke Jake at 4 a.m. for his turn on watch. She had stood the midnight-to-four, what Jake called the midwatch from his sailing days. He’d asked Lou if he could use the kitchen that early, and Lou said to wake him, if he was’t already: “I’ll work 40 gray line, and sometimes there are guys on 900 megahetz,” the local, UHF communications band.

  As it happened, Lou was already up and in the shack—if he slept at all, Jake reflected. He was an odd one, cat-napping whenever he felt like it. Jake couldn’t live that way, hadn’t since the Ranger School anyway, where sleep deprivation was a refined art. He’d lost so much weight there, he felt like an Ethiopian.

  The women slept as Jake made his favorite sunny eggs and home fries. He didn’t do it often, and it was a feast when he could. He wandered out to the radio shack, where Lou was sending morse code on a nice-looking British-built key.

  “How do you like that Kent key?” Jake asked, when Lou finished his code conversation.

  “It’s smooth,” Lou said. “Precise. I really like it.”

  Suddenly a voice filled the radio shack, a callsign and the word “listening”: some ham was on his way to work early, and soliciting contact with any other listening ham. Lou lifted the a microphone and brought it to his lips. Just before keying it, he turned to Jake. “I run a lot of power on 900 megs,” he said. “We had to give up 432 because of the Pave Low radar on Cape Cod.” Then Lou keyed the mic.
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br />   ***

  Outside in the street, the hatchback compact disappeared in violent explosion strong enough to break every window on the street, and rend in the front porch of the house before which it had parked. Its occupant was vaporized; not a shred would ever be found.

  ***

  Inside Lou’s, it was as if a giant strobe went off out front, lighting everything for a nanosecond before the shock wave hit and the whole house seemed to want to leave its foundation.

  “What was that?” Lou asked.

  “You okay?”

  “Sure.”

  “I dunno, but I’m going to check the women.”

  He was too late for that by half: Hoda was already herding Marwa down the stairs, both carrying prayer rugs and Hoda clutching a small bag they’d brought in. They must have slept all standing. She was an operator, Jake had to admit.

  “What was it?” Hoda asked, clipping on her belt holster and adjusting it before slipping on her blazer.

  “I don’t know,” Jake said, “but get in the car. We’re leaving. Lou? Thanks a lot. Sorry if we caused this. Send the glass bill to the Agency. Remember the address?”

  “I’ll find it. You’d better not wait.”

  In seconds the three were in the driveway, and Jake used a special device to scan the Tahoe for explosives. It was only by the grace of tactic he didn’t find any; the hatchback was meant to be detonated remotely, by cell phone, when they came out. It was Lou’s 1,500 watts on an adjacent band to the cell frequency of 800 megahertz that caused the carful of homemade bomb to go off. It didn’t start out as a suicide bomb; it only ended up that way.

  As Jake backed out and headed up a street littered with debris, lights were just coming on, with a few people in the street. About two blocks away, he pulled off to the side in a strip mall, behind a building. “Wait here,” he told Hoda, and was gone for about five minutes.

  When he was back, Hoda asked, “What was that about?”

  “I changed the license plates,” Jake said. “When we get going, you need to find the other registration and we can hide the first one. I’ll tell Robinson first chance we get that number one may be hot. Somebody back there may have made us.”

  Twice on the way to the highway police cruisers flashed past, but neither seemed to pay the Tahoe any mind, and soon they were easing onto Route 95. Traffic was predictably light in the pre-dawn. They drove for awhile. It began to get light.

  “Anybody hungry?” Jake said in the silence.

  There was a pause, but Marwa finally responded, quietly. “Yes.” She hadn’t eaten since last night, and then not very much, Jake knew.

  “There’s a nice breakfast place in Stonington,” Jake said. They were almost at exit 89.

  “Is it good?” Hoda asked. Holman knew what she meant, and it wasn’t the food. She meant how are entry and egress? Could they get away if they had to?

  “Well, it’s quaint,” Jake said. Off at North Main Street and then down the long, tree-covered lane with properties to die for on either side. Somebody probably had died for them, Jake thought not for the first time—just not relatives of the people who lived in them. Those people got others to do their dying for them. Stonington had long been a seafaring town, and for more than a hundred years a fishing town. The restaurant they were heading for was preferred by the dragger and lobster men, a sure good sign.

  Jake parked at the Stonington Town Dock, and they walked the narrow lanes of the Borough, a place he knew well from years ago. Angie’s had all the earmarks of the best breakfast place in every town, the kind each hamlet simply had to have. Marwa’s hijab didn’t stop conversation, but every eye at the ten tables lingered. There was a single table near the back, by the kitchen door. The trio negotiated the treacherous, serpentine route. Barely had they sat when Marwa whispered to Hoda.

  “I’ll be right back,” Hoda said, standing and heading for the restaurant rear. Jake smiled weakly at Marwa, who averted her eyes and said nothing. Hoda was back momentarily, and said “Go ahead” to Marwa, who herself stood and traced Hoda’s path. Hoda looked at Jake, who raised a hand: the episode was transparent.

  When Marwa returned, orange juice awaited her. Hoda had ice water, and Jake coffee.

  “I hope that’s all right,” Hoda said, eyeing the juice.

  “Yes,” Marwa murmured. Jake suspected she’d have said the same whether it was or not.

  Moments later, the women each carefully picked at a muffin, while Jake tucked into an omelet and home fries. If this be cholesterol treason, he rendered, let him make the most of it. “So, Hoda,” he said between bites. “Are you American, or not?”

  “Isn’t the uniform enough?” she asked.

  “I mean culturally.”

  Hoda didn’t look at him, alternating between scanning the restaurant and her muffin. Jake suspected she was studiously avoiding his eyes. She was the strangest officer he had ever met: more Arab than Army, though with faultless English.

  They ate in silence for a moment, and Jake’s forbearance was rewarded.

  “My parents are Egyptian,” Hoda said, “but I was born here. Raised in South County, Rhode Island.” That would be, Jake knew, Washington County in geography books.

  “Chariho?” Jake asked. Direct hit.

  Caught off guard, Hoda locked eyes and bathed him with that Mona Lisa smile, the beestung lips parted just so. His heart skipped a beat, and he hoped it didn’t show.

  “Yes!” Hoda said. “Charlestown.” She pronounced the “w” the way they did. Before she caught herself, she added, “Those were good times.” Realizing her forwardness, her face quickly folded back to neutrality, and she scanned room and food once again, hiding in her duty.

  Jake wanted to ask her whether she was married—wanted to ask her many things, but wisely said nothing. He’d had enough exposure to Arabic women to know they were trained to be demure in the extreme around strange men, a category into which Jake Holman fit. Hoda seemed to be in the crossfire between the Old World of her parents, and the new. Certainly, her old ways wouldn’t fly in the Army: she had to be Americanized for that. But Jake sensed the transition wasn’t complete, and less so on this mission, with its Arabic overtones and the person of Marwa as a constant reminder. Again, Jake admitted he adored Arabic women, in the few times he’d been able to engage them. They presented as princesses, in the best sense of the term, modest and demure. One hardly ever got to see them en clair like this, without at least the hijab, or head scarf. “Hijab” in fact didn’t actually mean the scarf itself, but the concept of clothing oneself to keep from the world one’s assets, reserved primarily for husbands, though close male relatives could also see, because they were not a threat. It was all laid out in the Qu’ran, which Jake had read. In English, of course, which they claimed couldn’t touch the original Arabic. But then, they claimed the Arabic came from God, Allah, direct to Muhammad, Peace Be Unto Him.

  And to proper Muslim ladies, men were always a threat. Even with their eyes. Jake made a mental note to be more careful with his own eyes. With Hoda, it was not easy—and increasingly so. Steady, laddie. This is business.

  Jake paid cash for the meal, and they rose to leave. Hoda touched Marwa’s arm to hold her back, though no word had passed between Jake and her. Jake move to the door, checked the street. Only then did Hoda move toward him, with Marwa close.

  It was going to be a nice day, and Stonington was a nice village. That’s why a house could easily fetch a million dollars. Jake once lived here, before the real estate boom. He resented the rich, who had driven working families out. In fact, Jake resented people of means in general. He’d grown up in Avondale, near Watch Hill in Westerly, R.I, and the summer enclave had given a boilermaker’s boy plenty of memories to underline the truth of the old saw that “the rich are not like the rest of us.”

  They turned the corner onto Northwest Street, moving toward the Tahoe at the dock. As they closed on it, Jake and Hoda noted the dilapidated pickup not far from their black SUV. It h
adn’t been there before. Two men toiled under the upraised hood—or seemed to. Dressed in work clothes, they were swarthy. Jake momentarily eyed Hoda, who for once returned his look; this was business. Without breaking stride, they closed on the car.

  Before they got to it, the two men went to the pickup bed and reached. Jake and Hoda were waiting when the Kalashnikovs appeared: Jake threw Marwa down, reaching for his gun. Before he had it, Hoda’s barked twice—and both men fell, hit once each, center mass. The second had fired a single shot, which found Jake’s side.

  “Shit!” he grunted, and reeled, though he didn’t fall. Unfazed, he lifted Marwa while thumbing the remote, and in seconds all three were in the Tahoe, which sprang to life and headed—at a normal speed—toward the Viaduct which was the only way in or out of Stonington Borough over the Amtrak main line.

  “Think anyone saw us?” Hoda asked.

  “Wouldn’t be surprised,” Jake said, concentrating on keeping their speed down. The narrow streets were a bad place for racing in the first place, and the last thing they wanted was attention.

  “That was nice work,” Jake said.

  “Thanks. Are you okay?”

  “No, seriously. Amazing.”

  “Never mind. How are you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You’d better let me see.”

  “Why you?”

  “I’m a doctor,” Hoda said.

  “You’re joking.”

  “Third generation.”

  “I thought you were Intelligence.”

  “Long story. Where can we stop?”

  “Pizza shop,” Jake said, and they pulled into a strip mall on Route One. “Don’t get out.” He pulled up his shirt, exposing the wound, on his right side. Hoda leaned forward, hands out. No modesty now, no hesitation. She was intent, self-possessed, calm. Physician-like, Jake reflected.

  “It’s a through-and-through. Doesn’t look like it hit anything serious. Muscle. You’re bleeding. What do we have?”

  “There’s an aid kit in the back. Red Cross, can’t miss it.” He hit the hatch button. Clunk.

  Hoda retrieved the kit, rummaging with purpose. “This should do,” she said, picking out what she liked. Dressing, disinfectant, tape. Before long she had the wound satisfactorily cauterized.