A Most Wanted Man (33 page)

But Axelrod had rung off, and Maximilian was holding up his arm. Fuad the retired engineer had delivered Signpost to Brue Frères Bank.

Inside Tommy Brue’s upstairs sanctum, the preparations he had made were at last paying off. By assigning his grandfather’s chair to Our Esteemed Interpreter, as he insisted on calling her, he had been able to wheedle her into center position. She sat, exactly as he had wanted her to, bolt upright on the cushions. To her left sat Issa and to her right Dr. Abdullah, facing Brue across his desk. At the sight of him, Issa had once more become a changed man, uncertain, shy and confused to discover that he possessed no common language with which to address his newfound mentor. Dr. Abdullah had greeted him first in Arabic, then French, English and German in quick order. He even found a few words of Chechen for Issa, who for a moment sparked, then stared shamefully downward as his fluency ran dry.

Dr. Abdullah too was in Brue’s eyes a changed man since yesterday. Nervous himself, Brue had not imagined Abdullah could be more nervous still. Advancing gingerly on Issa with his arms lifted for the Arab embrace, he had seemed until the last minute uncertain whether he should go through with the greeting. His speech, once he had settled for German and Annabel’s translation, displayed a guarded reverence, but it was also searching.

“Our good friend Mr. Brue rightly declines to reveal your name to me, sir. And so he should. You are Mr. X, I may not know where from. But you and I need have no secrets from each other. I have my sources. You too have your sources, or you would not have sent your English banker to examine me. Well, what you have heard of me is true, Brother Issa. I am before and after all things a man of peace. That is not to say I stand aside from our great struggle. I am no friend of violence, but I respect those returning to us from the battlefield. They have seen the smoke. As I have. They have been tortured for the Prophet and for God. They have been beaten and imprisoned, as I have, but not broken. The violence is not of their making. They are its victims.”

Waiting for an answer, he peered at Issa, examining with both compassion and curiosity the impact of his words. But Issa, having listened to Annabel’s translation, only bowed his head.

“Therefore, I must believe you, sir,” Abdullah went on. “It is my duty before God. If God wishes to endow us with such riches, who am I, His poor servant, to refuse them?”

But then, exactly as Brue remembered it from the day before, Abdullah’s voice hardened.

“Therefore tell me, brother, be so kind. By what munificence of Allah, by what ingenious means, are you at liberty in this country? How is it that we are able to sit with you and speak to you and touch you when, according to certain information that has reached me over the Internet and by other means, half the world’s policemen would like to clap you in irons?”

Issa turned to Annabel for her translation, then back to Abdullah while she herself supplied the answer that Brue suspected her handlers had prewritten.

“My client’s situation in Germany is precarious, Dr. Abdullah,” she said, first in German, then afterwards, sotto voce, in a Russian précis. “By German law, he may not be returned to a country that practices torture or exacts the death penalty. Unfortunately, it is a law that the German authorities, in common with other Western democracies, frequently ignore. We shall nevertheless apply for asylum in Germany.”

“
Shall
? How long has your distinguished client been in this country?”

“He has been ill and is only now recovering.”

“And meantime?”

“Meantime, my client is pursued, stateless and in great peril.”

“But by God’s mercy he is here among us,” Dr. Abdullah objected, unpersuaded.

“
Meantime
”—Annabel continued firmly—“and until we receive binding assurances from the German authorities that my client will in no circumstance be expelled to Turkey or Russia, he refuses to place himself in their hands.”

“In whose hands, then, has he placed himself
now,
if I may inquire?” Dr. Abdullah insisted, eyes darting from Annabel to Issa to Brue and back. “Is he a trick? Are you? Are
all of you
a trick?”—including Brue now in his sweeping gaze—“I am here in the service of Allah. I have no choice. But in whose service are
you
here? I ask this question from the heart: Are you good people, or are you out to destroy me? Are you here, in some way I do not understand, to make a fool or a knave of me? If my question offends you, pardon me. These are terrible times.”

Determined to leap to Annabel’s defense, Brue was still assembling his response when she came in ahead of him, and this time she dispensed with a translation.

“Dr. Abdullah,” she said, in a voice that suggested either anger or desperation.

“Madam?”

“My client has come here tonight at great risk to himself in order to present your charities with a very large sum of money. He asks only that he may give, and you receive. He asks for nothing in return—”

“God will reward him.”

“—beyond the assurance that his medical studies will be paid for by one of the charities he endows. Will you give him that assurance or do you propose to continue questioning his intentions?”

“With God’s will his medical studies will be provided for.”

“He does however insist on your absolute silence regarding his identity, his situation here in Germany and the source of the monies he is about to hand over to your charities. Those are the terms. If you will honor them, so will he.”

Dr. Abdullah’s gaze returned to Issa: the haunted eyes, the haggard face, stretched taut in pain and confusion, the long, starved hands cupped together, the threadbare overcoat, the woolen skullcap and quarter-beard.

And as Abdullah looked at him, his own gaze softened.

“Issa, my son.”

“Sir.”

“Am I correct to believe that you have not received much instruction regarding our great religion?”

“You are right, sir!” Issa barked, his voice leaping out of control in his impatience.

But Abdullah’s small, bright eyes had homed on the bracelet that Issa was nervously passing through his fingers.

“Is that made of gold, Issa, the ornament you are wearing?”

“It is the best gold, sir”—with an apprehensive glance at Annabel while she translated this.

“The small book that is attached to it: It is a depiction of the Holy Koran?”

A nod from Issa, well before Annabel had finished translating the question.

“And is the name of Allah—are those His holy words—engraved upon its pages?”

To Annabel only, and only after a long pause following her translation, came Issa’s “Yes, sir.”

“And has it not reached your ears, Issa, that such objects, and such display, being merely poor imitations of Christian and Jewish practice—for example, the golden Star of David or the Christian cross—are forbidden to us?”

Issa’s face darkened. His head fell forward and he stared intently downward at the bracelet in his hand.

Annabel came to his rescue: “It was his mother’s,” she said, unprompted by any word from her client. “It was the tradition of her people and tribe.”

Ignoring her interjection as if it had never happened, Abdullah continued to reflect upon the gravity of Issa’s offense.

“Put it back on your wrist, Issa,” he said at last. “Pull your sleeve over it so that I am not obliged to look at it.” And having listened to Annabel’s translation, and waited until his command had been obeyed, he resumed his homily.

“There are men in the world, Issa, who care only for the
dunya
—by this is meant money and material status in the short life we lead here on earth. And there are men in the world who care nothing for the
dunya
but everything for the
akhira
—by this is meant the eternal life that we lead afterwards, according to our merits and failures in the eyes of God. Our life in the
dunya
is the time given to us for sowing. In the
akhira
we shall see what our harvest is. Tell me now, Issa, what it is that
you
are renouncing, and for whom?”

Annabel had barely completed her translation before Issa rose to his feet and shouted: “Sir! Please! I am renouncing my father’s sins for God!”

Crouched at Maximilian’s side, fists braced on the worktable that ran beneath the rows of screens, Bachmann had watched every inflection and gesture that passed between the four players. Nothing he had seen of Issa surprised him: he felt he had known him ever since his arrival in Germany. A first scrutiny of Signpost had also shown him what he expected to see, and had seen countless times in television replays and in press photographs accompanied by editorials extolling the wit, moderation and inclusiveness of one of Germany’s leading Muslims: a man in his late prime, darting, charismatic and intelligent, caught between his cultivated image of reclusiveness and his love of self-promotion.

Yet it was Annabel who held center stage for him. Her artful juggling of the interrogation by Abdullah had left him mute with admiration, and he was not alone. Maximilian sat rigid, his hands spread in midmovement over his keyboard while Niki watched the screen from between her fingers.

“Heaven protect us from lawyers,” Bachmann breathed at last to their relieved laughter. “Didn’t I say she was a natural?”

And to himself: Erna, you should have seen your poor girl just now.

The mood in Brue’s office remained solemn but, to Brue, tedious rather than tense. Having discovered the gaps in Issa’s learning, Dr. Abdullah was lecturing him on the nature of the broadly based Muslim charities he championed and the system that financed them. Brue was leaning back in his bank manager’s leather chair, listening to him with what he hoped looked like keen interest while admiring Annabel’s translation.

Zakat,
Dr. Abdullah went on indefatigably, was defined in Muslim law not as a
tax
but as an
act of serving God.

“That is very correct, sir,” Issa muttered when Annabel translated this. Brue put on an expression of pious approbation.

“
Zakat
is the
giving heart of Islam,
” Dr. Abdullah continued methodically, and paused for Annabel to translate. “The giving of a portion of a man’s wealth is prescribed by God and the Prophet, peace be upon Him.”

“But I shall give all!” Issa cried, again rising to his feet, even before he had heard Annabel out. “Every
kopeika,
sir! You will see! I will give one hundred percent. To all of my brothers and sisters in Chechnya!”

“But also to the Umma at large, because we are all of one great family,” Dr. Abdullah patiently reminded him.

“Sir! Please! Chechen are my family!” Issa cried, catching Annabel in the full flood of her translation. “Chechnya is my mother!”

“However, since we are in the West tonight, Issa,” Dr. Abdullah continued firmly, as if he hadn’t heard this, “allow me to inform you that many Western Muslims today, rather than give their
zakat
to personal friends or blood relations, prefer to hand it to our many Islamic charities to be distributed within the Umma as need demands. I understand this to be also your personal wish.”

Pause for Annabel’s translation. Another pause while Issa digests it, head down, brows together—and signifies his concurrence.

“And it was on this understanding,” Abdullah went on, coming to the point at last, “that I prepared a list of charities that I considered deserving of your generosity. You have received that list, as I understand it, Issa. And you have made certain selections from it. Is that true?”

It was true.

“So were you content with that list, Issa? Or should I explain to you more precisely the function of the charities I have recommended?”

But Issa by now had had enough. “Sir!” he blurted, yet again springing to his feet. “Dr. Abdullah! My brother! Assure me of only one thing, please! We are giving this money to God and to Chechnya. That is all I need to hear! It is the money of thieves, rapists and murderers. It is bad profit from
riba
! It is
haraam
! It is profit from alcohol and pork and pornography! It is not the money of God! It is the money of Satan!”

Having listened implacably to Annabel’s translation, and assisted her with the Arabic words, Abdullah delivered his measured response.

“You are giving the money to perform God’s will, my good brother Issa. You are wise and right to give it, and when you have given it, you will be free to study, and to worship God in modesty and chastity. Perhaps it is true that the money was stolen, and put to usury and other purposes forbidden by God’s laws. But soon it will be God’s alone, and He will be merciful to you in whatever comes after the earthly life, since none but God can judge how you will be rewarded, whether in heaven or in hell.”

Which was when Brue at last felt able to make his move.

“Well then,” he said brightly, also rising to his feet in company with Issa. “May I suggest we now adjourn to the cashier’s office and complete our business there? Assuming Frau Richter approves, of course.”

Frau Richter approved.

“Go now, sir?” Maximilian asked Bachmann, as the three of them watched Brue and Signpost head for the door, followed by Issa and Annabel.

He meant: Is it time for you to get into your taxi, and for me to signal your two watchers to follow you in the Audi?

Bachmann jabbed a thumb at the screen that linked the van to Berlin.

“No green light,” he objected, and did his best to pull a raw smile at the wondrous ways of those Berlin bureaucrats.

No positively last, final, irrevocable, undeniable, unqualifiable,
fucking
green light. Not from Burgdorf, from Axelrod, not from the whole overinflated, suited, tight-arsed, divisive lawyer-driven pack of them together, he meant. Was the jury
really
still out? Was Joint
even now
looking under its lush leather sofas for yet another way of saying no? Were they perhaps debating whether five percent bad was really bad enough to justify upsetting the bruised sensitivities of our moderate Muslim community?