Let Slip the Dogs of War: A Bard's Bed & Breakfast Mystery #1 (14 page)

We moved on to colorful socks, undershirts,
and underpants, some play clothes, sneakers, and sandals before
making our way to the toy department, where we found some “Go Fish”
cards, a Chutes and Ladders board game, and an assortment of balls.
I also picked up a pair of water wings to use with the one-piece
vividly striped bathing suit with a ruffled skirt I picked up on a
sale rack, something I thought wouldn’t be offensive to her
culture. After all, what is the point of living on Lake Champlain
if you never dip a big toe into the water there on a hot day?

We also popped into Once Upon a Child, a
kiddie consignment shop, where we found some gently used puppets,
stuffed animals, and other little treasures to help bring out the
inner child in Wardah. There was a metallic blue bike, which Lorna
suggested might be fun. We were so busy trying to decide if it was
worth the $25 that we didn’t realize Wardah had wandered off.

We found her on the floor, in front of a
little wooden Breyer horse stable, displayed with a little playset
consisting of a little doll, a cat, a dog, and a pair of horses.
One look at her told us she was in love, so we bundled that up,
too.

We stopped for lunch at a friendly cafe on
the way back, lingering over our sandwiches as we watched the
passing parade of summer tourists through the big picture window
that overlooked the main street. I noticed Wardah gazing wistfully
at the children who passed by, hands clasped by parents. As I
watched her watch the other kids, I thought this must be a child
who was well-loved by at least one parent, if not both. She knew
what it felt like to have her hand held by a parent. She was used
to being protected and now she missed it.

And then I remembered that her father had
made a deal. He would provide the CIA with information, using his
insider position, in exchange for the safety of his two daughters.
One daughter came into New York, via London, on a passport marked
for Celia Dusquesne. Clearly someone had chosen the alias, and I
was beginning to suspect it was Uncle Edward, in tribute to “As You
Like It”. Hashim and Jamil were much like Rosalind and Celia’s
fathers in the play, feuding. That was why Rosalind and Celia
escaped to the Forest of Arden in the play. What if Fatima was the
wrong child? She was dead, too dead to question. And Wardah? She
was too traumatized to speak.

“Lorna, what if we showed little Roselind a
photo of Celia?” I asked. The elderly woman’s eyes studied me
carefully. “Just on the off chance that Celia isn’t Celia.”

“What would that prove?” she replied slowly.
“How would we know for sure that Celia isn’t Celia? What if it’s
Wardah who is not Wardah? Do we trust an eight-year-old war
refugee?”

“You’re right. What we really need is a DNA
sample. Maybe we could swab her cheek. Does the CIA keep track of
that kind of thing, so they can identify their informants?”

“I know you’re worried, Bea, that Ben is
being deceived, but our work here is to make sure this particular
child stays safe. We can’t go sticking our noses where they don’t
belong.”

“I have a vested interest in the outcome,” I
reminded her. “I want my husband to come back in one piece.”

I again tried to broach the subject with
Uncle Edward when we returned home.

“I can see Wardah misses her parents,” I
insisted. “And she is beginning to come out of her shell. What if
Fatima was a substitute, a doppleganger for Wardah’s sister?”

“Do not trouble yourself about that,” he
replied firmly. “You take care of the girl. I will handle the
rest.”

Within the hour, Mavis called to announce she
was flying up from DC. She insisted that the visit was imperative,
so I made up the Navarre room for her, but because I was still
annoyed with being roped into babysitting, there was no mint on her
pillow. She could turn down her own damn bed linens while she was
at it.

At five, there was a knock on the front door.
I opened it to find Mavis and two men waiting there.

“We need to have a look at the child,” she
announced.

Half an hour later, Wardah had black ink on
the tips of her fingers that she found very distressing. Even the
big lollipop didn’t help. The lab tech scanned her eyes and
examined her for distinguishing marks. Right after that, the doctor
examined her, taking blood samples, checking her teeth, and
swabbing the inside of her mouth. The two men said nothing as they
packed up their kits.

“How long will it take?” I was nervous. My
stomach felt like the 5:47 express train was rumbling through the
station without slowing down to discharge passengers.

“We should know within twenty four hours,
max.”

In reality, it took much less time than that.
Mavis’s smartphone rang while we were having dessert. A puzzled
look popped up on her face before the mask of calm slid back
down.

“Something wrong?” I asked. Mavis shook her
head quickly.

“Not to worry.”

“And yet I am worried,” I responded. Uncle
Edward changed the subject, asking Mavis about an art exhibit at
the National Gallery. The two of them got into a discussion about
the difference between illuminists and Michelangelo.

At eight, while I was reading “I Know an Old
Lady Who Swallowed a Fly” in English to Wardah, naming the various
critters as I pointed to each illustration, Mavis appeared in the
doorway.

“We need to talk.”

“Can you tell me front of the child? She
needs to cuddle and it takes her about an hour to fall asleep.” I
planted an affectionate kiss on top of Wardah’s head, to assure her
that there was nothing wrong. Mavis pulled up the arm chair by the
window, planting her feet on the bed and her hands in her lap.
Titania wandered in, brushed against Mavis’s legs, claiming
territory, before jumping up on the bed and settling on Wardah’s
lap. The little girl’s hand gently patted the imaginary crown on
the queen of the feline’s head.

“Here’s the deal, Bea. Wardah is Jamil’s
daughter. We had samples taken before Fatima was buried and it
turns out she is not. But, and here’s the kicker, according to the
DNA, Fatima is a relative.”

“Oh, dear.”

“You don’t know the half of it. We think
she’s Hashim’s daughter.”

“Jamil is a fraud? He’s on the other
team?”

“Or he doesn’t know his daughter is missing.
Maybe she was kidnapped in London because Hashim knew about the
plan, and he substituted his own daughter.”

“This is a mess,” I decided. “Do you think
that’s why we haven’t heard from Ben yet?”

“You haven’t heard from him, Bea. We have.
He’s going to help us sort this out. It may take a few weeks.”

“Weeks?” That sounded ominous.

“Maybe a little longer. It’s hard to say.”
Mavis nonchalantly pulled her feet down to the floor and calmly
stood up. She studied the little figure in my arms, as if she was
trying to make a decision. “It all depends.”

“On what?”

“On whether we can find the real Fatima.”

“Mavis, how did the fake Fatima come to have
those tattoos on her?” I asked.

“What tattoos?”

“The little honey bee and the rose. One was
edible, one was scented.” Mavis’s eyes narrowed as I described
them.

“How did you know she had them?”

“She was naked. I saw them.”

“When?”

“When I found her under the bed. Ben showed
them to me. He thought they were part of a cipher, proof that the
girl was sent to deliver a message.” Listening to me, Mavis shook
her head as she listened. And when I finished, she looked me right
in the eye.

“They were a message, alright. But not the
way you think. The real Fatima left London with henna tattoos. She
had been to a gathering of Syrian ex-pats, where the women all got
them. One was a large rose on her left hand, the other was a tiny
bee on her right hand.”

“We thought the tattoos were for ‘Mr.
Williams’, as bona fides. Only you’re ‘Mr. Williams’ and you know
the real Fatima had different tattoos.”

“Maybe they were there to fool you and Ben.
Maybe Philippe needed to convince you two that the right girl was
killed. You would report the tattoos, the body would disappear, and
I would be told the identification was verified, without ever
seeing the corpse.”

“I am totally confused,” I admitted.

“Don’t be,” said the seasoned intelligence
officer. “I put a note in my file at Langley about Fatima. It said,
‘Check tattoos. Bee and rose.’ It was a note to myself to make sure
they were made of henna.”

“Which means someone at Langley read them and
misinterpreted your notes?”

“You’re quick. Probably why Ben married
you.”

“That and the physical chemistry,” I replied,
not thinking clearly.

“Right. Of course.” It sounded like Mavis was
laughing behind that hand she put up to her face, but I couldn’t be
sure. She continued. “If we accepted the dead girl as Wardah’s
sister, we wouldn’t look for the missing girl. But that would only
work until Wardah arrived at the Bard’s Bed & Breakfast.”

“Which means what -- Wardah would know the
dead girl was an impostor?”

“Could be. For all they knew, I was bringing
the little girl with me, and she would give away the game.”

“It would make sense that they killed the
fake Fatima because of the real Wardah,” I agreed. “That means it
was deliberate, not an accident. Does that mean they needed to set
up Ben, the CIA station chief, and someone else?”

“We sent Ben to Syria to get Azeeza, Bea,
because he knows her. If he brings her out and the real Fatima is
left behind, Jamil will still be vulnerable. The original plan was
to get all three females out, so Jamil couldn’t be coerced into the
cooperating by the Syrian government. Killing the fake Fatima meant
they could affect the CIA’s effort to gain Jamil’s trust, because
we failed to keep her safe, but their trump card would be the real
Fatima, probably still in Syria.”

“Where would they hide her?”

“That’s a million dollar question. At least
now we know we need to look for her.”

“Mavis, if the fake tattoos were the result
of someone seeing your notes, doesn’t that mean you got screwed,
too? Philippe and Yuri went to a lot of trouble to bring the phony
Fatima here, kill her off, and then they tried to burn the body in
the cabana in anticipation of your arrival. The body was found in
the suite we had reserved for you. It’s almost like Philippe and
Yuri wanted to implicate the CIA in some big way. I heard Yuri
talking to Afarin Hesami, and I know her father is in the Iranian
navy, so how does Iran tie in?”

“Maybe they improvised when you found the
body and moved it. If the game was a Russian-Iranian effort, aimed
at thwarting the CIA’s recruitment of Jamil, the Russians were
probably looking for any advantage they could get. They have no
problem cutting the Iranians off if they can gain direct control
for themselves and influence how things go in Syria. If the fake
Fatima is Hashim’s daughter, they may have been trying to stoke the
bad blood between the brothers. The only way we’ll know if when we
see the scorecard at the end of the game.”

“Maybe the CIA interrupted the Russian effort
to recruit Jamil,” I suggested, “and all this is payback.”

“Could be. But I suspect there’s much, much
more hidden under the surface. This isn’t your typical Russian
intelligence op. It feels....”

“Personal. Like a vendetta,” I finished the
thought we were both sharing. “Someone is out for blood.”

“Yes, I suspect this is all about revenge.
Somehow Philippe managed to co-opt the department administrative
assistant who handles my paperwork. She’s been reporting to him
details of our efforts to handle Jamil for the CIA. Probably why
Yuri used him as a contractor, to get the information. By the way,
Philippe’s body washed up on the New York side of the lake
yesterday. The official cause of death is drowning, consistent with
the wreckage of the motor boat found nearby,” Mavis agreed. “Now
that Yuri no longer needs him, Philippe was expendable.”

“Hardly a tragedy in my book,” I decided.
“His services were for sale to the highest bidder.”

“All the more reason for Yuri to get rid of
him. He was probably worried that Philippe would accept our offer
of cash.”

“Doesn’t it strike you that Yuri is really at
the heart of all this? He’s the one guy who keeps showing up in the
middle of the action. What if Yuri isn’t Yuri?”

“Interesting thought,” said a contemplative
Mavis. “By the way, Bea, we didn’t have this conversation. It never
happened.”

Chapter Fifteen --

“I have good news and bad news,” said the
voice on the other end of the phone two days later. Mavis was back
at Langley. “Which do you want first?”

“Is Ben alive?” My heart hovered on the edge
of despair as I waited for the answer. She quickly put me out of my
misery.

“That would be the good news,” Mavis
announced. “Alive and well, currently in Istanbul.”

“Then what is the bad news?”

“You’re probably not going to like it. Things
didn’t go as well as we’d hoped.”

“You’re stalling, Mavis. Get to it.”

“Azeezah is in very rough shape, Bea. It’s
touch-and-go at the moment. They tortured her to try and get Jamil
to turn on the rebels. She has significant injuries. Even if she
lives, she’ll need a good, long recovery time.”

“How terrible.” I thought about little
Wardah.

“And the real Fatima was in the same prison.
They subjected her to terrible treatment. Her injuries are more
psychological than physical and she will need a lot of support to
regain her mental equilibrium.”

“Send her to us.” Don’t ask me what compelled
me to say that. It just seemed to pop out of my mouth.

“You want to take her on? Don’t you want to
discuss it with Ben first?” Mavis was being cautious, and for a
moment I hesitated. But then I thought about how Ben walked out
that door without asking my permission. He didn’t even give me a
chance to argue about the decision. Frankly, I owed him a kick in
the seat of his pants, but I would settle for my own version of
being noble. Let him bitch about it just once and I would remind
him of all the times he put me through the wringer.