Streams of Babel (24 page)

But PiousKnight posts again:

They have their little informants and v-spies, traitors to the Truth, who helped them discover that the poisoning is localized. We will sniff them out and squash them, too, in good time.

I cache and type the translation, trying to focus on Red Vinegar and their implication that its effects cannot be reversed. I don't want to focus on their personal threat. I send it to Tim with a pounding heart but no comment.

Catalyst moves on:

Has the CDC identified the contents of Red Vinegar in the water?

PiousKnight:
They may have found the water suspicious by now, but they will never identify this germ. It is unrecognizable.

"Not a known biochemical agent. It is a mutation" is how Omar0324 referred to it in Pakistan.

Catalyst:
But the effects will become obvious in April, yes? Flulike symptoms will show up, and people will succumb, correct?

PiousKnight:
Omar is confident. He states that he is already developing several new vinegars, from mutations with more fluency in water.

I almost jump as I see this development. I send it to Tim quickly, though my fingers tremble worse.

He curses softly and says in my earpiece, "Get on your own screen and log in to their chat room as BlueSky382. I want you to ask them a question."

BlueSky382 ... I had seen this log-in and had scripted it often for Hodji and Roger. They never mentioned to me—no one did until today—that BlueSky382 is a USIC undercover log-in. Probably several v-spies in USIC use it to play mole.

I log in as Tim suggests, but my nervous side effects double as I prepare to post, because I have rarely played this type of v-spy. There are actually two types of v-spies. Most are moles,
who pretend online that they are somebody else, and they strike up artificial friendships. Then, there are the track 'n' translators, of which I am one of the few. I can use computer searches and translation skills to my advantage more easily than most v-spies, but Hodji did not like me ever to speak to the extremists. It is too dangerous for my age, he said, and therefore I usually entered chat rooms as an invisible v-spy—hacking past the log-in—and they were not aware of my presence.

I hear Tim speak plainly as I hesitate. "Greet them. Then ask if they need more money for funding."

My heart beats loudly. I am not well briefed on BlueSky382. What money term do I use? Dollars? Denari? Francs?

Before I know what keys I am striking, I send an IM to Tim. "You are sure Catalyst is not aware of us?"

He replies, "I'm positive. Why? You nervous?"

I will never admit to this. I force myself to log in, and I greet Catalyst and PiousKnight in Arabic. I pretend all the white space between their log-ins means nothing to me. They idle for some time, then PiousKnight posts back in Arabic.

PiousKnight:
Greetings, my brother. How is your weather today?

Tim immediately mutters into my earpiece, "Tell him it's been raining for two days."

Long Island, New York, is sunny and balmy like summer, so I presume BlueSky382 is pretending to be elsewhere.

I post it. They ask about what my new pet parrot has thought to say lately, how my sick wife is. I realize the v-spies have embellished quite a story for this BlueSky382, far beyond
what I had been capturing in Pakistan. Each time, Tim knows exactly what to say, and I post it.

I notice the Arabic from Catalyst and PiousKnight has stayed Arabic, and it stays visible on the screen, as if they have turned off their translating/erasing programs just to speak to me. I presume BlueSky is not someone they entirely trust.

"Ask if they need more funding," Tim encourages into my ear. "Use the euro."

So, I post,

Do you need more euros at this time?

They idle, and I don't like this posting blindly. I had no idea until just now that USIC would either pretend to be a donor or actually send cash, and I haven't a clue what the extremists will say back. I presume that Tim is trying to get an actual mailing address from them. USIC can find out more about the terror cell with it.

PiousKnight:
Donations are always appreciated.

I post,

What address should I use?

without waiting for Tim, as Hodji has mentioned this trick several times as used by his moles.

They idle long over my question about the address, though Tim mutters, "Good, good..." Catalyst posts what I am totally unprepared for:

Where are you now?

My heart-arousing medicine makes my hair stand. And I hear some snorting noise in my ear, which I presume is Tim, who thinks these men are funny.

"We're breathing into your necks, you stupid morons," Tim snickers. "Tell him you're still in Hamburg, Germany."

Hamburg.

I post quickly.

Catalyst:
Yes, I forgot. Use our Hamburg address for money orders: Friends of the Orphans of the Lost Cities, Box C-112, Hamburg, Germany, 01-55979.

I think Tim will be disappointed, but he sends me Hodji's word: "
Bingo!
" Maybe in Germany they find post office boxes more promising than in the United States or Pakistan.

But before I can bask in my successes, Catalyst blindsides me with another question:

Do you live in Hamburg proper, or in a suburb city of there?

At the same time, I receive an IM from Tim:

Have to take a phone call ... hang steady until I get back.

I can hear a cell phone ringing several rows back from me, but I dare not turn to look. I wonder if Tim has been sending
these messages to some USIC meeting, and now the agents want to speak to Tim for clarification. He will have to go outside, as cell reception amid all these electronics is ironically horrible.

I lay my fingers on the keys, then remove them again. I wonder if Catalyst is trying to find out about me, as we are trying to find out about him. I don't want to answer in case other v-spies have given other details. After an eternal thirty seconds, Catalyst posts:

Are you there?

Before I can think, I post "yes," then realize my error. I was not inclined to stupid mistakes in Pakistan, but I wasn't a visible mole, either.

Catalyst:
Well? Where are you located?

Anything but an answer will be insufficient. I type:

Sorry, phone rang. I am in Hamburg proper.

There is idling, and I glance to the side, hoping to see the silhouette of someone returning to a station behind me. It is approaching nine o'clock, and the patrons are thinning out. But Tyler Ping is still working behind me, and no one is coming back to a workstation.

Catalyst:
Last month, you reported moving to Frankfurt. You move around a lot.

My heart goes too crazy. He is mole sniffing, I am almost certain. And I wonder how Tim can be so casual as to take a phone call. I drum on my keys and decide to post,

We are visiting family.

I see no one come back to a station from the corner of my eye, but realize I am craning my neck a lot, and it will make me stand out.

Catalyst:
How long have you been where you are?

The post glares with suspicion. I feel like he knows I'm in America, and for only two days, and he wants to taunt me. Tim's IM flashes on my screen:

I'm back.

Whew. I bang out to Tim quickly:

Read chatter! How long has BlueSky been in Hamburg?

His voice sings softly but clearly through the earpiece. "Tell him eleven days. Remind him you and your wife are graduate students visiting from Lebanon."

I post these things, and Catalyst turns to chitchat about the funding for orphanages and him appreciating my past donations. I force myself to post the comments Tim speaks, but my nerves are wearing thinner. I think I should get an asthma
medicine with fewer side effects or not take it at all at work. Better to wheeze than tremble and hear my heart bang.

For the second time this evening, some cloddish busboy drops the lid to the huge, metal coffeemaker in the back. It bangs onto the metal counter. I shoot out of my seat, standing straight up. The jump makes me extremely conspicuous, and I turn up the bottom of my shoe, pretending to look at it, before sitting down again. Tim IMs me:

Something bite you in the butt?

I send back:

My foot is asleep.

I scroll back up to see if I missed any chatter, thinking how Aunt Alika said to call my doctor back and tell him this "wonderful" American medicine is making me jump out of my skin. But it is not a custom that I can conceive of very well. If you get American medicine in Pakistan, you are considered very lucky, and you put up with whatever comes with it, no questions asked.

I hear the voice of Tim again.

"Shahzad, don't panic. But I'm getting activity readings from your terminal that someone has hacked in and captured your screen. It could be just one of those glitches, but I want you to log off, okay?"

In other words, someone else in the café has captured my activity and is watching it, trying to detect what I am up to.
Someone suspects I'm spying.
They could have seen my IMs to
and from Tim.... I feel disconnected from my trained protector after logging off, in spite of the earpiece. I sit looking at nothing but my screen, hearing my heart bang, and feeling dizzy.

"Now go get coffee. Take your time. I just want to see if anyone in here is watching you."

Of course I want to look all around at that point, and he reads my mind when I don't move.

"You're perfectly safe."

I force myself over to the beverage station. I order a cappuccino, my very first. All Uncle Ahmer could get at a good enough discount for our café was Starbucks regular ground coffee. Cappuccino is part of my American "To Eat" list, but my first sip will hardly go down. My throat is tight.

I turn and look at a man down the row from me, the one who I think is Catalyst. Some flash of nerve compels me to see his full face, if only for a moment. His dark eyes had been on his terminal, but when I look, he meets my eyes. After a moment, he smiles and nods. I almost drop my cappuccino, clutching my ear with the microphone and thinking,
He knows, he knows...

"Don't give yourself a heart attack. I'm thinking he just did that because you're the only other Middle Eastern guy in here right now," Tim says.

Pakistan is not part of the Middle East, and Americans often citing me as Middle Eastern does not inspire my confidence in their knowledge.

As I sit his voice comes through. "Log back on. I think you're okay now. Must have been a glitch."

Yes, a glitch, and that is why a dangerous extremist who poisons people's water just smiled at me.
I long for Hodji's and Uncle's courageous presences behind me once again.

I don't log in to the chat room this time, as I want to be briefed on BlueSky's background in case I am ever put on the spot like this again. I think Tim will agree. Catalyst and PiousKnight are now chatting in Baluchi, a second language of Afghanistan, which means they have resumed their conversation from before I came in. Probably they think I was knocked off, and I cache the screen and begin to translate to Arabic again.

I can see that they have been idling before resuming their chat, and I perceive the reason.

PiousKnight:
I just received a message from Omar. He says that the offspring of one of the dead women in Colony One has just been hospitalized.

Catalyst:
His brains are bleeding out his face?

PiousKnight:
It is a she. A teenage girl. No bleeding yet. Omar expects she may exhibit other symptoms and the cause of death may be listed as something else. This is why he prizes Red Vinegar. It hides behind many masks. Good day, my friend.

I translate frantically, realizing this is the kind of detail that USIC can get great information out of. If they can find the location of Colony One by knowing two women died there of brain aneurysm, then they can verify the location by this detail about a girl.

It is as if her blood runs through me, and suddenly I am chilled and my face feels full of sickness. Hence, I follow up the translation to Tim with this:

Why can't you arrest Catalyst right now???

Catalyst has logged off and now is standing up. I cannot help but steal a glance. He looks almost too young to be involved in killings—maybe in his midtwenties. He has hair to his shoulders, long and dark. He looks like a musician or an artist, and it is impossible to tell whether he is Lebanese, Italian, Egyptian ... One culture sweeps into another in this world, and I feel we need to be like God, who judges by the heart and not by appearances, to keep our lives safe. I feel the misery of the USIC agents, trying to judge who is capable of murdering innocents.

Tim replies into my earpiece, "That's what my phone call was about. USIC was saying again that we have enough to arrest him with that chatter. Michael says to wait. We need him to lead us to Omar."

Michael is the supervisor of my USIC squad, whom I met briefly yesterday afternoon in New York. I had jet lag, and his face is a blur. But I remember Roger saying back in Pakistan that if they arrest the Trinitron extremists now, all chatter will cease. It seems a very strange price to pay, to let a person like this run loose.

I wish to start hacking into databases like U.S. Social Security for Omar's only clue of identity, the 0324 that follows his infrequent log-in. But I am not allowed. I have no idea if another v-spy is doing this for them, or if they have tapped Catalyst's phone lines. I am only to do what I'm told and try to sleep at night, with no control over my own life.