When Bin-Hezam stopped speaking, both of them pressed their heads to the floor. Aminah’s cheeks were wet with tears. It was beautiful.

Separately, and yet together, they said their private prayers, pleading for strength and courage.

Chapter 39

Bin-Hezam stood for many moments after she left, listening for the elevator ding and the doors to open and close, then sat deeply in one of the purple chairs. He remained still for several minutes, praying silently now. He was grateful for having reached this point in the mission.

The woman Aminah bint Mohammed appeared capable. He reviewed his steps many times, making certain that he had fulfilled each one and in doing so had left nothing lacking, or to chance.

Bin-Hezam stood and walked to the closet. He entered the month and year of the prophet Mohammed’s birth into the keypad of the room safe. He removed the nickel-plated pistol and the shoulder holster, and unloaded and reloaded the handgun.

In the bedroom of the suite, Bin-Hezam laid the holster and pistol upon the bed. He stripped to his white briefs and T-shirt, unfolding the freshly laundered white shirt and slipping into it, enjoying the sensation of clean, crisp cotton against his skin.

Next the trousers. He recalled packing them in Stockholm, and the anticipation of boarding the plane three days ago. He clasped the belt at his waist and smiled to himself. Everything becoming totems now.

He began to recite the prayer aloud, his own voice a soothing accompaniment to the schripp of Velcro as he arranged the straps of the holster to fit his back and shoulder.

“Think not of those who are slain in Allah’s way as dead.”

The holster fit perfectly with the butt of the gun on his left flank just below his rib cage. To draw it, he had only to reach across his body, slide his hand under the suit coat, and tug it free.

Free.

“I would love to be martyred in Allah’s cause and then get resurrected and then get martyred . . .”

Bin-Hezam lifted the dark brown suit coat from its place on the bedcover, feeling the back straps of the holster tight against him as he slipped it on. He turned to face the mirror over the vanity across from the bed.

Perfect, he thought.

He retrieved his cell phone. He was dismayed at first when he opened the desk drawers and found them all empty—but then discovered the New York phone directories stacked on the top shelf of the closet.

He opened to the middle of the book and flipped pages until he found a listing for Saudi Arabian Airlines. He placed a call to their office on Kew Gardens Road in Kew Gardens, Queens, and inquired about the next available flight departing for Saudi Arabia.

He conversed with them in Arabic. He mentioned that he would be paying cash.

The man on the other end of the line read him the flight number and details, but Bin-Hezam did not bother to write them down. He hung up once the call was completed, and then set his cell phone down on the ledge by the high window.

Chapter 40

Fisk shot back over to Intel, lighting up his grille flashers and siren at red lights to get there faster. At his desk, he was looking over an array of Bin-Hezam photos showing his face from various angles when his computer chimed with a programmed alarm for the Joint Terrorism Task Force e-mail network.

It was an encrypted message, an incident number and instructions to call the JTTF liaison at NSA. Fisk dialed on a secure Intel landline.

The voice on the other end asked for his name, then his incident number.

“We just got a good hit on cell line Arabic per your request, Detective Fisk.”

“I’m listening.”

“So are we,” said the NSA agent. “Call went out of mid-Manhattan to Saudi Arabian Airlines in Queens. We’re tracing the originating end now.”

“The airline? What flagged it?”

“The voice asked for flight information and wants to pay cash.”

Fisk nodded. “A flight tonight?”

“From JFK. In five hours.”

“How long ago?”

“About four minutes ago. That’s why we haven’t traced the source yet.”

“Male voice, I’m assuming?”

“That is correct.”

“Can I hear it?”

“Not over the phone. I can e-mail you the voice file, but it is in Arabic.”

“Yes. Not a problem. Send it immediately, please.”

Fisk hung up and waited. An e-mail from an unknown source landed in his spam file. He opened it. The audio file was attached.

Fisk clicked play and the telephone conversation played out of his speakers. He slapped in his headphone jack in order to concentrate.

They had no comparison voice impression from Bin-Hezam. It could have been him. If so, why was he planning to fly out as soon as possible? Because his work here was finished? Or because he had gotten spooked and needed to flee?

Fisk’s secure line rang. He pulled down his headphones to answer it.

“Detective Fisk?”

It was the same NSA agent. “How’d you get this numb . . . never mind.”

“If you could give me that incident number again.”

Fisk found it in his e-mail and repeated it.

“I have a twenty on the other end of that call. The location it was placed from is the middle of the block on the north side of West Twenty-eighth Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenues. GPS zeroes it at the Hotel Indigo.”

Fisk did not know the hotel, but he knew the block. Flower shops.

“Don’t suppose you have a room number for me?” said Fisk.

“Ha,” said the NSA agent. Not a laugh, but the actual word. “Good luck, Detective.”

Fisk rushed into Dubin’s office to brief him. Dubin scrambled an interdiction team in full extraction armor. There was no discussion about getting a warrant first.

“I’m going with,” said Fisk. “That way if something breaks on the photo front, we’re already on the island.”

Chapter 41

The heat wave was doing a real number on Frankie D’Aquila’s business. July was usually a slow month—Independence Day was not known as a “flower” holiday—but he had multiple large orders due to be delivered to One World Trade Center that evening, and the heat was just one of many obstacles in his way. They were shutting down the security ring at midnight, but he did not want to risk getting tangled up in fireworks traffic, so he had to find a way to get his blooms down to Battery Park, and another way to keep them from wilting overnight.

He was renting coolers all over town. He even got his hands on two misters like the type they use out in the Midwest. He’d brought on extra staff to help him load and transport.

Frankie had earned his smoke. He stepped out onto the sidewalk and snapped his Zippo, firing up an American Spirit Light. This was only number five of the day—no, he realized, counting the cigarettes left in his pack, six—since he came to work at five thirty that morning. Not bad. His wife would be pleased, if she believed him. Saturday night was normally their date night. Best night of the week. He hoped to be home in time to catch the fireworks show on TV.

Almost quitting time for everyone else on Twenty-eighth. Except the Spanish guys who stayed open until eight. Frankie exhaled the first luscious drag over the sidewalk rows of cat palms and dwarf bamboo partially obscuring his view of the street. He noticed most of the other vendors had been backing away from trees. Too much dead loss, too much work to display. They were using their sidewalk real estate for tourist color, the big bunches of Alstroemeria lilies, roses, and mums that gave the district what was left of its visual charm. Frankie was always ahead of the season. A July Fourth heat wave, and he was thinking about fall houseplants and ornamentals.

Frankie reached out and plucked a dry brown frond from one of the palms, tossing it into the gutter. Across the street, the guys at the silk flower shop were already outside furling their awning. Frankie envied them on days like these because they weren’t slaves to living plants. And he would never admit it to a customer, but he couldn’t believe how beautiful some of the false flowers and fruits were these days. Some even with the fake fragrance. Just like the real thing, until you got close enough to feel them. The human touch always knows a dead thing from a living thing.