Chapter 18

It was a ten-minute walk from the State Department to the nearest Metro station. A transfer to the Yellow Line would have

taken Andie to Reagan National Airport in time to catch her flight to Miami. But the review of the classified dossier on Ava

Bazzi was only part of the reason for her trip. Andie took the Red Line to Maryland.

“Next stop, Takoma Station.”

Andie rose with the robotic-sounding announcement. The metallic screech of steel wheels on steel rails brought her train to

a stop, and she exited to the platform.

Andie had been planning this side trip since the night the woman showed up in a taxi outside her house in Key Biscayne. After

the woman refused to tell Andie her name, Andie had jotted down her cab’s license plate number. A follow-up call to the driver

gave her the name of the hotel where he’d dropped his passenger. A call to the hotel manager got her the name the woman had

used at check-in, which was as phony as Jane Doe. She’d been careful enough to pay the cab and the hotel in cash, leaving

no credit card trail. But there had been an outgoing phone call from the hotel room. The number was on the billing statement.

It was to a landline, and belonged to a seventy-seven-year-old woman in Takoma Park, Maryland. Her name was Irene Guthrie.

Irene’s address was Andie’s destination.

And people said cell phones were the end of personal privacy.

The walk from the Metro station to Irene’s house was one of the crunchiest Andie had ever taken. Takoma Park was known for its tree-lined streets, and autumn had come late, leaving sidewalks covered in fallen leaves, with still more falling as Andie passed through the quiet neighborhood. The wood-frame houses dated to before World War II but were well maintained. They all started to look the same to Andie, distinguished only by the color of the latest coat of paint on the clapboard siding. Andie stopped outside a yellow house and checked the street number. She was in the right place. She walked up the sidewalk— crunch, crunch, crunch —and knocked on the front door. To Andie’s surprise, Irene didn’t even ask who it was before opening the door.

We’re not in Miami anymore, Toto.

“Irene Guthrie?” asked Andie.

“Yes, can I help you?”

It wasn’t kosher for an FBI agent to flash a badge on a personal matter, and it was a close call as to whether this visit

was FBI business. Andie had played it conservatively and not used her FBI status when talking to the cabdriver and hotel manager.

Years of undercover work had trained her to open doors without a badge. She played this visit the same way.

“Hi, my name is Andie. You don’t know me, but we have a mutual friend. Frankly I’m a little worried about her, and I was hoping

you could help.”

Irene’s eyes clouded with concern. “Who are you talking about?”

Andie pulled a photograph from her purse. It was an image captured by video surveillance at the hotel. The hotel manager had

been more than cooperative, though Andie doubted that she would have gotten the surveillance video if she’d been wearing her

wedding ring at the time.

“This is a photo of her in Miami,” she said.

Irene took the photo and looked at it. “That is definitely Margaret.”

Margaret. That was a start. “Did you know she was in Miami?”

“Yes, we spoke on the telephone while she was there. We speak almost every day. She’s the only family I’ve got, since, you

know—my son went missing.”

It wasn’t quite the jackpot, but it was close.

“Did Margaret tell you why she was going to Miami?”

“I don’t remember, specifically. I seem to have the idea in my head that it was to see someone. A friend.”

That worked for Andie. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Margaret came to Miami to see me. She said some things that worried me. Things about...”

Andie let the question dangle and held her breath.

“About Brian?”

Jackpot, assuming Brian and his mother had the same surname. “Yes, about Brian.” Brian Guthrie.

“Would you like to come inside, Andie? I could make some tea.”

Andie smiled on the inside. “Yes, I’d like that very much,” she said, and another door opened.

Jack invited Zahra back to his office for the end-of-day download on things going well, going wrong, or going nowhere, but

Zahra wanted a place where she could relax. It was Jack’s first visit to a hookah lounge.

“I honestly didn’t know Miami had hookah lounges,” he said.

“Not authentic ones,” said Zahra. “Most of them are trendy variations on a nightclub that use hookah as a gimmick. A real

hookah lounge would be more respectful of customers who don’t drink for religious reasons. They might serve alcohol, but not

to the point where people are openly drunk and prying their way into each other’s pants.”

The lounge was dimly lit, with comfortable sitting areas for small groups to relax and converse. Jack and Zahra were seated

on a couch with the hookah resting on the low table in front of them. Zahra chose the apple-flavored tobacco, and their server

loaded it. It was a typical hookah, standing about two feet tall, consisting of a bulbous glass base, a bowl for the tobacco,

a hose, and a hose handle. Zahra explained that charcoal heated the flavored tobacco in the bowl, and the smoke was drawn

through the water in the glass base and into the hose, where the smoker inhaled it. For Jack it brought back memories of his

college roommate, who before his expulsion taught everyone in the dorm to smoke pot through a bong.

The server brought a pitcher of water and two glasses.

“No ice for me,” said Zahra.

The server poured accordingly and left them alone.

“Is that an official hookah thing, no ice?” asked Jack.

“No. It’s a Zahra thing. Sensitive teeth. Persians were making cold drinks with ice thousands of years before there were freezers.

Big clay cooling systems right in the middle of the desert. They were called yakhchāl s.”

“Ancient slushies,” said Jack. “A culture ahead of its time in so many ways.”

Zahra drank to that, then said, “And in other ways, not so much.”

Zahra took the hookah hose, brought the nozzle to her lips, and inhaled. The smoke curled up to the lights as she exhaled.

“The hookah lounge is my safe place,” said Zahra. “Part of my culture. Birthdays. Graduations. Crying over the cute boy who

didn’t like you back. Amazing your friends with your smoke-ring skills. You don’t do it alone. Always in a group.”

“Was this something you and Ava did together?”

“Ava,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I tried to take her for her sixteenth birthday, but she wouldn’t come.”

“Too young?”

“Hah! No. It didn’t fit her image.”

“Her image?”

“Ava was the ‘perfect daughter,’” she said, making air quotes. “She pretended to listen when our mother said it was haram and aib —forbidden and shameful—for girls to smoke. Meanwhile, she was smoking hookah every weekend with her friends. You could smell

it on her clothes. Did that make a difference to our mother? No. Ava was the good girl. Zahra was the bad girl.”

“Second child privilege,” said Jack. “Firstborn has to obey all the rules. The rest get away with murder.”

Zahra passed the hose to Jack. “Funny thing is, had Mother left out the guilt and just told me that hookah causes cancer,

like all other tobacco, I probably would have listened.”

Jack coughed on the inhale. She laughed, and Jack smiled back. Then he turned to business. “Let’s start by managing expectations

for tomorrow.”

Zahra smiled thinly. “I can’t wait to see Farid squirm on the witness stand.”

“That’s what I meant by ‘managing expectations.’ There are a few points I can score tomorrow, but we are not going to win

the case on cross-examination.”

She looked at him with confusion. “But... that’s your job.”

“Zahra, this is not a trial. This is a hearing under the Hague Convention. There’s been no discovery.”

“What do you mean by ‘discovery’?”

“I have no ammunition. No phone calls to the Iranian equivalent of nine-one-one. No medical records showing bruises or injuries

from abuse. No photographs of kicked-down doors or broken dishes thrown across the apartment. In a trial, I would have those

things and confront Farid with them on cross-examination. Without them, we can’t expect him to just break down on the witness

stand, cry like a baby, and admit he’s an abusive parent.”

It was like watching the air escape from a balloon; Zahra seemed to deflate before his eyes. “Are you saying we can’t win

the case?”

“Not at all. I’m saying we can’t win the case tomorrow . To win, we have to present strong evidence next week as part of our case.”

“Okay. What kind of evidence?”

“That depends. If we want to show that Farid was an abusive husband, your testimony will be enough. But if we want to prove

that Farid was an abusive father , we may need another witness.”

“Who?”

Jack hesitated to say it, but there would never be a good time. “We may have to put Yasmin on the stand.”

“No,” she said firmly.

“Farid’s testimony today made a big impression on Judge Carlton.”

“No,” she said, even more firmly.

“Legally, it’s our burden to prove that returning Yasmin to her father puts her in grave danger of physical or psychological

harm. And we have to prove it by clear and convincing evidence. A battle of he-said, she-said is not going to win this case.”

“I said no ! Yasmin is not testifying. She’s six .”

It was the reaction Jack had expected, but it was his job to raise it. “I understand,” he said. “I really do.”

“I don’t care if you understand or not, Jack. I care about winning this case. How do you plan to do that?”

“There is one other angle.”

“Tell me.”

“Under the Hague Convention, the abuse doesn’t have to be directed at the child. There’s a strong argument that a child suffers

psychological harm by witnessing the abuse of her mother.”

Zahra inhaled from the hookah, thinking, then exhaled. “So it’s not enough to prove that Farid was abusive to Ava and me.

We need to prove he did it in front of Yasmin.”

“That’s right,” said Jack.

Zahra swallowed hard, looked off somewhere to the middle distance, and then brought her gaze back to Jack. “We’ll prove what

we have to prove,” she said.

“I’m going to need details.”

“Not here,” she said quietly. “Let’s not spoil my safe place.”