Free The Language of Secrets by Ausma Zehanat Khan

else.”
    He examined one of the metal bookshelves, Rachel took the other, checking each of the numbered binders carefully. Everything confirmed what Alia Dar had described—Mohsin’s interest in computer programming, his dabbling.
    â€œThis is like another language,” Rachel said, paging through the manuals. “Besides, if there was anything here, INSET probably already has it.”
    Khattak shook his head. The typewritten message meant something; so did the number of the locker. He looked at the rows of binders, taking out the fourteenth binder in the first row again: 1–14. He read each page closely, in case Mohsin had left a coded message.
    â€œI thought the number might mean something,” he said, passing the binder to Rachel. She checked it as well. The page numbered 114 was a set of instructions on programming in Java that continued from the preceding pages.
    She shoved the binder back into place, and as she did so she heard a small click. With a frown, she retrieved the binder, this time setting it down on the desk with a thud. The click sounded again. Moving the typewriter aside, she opened the binder and laid it flat on the desk. Then she tilted it up and checked the metal spine. There was a tiny gap between the metal spine and the plastic cover of the binder. She shook it and heard a slipping sound.
    â€œThere’s something there, sir, you were right. But I can’t quite reach it with my fingers.”
    She passed the binder back to him, and this time Esa tried. By a combination of shaking the spine and sliding his fingers through the tiny opening, he was just able to touch the outline of a plastic square.
    He tipped the binder upside down, and the square slid into his fingers.
    He held it up in the dim light of the storage locker.
    It was the memory card from a digital camera.
    *   *   *
    Rachel stared at it, thrilled. It wasn’t the most sophisticated hiding place, but it had taken Khattak’s insight into Mohsin to find it.
    â€œMy laptop’s in the car.”
    When she’d brought it to the locker and booted it up, the screen saver flared to life. It was a photograph of Zachary taken with friends in the Austrian Alps. He was making a peace sign, not quite able to disguise his sense of awe at his surroundings. Rachel cleared the screen before Khattak could say anything. She slid the memory card into her laptop’s SD slot and clicked to open the files on the card. The files were password-protected.
    They tried a few different options. Mohsin’s name, Alia’s name, the two names together, Mohsin’s name and birth date. Finally, Khattak typed in Mohsin’s initials, followed by the number of the locker: MD114.
    A dozen photographs sprang up on Rachel’s screen.
    Each one showed a dwelling destroyed by a bomb attack, the street and neighborhood in ruins: mangled vehicles, gaping brick walls, craters in the tarmac, blood running into gutters.
    â€œWhat is this?” Rachel asked. “ Where is this?”
    Khattak pointed to the last photograph. Rachel pulled it up on her screen.
    It was a photograph taken at Baghdad International Airport. Two men were hugging each other in an emotional greeting or farewell. The man whose face was to the camera was elderly, tears streaming down his face into a grizzled beard.
    The other man’s back was to the camera.
    â€œThat may be Hassan Ashkouri.”
    *   *   *
    When they had replaced the binder without finding anything more, Khattak called Coale to tell him of the discovery. Coale dismissed it in a few succinct phrases.
    â€œWe know about it, it doesn’t matter. Leave the scene as it is.”
    What Coale didn’t share was whether Ashkouri or other members of his cell knew about the locker or its contents, or who the message in the typewriter may have been directed at. Khattak sounded a note of caution about the interception of the