Free The Language of Secrets by Ausma Zehanat Khan Page A

fertilizer.
    â€œMaybe Ashkouri is onto you. You should let the superintendent know.”
    â€œOf course I missed that, Khattak.” Coale’s tone was derisive. “Now stay the hell away from my operation, because I won’t tell you again.”
    He shut off the call without giving Esa a chance to respond.
    In the background, Rachel cleared her throat.
    â€œYou told him about the photographs but you didn’t tell him you think the message is for you.”
    â€œCoale doesn’t want to know.”
    Rachel looked at him hopefully. “But I do, sir.”
    *   *   *
    The storage locker was colder than the parking lot outside. They walked back to their cars, Rachel sliding into Khattak’s BMW with a flutter of anxiety. She didn’t like the effect that the call to Coale had had on Khattak—she hadn’t seen him speak so carefully before, each word measured, holding his opinions in check, not meeting her eyes as he spoke.
    â€œSo what do you know that I don’t?” she asked without preamble. “What can you tell me about the photographs?”
    â€œThe typewritten message is more important. It tells us why the photographs matter.”
    Khattak searched for a name on his phone, then passed the results over to Rachel. He waited until she had read the screen.
    â€œ Men in the Sun is the name of perhaps the most well-known Palestinian novel of all time. It’s a story about the harshness of exile. The protagonists are desperate to earn their livelihood in Kuwait. They pay a smuggler to take them across the desert inside an empty water tank. By the time their transport crosses the border, the men in the tank are dead—defeated by petty bureaucracy and a lack of human compassion.”
    Rachel passed back the phone.
    â€œThat’s not a happy story.”
    Khattak stared out the window, thinking.
    â€œMohsin used to say that the story of Palestinian exile was the most tragic one of our times—dispossession, statelessness, the denial of the right to return. An endless cycle of suffering and violence, the diary of a Palestinian wound, the diary of a Nakba.”
    The way Khattak said it reminded Rachel of their work on the Drayton investigation. He was quoting Mohsin Dar, but he sounded as if his sympathies were engaged.
    She wondered if she would ever understand the complex nature of Esa Khattak’s identity.
    She didn’t have the nerve to raise the issue in his car.
    â€œSo this ties in to the Nakba plot?” she asked instead. “Mohsin and his group want revenge for Palestinian suffering? Then how is this message for you?”
    Khattak pondered the search result on his phone.
    â€œI think he wrote the message in such a way that it could be read as his commitment to the Nakba plot. But he knew it would have a different meaning for me.” His voice was somber. “When we were at university together, Mohsin and I participated in a theater production. We mounted Men in the Sun as a play.”
    The idea of a young Esa Khattak playing a part on stage fascinated Rachel.
    But she drew a different conclusion from the message than he did.
    We will show you the proof of it.
    What if Mohsin had fallen for the plot?
    â€œWhere do the photos fit in? Why did Mohsin leave them for you?”
    Khattak reached over to remove a bit of chocolate from Rachel’s hair. Flustered, she fumbled in her pockets for a napkin.
    â€œSorry, sir. I eat like I breathe—like it’s my last chance.”
    If she was hoping to make him smile, it didn’t work.
    â€œPeople suffer, people die,” he answered. “I think Mohsin wanted me to understand how personally Ashkouri was affected by the destruction of Baghdad. He may have gotten these photos from Ashkouri—Ashkouri might have been using them for recruitment purposes. They’re powerful, because they tell his story in a way that anyone would sympathize with. But