“Approach me? I was walking home from the market on Lancaster Road when two men wearing nylon masks threw me in the back of a van. I never saw the driver. They struck me whenever I tried to move, didn’t say a word to me. They chained me in a dirty warehouse somewhere that smelled of rotten fish, left me there terrified, not knowing why this was happening to me or whether they would kill me.
“When they returned, always three of them, always in their masks, it was only to bring me enough food and water to survive. They wouldn’t speak to me or answer any of my questions, ignored my plea to call my wife so she would know I was alive and arrange for a ransom, hit me again if I said too much. From the few words they said, it was obvious they were Arabic. When they spoke in that language, it was with a Syrian accent. I might recognize their voices, perhaps, but that is all.
“After two days they sat me down and the man with the strongest accent told me I would be taking a trip to New York, said they had an assignment for me there. He showed me photos of my family on a smartphone, surrounded by men in masks, played a video of my wife, terrified, pleading with me to do as they asked. They had my passport, so I knew they’d taken my family from my home, since all my papers were there. He said I would learn later what I would be doing there, but that if I failed, they would murder my wife and my children.”
Nasim paused, looked down at his fisted hands. “The man told me he would do it himself, strangle each of them in turn, bury them all together in a single grave. I believed him. I demanded to speak to my wife, demanded proof she was alive. They said I could speak to her only after we were all in New York. That way no one in London could find them, even if I got word to someone. They had me purchase tickets for all of us myself, even left me alone during my flight to New York.
“A man approached me at Kennedy, took me to a waiting van, blindfolded me, and drove away. I believe there were three men. They did not speak, except for the destination: Queens. They held me in a small apartment there, I don’t know where in Queens. I spoke with Marie Claire for the first time that night. We spoke in French until one of the men struck me in the ribs, said we had to speak English. They let her tell me they were still all right, that they had made it to America. I heard my children in the background.”
Nasim Conklin looked toward the single window, darkened by the curtain pulled tightly over it. “They took the phone away. That was the last time I spoke to my wife.”
“You say ‘they,’ Nasim. You obviously saw them. Do you know who they were? Can you describe them, or the van?”
“There were three of them, their accents Syrian, like the first three. They were about my age and older. They looked pleasant and well dressed, all three in slacks and jackets. They were polite; their English was quite good. The license plate on the van? I didn’t see it.”
“I will show you photos, see if you can identify them.”
“Yes, I will try. I do know they had British passports, but perhaps they were forged as well.”
“And it was only then they told you what you had to do? Explode a grenade in the security line at JFK?”
He nodded. “Right after they took the phone, the nightmare became worse than I imagined. They showed me the grenade, showed me how to make it explode, and handcuffed me to a cot in the back room, expecting me to sleep. Of course I could not sleep at all. It was then I overhead bits and pieces of their conversation through the closed door, in Arabic. They didn’t realize I could sometimes hear them. That was when I heard them use the word Bella, a kind of code word for what they were doing. They mentioned a man they called the Strategist—there is no Arabic word translation, so they used the English. I don’t know who he is, but they spoke of him respectfully, almost reverently—as their mastermind or leader. And one of the men—his name was Rahal—mentioned a name, Hosni, called him his brother and Hosni was here in the United States, and was helping them. He laughed a bit. Do you think Hosni Rahal might be important?”
Sherlock’s heart kicked up. “Hosni Rahal. We will search for him. You have no idea at all who the Strategist might be?”
Nasim shook his head. “Other than the one who seems to have planned this Bella project, I have no idea. Those were the only names I heard. I do not know if that will help you.”
“The question we need to focus on, then, Nasim, is why did this happen to you in particular? Who picked you out to do this, and why? If we can discover that, we can find them, and perhaps your family.”
“I have hardly thought about anything else. What did I do, what did my family do to deserve this? Why didn’t they send one of the many misguided souls who are eager to die for jihad, someone they had thoroughly trained, rather than take the risk of choosing someone like me? I froze, didn’t I?”
“Exactly the question. Could they have picked you because they thought you couldn’t be connected to them? Expected that you would die without even knowing who they were? Or perhaps it was also something personal, someone wanted you dead?”
“I have no mortal enemies, so far as I know.”
“When they first took you, though, you believed it was for ransom? Because you were selling your father’s business and you would shortly be very rich?”
“That is true, but there is only my mother. Why would she want me dead?”
Sherlock nodded. “All right. Go back with me, Nasim. You returned to London about six months ago?”
He nodded. “Yes, about six months ago, after the death of my father. My mother, Sabeen, took his loss very hard, begged me to move to London. To be honest, Marie Claire and I were happy in Rouen, both of us settled and looking forward to our future there. But my mother needed me, asked to have her grandchildren back in her life, and there was the family business in England to attend to.”
“She couldn’t come visit your children, stay with you in Rouen?”
“She and my wife, Marie Claire, do not like each other. My mother never approved of my marriage to a French Catholic, was especially upset about my children being raised Catholic. You see, my father was an atheist, and he allowed her to raise me in Islam. I lapsed in my beliefs long ago, and she was pushing me to come back to my faith.”
“And your father?”
“My father disapproved of us for different reasons. He owned a very successful chain of dry-cleaning stores, all over England and Scotland. He expected me to join the business with him, and when I told him I had no interest, that I wanted to be a writer, a journalist, instead, he was very angry. He severed ties between us.”
He shrugged. “Then he was dead and I felt I had no choice but to return to London, at least temporarily, and so we moved the next month. We found an apartment near enough to visit my mother but far enough away to suit my wife. Marie Claire was worried what my mother would say to our children about their religion if she left her alone with them.
“I told my mother I intended to sell the stores as quickly as possible. I was surprised she said she’d been very involved in the business for a number of years. She begged me not to sell the business, that I didn’t have to be involved at all. I could simply hand over the running of it to her. But I refused. I wanted nothing to do with the chain, I admit it, in part because I still felt great anger at my father for what he’d done to us. To me, my father’s business was an albatross around my neck. Besides, I soon had conglomerates lining up to make offers, and I had already been asked by the London Herald to write for them.”
“Surely your father must have realized your mother would want to keep the chain. Why did he leave his business to you?”