After showering and dressing, they headed downstairs to the lobby to partake of the complimentary breakfast. Safia had no appetite. Neither for that matter did Natalie. She drank three cups of coffee for the sake of her headache and forced down a container of Greek yogurt. The restaurant was full of tourists and two clean-cut men who looked as though they were in town for business. One of the men couldn’t keep his eyes off Safia. The other was watching the news on the overhead television. A network icon in the bottom-right corner of the screen read LIVE. The American and French presidents were seated before the fireplace in the Oval Office. The American president was speaking. The French president didn’t look happy.
“What’s he saying?” asked Safia.
“Something about working with our friends and allies in the Middle East to defeat ISIS.”
“Is he serious?”
“Our president doesn’t seem to think so.”
Safia’s eyes met the eyes of her not-so-secret admirer on the other side of the restaurant. She looked quickly away.
“Why does that man keep looking at me?”
“He finds you attractive.”
“Are you sure that’s all it is?”
Natalie nodded.
“It’s annoying.”
“I know.”
“I wish I could put on my hijab.”
“It wouldn’t help.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’d still be beautiful.” Natalie scraped the last of the yogurt from the bottom of the plastic container. “You really should eat something.”
“Why?”
Natalie had no answer. “Where are we going this morning?” she asked.
“Shopping.”
“What do we need?”
“Clothes.”
“I have clothes.”
“Nice clothes.”
Safia glanced at the television screen, where the White House press secretary was herding the reporters from the Oval Office. Then she stood without another word and walked out of the restaurant. Natalie followed a few paces behind, her handbag over her right shoulder. Outside, the rain had subsided to a cold drizzle. They hurried across the parking lot and climbed into the Impala. Natalie shoved the key into the ignition and started the engine while Safia pulled her mobile from her purse and thumbed TYSONS CORNER into Google Maps. When the blue route line appeared on the screen, she pointed toward Lee Highway. “Make a right.”
On the Operations Floor at the NCTC, Gabriel and Adrian Carter watched as the bright red Impala eased into a westbound lane of I-66, followed by a Ford Explorer containing two officers from the FBI’s Special Surveillance Group. On the neighboring video screen, the blue light of the beacon flashed on a giant digital map of metropolitan Washington.
“What are you going to do?” asked Gabriel.
“It’s not my call. Not even close.”
“Whose call is it?”
“His,” said Carter, nodding toward a CNN live shot from the Oval Office. “He’s on his way down to the Situation Room. All the national security principals are there.”
Just then, the phone in front of Carter rang. It was a decidedly one-sided conversation. “Understood,” was all Carter said. Then he hung up and stared at the winking blue light moving west along I-66.
“What’s the decision?” asked Gabriel.
“We’re going to let them run.”
“Good call.”
“Maybe,” said Carter. “Or maybe not.”
Natalie followed I-66 to the Beltway and the Beltway to the Tysons Corner Center shopping mall. There were several spaces available on the coveted first level of Lot B, but Safia directed Natalie to the second level instead. “There,” she said, pointing to a deserted distant corner of the lot. “Park over there.”
“Why so far from the mall?”
“Just do what I tell you,” Safia hissed.
Natalie pulled into the space and killed the engine. Safia scrutinized the instrument panel as a Ford Explorer passed behind them. It parked at the end of the same row, and two all-American males in their early thirties climbed out and headed toward the mall. Safia didn’t seem to notice them. She was looking at the instrument panel again.
“Does this car have an internal trunk release?”
“There,” said Natalie, pointing toward the button near the center of the dash.
“Leave the doors unlocked.”
“Why?”
“Because I told you to.”
Safia climbed out without another word. Together, they made their way to the stairwell and descended to the Bloomingdale’s entrance of the mall. The all-Americans were pretending to shop for winter coats. Safia followed the signs to the women’s department and spent the next thirty minutes moving from boutique to boutique, rack to rack. Natalie explained to the saleswoman that her friend was looking for something appropriate for a business dinner—a skirt and jacket, but the jacket couldn’t be too tight. Safia tried on several of the saleswoman’s suggestions but rejected all of them.
“Too tight,” she said in labored English, running her hands over her shapely hips and flat stomach. “Looser.”
“If I had a body like yours,” the saleswoman said, “I’d want it as tight as possible.”
“She wants to make a good impression,” explained Natalie.
“Tell her to try Macy’s. She might have more luck there.”
She did. Within a few minutes she found a five-button car-length jacket by Tahari that she declared suitable. She selected two—one red, the other gray, both size six.
“They’re much too big for her,” said the saleswoman. “She’s a four at most.”
Natalie wordlessly swiped her credit card through the scanner and scribbled her signature on the touch screen. The saleswoman covered the two jackets in a white plastic bag emblazoned with the Macy’s logo and handed them over. Natalie accepted the garment bag and followed Safia from the store.
“Why did you buy two jackets?”
“One is for you.”
Natalie felt suddenly ill. “Which one?”
“The red one, of course.”
“I’ve never looked good in red.”
“Don’t be silly.”
Outside in the mall, Safia checked her phone.
“Do you need anything?” she asked.
“Like what?”
“Makeup? Some jewelry?”
“You tell me.”
“How about some coffee?”
Natalie didn’t feel much like drinking coffee, but she didn’t want to earn another reproach from Safia, either. They went next door to Starbucks, ordered two lattes, and sat in the seating area outside in the mall. Several Muslim women, all veiled, were conversing softly in Arabic, and many other women in hijabs, some middle-aged, some mere girls, were strolling the arcades. Natalie felt as though she were back in her banlieue. She looked at Safia, who was staring vacantly into the middle distance. She held her mobile phone tightly in her hand. Her coffee stood on the table next to her, untouched.
“I need to use the restroom,” said Natalie.
“You can’t.”
“Why not?”
“It’s not allowed.”
Safia’s phone pulsed. She read the message and stood abruptly.
“We can go now.”