The next morning, Tursunov rose well before dawn and said his prayers. After a quick round of calisthenics, he showered, shaved, and put on a set of fresh clothes.
Leaving the hotel, he passed by his café, but it was closed. He had to walk three more blocks before he found something that was open.
He ordered several shots of espresso to go, doubled up on the paper cup, and grabbed a free weekly magazine on his way out the door.
Outside, he lit his second cigarette as he headed toward the Metro. Abdel’s nephew, the chemist, lived in Aubervilliers—a predominantly French-Arab suburb northeast of Paris. He wanted to ascertain for himself whether the young man was under surveillance.
Abdel had provided him with Younes’s picture, address, and information about the mosque he attended. Under strict instruction, he did not let his nephew know that the man would be paying him a visit. Tursunov didn’t want the chemist looking over his shoulder. If he were under surveillance, any unusual behavior would only heighten the suspicion of those who were watching him.
Arriving in Aubervilliers, he exited the station and started walking. It was a town that had seen better days.
The architecture at its center resembled that of any number of Parisian neighborhoods, but any similarity to the City of Light ended there.
Aubervilliers was dark. Its inhabitants were rough, its shops and restaurants down-market. The streets were dirty. Graffiti was everywhere.
Surrounding the town were ugly, concrete apartment complexes, built in the 1960s and ’70s. Here, as in many of the suburbs, Paris hid its poor—particularly its immigrants.
Many of the immigrants were happy to have escaped the grinding poverty and hopelessness of their home countries. They had come in the same decades the ugly apartment complexes were built, grateful for the opportunity for a new life.
They gladly accepted the jobs most French didn’t want to take—street sweeping, sewer work, menial labor jobs. This wave of immigrants, the bulk of which came from Muslim North Africa, appreciated how much better things were for them and their families in France.
They had hope for the future. Not only for themselves, but even more so for their children. Liberté, égalité, fraternité wasn’t just a motto. It was a promise.
They believed that in France their children would experience more opportunity and achieve more than they could ever imagine. Their children wouldn’t be Moroccans or Algerians. They would be free French men and women with all of the benefits thereof. Unfortunately, that wasn’t how things turned out.
The immigrants’ children found themselves with one foot in the old world and one in the new. Though born, raised, and educated in France, they were seen as outsiders and not fully welcome in French society.
While some pushed for greater access, others retreated into ethnic pockets outside the city, marginalizing themselves and their voices.
Without access to avenues of upward mobility, many angry young men turned to violence and criminal activity. Others turned to Islam.
With more than 70 percent of its citizens followers of the faith, Aubervilliers was often referred to as a “Muslim city.”
It also had a reputation for being dangerous. There were certain areas in town that even police officers wouldn’t enter without substantial backup.
Tursunov was wary of all these issues as he made his way to Younes’s mosque.
Using a sophisticated system for surfing the web anonymously, he had studied Google Street View images of the area around the mosque.
It had been set up on a busy road in an old retail space that looked to be a former beauty salon. Across the street was a small café.
After familiarizing himself with the neighborhood, Tursunov entered the café and took a table near the window. It smelled like newspaper ink and dark roast coffee.
Once he had ordered breakfast, he opened up the weekly he’d picked up earlier and pretended to read as he watched the comings and goings at the mosque.
If French authorities were conducting surveillance, they were being very careful about it.
Though there could have been cameras in any of the upper-floor apartments along the street, there was nothing overt. Every person who passed by looked as if he or she belonged in the neighborhood. None of them stood out. None of them screamed “cop.”
Having served as both himself, he could usually spot military or law enforcement personnel the moment he saw them. There was something not only about their bearing, but also about their eyes. They were always moving, always taking everything in. It wasn’t normal.
Normal, everyday people were unobservant. Only those used to dealing with danger, or those expecting trouble, continuously swept their gaze from side to side. They were always searching for anything that seemed out of place or that might be a warning something bad was about to happen. It was a habit born of close calls and hard-won experience.
As the sunrise prayer service ended, Tursunov paid his bill and stepped outside to have a cigarette. As he lit the Gauloise, he leaned against the building and watched as the mosque emptied out.
There weren’t many attendees—twenty at most. As the men reached the sidewalk, some lingered, but most said their good-byes and were on their way. There were still no signs of any surveillance that he could detect.
Tursunov watched as the last of the men exited the small storefront. He was concerned that Younes might have chosen to skip prayers that morning. Then he finally saw him in the doorway.
He and two other men were saying good-bye to an older man with a thick, gray beard who must have been the Imam.
The Tajik was struck by how much Younes looked like his father. Tall, the same intelligent eyes, the same broad nose. The resemblance was uncanny. The photo Abdel provided hadn’t done him justice.
Younes and the two other young men embraced the Imam, stepped onto the pavement, and went their separate ways. Tursunov pretended not to be paying attention and continued to smoke his cigarette. He wanted to give any surveillance the opportunity to fall in behind the young chemist.
Once he felt he had allowed enough time, he flicked his butt into the street and headed off in the same direction.
He was careful to stay back and on the opposite side of the street. He didn’t want to crowd anyone.
Two blocks away from the mosque, he was beginning to feel confident that the chemist wasn’t being followed. But then a figure appeared from around the corner.