Code White Part 9

Ali leaned forward, pus.h.i.+ng against the armrests of her chair with both hands, as though she were about to get up. She dared not show weakness in the face of such intimidation. If she did, they would be all over her. "Excuse me, but I have a patient in critical condition. If you've been watching television, you would know that there is a very important experiment in progress. I don't have time for idle questions."

"And we, Dr. O'Day, have a bomb threat to concern ourselves with. The quickest way for you to get back to your patient is to answer our questions freely and candidly. These are not provocative questions, Dr. O'Day. I have simply asked you whether you have ever used any name other than O'Day, Ali, MD, FRCSC, FACS."

"Yes."

Lee looked at her expectantly, but she added nothing more. "And what would that name be?" he finally asked.

"My birth name was Aliyah. Aliyah Al-Sharawi."

"Aliyah Sabra Al-Sharawi?"

Ali threw up her hands. "Yes. If you know that, why did you ask me?"

"Were you born in Masr El-Gedida, Egypt?"

"Yes. Heliopolis is another name for it. It's a suburb of Cairo."

"You are currently a non-naturalized foreign resident of the United States?"

"I am a Lawful Permanent Resident. I have a green card."

"By virtue of your marriage to Kevin O'Day?"

"No. My father came here on an H1-B visa when I was seven years old. He was a cardiologist. I have been here legally all of my life, except for my medical school training at McGill University in Montreal."

"Why aren't you a United States citizen?"

Ali looked away, toward the file cabinet on the left side of the room. Why are they asking this? Is it a test? How much do they already know? "I applied for citizens.h.i.+p," she said, a little less a.s.sertively. "The application was rejected."

"That's very unusual. Why was it rejected?"

"By virtue of ... family connections. Certain undesirable connections."

"Undesirable in what way?"

"Politically undesirable. It was just after September 11."

"You would have been at least twenty-five years old then. Why did you wait so long to file an application? Why didn't you apply, say, when you were eighteen?"

Ali paused. There was a painful familiarity to these questions. "My family opposed it."

"Why?"

"My parents were very conservative. They expected me to return to Egypt to marry. I had been promised to a cousin of mine."

"But you didn't return?"

"No. When I finished medical school, I decided that I had the right to choose my own life."

"Is your father still living?"

"No. He and my mother are both deceased."

"Do you have any other relatives living in this country?"

Here it comes. Ali looked down at her own feet, rocking them back and forth ever so slightly, as she waited for the questions to lead to their inevitable object. She knew these men. She had met their kind before. Here they sit, like a row of vultures. They'll peck and tear until not a shred of dignity remains, until I crumple at their feet like a pile of bones picked clean.

She was determined not to go along meekly this time. "I don't know," she said, lifting her voice defiantly.

Lee appeared to take no note of her challenge. For a long while, he sat, fiddling with a paper on the desk. Then, casually-as though he were simply thinking aloud-he asked, "Who is Rahman Abdul-Shakoor Al-Sharawi?"

Ali started at the mention of the name, as much as she had known it was coming. "My brother. My half-brother," she replied.

"Which?"

"Half-brother. My father's son by a different mother."

"And where does he live?"

"I don't know," she said, heavily enunciating each syllable.

"Is he in the United States?"

She shuddered at the suggestion. Here? Have I not left him a thousand years behind me, to stalk and rage in another world? "I don't know. I haven't seen him in three years. Not since my father's funeral."

"Was he in the United States when you saw him last?"

"Yes."

"How did he gain entry into the country at that time?"

"I don't know."

"He didn't move here with you and your father and mother?"

"No. He's more than ten years older than I. He didn't live with us at that time."

"He came later, then. About five years ago. On a student visa, right?"

"I don't know."

"You don't?"

"No, I don't. My brother and I have not been close."

"You mean, your half-brother."

Why are they fussing about such minor details? Do they think I'm lying? "Yes. My half-brother. He doesn't approve of my way of life. We have had very little to talk about. He was present for a time in this country-I don't know for how long or why. I saw him occasionally in my father's house."

"Was he a member of an organization called the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt?"

"I don't know."

"Do you know what the Muslim Brotherhood is?"

Be careful what you deny. This is a trap. "It's a political organization. An opposition to the government. It's been outlawed. Some say it is terrorist. Others say it is working for democracy. It claims to work for social justice and the eradication of poverty."

"Is your brother a member of the Al-Quds Martyrs' Brigade?"

"I don't know what that is."

"It's an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood."

"I know nothing about it. All I can tell you is that I am not a member of either. I am not political. Nor am I religious. I am a doctor. Medicine absorbs my whole life."

Avery raised his eyebrows. "Do you pray?"

"Excuse me?"

"Do you pray? It's a simple question."

Every muscle of her body stiffened. This new tack of questioning was something she did not expect-and it was not aimed at Rahman. "I don't think that's any of your business," she replied.

"You said that you were not religious. I'm just trying to make sure what you meant by that. Muslims have a special way of praying, don't they?"

"I meant that I am not religious. Nothing more, nothing less. I did not say that I was an atheist."

"You don't wear a head scarf."

"It's called a hijab," said Ali, emphasizing the word contemptuously, as though speaking to a child. "No, I don't wear it."

"Why not?" asked Lee.

She felt a cold sweat break out on her chest and along her spine. This was not about the hijab. They were trying to implicate her. But in what? In the Brotherhood? An old, deep current of fear rose to the surface. She knew she had to hide it, for men like these smelled fear like bloodhounds. Looking down, she saw her fingers entangled in Jamie's lanyard. She abruptly pulled them free. "I refuse to answer any more questions along these lines," she declared. "These are improper questions. Even as a resident alien, my freedom of religion-or freedom from religion, as the case may be-is protected by the const.i.tution, by federal statute, and by case law. If you persist in this line of interrogation, I will engage an attorney to file a complaint."

"I'm sorry," said Lee. "We're just trying to get a sense of who you are."

The condescension in his voice infuriated her all the more. "I am a doctor. I am employed by this hospital. That's who I am. If you wish to accuse me of something, do so. But I resent being subjected to offensive and demeaning insinuations that, simply because I have a Muslim name and background, I am something less than loyal. There are at least a hundred Muslims employed in this medical center. Most of them are residents or staff physicians. Are you planning to call every one of us down here to undergo this absurd questioning? Do you seriously think that I may have planted a bomb in this hospital?"

"I don't rule anything out," said Lee.

"Then you are a fool!" Ali blurted. She knew instantly that she had gone too far. It was dangerous to get carried away in front of these men. Fear and anger were traps, and at all costs, she had to keep control over herself. But she felt like she was losing the battle. Old humiliations of the past had gotten a grip on her. She tried to adopt a more moderate, reasonable tone, but she could not disguise the tense vibrato in her voice. "I told you, I am a doctor. I have dedicated all the powers I have to the preservation of human life. I have taken an oath to help the sick and dying. 'First, do no harm' is what I have sworn. Could such a person become a murderer? Could I possibly be so lacking in mercy, or integrity, or judgment as to want to kill my own patients? And what of myself? Would I place a bomb, or countenance anyone placing a bomb, in the place where I myself live sixteen hours of every day? That would be suicide, would it not? What reason could I have for doing this? I would have to be insane. I ask you, do I seem to you to be insane?"

"No, quite sane, to be sure," said Lee with an unflappable coolness that seemed calculated to goad her. "But insanity permeates the world we now live in. In a sane world, I grant you, doctors would not kill. But look at what we have. Ayman Al-Zawahiri, the architect of 9/11, is a doctor and a skilled surgeon. It was two doctors, Khalid Ahmed and Bilal Abdulla, who rammed a Jeep packed with propane gas into the Glasgow airport in an attempted suicide bombing. The fact that you are a doctor does not count for much anymore. Nor does the fact that you are a young woman of great intelligence and promise. Such women blow themselves up every day in the Middle East."

Ali stood up. Her hands and knees were shaking. She felt nausea welling up inside her, the way it always did when pure visceral pa.s.sion was on the verge of taking over. Fear, rage, pain, and humiliation-all were seething beneath the surface, and she had only meager reserves of strength to keep them at bay. The danger in that made her even more fearful. If she did not escape quickly from these men and their questions, her very struggle for control could bring on a violent sickness. It had happened before - before just such a tribunal as this. "I have nothing more to say to you," she announced, mustering one last challenge. "If you have a specific accusation to make, make it. Arrest me, waterboard me-whatever you dare. Otherwise, leave me to my work."

Lee glared at her. His face appeared strained, and Ali sensed, a little too late, that he was a man who did not like to be challenged. But before he could respond, Harry Lewton reached out and touched him on the shoulder.

"Do you mind if I try a different tack?" Harry said in a soothing tone, as though he, too, sensed Lee's perturbation. "I think this line of questioning is getting counterproductive."

Lee eyed him distrustfully. "Be my guest," he said with taut, pale lips.

There was a creak of leather as Harry got up from his swivel chair and walked around the desk, sidling past Lee and Scopes as he did so. Drawing up one of the cheap metal-and-fibergla.s.s chairs, he sat down facing Ali, not more than two or three feet from her.

"Please," he said, nodding toward Ali's chair. That was all he said, but his face and tone of voice were gentle. After a brief hesitation, Ali sat back down. Their knees were so close that it made her uncomfortable, so she s.h.i.+fted her body away from him, settling nearly sideways. Gentle or not, there was something physically overpowering about him that she wasn't used to in a man.

Harry leaned forward and spoke softly, almost intimately. "Dr. O'Day, I get the feeling that this is like deja vu for you. Have you ever been interrogated in a setting like this?"

"Yes." She was surprised by his question.

"May I ask when that was?"

"The Citizens.h.i.+p Review Board."

"And that had an unfavorable outcome, yes?"

She nodded. Does he know this, or is he guessing?

"I'm sorry. Dr. O'Day, let me make it perfectly clear that you yourself are not under suspicion. Nor is this a Muslim roundup. We have asked you to come down here because of specific information that we have. It has nothing to do with your religion. The information has to do with you."

"Me?" She gave him a startled look. She had of course suspected this, but his frankness in saying it took her aback.

"Yes, you. More particularly, your relations.h.i.+p with your brother Rahman."

That name again. The slight relaxation she had begun to feel turned to anxiety once more. "Is my brother under suspicion?"

"Yes."

"Because of a bomb?"

"A bomb threat."

Ali shook her head vigorously. "Here? I don't believe it. It would be without reason."

"We think he may have very definite reasons for it."

Rahman! Oh, d.a.m.n you, Rahman! Ali felt the stirring of old rancor inside her. "I cannot believe that my brother would plant a bomb in a hospital," she declared. "He may be many things, but he is a devout Muslim, and such a thing is expressly forbidden by his beliefs. A hospital has a protected status, as a place of beneficence that is dear to G.o.d. But even if he were so deranged so as to do this, why, of all hospitals, would he choose this one? In destroying it, he would kill me. My presence here ensures that this would be the one hospital he would not harm."

Lee shook a pen at her. "But you and your brother have had disagreements. He disapproves of your life, as you say. Perhaps it is his intention to punish you."

Ali bristled at hearing Lee's reedy voice again. "That's not even worthy of a reply."

Harry held up his hand like a traffic cop, cutting short the exchange. "Let me confide in you," he said to Ali. Then, looking back at Lee and Avery, he raised his voice a notch. "Do you object to my telling her what we know? I think it would save time if we just came to the point."

Avery shrugged. "If she is involved, she already knows anything we can tell her."

Lee twirled his pen irritably. "Go ahead."