A New Faith: Part 3: Chapter 38
Tozi was putting the finishing touches on her memo describing the findings about Santosh’s video. This had been a very difficult assignment for her and not because of technical challenges. Santosh had not just been her colleague but also a close friend. The two of them had trained together and then been selected for the detective division around the same time. They had a special bond.
She had to watch that video umpteen times as she had analyzed it for clues. Even though her customized algorithm had indicated a probability of only 77.34% in matching the killer to Shahid, she was sure that it was indeed him who had murdered her friend in cold blood. Her hate for Shahid had in no way diminished even after witnessing Shahid’s own death. Not for a moment had she felt sympathy for Shahid in his agonizing final moments on earth.
As usual, there was no one else in the office that late in the evening. It was not that Tozi kept unusual hours or worked late. It just so happened that the line between work and non-work had blurred for her over time. On many evenings, she would be fiddling around on some computational hobby that had nothing to do with work. And on other evenings, she would be sketching some designs that she just had to put down on a piece of paper - or rather, draw them on her tablet.
The last two months, though, it had been all work. She had been patiently trying to put together as much information about Nadeem’s and Qasim’s pasts as she could. This meant lots of trawling. But it also meant learning about new software from the Interpol experts, and at times writing her own code to layer on top of the outputs produced by those softwares.
So she was quite surprised when she heard Sonia calling out to her. She looked up from her screen and made a sign saying that she needed a couple of minutes to finish what she was doing. Sonia nodded and went back to her office.
“What’s up boss?” Tozi walked into the office with her funky bright green satchel slung across her shoulders.
“Ohh… nothing in particular. I happened to be still at work and noticed that you were also hanging back. Thought I would catch up with you. That is… if you have some time.”
“Of course! I got nothing much to do. I was going to head out, grab something to eat and then crash for the day.”
“Good! Come, sit down. Care to join me for a beer?”
“Of course!”
As Sonia was reaching into the mini-refrigerator under her desk to pull out the beer, Tozi started wondering, why her boss suddenly wanted to chill out with her.
“Here you go. It is made of rice. I think. I am not sure I like it much. But that’s all I have left.”
They both took a long pull on their beers. Sonia let a few moments roll by.
Then she asked, “how are you doing?”
“I am okay, boss. I mean... all things considered. I am alive. Santosh is not. Which is a huge bummer. And all that rioting is not good, of course. But, I was stuck indoors at my computer when all those things happened. Never in harm’s way - that’s me,” a whole bunch of contradictions peppered Tozi's soliloquy.
“Hmm… physical violence is not the only thing that gets us. Sometimes, I think, it is the emotional violence that causes the real harm. Long-lasting harm. Deep-rooted harm. It changes us in such fundamental ways that physical violence simply cannot,” Sonia commented.
Then she asked, “how’s the investigation coming along? Alia told me that you have done some really stellar analytical work in finding traces of Nadeem’s past.”
Tozi shrugged. It was no big deal, really. Most people were unnecessarily impressed by anything to do with computers. All she had done was run some software and write some code and the grunt-work was all done by the computers.
“Also - getting that match between Santosh’s killer and Shahid… that was phenomenal. I don’t know what we would have done without your skills. We just didn’t have any hard evidence linking Shahid to that. Not that it matters much... But still - we can get some closure from knowing who killed him and that his killer was punished. By his own hands! Some cosmic justice - that.”
“Yes - served him right. I am glad he suffered before he died,” there was a hard edge to Tozi’s voice which caught Sonia by surprise. But she got it. She nodded sympathetically and chose not to comment on that statement. Instead, she decided to move on.
“No such luck with Qasim, though.”
“Umm… say, what?”
“I mean - we didn’t find anything on Qasim’s past. Right?”
“I wouldn’t say nothing, boss. We may have something. It is kinda weak. But my hunch is that it may add up to something. I am continuing to dig further.”
Sonia drew her brows together and looked curiously at Tozi.
“What do you mean?”
“Well… we did get some matches for Qasim, too. Just like Nadeem. The problem is that those matches were from pictures taken in Iran and they seem to be of a person named Basheer. Now - it could very well be a mistake that the algorithm is making. That these are two different people, but for some reason the software thinks that they could be the same person. Qasim’s official record indicates that he came from Lebanon. We talked with his colleagues and they confirmed that. At no point in their conversations, Iran came up.”
“Go on…”
“Maybe, I am a bit biased. I tend to have a lot more faith in the software than most people do - including the Interpol experts. I have been staring at those pictures and I am kinda sure that the software is right. The pictures of Basheer show him as a young man, completely unshaven. Quite unlike our Qasim. But that is only the superficial comparison for the untrained eye. This is where the algorithm really shines. It can alter the face with respect to age and other features such as hair quite accurately. It can even guess the effects on the face if the person puts on weight or loses it. For example, I could use the software to figure out how you may have looked when you were fifteen years old and had a pixie cut.”
Tozi smiled impishly.
“I think, you would have looked cute!”
Sonia laughed out loudly.
“Yeah… yeah… cute is not the word that would come to mind if you knew me then.
So - you think that there is a possibility that Qasim may have changed his name and background some time before coming to Sequoia?”
“Yes - I think so.”
“It wouldn’t be that surprising. I am sure there are lots of folks who may have wanted to do such a thing. Maybe to hide from danger. Or maybe even hide from justice. Did you ask Interpol to follow up on Basheer?”
“Alia was going to do that. She said that she will have to run it by you because of some budget issues.”
“Right… right… “
Sonia was being intentionally vague. But not successfully. Tozi realized that something was amiss. It seemed as if this was the first time Sonia was hearing about this. She wondered why Alia had not yet briefed Sonia on this. It would be quite unlike Alia to delay something like this. But then, she had noticed that Alia seemed quite distracted in the last few days. She had put it down to the strain that Alia was so obviously under. Could it be something else?
When Tozi had pulled up Basheer’s photos for Alia to review for the first time, she had felt Alia go quiet. She wouldn’t be able to swear on it, but she thought that Alia’s face had paled when she saw the photos side-by-side. Or maybe not. She was thinking too much. Alia was probably under the weather. She decided to not say any of this to Sonia right now.
Abruptly, Sonia changed the topic as if she didn’t want to talk about Alia either.
“I know you have been trying to keep up with the chatter on social media. What do you think is going on?”
Tozi was happy to change the topic, too. She liked Alia a lot. She didn’t want to inadvertently say something bad about her. And, most definitely not to Alia’s boss. Correction - Tozi was happy to change the topic, but not happy about the topic that Sonia had brought up. She had been planning to discuss it with Alia the next morning, anyway.
“Something is brewing. I don’t know what. But something big is going to happen. Probably soon. The chatter had quietened down for a day or two after Shahid’s death. Everyone was probably in shock. But then, it started picking up. Slowly at first and then it exploded in the last day or two. It is a lot of innuendo that I cannot really make sense of. I suspect that most of the real communication is happening via private encrypted channels. I guess, some of the folks simply can’t help themselves and blurt out things in the public.”
Sonia sat up straight. She had a decent buzz going on after having downed a couple of bottles of beer. Now that buzz was gone. Suddenly, the room felt cold.
“Something big? Soon? C’mon - tell me more!”
“I can’t. I have several algorithms trawling through the chatter round-the-clock with several keywords to look for. I am not getting anything definitive. I am sorry, I wish I had something more. I am going to take a crack at it again tomorrow, now that I am done with the analysis on Nadeem and Santosh.”
“Yes - you do that! Make this your top priority! Forget about everything else! Just focus on this! Find out… whatever it takes… I don’t care if you end up bending some rules… but come back and tell me something specific! Something actionable! The last thing we want is another riot!”
“You got it!” the fear had rubbed off on Tozi. She resolved to go get something to eat and then come straight back to work. Her sleep could wait. There was something in Sonia’s manner - her wild expression - that made it clear that the boss was terrified.
#####
Three groups of men - yes, all men - were meeting secretly and simultaneously in different parts of Sequoia. The suspicions that Tozi had articulated to Sonia a couple of days ago, were indeed based on reality. Something big was going to happen. Soon!
The first group was mourning Shahid’s death. That would be avenged. This time around there would be no failure. Four Muslims had been killed in Sequoia. Countless had been massacred in different parts of the world. There was that ruthless execution of innocent Muslims within the compound of a mosque - right after the Friday prayer, no less! - in Washington DC. Then there was that wanton assault on innocent Muslims in India where women had been gang-raped and men had been beheaded by the sword- and trident-wielding mob of fanatical Hindus. There were lynchings in Myanmar, and missile attacks in the middle east. No one had been apprehended for the Sequoia murders. The various infidel governments were either too scared that the bloodlust will turn against them if they dared to do something about it or they were themselves openly exhorting the crowds to let loose.
All this was unequivocally true.
It was also very much true that a couple of Muslims had started this latest saga of mass murder when they decided to shoot up the rotunda outside St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican. They had killed dozens of innocent tourists who had been waiting their turn to admire the art in a church. Many of those tourists had been Hindus. They were all dead because two kids thought that the two murders in Sequoia were akin to a pogrom against all Muslims all over the world. They had launched their jihad and martyred themselves.
Of course, the Christian and Hindu men had witnessed the attack on their places of worship in Sequoia. No one had been hurt except Shahid - the main instigator of that attack. Yet, the viciousness with which the attack had begun was hard to forget. Hard to unsee. So, forgiveness was not on the table any more.
The failure to destroy the church and temple, first time around, had wounded the egos of both Yusuf and Farhan. They had planned it, even though, Shahid had become the de facto mascot. They were not going to let go of their goal that easily. Shahid had played his role as well as they had hoped for. He had carried out the dramatic execution of Santosh. After that, he had reveled in being the centre of attraction at the two mini-riots that had just happened to take place around him. His own death had instantly brought glorious martyrdom back into the spotlight. With all this attention, it hadn’t been difficult for Yusuf and Farhan to recruit several thousand angry young men to fight for their cause.
Yusuf and Farhan were planning to bomb the church during the Sunday morning service. The murders and the subsequent violence had triggered a resurgence in religious activities. Suddenly, the weekly prayers and rituals brought in crowds that had not been seen in almost 3-4 years. Hence, the target, yet again, was a place of worship. The plan was to destroy the church on Sunday and a couple of days later destroy the temple during one of the key Hindu festivals that was supposed to bring in the crowds. Unbeknownst to them, and to each other for that matter, both the Christian and Hindu mobs were planning to destroy the mosque on the Friday right before the targeted Sunday. On the holy day for Muslims.
Three groups, each comprising of thousands of angry men, were planning to attack each other around the same time. The leaders of each group had tried to keep the main plans secret by using encrypted forms of communications. Yet, the information that something was being planned, something violent, something transformational, something huge, was leaking all over the place as the vast majority of the foot-soldiers of these group were unable to contain their excitement.
It was a strange phenomenon. This bloodlust. Men, throughout history, had been immersed in this particular emotion again and again. This attraction to committing violence of any and every kind at the flimsiest of reasons was like a moth being attracted to a flame. It was is if they couldn’t help themselves. Evolution had programmed in the fight-or-flight instincts. But this bloodlust had nothing really to do about that. This was a social construct that had been continually reinforced through generations and across different societies and civilizations.
The even stranger aspect of this was that it was a mob phenomenon. A single individual doing something violent was sufficiently scary. When a mob of men feeding off of each other escalated the violence, it became a terrifying spectacle. Violence has always begotten violence. This continued, despite, wise individuals who pointed out the stupidity of it all. The wise ones advocated for peace. They appealed to sanity. They invoked all kinds of philosophical, moral, and ethical notions to bring about peace. Seldom were they successful in achieving it. It had certainly never persisted for long periods of time.
The curious thing about the experience of the first five years in Sequoia was that violence had practically vanished. Men had been well-behaved! There still was some minor violence every now and then. But it was brought to a swift and decisive end with both parties amicably making up. Rarely had it persisted. It was uncanny that this had happened. No one had really noticed it - “the dog that didn’t bark” is noticed only by the most observant. It had happened, though. Peace had persisted. Nothing had simmered under the surface. Men had gone about their lives without attacking anyone.
That is why Qasim’s murder was so difficult to understand. Finally, the spell had been broken. The good times had ended with that one vicious blow. Pre-meditated or not. Justified or not. It didn’t matter. A life had been ended. Violence - of the deadliest kind - had managed to find its way in Sequoia, after all. Not that anyone - inside and outside of Sequoia - had ever in their wildest imagination harbored the notion that somehow Sequoia would never have violence. Rather, the expectation was the opposite. The fact that all of the residents came from extremely traumatic lives, even the most optimistic sociologists and psychologists had assumed that there would be huge amounts of violence in the three cities. The creation of the police force - literally, the first institution to be created - was because of this expectation. Miraculously, the police had been reduced to being mediators at best. Crime was miniscule. Violent crime, non-existent. That is, until Qasim’s death. Which was quickly followed with Nadeem’s. And then, as if the dam had been breached for good, the violence had steadily escalated over the days and weeks.
#####
Tozi had nailed down this chatter with some heavy-duty triangulation algorithms. Soon, it became clear to her that multiple groups were planning attacks on each other. There seemed to be, at least, two groups who planned to attack the mosque on the coming Friday. It was not clear who exactly was planning these attacks. She went to Sonia, the moment she saw her walk into the office the next morning.
“Did you stay up all night?” Sonia’s left eyebrow was raised impossibly higher than her right one.
“Uhh… yes. I was trying to pin down some details. Lost track of time,” Tozi shrugged. Such questions confused Tozi - they seemed so pointless.
“And?” Sonia’s eyebrows were now back again at the same level but her forehead was full of wrinkles. She could tell from Tozi’s tired eyes and slumped shoulders that the news wasn’t good.
“Multiple groups are planning multiple attacks.”
“What the hell!?” both eyebrows shot back up instantly.
“The first one is likely to be on this Friday. The mosque is the target. As far as I can tell, two groups seem to be planning the same. They don’t seem to be aware of each others’ plans, though.”
Sonia nodded and patted Tozi on her back.
“Good work, Tozi! Good work. Now listen to me. I want you to go home and get some sleep. I want you back here after lunch to take another look at your analysis when you are fresh. And - I said, after lunch. Not before. AFTER. Go!”
Tozi smiled tiredly and left.
Sonia was dialing up Kaija even before she entered her office. She waved at Alia to come join her in the office.
“We, finally, have some intel. My staff managed to connect some of the dots. Looks like plans are being made by multiple outfits. The first attack appears to be planned for this Friday. They are going to hit the mosque. Clearly, this is to avenge Shahid’s stupid assault on the temple and the church! Are you in?”
Kaija must have replied in the affirmative.
“Alright - I am coming over! We need to wake up Rachel and Camille, right away.”
Then she hung up.
“Updates? Make it quick!” Sonia looked briefly at Alia before turning back to her phone screen as she scrolled through her messages.
“Nothing new, boss. We are going over our list of suspects with a fine tooth-comb, again. I will call you, if something pops up.”
Sonia absently nodded at her without looking up.
“Okay. Do that!”
“What’s happening boss? I overheard your call just now. Also, on her way out, Tozi told me that she was up all night urgently working on something for you.”
Sonia didn’t say anything for a moment. Alia wondered if she had even heard her. But decided to wait. She was on precarious ground since the last conversation with Sonia. Her boss’s expressive face had given it away, loud and clear. Sonia was having doubts about Alia.
“Umm… what did you say? Aah… Tozi… yes. I am pulling her off your team. She is going to be directly working with me from now on. Shit is about to hit the fan in a big way. And I need her intelligence gathering skills. You are going to have to find someone else to pick up her tasks.”
With that Sonia, finally, looked up straight at Alia.
“Will that be okay?”
“Uhh… sure. I think, Carlos and Nadia can split up her workload between them.
But… why? What’s going on, boss?”
“You heard me - didn’t you?” Sonia looked keenly at Alia. She noticed that Alia’s face had become a lot paler in the last few moments.
“According to Tozi’s analysis, looks like the situation in Sequoia has gone from bad to worse. There seem to be revenge attacks being planned. Probably soon.”
“Like… like the last one?” stuttered Alia.
Sonia was now getting curious. This was another unexpected reaction from Alia. Her protege was sounding distinctly shaky. As if she was afraid. Sonia had marveled at the way Alia had stepped up to the enormity of the challenge during the last riot. Before, Shahid and his crew had shown up with their crude versions of Molotov cocktails, Alia’s calm presence and her authoritative demeanor had made an impression on the crowd. In fact, Sonia was quite sure that it was sufficient for dispersing the crowd if Shahid had not showed up. That’s how good Alia had been. Totally in control and radiating an aura that few possessed. And now there was this version of Alia standing in front of her. Quavering? Why were her nerves so shot?
“You don’t look good, Alia. Are you ill?”
There was concern in Sonia’s voice but her body language betrayed a sense of irritation at Alia’s behavior.
“I am fine!” Alia said in a flat voice. The color was back in her cheeks. A bit too much color. Almost as if she had been caught doing something bad.
Sonia didn’t have time for dealing with Alia at the moment.
“Go see a doctor, if you are not feeling well,” she said brusquely.
“We are going to need all hands on deck later this week to get on top of this situation.”
“I am okay. I am here to do whatever you tell me to do.”
“Fine! We shall talk later. For now - I want you to focus on the investigation. That is one of the things that may help save us from catastrophe.”
“Catastrophe?” Alia looked alarmed. Where the hell was the phlegmatic Alia?
“If the situation gets out of control, then the UN will step in. They will send their people and probably take over the management of Sequoia. And that - I guess - would be the end of what we have been building here. They would run Sequoia like one of the special opportunity zones they have in the US - like a damn labor camp.”
With that Sonia turned around and walked away. Which is why she didn’t see Alia’s absolutely stricken face.