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Hussein turned to Jan. “If you’re asking me if I want to give up
my regular duties to lock myself up in that closet of yours on the off
chance these guys are terrorists, the answer is no. Not based on what
I see here. But I’ll certainly check them out when they come on
board, and tell you what I think. If they scare me, I’m at your
service.”
“That’s all we can ask,” Raj agreed.
The Confrontation
Dr. Kammholtz and his team had not been on board for a day
when Hussein asked to meet Jan and Commander Rajpal. “When I
was a kid, we lived in a nice neighborhood where a lot of our
neighbors were either professionals, or worked for the government.
Dad was both. I remember a bunch of guys who made Dad nervous,
who came around a lot asking questions and saying mean stuff. One
night, they hauled off our next-door neighbor. A day later, his wife
got a bill from the court for the bullets they used to kill him. That
night, we all got in the car and lit out for the border on back roads.
“I swear, the five guys you’re worried about … they give me the
same feeling. Something in their eyes. They hate me. They’re a little
aloof with everyone else, but they look at me like I’m a traitor or
something.”
Raj looked at Jan. “Your take on this?”
Jan looked nervously at Hussein. “I’ve checked over their stuff,
and you know it was all run under a microscope before it got to us.
Nothing looks wrong. The sniffers don’t detect anything sinister. But
one of them was watching me as I checked it over, and I swear he was
smirking, like I was looking straight at a weapon and didn’t recognize
it. And I’d bet I could piece something dangerous together with half
the stuff on this ship, if I really wanted to.”
Raj looked troubled. “That’s not evidence. We’ve got no basis
for having them pulled from the mission roster.”
Hussein looked almost panicked. “You don’t believe us?” Raj
shook his head. “I didn’t say that. Trust your instincts. But unless
you can find weapons in their luggage, or Interpol matches them up
with known terrorists, I know what our orders will be. ‘Stop picking
on people because of their national origin.’ But I want these guys
watched full-time.”
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