Fortress

66

Tom slowed the Camry and pulled into the parking lot of a dry-cleaner’s where he stopped, facing the building site of the mosque. Maybe Stutz’s interest in Zuabi had nothing to do with the construction. None of it made sense.

It was the scale of the place that struck him first: not just one hall of worship but a whole complex of buildings rising out of the ground in an otherwise forgotten neighbourhood. A high wall of pale pink stone had already been built. The minaret was complete, and where the main dome would be there was a huge edifice of scaffolding. He was weighing the pros and cons of trying to do a decent recce when a coach pulled to a halt in front of the entrance. Out poured a group of about twenty people, most of them in suits, who gathered round the luggage hatch at the back where white hard hats and hi-viz safety vests were being handed out.

He left the car and crossed the road, then came round the side of the coach and joined the queue for kit. When he got to the front the guy doing the handing out gave him a strange look. His name tag said ‘International Confederation of Structural Engineers’. ‘You on the list?’

‘Roger Symes, Royal Institute of British Architects. I only just landed — got a bit delayed. They probably didn’t have time to add me. I’m most awfully sorry.’

The guy handed him a hat and a vest. ‘Whatever.’

Tom inserted himself into the group as they headed through the entrance, following an enthusiastic guide in a yellow hat, who was in full flow.

‘… and to produce the activation heat for this system, we’re using roof-mounted parabolic solar collectors, working on a higher than usual temperature…’

Tom soon tuned out. He was in the building, which was what mattered. He smiled at a woman studying her BlackBerry, who rolled her eyes. ‘There’s only so much of this stuff I can take.’ She leaned towards him. ‘How many mosques d’you think there are now, operating in the US?’ He smiled again and shrugged. ‘Twelve hundred.’

‘Wow.’

‘And eighty per cent of them built since Nine/Eleven. How does that work?’

‘Are they all this big?’

She shook her head. ‘Oh, no, this fella’s in a whole different league.’

‘Know anything about the guy behind it?’

Another member of the party who appeared equally bored chipped in, ‘Got his hand deep in Saudi pockets. Which ain’t right.’

At this point a third man, the only one of the party who looked like he might have actually built anything, waded in. ‘Hey, give the guy a break. He’s spending his dough here, not on guns for A-rabs.’ He drawled the ‘a’ so it came out as ‘Ayrab’. He waved in the direction of a cluster of men erecting a crane. ‘They’re all American workers too.’

‘Guy’s a refugee, came here with nothing.’

‘Yeah, so did my granddaddy, but then they start sending for their families an’ all.’

‘I heard it’s gonna be dedicated to his daughter.’

‘What happened to her?’ Tom asked.

The third man shrugged. ‘Guess she didn’t make it. They got all kinds of trouble in Syria now, ain’t they?’

They moved towards the scaffolding where the dome would be. Another man with a well-scuffed hat came forward and was introduced as the site manager.

Tom tried to listen but his attention was caught by the purple folder under the man’s arm and the logo in the corner. It was the same castle design and the same colour as the one in Stutz’s apartment. He turned to the BlackBerry woman. ‘D’you know that logo at all?’

‘New to me. Some construction outfit, I guess.’