The mansion across the street had stood empty since the All-Star break, and now it was nearly time for the World Series. So we were relieved when a moving truck finally pulled into our dead-end street, a mile north of downtown Columbus, Ohio. Our dog, Pudge, noticed it first—not the truck, but the dog sitting erect and regal between the two dark men in the front seat. Broad-shouldered and shaggy as a wolf, the dog was taller when seated than the passenger on his right, and just a little shorter than the driver, who was so lanky that he had to duck his head to peer under the sun flap.

Pudge thrust his boxy head through the porch balusters and barked at the wolf-dog as he would at any intruder. After the mansion was taken from the previous neighbors—either repossessed by the bank, or seized as part of a meth bust, depending on who you asked—Pudge’s territory had grown to include not just the brick mansion and pillared front porch, but also the yard with its bare patches under pine trees, its sagging white fence, its cracked sidewalk next to the weed-choked grass along the curb, and even a length of the street where the moving truck had now pulled up and stopped.

The cab door opened, and the driver dropped soundlessly to the street. Standing upright, he was as long-limbed as a catalog model, and he was dressed in the fall collection: khaki slacks and a beige corduroy jacket over a matching turtleneck sweater. The fall colors continued into his face and hands, whose skin was tawny as an oak leaf.

The passenger—shorter and darker, wearing jeans and a black leather car coat—jumped down from the far side of the truck and landed heavily on the curb. He fastened the wolf-dog’s leash and led it through the white picket gate into the back yard. Tail high, the wolf-dog trotted imperiously around the inside of the fence, sniffed the crabgrass as though sampling the house merlot, and raised its leg approvingly against a white pine near the house’s foundation.

Pudge’s barking rose to an hysterical pitch.

“Pudge!” My husband Brad stood up, wiping his hands on his jeans. He’d been stuffing wet maple leaves into a paper yard sack. “Pudge, that’s enough!”

I leaned forward on the porch swing to grab Pudge collar. Or I tried to: like an air bag, my pregnant belly kept me from reaching very far. “Do you want to play?” I asked Pudge. “Do you want to meet the big doggy dog?”

“Wants to kill him, looks like,” Brad said.

I stood, then crouched open-kneed to pull Pudge back from the railing. His nails scrabbled on the concrete. “Don’t listen to Brad. Brad’s just grouchy because the Red Sox are losing.”

“You call this grouchy?” Brad crimped the mouth of the yard sack. “If the Sox lose again tonight, there are men in Boston who won’t say a pleasant word until spring.”

“Let’s greet our new neighbors, then.” I led Pudge down the stairs and took Brad’s damp hand. “While there’s still time.”

Pudge tugged us across the street, and we reached the moving truck just as the tall driver finished raising the door on the cargo bay. The passenger stood in the back yard, making the wolf-dog sit before he opened the gate.

“Hi,” I said. “Need a hand?”

When the driver saw my belly his eyes widened. He raised his palm. “We are all right.” No one ever accepts help from a pregnant woman.

“We live across the street,” I said. “I’m Vickie. This is Brad.”

“I am Faisal.” The tall man shook Brad’s hand and nodded at me. The shorter man closed the yard gate and joined us. “And this is my brother Samir.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Brad said. “So. Where you from?”

“Boston,” Faisal said.

“I mean originally.”

I shot Brad a glance, but he wasn’t looking at me.

“Of course.” Faisal smiled. “We are from Cairo. But it is seven years since we left.”

“Really?” Brad said. “What brought you over?”

“We were students,” Faisal said. “I trained at M.I.T. as a civil engineer. Samir works in computer security.”

Brad nodded. I could see he was about to ask another question, so I broke in. “I’m a lawyer,” I said. “I work downtown at a family law firm. Brad writes a column for a sports website.” The column was a minor part of Brad’s job; he spent most of his time managing relationships with advertisers. But Brad had just started the column, after months of wheedling his boss, and it was the only aspect of the job that he wanted to talk about.

Samir scowled. “Web advertising,” he said, as though he knew what Brad really did for a living. “Many security issues there. Click fraud. Denial of service attacks.”

“That’s right.” Brad nodded, impressed. “You looking for a job, Samir?”

Samir shook his head irritably. I dug my nails into Brad’s palm.

“Where do you work, then?” Brad asked.

I interrupted. “Did you say you were from Boston? Brad’s from Boston, too. Grew up in the western suburbs. Newton.”

“Ah, Newton.” Faisal nodded and smiled broadly, as though the name brought back fond memories. “We lived more centrally, near Fenway Park.”

“Fenway Park?” Brad brightened. “Are you watching the Sox tonight?” He looked at his watch. “Game four starts in half an hour.”

“Unfortunately, no.” Faisal said. “Even were we to unpack our television, our cable service is not yet active.”

“You can watch with us,” I said. “Come for dinner. We’re having pork chops.” The Muslims exchanged glances, and I felt my face redden. “Or something else. Pizza?”

“You are very kind,” Faisal smiled again. “But no. We have much unpacking.”

“Can’t say I blame you for skipping it,” Brad said. “No team’s ever come back from three games down. And with Hernandez pitching, there’s not much hope, is there?”

Faisal glanced confusedly at me and I shrugged, giving him permission to smile. “If you say so,” he said. “You are the expert, Brad.”

Pudge sidled toward the fence, sniffed one of the pickets, and raised his back leg. The wolf-dog snorted and trotted out from under the pine trees, hackles raised, yellow eyes slitted. Pudge dropped his leg and started forward.

“Sit,” I said, and snapped his leash. Pudge lowered his haunches slowly, as though unsure that I could handle the situation. “This is Pudge,” I told Faisal.

“Budge,” he said.

“No, Pudge.” Brad broke in. “Like Ivan Rodriguez. But really he’s named after Carlton Fisk.”

Faisal squinted, confused.

“The catcher,” Brad said. “For the Red Sox. You know. Hit that home run in the ‘75 Series.” When Faisal didn’t answer, Brad went on. “Now Budge—Don Budge—was a tennis player.”

I broke in. “I always think of his breed. He is a pug. His name is Pudge.” I looked down the leash and clucked my tongue. “Isn’t it? Isn’t your name Pudge?” Pudge stared up at me and panted anxiously. His back legs trembled. The wolf-dog stood behind the fence and looked entreatingly at Samir, as though awaiting permission to start on dinner.

Brad nodded toward the wolf-dog. “Impressive specimen,” he said. “What’s his name?”

Samir turned his head slowly toward Brad. “Beedoos,” he said.

“Sorry?” Brad asked.

“Virus,” Faisal said. “With a V.” His teeth buzzed his bottom lip emphatically, as though the letter took special effort to pronounce.

Brad said, “Oh. Okay,” which unfortunately is the signal that releases Pudge from his most-recent command. Pudge sprang up, barking, and Virus lunged toward him, snapping, trying to shove his jaws through the slats of the fence.

“Beedoos!” Samir shouted a short command in Arabic, and Virus dropped to the ground. Suddenly calm, he looked up at Samir for further instructions.

“Pudge!” Brad said. “We told you to sit!” When Pudge continued barking, Brad knelt next to him and pressed his hips to the ground. But as soon as Brad let go, Pudge stood up and started to bark again.

“I’m sorry,” I told Faisal and Samir over the barking. “We’d better go.”

“A pleasure to meet you.” Faisal waited for Brad to straighten, then shook his hand. I reached for a handshake, too, but Faisal simply dropped his hand and nodded.

As I led Pudge back across the street, I snapped his leash, less for his benefit than to show Faisal and Samir I was in charge. “What’s wrong with you?” I said. I climbed the front stairs and let Pudge into the house ahead of me. He ran to the front window and set his paws on the sill. He stared across the street into Virus’ yard, and let out little wuffing under-barks.

After we’d closed the front door, I turned to Brad. “And you,” I said. “What was that all about?”

“What?” Brad hung his jacket in the front closet. “What did I say?”

“You were interrogating them. I half expected you to ask their mother’s maiden name.”

“Their mother.” Brad started for the back of the house. “That’s funny.”

I followed him through the dining room and into the kitchen. “What’s funny? You think they don’t have a mother?”

“Not the same one.” Brad opened the refrigerator and pulled out a beer. “They look like brothers to you?”

“They said they were brothers.”

“Samir’s dark and short, with a thick beard, and stubble halfway down his neck. Faisal’s light-skinned, taller than me, looks like he’s never had to shave in his life.”

“And my sister has bright red hair. They said they were brothers, Brad.”

“They said they were from Boston, too.” Brad popped the top of the beer can. “But they’d never heard of Carlton Fisk?”

“Why would they?” I asked. “He hasn’t played baseball for a million years.”

“Eleven.”

“Whatever. They haven’t been in the country that long.”

“He’s part of team lore.”

“Maybe they don’t care about baseball, Brad. Not everyone works for sportfreak.com.”

“So why say they lived near Fenway Park?” Brad picked up his laptop computer and headed for the TV in the living room.

“Because they did?”

“They could say they lived near B.U. Kenmore Square. Back Bay.”

“Or they could tell the truth, right?” I blocked Brad’s exit at the kitchen doorway. “That they hate America. That they’ve come to strike at the heart of American power and depravity. Right here. In Columbus, Ohio.”

Brad shook his head and smiled. But the smile faded quickly, and he said, “Don’t tell me you didn’t think about it.”

“No,” I lied.

“Come on. If something happened and the TV news came around, you’d tell them you never suspected a thing?”

I pantomimed a reporter’s microphone in front of my mouth. “They seemed so quiet,” I said. “They kept to themselves.”

Brad glanced down, then looked into my eyes. “Somebody trained that dog to attack.”

“Or not to,” I said. “At least he’s trained. We can’t even get Pudge to sit.”

“And that name: Virus. Creepy.”

“Not really,” I said. “Not if his master works in computer security.”

Brad help up a surrendering palm. “Okay,” he said. “You win Most Tolerant Spouse.”

“It’s not about that.”

“Can you let me through? The game’ll start any minute.”

I stepped out of the doorway and let him pass.

He’s not himself, I thought as I got the pork chops out of the refrigerator. He wasn’t himself, and it didn’t have much to do with terrorism—it had to do with baseball. Brad was ebullient, of course, when Boston made the playoffs, but if they’d been knocked out early, say back in August, he probably would have recovered quickly. It was this tension—with the Red Sox almost out, but still clinging to a sliver of hope—it was the tension that set Brad on edge. Maybe that’s why Boston has so many hospitals.

Maybe they’ll win tonight, I thought. That ought to help. But no, then they’d still be down three games to one. Winning tonight would only prolong the agony.

I glanced up to assure myself that Brad was out of earshot, then told the pork chops what I’d only then realized.

“I hope they lose.”

Monday-Wednesday, October 18-20

But the Red Sox didn’t lose. Not only did they win game four, on a twelfth-inning home run, but they won game five in extra innings as well. I was asleep before the end of each game, but Brad’s bellowing from the living room let me know the outcome. On Tuesday, the Sox led game six from the fourth inning on, and won four runs to two to force a seventh game.

Wednesday evening, when I came home from work, Brad stood with his back to the television, staring out our tall front windows at the house across the street. Pudge stood next to him, his paws on the windowsill, his ears making soft corners on his head, like a stocking cap.

“Evening, boys.” I hung my coat in the front closet. “Interesting goings-on chez Virus?”

“That dog is out all the time,” Brad said. “They’ve tied a rope between those two pine trees, and rigged up a kind of harness and pulley for him. All he does, all day, is run along the rope from one tree to the other. He stares through the side fence, then the back fence. Side, back, side. Patrolling.”

I came over to the window and scratched Pudge’s head. “Thinks he owns the place, huh?”

“There have been comings and goings all day,” Brad said. “Cable truck, plumber, electrician.”

“They’re fixing up. Great. That place has a lot of potential.”

Brad pointed to a white van parked near the alley. “That van’s been here at least four hours. No markings.”

“A one-man shop making a long service call. We should get his card.”

He pointed at three sedans along the curb by the front porch. “Those arrived about thirty minutes ago, and six Arab men got out.”

“Good,” I said. “Good for them. I’m glad they’ve got friends in the area.” I remembered Faisal nodding at my outstretched hand, as though contact with a Western woman was taboo. I fully expected that every visitor he’d have, as long as we lived here, would be Arab and male.

Game seven started at 8:30, and it was effectively over by 9:15. Boston opened up a six-run lead in the second inning, and stretched their lead to seven runs in the fourth. Brad sat back on the sofa, open-mouthed, and the break in the tension made me feel very tired. I went to bed at the start of the fifth inning, around ten-thirty, and I was fast asleep when Brad woke me at 12:45.

“Can you help me?” he said. “Please. I can’t get on to the Internet.”

“Really?” I said without opening my eyes. “Something’s wrong with the cable?”

“The cable’s fine. I just watched a four-hour baseball game on cable TV.”

“Good,” I said. “I’m glad you figured that out.” I sank back toward sleep.

After a moment, Brad repeated, “I can’t get on the web, Vick. Something happens after the cable comes into the house. Maybe the splitter, in the basement?”

“You want to go to your office?”

“The office is half an hour away.” When I didn’t answer, Brad continued, “This is a huge story, Vick. The Sox are going to the World Series. They haven’t been there in eighteen years, haven’t won in eighty-six. The Red Sox just beat the Yankees, on Mickey Mantle’s birthday, to cap the most surprising comeback in baseball history.” He paused. “If my column goes up late, our advertisers are going to notice.”

No, they won’t, I kept myself from saying. The effort to be polite made me open my eyes.

“Who am I kidding?” Brad said. “Nobody comes to sportfreak.com for my column. But this is a chance to change that, Vick. There’ll be thousands of sleepless Red Sox fans clicking deep into the Web tonight, looking for a fresh angle, a reason to stay up a little later, a way to make the glow last.”

And thousands of wives who wish they’d just go to bed. During Brad’s speech, I’d come fully awake and realized that the fastest way to get back to sleep was to help him. I turned on the bedside lamp. “What do you want me to do?”

“Help me fix it?” The lamp shadowed the furrows in Brad’s forehead. “Go down to the basement and check the connections.”

“Can’t you?”

“I’d have to keep running upstairs to try the laptop.”

Right, I thought, because you need to plug into the router. Eighty dollars. For eighty dollars, we could have bought a wireless connection.

“It’ll go much faster if you help,” Brad said. “Can you take your cell phone down to the basement and check the connections? Call the upstairs stairs and keep me posted. I’ll keep trying the router.”

I stared at the ceiling. The lamp made a little circle of light there, in the darkness. I had just got to sleep half an hour ago, after willing the baby to take his knee out of my bladder. Sleep deprivation. Better get used to it.

It took me a couple of starts to roll out of bed, but once I did, momentum carried me to my cell phone on the bedside table and my robe in the closet. I stepped heavily down the stairs, and when I reached the ground floor Brad called down to me. “Hon?”

I turned and saw him at the top of the stairs. My “Yeah?” was all exasperated sigh.

“Thank you. Thank you, sweetheart.”

I nodded. It didn’t seem like much, but as I walked toward the basement stairs I felt a little lighter. The Red Sox were in the World Series, and if that meant a happy husband I was all for it. I dialed upstairs on my cellphone. Brad picked up. “Hello?” he said.

“You’re welcome.”

“Who is this?” Brad demanded. “Do you have any idea what time it is?”

I was too groggy to play along. “I’m just going down into the basement now. Descending, descending. Turning on the light. Ah.”

Our house is a hundred years old, and in the basement every year shows. Cold War bomb shelter in one corner, open toilet and showerhead in the other. Holes bashed in the interior walls to cram through ductwork and pipes. It’s a wonder the house is still upright.

“Looks good,” I said. “We should entertain down here.”

“I’ll send out invitations. Can you find the cable?”

A cluster of wires ran through the cottony insulation on the ceiling. I didn’t know what most of them did, but the thick black coaxial cable wasn’t hard to pick out. It ran from the cinder-block foundation to the foot of the stairs, then split into two branches. One branch continued along the ceiling toward the bomb shelter, and the other branch disappeared into the filthy little crawlspace under the porch. I peered into the crawlspace and a filmy cobweb stuck to my nose.

“I don’t know which cable goes to your router,” I said. “But if it’s the one in the crawlspace you better look for a new line of work.”

“I’ve thought of opening a check-cashing franchise.”

“Sounds good.” I backed away from the crawlspace. “Nice clean work.”

“How’s the splitter?” Brad asked.

“Let me check.” I ran my hand along the cable and grasped a little brass fastener at the split. Over the phone, I heard a short bzzt like the touching of two high-voltage wires. “Hey!” Brad said.

“You’ve got a connection now? I barely touched—”

“Just a second. Okay, okay.” I heard Brad tapping on his keyboard, then the buzzing sound, again. Bzzt. Bzzt.

After the fourth buzz, Brad said, “Oh,” in a tone of slow wonderment. “Oh. Shit.”

“What?” I asked.

“No!” More tapping on the keyboard, louder this time. “Stop!”

“Brad!” I said. “What’s going on?”

“I don’t know,” Brad said. “Can you come up here? Fast?”

“You want me to let go of the splitter?”

“Yes. No. It doesn’t matter. Just hurry.”

Hurry is a relative term when you’re seven months pregnant. I kneed my belly up the basement stairs, going just slow enough to keep my sore breasts from bouncing. On the first floor I resisted the urge to stop for breath, and shoved round the corner to climb to the second floor.

When I arrived, panting, in Brad’s home office, he was standing at his desk and stuffing his laptop into his carrying case.

“You’re done?” I asked.

He shook his head.

“What happened?”

Brad zipped the case. “I was in a hurry. When you were messing with the splitter, I saw a message on the screen: ‘A wireless network is in range. Do you wish to connect?’ Lucky break, I thought, and clicked OK. Then it said, ‘Do you wish to upload files,’ and I said OK again.”

I nodded. “The buzzing sound.”

“Right. Then after the upload started, I though, wait a minute. Upload which files? Upload them where? I hadn’t highlighted my column, and selected a connection to the office network. So God knows what files I was giving, and to who. I tried to stop. And you know what? I couldn’t move the cursor.”

“Like something took over.”

“Oh, yeah,” Brad said. “That computer’s a zombie now.”

“What are you going to do?”

Brad stood and slung the computer case over his shoulder. “Get out of range. Go in to the office, I guess. This story is going up way late, though, because I’m not going to connect an infected computer to the office network. Or copy the file over on a thumb drive. I can type the first screenful just by reading it off the screen, but if I still can’t move the cursor I’ll have to write the rest from scratch.”

I nodded sympathetically.

He started for the stairs. “Then tomorrow I’ll have to show it to our network guy. But he’s such an idiot, I doubt he’s even updated the anti-virus software. This wouldn’t have happened if he did.”

“Maybe you could show your computer to Samir,” I said. “He’s in network security.”

Brad turned around, his hand on the banister. “You don’t get it, Vick. Samir did this.”

“Don’t,” I said. “How could he?”

“He’s got a wireless router, that’s how. Probably hooked it up today, after the cable truck left.”

“It’s not possible, Brad. Their house is clear across the street.”

“You think someone closer hooked up a wireless modem? Maybe Roxie, next door, with her hearing aid and her walker?”

“But why would Samir care about your column?”

Brad patted the computer case. “All our banking information is on this machine. Balances, passwords, check routing numbers.” He started down the stairs, then stopped halfway down and turned around. “You should probably get on the phone right now and report our credit cards stolen.”

I followed him down the stairs and into the living room. “This is crazy, Brad,” I said. “Sunday they were terrorists. Today they’re identity thieves?”

“They need identity theft. They need it for financing, for disguise. You think Faisal and Samir are their real names?”

“You really believe this?”

“I don’t know.” He opened the front door. “God damn Red Sox. Even when they win, they give me a heart attack.”

“Honey,” I said firmly. “The Red Sox didn’t infect your computer. They didn’t, okay? And neither did Samir.”

Brad backed onto the porch and looked protectively at my belly. He shook his head. “I hope you’re right.” He climbed down the porch stairs, sat down in his car, and drove away.

In the yard across the street, harnessed to the rope between two pine trees, Virus stared blankly at Brad’s empty parking spot.

Thursday, October 21

One nice thing about Brad: when he’s anxious, he does a ton of housework. Brad didn’t get back from his office until three-thirty, and he was still asleep when I left for work on Thursday morning, but when I turned onto our street at the end of the day, he’d evidently been hard at work. Three yard bags stood on the curb, puffed out with maple leaves. Red Sox pennants flanked our front door and our cast-iron yard gate. In the myrtle by the curb, Brad had erected yard signs for two other not-yet-lost causes: one sign supporting the Kerry/Edwards presidential campaign (“A Stronger America”) and one opposing the proposed same-sex marriage ban (“No On Issue 1”).

The yard signs were for me—a thank-you for my waking up to help him last night, and for my putting up with him, generally, over the past week. Politics is my thing, not Brad’s—my law firm had worked hundreds of pro-bono hours trying to get the gay-marriage ban struck from the ballot. Brad votes the way I do, but he’s about as invested in politics as I am in the Red Sox. If he weren’t from Boston, if he’d married someone else, he could easily live out in the suburbs with a Bush/Cheney yard sign.

The signs of Brad’s handiwork continued into the back yard, where a fresh layer of wood chips had been poured into the dog run. Pudge galloped through the wood chips to greet me, a clean Red Sox kerchief tied around his neck.

I let Pudge out of the run, and he trotted ahead of me into the kitchen. His steps were quiet on the tile floor, which meant that his nails had been trimmed. As I hung my coat on the back hook, I heard a vacuum humming upstairs, and I noticed a marvelous homey smell, like cinnamon sticks in hot apple cider.

Pudge noticed the smell, too, and quickly tracked it to its source. He stood on his hind legs next to the oven, nose twitching, front paws balanced on the lowest drawer pull. Above him, next to the stovetop, atop a wire cooling rack, sat a warm apple pie. Strips of golden crust made a lattice over the top, and the mounded apples were dusted with rich brown cinnamon and nutmeg.

Pudge followed me to the foot of the stairs. “Hon?” I called up to the second floor. “This pie looks amazing. It smells amazing.”

The vacuum shut off, and Brad appeared at the top of the stairs with the cord bunched in one hand. “Thanks.” He climbed down the stairs, the vacuum bouncing ahead of him. When he reached the bottom, he said, “It’s not for us, though.”

“It’s not?” I stuck out my lower lip, pouting.

“It’s for Faisal and Samir.”

I thought about this for a moment, then squinted. “Why?”

“I don’t know.” Brad crouched to wrap the cord around the back of the vacuum cleaner, and didn’t look up at me when he continued. “I want to get a look inside their house.”

“Brad,” I said, “there’s nothing to see.”

“Then we’re just nice neighbors welcoming them properly to Columbus.”

“With pie?” I asked. “Nobody does that anymore. Not in the city. Not even here in the wholesome Midwest.”

“I know that. So do you.” He finished rolling up the vacuum cord, and stood to face me. “But they don’t.”

Pudge trotted away and curled, dejected, in front of the old gas fireplace.

I started to unbutton my peacoat, but Brad stopped me. “Better keep that on,” he said. “We’ve got a pie to deliver.”

“We?”

“I was thinking you could carry it. They’ll be less suspicious if it comes from a woman.”

I sighed and rebuttoned my coat. “I take it your computer’s definitely infected.”

“Unusable,” he said. “Andrew found a keystroke logger and a routine that transfers new files out at startup. If you don’t start up often enough, there’s another program that freezes you up and makes you reboot every couple of days.”

“Andrew found this? Andrew from work? You said he was an idiot.”

“It’s a well-known attack pattern, he said. I said, if it’s well-known why aren’t we protected from it? And he said, why was I connecting to a strange router?”

“Sounds like a productive conversation.”

Brad shook his head. The corners of his mouth pinched in frustration. “Anyhow, neither one of us was sure he’d found everything, or cleaned it up thoroughly. So he sent it out to a specialist.”

“Can you still work at home?”

Brad shrugged. “He gave me a loaner. A guy from Time Warner is coming out tomorrow to look at our connection. If he can fix it, I guess I’m in okay shape for the Series.” He handed me the pie and ushered me out the door.

Virus’ barking started as soon as we crossed the street. After four days harnessed to the pine trees, his possessiveness had turned frantic. He chased us along the fence, barking and lunging, the harness snapping him back. I found myself shying off of the sidewalk and walking along the grassy easement.

We rang the front doorbell. No one answered.

“Maybe they’re not home,” I said.

“Someone’s here.” Brad pointed to the cars parked along the curb: the Oldsmobile and the two Toyotas. “Listen.”

He rang again, and inside someone shouted in Arabic. Feet thumped up a flight of stairs. Finally Faisal opened the door.

“Hi, Faisal!” I said brightly, doing my best to sound wholesome and Midwestern. “How are you?”

“I am well, thank you.” Faisal glanced down at the pie, then looked at Brad, questioning.

“It’s for you guys,” Brad said. “We wanted to welcome you to the neighborhood.”

“Ah,” Faisal said. “Thank you.” He reached toward me hesitantly, as though touching me might burn his fingers. My first impulse was to make things easy for Faisal—just hand the pie over and leave. But Brad wouldn’t let me hear the end of that. So I restrained myself and kept the pie pressed close to my belly.

“I am being impolite,” Faisal said. “Please. Come inside.”

“Thanks,” Brad said, and stepped over the threshold.

The house was filled with unopened boxes. Furniture sprouted here and there amid the cardboard. Brad found a coat rack behind the front door, and hung up his Red Sox windbreaker to show we’d be staying a while. I started to unbutton my peacoat, then stopped myself. If Brad wanted to make himself at home, fine. But I didn’t have to play along.

I couldn’t have hung my coat anyway, because all of the hooks were full. Next to Brad’s Red Sox windbreaker hung the corduroy jacket that Faisal had worn the day we met. And on the other hooks were two denim jackets and a trench coat. In the living room, we met the coats’ owners. Three young men—two with mahogany skin and thick beards, one lighter-skinned and balding—sat hunched around a large set of paper plans unfolded on the coffee table.

They looked surprised to see us.

“Oh,” I said. “We didn’t know you had guests. We would have baked two pies instead of one.”

“Brad, Vickie,” said Faisal (again, he worked conspicuously at buzzing the V in my name). “These are Zia, Ulhar, Habib.” Each man stood in turn to shake Brad’s hand. They all ignored me, and I started to feel annoyed. I made a mental note to google how a Western woman should greet a Muslim man.

Faisal said, “They are helping us with some work in the basement.”

“Really?” Brad said. “What kind of work?”

I broke in. “These old houses can be so much trouble.”

“Indeed,” Faisal said. “Yet Victorian homes have great character.”

“We’re lucky,” I told him. “The owners before us fully renovated our place. All we had to do was move in and unpack.”

Faisal didn’t answer, and I wondered if I had overstepped by suggesting that he would be renovating. Maybe his guests were just helping with a superficial repair.

“So,” Brad said to the men around the table, “you guys neighbors? Friends?”

“Relatives,” said one of the darker men, the one with the longer beard—Zia, I think.

“Habib is an old friend,” Faisal explained. “Zia and Ulhar are Samir’s cousins.”

“You mean your cousins?” Brad asked.

“Faisal?” I said. “Where shall I set this pie?”

Brad said, “I’ll take it.” He reached for the pie without taking his eyes off Faisal.

“It is confusing, I know,” Faisal said. “Samir and I are half-brothers: we share only our father. Zia and Ulhar are from the side of Samir’s mother.”

Brad nodded and raised the pie. “Should we serve this? I didn’t expect all of you, but there should be enough to go around.”

Zia and Ulhar looked confused. Faisal exchanged a look with the bald man, Habib.

“It’s still warm…” Brad cajoled.

“You are very kind,” Faisal said. “And the pie looks tasty indeed. But it is now Ramadan. We cannot eat until sundown.”

A flush of embarrassment climbed the back of my neck. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I wish we had known.”

“I’ll just set this down into the kitchen,” Brad said. “For later.”

When Brad left the room, the men looked at Faisal, then at me. I shifted my weight uncomfortably; my swollen ankles were starting to ache.

“Sit down, Vickie,” Faisal said. “Please.”

I lowered myself to the sofa, then looked up, giving them permission to join me. Instead all the men remained standing. They smiled and nodded at each other as though the situation were satisfactorily resolved. I made a note to google “Muslim pregnant.”

“So,” I said after a moment’s silence. “Quite a game last night, huh?”

Ulhar and Habib looked at each other helplessly; Zia shook his head.

“I did not watch,” Faisal said. “But I am aware of the outcome.”

“Hey.” Brad returned from the kitchen, with a question that he pretended had just occurred to him. “Hey, where’s Samir?”

Faisal turned to face him. “Samir is in Boston. Finishing a project for his former employer.”

“Cool,” Brad said. “Who’d he work for?”

“Why do you ask?”

“No reason,” Brad said. “Pie’s in the kitchen. We won’t keep you gentlemen any longer. Pleasure to meet you, Zia, Ulhar, uh…”

“Habib,” said the bald man.

“Of course.”

As we crossed the street back toward our house, Brad started talking under his breath. “Little alcove off the kitchen,” he said. “Little alcove with a writing desk, a laptop computer. And a wireless router.”

“Doesn’t mean a thing,” I said, echoing his conspiratorial tone. “I’d be surprised if a couple of engineers didn’t have wireless.”

A muffled ring escaped from the pocket of Brad’s leather jacket. He quickened his pace.

I sped up to keep alongside. “Aren’t you going to answer that?” I asked.

He stepped onto the sidewalk. The phone rang again, and again. Brad walked briskly past our front gate and into the alley, where he reached into his pocket and pulled out a chunky green cellphone.

“What’s that?” I asked him. The phone he usually carries is smaller, and black.

“Shhh,” he said. He didn’t answer the phone, but stared at the display screen. “Write this number down: 617 235-5612.”

“I don’t have a pen,” I said.

“617 235-5612,” he said. “I think that’s in Boston.” He tucked the phone back in his pocket.

“That’s not your phone,” I said. “Is it?”

He opened the back gate. “I found it in Faisal’s kitchen.”

“Brad.” I stopped in the alley, then hurried to catch him as he climbed the back stairs. “This has to stop. You have no right to take that man’s cell phone.”

“It’s just a cheap prepaid thing,” Brad said. “The kind they sell at that sleazy convenience store on Fifth.”

“That doesn’t matter,” I said. “It’s not yours.”

“What I mean—” Brad hung his coat on the hooks next to our back door—”is what’s Faisal doing with a phone like this? He’s an engineer. He should have a sleek gray cellphone that can navigate the web.”

“Oh, that’s very suspicious.” I rolled my eyes. “Not conforming to stereotype.”

“Nice thing about these prepaid jobs, though: You can buy them for cash and they’ll never be linked to your name. He can call anyone, say anything. No one will know it’s him.”

“Maybe it’s not Faisal’s,” I said. “Maybe it’s Zia’s. Or Ulhar’s. Or what’s-his-name’s.”

“Habib’s. What’s the difference, Vick? They’re all working together.”

“Yes, they are,” I said. “They’re working in Faisal’s basement.”

“On what?” Brad asked.

“It’s none of our business.”

Brad opened the refrigerator and pulled out a beer. “You see those plans they were looking at?”

“Sure,” I said. “I mean, not really. I didn’t scrutinize them.”

“What’d they look like to you?”

“I have no idea, Brad. Like plans. Probably for whatever they’re working on in the basement. If it’s anything like our basement, I’d say they’re closing off the crawlspace, removing the toilet, installing wall-to-wall carpeting.”

Brad nodded his head skeptically.

“Why?” I asked. “What’d they look like to you?”

He popped the top of his beer can. “Fenway Park,” he said

---

It was a restless night. Since my fifth month, I’d been getting up every two hours to use the bathroom, and I’d felt chronically overheated in our stuffy bedroom. Ordinarily, I could get back to sleep if I woke up, but tonight I kept thinking about Brad and his stolen cell phone, which since dinner had rung three times from two different numbers in the Boston area. I should steal it back, I told myself. Just slip it out of Brad’s coat pocket, sneak across the street, and place it quietly in Faisal’s mailbox. It all sounded like a great plan, until I realized that I couldn’t be inconspicuous about it. Virus would be barking the whole time.

Around midnight I threw off the covers, and at one-thirty I opened both bedroom windows and set up a fan.

It didn’t help. Cooler air poured in, but within ten minutes Virus started barking and whimpering. His harness whirred along the rope between the two pine trees in his back yard. He’d whirr to the tree near the foundation and whimper, then whirr to the tree near the back fence and let out three sharp alarm barks. Whirr. Whimper. Whirr. Bark bark bark.

At the foot of our bed, Pudge snorted. He trotted to the window and began to whine.

“Can we close the window?” Brad asked with his eyes closed.

“No,” I said. “It’s too stuffy.” I’d been thinking of closing the window myself, but Brad’s asking made me stubborn. If his stolen cell phone was keeping me awake, it seemed only fair to keep him awake, too.

“You can sleep this way?” he asked.

“No.”

Brad covered his head with a pillow.

I shut my eyes. Virus’ noises had a sort of regularity, and I tried to convince myself that they could be soothing if I tapped into their rhythm and counted. One. (Whimper. Whirr.) Two. (Bark bark bark.)

When I’d counted to twenty or so, Virus’ rhythm accelerated, and then changed. Less whimpering, more barking. Faster whirrs. Brad pulled the pillow off of his head. “For Christ’s sake, Vickie,” he said. “Can we just close—”

A loud blast swallowed his words. First a crack like wood splintering, then a few seconds of debris pattering the ground, like the afterburst of a firecracker. Our open window shook in its frame.

I didn’t recall getting out of bed, but I found myself standing at our bedroom window. Brad, whom I didn’t recall getting up either, stood behind me with his hand clutching my hip protectively.

“Do you see anything?” he asked. “I couldn’t find my glasses.”

“Sort of,” I said.

There was a four-foot hole in Faisal and Samir’s basement wall. Large chunks of broken brick and cinder block lay in concentric circles around the foundation, and rubble had leaked through the fence and strewn the sidewalk. A section of the fence around Virus’ yard had collapsed, the slats broken and splintered as though someone had kicked them with an impossibly heavy boot.

“I don’t hear any barking,” Brad said.

“The fence is down. Maybe Virus escaped.”

“How could he? He’s chained to those trees.”

“It’s not a chain,” I said. “It’s a rope harness.”

Pudge started to whimper again. He set his front paws on the windowsill and started to shake.

“I don’t like this,” Brad said. “I’m going down to check it out.”

“Don’t.” I grabbed his hand and clutched it to my belly. “It isn’t safe.”

I had just found Virus. He lay at the foot of the tree near the broken foundation, still harnessed to his rope between the trees. He lay on his side as though he were asleep, but his ribs weren’t moving. A sharp chunk of cinder block lay on the grass above his muzzle, and the white fur in front of his ear was stained dark. Behind the stain was a dent where his skull had caved in. The dent glistened with blood. Blood, or maybe exposed brain. Not that it made any difference to Virus.

By now some neighbors had straggled into the street. Nobody pays attention to sirens in our neighborhood, and even gunshots get ignored if they’re far enough to the east. But a close-range explosion will get people out of bed. Our next door neighbor, Roxie, wearing a nightgown and a hairnet, had pushed her walker out onto her front porch. Some of the other black families—the ones that lived here before the neighborhood started to turn—walked cautiously toward the mansion, gawking.

A guy I’d never seen before—white, sixtyish, bald—flipped open a cell phone, and within five minutes a cruiser pulled up in front of Faisal and Samir’s porch. Two young cops climbed out, and Faisal let them in the front door. After a few minutes the street cleared. I lay down on the bed, listening, while Brad sat against the bedroom wall, stroking Pudge’s back protectively. When we heard Faisal’s front door open across the street we sprang up again to watch through the window. I don’t know what we expected to see; only a cliché comes to mind, the cops shoving Faisal, head lowered, into the back of their cruiser. Instead, the cops came out alone, and let themselves out the front gate. One shook his head and smiled faintly.

I got back into bed, suddenly exhausted. “That’s a relief,” I said. “I’m glad it was nothing.”

At the window, Brad turned to stare at me. “Nothing?”

“I guess,” I said. “At least, we don’t know any different.”

Brad closed the window and got into bed next to me. He lay on his back. Just as I was drifting off, he demanded, “How old were those cops?”

I thought about not answering, but if I fell asleep, he might ask again and wake me. “Twenty-five?”

“At the most.” Brad threw himself onto his side. “Incompetents. Fresh out of the academy. Who else would work this shift?”

Saturday, October 23

Saturday morning, we were walking Pudge out our front door when we saw a strange man across the street, standing outside Faisal and Samir’s back yard. The man was short, bald, pushing sixty, with a heavy-but-not-soft build that said ex-football player, ex-cop. He scribbled notes on a wireless device I hadn’t seen before: not a Palm, not a Blackberry, not a Treo. When he stopped writing, he held it up like a camera, and snapped a picture of the hole in Faisal and Samir’s foundation. Evidently he wanted a closer shot, because he opened the gate and walked into the yard.

“Hey,” I called out.

The man ignored me. He knelt by the hole in the foundation, and took a flash picture of the basement interior.

“Great toy,” Brad said. “I’ve got to get one of those.”

We crossed to Faisal and Samir’s side of the street, and I rapped on the fence picket. “That’s my neighbor’s house,” I said. “Can I help you?”

The stocky man took two more pictures with the flash, then rose from his crouch and walked slowly to the fence. He reached over and shook my hand. “Frank Arthur. You said you’re a neighbor?”

“Across the street,” I said before realizing that I had no obligation to respond. Something about him made me needlessly forthcoming. “I’m a lawyer. What are you doing on this property?”

“They know I’m here.” Frank wrote something on his handheld. A pair of half-frame reading glasses rested on the bridge of his nose. “I’m an adjuster for Grange Insurance.”

Brad said, “They filed a claim on this?”

“Sure.” Frank turned toward Brad. “Why? You see what happened?”

“Not really. We heard a bang, and then, well, you can see as well as we can.”

“This was the night before last?”

“Maybe two a.m. We were sleeping, so we didn’t see what happened before the blast. What do they say in the claim?”

“Brad,” I said. “He’s not going to answer that.”

“Act of God,” Frank said, “They called it an Act of God.”

A shiver ran up my spine. “What?”

“Or maybe bad workmanship. Some cousin, I guess, was over earlier in the day, fixing the hot water tank. And maybe he didn’t fix it right, because the valve stuck, steam built up, and boom.”

Brad said, “That can happen?”

Frank shrugged.

I thought about our own hot water tank, in our haunted-house basement. When was the last time anyone checked the valve? “Wouldn’t there be some kind of warning?”

“Maybe,” Frank said. “If the valve wasn’t absolutely tight, there might be a few minutes of whining, really high pitched, almost too high to hear. I wouldn’t hear it, not at my age. I doubt you would, either. Maybe a kid, though.”

“Or a dog?” I asked.

“A dog? Sure.”

“Their dog was barking a lot, right before the explosion. But you probably know that.”

“I did not.” Frank wrote something on his handheld. “Haven’t seen a dog at all. Haven’t heard any barking, either.”

“Well, he died, I’m afraid. One of these cinder blocks hit him in the head.”

“That’s sad,” Frank said flatly.

“He was a big dog.” Franks’ coplike manner made me want to provide a physical description. “Over a hundred pounds. Lots of energy, too. I’d guess he was less than five years old.”

“I just,” Brad broke in. “I can’t help thinking. I mean, a water tank? It seems like an awful lot of damage for that.”

Frank stopped writing and looked at Brad over the rims of his reading glasses. “That’s what I think,” he said.

“The cops came,” Brad said. “But they didn’t do anything.”

“You think they should have?”

“I don’t know,” Brad said. “But we did notice some young Arab men—Muslim men—coming in and out of the house during the week. Thursday we dropped in with a pie, and found them looking over some plans. They said they were working on something.” Brad paused.

“They say what it was?” Frank asked.

“No,” Brad said. “But it was in the basement.”

“So it could have been the water heater.”

“Of course it was the water heater,” I said. “Of course it was an accident. What else could it be?”

Frank shrugged. “You see a lot of strange things in the insurance business. Couple guys move into an old house. Needs more work than they realized, more than they can afford. So they take out a big policy, and…” He tilted his head at the foundation.

“What has me concerned,” Brad said, “is this might have been just a practice run.” He turned to me. “You know, like the radical group in that movie you dragged me to?”

I shook my head, annoyed, then realized what he was talking about. “Oh, the Weathermen. Accidentally blew up their own townhouse in 1970. Killed three of their own people.”

“I remember that,” Frank said. “Those were different times.”

“But they weren’t trying to blow up their own house,” Brad prompted. “Weren’t they screwing up a practice run for something else?”

“Right,” I said. “They were going to blow up, what, the State Department?”

“An army barracks,” Frank said. “But what’s the connection? You think these guys are practicing?”

I glanced at Brad. “No,” I said.

“But one of them’s in Boston,” Brad said. “Samir. Just got there on Wednesday, I think. I might have his number.”

“The State Department’s not in Boston,” Frank said.

“No,” said Brad. “But the World Series is.”

Frank nodded.

Brad continued, “Game one is tonight,”

“I get you.” Frank jotted in his handheld. “You said you might have a phone number?”

“Not with me,” Brad said. “I could get it.”

Frank dug a billfold out of his back pocket, and handed Brad a business card. “You find it, give me a call. Either number will do. I’ve got them both forwarded to this thing.” He patted his handheld.

“Oh, man,” Brad said. “It’s got a phone, too?”

Frank turned the handheld toward us and clicked around with a stylus. “Phone, fax, voicemail, voice recognition. You leave that number, I’ll just click the recording and it goes right into the Rolodex.”

“Fantastic.” Brad shook his head. “What’d it cost you?”

“Me? Nothing.” Frank turned the handheld back toward him. “I don’t think you can buy it retail, actually. The company’s got some kind of a deal.”

Brad nodded sadly. “I’m glad you’re taking this on, Frank. The cops seem pretty clueless.”

“I’m not taking anything on.” Frank tucked the handheld in his pocket. “My role is limited to protecting the Grange Insurance Company and its policyholders. For me, the key question is this: was the explosion in this house deliberate? If it was, we don’t pay. Some other building, in some other city—if we don’t insure it, it’s not my concern.”

Saturday, October 23 ­ Wednesday, October 27

Within a hour, Brad called Frank’s handheld with the Boston telephone numbers that he had read from Faisal’s cell phone. But instead of Frank, a computer-generated voice answered with a prerecorded message that the (unnamed) subscriber was unavailable; please leave a message after the tone. Around five o’clock Brad called again and asked Frank to confirm receiving his message. Frank didn’t call back.

By the time the Series started at eight, Brad was so agitated that he could hardly sit down for the opening pitch. The Red Sox won the highest-scoring game one in Series history—eleven runs to nine—but Brad was too distracted to enjoy it.

On Sunday, a few hours before the start of game two, Brad gave up on Frank and called Fenway Park instead. I felt sorry for the security officer who took Brad’s call. I mean, look at it from his point of view: a stranger phones from Ohio with a theory about an explosion planned by young Arab men. The only detail he can give is the name Samir. If no one else calls with corroborating information, you go right back to worrying that some fan might sneak in with a beer bottle and throw it at the St. Louis dugout.

Game two started at 8:30. Boston took a 2-0 lead in the first inning, then stretched its lead to 4-1 after four. During the commercials, Brad kept running upstairs to troll the Internet for rumors of a bomb threat. When I caught him checking the Drudge Report, I made him stop.

Boston won again, 6 to 2, but Brad had hardly paid attention. The column he wrote was perfunctory, little more than a rehash of the box score.

On Tuesday, the Series moved to St. Louis, where the Sox won game three by a score of 4 to 1. On Wednesday, in game four, the Sox scored three runs in the third inning and still led 3-0 when Derek Lowe left the pitcher’s mound after the top of the seventh. It was ten p.m. in St. Louis, eleven in Columbus. We sat on the sofa, watching a light-truck commercial with the television on mute.

I patted Brad’s leg. “Looks like they’re home free.”

“Don’t say that.” Brad tapped the coffee table with his knuckles. The commercial ended, and Fox ran a montage of the Sox blowing a tenth-inning lead in game six of the 1986 World Series—the long montage that begins with Dave Henderson smiling as he catches an easy fly for the second out, and ends with the winning run scoring after a slow grounder rolls through Bill Buckner’s legs.

I held my tongue.

In the top of the eighth, Boston led off with a single and followed with a double to put runners on second and third. The Cardinals brought in a new reliever, but he immediately gave up a walk to load the bases with no men out. Boston put a pinch runner on first, and brought in a pinch hitter for Lowe.

“This is it, don’t you think?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Brad said.

“I can see them losing a three-run lead, but it looks like it’s going to be more like five.”

Brad didn’t respond.

The reliever struck out the pinch hitter, and got the next batter to ground into a fielder’s choice. When the final batter struck out to end the inning, Brad smacked the coffee table with both palms.

“Honey,” I said. “It’s okay. They’re still up by three runs.”

“With a new pitcher.” Brad sat back and folded his arms. “I just hope they can hold on.”

We sat in silence through a beer commercial, and then the local affiliate ran an ad for Senator Kerry—the one where he promises to hunt down and kill Osama bin Laden.

I pressed the mute. “Hey, at least there’s no bomb. You can rest easy on that.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Even if the Sox lose this game—”

“Stop.”

“—the Series won’t go back to Boston unless they lose game five as well.”

“You trying to give me a heart attack? The Sox are notorious for blowing big leads.”

“Maybe they are,” I said. “But do you think al Qaeda knows that?”

Brad looked at me. “What?”

“If you were planning to bomb Fenway Park, wouldn’t you have done it game one or two? Wouldn’t you have allowed for the possibility that, once the Series left Boston, it wasn’t coming back?”

“What do I know, Vick? Maybe they have another cell in St. Louis.”

Pudge sprang to his feet and snorted. The front gate squeaked open, and a few seconds later the doorbell rang. I stood up, leaving Brad on the couch with his scorecard and his laptop computer.

When I opened the door, Faisal looked down at me from our front porch, his head lowered, his shoulders hunched.

He looked straight into my eyes. “Hello, Vickie,” he said. “I am very sorry to disturb you so late. You said, I think, you are a lawyer?”

“Come in.” I stood aside.

Faisal walked quickly into the living room. Brad stood up and nodded with bare politeness. “Faisal.”

“Hello, Brad,” Faisal said. “Let me repeat my apology. I did not realize your game was still being played.”

“That’s all right.” I fixed Brad with a look before he could say anything. “It’s recording on TiVo. He can pause it and skip through the commercials later.”

Brad hesitated, then pressed the pause button. “I guess that’s right,” he said. “At least for a couple of minutes.”

Faisal didn’t remove his coat but sat immediately in the low armchair next to the couch. He opened his hands. “Samir is gone,” he said.

“What?” I asked.

“Sure he’s gone,” Brad said. “He’s in Boston, right?”

Faisal shook his head. “He was supposed to return this evening. But when I went to the airport, he was not among the passengers.”

I sat down on the sofa next to Faisal’s chair. My first impulse was to put my arm around him, but I stopped myself, afraid that would make him more uncomfortable. “That can happen,” I said. “Samir probably just missed the flight. Traffic in Boston must be crazy right now.”

“Not yet.” Brad pointed at the television. “The game’s still on.”

I fixed Brad with a stare. “Some fans celebrate early,” I said.

“Not in Boston.” Brad shook his head. “Anyhow, Samir wouldn’t be driving now.” He turned to Faisal. “You said he was scheduled to arrive in Columbus, what, an hour ago?”

“Two hours,” Faisal said.

“Even so—” I started.

“Brad is correct,” Faisal said. “I strongly doubt Samir is stuck in traffic. Actually, I have not known his whereabouts for three days.”

I sat down. “Oh.”

Faisal continued. “Before Samir left, our telephone service was still inactive, so I bought a temporary mobile phone at a convenience store. But the phone went missing. Yesterday, when our home phone started working, I called Samir’s hotel in Boston. He was not checked in. I phoned a friend at his old employer, where he was supposed to be finishing a project. The friend had not seen him since Friday. Monday morning he did not come in.”

I was out of my depth. In my work, I hear a lot about husbands running off with their mistresses, or abused wives disappearing with their children. Neither situation seemed to apply here. “This isn’t my specialty,” I said. “But I have to ask. Did Samir seem upset when he left? Was there someone in Boston he was exceptionally attached to?”

Faisal’s eyes narrowed. “Samir didn’t run away,” he said. “He was taken.”

We were silent. After a moment, Brad said, “What?”

“For some time we have been under surveillance. I had thought it might stop when we left Boston. But it continued. A few days after we arrived, an unmarked van parked on the curb. Not long after, it tried to wi-phish us.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “Wi-phish?”

“They set up a wireless router, and tried to induce us to connect. Of course, only a fool would do so.”

I glanced at Brad, who had lowered his eyes.

“And of course,” Faisal said, “Samir is far from inexperienced.”

“Of course,” I said.

“I am quite sure they have tapped our phone as well. It took several days to connect, and the man who did it spent an exceptional length of time in the circuit box.”

“But who would do this?” I asked.

Faisal shrugged. “FBI?” he said. “Homeland Security? Defense Intelligence? I may finally have seen one of them. A short, thick man, bald, perhaps fifty-five years old.”

“Oh, that guy?” Brad said. “He’s not a fed. He’s an adjuster for Grange.”

“For whom?” Faisal asked.

“Grange Insurance. He was checking out your homeowner’s claim.”

“We have not yet filed a claim,” Faisal said. “And our insurer is Amica.”

“Amica?” Brad said. “Well, maybe that’s what he said.”

“No,” I told Brad. “He said Grange. Faisal, where do you think Samir is now?”

“I wish I knew.”

“Have you called the police?”

“Yes, in Boston. They will not tell me anything.”

“They have to,” I said. “You have rights, Faisal. You’re his brother.”

Faisal looked away for a moment, then lowered his eyes bashfully. “We are not brothers.”

I glanced at Brad. His eyebrows were raised politely, but his eyes darted toward me, and for a second I thought that he might be right about Faisal and Samir. But when I looked again at Faisal and saw that his cheeks were flushed, I realized what he must be saying. Of course. Two young men from an intolerant country, fixing up an old house in a gentrifying neighborhood. Why hadn’t I seen it before?

I thought of the sign in our front yard, opposing the same-sex marriage ban. Faisal must have felt safe with us.

“Oh, Faisal,” I said. “We’re so sorry.”

His shoulders started to shake. “My greatest fear,” he said, “is that they have rendered Samir back to Egypt. I cannot bear to think what would happen to him there.”

I couldn’t, either. And I couldn’t imagine it would help him to be homosexual.

I couldn’t stop myself now. I laid my hand on Faisal’s arm. “We will find him. Don’t worry.”

“You are very kind,” Faisal said, and when he looked from me to Brad his eyes were wet.

“I do family law,” I told him. “So I wouldn’t know where to begin. But there are people in my firm who work with private eyes. And first thing in the morning, I’ll call a friend who does immigration. I don’t know if she’s the right person, but she’s a start.”

“Thank you.” Faisal rubbed the side of his face with one shoulder, and we stood up. He looked intently into my eyes, and if his background had allowed him to hug a woman I’m sure he would have. On his way to the door, he stopped and shook Brad’s hand, clasping his shoulder as he did so. “You are good people. I knew this even before, when you brought the pie. You are the only people in this neighborhood who have showed us any kindness.”

After Faisal left, I closed the front door, and stood for a moment, watching him cross the street. He was standing a little straighter than before, though I doubted he would sleep well tonight.

When I came back to the sofa, Brad was skipping through the end of the Kerry ad. I took the remote and set it back to pause.

“We are going to bust our asses for that man.” I said. “We have a lot to make up for.”

“Vickie.” Brad reached for the remote. I tucked it behind my back. “Come on. You think the government’s watching them for no reason at all?”

# # #

Virus by Paul Von Hippel
originally published in the Fall 2011 print edition