Summary

A short time later, in Chapter 6, Faraj came upon an active crime scene where police were investigating the murders of four beggars whose dead bodies had been found with their hands around each other's necks. That evening, another beggar told Faraj he witnessed the crime and that there had been a fifth man among the four dead, a “horrible guy with a big mouth” (71). The four beggars had tried to attack this man, but ended up attacking each other instead. Meanwhile, Mahmoud's editor Saidi took him to meet a friend, Brigadier Majid, head of the Tracking and Pursuit Department. Majid explained that this department is made up of astrologers and people who communicate with spirits to determine when and where terrorist attacks might occur. Majid had a file on the deaths of the four beggars...