by Unknown
“Inspired, Ali,” the Russian said. “Risky, but inspired.” They toasted. Volkov refilled their paper cups.
ALI WAS STARING AT THE portrait of Assad over his door when a knock broke the presidential gaze. It was very late, but as soon as Kanaan entered the room Ali could tell the man had bad news for him. He motioned him toward the table and offered a cigarette. “Tell me. It’s late.”
Kanaan sat and accepted the cigarette. “We are placing a lot of trust in her, boss. Maybe too much.” He lit it and leaned back in his chair.
Ali arched an eyebrow. “You have concerns?”
“We are also asking a lot of her.”
“She will be rewarded. I made this clear. And we are not asking for this to drag on. She is not a trained intelligence officer, I have no intention of running her for more than a month. Once we have the device, her work is done.” Ali stole another glance at the Assad portrait and stubbed out his cigarette. “What did she say? Did something happen?”
Kanaan thrust out his lower lip and blew a wall of smoke overhead. “Nothing happened, but I think we should be more certain we have her under control.”
Ali stood and put his hands on the chair’s backrest. Bending down, he stretched his back. He went to the bookshelf, opened one of the agricultural books left by the previous occupant, and ran his fingers along the dusty jacket. He trusted Kanaan’s instincts. He put it back on the shelf. “Do you have a proposal?”
Kanaan nodded. “The usual methods, boss. We just arrested five of Fatimah Wael’s relatives to assist Bouthaina Najjar’s work against the opposition. We should do the same here. We won’t treat anyone badly, of course. We just need to send the message: we are in control.” He put out his cigarette. “The cousin, for example, has publicly called for the President to step down.”
Ali grunted. “Get the paperwork ready.” He lit another cigarette.
35
MARIAM WORKED HER HAND IN THE COMFORTABLE motion she’d taught herself as a teenager, her mind floating along the French Riviera as she thought of guiding Sam inside. Savoring the swell as it ran through her body, she applied pressure until she glimpsed a ruined nailbed on her right hand, cruelly drawing her back to Damascus before she could shudder out the tension. She’d been holding her breath, and now gasped for air and cursed as she turned on the light and sat up to look at her finger. She sat on the edge of the bed and saw her bedroom window blinds—all the way down, no signal tonight—and felt nausea replace the pleasure. It was all too much. She had needed that damn release. She was torn in so many directions: working with CIA, squeezing Fatimah Wael, protecting herself against Jamil Atiyah and Ali Hassan. The work with Sam was the only thing that made her feel free. The rest made her feel like a villain.
She dressed and called Razan. “You coming, habibti?” she asked, hearing the now-familiar beeps of Uncle Daoud’s hospital room in the background. She would leave for Italy in the morning and needed her cousin before she left. Razan had not often left Uncle Daoud’s hospital room, but Mariam knew her cousin could use a break. She wanted one, too. To drink a little too much, smoke cigarettes, fall asleep watching an American movie with Razan on the couch. “Be there in twenty minutes, habibti.”
Razan had brought Belvedere vodka instead of the cheap stuff they used to drink in college. “We need this, girl,” she said, presenting the bottle as she brushed past Mariam to enter the apartment. In the kitchen they each downed two shots and went onto the cramped balcony to smoke, bringing the bottle with them. They left the shot glasses behind.
“Uncle was okay today?” Mariam asked as they leaned on the railing.
“Yes. Better every day,” Razan said. “Doctors think he’ll be out in a few days. You heard about the promotion?” Her face darkened.
Uncle Daoud had been tapped to lead Branch 450, replacing his slain boss, Shalish.
“I did.” Sam and CIA would be ecstatic. Razan hated it. Mariam just wanted him out of the hospital.
“So, Italy?” Razan said, changing the subject.
“Yes. Palace business.”
Razan dragged on her cigarette and unconsciously fiddled with the eye patch. Mariam usually forgot it was there, but sometimes it was impossible not to notice.
“How does it feel?” she asked her cousin.
“Fine. Except my eye doesn’t work anymore.”
Mariam gripped the railing. The booze, thankfully, was kicking in. She took a pull from the bottle and handed it to Razan, who took her own pull and handed it back. As Mariam took another drink, she realized that though she’d always loved Razan, she now finally understood her cousin. She, too, was free. In that moment, Mariam wanted to tell her everything.
“You know I love you, don’t you?” Mariam said. “That I love you more than the Palace?”
“We are sisters. Of course I do.”
“Have you contacted the rebel committees again, Razan?”
Razan smirked and took another drink of vodka. “And if I had?”
Mariam kissed her cousin’s cheek and whispered into her ear. “Then I would say I love you even more.”
Surprised, Razan opened her mouth slightly, but Mariam put her hand over it and kissed her forehead. “I have something for you,” she said.
It was a black dress with ruffle sleeves she had bought in Paris. Mariam had never found the right time to give it to her. Tonight, it made sense. Inside the apartment, Razan slipped from her clothes and slid into the dress, smoothing the hem while Mariam zipped it up. Razan twirled. “It’s beautiful, habibti. I love it.” Mariam took another sip of vodka, then handed the bottle to Razan, who watched her hands as she passed it over. They stood facing each other in the living room for a heavy second. Razan kept her eye on Mariam as she drank. “You know that I love you more than the rebel committees, okhti?” Razan asked.
Mariam nodded.
“Do you know this, okhti?” Razan repeated.
A tear rolled from Mariam’s eye. She wiped it away. “I do, habibti. I do.”
Razan took another drink and set the bottle down on the coffee table. She stepped toward Mariam and took her right hand. “So, then tell me why you are doing this?” She ran a finger over a scab.
Mariam could really feel the vodka now, and she had to fight the urge to blurt everything out. But she stayed quiet, watching Razan’s fingers delicately run along her own. Another tear escaped.
“Maybe some more vodka would help?” Razan said. She picked up the bottle, took a drink, and began handing it to Mariam.
Then there was a loud knock.
The knock. Mariam knew it and apparently Razan did, too, because she dropped the bottle on the floor and took a step away from the door. “Jesus, Jesus,” she muttered. Mariam watched the door, wondering if maybe this was a dream and the knocker would disappear. A mistake! We have the wrong apartment, Ms. Haddad. This is a terrible mix-up.
There was another knock. “Security Office, open up. Now.”
“Jesus, Jesus, Jesus,” Razan said, taking another step back from the door.
Mariam opened the door to find Ali Hassan and his lieutenant, Kanaan, the one who’d first called her to ask questions about Sam after she’d returned from France. Before they started pressuring her, before they had dug in their talons, before they owned her. She noticed both men looking past her toward Razan. “Good evening, Ms. Haddad,” Ali said. “May we come in?”
She let them in. Ali appeared relaxed, but Kanaan had his eyes locked on Razan, who kept backing away. Ali removed a piece of paper from his breast pocket and began reading aloud. Mariam understood the first few words—“By presidential decree under the powers vested by the Emergency Law of 1963, the Supreme State Security Court finds Razan Haddad guilty of weakening national sentiment . . .”—but then she could no longer hear Ali, just a scream and the sound of her cousin’s skinny legs sliding against the silk fabric of the dress as she ran for the door to the balcony. Razan was fiddling with the door, fingers not working so well because of the fea
r and the booze, and Mariam realized then what Razan was trying to do. The door began to slide open. Then Mariam was running at her, screaming Razan’s name like she’d done at the protest, though now protecting her cousin would mean giving her over to the mukhabarat instead of saving her from them. She could hear Ali and Kanaan moving, too, but she had a step on them and made it through the balcony door just behind Razan.
The dress tore as Razan hoisted her right leg onto the railing, and she was starting to jump when Mariam caught her by the shoulder and yanked her back. They both fell, Razan’s back pressed into Mariam’s chest, until Mariam’s head struck the carpet just inside the door. She could not see straight, but she felt Razan trying to free herself and pulled her in tight. Razan shrieked and began sobbing.
“Please, Mariam, please, I can’t go with them. Let me go, let me jump, it will be so quick. I won’t feel anything.”
Razan tried to pull free. Mariam held her.
“We can do it together,” Razan said. “Please, please, habibti, don’t make me go with them.”
Mariam cried, feeling the silk dress as she held her cousin tight. Razan went limp as her fight gave out and her breathing slowed. She looked up. “The sky is so clear tonight, okhti,” Razan said at last, slurring her words from the vodka. “I can actually see a few stars.”
Ali gently pulled Razan up and the men handcuffed her and reread the charges. Razan was silent now. Kanaan led her out of the apartment. Ali lingered. Mariam sat on the floor and thought about killing him.
“Why, General?” Mariam gritted out.
Ali did not answer the question. He turned for the door, on his way righting the bottle of vodka. “Do your job in Italy and your cousin will be fine. Her fate is in your hands.”
36
OUTBURSTS FROM CIA CHIEFS OF STATION WERE NOT uncommon. Some of the old-timers even encouraged the behavior, believing it was critical to a Station’s operational discipline. The rage blackouts usually occurred in the Chief’s office—a safe space, for the Chief at least—burned hot, and subsided quickly. Sam’s Chief in Baghdad had once punched a case officer in the back of the head during a staff meeting because he had flubbed the distro list for a cable. In Cairo, Bradley had sometimes let the case officers have it for the dumbest mistakes. Sam considered Ed a near-father figure, but he’d still reamed him out in front of the entire Station for drafting a few crappy assessment cables.
Artemis Aphrodite Procter belonged to the same school.
“The Jableh complex . . .” Zelda paused and coughed, knowing the rest of the sentence would not be met warmly by Procter. “The Jableh complex has been evacuated.”
Procter picked up a mug, currently doubling as a pencil holder, and smashed it into the wall. “Holy fucking hell! Those vadges in D.C. fiddlefucked around for weeks,” she screamed. “They signed a goddamn finding and did nothing about the goddamn fucking sarin. They should have dropped a few JDAMs on it when they had the chance.” She rummaged around for candy but found nothing and slammed her desk drawer. “Fuck,” she said softly.
Sam, observing the outburst from the Chief’s table, saw Zelda picking shards of ceramic from her skirt and blouse. Her face was expressionless, and he marveled that the analyst had become either acclimated or numb to Procter’s unconventional weather patterns.
Sam looked at the report. The commentary box below the report’s banner included the analyst’s judgment that the jam-packed loading aprons, abundant forklifts, and general disarray visible in the VIP parking lot suggested the Republican Guard and SSRC had evacuated Jableh, taking the sarin with it. “To where, we cannot assess,” it concluded.
Sam tossed it down on the table and stepped over the mug fragments to take a seat. The faint smell of rotting fruit still lingered in the room, as it did throughout the embassy compound. Embassy contractors had quickly repaired the minor damage to the signs and removed the graffiti, but the smell persisted. Sam pinched his nose and took in a deep breath through his mouth. “The evacuation happened too quickly, Chief,” Sam said. “Someone told them we knew.”
“I know,” Procter said. “How many people in D.C. touched that report, do you think? Ten thousand. Probably. Ten thousand goddamn suspects. Now we’re going to have to produce actionable intelligence, actionable, Jaggers, as in bomb-droppable, telling POTUS where they took all the stuff when they closed Jableh. Dreamy.”
Sam reminded Procter they had to talk to Bradley and the Chief of Counterintelligence, Samantha Crezbo, about ATHENA’s covcom. “A meeting?” The Chief said. “Goddammit.”
THE SVTC BEGAN WITH PROCTER’S opening statement as the pixilated screen illuminated to show Bradley’s Langley office: “The meetings, Ed, fuck, we have so many fucking meetings. This country is burning to the ground, and I’m in meetings jabbering on and answering pointless emails from your assistant about when I can meet for more meetings. How are we supposed to run ops out here with all these goddamn tribal meetings? I mean, fuck.”
“This is standard operating procedure, Artemis,” Bradley shouted, matching her volume.
“SOP for whom? Ed, I’m like a Sioux Indian chieftess—is that the right word for a lady chief?—with all these powwows.”
Sam bit the inside of his mouth. Zelda looked at the floor of Procter’s office.
The meeting’s opening depth charge from the technically subordinate Procter had blown Crezbo’s mouth open wide, and it was still partially agape when Bradley responded.
“Shut up, Artemis. If we’re going to give ATHENA a state-of-the-art covcom system, we’re going to make sure Counterintelligence agrees. We don’t hand a system out willy-nilly, especially with the queue for access to the platform.”
“Can we start with the information corroborating her recent intel?” Crezbo asked. “Rather than flay ourselves? I’ve read the agent assessments. Everything there looks fine.”
“Yes ma’am,” Procter said, recovering and waving her hand toward the analyst. “Zelda here has scrubbed the databases for corroborating intel. We have good stuff.”
Zelda coughed and shuffled her papers. “In addition to the Jableh facility, there are four SIGINT reports that corroborate ATHENA’s information,” Zelda said. “NSA tasked the phones for several of the brokers identified during the Bouthaina op. Three of these reports show the same transactions we saw on Bouthaina’s computer.” She coughed and took a drink of water from a mug emblazoned with a cartoon of Bashar. Sam looked at the shards of the other mug on the floor.
“Noted,” Crezbo said. “Ed, I think the case meets muster. It jibes with the bar we’ve set in other Divisions.”
“Fine. Look, team,” Bradley said. “I’m going to bump a couple agents in the queue to get you this thing. We’re giving ATHENA one of these because the reporting stream so far has been compelling and because of this corroboration. “We’ll pouch it to Rome Station. You can give it to her in Tuscany.”
37
MARIAM THOUGHT FATIMAH’S EYES HAD DIMMED, though the Tuscan sun glimmered through the windows of her palatial villa. The resilience had vanished, replaced by hatred for her.
Ali had arrested Fatimah’s mother, an aunt and uncle, and two cousins. Mariam was pointing toward the bottom of the list, at the next relative that would be arrested, as she fought the red-raw ache that accompanied her to meetings with this woman.
“Everyone is being treated well, Fatimah, you have my assurances. But we will keep moving down the list until you comply. If we get to the bottom and you have not cooperated, I cannot promise they will be treated well.” Mariam slid the paper across the table to the fiery woman, who had not offered tea or refreshment and who now clenched the armrest of her velvety sofa.
“The price is still the same?” Fatimah said icily.
“Yes.”
“And you will release them when I say the lies you desire and come home.”
“Yes.” She held Fatimah’s eyes to see how she reacted to what came next. “And they will remain free as long as you stay sil
ent.”
Fatimah rubbed her eyes and looked out the window, almost longingly, Mariam thought, as though she might dive through it. She sat for a beat, lost in her thoughts. “I will do it, Mariam. But you are now with the devil, yes? You have lost everything else.”
Mariam did not allow her face to react, but she felt the force of Fatimah’s condemnation in her stomach. Because she knew that it was, at least partially, true. “As soon as you’ve resigned from the National Council, printed your denunciations, and come home, they will be released. That is the Palace’s word,” Mariam said.
Fatimah gave a single glacial nod.
As Mariam stood to leave, Fatimah followed and began to walk her to the door.
“For their sake, do not delay,” Mariam said, then turned and walked outside.
“There is one more thing,” Fatimah called, and Mariam turned around and took a step back toward the door.
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry the rebel snipers were not able to kill your uncle,” Fatimah snarled. “I hear the monster will live.”
Then Fatimah spit in her face. The saliva flocked Mariam’s forehead and dribbled into her eyes.
THAT EVENING MARIAM JOGGED THROUGH Montalcino, up its steep cobbled streets toward a cozy, stone-pillared church. It was empty and darkening as dusk fell, its doors flung open. She went inside and sat in a pew. Thick marble columns flanked the room. Windows carved into the dome above the altarpiece illuminated ornate sculptures of two angels watching over Christ and the Madonna. The Haddads were Christian, but they did not go to church. The last time she’d been inside one had been six years earlier for a nephew’s baptism. She sat in the silence and put her head in her hands.
Mariam shut her eyes for a less heavenly landscape.
She saw herself surrounded by a group of men: Jamil Atiyah, the mukhabarat officer who had struck Razan, Ali Hassan. Then they came at her, all at once. She reached for a weapon: A club, a knife, a gun. Anything. She picked up a club. She swung at Ali Hassan. And there was Fatimah in front of her, arms above her head, saying, okhti, sister, please stop, please stop, please stop until her voice faded away.