Brooke’s agent placed a hand over his heart. “Thank you, my friend.”
Briefly, Brooke pictured the man beneath the mask—a mustached Palestinian, years of disappointment betrayed by the sag of his chin, the dark rings around serious brown eyes. Quietly, he said, “So now we’re done, Khalid.”
Khalid stared at him. Quite reasonably, he had believed that Brooke would use Imad for leverage, extracting more information as long as the boy remained in America. Until Lorber’s intervention, this had been Brooke’s plan. But Brooke himself had changed it. My agent is resigning, he had told Lorber. If you don’t like it, complain to Langley. Maybe you can get me fired.
“I’ll look after Imad,” Brooke assured Khalid.
Brooke imagined Khalid’s emotions, a complex mix of worry and relief. Passing a double-parked car, he swerved down a cramped street. “In less than a minute,” Brooke said, “I’m taking another street and braking at the mouth of an alley. For about fifteen seconds, no one behind us will see you. Peel off the mask, strip off your coat, and jump out of the car. A cab will be there. Take it.”
Turning again, Brooke accelerated down a cobblestone lane. Doors and streetlights shot by, Brooke glancing in the mirror. Then he braked suddenly. Shedding his mask and struggling free of his coat, Khalid left the car without words, a man hoping never to see Adam Chase again. The light of a taxi glowed in the alley.
Before Khalid had disappeared, Brooke placed the briefcase on the passenger seat and pushed a button. The head and torso of a man popped up, Khalid in his American disguise.
Brooke stomped on the accelerator, peeling around one corner, then another, taking a narrow one-way street of shuttered stores toward Gemmayze. In seconds he spotted the car behind him, emerging too quickly from a side street. He knew what would happen before the second car appeared, heading toward him in the wrong direction.
Reflexively, he hit the accelerator, willing his mind to turn cold. The car in front swerved sideways, half-blocking the street. Gauging the width of the sidewalk, Brooke kept speeding toward the car. Thirty feet, then twenty. Two men with guns leaped out behind the doors.
Ten feet now. A bullet shattered Brooke’s window as his car struck the open passenger door, crushing the shooter and snapping his neck back against the roof, his open eyes caught in Brooke’s headlights. Then Brooke clipped the rear bumper, spinning the car into the second man. He cried out, crumpling to the cobblestones.
Skidding along the sidewalk, Brooke sped up still more, glancing in the mirror. The car he had struck was sideways now, blocking the car behind him. He careened through the side streets, then veered into the artery that fed the highway from the city. Sweat dampening his forehead, Brooke threaded through traffic as quickly as he could. Horns blared at his recklessness; anyone who kept up was doing so to catch him. He would deal with that then.
Damn Lorber, he thought. That he might be killed was the least of it. Worse was what might befall Khalid, or what al Qaeda would do to Brooke while he still lived. Perhaps they would share this on the Internet.
Instead he made it to a safe house. In three days, Langley ordered him home.
Brooke gave his photographs and information to Bashir Jameel. One of the shooters was dead, Bashir told him; the other had vanished. “I’ll miss you, Adam,” Jameel said. “Not every business consultant kills a man on the way out of town.”
The dead man was Fatah al-Islam; the men in the photographs were confirmed to be al Qaeda. Forced to act swiftly, the Lebanese army arrested seven men at Ayn Al-Hilweh. None revealed their confederates. Frank Lorber’s source, Jibril Rantisi, disclaimed any knowledge of who they might be.
“And you don’t believe that?” Terri Young asked now.
“With good reason,” Brooke answered softly. “A month later Khalid Hassan was found dead, garroted in an alley in Ayn Al-Hilweh. We flew Imad back for the funeral.”
TWELVE
Waiting for an answer, Brooke felt the hours slipping away. To bolster his argument, he and Terri Young reviewed new scraps of intelligence from Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon. But there was nothing of interest. If their unknown operative was in the region, his activities were well hidden.
“Suppose,” Brooke said, “that the cigarettes were a decoy, designed to sniff out our surveillance before he moves the bomb. Where would it be safe for him to hide?”
Terri looked at his map. “A populous area. Perhaps a safe house in Basra.”
Studying the topography of southeastern Iraq, he again noted the two Kuwaiti islands off its lip, Bubiyan and Failaka. Pointing them out, he asked, “What’s there?”
“Not much. They were pretty much abandoned after the first Gulf War.” Terri looked up at him. “That would involve an extra step. But, sure, someone could hide there, waiting out events.”
Sitting at her computer, Terri emailed Brustein and Carter Grey. “Ask the Kuwaitis to search these islands,” she recommended. “Sooner rather than later.”
The Bekaa Valley, Dr. Laura Reynolds reflected, felt even more stifling and hot.
The dig team was wilting in the sun. Just before they broke for lunch, Laura found Maureen Strafford silently weeping at the edge of the ruins. “Still worried for your parents?” Laura asked.
Maureen nodded. “They won’t leave Boston. ‘This is our home,’ they keep saying.”
Laura sat beside her. “Parents are like that,” she said gently. “If it’s any consolation, I doubt Bin Laden is likely to target Boston. Only Bostonians think it’s that important.”
As Laura intended, Maureen managed a half-smile. “What about your parents? Aren’t they in New York?”
“They are. I implored them to visit our family here. No luck.”
Falling quiet, Laura allowed herself to imagine the horror of her parents’ destruction, the end of a world she had loved since childhood. Tears surfaced in her eyes.
Maureen took her hands. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Laura said. “We’ll all feel better when September 11 passes.”
Later that afternoon, Laura drove to Baalbek for supplies. When Maureen offered to keep her company, she demurred, pleading the need to reflect.
She bought paper and inkjets for their fax machine and printers, art supplies for Segolene Ardant’s assistants. Turning a corner, she nearly bumped into a spindly Shia man.
Smiling, Laura pantomimed surprise and delight. “Habib,” she exclaimed in Arabic. “How long has it been?”
Though they did not touch, Habib conveyed his pleasure with a ceremonious half-bow. “Dr. Laura—God is good indeed.” His face clouded. “But not to your country, it seems. Do you fear this threat?”
At once, Laura’s face changed. “For my parents, and for everyone in America.”
His tone filled with compassion. “You must find it hard to work.”
“Very hard,” Laura affirmed softly. “But all I can do for them is pray.”
“Then I will, too. I hope a Christian can accept the prayers of a Muslim.”
“With gratitude, and thanks.”
Pedestrians walked around them. Moving out of the way, Laura said audibly, “Please, though, tell me how your children are.”
Habib smiled. “Demons,” he replied with zest, as though every parent would want several. “Growing too fast.” Lowering his voice, he added, “There is a shipment coming through Syria, as before. But this one seems different.”
As a member of the Jefaar clan, Laura knew, Habib must be taken seriously. Miming interest in some pleasantry, she murmured, “Antiquities?”
“No one knows. But there are differences that suggest a great impatience.” He smiled again, the dissonance between demeanor and speech apparent to Laura alone. “It was arranged by a stranger, I am told. A man no one had ever seen.”
“What nationality?”
“I don’t know, except that he wasn’t Lebanese. But it is rumored that a lot of money came to members of my clan. It seems that he possesses some great treasur
e.”
Laura tried to control her expression. With a casual air, she asked, “Do you know where he’s going?”
Mindful of those passing, Habib shrugged in a pretense of fatalism, a man dismissing trifles. “I do not.”
“Please keep listening,” Laura directed in a low voice. “This could be important to those of us who value the past.”
Smiling, Habib said, “May God bless you, Dr. Laura.”
“And may you and your family prosper.” Meaning, they both knew, his secret account at a bank in the Christian section of Beirut.
In the first hours of night, Al Zaroor, Haj, and a helmsman left Failaka by powerboat. His cargo rested between them. Beneath the thud of the motor, Haj cautioned, “You’re leaving too soon.”
“Perhaps,” Al Zaroor said. “But we stayed on Failaka too long. An island is no place to hide.”
Both men fell silent. An hour passed, the boat feeling to Al Zaroor like flotsam in the vast darkness of the Gulf. A low mist settled over the water, shrouding them from the moon, now a faint half-disk. When they passed it, the island of Bubiyan was barely visible, a shadowy object squatting on the surface. Turning, Al Zaroor saw the first faint lights of Umm Qasr, the Iraqi seaport near the border with Kuwait.
A smugglers’ haven, Haj had told him. But much nicer now. USAID spent thirty million U.S. dollars deepening the harbor so their Iraqi stooges could have a real port. Which, of course, made the beneficiaries even more corrupt.
“What will happen?” Al Zaroor asked him.
Haj’s face became grim. “For another day and night, we’ll hide you. It can’t be helped.”
Edgy, Al Zaroor watched the harbor as they neared Umm Qasr, slipping between the massive hulls of tankers and freighters at anchor. He must rely on Haj’s judgment, Al Zaroor reminded himself; he had chosen him with care.
The helmsman cut the motor, lowering its sound. Slipping past the last freighter, they docked at the end of a deserted pier.
Three of Haj’s men awaited them. Using ropes and pulleys, they hoisted the wooden box onto the pier. They bore it down the catwalk like pallbearers at a funeral. Haj and Al Zaroor followed, quiet as mourners.
At the end was an abandoned warehouse with a steel panel in front. By some unknown agency the panel lifted, exposing a bus painted with religious slogans and gaudy colors. “Your chariot,” Haj said drily. “Two days from now, you will commence a tour of holy shrines with pious Shia women. There are several such stops before we return our pilgrims to their husbands in the north. A guided tour of heresy.”
Al Zaroor stifled his disgust. “Who’s the driver?”
“One of ours. The truckers who were to help us know nothing of this change.”
“And my cargo?” Al Zaroor asked tartly. “Do we tie it to the roof of this abomination?”
Smiling, Haj shook his head. “Beneath it, in a compartment welded to the center of the tire rack. Be grateful your cargo goes there instead of you. Some of our fighters have found the trip unpleasant.”
THIRTEEN
In early afternoon, Brustein summoned Brooke to his office.
Grey was with him. Both men looked grave. “Beware of what you wish for,” Brustein said without preface. “You’re a singleton NOC again—Adam Chase. For whatever that cover is worth.”
Sitting, Brooke glanced at Grey. “How did this happen?”
“We persuaded the White House to cover its tail,” Brustein answered bluntly. “As Alex Coll put it, ‘In circumstances like this, no one can ignore a dark horse. No matter how dark the horse—’”
“Put another way,” Grey added succinctly, “they don’t want anyone saying they protected D.C. by sacrificing Tel Aviv.”
Brooke felt an odd mixture of relief and apprehension. “When do I leave?”
“Midnight, out of New York. You’ll be in Beirut tomorrow afternoon.” Seeing Brooke’s surprise, he added, “We’ve updated your legend. Your identification and credit cards are waiting in Adam Chase’s old apartment in Manhattan. Not, as I say, that it matters.”
“It may,” Brooke said tersely. “What about Lorber?”
Brustein’s expression was opaque. “You’ll report to Carter and me.” He paused, saying in a lower voice, “Neither of us is thrilled about this. If we didn’t think your theory was possible, we’d never risk sending you back there.”
“I understand,” Brooke said. “If the stakes weren’t so high, I wouldn’t go.”
* * *
Grey walked him to the car. Leaving the building, they circled the CIA insignia, observing the ritual Grey had taught him—that it was bad luck to step on the eagle.
Standing by Brooke’s Ferrari, Grey winced. “You all right?” Brooke asked. “Or do you still hate my car?”
His mentor stared at the pavement. Then he withdrew a small wooden elephant from his pocket and pressed it into Brooke’s hand. Grey was not a demonstrative man, Brooke knew, but he had deep reserves of feeling. The elephant was his good luck charm, which had seen him through great peril in Moscow, Afghanistan, and Iran. Gruffly, Grey said, “I don’t need this anymore. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want him back.”
Giving Brooke a swift hug, he walked stiffly away, squaring his shoulders to stand taller.
Brooke flew to New York, picking up the emblems of his new life. On the way to JFK, he stopped at his parents’ apartment.
His father mixed him a double scotch. Sitting across from them, he perceived his mother’s tension. “I don’t suppose,” Brooke told them both, “that I can persuade you to go to Martha’s Vineyard. After all, I’m bailing. Why wait around for September 11 with your thumb in the dike?”
His father’s face assumed a hard cast that Brooke had seldom seen. “I’m an investment banker,” he replied, “the member of a suspect class. But we used to have integrity. What would happen to the ship of commerce if we all swam away like rats?”
Brooke turned to his mother. “If not a rat,” she admitted, “I’m a mouse. Your father has urged me to go. But from all I read about this Pakistani weapon, it won’t be a lingering death.”
Brooke smiled a little. “It’s just that I’d miss you, oddly enough.”
His mother gave a flutter of the hand, dismissing any threat of sentiment. “So you’re off again. What for this time?”
“They’re short-staffed at the embassy. The political officer has swine flu.”
“And you’re pinch-hitting?” Isabelle said in bemused exasperation. “I must say I never understood all those comings and goings, or what you’re doing lately.” Glancing at Peter, she added, “You could still join your father. Forgive me, but at least your career wouldn’t seem like such a cul-de-sac.”
“I do what I can,” Brooke responded drily. “Perhaps you should mention my dilemma to the secretary of state. She’d be horrified, I’m sure.”
Isabelle looked nettled. Her husband touched her knee, forestalling any retort. “Isabelle,” he said, “we’ve been married for forty years. For all your quirks, I love you dearly. But sometimes your obliviousness impresses even me.”
She turned to him, piqued. “What on earth do you mean?”
“Has it never occurred to you that Brooke is a spy?”
More than surprised, Brooke studied his father, then met his mother’s startled eyes. “Is this true?” she asked.
Brooke nodded. “Score one for Dad.”
She shook her head, as though clearing cobwebs. “Why didn’t you tell us?” she protested.
Brooke caught his father’s smile. “My job carries certain strictures,” he informed his mother. “I do recall you labeling my colleagues ‘sadists and buffoons.’ But I’m barred from revealing which category I’m in.”
A rare look of chagrin crept into his mother’s eyes. Matter-of-factly, his father inquired, “I take it this trip is about the bomb.”
Brooke shrugged. “It could be about nothing at all.” He glanced at his watch. “I really do have to go.”
His m
other’s eyes misted. “I’m very sorry, Brooke. And very frightened.”
Brooke kissed her on the forehead. “I’ll be fine,” he assured her. “I’ve been doing this for almost a decade now.”
Peter walked Brooke to the door. In the privacy of the alcove, he said, “I’ve always been proud of you, son. You should know that.”
Touched, Brooke regarded his father with affection and curiosity. “When did you scope this out?”
“Pretty much from the beginning. That was a bad year for you—first the young woman, then your friend. I could see the changes.”
Brooke shook his head in wonder. “You should have been in my business.”
“Actually, I considered it. But I’m happy with the life I made. I’m left to hope that you are.”
Brooke pondered his answer. “I guess the word is ‘satisfied.’ At least when the work is good.”
Peter nodded. “Keep safe, son. Call us when you get back.”
Brooke promised that he would. At midnight, he began his journey to Beirut.
PART FOUR
THE RETURN
Lebanon—Iraq—Syria
September 3–6, 2011
ONE
Within moments of landing in Beirut, Brooke found himself edgy, yet absorbed in his return to Lebanon and to the field.
As before, Brooke was struck by the city’s startling juxtapositions: south Beirut, the dominion of Shia and Hezbollah, was wholly Middle Eastern, with signage in Arabic, covered women, and a profusion of Hezbollah iconography—posters of Nasrallah, Moughniyeh, and various martyrs. The Sunni section was similar, but the symbols of Hezbollah were replaced by representations of Rafik Hariri, in whose assassination Hezbollah was suspect. Minutes away, the Christian area of Beirut was quite European, featuring highly sexualized advertisements—often in English or French—and the shops, restaurants, and high-rises of a thriving cosmopolitan city. These worlds coexisted—to the extent that they did—on a knife edge. All this Brooke had to navigate in the guise of Adam Chase.
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