The Devils Light

by Richard North Patterson

  In late afternoon he checked into his favorite hotel, the Albergo. A historic landmark in a flavorful section of Christian Beirut, Achrafieh, it was a tall, alabaster structure guarded by palm trees. His room was a sybarite’s dream: sumptuous bed coverings; fine colonial-era artwork; a multicolored crystal chandelier; pink walls with green trim; an elegant sitting room with a marble table, intricate Persian rug, and commanding view of the Beirut skyline. Bolting the door, Brooke checked his communications equipment—an encrypted cell phone that continuously switched channels, a “tempest-proof” computer that scrambled messages and gave no signal. Then he resolved to test his reflexes in the cobblestone streets of Achrafieh.

  On the surface, it was an enclave of stately buildings, smart shops and restaurants, and exclusive hotels—built, in an unintended nod to Lebanon’s complex history, on the Roman city of the dead. But now and then Brooke saw walls scarred with bullets fired in the Lebanese civil war, or rubble left by an Israeli bomb. This was Lebanon as Brooke knew it—tragedy amid beauty, death warring with vitality, the place where he had almost perished.

  In his seemingly aimless amble through Achrafieh, Brooke took narrow streets, stopped frequently, and turned as if on impulse into other narrow streets—tactics that exposed an enemy, or compelled him to conform his own pattern of movement to Brooke’s. He spotted no one. Satisfied, he returned to the Albergo and took the venerable screened elevator to the roof garden.

  Each table was screened from the others by artfully arranged plants and trees, yet all had views of the city and, on one side, the Mediterranean. As a pastel twilight fell, the Muslim call to prayer wafted over the garden, reminding Brooke of a trip with Michelle Adjani to the ancient city of Byblos. They had wandered among the Roman ruins, visited a small gem of a Christian church, then had lunch overlooking the Mediterranean. As they did, Brooke heard the call to midday prayer through a loudspeaker system. He had enjoyed his sense of two religions side by side until the call was replaced by a sermon, delivered in the hissing tones of hatred, calling for the death of Americans and Jews. Michelle, a dedicated heathen, promised to intervene on his behalf.

  What was she doing now? Brooke wondered. He would not call her; there was no time, no explanation for his sudden departure. Gazing out to sea, he recalled that beautiful, fateful day in June.

  “Adam,” a smooth voice said. “So thoughtful. Am I interrupting some deep reverie?”

  Brooke smiled up at Bashir Jameel. “A near-death experience,” he answered.

  They embraced with a warmth tempered by irony. Jameel was a trim, handsome man in his forties, elegantly tailored, with the first touch of gray in his black hair and a smile that came and went in an instant, never quite touching his dark, watchful eyes. But Jameel was one of the few men in Beirut that Brooke trusted. A Maronite Christian, he despised American policy in the Middle East, loathed Israel for its works in Lebanon, and wished devoutly that the fractious people of his wondrous, forlorn country would stop killing each other, or being killed by whatever outsider chose to lay waste to some patch of earth and whoever occupied it. Lebanon, Jameel once told Brooke, was Satan’s playground. He was sick to death of it.

  The two men sat across from each other, drinking gin and tonics brought by a white-jacketed waiter. “How are Janine and the kids?” Brooke asked.

  Jameel’s thin lips framed the same swift smile. “Janine is great,” Jameel said. “As for the twins, they reverse the old expectations of gender—our daughter is intense and ambitious, our son beautiful and languid. Only his soccer skills redeem him.”

  “Boys ripen slowly,” Brooke assured him. “If I’m an example, there’s hope.”

  “If it’s all the same to you,” Jameel said evenly, “I’ll seek hope in other places.”

  “You’re a wise father, Bashir.” Brooke paused, then asked in a lower voice, “Who knows I’m here?”

  “No one I’ve told. You know the problems in my shop. My former boss reported to the Syrians, our new director to God knows who. Some of our Shia answer to Hezbollah; our Sunni to the Hariris; our Christians to the Maronites.” Jameel reached for his drink, exposing an elegant silver cufflink. “Fortunately, the few men aware of your concerns share them. They don’t want our country to be a launching pad for tragedy, even against a country we loathe. Humanity aside, we’ve experienced your Israeli friends’ penchant for collective punishment.”

  “Which al Qaeda hopes to see repeated,” Brooke answered. “What’s the situation at Ayn Al-Hilweh?”

  Jameel put his drink down emphatically, a gesture of disgust. “Fatah al-Islam retains pockets. The problem festers. Two years ago, when that cretin Lorber aborted our work, we also lost our best sources of intelligence.”

  As a young couple passed, obviously Americans, Brooke briefly switched to Arabic. “There was only one source—the PLO. Khalid’s murder was meant to warn them.”

  Jameel lit a cigarette. “Consider them warned. The new leader at Ayn Al-Hilweh gives us the sweat off his balls. Which is more than we offer Palestinians.”

  Brooke felt his old anger resurfacing. “Perhaps he thinks life is for the living. Still, I may have a way to him.”

  “And if you do? Al Qaeda won’t launch a nuclear attack from Ayn Al-Hilweh.” Jameel waved his hand, trailing cigarette smoke. “Our problem is as before. Each group within government has its own intelligence—the civilians and the army. So do the Maronites, the Druze, the Sunni, and, most formidable, Hezbollah. Depending on what you want, and where you’re looking, you’ll need help from any or all of them.”

  “And they’ll be more than happy to give it, I’m sure. Hezbollah most of all.”

  Jameel flashed a quick, mirthless smile. “A few Sunnis may like you. As for the rest, when they see America they see Israel. Images of the dead follow swiftly.”

  Brooke shrugged. “We haven’t time for politics, Bashir. Whether or not you believe Bin Laden’s deadline, time is short. I need the quickest route to the best information, from anyone who has it.”

  Jameel signaled a waiter for a second round of drinks. When they arrived, he considered his in silence, as if deciding whether he wished to taste it. “The place to start,” he said at length, “is with the leader of the Druze. Hassan Adallah.”

  “A classic survivor,” Brooke remarked.

  “A good trait in a man whose father and great-grandfather were killed by assassins. Adallah’s life depends on the quality of his information.” Jameel stubbed his cigarette. “For the moment, Adallah has a relationship of convenience with General Caron, his counterpart among Maronites—who, in turn, is allied with Hezbollah. To complete the skein of complicity, both have ties to the supreme leader of the Shia, the grand ayatollah, al-Mahdi. Al-Mahdi is a deeply spiritual man. But he maintains contact with the world as we know it. Some consider him a gateway to Hezbollah.”

  Brooke sipped his drink. “Some might also say he holds a grudge. Al-Mahdi thinks that William Casey, as head of the CIA, tried to have him murdered.”

  “Is he delusional?” Jameel inquired tersely. “The Americans claimed to believe that al-Mahdi gave religious sanction to Hezbollah before it bombed your embassy. That piece of history aside, the Israelis bombed his home five years ago, hoping to succeed where Casey failed.”

  “So what makes you think he’d help me, whoever the intermediary might be?”

  This time Jameel’s smile was a twitch. “As I say, al-Mahdi is a spiritual man. Bombing foreigners on Lebanese soil is one thing; incinerating them in their homeland is another, even if the locus is Tel Aviv. It was at al-Mahdi’s insistence, I understand, that Hezbollah condemned al Qaeda’s attack on 9/11.”

  To Brooke’s ear and eye, Jameel was not wholly unsympathetic to this distinction. “In any case,” he went on, “Hezbollah won’t want al Qaeda using their backyard to launch a nuclear holocaust which, quite swiftly, might consume them and the Iranians. You know all that, of course. Now you’re looking for a way to use it.”

&nb
sp; “By law,” Brooke said blandly, “we’re barred from dealing with Hezbollah.”

  Jameel emitted a bark of laughter. “Surely not Adam Chase, business consultant. Be serious with me. Dealing with the devil is what men like us are for.” He softened his voice. “In southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley, Hezbollah is a state within the state—the government, the police, the dispenser of welfare. In those areas our government hardly has a pulse; any intelligence network worth the name belongs to Hezbollah. You’ve always been a realist, and so are they. They may strap explosive belts to teenage boys. But mass suicide strikes them as undesirable.”

  As dusk was becoming night, a waiter lit the candle on their table. “You know the conventional wisdom,” Brooke said. “If the bomb is here, Hezbollah will lie to us, then steal it for Iran.”

  “Fuck the conventional wisdom,” Jameel answered matter-of-factly. “If you’re right, what other choices do you have?”

  Brooke perused the wine list. “Dinner, Bashir? It’s on the company.”

  The last phrase induced in Jameel another arid smile. “With thanks, we should split the bill. But I think we’ve more to talk about.”

  “We do. If I’m right, al Qaeda needs more than a bomb and some gunmen from Fatah al-Islam. They’d need a pilot and a plane—preferably flown in from somewhere else rather than bought here where it might attract attention. Even more fundamental, they’d need a technician who can bypass the security codes on a Pakistani bomb, or work the codes himself. No technician, no detonation.” Reaching into his breast pocket, Brooke produced a CD and placed it on the table. “For weeks now we’ve badgered the Pakistanis for information on who al Qaeda may have recruited. For weeks, they’ve stonewalled. This is a belated gift from the Pakistani ISI—the résumé, passport, personal history, and photograph of an air force nuclear technician who seems to have gone missing. They hate our guts, of course, but they’ve begun to wonder if losing New York might cause us to take measures beyond reducing foreign aid. If this guy materializes on security cameras, or going through passport control, your hair should stand up.”

  Jameel put it in his pocket. “Would they be so blatant, I wonder?”

  “They might. This man isn’t a jihadist, accustomed to traveling in the false bottom of a truck. Were I al Qaeda, I’d bring him in on a phony passport.”

  Their waiter brought the menus, unfolding them for inspection. As he perused the offerings, Jameel’s shoulders sagged. “I hope you’re wrong. Not just about the details, but that the bomb is coming here.”

  “But if I’m right,” Brooke answered, “our operative is in a hurry. He knows very well that his world is a treacherous place. So he’ll make mistakes.”

  “We can hope.” Jameel met his eyes. “On the subject of mistakes, there’s one I should mention. I have little doubt that Jibril Rantisi was a double agent. He’s disappeared from Lebanon. Not so the men who tried to kill you.

  “We know they’re from Ayn Al-Hilweh. Whoever and wherever they are, they know who you are. No doubt that’s why Khalid Hassan died in such an unpleasant way.” Jameel’s tone was flinty. “That makes you Typhoid Mary—dangerous to know, dangerous to be. We can’t always protect you. So have a care, Adam. Under any name, it would be a pity if you wound up like Hassan.”

  Brooke fell quiet. After a moment, he raised his glass to Jameel. “Present company,” he said softly. “And absent friends.”

  TWO

  Apprehension melding with a sense of irony, Amer Al Zaroor fidgeted on a bus outside the great Shia shrine of Karbala, erected by these apostates to honor the Prophet’s grandson, Hussein, on whose “martyrdom” rested thirteen centuries of idolatry.

  Even in early morning, the searing heat caused the air-conditioning on what Haj labeled the “heretic express” to groan with strain. But Karbala was flooded with pilgrims, the men soberly dressed, the women in black burkas reminding Al Zaroor of shuffling Shia beetles. Among them were his fellow passengers, moronic women from the north, their jabbering reduced to awe by this shrine to a false prophet.

  As architecture, he conceded, the shrine raised vulgarity to art, with its gilded dome, gold spire, graceful minarets, and filigreed walls, ten gates boasting archways and arabesques. For the Shia, ostentation was sacred, and this spot reeked of the divine—the site where Hussein and his half brother, Abbas, were killed in battle by Al Zaroor’s Sunni forebears. A good day’s work, marred now by wretched excess.

  Inside this shrine was the tomb of Abbas, before which his traveling companions would prostrate themselves in dumb adoration. For a moment, Al Zaroor entertained a black comedic vision, reflecting an Iraq sundered by Sunni–Shia hatred since the Americans had “freed” them—a massive explosion turning the shrine to ash and rubble as lethal as the Twin Towers. A man could dream, Al Zaroor supposed.

  But he had a greater dream—one that would eclipse 9/11, changing the course of history by destroying an entire nation. So he chafed here, silent, while the beetles banged their foreheads before a heretic’s marble tomb.

  Below him, concealed by the tires that surrounded it, was his weapon. He sat just behind the driver—a young fighter, vouched for by Haj, whose devotion to al Qaeda allowed him to affect the beard and manner of a Shia. Tariq knew only that Al Zaroor was beloved of the Renewer, charged with cargo precious to his cause. He could imagine no higher honor, he had assured his passenger, than transporting him safely through Iraq. These were the first and last words they had spoken.

  At last the women filed out, their heads still bowed—thirty-five of them, steeped in Shia piety. Perfect cover, Haj had assured him; even most Sunni would treat these women with reserve. No one would imagine they were transporting contraband along with feckless prayers.

  Mute as donkeys, they filed onto the bus. As was proper, Al Zaroor did not look at them, and they sat well behind him and the driver. Earlier this morning, Tariq had explained Al Zaroor to the tour guide, also fully covered, as a cousin who was traveling to a wedding. Al Zaroor said nothing—none of the women had heard his voice, or looked into his face. He could hardly wait to be rid of them.

  But not too soon. For the mission’s sake, Al Zaroor must suffer the next thirty-six hours, a period two times as long as that which he had budgeted for Iraq. They would drive through southern Iraq, stopping overnight in the dangerous city of Baghdad, so that these foolish women could shop and rest. Then, tomorrow morning, a drive north to Mosul, at last discharging every passenger but one. That final leg would be taken in darkness to the bank of the Tigris River. The border between Iraq and Syria.

  Haj’s reasons for this masquerade were sound. If someone in the network had betrayed them, they must bypass the network. But that did not address Al Zaroor’s greatest worry—checkpoints. Not all Americans were fools, and prone to missing clues. If some minion among the U.S. drug enforcers had been tipped off to a “special” shipment, and discovered only cigarettes, he might pass that fact along to their intelligence agencies. And some other American who was focused on the missing bomb might perceive the hand of his quarry. Once Iraq had looked simple; now it felt dangerous and filled with risk.

  Tariq started the bus, heading toward Baghdad, the heart of this newly menacing country. Sourly, Al Zaroor reflected that Karbala was, after all, a place for him to pray. Closing his eyes, he did that.

  At 9:00 A.M., by arrangement of Bashir Jameel, Brooke drove to the ancestral home of Hassan Adallah, leader of the Druze.

  As did most of his people, Adallah lived in the vastness of the Chouf Mountains, a natural fortification against intruders. Their religion was an offshoot of Shia Islam, its power derived from the secrecy surrounding it—conversion to or from the faith was prohibited, and its doctrine was contained in seven holy books, existing only in handwritten copies available to a select few. But the political power of the Druze owed much to the Lebanese constitution, which accorded them a proportional share in governance, and the worldly skills of Hassan Adallah, a maneuverer as unsentimental
and sophisticated as Niccolò Machiavelli. The proof was that he had lived to age sixty.

  Jagged, sheer, and green, the Chouf was his retreat. As Brooke climbed the twisting roads in his Mercedes, the mountains, though steeper, boasted massive sandstone homes, many built in the style of French châteaux favored by wealthy Druze. The panoramic views went on for miles. It would be easy enough for an enemy, situated above him, to follow Brooke’s ascent. Easy enough to run him off the road, or shoot him as he slowed for a hairpin turn.

  The final curve was marked by an elaborate garden. A hail of bullets had killed Adallah’s father as he rounded it, moments from home, his shredded body falling from the car onto the patch of earth where flowers now grew, the work of his son.

  Brooke passed it without incident. Minutes later he stopped at an iron gate guarded by three men with submachine guns. A sturdy guide relieved Brooke of his car keys, patted him down, and shepherded him inside the gate.

  Hassan Adallah waited at the head of the drive, dressed in a sport shirt and jeans. Brooke had seen his photographs many times, but they did not quite capture the interest of Adallah’s countenance. His crown was bald, with long hair in the back and sides that accentuated the downward pull of his face, drawn and dour. The corner of his drooping eyes had a melancholy cast. But the eyes themselves, grave yet droll, seemed to look right through this stranger who approached him.

  The complex mien, Brooke reflected, of a man bred for complexity. For the last four centuries, an Adallah had led the Druze—a warlord-prince among his people, a man of influence in his country, a target for assassins when his reach thwarted some other man of influence. Adallah, who had loved his father deeply, later dined with the men who had engineered his death, the agents of Syria. Such was the price of survival.

  Adallah greeted Brooke with a brisk handshake. “You’ll forgive the security,” he said in flawless English. “But it would be foolish to allow those who guard me to make exceptions. In this, as in many things, I’m the ultimate conservative.”