The Devils Light

by Richard North Patterson

  Brooke nodded. “I hear conditions are still worse at Ayn Al-Hilweh.”

  Assad studied him. “More violent, certainly. You know of Fatah al-Islam. Two years ago they killed many PLO at Ayn Al-Hilweh. Now, it is said, our Sunni brothers in Lebanon provide them money, perhaps to keep trouble from their own door. Once again we are betrayed. We are not people, but playthings.”

  And now there’s me, Brooke thought. “Perhaps I can help with that, as well. But first I’ll need information.”

  Assad regarded him fixedly. “Of what kind?”

  “Intelligence on Fatah al-Islam. Names, faces, who may be coming and going, who may have disappeared.”

  Assad picked up some paper clips off the desk and put them in a bowl. Then he looked up at Brooke again. “There’s a new head at Ayn Al-Hilweh, Ibrahim Farad. You may recall that the former head was killed.”

  “Yes. I recall.” Brooke kept his manner calm. “Would a meeting with Farad be possible?”

  “Should it be?” Assad pointedly inquired. “Your haste in coming here is worrisome. Were you that haunted by the thought of tattered schoolbooks?”

  Brooke met his eyes. “Many things haunt me, Sami.”

  “Perhaps they should. Now America itself is threatened. But there is a belief among many that America is not a grateful friend, but a lethal one. So often your embrace becomes deadly to others.”

  The murder of Khalid was very close to the surface now. “That isn’t my intention,” Brooke answered.

  “Indifference,” Assad said coolly, “is deadly, too.”

  “And so is inaction,” Brooke rejoined. “There’s trouble coming that could consume many innocent people. As usual, your people are not exempt.”

  Assad studied him awhile. “As always,” he said softly, “we appreciate your concern. Right now I can say no more.”

  At three o’clock, Al Zaroor saw the smudged skyline of Baghdad.

  When the bus entered, he felt the soot and chaos envelop them. As at the height of war, Baghdad was plagued by sectarian violence, the ethnicity of its victims classified by the manner of death—the Sunnis favored beheading; the Shia preferred power drills. In a city segmented by ethnic cleansing, he was condemned to stay among the Shia.

  They let off the women at a hotel noted for its piety. But the quarters for Al Zaroor and Tariq were two rooms above a hardware store. Al Zaroor’s room was dingy and ill furnished, with a worn chair, a mattress on the floor, and a lightbulb dangling from the ceiling. This was fitting, he supposed—he had chosen an ascetic’s life as a prelude to a martyr’s death. It made the transition easier.

  A cell phone waited under the mattress. Removing it, he placed a call.

  “Yes,” the careful voice said.

  Relieved but wary, Al Zaroor asked, “Is the trip still on?”

  A moment’s silence. Then the Syrian answered, “I’m honored to be your guide.”

  From his room at the Albergo, Brooke phoned Brustein and Grey.

  To start, he summarized his meetings with Bashir Jameel, Hassan Adallah, and Sami Assad. “So they don’t like our foreign policy,” Grey responded sourly. “What a surprise. Sometimes I don’t, either.”

  Brooke glanced out at the lights of a city prone to late-night pleasures. “They’re saying something else, Carter. That all roads go through Hezbollah.”

  “Not yet,” Brustein admonished. “You’re tugging at disparate threads—sources at Ayn Al-Hilweh, the whereabouts of this Pakistani nuclear technician, indirect lines into Syria’s intelligence. I want more before considering whether we need Hezbollah.” His voice betrayed anxiety. “However, we’ve got something for you. According to the ISI, our missing Pakistani technician flew to Dubai, checked into a hotel, then vanished. If he’s in Beirut, it surely elevates the pressure. He’s the man who facilitates detonation.”

  Brooke felt his sense of urgency quickening. “That’s another reason for taking this to Jameel. If I’m right, this Pakistani is almost as important as the guy who’s running this operation. I’d like to find him—fast.”

  “And if you do?” Brustein asked.

  “We interrogate him,” Brooke answered tersely. “Or, if I have to, kill him. Once he touches that bomb, it’s operational.”

  FOUR

  The next morning, through the intervention of Sami Assad, Brooke headed for the coastal city of Sidon to meet the PLO leader at Ayn Al-Hilweh.

  The security measures were elaborate. Brooke ducked out a service entrance of the Albergo, took a cab to the airport, walked through a terminal, then caught another cab that drove him to the outskirts of Sidon. There he met a stranger in a blue shirt and sunglasses. The man drove him through crowded streets, dropping him in an alley where another Palestinian hurried him through a maze of streets before they entered a nondescript building with no signs or address. At any point, Brooke was prepared for danger: The last encounter between Brooke and Ibrahim Farad’s predecessor, Khalid Hassan, had led to the attempted murder of one, the assassination of the other. Of the four men who had tried to ambush Brooke, he had killed only one—the others could identify him on sight. To go near Ayn Al-Hilweh increased the risk of his death or capture, just as it created dangers for Farad.

  This was among the several reasons Brooke did not enter the camp itself. By Jameel’s reckoning, it was the most dangerous place in Lebanon, ringed by army units prepared to subdue violence. To enter, Brooke would have required the permission of the American ambassador and the Ministry of Defense, drawing more attention than he wanted. But a single visit in 2009 had been sufficient. Within the walls of wire and concrete were jammed seventy thousand Palestinians, including members of Fatah al-Islam, living in a maze of alleys so narrow that Brooke could touch the houses on either side. The alleys often doubled as open sewers; the electricity was so spasmodic that, at any hour, the camp could be plunged into darkness. Hassan had died in such an alley, no doubt betrayed by the men who guarded him. But he was one of many killed here, before and since—whether in gun battles between factions, or between the army and Fatah al-Islam, which could assault its enemies before vanishing in the maze. So Brooke preferred following a stranger up a back stairwell perfect for ambushes.

  On the third floor an unmarked metal door with a peephole was guarded by another man, with a handgun in his belt. He patted Brooke down, then rapped sharply on the door. It was opened by a stout man with liquid eyes, a mustache, and the bearing of a man in charge. Nodding curtly to Brooke, he said in Arabic, “Come in.”

  Brooke did so. Inside, the room was bare save for two chairs, a couch, a desk, a window with opaque glass, and a wall hanging of Yasser Arafat—a man as dead as his dreams. The door shut behind him, and the two men were alone.

  With a peremptory gesture, Farad motioned Brooke to a chair, then sat across from him, his eyes unwelcoming and hard. “I’m told it’s important that we talk.”

  Brooke nodded. “I appreciate your precautions.”

  “I do it for my people,” Farad responded mordantly. “Personally, I no longer fear death—I took up arms in 1967, was jailed three separate times, shot at more often than I can remember. But look at what we’ve accomplished for those who live at Ayn Al-Hilweh. What would they do without me?”

  There was nothing Brooke could say. “Of course,” Farad continued, “a camp is less than a country. But in a mere forty-five years I’ve progressed from revolutionary to a salaried employee of the European Union, which helps fund the place that has served as a ‘homeland’ for the two generations after mine. True, it’s not the Galilee, my father’s home, or even the West Bank—the Zionists who took our land do not allow us to live in either place. But it’s only twenty years since the Jews promised us a country of our own. So the people I represent have every reason to be grateful—with luck, they’ll simply get rid of us rather than strangle us in our beds.” Farad’s lips curled in a bitter smile. “Of course, you care deeply about all this. Isn’t that why you’ve come?”

  Sud
denly the room felt hot and close. “No,” Brooke said bluntly. “I’m here because men from Ayn Al-Hilweh may be involved in a very dangerous activity. They’ve already killed some of your own people—”

  “Including my predecessor,” Farad interrupted with sudden softness. “Whom, I believe, you may have known.”

  “I met him,” Brook responded blandly. “At the camp.”

  Farad’s eyes bored into Brooke’s. “At least his son does well. That’s very rare, you know. In the camp we have but two elementary schools, run in shifts. Only a handful go to college, knowing no jobs in Lebanon await them. But Khalid’s son is in America, studying to be a doctor.” He paused, then added coolly, “Perhaps God, seeing the murder of a father, intervened on the son’s behalf. How else to explain such luck? But I have no sons, Mr. Chase.”

  The lethal remark put Brooke on edge. “You have seventy thousand ‘children,’” he replied. “The danger involves them all.”

  Sitting back, Farad eyed him with disdain. “As to the camp, Fatah al-Islam is a relative handful. Maybe they’re capable of killing me, should they find a reason. But they can’t endanger seventy thousand people.”

  “If they’re a ‘relative handful,’” Brooke retorted, “and capable of killing you as they did Hassan, you’ve made it your business to know who they are.”

  “And now you wish to know.” Farad’s tone became clipped. “How many times, I wonder, will I play the fool for men like you. Two years ago a man from Lebanese intelligence, perhaps a friend of yours, asked for my help in rounding up Fatah al-Islam. In turn, he promised money for development within the camp—a clinic, a school. So I gave him names and the army came for them. I’m still waiting for my funding.”

  “I’m not this man,” Brooke said simply. “Nor do I represent his government.”

  “Oh, I know. You’re American, and worried about al Qaeda. So you may prefer a story about the CIA. Perhaps, from time to time, you’ve dealt with them.”

  Brooke said nothing. “As you suggest,” Farad continued, “we have our own sources of intelligence. Around the time of the Camp David negotiations we learned that al Qaeda was planning to bomb American University.” He nodded toward the portrait of Arafat. “Tell the Americans, our leader said. President Clinton is trying to help us, so we will help his country.

  “This was not an act of charity, but of hope. So we enabled the CIA to prevent a tragedy that would have harmed Americans and Lebanese alike. Then Clinton’s term ended, and America supported Israel in whatever it did to us.” Farad’s tone sharpened. “And now you’re here. On whose behalf, I have to wonder.”

  Brooke met his eyes. “I’m an American, as you see.”

  “Don’t play with me, Mr. Whoever-you-are. Nothing that happens at Ayn Al-Hilweh poses any threat to America—certainly not the danger promised by Bin Laden. You’re here because the ‘dangerous activity’ you mentioned involves our immediate neighborhood. Only my analytical genius allows me to guess the target.” Farad smiled grimly. “So let’s consider the supposed threat to my people. Should I give you names, the army will enter our camp in force, spraying bullets right and left. They’ll gun down fifteen innocents for every fighter from Fatah al-Islam.”

  “I don’t want soldiers to invade the camp,” Brooke rejoined. “I’m looking for men linked to al Qaeda who have left in the last two weeks. As for the rest, I want the army to keep them here.”

  It was less than true, Brooke knew: a third possibility, arrest and interrogation, might involve some risk to others, and Fatah al-Islam might kill anyone linked to Adam Chase. From Farad’s silent stare, all this was obvious. “If these men are so dangerous,” he said dismissively, “I should be happy to see them go. Then I really would be safe.” His tone assumed the same chill quiet. “A sixth sense has allowed me to survive. It tells me that the greatest danger is sitting three feet away.”

  And yet I’m still here, Brooke thought. “If that were true,” he answered, “we’d all be better off. But it’s not.”

  “No? You’re asking me to collaborate with Israel. Protecting Jews is not my job, nor any way to secure my safety.”

  “Then let me pose a hypothetical,” Brooke said calmly. “Suppose that men from Ayn Al-Hilweh help al Qaeda turn the Galilee into a nuclear wasteland.”

  After a telling silence, Farad summoned a derisive smile. “Perhaps the Jews will give it back to us. But more likely they will carpet-bomb our camp, killing noncombatants on a scale dwarfing Sabra and Shatilah. If I provide corroboration for your theory, real or imagined, it will serve as a pretext for a mass murder from the air.”

  “What if al Qaeda succeeds,” Brooke prodded, “and some of the plotters are from Ayn Al-Hilweh? In Israel’s place, you’d carpet-bomb this camp into oblivion. That leaves one question for you to answer. Do you believe that men in Ayn Al-Hilweh could be part of a plot to detonate a nuclear weapon over Israel?”

  Farad’s face and body became still, as though the intensity of thought were consuming all his energy. “I’ve survived by knowing who to watch,” he said at length, “whether agents of Fatah al-Islam or a stranger from America who once knew Khalid Hassan. For the moment, that’s all I choose to say.”

  Brooke gave him the business card for Adam Chase. “Call me,” he advised. “You don’t have much time.”

  At midday, Brooke returned to the Albergo. When he turned the key in the lock, his room’s door was chained from the inside.

  Half-expecting a bullet through the crack, Brooke slid sideways. Quiet laughter followed him. “I thought this prudent,” a familiar voice said. “You might have killed me before noticing who I was.”

  Opening the door with a gesture of mock hospitality, Jameel ushered Brooke into the room. “How did you get in?” Brooke asked.

  “I took the precaution of obtaining a passkey. Let’s hope your enemies aren’t as resourceful.” Jameel’s lean, handsome face was filled with concern. “I apologize for giving you a start. But I have something I didn’t want to say on the phone, or anywhere we might be overheard.”

  Which meant that Jameel feared his phone and office might be bugged, his movements followed. Brooke did not bother wondering by whom—it could be the Syrians, Hezbollah, the Sunnis, or the Saudis. “About the Pakistani?” he asked.

  Jameel took an envelope from his suit coat. “You’re looking for someone with certain technical abilities. This photograph is from a security film taken at Beirut airport six days ago.”

  Surprised, Brooke removed the picture of a man appearing to hurry past the camera. Though his image was imperfect, he resembled the technician whose photograph Brooke had already seen. “Do you know where he is now?” he asked.

  “No. As you know, the Pakistani who surfaced in Dubai has disappeared. A day later this man entered Beirut on a passport from the UAE with a different name altogether. He also seems to have vanished.” Reading the worry in Brooke’s eyes, Jameel added, “He could just be touring. But we can’t find him, and the UAE claims to have no record of such a passport being issued. Except for a modest beard, he resembles your missing technician.”

  Brooke’s sense of alarm quickened. “What are you doing to find him?”

  “As much as possible—alerted the police and army, sent inquiries by email to hundreds of hotels.” Jameel paused. “You know the problem. There are areas of Lebanon we don’t control, including in the south and the Bekaa Valley—that’s Hezbollah, of course. But if he’s still within our reach, and part of a conspiracy, he’s only as free of a trail as whoever he meets up with.”

  Brooke thought of his meeting with Farad. “That may depend,” he answered, “on who has left Ayn Al-Hilweh.”

  FIVE

  After Jameel had left, Brooke began weighing his choices.

  He started with two suppositions—that the Pakistani technician had entered Lebanon, and that the al Qaeda operative would try to move the bomb through Iraq, then Syria. The question was where they would meet.

  It m
ade no sense for al Qaeda to bring the bomb anywhere near Beirut—every mile it traveled increased the risk of detection. The same risks, Brooke believed, would discourage an effort to smuggle it into Israel across Lebanon’s southern border, patrolled by UN peacekeepers. So the optimal base of operations remained the mountainous edge of the Bekaa Valley, where Hezbollah was the only source of intelligence. In Brooke’s surmise, that was where the operative planned to meet the technician, along with anyone else involved in the plot.

  If he were right, only Israel’s bitter enemy, Hezbollah, could help prevent al Qaeda from trying to destroy the Jewish state. But approaching Hezbollah would blow whatever cover he had left, make him their hostage, and—quite possibly—facilitate their acquisition of a nuclear weapon. The sparse facts Brooke knew would not persuade Brustein and Grey to run such risks. Which left him to decide how far he could go without seeking their approval.

  He pondered this for an hour. Then, with grave misgivings, he called the leader of the Druze, Hassan Adallah.

  * * *

  In the late afternoon, after hours of hot and uneventful travel, Al Zaroor’s bus deposited its Shia pilgrims in Mosul.

  Watching them shuffle off the bus, Al Zaroor felt relief mingle with apprehension. In his soul he was happy to be rid of them. But their witless innocence offered perfect cover. Only the shrewdest mind would imagine them sitting atop a bomb.

  Now Tariq and Al Zaroor were alone. The fighter drove on, wordless, his worry showing in the tense hunch of his shoulders, the tightness around his eyes as he pushed the bus harder. The terrain flew past, flat and dry and featureless save for the biblical cities they passed—Nimrod, the walled city of Nineveh. Al Zaroor welcomed the embrace of dusk, shrouding the distant mountains of Kurdistan.

  Near the border town of Zakho, he issued his first instruction.

  Turning off the headlights, Tariq left the road. For endless minutes, they drove across sun-baked earth toward a slice of the Tigris between Iraq and Syria. Al Zaroor felt his apprehension growing, a knot in his gut he despised but could not control. Syria would be the most dangerous part of a journey based on calculated risk, an eighteen-hour trip through a country run by a ruthless regime that saw al Qaeda as a threat to its survival. He could succeed only by adopting its coloration.