Near the entrance, a woman in khaki shirt and pants gazed into the street.
Brooke paused for a moment, wondering who or what she might be. From the back, she gave an impression of tensile alertness that evoked a sliver of steel. Her head was covered by a black scarf, and her jet-black hair was caught in an efficient ponytail. Her posture suggested vigilance; hearing his footsteps, she turned abruptly.
She was dark, slight, near Brooke in age, and—despite an absence of adornment—strikingly pretty. Completely still, she stared at him, not bothering to conceal this, just as Brooke could not conceal his own scrutiny. Their seconds of silence seemed longer. Then her expression became puzzled and, it appeared, embarrassed. “Can I help you?” Brooke asked.
She shook her head with brisk impatience, as if to clear it. “Sorry,” she said in the accent of the American eastern seaboard. “For a moment, I thought I knew you from somewhere. You’re not an archaeologist, someone working here?”
Brooke smiled at this. “Hardly. All I know about these ruins is that they’re very old. Are you an archaeologist?”
“Yes. And you’re a fellow American, obviously.” As though remembering her manners, she extended her hand. “I’m Laura Reynolds.”
Brooke took it, cool to the touch. “I’m Adam Chase,” he told her. “I was in Beirut on business, and decided to become a tourist.”
The corner of her mouth flickered upward. “That makes you a novelty. You weren’t frightened?”
“Only of getting lost. But here I am, in Baalbek, with Rome across the street.” He angled his head toward the bar. “I don’t want to impose on your obvious good nature, but I don’t know a soul here. If I buy you a drink, could you tell me where to go and what to do?”
She raised her eyebrows. “Me? You really are lost.” Swiftly glancing at her watch, she said, “Fifteen minutes, then. My fee is a glass of arrack.”
“What do I get for two?” Brooke inquired.
High in the Anti-Lebanon Mountains, Al Zaroor watched the sunset from beneath the edge of a cave.
He had been here since the first light of dawn. The night before, Rasul Jefaar had driven upward in the darkness, headlights off, taking a dirt path so precarious that at times Al Zaroor could see nothing but the black void of the next sheer drop. He stopped looking—after all these years he had mastered, but not banished, the fear of heights he had discovered in Afghanistan. Only at Jefaar’s suggestion did they stop.
Getting out, he pointed to an indentation in the mountainside. “We’ll leave them here,” Jefaar said, “where the vultures will draw less attention.”
With help from the nameless younger man, they carried the bodies of Azid and Hussein into the darkened aperture. Hauling Hussein by his arms, Al Zaroor discovered that the trucker, once so doughy, was already stiff.
Emerging, he saw the distant outline of a mosque against the foothills, a reminder that he was now approaching the land of the Shia and Hezbollah. But by tradition and necessity, the Jefaar clan, an extended family of ten thousand people, recognized no authority but its own. He could only trust that this would hold.
They got back into the van. Reaching the crest of the mountain range, they began descending toward the Bekaa, bent on reaching their destination before daylight. Al Zaroor began feeling a quiet elation. He had been here months before, and found a place that met his needs. Now he was on the cusp of history.
At dawn they had reached the site, traversing the last half mile of scrubby hillside above it without the benefit of a road. Standing here six months before, Al Zaroor had memorized the landscape. A hundred yards below, a dirt road wound toward the valley; a quarter mile farther this artery passed an aqueduct that was dry in summer. Behind Al Zaroor was the mouth of a cave.
This morning, Rasul Jefaar had backed inside. After thirty yards the cave was but two feet wider than the van; Al Zaroor got out, guiding him deeper. Suddenly the cave opened. Illuminated by a generator were two black vans of identical make. Near them were caches of food and weapons guarded by three Palestinians, who sat cross-legged, and three al Qaeda fighters from Iraq who had crossed the border weeks before.
The last man, a former member of the Pakistani air force, had met the Palestinians in a Sunni town known for its lack of watchful Shia eyes. Seeing Al Zaroor, he composed his features in a mask of resolve. Alone among the smugglers and the men waiting in the cave, he knew what Al Zaroor had brought with him.
Al Zaroor embraced each man in turn. None were strangers to him; all but the Pakistani had sworn their loyalty to al Qaeda. Each had met Al Zaroor on a single occasion—the Palestinians in Beirut; the Iraqis at a safe house in Basra; and the Pakistani in Peshawar, through the good offices of General Ayub. This man had been chosen for his secret sympathy for jihad, his lack of a family, and his willingness to assume the new identity and life of ease Al Zaroor had promised him. “You are as essential as the prize I seek,” Al Zaroor had assured Hazrat Jawindi. “All I ask is that you prepare it to be used.”
The bomb technician had shifted from side to side. “How long will our mission take?” he asked.
“A week at most,” Al Zaroor had promised. “Then you can begin a better life.”
In paradise.
TWO
The room was dark and snug, with a few tables, a long wooden bar, and shelves stocked with Western whisky. Brooke and Laura Reynolds sat at the bar, sipping from glasses of arrack served by a slight, balding man with a thin mustache who then busied himself polishing glasses. Laura gave the man a sharp glance before laying a worn map on the bar. “What are you interested in?” she asked Brooke.
“Everything. I’m a connoisseur of experience.”
Silent, Laura looked him in the face, then placed a finger on the map to trace a route. “For a man of such broad interests, there’s a lot to see. If you like architecture, you can easily drive to Zahle, a Greek Catholic enclave with wonderful Ottoman era stone houses. Then there’s the Ksara winery nearby, a scenic place that produces lovely whites. Closer to Baalbek, there’s a small but exquisite Roman temple, perfectly preserved, near the remnants of an ancient mosque.” She glanced at the bartender, then continued moving her finger on the map. “If you’re not sick of ruins, I’d recommend a trip to Anjar.”
“What’s in Anjar?”
“An absolutely stunning site from the Umayyad period. In the morning light, it feels almost haunted by those who lived there.” In profile, a reflective smile played on her lips. “Sometimes, when I’m alone, I imagine the city as it was. It’s quite magical, really.”
Brooke kept watching her face, at most times guarded, at odd moments lovely and expressive. “How did you come to work there?”
She took a sip of arrack before answering. “It’s not as long a road as you might think. My mother is Lebanese, a Maronite. She met my father in Beirut—he’s a New Yorker who worked for the State Department. They lived in Saudi Arabia until my mother told him she could deal with New York, but not Riyadh. The solution was a new job for Dad in Manhattan, where I was born, and trips to Lebanon every summer. So I grew up bilingual, with a foot in two cultures.”
“Where did you go to school?”
“For prep school, Hotchkiss, then college at NYU—”
“NYU? When were you there?”
Laura regarded him curiously. “I graduated in 2000. Why do you ask?”
“Because I got my master’s there, at about the same time. Did you ever take any courses in Middle Eastern studies?”
“No. But I did go to some seminars at the Kevorkian Center, just out of curiosity.”
Brooke nodded. “I spoke at a program there, and attended several others. That could be why I look familiar.”
Gazing at her arrack, she smiled faintly. “That seems so long ago. Doesn’t it to you?”
“Yes. So does everything before 9/11.”
Laura did not look at him. At length, she said, “I lost a friend there.”
“In various ways, I lost thr
ee.” Brooke paused, then added quietly, “But I interrupted your story. You never told me how you got here.”
She seemed to ponder the question. “I wanted to leave the U.S. for a while. Maybe what happened was part of it.” She turned to him. “In any event, Lebanon is my second home. I went to American University, got a doctorate in archaeology, and started looking for work. So what about you, Adam Chase?”
The barman, Brooke noted, was still polishing glasses, his back turned to them. “If I can buy you dinner,” he answered, “I’ll tell you my story.”
She gave him an appraising smile. “Do you often bribe women to listen to you?”
“Nope. I’m just old-fashioned.”
“So it seems. Our ‘relationship’ is a half-hour old, and you’re trying to pay for everything.” Briskly, she drained her arrack. “I may be a scholar of sorts, but I’m not impoverished. If you agree to split the bill, I’ll consider it.”
* * *
The restaurant, too, bespoke its history, with venerable rugs and brass plates on the walls, sturdy beams bracing the ceiling, and white tablecloths fatigued by years of use. Save for an elderly English couple, the restaurant was empty. They sat down at a table looking out at the garden, ordering their appetizers and entrées from a squat, attentive waiter. To go with their fresh trout, a specialty of the Bekaa Valley, Laura recommended a bottle of Ksara Chardonnay.
Over their first glass, Brooke outlined Adam Chase’s life and career—much of it, like Laura’s, spent in the Middle East. She listened attentively, as though parsing every nuance and detail. “So you prefer Lebanon?” she asked.
“Definitely. Everywhere in the Islamic world is fascinating—up to and including Afghanistan. But too often the weather’s terrible; you can’t touch the women; and the residents want to kill you.” He spread his hands to indicate their surroundings. “How many places have a great story, ethnic diversity, nice weather, terrific food, beautiful women, and a rich cultural heritage? Lebanon has them all.”
“Yes,” Laura said tartly, “and also a tragic history. Which everyone—especially us, the Israelis, the Syrians, and the Iranians—seems intent on adding to.”
The waiter, hovering nearby, refilled their glasses. “If I sounded glib and stupid,” Brooke said, “I’m sorry. Like you, I don’t want to see this country destroyed. I take it that all the young men on the posters I saw in town are Hezbollah martyrs.”
“Yes.”
He frowned. “I don’t understand the cult of martyrdom. Killing yourself to take the lives of others is very strange to me.”
Abruptly pensive, Laura gazed at the table. “And to me. I excuse nothing—not the suicide bombings, the rocket attacks on Israel, or the kidnapping and murder of Israeli soldiers and civilians. But the Shia have a story of their own, filled with poverty and neglect. Hezbollah filled the void.”
He watched her face. “It must be tiring,” he said at length, “listening to other people’s ignorance.”
She looked up at him with a perfunctory smile. “That’s not what I was feeling tonight.” She hesitated, then added softly, “The truth is that my life here is way too solitary.”
“How so?”
“Cultural differences, for one thing. Many Lebanese Christians don’t leave home until they’re married. So you see forty-five-year-old men marrying women two decades younger, having lived all their lives with Mom. Not a rich dating pool for an independent woman in her thirties.”
“What about your colleagues?”
She neatly cut a piece of trout. “They’re nice, not to mention interesting. But there aren’t many single people of either sex, at least anyone my age. We have a new intern, twenty-five, who reminds me that a decade of life makes all the difference in the world. I mean, think of us when we were twenty-five.” Looking into his face, she concluded softly, “So no, Adam, this has been far from tiresome.”
“Or for me.” Brooke hesitated. “I don’t know how long I’ll be in Lebanon. But I’m very much enjoying your company. Do you think we could stretch this out with a drink?”
She tilted her head. “At the bar?”
Brooke glanced at the waiter. “My room, I thought.”
She studied her plate, then gave him a long, cool look. “All right.”
They settled the bill, preoccupied with their own thoughts. Brooke felt the waiter watching them. Leaving, they walked into the lobby, Brooke lightly touching her arm. “I’m on the second floor,” he said.
They climbed the stairs. Though they were close together, she said nothing, nor did she look at him. To Brooke, she seemed to occupy a separate space.
The second floor had a sitting area with lush rugs and antique furniture. Near his door, someone had left a large wicker basket on wheels, designed to transport used sheets and towels. Moving it aside, Brooke gauged its weight, too light to contain a man. Laura observed him in silence.
Looking about them, Brooke opened his door. He turned to Laura, standing aside for her to enter. Their eyes met, and then she stepped inside the room.
Brooke switched on a light. She looked around her, seeming to register her surroundings—a Cocteau print, a rug, a double bed, an old table, the open door to a tiny bathroom, a window that overlooked the Roman ruins, lit at night. Brooke went to it, drawing the curtains. Then he walked to the door, turning its lock, then inserting the chain on its latch. “Now we have privacy,” he said.
Laura faced him. He moved close to her, gazing into her face. Then he placed his hand behind her neck and kissed her gently on the lips. As though by instinct, she returned the kiss with equal softness, extending it for a last moment. Then he raised his head back, looking into her dark, stunned eyes.
“So this is what happened to you,” Brooke said quietly. “If I didn’t know you, I might not have guessed.”
Anit Rahal gazed back at him. “Nor I about you.” She hesitated. “And so?”
He looked around the room, to suggest a fear of listeners, then gestured at the bed. They sat beside each other, silent for a moment. Touching his hand, she murmured, “This isn’t how I imagined it.”
His throat felt tight. “Did you imagine it?”
“Many times.” She shook her head in wonder, then spoke in the same near whisper. “Then I saw you tonight, and it was all I could do to maintain cover. When did you start this work?”
“After Ben died. But at least I didn’t vanish.”
Her shoulders twitched. “I had my reasons.” She paused, then took his hand. “I think that’s all we should say now.”
“There isn’t much time.”
“I know. But there are people we must speak with, things I’m not free to discuss. Let’s agree that I’ll give you a tour of these ruins tomorrow, in early evening.” She smiled a little. “My doctoral studies included the Roman period.”
“Impressive.” Leaning over, Brooke undid her scarf and ponytail, freeing her hair. “Sorry, but I needed to mess you up a little.”
“At least you left my buttons alone.” Anit stood abruptly, then looked down at him. “I’m not going to sleep very well.”
“Nor I. Though given what I’m here for, I wasn’t before.”
Standing, Brooke walked her to the door. She opened it, scanned the hallway, then turned to him again. For a moment, all he wanted was to look at her. Then he rested curled fingers against her face, saying, “Good night, habibi”—Arabic for “my sweet.”
For a last moment she looked into his eyes. “Good night, Adam,” she said, and left.
THREE
For the next twenty hours—precious by his reckoning—Brooke was frozen in place. He kept trying to track down Fareed, until his friend’s scratchy phone call from Amman informed him that he would return tomorrow. The rest of his time was spent worrying that the bomb was now in Lebanon, rechecking his room for surveillance devices, scanning emails, and wondering how Anit’s life had brought her to this place. He felt anew the force of seeing her again; he could only imagine the reverb
erations of their chance encounter within their agencies. Reporting it to Grey and Brustein, Brooke explained, “We had a relationship at NYU.”
“Define ‘relationship,’” Brustein prodded.
“More than meeting for coffee. Though sometimes we had coffee in the morning—”
Sharply, Grey interjected, “This is the woman you told me about.”
“Yes. The question now is if and how we work together.”
“What do you suggest?”
Brooke gazed out his window at the ruins. “Last night, we played at becoming involved for show. Maybe we should play that out.”
“What about the ‘human factor’?” Grey inquired. “Where does that come in?”
“It can’t. We both know why we’re here—”
“Her masters may object,” Brustein cut in. “Your cover is threadbare; hers may not be. You could end up getting both of you killed. Or worse.”
Brooke knew this all too well. Quietly, he replied, “What are their priorities, Noah? If they think I’m right, and that time is short, I know what mine would be.”
There was silence on the other end. “We’ll let you know,” Brustein said.
An hour before he was to meet Anit, Brooke received his answer. “We’ve reached an understanding,” Grey advised him. “At least for today. But they’re not going to like where I know you’re headed.”
“I think they’re out of choices,” Brooke rejoined.
She stood at the entrance to the ruins, appearing as composed as the woman she pretended to be. Only the brief look she gave him, fond yet apprehensive, suggested the complexity of her feelings. They entered the site together, cognizant of the tourists in pairs or guided groups. After a moment, Brooke took her hand.
“So you’ve heard,” she murmured.
He looked around them. “Yes. We’re lovers again, in public, by order of our governments.”
“Why not? We only get fired if it’s real.” Her voice softened. “So much has happened. To both of us, it seems.”
They stopped, gazing at the remains of a city built two thousand years before—massive temples to Jupiter, Venus, Mercury, and Bacchus, a huge courtyard with an altar for sacrificing animals. Above the ruins, the haunting sound of the Muslim call to prayer echoed from the jagged ridges of the Anti-Lebanon Mountains.
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