Hani didn’t say anything. He wasn’t a man who made promises easily. Ferris took the Jordanian’s hand in both of his own and held it. He would have knelt and kissed it, if he had thought it would do any good.
“Please help me,” said Ferris. “I am begging you to help me.”
Hani looked at him and smiled. It was an elusive smile, barely a trace on the lips and impossible for Ferris to read, but still there.
“Yes, my dear. Of course I will help you. You are a brave man, and you want to give yourself to save someone that you love. Only a dead heart could refuse you.”
HANI MOVED quickly. One of his men drove Ferris’s car to Zahran Street and parked it on the street near the Four Seasons. When Ferris’s colleagues at the embassy realized that he was missing, they would waste some precious time looking for him at the hotel. Hani made a few phone calls and met alone with his deputy; then he escorted Ferris to the GID garage where his big BMW limousine was parked. They took seats in the back and Hani closed the curtains. In a country where the GID’s authority was unquestioned, they were now all but invisible. Ferris patted his pocket again, for reassurance.
They drove north from Amman toward the Syrian border. Hani opened the curtain once they were on the highway so that he could see the scenery, but Ferris left his side closed. They avoided the four-lane route through Al-Mafraq and instead took the old Highway 15 that crosses the Syrian border a few miles west, at Dera’a. As the big sedan rolled north, Hani explained his plan. Ferris asked a few questions, but only to make sure that he understood. Ferris’s cell phone rang once. It was his deputy from the station. Ferris said groggily that he was trying to sleep and would be in the office the next morning after stopping at the gym.
Just before the Jordanian border town of Ramtha, Hani ordered his driver to take a side road that wound along the border. When they reached a little village called Shajara, they turned onto a dirt road and then into the driveway of a small compound of cement-block buildings whose roofs were topped by a bristle of antennae. In the driveway was a rusted Mercedes taxi with Syrian license plates. The border was less than a mile away. Hani led Ferris into one of the buildings. GID officers in plain clothes, who had been awaiting his arrival, greeted their chief with kisses and a tray of cookies and sweet tea. Hani waved them off and asked for a quiet room on the top floor. He closed the door and turned to Ferris.
“Now is the time to make your phone call,” Hani said.
“Do you have a clean phone?” asked Ferris.
“Of course.” Hani removed a new Samsung clamshell phone from his coat pocket and handed it over. Hani had an extra earpiece, so he could listen in. Ferris managed a thin smile at the Jordanian’s careful preparation. He took out his wallet and found the number he had scribbled down while Hoffman was reading the text message. He dialed the number carefully on Hani’s phone, 963-5555-8771. It rang three times before someone answered.
“Hello,” said the voice in English. They were waiting for him. This phone could only have one caller.
“This is Mr. Roger Ferris from the CIA. I want to talk to Miss Alice.”
“Okay, mister. Thanks God you are calling. I have question for you, to make sure you are you, please.”
“Fine. What’s your question?”
“Where do you take Miss Alice for dinner, first time?”
Ferris felt a well of nausea. They had gotten that out of her through interrogation. Either that or he’d been under surveillance.
“The Hyatt Hotel in Amman. The Italian restaurant.”
“Yes, okay. Thank you, sir. And what is the name of the cat Miss Alice keep in her apartment, please?”
“Elvis. The cat’s name is Elvis.”
“Right. I think you are you. Mr. Ferris.”
“Okay, can I talk to Alice now, please.”
“Yes, but I am very sorry. Miss Alice not here. But she ask me to give you the message, if you call.”
“What is the message?” Ferris was brusque. He wanted to cut the haggling and get to the point.
“If you want to see Miss Alice, you must go to where I say. You only. No trick, or Miss Alice will not be alive.”
“Where should I go?”
“To Syria, please.”
Ferris’s eyes gleamed with tension and exasperation. “Yes, fine, but where in Syria?”
“Yes, mister. To Hama. That is where Miss Alice is.”
Hani was nodding as he heard the name of the meeting place. Hama was Suleiman’s hometown. It was where the ruinous history had begun, with the destruction of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1982.
“It must be a trade,” said Ferris. “Unless I see Alice, I will not come to you.”
“Yes, sir, yes, sir.” The Arab voice on the end sounded eager, as if he could not believe that the American was actually going to give himself up. And he had a proposal all ready. “Sir, you will see Miss Alice at the norias, the waterwheels on Orontes River, in the center of Hama. You see her there. You see that she is safe and free. Then you call number and you wait for us. We will be watching. You leave, we will be killing Miss Alice, and you, too.”
Ferris paused and looked toward Hani. He would need backup of some sort, to make sure that Alice would be protected once she was released. Hani seemed to have read his mind. He nodded and whispered the words, “We will be there.”
“I agree to the trade,” said Ferris. “What is the number I should call, once I see that Alice is free?”
“Sir, please call 963-5555-5510. Not me. I am only relay man. When they answer, tell them in Arabic that you are Mr. Roger Ferris from CIA and that you are ready to meet them, right now in Hama. You want number again?”
Hani had scribbled the number on a piece of paper and handed it to Ferris.
“Let me read it back to you, to make sure I have it right. 963-5555-5510.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And I should tell the person who answers that I am Roger Ferris from CIA and I am ready to meet them now in Hama.”
“Mumtaz, mister. Very good. Okay. And when will you meet us in Hama, please?”
Ferris looked to Hani. The Jordanian scribbled a few words and gave the paper to the American.
“I will be in Hama tomorrow morning, at eight A.M., at the old waterwheels on the river. If Alice is not there, the deal is off. Do you understand?”
“Oh, yes, sir. I will tell them. I am relay man only. I think you are in a big hurry.” He said it curiously, as if he could not fathom why Ferris was so eager to be tortured.
“Just make sure Alice is there. Then you get what you want. Otherwise, nothing.” Ferris broke the connection.
“W’Allah, Roger, you are a brave man,” said Hani, taking his hand. “No matter what happens to you, Alice Melville will know how you loved her. I will make sure of it. You will live in her heart.”
THE MERCEDES taxi was downstairs. The driver was smoking a cigarette, ready to leave. The neighborhood beyond the compound was alive with the sounds of an Arab village at dusk. Children home from school, playing soccer in the dirt; mothers shouting out orders and complaints as they prepared the evening meal. The world had that sense of time suspended, as the shadows lengthened, the colors deepened and daylight gradually disappeared.
It was time to go, Hani said. He outlined his plan for Ferris. The car would take Ferris north into Syria through the Dera’a crossing. The driver was a smuggler, and the GID had used him often before. He had paid his bribes over many years to Syrian customs officials, who were so thoroughly corrupt that it was all one big family. Ferris would ride the few miles across the border in a compartment under the back seat. The uncomfortable part would only last thirty minutes or so; then Ferris could ride in the passenger seat. Hani would send two chase cars north to accompany the taxi through Damascus and then up to Hama. They would have to drive all night. Hani would have another team waiting in Hama. The moment Alice was released, they would surround her and bring her back to Jordan. There would be plenty of guns in case any
thing went wrong, but the Jordanian assured him that nothing would go wrong. And then, when the moment was right, Hani’s men would do their best to rescue Ferris.
Hani handed Ferris a small electronic device that appeared to be a Bic lighter. “If you are in trouble and you can’t wait, press the button,” he said. “We’ll come get you.” Ferris took it and thanked his friend. The talk of rescue was generous. But Ferris knew that this was a one-way trip.
33
HAMA, SYRIA
FERRIS WENT DOWN TO MEET the Syrian taxi driver alone. The man was in his forties, with furtive eyes and a thick moustache that hung over his lips like a paintbrush. The driver opened the back door of the corroded red Mercedes, pulled a hidden latch and yanked up the back seat, revealing a compartment just big enough for a body. A matted carpet was laid over the bare metal and there was a bottle of mineral water. “Business class,” Ferris muttered. The driver nodded, uncomprehending. Ferris climbed in and contorted his body into the small space. It smelled of sweat and urine. Evidently Ferris wasn’t the first hidden traveler. The driver said he would tap three times when it was safe for Ferris to come out. Then he lowered the seat, and Ferris was encased in darkness.
Ferris wasn’t a morbid person. As a child, he had worried about death the way most children do, trying to comprehend the idea of his own nonbeing. The idea was too complicated and depressing, and so he mostly forgot about it. He had a period in his mid-teens when he feared that he would die a virgin, but after Priscilla Warren took care of that he stopped thinking about nothingness. Now, lying in the dark and smelly hold of the taxi, Ferris was forced to contemplate the prospect of his own nonexistence. He wasn’t afraid so much of dying, but of the pain that would precede it. His poison dental bridge was in his pocket, and he pondered when he should use it. If he waited too long, it might be too late: They would take it from him before he could bite down on the poison and save himself from agony. But if he used it too early, he might kill himself unnecessarily, in the moment before rescue or reprieve. He would squander the chance to live a normal life, grow old with Alice and have children. That last negation bothered him most. He would have lived for nothing, as far as the species was concerned. That truly was an unproductive life, worse even than dying a virgin.
The taxi slowed as they neared the Jordanian border post. Ferris tensed, but the stop was quick and painless. Hani must have put in the fix. The car rumbled forward into no-man’s-land, and Ferris sank again into his black reverie. If he lived, perhaps he could have children with Alice; if he lived, perhaps he might grow old with her. “Perhaps” was all he had. His hope was the same one that sustains the cancer patient even as his body shrivels and he can’t eat or swallow—the idea that somehow the sentence of death will miraculously be lifted; that he will drag his brittle bones to the everlasting gate and trick the gatekeeper into another few hours, days, years. Ferris understood, in the abstract, that pain could become so awful that he would want to pass into nothingness—but not if there was a chance of rejoining Alice. They could smash his legs with a crowbar, shatter his kneecaps, pound his spine with a sledgehammer—yet in each moment of agony he would be thinking of Alice, and of staying alive for her.
The image of her was clear and perfect, and in a rush of certainty, Ferris did something impulsive. He removed the dental bridge from his pocket and laid it down on the dirty rug of his secret compartment. If he kept the poison, he would be tempted in his fear to use it; and if he used it, he would give up not just life, but love. He would die for nothing. He had made a promise to Hoffman to protect the secrets, to kill himself before he betrayed things that might kill others. But keeping that promise would mean breaking another that now surmounted it. He pushed the poison farther away, deeper into the blackness.
THE TAXI halted suddenly, and Ferris heard a murmur of Arab voices. His driver was addressing someone he called “Captain.” Ferris caught an edge of fear in the driver’s voice. The door opened and then slammed shut, and he heard footsteps around the car. Something was wrong. The captain was shouting at the driver, in the way of military officers who know their power in the moment is absolute. The border was closed, said the captain; it was too late; the driver knew the rules. The driver kept repeating a name. Abu Walid said it was okay. Abu Walid said no problem. Ask Abu Walid. Ferris heard the sound of boots on the pavement, the voice of the driver protesting that it was a mistake, and then they were both gone.
Ferris remained huddled against the floorboard of the taxi. He was frightened, in a new way. What if he died right there—or just as bad, was taken away, put in a Syrian jail and then sent back to Jordan? Alice would surely die: The kidnappers would be waiting for Ferris in Hama, and when he didn’t arrive, they would kill her. That was the worst thing, Ferris realized—not his own death, but Alice’s. The only meaning his life had now was the possibility of saving her. If that were lost, then he would kill himself and be done with it.
The wait stretched to many minutes. Ferris heard occasional shouting in the distance, from what must be the captain’s headquarters. Ferris’s head hurt from breathing in the dust of the road and the fumes of the gas tank. His legs throbbed from so long in the cramped position. The pain had grown from a prickly feeling of pins-and-needles to sharp spasms in his joints and muscles. He began to think he would prefer anything—capture, even—to this pain. But he knew his mind was playing tricks. In comparison to the pain he would feel later, this was just a pat on the cheek.
Ferris waited. It might have been thirty minutes, an hour. In the dark of his crypt, he lost his sense of time. With the engine off, there was no heat in the car, and the January night air was bitterly cold. He couldn’t move to warm himself, so the chill crept into his bones. Ferris wanted to die, but even more, he wanted Alice to live. He felt for the poison and remembered it was gone, deep into the recess of his hiding place. He was glad to be rid of the temptation.
He heard more shouting, from a voice that sounded like the captain’s; and then the submissive voice of his driver, and heavy footsteps approaching the Mercedes. The driver had given him up. He sounded meek as a mouse now; Abu Walid hadn’t bailed him out and, in the glare of an interrogation room, he had decided to give up his passenger so that he could live to smuggle another day. The footsteps got nearer, the metal studs on the boots clicking against the pavement until they were next to the car. A door opened. They must be opening the back door; in another instant they would be hauling Ferris out of the compartment and it would be over.
But the driver was opening the front door. In his wheedling voice, he was thanking the captain, telling him that Abu Walid would be very grateful for the captain’s help, and wishing that God grant the captain long life and good health, and the captain’s sons, good health to them, too, yes, sir, thank God. The door closed. The key turned, and the ignition sparked to life. The driver put the Mercedes in gear and pulled away from the border post, calling out a last pliant farewell.
They stopped for a customs check, but it was perfunctory. Ferris was frightened when he heard the trunk open, but it closed just as quickly. A customs man thanked the driver for the carton of cigarettes and waved him on.
THE TAXI rumbled along for another twenty minutes, moving slowly through the narrow streets of Dera’a and then faster as it connected with the main highway again. Ferris heard a whoosh of air each time the Mercedes veered left to pass other cars and trucks. He worried that the driver might keep him in this box all the way to Hama, but the car at last began to slow and swerved to the right. Ferris heard the crunch of gravel under him as the taxi pulled onto the shoulder and lurched to a stop. The driver opened the back door, pounded three times on the seat above Ferris’s head and then tugged up the seat. Ferris couldn’t move at first, his legs and arms were so stiff. The driver had to pull him from the compartment. He gave Ferris an old cap to cover his face and a frayed wool jacket of the sort a Syrian taxi driver’s friend might wear, and sat Ferris next to him in the front seat. Ferris didn’t
think until later that he had left the poison behind in the secret compartment. He didn’t try to retrieve it.
THEY DROVE through the night. Damascus was crowded and noisy, even at midnight. The Palestinian refugee camps that lined the southern edge of the city were twinkling with the sweet fellowship of the poor. The coffeehouses were open, the men tugging at their narghilehs and blowing out clouds of smoke; the bakeries were selling fresh pastries and sweets for those with a late-night sweet tooth. In the cinder-block apartments down the narrow alleyways of the camp, you could see the flickering blue lights of the television sets, each with its own satellite dish, connecting people to a modern world they loved and hated at the same time. When they reached the city center, people were still out strolling. Many of the women along the sidewalks were dressed primly in headscarves and shapeless smocks; others were done up like tarts, in low-cut blouses open even on this winter night. A few made eye contact with Ferris. Perhaps they really were prostitutes, but Ferris knew that in Muslim eyes, it didn’t matter whether they were paid for their services or not. They were defiled by the ways of the West.
After they left Damascus, Ferris dozed off for a few minutes. He awoke suddenly with the image of Alice bound and bloody in a basement. It wouldn’t go away. They stopped for food and coffee at a place the driver knew, just south of Homs, which he insisted was clean, but when Ferris went to use the toilet, it was a hole in the floor that stank of shit. It was nearly three A.M. The next big city north on the highway after Homs was their destination of Hama. Ferris told the driver he wanted to rest until six-thirty in the restaurant parking lot. The police wouldn’t bother them there, and he didn’t want to get to Hama so early that he would have to wait conspicuously for the rendezvous. A few other cars were stopped in the lot; he wondered if any of them were Hani’s men. Ferris dozed again, fitfully. He was awakened by first light. The orange rim burst over the barren landscape to the east, turning the nearby sky from purple-pink into bright yellow-white; he wondered if he would live to see another sunrise.
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