Worrisome. And so was that look on his face. She resolved to start paying closer attention to Abbas. These were dangerous times, and losing one member of her family was quite enough. Losing another would be more than she could bear.
5
I arrived in Amman on the cusp of Ramadan, watching from the window of the plane as the new moon rose over the desert. Like anything that has grown too fast, Amman lacks grace. It slouches across a series of hills in a tumble of pale boxes, slapped together from cinder block and reinforced concrete. The one neighborhood that should be a gem—the aging downtown, with buildings from the 1920s set along wide boulevards, marketplace alleys, and a huge Roman amphitheater—has been smudged beyond recognition by soot and grime.
My destination was Jebel Amman, a hilltop district of old stone villas with gated lawns and scrawny pines. Decades ago it was the preferred neighborhood of royalty, diplomats, and British officers. Now it was home to the city’s poshest hotels, although mine was of the smaller, cheaper variety, mostly because I didn’t yet know who would be paying the bill.
For forty dollars a night I got a drab but clean room on the third floor, with a dripping sink and a view of the street. Throwing back the curtains, I saw a large mosque just down the block. Big green loudspeakers sprouted from its tall minaret, meaning I could rely on the muezzin for a wake-up call at first light.
I wasn’t due to meet Omar until morning, so I decided on a walk to collect my thoughts for the job ahead. The desk clerk smiled dutifully as I crossed the empty lobby. The streets were also deserted. Everything was closed for the beginning of the month-long observance of Ramadan, and the daily fasting would begin at sunrise. The only shopkeeper in evidence was a grocer stringing holiday lights, the ubiquitous crescent and star blinking in red and green like Christmas decorations.
My last time in Amman, King Hussein had smiled down from posters all over town. Now the reigning face belonged to his son and successor, Abdullah, whose pudgy cheeks reminded me of a middle-aged Jerry Mathers. He, too, was everywhere. On a stone wall draped with fragrant jasmine he stood proudly in white flowing robes and a red-and-white kaffiyeh. On a nearby lamppost he marched ramrod straight in full-dress military uniform. I peered into a darkened toy store and spotted him on a wall by the register, this time in a business suit. Three doors down, in an optician’s, he relaxed in blue jeans and an oxford shirt alongside his pretty Palestinian wife, Queen Alia. The man of a thousand faces, stalking my progress.
During my first trip to Jordan, when I helped set up tent camps for Gulf War refugees in late 1990, the profusion of royal images had at first seemed sinister. Big Brother is watching. Then I came across a poster that convinced me otherwise. In it, a smiling Hussein in a black leather jacket sat astride a big motorcycle with his ravishing Vogue queen, the blond and blue-eyed Noor. Behind them were the red bluffs of Wadi Rum, the spectacular desert backdrop featured in about half of Lawrence of Arabia. Hussein was bareheaded, with a trim silvery beard. Noor’s long mane was in sensual disarray, as if tousled by the breezes of the open road, or perhaps by the roving hands of her admiring king. The effect was stunning—two parts Brando, one part Ali Baba. It must have appealed deeply to any Jordanian yearning to believe his homeland was a cut above the neighbors in style and substance. Come to think of it, wasn’t that Big Brother’s strategy? To boost morale with watchful benevolence, reassuring even as he intimidated.
Small nations, like small men, must be resourceful to stand out, especially if they don’t offer the oil of a Kuwait or the numbered accounts of a Switzerland. Jordan tries winning you over with heaping doses of Bedouin hospitality. I had been reminded of this earlier, the moment I climbed into the airport taxi.
“Welcome in Jordan,” the driver gushed. It is a phrase a visitor hears often, as if everyone is saying, “Don’t worry, we’re friendly and sane. Not like all the nuts in Syria, Israel, Iraq, and Saudi. So kick back and tell us your troubles.”
More often than not, visitors oblige. Thus has Jordan’s capital become a city of loose talk and stealthy listeners. In the thermal pool of babble known as the Middle East, Amman is the drain into which anything worth repeating eventually swirls, and the city has become a listening post for every government that is still a player in the games of oil politics and Holy Land intrigue. With that in mind, I decided on dinner at the China Dragon, a known gathering place for chatty foreigners. It also happened to be the place where Mila and I had last met Omar.
Chinese restaurants offer a comfort zone for wandering Americans. I have sought solace beneath their tasseled lanterns in Zagreb, Freetown, Khartoum, and countless other locations. They offer the same dishes, the same teapots, the same plinky music—all the brand familiarity of a McDonald’s minus the grease and the corporate stigma.
The China Dragon was a few blocks off the First Circle, the easternmost of eight traffic roundabouts along Amman’s east-west spine. This end of the route follows along Rainbow Street, and its last few blocks were about a mile from my hotel. By the time I reached the red-curtained entrance I had quite an appetite. Although it was the prime dining hour of 9 p.m., the place was so empty that for a moment I worried it had changed hands, but then the familiar face of the proprietor appeared.
He was known to one and all as Mr. Lee, a former military attaché from the Taiwanese embassy. The gossips said his true role was more intriguing. He had opened the restaurant in the late ’70s, and had immediately established its credentials by hiring away a pair of embassy chefs.
“Table for one?” he said, picking up a menu. Then he smiled with dawning recognition. “You are old customer, yes? Gulf War?”
I had come here a lot back in ’91, part of a regular wartime clientele of aid workers and journalists, but I was surprised he knew my face. A trick of his old trade, perhaps.
“Yes. Freeman Lockhart.”
The name didn’t register, but he nodded anyway.
“Yes, yes. Where you like to sit?” He gestured toward vacant tables. The only other party was four men in a corner, speaking French. “Business slow. Ramadan. Always like this first few nights. During Gulf War, never empty. Many journalists. You remember?”
“Oh, yes. And I remember you couldn’t get a beer during Ramadan. That still the house rule?”
Mr. Lee lowered his eyes, the bearer of bad news.
“Still rule. Out of respect.”
“Of course.”
He led me to a small table along a near wall. A few minutes later a tall, thin waiter materialized at my side. He was clean-shaven, and his black hair was trimmed short.
“You are ready, sir?”
He was probably in his twenties, and his manner was pleasant enough. But something in the sharpness of his coal-black eyes seemed to be lying in wait for an opportunity to disapprove.
“Hot-sour soup, the crispy chicken, and the stir-fried vegetables.”
“And to drink, sir?”
Without beer, I supposed I’d have to wash it down with a soft drink.
“A Coke.”
That drew a look, followed by a remark that from him sounded like an admonition.
“There is only Pepsi.”
I immediately recalled the old rumor about Coke that had once swept the Arab world, something about the logo saying “No Mohammad, No Mecca” in Arabic if you turned it backward. Coke hired an Egyptian grand mufti to debunk it, but the taint persisted, and I had always noticed lots of Pepsi signs in the city’s more benighted quarters.
“Yes, Pepsi would be better.”
His departure was a relief. I had forgotten what it was like working in a place where even your most innocent choice might be held against you. In Jerusalem I had once affronted an Israeli scholar by admitting to enjoying the novels of Thomas Wolfe. He assured me in the gravest tones that Wolfe was a raving anti-Semite, but said he would attribute my error to youthful ignorance.
Up to now I had never been overly concerned by such snap judgments, mostly because I had never take
n sides. Even while watching Palestinian boys confront tanks with stones, or haggard Bosnian men shuffle out of Serbian concentration camps, I had operated by the rules of official neutrality. Less in the sense of a journalist than in the sense of someone who knew he might well have to tidy up once the shooting stopped, and would need the cooperation of both sides.
Now I no longer had that protection, or dodge, if you prefer. I was taking sides, and against a friend, no less.
Just as the soup arrived, my attention was drawn to a table by the entrance, where a fifty-something American with a gray buzz cut had sat down with his taxi driver to await a take-out order. The American proclaimed loudly that he had just arrived from Baghdad.
“And what is your name?” his driver asked.
“Dick.” He held out his right hand for a shake.
“Oh, yes. Like Dick Cheney.”
“There you go.”
The American seemed pleased by the association, which pegged his politics. I noticed that my waiter had taken up a watchful perch nearby, and from time to time his eyes flicked toward the American. Mr. Lee must have overheard as well, because seconds later he fluttered up to their table.
“You working in Iraq?” Mr. Lee asked.
The big man nodded.
“Contractor for USAID, restoring the electrical grid. Here for some R and R.”
“Many Americans coming here from Iraq. Good place to relax. Good place to eat.”
“Yeah, they gotta couple Chinese restaurants in Baghdad. Pretty good ones, too, until one of ’em was bombed. Then Mr. Bremer told us, ‘No more.’”
Dick then began name-dropping companies whose logos you saw all over the world. Mr. Lee answered by name-dropping his way around the fringes of the royal family. All the while my waiter stood very still, like a signal tower awaiting the next transmission.
Later, returning to the hotel on a full stomach, I detoured to the edge of Jebel Amman and stopped by a concrete stairway that plunged steeply toward the heart of the city. There was a view across the chasm toward some of Amman’s poorest neighborhoods on a facing hill to the southeast. On rooftops here and there were TV antennae shaped like miniature Eiffel Towers. It had long been one of Jordan’s favorite affectations, although wealthier homes now sported satellite dishes.
Standing out more were rings of green neon marking the minarets of mosques. I counted seven on that hillside alone, just as the night’s call to prayer began. I had always enjoyed this moment, thinking of it as a bedtime story with the narration jumping from one muezzin to the next. Not so different from listening to church bells in small-town America, I supposed. Except there the nuts and hotheads shot up high schools, or roughed up a few homosexuals. Here they joined holy wars.
Walking back, I noticed the smell of jasmine, stronger than ever, and my spirits lifted. Perhaps things would go smoothly. With any luck, the suspicions of Black, White, and Gray would prove to be unfounded, and I could give Omar a clean bill of health.
The lobby was still empty. The desk clerk sprang to his feet, holding an envelope in his right hand.
“There was a message for you, sir.”
“Someone called?”
“Hand delivery.”
Had Omar dropped by? The envelope was sealed.
Inside was a typed message on hotel stationery. No name. No signature: “House for rent just off Rainbow, on Othman Bin Affan Street. Available Thursday. Phone tomorrow to say you are interested.” Then there was a phone number, and nothing more.
“Did you see who left this?”
“No, sir. I must have been in the back. I found it on the counter.”
“Sealed like this? In a hotel envelope?”
“Yes sir. Is it bad news, sir? Anything we can arrange for you?”
“No. I’m just curious who brought it. I’d like to speak to anyone on your staff who might have gotten a look.”
“I will ask, sir.”
I had been wondering when and how Black, White, and Gray would get in touch, and I supposed this was my answer. They had said I would be my own boss, the only part of this assignment I liked, but now I wondered. I had a feeling that wherever I went these people would be watching, just like the smiling face of the king.
6
Mila woke me before the muezzin could. I groped for the ringing phone in the dark, knocking the receiver off the nightstand. Her voice came up from the floor like a bulletin from a distant radio.
“Freeman? Freeman? Are you there?”
“Yes, I’m here. I was asleep.”
“I’m sorry. I know it’s early, but I’ve been up for an hour.”
I checked the bedside clock.
“Mila, it’s 5 a.m.”
“I was worried you’d leave early for breakfast, with Ramadan and all.”
“I’m sure they’ll still have something for me. You sound upset.”
“I’ve been checking around with people on the island. And making some calls.”
“This morning?”
“Yesterday. And last night, while some of the offices in the States were still open.”
“Mila, no.”
“It’s all right. I’m being discreet.”
As if such a thing were possible on an international phone line, or in a place as small as Karos. My last worry before dropping off to sleep had been that she would do exactly this, poking around to find out more about what had become of our night visitors. She must have started her inquiries even before my plane left Athens.
“The Opel was rented to someone named Dillon, with an American passport,” she said. “The counterman told me, at Emborios Rentals.”
“He rented it?”
“No. He found out from their competitor, at Island Rentals.”
So that was at least two people on Karos who knew something was up between us and some strangers from America. And you could multiply the number by at least two for each successive day. Within a week everyone on the island would know that I had departed in the wake of some mysterious visitation.
“Mila, you’ve got to stop. These aren’t the kinds of people we’re used to dealing with.”
“We’ve dealt with worse.”
Yes, and look at what happened, I wanted to say, but didn’t dare, because then I might have to explain.
“Worse, but different. These are people who cover their tracks. If they hear you’re sniffing around they’ll be back.”
“It’s you they’re interested in. You and Omar. They couldn’t care less what I’m up to.”
“This probably isn’t the right forum for discussing this.”
“On this line, you mean?”
“On any line. And you should stop. Just let me do what I’m here for, and then we can both try to figure out what’s really going on. Okay?”
“I can’t just sit here doing nothing while something happens to you.”
“Nothing will happen unless you make it happen. I’m fine, and I can take care of myself. Just don’t stir them up. I’m almost afraid to ask who you called in the States.”
“Pretty much who you’d expect. No one had heard of them. Or you, either, of course. I guess they have to say that. I called the embassy, too, in Athens.”
“The American embassy?”
“Yes.”
“Good Lord. What did you say?”
“I asked for their intelligence liaison. They told me they didn’t have one.”
“You didn’t give your name, I hope?”
“No. But I guess it would be easy enough to get my number.”
“Maybe they won’t try. They must get plenty of calls like that.”
“Cranks, you mean.”
“That’s not the word I was going to use.”
“I’ll bet.” I knew from her tone of voice she was smiling—a sign of progress. And who knows, maybe the information she had learned on the island would even be useful.
“So tell me about this Dillon fellow.”
“From the description it was the one na
med Black.”
“Dillon probably isn’t his real name, either.”
“No. But I got his passport number. It’s—”
“Mila, not now. But hold on to it.”
“Right.”
“Anything else?”
“No one else seemed to have noticed them. But I don’t think it was Stavros who took your shells. He said someone else had been poking around.”
“When?”
“Last week. Two days before we got back. He saw one of the windows was ajar, so he went inside to shut it. He said he noticed then that you could easily spring the window locks from the outside.”
“So maybe it was his cigarettes you smelled.”
“He quit smoking in May. Whoever it was must have stayed for a while. Practiced the whole thing.”
Some professional advance man, or a well-paid local. DeKuyper’s troll with the shovel, perhaps. I imagined him standing in the darkness of our living room, checking all the drawers and cabinets for anything that might have put a crimp in their plans. And for all we knew, Stavros had been aware of everything, no matter what he said now.
“Mila, I think you should arrange to have somebody close at hand, if necessary, and not just Stavros. Someone you can reach in a hurry, if, well…”
“If what?”
“If any of them come back.”
“You think they will?”
“If you keep asking questions, I know they will.”
“Then I’ll stop.”
“Good.”
“And I’m sorry I woke you.”
“It’s all right. It’s not so bad starting the day with your voice. Yours and the muezzin’s.”
The speakers on the mosque down the street had just begun cranking up. The first morning of Ramadan had begun.
“God, he’s loud. I can hear him like he’s next door.”
“Just wait ’til the midmorning prayers. He’ll go on for ages. I’d better see if the kitchen’s got anything left for a hungry infidel.”
“Say hello to Omar for me.”
The Amateur Spy Page 7