The Amateur Spy

by Dan Fesperman

  “That’s the same sort of bullshit the Americans have been spreading about us,” he said. “If I didn’t know better I’d suspect you’d been talking to the resident conspiracy theorists at your embassy.”

  For the first time since arriving, I felt at risk, a need to cover my tracks. It was strangely exciting. Even more surprising was that I managed to produce my answer in a calm and even tone.

  “No one’s told me anything. It was a logical guess after what you said about Nabil.”

  “Like I said, he’s a figurehead.”

  “I’ll remind you of that when it turns out your development fund has been paying for Semtex.”

  “Is that what’s bothering you? Our finances? Because we may play fast and loose with our friendships—hiring an American, for example. Believe me, some of our backers won’t look kindly on that—but on finances we run a very tight ship. Check for yourself.”

  “You’d let me see the books? Just like that?”

  “You’re director of programs, Freeman. Of course you can look. Tomorrow, if you’d like. I’ll alert Raniya, so she won’t think you’re the fox in the henhouse.”

  Ouch. But now I had my entrée. From a practical point of view, the conversation couldn’t have gone better if I’d scripted it.

  We said good night at the hotel entrance, where a band was playing loudly to Ramadan revelers in the courtyard. When I got to my room I could hear the lead singer competing with the neighborhood muezzin, who, frankly, had the better voice. Normally I would have been irritated by the noise. But considering my progress, the music was as soothing as a lullaby. The revelers began clapping to the beat, drowning out the muezzin, and the band broke into the disco standby “I Will Survive.”

  Interesting to think of it as some sort of Palestinian anthem. Or maybe with this crowd it was only about love and heartbreak. Whatever the case, it made me smile, and as I sank into slumber my final thought was that maybe this job wouldn’t be so difficult after all.

  The sort of mistake any amateur might make, I suppose.

  12

  Washington

  Having slept uneasily after her rummage through Abbas’s desk, Aliyah decided to check out the address on Cordell Street during the next day’s lunch hour. She might have put off the task a few days if not for an odd episode that very morning.

  It occurred on their way to work, with Abbas again at the wheel. He had turned on the NPR station and hadn’t said a word since they backed out of the driveway. Aliyah sipped coffee from a travel mug while reading the Post, folded in her lap. Big earthquake in Pakistan. Further government bumbling, post-Katrina. More explosions in Iraq.

  Then, some fifteen minutes into the trip, Abbas muttered “genius!” right out of the blue. It was the tone that caught her attention—reverent, almost envious, like a scientist who has just watched a colleague transmute lead into gold.

  “Sheer genius,” he repeated, shaking his head now in admiration.

  Was he reacting to something on the radio? A news summary was in progress. All she caught was the tail end of a casualty report. Fifteen dead in Kandahar. No genius in that.

  “What’s ‘sheer genius’?” she asked.

  Her question broke his reverie. When he turned toward her she saw the same light in his eyes she had noticed after the bus accident.

  “You weren’t listening to that?” he asked, his voice conversational again.

  “I was reading.”

  “It was nothing important.”

  He looked back toward the road, where a car to their right was straying from its lane. “Learn to drive!” he shouted, laying on the horn. “Always the same jerks in their BMWs.”

  Obviously the moment had passed, so she filed it away uneasily on her growing list of worries, while vowing to take action at noon. When the lunch hour arrived, her friend Nancy wanted to go to the new Afghan restaurant around the corner, and Aliyah found herself lying rather than having to explain her odd little mission.

  “I’d love to, but I have some shopping to do.”

  “I could be talked into that.”

  “Well, it’s more of an appointment, really. Something I’ve needed to get done for a while, and I’ll have to take the Metro.”

  “Oh. Sounds like a gift. For Abbas?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Maybe Monday, then. By then I’ll have a full scouting report on the Kabul Garden.”

  Aliyah caught a Red Line train from Dupont Circle to Metro Center, where she switched to the Blue Line for the ride out to the Eastern Market stop in Southeast. By Metro and on foot, it took more than half an hour to reach the 1100 block of Cordell Street. It turned out to be in one of the tougher fringe neighborhoods just beyond Capitol Hill.

  That part surprised Aliyah. Few of Abbas’s patients came from neighborhoods like this. What interest could he possibly have in a block that was so obviously falling apart? Even more surprising, the address he had written down was for a vacant storefront with a padlock on a steel front door. The sign across the top said, “Alighieri’s Pizza,” but when she peered through the caged grating across the big front window, it seemed clear that no one had twirled any dough here for quite some time, although a hint of garlic odor still clung to the place. Abandoned cooking equipment was piled on a counter, and a black and orange “For Rent” sign was posted on the door.

  She stepped back and looked upstairs. It was your standard three-story row house, red brick with two mullioned windows facing the street from each of the two upper floors. Green paint peeled from elaborate woodwork along the roofline. One window was cracked. None had curtains. The building looked empty, and she wondered if the previous proprietor had lived upstairs. She imagined one of those sturdy Korean or Hispanic families so prevalent at storefront businesses like this one, striving for years until they had enough money to move upward and onward.

  But what about this place could have drawn Abbas, and why was he keeping it a secret? She wrote down the phone number of the real estate company from the sign on the door, while wondering if it would connect her to the mysterious “Melissa.”

  Aliyah surveyed the rest of the block. A Chinese takeout, a mini-grocery with bricked-in windows and a prominent sign for the DC Lottery, a pager and cell phone dealer, and a few businesses that, like this one, were padlocked. The building just to the right was boarded up. To the left was an alley that ran alongside the narrow grassy lawn of a hulking Baptist church. It also had seen better days. Decades of soot and auto exhaust had blackened its formidable stone facade, and the masonry needed repointing.

  The only sound of life apart from the occasional passing car was the squealing of children. They were at play in an empty lot at the far end of the block, which adjoined a day-care center around the corner.

  She had come here for answers but had found only further questions, and she rushed back to the office in hopes of beating Nancy so that she could telephone the real estate office without being overheard.

  “Hamilton Properties,” a voice answered.

  “Yes, is Melissa there?”

  “I’ll connect you.”

  A pause, a click, and then a chirpy, “Melissa Beck, how can I help you?”

  “I am calling about the rental property on Cordell Street.”

  “I’m sorry, it’s just been rented. Yesterday, in fact. First call we’ve gotten in months and now of course you’re interested, too. Isn’t that always the way?”

  “Yes, I suppose so.”

  “But we have plenty of similar locations—better ones, in fact—if you’ll tell me what you’re looking for.”

  “Maybe some other time.” She was flustered, and on the verge of hanging up before she recovered in time to say, “There is one thing you can tell me. I wonder if you had a contact number for your new tenant. I am assuming that it is Mr. Abbas Rahim?”

  “Now how did you—May I ask who’s calling?”

  “It’s not important.”

  She hung up before Melissa
could ask another question.

  So he had actually signed a lease without telling her. She supposed she should be angry. Even at a location like that, D.C. real estate wasn’t cheap, which meant he must have written a sizable check. Another reversion to the old ways of Palestine, where men did as they pleased on such matters.

  Maybe he had signed the lease to help out some Palestinian merchant who, for whatever reason, was struggling to come up with the permits needed to open a business. She knew that such things went on, and that Abbas had always felt obliged to help others from the Diaspora. He was generous that way, and she wasn’t.

  Aliyah had never dwelled much on her origins, even when it became a trendy thing to do. Maybe it was because her parents had insisted she learn English right away, before she even attended a day of school. For years it was the one language she and her siblings were allowed to speak around the house. Only during the weekly trip to the mosque—there was only one where they grew up, and they had to drive twenty-two miles to reach it—did she ever hear Arabic, and she now spoke the language with a pronounced American accent.

  It was her children who had reconnected her to her “identity,” as their son, Faris, called it. He was particularly intent on exploring his Arab and Palestinian roots, even though he had been born here and had traveled to the Middle East only twice. She remembered a fall weekend the family spent in Nantucket, for a family friend’s wedding. They had settled into a clapboard house for three days amid remote dunes and the crisp breezes of a Yankee autumn, a place about as foreign as you could get in comparison with the orchard village near Jerusalem where she had been born.

  Yet every morning after breakfast Faris and Shereen, both in their mid-teens then, brought her an extra cup of coffee and insisted on hearing her memories, such as they were. Once she began to stir them up, she discovered they were quite rich in old sights, sounds, and smells, as if she had uncorked a bottle long hidden. It was stimulating in a way that surprised her. But it also left an odd aftertaste of melancholy, as if she had never quite realized what she lost by moving all those years ago. So, once her children dropped the subject she hadn’t pursued it further.

  Abbas had no such inhibitions. He stayed in close touch with Arab American business groups, charities, and support networks, even after that became something of a liability in the wake of 9/11. But on the many occasions when he offered donations or otherwise pitched in, he never insisted on taking credit or even receiving a thank-you. Maybe that explained why he was acting in secret now. If she were to dare ask him about it, he would probably shrug it off as some minor favor.

  But as the afternoon wore on, Aliyah couldn’t shake her anxiety about Abbas. It was as if a needle on a meter had just jumped into a red zone, except she had no idea what the meter was measuring, or what action she could take to restore conditions to normal. Something told her she had better find out soon.

  13

  I awakened with a sense of excitement. Was this the allure of spying, then, this sense of starring on your own private stage before an audience of shadows? Fresh from a shower and a quick shave, I bounded down the stairway. The gloom of the hotel dining room wouldn’t do this morning, so I headed for Prince Zahran Street and the pricey but sunlit Hotel InterContinental, where one could unroll a starched linen napkin and order eggs, bacon, and Turkish coffee.

  I had stayed there during the Gulf War, when it was a hub for media and aid workers. In those days the American embassy was right across the street. Some sort of loud demonstration had almost always been in progress then, usually a small but vocal crowd chanting for Saddam. If you went back farther, to the chaos of 1970 that Sami had talked about, the InterCon had been strafed by gunfire.

  For my purposes, its several bars and restaurants offered a secular refuge during Ramadan, and the breakfast further fueled my upbeat mood. I finished with two hours still to kill before meeting the rental agent, so I set out for downtown.

  Few people were out this early, due to the altered rhythms imposed by the holiday. As a result, even the merchants seemed behind schedule. Fruit vendors were still rolling their carts into place. A luggage merchant was setting up an old treadle-powered sewing machine on the sidewalk in front of his shop. The center of the action was the checkerboard marble plaza outside the Husseini Mosque, at the end of King Faysal Street. Lottery salesmen already lay in wait, with stapled tickets fluttering from propped signboards.

  The only other early birds seemed to be the beggars. On virtually every corner there was a woman dressed in black, sitting cross-legged in hopes of selling from a meager assortment of toothpaste, cigarettes, and playing cards arrayed on sheets and towels. Most had wiry infants at their feet, as if this were part of the standard equipment.

  Sami’s salon was nearby, but it was too early to drop in, so I stopped at a clothing store where the proprietor was unrolling his awning. It specialized in the colorfully embroidered blouses traditionally favored by Palestinian women, and the alert shopkeeper began his pitch with the line I had heard hundreds of times in Middle East bazaars.

  “You are first customer,” he said in English. “That is lucky, so I make good price.”

  “These are nice,” I replied in Arabic. “You must sell a lot.”

  I considered buying one for Mila, imagining she might wear it as an exotic nightshirt. That and nothing else, with the hem reaching just below the waist, her bush visible in brief glimpses as she stepped toward me. An erotic waltz in our great room, on a brisk night when the stars were hanging high in a black sky. A smile on her face as she handed me a smoky glass of port, then curled up next to me on the couch and tucked her toes beneath my thigh.

  “For you, I make very special price,” the proprietor said, which broke my reverie.

  “No, thank you. Not today.”

  Stepping around the corner I saw a sign across the street for the Shatt-al-Arab Coffee House, upstairs. Sami had recommended it as a great spot for listening in on political discussions, but during Ramadan it would be dead until sunset.

  No sooner had I laid eyes on the place than a familiar face bobbed into view. It was Nabil Mustafa, unsmiling and in a hurry. I backed beneath the nearest awning and saw him check his watch. He paused on the threshold of the doorway that led upstairs to the Shatt-al-Arab.

  He was well off his turf, and considering that he managed to take his beloved daughter into the city only once per month, this visit must have required a special effort. When he disappeared up the stairway I crossed the street, reaching the doorway just in time to hear his footsteps on the second-floor landing. There was a loud knock, followed by the opening of a door and muttered voices. Then the door shut. Silence.

  I stepped back into the street and looked up at the windows. The coffeehouse looked closed. The blades of its ceiling fans were still, and the lights were out. I stole up the stairway. Pausing on the landing, I again heard voices, but they were coming from the doorway opposite the coffeehouse entrance. At least three different men were talking, although the words were too muffled to comprehend. I crept back downstairs to check the name on the mailbox. WALID KHAMMAR.

  I wrote it down, congratulating myself for bringing along a notepad. Then I crossed the street and took up a concealed position to watch for Nabil. To avoid attracting attention to my loitering, I bought one of the embroidered blouses from the eager proprietor, which earned me the right to browse without being bothered. When Nabil emerged I set off behind him, leaving half a block between us. He turned into an alley toward a steep, narrow stairway leading up the stony hillside. There were only a few other people around, so I lagged further, not picking up the pace until I saw him disappear to the left around the corner of a house.

  Huffing and puffing, I quickly rounded the corner. He stood there as if he had been waiting, and I nearly ran him over. The heat rose in my face.

  “Following me, Freeman Lockhart? Or do you just happen to be going my way?”

  The odd thing was that he didn’t sound angry or affron
ted.

  “I, uh, saw you up ahead and was going to say hello.”

  He smiled wearily, then glanced over my shoulder as if others might also be in pursuit.

  “In that case, hello. It is a fine morning. Why don’t we walk together for a while?”

  I made a show of checking my watch.

  “Just a few blocks. I have an appointment to see an apartment. That’s why I was hurrying.”

  “Whereabouts?”

  “Jebel Amman.”

  “A nice neighborhood. Very comfortable.” Especially compared to Bakaa, I supposed he meant.

  “You think I should choose a more humble location?”

  “I make no such judgments. That is for others. And for God, of course.”

  “Wise decision.”

  “One we could all live by.”

  I got the hint, but said nothing. After a pause he continued.

  “I know you are curious about me, but you should know that you are not the only one.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There are others, that is all. And they may not think kindly of you trying to do their jobs for them.”

  “Look, if you think I was following you—”

  “It was only an observation.” Still no hint of malice. “I am merely saying there are others who have an interest in me, and you should be aware of this. If only for your safety.”

  “Who?”

  “It would do neither of us good for me to say.” He glanced behind us again, and this time I couldn’t help but look also. Nothing back there but a few boys, arguing over a soccer ball. “Just pay attention. That is my advice. Pay attention to those around you, and do your work for Omar as best you can. Stick to that and you should have no trouble with anyone.”

  “Like Dr. Hassan, you mean?”

  He shrugged.

  “I do not always understand Dr. Hassan. Too often he wishes to make a rivalry where there is none.”

  “Maybe because he is Fatah and you are Hamas?”

  If my remark caught him by surprise, he didn’t show it.