The Amateur Spy

by Dan Fesperman

  She sensed this was the last and most important hurdle. It was like landing in the middle of an ancient myth to face a bridge-keeper’s riddle. A lie wouldn’t work. He knew her too well. Unless the lie concerned the one part of her life he had studiously avoided, to the point of ridicule. Her religion. He would probably believe that almost anything could have transpired during her journey of faith.

  “It is not out of anger,” she said slowly, carefully. “It is out of a sense of rightness, of justice. Holy justice. The kind they talk about at the mosque.”

  Then she quoted a sura from the Quran that she well remembered, not because she had taken it to heart but because she had found it so disturbing. It was like one of those fiery biblical verses the televangelists spouted on late-night cable.

  “‘Believers, retaliation is decreed for you in bloodshed.’ Those are the words of the Holy Prophet. Annie’s words teach me control, but at the mosque I learn about God’s power, and how to marshal it and direct it from within.”

  Abbas nodded slowly, as if taking stock of this new side of his wife’s personality. Maybe it frightened him a little.

  “Well, this is no jihad for me, I can tell you that,” he said at last. “It’s strictly personal. To send them all a message.”

  “Addition by subtraction?” she said, unable to keep a hint of derision from seeping into Skip Ellington’s words. “I thought you said it wasn’t a doctor’s job to play God.”

  “I’m still keeping all my oaths. I would never betray my role as a healer. This is a job I’m doing as a man, as a father. And, yes, you may call it addition by subtraction if you like. Because I will be doing the world a favor. Righting a wrong, if only by letting them know what they’re up against. I will become their worst nightmare, an enemy who is educated, secular, and thoroughly assimilated. One of them. They won’t know what to make of anyone. So I refuse to make this a godly cause for your benefit, and I will not allow you to make it one. But as long as you can help, and know how to keep a secret, well…maybe.”

  He threw his hands in the air, apparently resigned to her participation, or at least to her knowledge.

  Aliyah had to admit there was a terrible brilliance to what he had said. He would be their worst nightmare, and for precisely the reasons he outlined. But he was wrong if he thought that would change their behavior for the better. Rather than awakening to reason, they would resort to further insanity and suspicion and would lash out even more. She considered arguing the point, but decided it was too risky. Delusions such as his could never be overcome by mere words. She wondered anew about whatever drug he was taking. In his current state of mind, this plan must seem like the most logical thing in the world. So she nodded, sealing their pact, and then went to the kitchen to make coffee.

  By the time she reached the sink her legs were wobbly and she wanted to be sick. The moment’s grotesque unreality had unstrung her—the idea that this man she lived with, slept with, and had loved for ages could somehow reconcile a lifetime of saving others with such a hideous plan for murder, and then discuss it with such rational directness. She collected herself for a moment as the water ran into the pot, fighting back tears of fear and disappointment. He was ill, she told herself, ill and in need of her help. And she could provide that only by making the journey with him. Then, at some key moment, she would gently take the wheel and steer him out of harm’s way.

  “When did you first get the idea?” she called out, laboring to keep her voice from trembling.

  “A few weeks ago.”

  He took a seat at the kitchen table, as if this were just another evening at home together and they were discussing the day’s news.

  “It was that story on NPR.”

  “The bombing in Kandahar? The one you thought was such genius?”

  “I thought you weren’t listening. I was hoping you weren’t.”

  “I wasn’t. But it all came back to me tonight, once I started putting the pieces together.”

  Then she asked the question that scared her most.

  “How far along are you?”

  “Not far enough.”

  He creased his brow in worry. Her spirits lifted. There was hope, and with each passing day perhaps there would be more.

  “Then you do need my help.”

  “You may be right. Sit down. I’ll tell you where I am, and what I need.”

  She did as he asked, and listened incredulously as he spelled out his plan down to the smallest details. All along she tried to discern points of weakness and vulnerability that she might exploit later. And she was heartened to discover that she had at least one important ally. Time.

  “What scares me most,” Abbas said, “is that the senator could die any day. One infection, one further complication—just about anything—would be enough to make it a matter of hours, maybe a day or two at the most. That’s the point he has reached. So of course I’ve been doing all I can to make sure that doesn’t happen. The family can hardly believe I’m spending so much time on him. They think it’s compassion, of course. Or maybe they think the hospital is trying to curry favor. It’s always politics with them.

  “His wife is the only one who isn’t a cynic. She’s convinced that somehow the old fool must have won me over, which only shows how blind she is to everything else. So I let her believe it.”

  Aliyah wondered how he managed to face them day after day while knowing that they would be among his victims. But she supposed that in his twisted new way of seeing the world, his zealous care was yet another affirmation that he was still upholding his professional ethics. Kill as an avenging bomber, but never as a caring doctor.

  “My other problem is expertise,” he said, “and, frankly, manpower. Getting a tunnel dug properly, underneath the alley to just below the church, then getting the right explosives. The book’s a little outdated. It’s too hard doing it with fertilizer anymore. Too many controls now on bulk buying. And I think this is where you might be able to help.”

  “With explosives?”

  He shook his head.

  “Expertise. Or finding it. Meeting with someone who can help us. I already have a local contact. But he has referred me to someone abroad.”

  “Where?”

  “Jordan. In Amman. They’ve passed word they’re willing to help.”

  “You’re not corresponding by e-mail, I hope. Or by phone?”

  “Goodness, no. No one with any brains would try that anymore. Personal contacts. Relayed messages. But they want me to make the next move. I am supposed to demonstrate my commitment, as they put it.”

  “With money?”

  “That, too. But also a visit. To show that I mean business. So I’ve decided to go there, if only for a day or two. That’s where they’re supposed to teach me what I need to know.”

  “In Jordan?”

  He nodded. She was astounded.

  “Were you going to tell me?”

  “Of course. But I was going to say it was for a medical reason. Some special patient who requested my assistance. A prominent Arab. I had already come up with a cover story for both you and the hospital. But that’s not my real worry. I’m wondering if I will even be allowed to go. I doubt it will be so easy for me to travel overseas anymore. Not after what happened in New York.”

  During the Circle Line fiasco, he meant. The stupid misunderstanding that led to their arrest, and then to Abbas’s being locked up while clueless authorities debated whether his past donations to Palestinian aid organizations made him a threat to national security.

  A few angry letters from his hospital colleagues, plus the discreet pressure applied by a few former patients, had finally freed him, and no charges were filed. But now his name was out there, perhaps still on some watch list. Any trip abroad might bring on renewed scrutiny when he could least afford it, especially if he traveled to a destination such as Jordan.

  Aliyah saw her opportunity and seized it.

  “Let me go, then. I’m not on anyone’s list.”
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br />   If he assented, then she knew she could stop him, as long as the senator cooperated by not living too long. Once in Jordan, she would do whatever it took to engineer the necessary obstructions. Missed appointments. Delayed flights. Unkept promises. Contacts who failed to show. The possibilities abounded. And while she was at it, she might even learn the best ways to thwart him—which wires to snip, which contacts to loosen to ensure that a bomb couldn’t possibly explode. It would probably be far tougher than she envisioned, but anything would be better than just letting events run their course, and this way she could take an active hand in stopping him. It was the best she had felt all morning.

  But Abbas frowned. Then he shook his head.

  “I can’t risk it,” he said. “I don’t think you realize how dangerous this might be.”

  Aliyah reached across the table and took his hands in hers. Then she looked him in the eye.

  “Don’t think of it as my risk. Think of it as ours. Haven’t we always handled our family’s biggest challenges together, you and me? Until Shereen died, anyway. Maybe it’s time we got that back. It was always our way before, and it should be again. Now more than ever. Let me do this for you.”

  “Maybe you’re right. And they’ll be impressed by your faith. That was the one part I was dreading, having to fake that. Although from what I gather, the contact is more the pragmatic type.”

  “What’s his name?”

  Abbas retreated to his study for a moment, and she heard him rummaging through his papers. He returned with a single sheet, which he handed to her across the table. She didn’t recognize the handwriting, and the information was scant—only a first name and a phone number, and the name of what sounded to her like a charity, and a respectable one at that.

  “This is who we’re supposed to see?”

  “Yes.”

  “And he wouldn’t object to meeting with a woman?”

  “I’ll check. But I don’t think so. Like I said, he is supposedly pious, but also very pragmatic. Whatever gets the job done. He only wants to be assured of my commitment. Maybe sending my wife is all he will need. Then you can find out the information we need and return as soon as possible.”

  “How long will I have?”

  “The senator should last at least another few weeks, assuming nothing unexpected happens. I figure I’ll need at least two for the work, even with some help. So you should try to finish up within a week. The visa you can get in a day. The ticket, too. So what do you think? Leave on Wednesday, maybe? Can you get the time off from work?”

  “I’ll tell them it’s a family emergency. But there are some loose ends I’d like to tie up first, so I might need a day or two. Why don’t we say Friday?”

  He frowned, but nodded. Already she had bargained away two days of his precious time. The moment she hit the ground in Jordan she could begin using up more. It would work—she was sure of it. Unless the senator surprised them all, of course, and kept on living for weeks on end. In which case Aliyah would find some other way out of this mess. If she was expected to gain enough knowledge to help him, perhaps she could also gain enough knowledge to thwart him.

  Either way, traveling to Jordan seemed to be her only chance of stopping him, short of turning him in to the police. By succeeding she would save both their lives, and perhaps hundreds of others.

  And if she failed? She wasn’t yet strong enough to consider the possibility.

  She glanced at the clock on the microwave and saw that it was 5 a.m. She was exhausted.

  “Let’s go back to bed,” she said.

  Abbas nodded. He, too, looked spent.

  She took his hand again, uncertainly now. Hard to believe that only a few hours ago they had been making love and she was thinking their worst days were over. They walked slowly upstairs, the bereaved suburban parents reunited in loss, now beginning their passage to someplace new and frightening.

  22

  I awoke with a start at sundown, just as the wheels of the jet scorched against the tarmac in a swirl of desert dust.

  Somewhere below me in the baggage compartment were two large suitcases stuffed with the items I’d picked up on Karos. But the heavier burden from the visit was the memory of the empty house. It overwhelmed me with its smells of cooking, of Mila’s soaps and perfumes, and the ashy taint of cigarettes left behind by the advance man for Black, White, and Gray.

  Stavros made an appearance, but hardly said a word as he watched me puttering about the garden and shed, locking everything in sight. I didn’t feel like telling him we might never be back. Maybe he thought we had split up. His only real concern was getting paid, and once his euros were in hand he trudged back up the hill to his goats and windswept silence. Watching his retreat, I spied the rooftop of the DeKuyper place, and with an hour to kill before catching the ferry I decided on one last trek to the scene of the crime.

  I got no farther than the driveway, where the same fellow who had shooed Mila and me away again stood in my path. This time he held a rush broom instead of a shovel, medieval pikeman on patrol. I surveyed what I could of the scene. Two cars were in the drive—a Mercedes and a Jaguar, but no red Opel. Perhaps the man himself was home. The curtains were open, but there was no other sign of life. I returned to the road and followed it around the hillside to the island’s southern tip. From there you could see DeKuyper’s big yacht bobbing at the dock. No motor skiffs. If I ever got back here, I was determined to demand entry and an explanation.

  Item one on my retooled agenda in Amman was to get in touch with the three contacts I’d thought of at the taverna. Item two was to learn more about Norbert Krieger and Professor Yiorgos Soukas. Maybe Sami would be back by now—a visit to his salon would be item three. I would plug away until I had enough information to either condemn or exonerate Omar. If doing so took longer than I had initially hoped, so be it. One of my earlier mistakes was to assume I could succeed on the cheap. Quick in, quick out. Gather a few raw materials, ship them to Black, then wash my hands of any and all repercussions.

  But that course of action left the interpretation of my findings entirely up to my handlers, whose motives I no longer trusted, not after what I’d seen of their tactics. With a little extra effort and risk I might be able to first place the information in context, or sketch out its grand design. If Omar was indeed contributing to harm in this world, then I would help stop him, and do us both a favor. If not, I would clear his name. For once I would leave behind nothing to atone for.

  I doubted a professional would have considered such a strategy. From what I gathered, pros didn’t want to know anything beyond what was necessary to complete their assignment, in case they were caught or interrogated. But I cared little about protecting my employer’s secrets. Amateur status has its advantages.

  No sooner had I entered the little stone house on Othman Bin Affan Street than I was greeted by a laptop computer on the kitchen table—the very one stolen from my hotel room in Athens. Impressive, I guess. But I wasn’t as rattled as I would have been even a few days ago. I headed out for groceries, and then got down to business, strolling to the Internet café I had chosen as the base for my online research.

  An English-language bookstore on a neighborhood street, it kept late hours. I was the only customer, with my pick of five desktops just around the corner from the bored cashier.

  I set up a Hotmail account for e-mail, then proceeded to Google. I doubt even the pros would have had such an amazing wealth of data at their fingertips fifteen years ago. The world at large was now better equipped for freelance snooping than at any time in history.

  Or so I was thinking until the search for “Norbert Krieger” produced a mere five hits.

  Only one seemed plausibly connected to the man I’d seen with Omar in Athens. It was an August 2002 newsletter for the Islamic Association of Germany, and listed a Norbert Krieger among several dozen guests at a fund-raising dinner. The event had been held in Munich. Perhaps that was where he lived. I did a quick search for the Is
lamic organization, found its sketchy Web site, wrote down a few names and numbers, and tucked them away.

  Professor Yiorgos Soukas turned up most prominently on the staff of the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, where Krieger had gone to meet him. The museum’s Web site helpfully provided a link to the professor’s CV. He was a specialist in Iron Age archaeological sites and had participated in two digs in the Middle East—one at Jericho, another at a site in Jordan called Wadi Fidan. Nothing about either suggested any reason he would want to contribute to a hospital for Palestinian refugees or the region’s more radical activities.

  The next order of business was to get in touch with my chosen contacts.

  The first was Hans Wolters, my old boss from intifada days. Last I’d heard he was still somewhere across the River Jordan, although no longer on the UN payroll. He was said to be working for some peace group that preferred operating behind the scenes, functioning as middleman between parties who wouldn’t be caught dead in the same room. Hans had gone deeper into the morass while most of us had deserted it altogether.

  A search of his name turned up a few quotes in an eight-year-old Reuters account of a Palestinian retribution killing in Jenin, but nothing more recent. I supposed I would simply have to ask around, and the best person to start with was next on my list.

  That would be Chris Boylan, the former Aussie soldier and sheep farmer who had also patrolled the mean streets for Hans and UNRWA. A mutual friend had mentioned a few years ago that Chris was leading a UN disarmament team in Afghanistan, a role in which he worked hand in glove with intelligence operatives. Later he supposedly wound up in Iraq, working for a private security contractor. If he was still there, then he and I were practically in the same neighborhood.

  Sure enough, his name showed up in a Guardian piece from the UK, only five months old. He was quoted as a consultant for a London-based outfit called Near East Security Ltd. The firm’s Web site was predictably tight-lipped but did offer an e-mail address for inquiries. Hoping for the best, I fired off a brief, general message asking if Mr. Boylan could please get in touch with his old friend, Freeman Lockhart, who was now working for an NGO in Amman.