“I’d have thought everyone would want to be with their families for Eid.”
“Oh, we will be for the big feast day on Friday morning. But my family lives right in town, so I don’t need to travel. I’ll have to help my mother Thursday with the shopping, but by that night I’ll be ready to blow off a little steam.”
“In that case, count me in. Where are you meeting?”
“The InterCon. Just like old times.”
“I was there the other day. Saw they’d remodeled, but didn’t make it to the bar. Still a good one?”
“They’ve got a Mexican place, Cinco de Mayo, with a bar we like. The drinks are a little pricey, but the snacks are free. Sometimes from there we go to dinner. Plenty of places right in the neighborhood. So we’ll see you, then?”
“Absolutely. What time?”
“How ’bout seven?”
“Perfect. See you there.”
It was surprising how good it felt to be in demand again by females, even if just for a drink at a casual mini-reunion. Between Nura and Fiona, I supposed I wouldn’t be lacking for company.
My reception at the field office in Bakaa was considerably chillier. As before, two men who seemed to have nothing to do with fund-raising for a hospital were holding down the fort, pecking away at manual typewriters, although Hakim and his cut-rate automatic rifle were nowhere to be seen. The men briefly looked up when I entered, then resumed their typing. One was close enough that I could see he was working on a flyer announcing a political rally. I made a note to get a copy before I left. Maybe I would attend the event. It might be instructive to see who came.
“Is Nabil around?” I asked in Arabic.
Neither said a word, but at least they stopped typing. They exchanged glances before the second one mumbled something in street dialect about Nabil’s being “on a tour.”
“You will have to come back,” the first one said. “This afternoon.”
“Maybe Nabil is at home. Doesn’t he live right across the street?”
My knowledge seemed to surprise them, and they exchanged another glance.
“He is not home,” the first one said. “It is just as Mohammed said. Nabil is escorting a guest through the camp. It is a tour.”
“Who’s he showing around, someone from the government?”
“No. An American.”
That got my attention.
“A guest of the charity’s?”
“Yes. A donor.”
“Then if you don’t mind, I’ll just wait here.”
Apparently they did mind. Both of them left within minutes. Each heaved a great sigh, as if my lingering presence was the rudest sort of imposition. Unfortunately they took their work with them, so I never got a chance to read their creations. I checked around the office for anything more, but there was only a stack of pamphlets promoting the charity.
I tried to imagine how an American had arranged to visit without Omar telling me. And why would Nabil be leading the tour? If the object was to impress a Westerner, a staff member with possible ties to Hamas seemed like a shaky choice, especially when Dr. Hassan offered the pedantic self-importance that overseas benefactors had come to expect in places like this. Maybe he was too busy seeing patients, although even then I found it hard to believe that Omar would leave an American in Nabil’s care.
I took a seat allowing a decent view into the street through the open door, and a half hour later I spotted Nabil walking slowly toward the office alongside a sturdily attractive middle-aged woman. She wore stylish yet modest Western clothing, with a jade silk scarf covering her hair. As they moved closer I realized they were speaking Arabic, and the woman seemed entranced.
Maybe the choice of Nabil made sense, after all. I can’t imagine any woman who would have preferred Dr. Hassan’s stuffy company, while Nabil was the prototypical tall, dark, and handsome man. He carried himself with confident grace. You might even have called him dashing, and, as I had discovered during our conversation downtown, he could be quite engaging when he turned on the charm.
“Hello,” I announced in English.
Nabil stopped speaking in midsentence. I was able to pick up only the cryptic phrase “It mostly depends on how you’re wired” before he looked up in surprise. Intriguing choice of words, I thought.
Nabil immediately switched to English, perhaps to let his guest know where I was from, although in short order his decision would prove to be a tactical error.
“No one told me you were coming,” he said.
“I wasn’t aware I was supposed to give advance warning, seeing as how I work here.”
“Does he know why I’m here?” the woman asked in Arabic. Her tone sounded worried. She probably assumed I didn’t speak the language.
I replied in Arabic.
“No,” I said, “I don’t. But that was my next question.”
She blushed and turned to Nabil.
“You must be tired from all your traveling,” he told her calmly. “Don’t worry, he is not here to pressure you for an immediate donation. All in good time.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m being impolite. I should have introduced myself right away. Freeman Lockhart, Omar’s director of programs. You’ve met Omar?”
She again turned to Nabil for help.
“That introduction has been delayed due to Omar’s absence abroad. As I said. All in good time.”
“Of course. In the meantime, maybe I could offer some assistance, Ms….?”
“Mrs. Aliyah Rahim,” Nabil said. “From Washington. Although she was born near Jerusalem.”
“Washington? Are you with the government?”
This time she spoke for herself.
“Oh, no. Nothing like that.”
“An NGO, then?”
“Just an interested citizen. I haven’t lived in Palestine since I was five, and I’ve come to see the sights of Jordan.” Her Arabic was rusty, with a pronounced American accent.
Often when two Americans meet abroad in a benighted place like Bakaa there is a brief flare of kinship, usually marked by an exchange of information about hometowns and occupations, followed by the obligatory session of “Do You Know?” Then someone might offer a light remark about the state of affairs back home, or commiserate about how long it took to get there. Mrs. Rahim offered nothing of the sort, and seemed quite willing to let the conversation die. But I wasn’t, so I lobbed her another question.
“How did you hear about us?”
Another glance toward Nabil, who supplied yet another answer.
“There was some literature about our organization at her hotel.”
“The InterContinental,” she added.
“Nice place. How long are you staying?”
“A week or so.”
“And now,” Nabil said, “I am afraid we must keep moving. Dr. Hassan is expecting us. Unless, of course, you needed to see me about something urgent?”
“Nothing that can’t wait. Obviously you’re busy.”
He led her gently toward the door.
“Pleasure meeting you,” I said. I then took one of the business cards that Omar had printed for me and pushed it into her hand. “Hope to see you again before you leave, Mrs. Rahim.”
She smiled wanly, then disappeared into the crowded street.
Well, now. What was that all about? I somehow doubted she had really heard about us in town. I decided to check later with Dr. Hassan. Maybe he knew more.
By then it was well past noon. What I would have liked to do next was to visit a falafel stand for a fat, overstuffed sandwich. But during Ramadan that was out of the question, so I settled for yet another visit to a market for fruit and bread to eat in the office.
I was just finishing when a blare of loudspeakers caught my attention, and I threw open the door in time to see a Toyota truck rolling by with hand-painted banners on its sides and a young fellow in a red-checked kaffiyeh leaning out the passenger window. He held an electric megaphone, barking out announcements over the h
eads of the midday throngs. In the truck’s wake were a few dozen schoolboys, who seemed to be following for lack of anything better to do.
It wasn’t easy deciphering the message through the fuzz and burn of feedback, but as best I could tell he was urging everyone to attend a rally that weekend. Maybe it was the same event Nabil’s friends were promoting. For all I knew, the pamphlets being scattered like flower petals from the back of the Toyota had been printed in this very office.
It was the usual junk and glory of Palestinian activism. The rally, the fellow on the megaphone said, was going to offer everyone who attended a chance “to show them all up.” Whoever “them” was. On the West Bank, “them” always meant the Israelis, the armed occupiers of the IDF. Here it could be referring to local political rivals or the Jordanian government, and I had little doubt that such processions attracted their share of Mukhabarat operatives or informants. By later this afternoon, a full report would probably be on someone’s desk at the big building off the Eighth Circle.
The noise faded as the parade rounded a far corner, and I decided to check in at Dr. Hassan’s. A twenty-minute stroll brought me to the crowded waiting room, where I asked the receptionist to tell him I had arrived.
“I am sorry, sir, but Dr. Hassan is away.”
“Then maybe you know where Nabil and his guest have gone.”
She regarded me with puzzlement.
“Nabil Mustafa, I mean. Wasn’t he here earlier? With a Palestinian woman from America?”
Her puzzlement turned to amazement.
“He would never come here uninvited, sir. He is not welcome.”
I left a bit sheepishly, feeling as if I had been made the butt of a practical joke. As I went out the door the little political procession passed my way again. It had picked up more followers, and now there were about fifty chanting males in its wake.
I wondered again about the mysterious Mrs. Rahim. Whose rallying cry, if any, was she marching to? Maybe, as she said, she was simply a tourist on a sentimental journey. It wasn’t unusual for wealthy Palestinians of the Diaspora to want to see how the less fortunate were faring. That could account for why she seemed embarrassed once I showed up. A fellow American had caught her in the act of slumming.
But there were other possibilities, too, involving more secretive and even alarming motives. Nabil’s cryptic phrase, “It mostly depends on how you’re wired,” certainly covered some interesting territory.
I added the name of Aliyah Rahim to the list of those worthy of further scrutiny.
24
The surreal nature of Aliyah’s mission didn’t sink in until she landed in Frankfurt for a six-hour layover.
She hadn’t slept a wink on the overnight crossing. Instead she squirmed her way through a dreary movie, three European sitcoms, and a chilly breakfast served in the blinding glare of sunrise over the North Atlantic. By the time she finally slumped into a cushioned chair along one of the terminal’s busiest thoroughfares she was too dazed to do anything but stare at the passing crowds with eyes that felt sanded and buffed.
That was when it hit her: In a matter of hours she would be meeting with plotters and bomb makers, the very people she had always scorned as a hurt and hindrance to her family. In trying to imagine the days ahead, she envisioned hooded men bristling with weapons. They would blindfold her and bundle her into the trunks of cars to drive to their hidden lairs and safe houses, where bearded men would sit cross-legged on threadbare carpets beneath posters of Mecca and Jerusalem’s Dome of the Rock. She would drink tea served on brass trays in between discussions of bomb placement and wiring, and she would endure endless diatribes against infidel Americans. Arab or not, she supposed she had been influenced by Hollywood as much as any American.
She shifted uncomfortably in the airport chair. Next to her, an Asian man in a business suit began snoring. How had matters come to this? Could she really pull it off? Suddenly it seemed like a terrible idea to have left Abbas to his own devices in Washington. He might get it in his head to try anything. Thank goodness they had never owned firearms.
Their parting had been awkward. Abbas drove her to Dulles with quiet solicitude, but his farewell at the security barrier unnerved her.
“Remember,” he said, reaching up to lightly stroke her cheek, “you are doing this for our children.”
The gesture was touching, the words chilling. Carrying out his plan would damn their children’s names forever, and his words rendered her speechless. She only nodded in reply, and then held him tightly as she wondered what other thoughts and secrets were adrift in his mind.
Then she reminded herself that, under her agenda, this trip really was for the children. And for Abbas, too. But what if she were caught by local authorities? A day earlier she had read a story in the Post about how the Jordanian government was cracking down on young jihadists as they straggled back across the border from Iraq. Maybe she would wind up in the net also. And even if she had the best of intentions, her actions could land her in jail back in the United States if American authorities ever got wind of what she was up to.
Such thoughts continued to trouble her in Frankfurt, so she went to an airport café in search of relief. A strong cup of coffee and a four-euro pastry revived her spirits. She watched with envy as a young mother at the next table tended to a drowsy pair of twins in a double stroller.
In a surge of optimism she bought a Herald Tribune. Perhaps there would be a late bulletin of the senator’s death, making a shambles of Abbas’s plans. Instead there was only more news from Iraq, with its bombings and failures. She shoved the paper into an overflowing trash bin as bile rose in her throat, tasting of burned coffee. No more looking back, she told herself. No more hoping for an easy way out.
The burst of resolve calmed her, and by the time her plane took off for Amman she was relaxed enough to sleep.
No one met her at the airport, thank goodness. The only information she had to go on was the contact name and number from Abbas. He had insisted that she stay in first-class accommodations, and had booked her a room at the InterContinental. She reached the hotel in late afternoon. The bellhop threw open the curtains onto a street scene of heavy traffic and long shadows. Just one more hour of daylight, she told herself. Wait it out, drink a bottle of water, and then sleep. She would telephone the contact number in the morning. That way she would have already put one day behind her without having advanced Abbas’s cause.
For security reasons, Abbas and she had agreed not to be in touch until the day before her departure, when she would send an e-mail detailing her flight plans. She believed this isolation would work to her advantage. He would have no way of knowing how little she was doing, or what sort of questions she was asking. Her plan, apart from her delaying tactics, was to learn more about disarming bombs than making them. But she also realized the potential disadvantages. What if Abbas did something rash in her absence? Or, worse, what if he grew impatient and found some way to carry it off without any help from abroad? Teamwork had always been a hallmark of how they dealt with important family matters, and she was counting on that to prevent him from acting alone. But she worried that in his current state of mind, if he was pushed for time, his resourcefulness might overcome his spirit of cooperation. That, and his vial of little pills.
Aliyah slid open the door to the balcony and stepped outside. The crisp evening air felt perfect. It was her first time in Amman, and she hadn’t expected all the hills, with their crowded, blocky architecture, everything rendered in watercolor shades of tan and off-white. Or so it seemed in the slanting light. The air had a strange smell, which stirred a vague familiarity. It was the dry, smoky character, she supposed, which took her back to distant times she hadn’t revisited in ages.
She recalled in particular a walk she had taken with her brothers between West Bank villages high in the crags above the Jordan River’s valley. They had been visiting relatives at the time, and she must have been only five, just before the ’67 war. Her brothers
grew impatient with her slow pace and told her to wait for them to collect her on their return journey. She was tired, and happy to oblige, so she stretched out on her back on a barren hilltop, feeling the warm ground against the back of her cotton dress as she stared up into the sharp blue sky. The noise of her brothers’ chatter receded until she was blanketed by a thrilling silence.
A few minutes later, as she still gazed skyward, there was movement in the corner of her eye, followed by a light wisping sound from above. It was a stork, she saw. No, three of them, now hundreds, maybe thousands. They were far overhead, like a great mass of white confetti, blowing south toward the Sinai. Then they paused as if the wind had stopped them, and the white particles began to circle. It took a few moments before she realized they were moving closer, easing lower with each revolution. Maybe they were coming to say hello, or just to find out who she was, what she was up to. She never felt threatened, only thrilled, as if at any moment one of the storks might cry out, try to speak to her. Soon they were close enough for Aliyah to hear every wingbeat, a thousand whispers like a roomful of gossips. By then they were no more than a few hundred feet above her, casting shadows where she lay. Then, as if following some silent command, they suddenly began to rise, until they were high enough to continue southward. She was so spellbound by the experience that when her brothers returned they were certain she had been bewitched by a jinn, some rogue spirit loose on the landscape.
Now where had that memory come from? She looked across the city, certain that deep within her there were plenty of other connections to this land. It might do her some good to acknowledge that more often. She knew it was what their son, Faris, wanted from his parents. He yearned for touchstones.
Aliyah hadn’t been to this part of the world in nine years, and even that visit had been a sad journey to Nablus for the funeral of Abbas’s mother, a trip that had turned tense and ugly when an Israeli soldier was shot in the town. They spent most of the week indoors or waiting at checkpoints.
She yawned. The hours of travel were catching up to her, so she stepped back inside and slid the door shut. The hum of the air conditioner beckoned her to bed.
The Amateur Spy Page 26