The Amateur Spy

by Dan Fesperman

  At 10 the next morning, after a leisurely breakfast in the lobby café, she reluctantly got down to business by punching in the phone number. As the line rang she prayed for a tape-recorded answer, hoping against hope that the number had been disconnected. Instead, a woman picked up on the second ring. Aliyah asked to speak to Khalid. It was the only name she had.

  “Just a moment.”

  The line crackled with static as the phone changed hands. Then a male voice said, “Call my mobile instead.”

  He gave her the number and hung up. Aliyah scrambled to find a pen before she forgot it. Then she calmed herself and dialed again. Khalid answered right away but still wasn’t ready to do business.

  “Where are you?” he said.

  “My hotel. The InterContinental.”

  “Those lines aren’t so good. Please try me on your mobile.”

  “I don’t think my cell phone will work here.”

  “There are some shops down the street where you can buy one. I will be here all morning.”

  He hung up. A matter of security, she supposed. Just as well, because it was another delay, and she would make the most of it.

  She spent two hours finding the right shop and settling on a phone. Then she ordered a room service lunch, ate at a snail’s pace, and shoved the tray and its clattering silver lids into the hallway before calling back. With any luck, Khalid would have given up.

  He again answered right away, with no hint of impatience.

  “We need to meet,” he said. “Preferably at a café, someplace in public. After sundown, of course.” Because it was Ramadan, he meant. She hadn’t been at all vigilant about her holiday fasting back in the U.S., but supposed that she should take more care here. “I must break fast first, and then I will see you. Eight o’clock. The Al Khabar Café, in Shmeisani. Any taxi driver will know it.”

  The more she saw of the city on the ride across town, the less it impressed her. It was a sprawl with no center, and everything had been built in a hurry. Each successive boulevard looked like the one before it, with the same billboards and banks. Clean enough, she supposed, and some of the new hotels begged spectacularly for attention. But there was little of the concentrated bustle that she had always found so stimulating in other Arab cities, such as Cairo or Damascus.

  When she arrived at the Al Khabar she wondered if the taxi had taken her to the wrong place. The clientele and atmosphere wouldn’t have been out of place on Dupont Circle in Washington. Subdued track lighting beamed onto leather-backed stools and black circular tables with chrome edging. Wall-mounted speakers pulsed with a driving beat. Was that Madonna singing? Anticipating something far different, Aliyah had dressed conservatively and covered her head with a scarf. Only one other woman here was similarly attired, and even she wore a scarlet silk blouse and tight jeans. Half the customers were smoking cigarettes, which took some getting used to. Others puffed at hookah pipes of flavored tobacco.

  Shortly after entering she noticed a small man with a trim salt-and-pepper beard nodding to her from across the room. She nodded back and approached his table.

  “Khalid?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is that your real name?”

  “Of course.”

  As if he would have said otherwise. He signaled to the waitress, and Aliyah ordered coffee. Then, perhaps to set the tone, Khalid began tossing out the euphemisms they were presumably supposed to use from then on.

  “I understand you are looking for investment expertise to help in your acquisition project.”

  “Yes. We need lots of advice.”

  He nodded, as if to affirm she had answered in just the right way.

  “What is the timing of your acquisition?”

  “That depends.”

  “On executive health issues, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then we will try to act as expeditiously as possible.”

  “All right.”

  She felt supremely ridiculous, and could hardly believe the conversation was taking place. Between jet lag and nervousness, she wanted to burst out laughing. It was like a school play, and her pose as a willing participant made it a sham within a sham. Nor did it help that Khalid cut a ridiculous figure. His short legs didn’t even reach the floor from the stool, which made him look like a boy with a fake beard. At least no one else seemed to be paying them any attention.

  Her coffee arrived, hot and strong. She sipped and looked down at the table while trying to forget where she was. Khalid leaned across the table and spoke up to be heard over the music.

  “I am going to put you in touch with two people, both of them in the Bakaa camp. The first will advise you on technical matters. His name is also Khalid.”

  “Are all of you named Khalid?”

  “Don’t ask those kinds of questions, please.”

  She searched his face for any hint of amusement, and found none.

  “You will meet him tomorrow. A driver will come to your hotel at noon. We will reveal the name of the second contact only when we have decided you are ready.”

  “You mean I have to prove myself?”

  “There is no need to burden you with too much information until you are fully prepared for the next step.”

  “And how long will that take?”

  “Not so long. After you meet your contact tomorrow you will receive a call on your mobile with further instructions. Always use your mobile. And, Aliyah?”

  It was the first time anyone had used her name since she left Washington, and it was jarring. It told her this wasn’t playacting after all.

  “Yes?”

  “Do not create any further delays. I understand why you might have some reluctance. You are taking an important step. But it should not have taken you two hours to buy a phone and return my call.”

  His tone wasn’t angry and his expression didn’t change, but she got the message all the same. They were watching closely, and wanted to see a more convincing performance.

  “Tell me one more thing,” she said.

  “If I can.”

  “Why am I using my real name when no one else is?”

  “Because your name is one of your advantages. In Jordan, where many names automatically attract attention and suspicion, yours is a good name, beyond reproach.”

  Tell that to the authorities in London, she thought, or in New York. Maybe she should even say that out loud. It was why she was here, after all, the mere fact of their name and the consequences it had produced. But Khalid had already hopped down from the stool and was dropping dinars on the table. He then headed for the door without a further word. Aliyah followed a few seconds later. By the time she reached the sidewalk he was gone.

  As promised, the taxi came for her the next day at noon. At first she wondered if the driver himself was the contact. Five minutes of small talk convinced her he wasn’t. And when they reached Bakaa he had trouble finding their destination. It didn’t exactly seem like a smooth operation. Encouraging.

  Bakaa, at least, was more in line with her expectations than the Al Khabar Café. The cab dropped her off on a narrow lane strewn with garbage, which had attracted a flock of foraging goats.

  “That is the building you want,” the driver said. “The one with the blue sign.”

  He motioned toward an auto repair shop across the street.

  “Are you sure?”

  “I am positive. You see?”

  He showed the directions he had scribbled on a spare receipt, a series of twists and turns ending with the name of the garage.

  “Thank you.”

  The taxi departed in a zephyr of grit, and she stood uncertainly at the curb. Once again she had dressed all wrong. This time she had chosen not to cover her head, so now, of course, all the women walking by had covered theirs. Aliyah stood out as an obvious visitor. All the more reason to get off the street as quickly as possible. But who was she supposed to meet?

  In the garage bay, a man covered head to toe in grease had just di
sappeared beneath a truck, and a second stood at a workbench, welding something in a shower of sparks.

  A voice spoke up from behind, making her jump.

  “Are you Aliyah?”

  “Goodness. Yes, I am.”

  “I am sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you. But I believe you are here to meet me. I am Khalid.”

  He was tall, a striking man dressed all in white, with intense but kindly eyes. Just as he spoke again, a pneumatic drill shrieked into action, rattling like a machine gun, but she understood enough to realize she was supposed to follow him. When they had put some distance between themselves and the garage, he said, “I have been asked to help you.”

  “So I’m told. Is there someplace we should go to talk?”

  “Walking may be best for now. Then it is less likely we will be overheard.”

  “You have to worry about that here?”

  “Especially here.”

  She took a closer look. He was probably in his mid-forties, with a calmness to his movements that helped put her at ease. He said nothing for a moment, as if waiting for her to start things off.

  “Well?” Aliyah prompted.

  “We are supposed to talk about explosives, I think,” he said.

  “You think?”

  “Is this not the case?”

  “Yes, this is the case.”

  “Very well. The problem is that I don’t know very much about the subject. So I am guessing that I am supposed to find someone for you who does.”

  “You’re guessing?”

  “Yes. I am afraid that they did not tell me much more. You see, I am not accustomed to this sort of work.”

  “I can see that, Khalid.”

  Her emphasis on the name seemed to make him uneasy. Or maybe he was embarrassed. She supposed it was also possible he didn’t trust Americans, even if they were Arabs. Or perhaps he was an uptight young religious conservative, an Islamic fundamentalist who wasn’t comfortable addressing a woman as an equal, especially a bareheaded woman. But that reaction would probably have produced scorn, not shyness.

  “Well, there are several ways we can approach this,” he said.

  “Perhaps you should start with the easiest.”

  “As you wish.”

  He began to speak calmly, if somewhat distractedly, of people who knew of detonators and circuitry, and of others who might know about the maximum poundage that a woman of her size might reasonably wear beneath her clothing. He didn’t seem at all comfortable talking about it. But he said he knew of such people if they were the types of people she truly wanted to see. That’s when she realized, to her horror, that he must believe she wanted to wire herself for a suicide bomb.

  “They say that it depends greatly on your strength,” he said. “Do you have much stamina?”

  Had no one told him her actual plans? For the first time, she seriously doubted the soundness of having come here. Far from being scarily competent, these people seemed like a loose collection of misfits. It was time to put an immediate stop to this terrifying nonsense. She stopped in her tracks and turned sharply toward Khalid—or Khalid II, as she already thought of him.

  “I am not aware of what anyone may have told you about me, but I really am not planning to blow myself up. Not here, not anywhere.”

  “Oh.”

  Was it her imagination, or did he seem relieved?

  “I had not been told fully of your intentions, you see.”

  Yes, he was definitely relieved. Color was returning to his face.

  “As I said,” he continued, “I am only acting as a favor to someone else.”

  “I can tell.”

  “You can?”

  “Yes. Because this is new for me, too. I know exactly how you feel.”

  “Ah.”

  “And although I am interested in learning about explosives”—mostly in learning how to ensure that they won’t go off, she thought—“I definitely don’t plan on this being my last act in life.”

  He smiled a bit nervously, as if waiting for her to explain further. His awkwardness was appealing, and she realized now that he reminded her a bit of her son, Faris—an older version with the same eagerness to please, the same courtly manner.

  “I really don’t know what else to tell you,” he said finally.

  “Then maybe you should refer me to someone else. In the meantime you can call me a taxi.”

  “Yes. We can do that at my office. Please, it is this way.”

  They turned up a long alley, and for a while they said nothing more. But as the shock of the misunderstanding wore off, Aliyah decided that she wanted to know more about this seemingly reasonable man and how he had ended up in such an appalling line of work. Because if he was truly as reluctant as she was, maybe he could help her after all.

  “What else did they tell you about me?” she asked.

  “Only that you were an American from Washington who was interested in bomb making. And that you would be arriving in Rashid’s taxi.”

  “You know my driver?”

  “Yes.”

  “Interesting. He played it pretty cool.”

  “As I said, this work is new to me.”

  She smiled.

  “And what were we supposed to do, once we met?”

  “I was told to let you set the tone.”

  “I had the opposite understanding. Sounds like someone screwed up.”

  “Yes.”

  Then he, too, smiled, and she felt better until reminding herself that only moments ago he had been advising her on the best ways to blow oneself up. The thought made her shiver, because for a moment she could almost imagine the horrible feeling of carrying out such an order. It was bad enough contemplating the heat and pressure of the heavy vest beneath your blouse, or the moment when you would pull the lanyard to vaporize yourself. Still worse was the idea of strolling into some crowded shop and scanning the faces of everyone you were about to kill. Hearing their laughter and conversation, getting a brief glimpse into their lives. She remembered the mom at the airport café, tending to her twins, one last act of love before the descent of death and chaos.

  “Are you all right?” Khalid II asked. “You seem very tired.”

  She looked at him again, wanting to believe that he would have been unable to complete his instructions. Right now she needed a kindred spirit, and Khalid II was the only possibility at hand.

  “Tell me one more thing,” she said. “Where was I supposed to have been blowing myself up?”

  He shrugged and looked away.

  “They didn’t say. I assumed it was somewhere across the river.”

  “The West Bank?”

  “Or Jerusalem. Tel Aviv. No one would have told me that, of course.”

  “So if I really had wanted that kind of advice, what were you going to tell me to do? How does one prepare for that? Mentally, I mean.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What about physically?”

  “I am not so sure about that, either.” He pointed toward an open doorway just ahead, presumably their destination. “I only know some of the basic things that others have mentioned, but I know little about the technical part. I think it has to do partly with the configuration of the explosive. They say it mostly depends on how you’re wired.”

  He stopped abruptly just after crossing the threshold, and when Aliyah went inside she saw why. There was a man in the room—a Westerner, judging by his appearance. Khalid II seemed to know him.

  “No one told me you were coming,” Khalid II said in English.

  “I wasn’t aware I was supposed to give advance warning,” the man answered, “seeing as how I work here.”

  Good God. He sounded American. And in her momentary panic Aliyah assumed the man didn’t speak Arabic, or else she never would have spoken up in the local tongue. But she did, asking abruptly, “Does he know why I’m here?”

  Things quickly went downhill from there. Not only did the man speak Arabic, he even introduced himself, and Kh
alid II was fool enough to give her name. Then he handed her a business card, which made matters stranger still, because the charity he worked for was the same one Abbas had mentioned in reference to his contact.

  She was sick to her stomach with fear until Khalid II finally extracted them by saying they had another appointment. They left at a brisk walk, and for a few blocks neither of them said a word.

  “I am sorry,” Khalid II said. “If I had known, I never would have taken you there.”

  “You work with that man?”

  “Not directly. He helps run the hospital charity I do some political work for.”

  “Is it really a charity, or a front for something else?”

  “A charity. Without a doubt.”

  “Do you think he overheard us?”

  “I don’t know. Even if he did, he wouldn’t know your purpose here.”

  “Let’s hope not.”

  “Yes. For both of us.”

  She reached into her pocket and felt the man’s calling card. She was about to throw it into the street, but decided to keep it. Maybe Khalid II believed the charity was on the level, but she wasn’t yet convinced. She would check later to see if his phone number matched the one Abbas had given her.

  “So who can help me?” she asked. “Who do you know who can teach me what I need to learn?”

  He frowned and shook his head. He, too, seemed rattled by the encounter at the office, and before he answered he looked up and down the street in both directions.

  “I will find someone,” he said.

  “Or maybe you could find out what I need to know, and tell me yourself.”

  “Maybe.” He didn’t seem happy about it.

  “What’s wrong?”

  He shrugged.

  “Is it because I am a woman?”

  “No. It’s because, well…”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m not sure I am comfortable teaching you these things, even if I learn them correctly from someone else. I was asked to meet you today, so I have. But still…”

  “Are you not certain of the cause?”

  “I am very certain. The cause is just.”

  “But you disagree with the means? This need for killing people?”