“Oh, but he is experienced now, of course. Thanks to you.”
“I don’t follow your meaning.”
“You don’t need to. It is a local matter. But we thank you for your role in it. In return we will do what we can to assist you. Although our services may not be quite as vital as you think. Not with the headway that your husband has made in your absence. I am told that some sort of excavation is involved in his work, correct? And that he has already made substantial progress.”
“Substantial progress?”
Her mouth went dry. If the doctor had been wearing a stethoscope she might have asked him to listen for a pulse, because suddenly she barely seemed to have one.
“Why, yes.” The doctor took an obvious pleasure in his revelations. “It has been our understanding all along that time was short. So, no matter how slowly you have chosen to move, and no matter how many days you have turned off your mobile phone, it has not stopped us from taking measures to assist him as much as possible.”
“What do you mean? I thought you were supposed to assist him by helping me.”
“I am aware that is what you thought. But mostly what we sought from you and your husband was evidence of your commitment. Abbas demonstrated that to our satisfaction merely by sending you to Amman. So, once our representatives observed that you were safely aboard the plane at Dulles, we extended an offer of immediate help to your husband.”
“Immediate help?” She felt like someone had just knocked the wind out of her.
“Technical expertise. And, when necessary, manual labor. So you should not concern yourself too greatly over your failures with Khalid in Bakaa. As I said earlier, you have served our own interests on that count. In return we are serving your interests in Washington. I am told the work is nearly complete. Meaning that any sort of, well, reluctance on your part has been very ably overcome by others. So you see? Everything is well in hand.”
Aliyah felt queasy. Her nausea resurrected the images from a few hours ago at Bakaa, with their animal screams and the letting of blood. The smell of slaughter seemed to emanate from her clothes and skin, as if she had never showered.
“Are you all right, my dear? Can I order you something? I am told that you drink alcohol. Perhaps a gin would help.”
“No.”
She gripped the bottom of the table and looked him in the eye, determined not to exhibit any further sign of weakness. He was already enjoying her discomfort far too much. As well he might, having played her for a fool. Then she thought of something that might make his smile disappear.
“This all comes as something of a surprise, but I will be fine. There is one possible complication, though.”
“Yes?”
“An American. He observed Khalid and me together at Bakaa. He may even have overheard our conversation. His name is Freeman Lockhart. He gave me his card.”
Her news did not have the desired effect. The doctor only smiled, broader than ever.
“I am familiar with Mr. Lockhart. There is no way possible that he could know of your plans, so I would not trouble myself worrying about him.”
“But what about Khalid? He may have been compromised.”
“Precisely. As I said before, that is a local matter. Your news only makes me more certain it will be handled satisfactorily.”
Aliyah couldn’t take his smugness a moment longer. She pushed back her chair with a noisy scrape and stood so suddenly that she felt a bit wobbly. She had to get out of here—this bar, this hotel, this country. She had to reach Abbas.
“You will please excuse me.”
Her intention was to turn and walk away before the doctor could reply. But he stood, too, then reached across the table and gripped her tightly by the forearm. His smile didn’t waver, but there was no hint of amusement in his eyes.
“Our business is not yet finished, Mrs. Rahim.”
With his free hand he pulled an envelope from an inside pocket of his jacket.
“To show our good intentions, here is some cash to help finance the remaining days of your stay in Amman.”
Aliyah ignored the envelope and tugged at her arm, but his grip was firm.
“Thank you, but I don’t need your money. I plan on leaving as soon as I can.”
“I’m afraid that won’t be possible.”
He tightened his grip. Now it hurt. She tried to twist away, but to no effect.
“Not possible?”
“We would ask that you remain in Jordan a while longer, so as to prevent any complications in Washington. Given the behavior we have witnessed here, we worry that your sudden arrival there might cause, well, too much of a distraction.”
“You’re forcing me to stay?”
Several people at the next table looked over in apparent concern, then looked away when the doctor smiled back, as if to say, “Women—what can you do with them?”
He lowered his voice and leaned closer.
“Of course we are not forcing you. We only wish to do what is best for your husband. And we will do all in our power to make your stay comfortable. Do you see those men over there, Mrs. Rahim? The ones in brown suits?”
It wasn’t so easy turning around with the doctor holding her forearm, but she saw two rather large fellows dressed in brown. One stood near the elevators. The other was by the hotel’s main entrance.
“They will be available to you for whatever you need,” the doctor said smoothly. “They can escort you on walks. Drive you downtown. Even drive you back up to Jerash, if that is the way you would continue to pass your time. Then, when the time is right, we will arrange return transportation for you to Washington. You may try to leave earlier, of course. But I think you will find that due to the holiday all flights are quite booked up for the next several days. And beyond the weekend, there is the matter of how you will reach the airport. Your two escorts may not be able to arrange transportation for a while, and they will be greatly offended if you attempt to choose other means. Things will go much better for you if you just leave matters to them. Then, when all plans have been carried out to everyone’s satisfaction, you may return. In the meantime, I will of course be at your disposal. Just let those gentlemen know if you wish to see me. Farewell, Mrs. Rahim.”
He released her arm, dropped the envelope on the table, and walked away. She was furious, and a little frightened as well. She watched the doctor cross the room, half hoping that the men in brown would follow him out the door. Instead, they nodded as he passed and held their stations.
What an idiot she had been, placing so much hope in a passive strategy of avoidance and delay. Tiptoe off to Jordan rather than deal with Abbas directly, as if the whole foolish scheme might rot and decay in her absence. For all she had done to retake control of her life through grief counseling and prayer, she realized now that Abbas was the one who had seized the wheel of their fate, and he was steering them toward disaster.
She walked briskly toward the elevators, not even daring to glance at the posted “escort” as she pressed the button for her floor. Fortunately he did not board with her. Her mind was a jumble of wild thoughts as she rode to her floor. But she was not ready to quit, not nearly. And by the time she reached her door she knew that only two plausible courses of action remained.
One, no matter how many people the doctor had assigned to watch her, she had to get back to Washington as soon as possible, by any means necessary.
Two, even if she was delayed several days, she should make one last attempt to reach Khalid II. In trouble or not, he was her only hope for acquiring quick and dirty knowledge on dismantling a bomb. Perhaps before dropping out of sight he had found out what she needed to know. It was a scant hope, but as long as she was going to be trapped here for a while, sneaking out to Bakaa for one last visit was the only alternative worth pursuing. All her other contacts, she realized now, had been interested only in using her for some other purpose, and in the process they had made a fool of her.
The possibility that upset her most wa
s that this was the way Abbas had planned things from the beginning. Maybe her treatment had been part of his agreement with the Jordanians: Keep my wife out of my hair while you send help. In exchange, you may employ her in whatever petty scheme you wish.
The thought made her so flustered that she had to slide her key card three times before the lock clicked open to her room. She heaved herself onto the bed with a groan of outraged agony.
She picked up the phone, then realized that at this hour all the travel agencies and local airline offices would already be closed for the holiday and might not reopen for several days. Officially, Eid al-Fitr was a three-day celebration. But she’d be damned if she would simply take the doctor’s word on how difficult it would be to get a quick flight home. For starters, she might be able to secure a ticket online through the computers in the hotel’s business center. With any luck it would still be open.
She made it as far as the elevator, then realized that the man downstairs would follow her. So she ran down the hall to a stairway at the far end. Maybe he wouldn’t see her emerge, and she could reach the business center, which was tucked into a back office in the opposite direction.
Aliyah got there just in time, and no one followed. The clerk on duty seemed anxious to leave for the holiday, but Aliyah had the advantage of being a regular visitor. She had been checking daily on the computer terminals for local news from back home, in case the senator died or took a sudden turn for the worse.
Soon after logging on, however, she discovered that the doctor had been correct. Every flight out of Amman was booked solid for the next several days. She vowed to try again later, in case something opened up. But for the near term she was stuck.
Aliyah then checked for any news update on the senator. Thankfully, there was nothing. As long as he held on, she would be all right. For now, then, her only option was to find some way to arrange another audience with Khalid II. Her efforts might well be fruitless, but she had to try, if only to do something. Her entire world was on the verge of being consumed by a needless act of vengeance, and she was five thousand miles away from being able to stop it.
28
Peace between Jordan and Israel was supposed to bring harmony to their border.
It didn’t. Crossing from Amman to Jerusalem is still a three-hour ordeal of overpriced taxis, flyblown buses, and meticulous body searches. A trip that should be a leisurely one-hour drive through the desert is instead an armed transit between warring tribes, especially in the tender zone astride the River Jordan, with its coiled razor wire, tank traps, and helmeted soldiers peering from the slits of bunkers.
Somewhere in the middle of this ride, the tires of your bus thump briefly on a tiny bridge, and the more vigilant passengers glimpse a narrow brown creek as it passes fleetingly below. This is the River Jordan, the most overrated body of water in the history of time.
Officials on the Jordanian side always seem more relaxed, probably because a lot fewer people are trying to blow them up. They never do much searching or scanning, and the customs men are as bored as tollbooth attendants. Just keep the line moving.
This time they weren’t quite so accommodating. Of the twenty people on my bus, I was the only one whose passport prompted the attendant behind the glass to place a phone call. It caught me by surprise, so I wasn’t paying close enough attention to see if he had checked my name against any sort of watch list. He punched in a number with the Amman city code. Then he nodded, said a few words I couldn’t hear through the glass, and summoned a supervisor from out front who had been relaxing in the shade with an orange soda.
The boss took the receiver. Then he, too, spoke and nodded while writing something in a large black notebook, which he had pulled from a locked drawer. He glanced my way a few times, causing the people in line behind me to shuffle nervously and turn away. He hung up, walked to the window, and briskly stamped my passport as if nothing were out of the ordinary.
“Everything all right?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said curtly, already nodding past me toward the next customer.
The security regime on the Israeli side was as elaborate as ever, presided over by young men and women equipped with a dazzling variety of sidearms and big automatics, which they had stuffed into their belts and slung across their backs. Like everyone else, I slipped into bovine submissiveness as I stepped through blowers, scanners, detectors, and dust analyzers, as if being processed for some terrible fate.
Everyone’s luggage disappeared into a back room and emerged on the other side, presumably having been searched and x-rayed.
I breezed through passport control while the Palestinians from our bus inched along in a long line reserved just for them. A pretty young woman asked me a few intrusive questions before she sent me along.
At last I was on my way out the door through a cloud of flies toward the taxi stand, where I slumped into the front seat for the half-hour ride to Jerusalem.
We climbed into the bleached Judean hills. Here and there were still the occasional Bedouin tents with their goats and their inevitable Toyota trucks, although far fewer than I remembered from previous years. Where had the others gone, and what had driven them away?
I soon got my answer when I spotted the newest fringes of the Israeli settler exurbs, impressive neighborhoods that gleamed atop ridgelines. Like burbs the world over, these were growing fast, and each new rooftop was a further claim on disputed land.
None of that prepared me for the shock of the wall. We topped a rise overlooking several Arab villages and the distant outskirts of Jerusalem, and there it was, running across the undulating countryside. I had seen Berlin’s infamous wall before it came down. In many ways this one wasn’t nearly as imposing, but on the barren landscape it stood out like a line of stitching on a fresh wound. And for all its forbidding appearance, what it conveyed most powerfully was the fear within.
The fear was contagious. A few miles later, well inside the barrier, I flinched noticeably when a small boy ran toward our taxi at a stoplight. I was momentarily convinced he was about to throw a bomb or pull a knife. Instead he held out an empty hand, begging.
Hans had asked me to meet him at a friend’s place in an Arab neighborhood on the Mount of Olives, just around the corner from the apartment I’d had during the intifada. I had fond memories of the place, having rented from a garrulous Palestinian who didn’t care who his tenants were as long as they paid on time. After I moved out, the place was taken over by a sect of Christian evangelicals from Indiana, who prized its picture-window view of the walled Old City. They flew in true believers from America whose only job was to watch the skies above the Old City for signs of the Second Coming. That was Jerusalem for you, a religious shopping mall where every vendor, large and small, had its own sturdy kiosk of faith.
Hans spotted me from an upstairs window and called out as the taxi pulled away.
“Good God, man. Come on up!”
I climbed the stairs to a whitewashed room furnished traditionally, with colorfully embroidered cushions thrown on the floor around a large Oriental rug. A brass pot of coffee was steaming on a tray, and there was a plateful of pastries and a bowl of almonds.
Hans grabbed me by the hand and pounded my back.
“You’re still skin and bones!” he shouted, the Bavarian accent as pronounced as ever. “Thank God Ramadan is over so we can actually be civilized. Sit down and eat!”
He had always been a big fellow, and at first glance he had changed as little as any of us. But on closer inspection I saw that all the years in the sun had given his skin a look of desiccation. It was as if he had been covered in parchment and might crumble beneath your fingers.
But the bigger changes were inside, as I was soon to discover. Hans had once been almost unbearably upbeat, ever ready to counter any sign of brooding darkness in his colleagues. Now he more often resorted to a mordant wit tinged by hopelessness.
“So you’re still in the business of trying to patch things up?” I said.
“With the same old lousy results. You know how it goes. They killed three, so we must kill six. You’ve been to places like that. It’s just that everybody else finally gets it out of their system. Even the Bosnians gave it a rest. But these people?” He sighed and threw up his hands. “The engine doesn’t always overheat, but it never stops running.”
“Why don’t you leave?”
“Too many of them still want to make it work. Besides, I don’t know Europe anymore, especially not Germany. What would I do, work for Siemens? But what about you, working for Omar? Can’t say I would have predicted that.”
“His charity for Bakaa. It’s why I wanted to talk to you. I’m interested in seeing how he’s thought of around here. His reputation on the street, assuming he has one.”
“Does he know you’re doing this? Asking about him?”
“No.”
“Then who are you working for?”
“He calls it the Bakaa Refugee Health Project.”
“No. Who else are you working for? Why all the questions?”
“What if I said it was to satisfy my own curiosity?”
He laughed.
“That answer is not even worth a nod and a wink. There are two types of people around here, Freeman. Ones who ask questions and ones who simply let events roll by as they will, inshallah, and take each day as it comes. Nine times out of ten the ones who ask questions are working for someone other than who they say they are.”
“So you don’t want to help me?”
“I just want you to level with me. Within reason, of course.”
“There are some interested Americans who want to know.”
“That’s all I needed to hear.”
“And that’s acceptable?”
“It’s neither here nor there. It simply is. I only wanted to know your perspective. If you were working for the Israelis, for example, or Hamas—not that I’d expect you to work for either—then I would have had a problem. I have to stay out of those kinds of partisan matters, as you can well understand.”
The Amateur Spy Page 32