Blow the House Down

by Robert Baer

  “Remember your dad’s and my stories about the time we camped out in this part of the world?”

  She had teased me about it only maybe a month earlier. I counted on her remembering.

  “Sure. The border—” India caught herself, but I was sure she had the place down.

  “I’ll be there Saturday at noon. Alternate twenty-four hours later, same place. Third alternate forty-eight hours after the primary.”

  “They’ll have my head.”

  “You won’t be crossing any borders you’re not allowed to.”

  “Let me think about it.”

  “Think about it all you want, but I’ll be there,” I said as I hung up.

  Frank out of money? As if I needed another reminder that life is fragile.

  CHAPTER 29

  Haditha, Syria

  A FREEZING WIND BLEW IN off the barren hills. India was exhausted but radiant. She looked like a schoolgirl who’d just pulled off the prank of a lifetime as she ran up and gave me a hug. We were standing in front of a Dunkin’ Donuts next to the duty-free store. The nearest Syrian checkpoint was fifty feet away, but no one was paying any attention to us.

  We had an hour, maybe two at the outside, no more. She was taking a plane out that afternoon, to Geneva and on to Washington the next morning. A whirlwind round-trip. I stepped back to have a look at her, and as I did, her mood swung from giddy to serious.

  “What is it, India?”

  “They’re going to burn you. There’s a journalist—a guy with the Times. He’s writing an article that you’ve hired yourself out to a foreign intel service—”

  “It’s bullshit.”

  “What if they accuse you of working for somebody like Mossad? It could get you killed here.”

  “They just want to shut me up. Is it Vernon Lawson?”

  I didn’t even wait for India to nod yes. Lawson was one of the tame journalists the seventh floor at Langley used to spread disinformation and punish its enemies. He’d even written a couple books on the CIA—big hits, packed with lies but with the ring of truth. No question, Vernon Lawson would be delighted to out me on page one, above the fold.

  “Did you talk to your dad about Lawson?”

  “I tried to.”

  “Webber’s behind it, right?”

  “I never said—”

  “You didn’t have to. He was there, wasn’t he?”

  “Dad kept quiet.”

  I could tell she was protecting her father.

  “What’s happening with your dad? He doesn’t know you’re here.”

  “I wouldn’t dare tell. I told you, he’s mad at—”

  “So why are you here?”

  “I think Dad’s going under.”

  He was about to make me his right-hand man, I selfishly thought.

  “I don’t want to talk about it now,” she said, turning her face away from me. She wiped her sleeve across her eyes.

  When she turned back to me, her eyes were red. I put my hand on her shoulder, and she pushed it away.

  “You said something to someone that pissed Dad off.”

  “Did he tell you what?” I asked, deciding to let her father’s money problems drop. She would tell me in her own time.

  “He wouldn’t say,” she said.

  “They’re both pieces of shit,” I said, more to myself than to India.

  “Who?” Anger. Hackles way up.

  “Not your dad,” I said, correcting course, although I was starting to wonder. “Webber. Lawson.”

  Calmer again. “Webber’s gunning for Chief/NE.” NE is the Near East Division in the Directorate of Operations. “It’s out in the open. Dad—”

  India stopped talking as a Syrian armor convoy of T-64 tanks rolled past into Lebanon. The roar of the diesel engines and metal treads on the road was deafening. The decks were stacked with the crews’ belongings, everything from old pots to sacks of flour. The tanks looked as if they hadn’t been painted in years. The Syrian army definitely hadn’t fared well since the end of the Cold War.

  The last tank was rumbling by when I noticed two Syrians in uniforms walking toward us. A third joined them. We weren’t going to be left alone after all.

  “Time you go back to Damascus.”

  “I’m not done lecturing you, Max. You can’t stay—”

  I gestured with my chin toward our welcoming party.

  “Three choices,” I said. “We part here now. I ask the Syrians for political asylum and go to Damascus with you. Or we go into Lebanon.”

  “I’ve always wanted to visit Lebanon.”

  “You can’t. You’re on a plane tonight to Geneva.”

  “A full-fare ticket. I’ll rebook for tomorrow—tell them I got caught in traffic on the way to the airport.”

  “There is no traffic in Syria.”

  “Well, then the taxi had a flat tire.”

  “You do understand going into Lebanon is hideously transgressive.”

  Transgressive in more ways than one. India could get fired for entering a country she didn’t have headquarters permission to enter. It was stupid of me, too. If you’re traveling on a stolen foreign passport in a name not your own, the last thing you want to do is hang around with someone traveling on an American diplomatic passport. But I wanted more time with India and decided to flush caution down the toilet.

  The Syrians were maybe half a dozen feet from us.

  “Know a good place to have lunch?” India asked. “Some scenic spot in the Biqa’?”

  We sat in the front seat of the service taxi. In the back were two Syrian grunts—one with a caged bird—and an old woman dressed all in black. Sharing a ride with foreigners didn’t lighten their dispositions.

  “My God, if Dad found out,” India said under her breath. She was practically giggling again.

  In Bar Ilyas, we found a new taxi to take us to Balabakk. This time we sat in the backseat. For the next forty minutes, I listened to India off-load on what a miserable bureaucratic hell my ex-employer had become. Her day was spent running traces for the station in Saudi Arabia, names the case officers sent in just to make it appear they were doing something.

  “How did you last so long, Max? It’s mind-numbing.”

  “Saudi Arabia’s different. We don’t do any spying there.”

  “What about the good old days you and Dad liked to hash over? The romance, the adventure.”

  “It’ll be different when you get overseas,” I told her. “Hold on.” I’d been mouthing the same platitude for years to new recruits. It never felt so false as it did just then.

  We’d reached the outskirts of Balabakk. I pointed to the military barracks on the hill just east of town.

  “That’s where Bill Buckley was held,” I whispered into India’s ear. For all I knew, our cabdriver was the one who separated Bill’s head from the rest of him.

  “Who’s there now?” she whispered back.

  “No one. The Lebanese army took it back from Hizballah, and the Iranians left town. Well, more or less.” I didn’t add that we never would have come to Balabakk for lunch otherwise.

  The Palmyra Hotel’s restaurant was completely empty. The waiter showed us to a table next to the immense fireplace, still filled with old embers. I ordered a bottle of wine: a Kasara red, Reserve du Couvent, a vineyard not far from Balabakk. What greater irony in life than that one of the world’s best wines grows in the birthplace of Islamic terrorism.

  India handed me my glass, took hers, grabbed my arm, and pulled me back into the lobby so she could take another look at the photos and letters of the Palmyra’s famous guests: Agatha Christie, T. E. Lawrence, Cocteau. She kept going until we were out in front of the hotel, on the terrace overlooking the Roman ruins. India sat down in a dusty old wicker chair and motioned me to the one next to her.

  The waiter followed with a low table that he placed between us, then left and came back with the rest of our bottle of wine and a platter of fresh vegetables and mezzah.

  Her father�
�s daughter, India sat mute until the waiter had gone away again.

  “What are you doing here, Max?”

  “Here? I’m staying here. The rooms are nice. We’ll visit the ruins after lunch. Over there is the largest cut stone in the world,” I said, pointing at the temple of Jupiter. “Did you know—”

  “Here. Lebanon. Tell me.”

  “A truth for a truth?”

  “Just tell me.”

  I did. But not the truth Nabil or the prince had told me. She’d have to see the prince’s documents to even start believing. Or maybe I just didn’t think this was the time to get into it. I gave the old story instead, the reason I kept coming back to Balabakk, the search that had led me to the photo that had somehow led me here.

  We couldn’t see the barracks from where we were sitting, but I motioned behind me in its direction. I told her how after Buckley was kidnapped, I’d spent the next two months working the Biqa’, sure he was being held there, but still coming up empty-handed, not picking up a single lead, not even a rumor. There was no way to get inside because it was guarded day and night by the Pasdaran. We only found out Bill had been there when one of the hostages escaped and told us. It didn’t matter, though, because the Iranians moved all the hostages the same day.

  “That’s the last solid piece of intel we had on Buckley until his body was found in the southern suburbs,” I said. “It’s never let me go. The mystery. The truth. I don’t know which. Are they different? At any rate, since you asked, that’s why I’m here.”

  The bottle was empty. I went inside to get the waiter to bring us another one.

  “Now your turn,” I said as I sat back down.

  India tried to stand up. I didn’t know where she thought she was going. She held on to the chair to steady herself, and fell back, spilling wine on her Levi’s. She laughed, covered the stain with a napkin, and settled in.

  “You know what I hate most about my job?” she said.

  “The parking lot?” I joked.

  “The sleazebags.”

  “They’re everywhere,” I told her.

  “You know who I’m talking about.”

  “Webber?”

  “The very same.”

  “A man for all seasons.”

  “He hit on me.”

  “Oh, come on. The guy’s asexual at best.”

  “Keep telling yourself that, Maxie, but that’s not it.”

  “It?”

  “Why I can’t stand his sleazeball guts.”

  “Why, then?”

  I reached over, poured for both of us. The mezzah sat untouched between us.

  “He’s dangerous.”

  “Tell me,” I said.

  “Can’t. You’re out. Rule 2201, Subset C-3.”

  “What happened to truth for a truth?”

  “I get boxed in two months.”

  “The polygraph. That is a problem.”

  She looked over the ruins and back at me.

  “You’ll protect me?”

  I nodded my head and put my hand on hers. She laughed, shifted her chair slightly in my direction, and propped her feet on my knee.

  “There’s some case out in California,” India began. “Two Saudi Takfiris showed up in San Diego, up to no good, and Webber stole the case—turned it over to some contractor to monitor them.”

  I immediately thought about the two Saudis arrested in Kuwait. Were they connected?

  “They were tied up in the East African embassy bombings,” she continued. “Turki came to Washington especially to tell us. He said they were part of a bigger team. They’re preparing some big attack.”

  The chief of Saudi intelligence, Turki Al Faysal was hard to ignore. He came to Washington rarely, only then when he had something important to say.

  “Maybe Turki’s blowing sunshine up headquarters’ ass, hoping to squeeze some more toys out of us.” True to training, I was fishing for detail.

  “Max, this is serious. There’s a Saudi case officer in touch with them in San Diego. Under cover of Saudi Civil Aviation.”

  “Did Turki say what the targets were?”

  “Maybe a Texas refinery.”

  Destroying a refinery. Why not? If this had anything to do with KSM, you could make a fortune on gasoline options. More than on airline options.

  “Turki was missing a lot of detail,” India continued. “That’s why he wanted us to watch them. But Webber won’t bring the Bureau in until we’ve got more to go on.”

  “What happened to NE?” The Near East Division was where the case should have ended up. That’s the way it was supposed to work.

  “Webber was at the meeting with Turki. He grabbed the case and turned it over to a contractor. Chief/NE fought it and lost. They supposedly have a surveillance team on these two guys.”

  “A contractor doing that kind of surveillance? Jesus.”

  “I see the invoices they’re sending to the desk. A hundred sixty thousand a week. It’s grotesque what—”

  “The contractor’s sending the invoices through the Saudi desk?”

  “Yup. We pay for it. Counter-Espionage runs it. Cute, huh?”

  “Is it Applied Science Research?”

  “The contractor? Could be. Does it make a difference?”

  My guess was that Frank hadn’t told India about what happened to me in New York, or if he had, he’d kept the facts to a minimum. Applied Science Research seemed to mean nothing to her.

  “How about the Saudis?” I asked. The wind had gone flat. The sun beat down on us as if it meant to melt us in place. India’s face was flush with the heat.

  “One’s gone—maybe to Europe. Webber insists the contractor can handle the other on its own.”

  “You didn’t happen to hear about two Saudis arrested in Kuwait?”

  Sitting on the Saudi desk, she should have seen the traffic from Kuwait. Or maybe it was compartmented and she wasn’t on the distribution list.

  “Two Saudis arrested in Kuwait? How would you know—”

  “My turn. How do you know all this about the Saudis in San Diego?”

  “C’mon, Max, I’m not deaf and blind.”

  I found myself thinking about something Frank had told me: that it was India’s idea to sign on, that he’d objected.

  “Why did you join the CIA?” I asked her.

  “You know. Dad told you, I’m sure. His big idea.”

  “And who got you on the Saudi desk?”

  “Dad. The Old Boys’ network, its nine lives.” She was flicking her fingers up—one, two, three, four—counting each life with a little meow.

  Jesus, I’d been slow. Frank had placed India right where he needed her, the Saudi desk. His own in-house, in-family agent. Obvious, especially considering his business partner was a Saudi. And that was only the beginning. That’s why Frank offered to set me up with Rousset: another cog in his networks. Frank Beckman, collector of relationships. I’m not sure when I had felt quite so totally stupid, so scammed.

  “India, they don’t talk about stuff like this at morning staff meetings. Especially about Webber taking down Chief/NE. Where’d you hear that?”

  “Same source. Dad.”

  “How would he know?”

  “Webber, Webber, pudding and pie, kissed the girls and made them—”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” I asked. She was kicking her feet against my knee.

  “I’m talking about Webber, Max. ‘He just needs some direction, India, dear—a little mentoring.’” Her imitation of Frank’s voice was pitch-perfect, not the Kentucky accent I’d first known but the new one that had been born along with the Tuttle Street mansion. “‘My darling—’” India stopped it there, exhausted or embarrassed, for herself or her father, I couldn’t tell.

  Of course. When Beckman was head of the Afghan Task Force, Webber had been deputy in Islamabad, Pakistan. They must have worked closely together. I’d always thought Webber was too openly ambitious for Frank’s tastes—Frank always seemed to like a l
ittle mouse with his cat—but clearly not. The place was more incestuous than I’d ever imagined.

  “Hey, I was thinking the other day. Ever hear of an old-fart case officer named Oliver? He’s dead now.”

  I gave India the quick synopsis of what I could remember about him.

  “Oliver Channing,” she said when I was through. “Dad worked with him in Beirut years ago. I can remember a photo Dad used to keep in his bedroom in the old house. Incredible brows. Dad used to joke that someday they were going to swallow his whole face. He’s dead but it’s the son who gives me the creeps.”

  “Your dad knows Oliver’s son?”

  “I can’t figure out why he gives him the time of day. Every time David Channing comes to Washington, Dad has dinner with him at the Four Seasons. It’s the only place in Washington the guy will eat.”

  “What’s wrong with him?”

  “He acts like he’s got all the money in the world, but he’s on the make. You can smell it. He dresses nice, but he still reminds me of a used-car salesman.”

  “Ever hear of your dad doing business with him?”

  “Maybe. I know Dad traveled to Geneva or Zurich once or twice to see him. In fact, I’m stopping off there.”

  “To see David Channing?”

  “No, silly. To drop something off for Dad, something I picked up in Riyadh.”

  “Michelle Zwanzig’s office, right?”

  “How do you know?”

  I told her about how Frank had given me her card.

  “The stop in Geneva is about your dad’s problems, isn’t it?”

  She either didn’t hear or still didn’t want to talk about it. Instead, she waved at the waiter and pointed at our empty bottle of wine.

  “Maxwell. Maxwell. Maxwell. What kind of name is that?” India’s foot was digging into my thigh now. “It sounds like a cup of coffee. A very common cup of coffee! But you’re the least common thing I can think of.”

  She was laughing so uproariously at her own joke that she failed to notice when she knocked over the wine bottle on the low table between us. No matter—it was already empty.

  “Better get you a cup of espresso,” I said. “And a good walk.”

  “There’s my uncle again. Always looking out for little ole me.” She reached over, took my hand in hers. “Max, there’s only one cure for a woman in this condition.” Her eyes were wide as saucers. I followed them as they traveled across the room, past the front desk, and up the stairs to my room above.