Devil's Light, The

by North Patterson, Richard

  Jameel took an envelope from his suit coat. “You’re looking for someone with certain technical abilities. This photograph is from a security film taken at Beirut airport six days ago.”

  Surprised, Brooke removed the picture of a man appearing to hurry past the camera. Though his image was imperfect, he resembled the technician whose photograph Brooke had already seen. “Do you know where he is now?” he asked.

  “No. As you know, the Pakistani who surfaced in Dubai has disappeared. A day later this man entered Beirut on a passport from the UAE with a different name altogether. He also seems to have vanished.” Reading the worry in Brooke’s eyes, Jameel added, “He could just be touring. But we can’t find him, and the UAE claims to have no record of such a passport being issued. Except for a modest beard, he resembles your missing technician.”

  Brooke’s sense of alarm quickened. “What are you doing to find him?”

  “As much as possible—alerted the police and army, sent inquiries by email to hundreds of hotels.” Jameel paused. “You know the problem. There are areas of Lebanon we don’t control, including in the south and the Bekaa Valley—that’s Hezbollah, of course. But if he’s still within our reach, and part of a conspiracy, he’s only as free of a trail as whoever he meets up with.”

  Brooke thought of his meeting with Farad. “That may depend,” he answered, “on who has left Ayn Al-Hilweh.”

  FIVE

  After Jameel had left, Brooke began weighing his choices.

  He started with two suppositions—that the Pakistani technician had entered Lebanon, and that the al Qaeda operative would try to move the bomb through Iraq, then Syria. The question was where they would meet.

  It made no sense for al Qaeda to bring the bomb anywhere near Beirut—every mile it traveled increased the risk of detection. The same risks, Brooke believed, would discourage an effort to smuggle it into Israel across Lebanon’s southern border, patrolled by UN peacekeepers. So the optimal base of operations remained the mountainous edge of the Bekaa Valley, where Hezbollah was the only source of intelligence. In Brooke’s surmise, that was where the operative planned to meet the technician, along with anyone else involved in the plot.

  If he were right, only Israel’s bitter enemy, Hezbollah, could help prevent al Qaeda from trying to destroy the Jewish state. But approaching Hezbollah would blow whatever cover he had left, make him their hostage, and—quite possibly—facilitate their acquisition of a nuclear weapon. The sparse facts Brooke knew would not persuade Brustein and Grey to run such risks. Which left him to decide how far he could go without seeking their approval.

  He pondered this for an hour. Then, with grave misgivings, he called the leader of the Druze, Hassan Adallah.

  In the late afternoon, after hours of hot and uneventful travel, Al Zaroor’s bus deposited its Shia pilgrims in Mosul.

  Watching them shuffle off the bus, Al Zaroor felt relief mingle with apprehension. In his soul he was happy to be rid of them. But their witless innocence offered perfect cover. Only the shrewdest mind would imagine them sitting atop a bomb.

  Now Tariq and Al Zaroor were alone. The fighter drove on, wordless, his worry showing in the tense hunch of his shoulders, the tightness around his eyes as he pushed the bus harder. The terrain flew past, flat and dry and featureless save for the biblical cities they passed—Nimrod, the walled city of Nineveh. Al Zaroor welcomed the embrace of dusk, shrouding the distant mountains of Kurdistan.

  Near the border town of Zakho, he issued his first instruction.

  Turning off the headlights, Tariq left the road. For endless minutes, they drove across sun-baked earth toward a slice of the Tigris between Iraq and Syria. Al Zaroor felt his apprehension growing, a knot in his gut he despised but could not control. Syria would be the most dangerous part of a journey based on calculated risk, an eighteen-hour trip through a country run by a ruthless regime that saw al Qaeda as a threat to its survival. He could succeed only by adopting its coloration.

  At last they reached the river, in silver moonlight as black as a ribbon of spilled ink. Al Zaroor stood on the bank. A light appeared on the water, its movement toward them accompanied by the chopping of an outboard motor.

  Al Zaroor remained still. As its motor cut off, the boat hit the edge of land. The outline of a man ascended the sloping riverbank. When he became visible, he wore the uniform of a Syrian intelligence officer, his gun aimed at Al Zaroor’s head. His face was young and hard and wary.

  “I’ve come to arrest you,” he said.

  Heart still racing, Al Zaroor nodded.

  In twilight, Brooke took a taxi to southern Beirut, the domain of Hezbollah, to meet Grand Ayatollah al-Mahdi.

  The Shia section was even poorer than that dominated by the Sunni, its Middle Eastern character so absolute that Brooke could not square it with the upscale Western luxuries of Achrafieh and Gemmayze. Since Israel’s bombing campaigns against the rural south of Lebanon, a Hezbollah redoubt, Shia farmers had crowded into what they called “the belt of misery,” raising its population to almost a million people. There were no road maps or street signs; makeshift buildings defied all laws of architecture or safety; a tangle of cables ran from structure to structure, providing makeshift power. In the endless web of alleyways, the smoke of smoldering garbage mingled with the aroma of roasted chicken and skewers of lamb kebobs, and carts of fruits and vegetables clogged arteries already crowded by motorcycles, cars, covered women, men in shabby clothing, and Hezbollah militia struggling to avert gridlock. The Lebanese government held no sway here, nor did the Sunnis. But what most distinguished this from Sunni Beirut was not the posters of Hezbollah martyrs, but the blocks of bombed-out buildings destroyed by the Israelis in 2006, rubble amid reconstruction projects financed by Iran. More than a thousand people had died here. Among the survivors were Grand Ayatollah al-Mahdi and Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, whose homes were leveled by targeted air strikes. But with respect to possible assassins from Ayn Al-Hilweh, Brooke was probably safer here than in Achrafieh.

  On a crowded corner that looked no different from any other, a man in a sport coat signaled Brooke’s cab to stop. Up close, the man was fortyish, with a graying beard and a firm handshake. Casually, he said, “So you’re visiting from America,” and led Brooke through the knot of pedestrians to a Volkswagen minibus.

  Once the door closed behind Brooke and his escort, Salim, the driver negotiated a series of twists and turns designed to confuse Brooke as to where they were. He gave up on following this—he had entered al-Mahdi’s world. Even while chatting with Salim, the most amiable of men, Brooke reviewed what he knew about the spiritual leader of the Shia.

  Even for Lebanon, the portrait was complex and contradictory. Beyond doubt al-Mahdi was—with Sistani of Iraq and Khameini of Iran—one of the three most revered clerics in the Shia world, and the greatest figure among them: a theologian who had written extensively on Islam’s dialogue with other religions, an authority on Islamic law, a poet of considerable skill, and the founder and patron of charities funded in part by a pristine restaurant where Brooke had once taken Michelle Adjani. He was also believed by the CIA to have given religious sanction, thirty years before, to the suicide bombings of the Marine Corps barracks, the American embassy, and the Israeli military headquarters at Tyre. For this, many believed, while head of the CIA, William Casey had tried to have al-Mahdi killed. Despite this, al-Mahdi had severely condemned the al Qaeda attacks on 9/11. But to the State Department, al-Mahdi remained what he had been for three decades—a murderous cleric with whom American officials were barred from meeting.

  None of this troubled Brooke at all. His concerns were practical—whether, by meeting al-Mahdi, he was exposing himself to Hezbollah, exceeding his orders and jeopardizing his life. But time had forced his hand. Seven days remained until September 11, and the risks of failure dwarfed any risk to Brooke.

  At length, the bus reached an iron gate at the end of the alleyway, behind which trees partially
concealed a one-story building that, transplanted to a modest American suburb, might have housed the local accountant, insurance agent, or divorce lawyer. “Not precisely the Vatican,” Brooke remarked to Salim.

  “It’s true, alas. But no one bombs the pope.”

  Inside the building, Brooke passed through a metal detector, giving up his watch and, with greater reluctance, his cell phone. Then he was led to a large interior room with parquet floors, sumptuous carpets, and two severe black chairs. Facing them was Grand Ayatollah al-Mahdi.

  A man in his midseventies, al-Mahdi was dressed in a white tunic, a yellow-gold robe, and the black turban reserved for descendants of the Prophet Mohammed. He had a long, steel-gray beard, and his eyes were grave and penetrating. But what struck Brooke was his utter stillness and serenity, an aura of peace so profound that he seemed to repose in his own illumination. Brooke looked for a trick of lighting, and found none.

  Salim introduced Brooke in Arabic as a visitor from the United States, familiar with the commercial and political circles of its capital, who had come under the auspices of Hassan Adallah to seek the grand ayatollah’s observations on issues of mutual concern. Throughout this nonsense, al-Mahdi regarded him with a look so calm yet piercing that, from someone less beatific, Brooke might have perceived a threat. As with Hassan Adallah, Brooke had no doubt that this man knew exactly what he was—a member of the agency that, al-Mahdi believed, had tried to kill him. When Salim had finished, al-Mahdi continued appraising him for a silent moment, then waved him to a chair with a slight but graceful gesture of his hand. As Brooke sat, a smile played on al-Mahdi’s lips.

  “Aside from Jimmy Carter,” the grand ayatollah remarked in a deep but mild voice, “you’re that rarest of visitors, an American. It seems that I’m on a list of ‘terrorists’ with whom officials of your government are forbidden to speak. How fortunate for me that you do not work for them.”

  Repressing his own smile, Brooke nodded gravely. “And for me, Your Holiness. I would regret missing the chance to hear your thoughts.”

  “And to what purpose, I wonder.” Although still quiet, al-Mahdi’s tone gained intensity and force. “I have said that Saddam Hussein was evil. I do not support the tactics of the Taliban. I condemn al Qaeda and its works as contrary to Islam. I seek no clash of civilizations. Yet again and again your military—in Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Pakistan—creates misery and chaos, just as the Zionists did here. Your leaders embrace ‘democracy,’ then send aid to kings and dictators across the Islamic world. And after all that, your government deems us unfit for one moment of conversation.”

  “I didn’t compose the terrorist list,” Brooke answered simply. “But it’s based on more than differences in viewpoint.”

  On the surface, al-Mahdi ignored Brooke’s tacit reference to the murder of Americans. But his eyes bored into Brooke’s, underscoring the passion of his words. “There is also the matter of Israel. As a man of faith, I cannot believe that God gave Palestine to Jews alone. But your country enables the Zionists to treat Palestinians as your ancestors treated the Indians, expelling them from their native land and dividing them on the West Bank as though creating reservations. Nor did God grant Jews the right to invade this land and kill or maim its people—it is America, not the Almighty, that supports them.” Al-Mahdi’s voice softened. “So what principles does your country live by? And who, I might ask, are the terrorists?”

  However elegantly, they were edging closer to raw truths. “I can only speak for myself,” Brooke answered. “But one definition of a terrorist is someone who straps a bomb to himself and kills innocent people. The first such actions took place here.”

  Briefly, al-Mahdi’s stare turned cold. “I trust you are not condemning Islam as a religion of violence. We did not kill the Jews in World War Two, or bomb the Japanese in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.” He paused, modulating his voice. “But you are speaking of Hezbollah, of course, and perhaps of me. There are many ways in which its leaders and I disagree, though I do not wish to tell you what they are—or were. But what Lebanese do in defense of Lebanon adds a layer of moral complexity, at least with respect to Israel and those who aid it. You must agree, Mr. Chase, that if the Soviets had tried to occupy America, your people would have claimed the right to kill them in their offices and encampments. That, regrettably, is the most effective way of persuading an occupier to leave.”

  This was, Brooke sensed, as close to a defense of Hezbollah’s beginnings as the grand ayatollah would advance. For himself, he thought it prudent to pass over the car-bombing of Rafik Hariri, or the deaths of Israeli civilians caused by Hezbollah rockets. “You and I may not always agree,” Brooke said. “But be assured that I’ll convey what you’ve said to my friends in Washington.”

  Silent, the ayatollah regarded him with an expectant look. “In turn, is there anything else you wish me to know?”

  “There is, Your Holiness. A great evil may be coming here, with terrible consequences to America and Israel, but also to Lebanon and, especially, the Shia.” Brooke leaned forward, speaking to al-Mahdi in a clear, emphatic voice. “I believe outsiders mean to provoke a deadly war between Israel and Hezbollah and Iran. I know that you and Hezbollah are separate. But, as Shia, they look to you.”

  “What guidance would you have me give?”

  “To watch for strangers, and to listen. If these men succeed, hundreds of thousands will die. And that could be the least of it.”

  Al-Mahdi’s expression became impenetrable. “That sounds much like Bin Laden’s threat against America.”

  “So it does.”

  Nodding, al-Mahdi seemed to withdraw his attention, a signal that the audience was done. As he left, Brooke glanced back over his shoulder. The grand ayatollah was again utterly still, his eyes closed, as if returning to a place of peace or, perhaps, absorbing the troubles of the world.

  SIX

  In a cab provided by the grand ayatollah, Brooke returned to the Christian section by an equally circuitous route. Out of caution, he had the driver drop him in Gemmayze.

  The night was warm and pleasant, the cobblestone streets crowded with young people and couples hardy enough to be careless of their hours on a weeknight. Passing by a nightclub that pulsed with festive Lebanese music, Brooke briefly regretted the loss of a carefree life. But his mind kept working on different levels—wondering if he had told al-Mahdi too much or too little, searching for some way to secure information on Fatah al-Islam. The phone buzzed in his coat pocket.

  Several thoughts struck him at once: that few people had his number; that the call might be critical; that he had parted with the phone during his time with al-Mahdi; that the caller might wish to divert his attention or stop his movements, setting him up to be shot or snatched off the streets. Maintaining the same pace, he put the phone to his ear.

  “How was the grand ayatollah?” Jameel asked.

  Of course, Brooke thought—Jameel had ties to Hassan Adallah. “Looking out for me, Bashir? Then I hope you’re on your cell phone.”

  At the reference to his obvious fear that his phone was bugged, Jameel answered drily, “A new one.” He paused, then said, “There was an arrest at the entrance to Ayn Al-Hilweh. The driver had a bomb in his car.”

  Involuntarily, Brooke stopped moving. “Fatah al-Islam?”

  “We think so, yes. The man was from the refugee camp in Tripoli.”

  Brooke began walking again. “Who was he after?”

  “He’s not talking. But Fatah al-Islam has one overt enemy within the camp.”

  The PLO, Brooke thought at once. He wondered how this would affect Ibrahim Farad’s assessment of his own safety. “You’ve got security cameras at the entrances to Ayn Al-Hilweh,” he said. “I assume you’re reviewing all the tapes from the past two weeks. Not just to see who entered, but who left.”

  “Of course.”

  With that, Brooke got off, moving at the same pace toward the Albergo.

  Close to midnight, Al Zaroor, Tariq, and
the Syrian carried the bomb in its casket to the powerboat. After giving Tariq his hurried thanks, Al Zaroor and the stranger, Yusif Azid, crossed the Tigris into Syria.

  A van waited there. Sweating, Al Zaroor and Azid loaded the bomb into the van, then covered it by turning the powerboat hull upward. Before dawn, they had transferred their cargo to a diesel-belching truck driven by a Syrian smuggler, and Al Zaroor had dressed in a uniform identical to that which Azid already wore. But Azid was who he appeared to be, an officer in military intelligence. He was also a Sunni fundamentalist, secretly worshipful of Osama Bin Laden, and had done al Qaeda crucial favors in the past. But he could manage this very large favor only by taking a few days’ vacation time, then behaving as though he were still on duty. Or so he said—Al Zaroor could not quite trust him.

  Not that he had a choice. In the abstract, the plan was the best he could design for Syria. The chubby and phlegmatic trucker, Hussein, thought he was smuggling antiquities to Lebanon for the usual shadowy purposes, most likely to finance Hezbollah. By early morning, they had entered the normal stream of commerce—the main highway through the north of Syria. The bomb was concealed among crates of machine parts covered by falsified Syrian documentation. The three oddly assorted companions occupied the cab, exchanging awkward conversation beneath the spasmodic wheeze of feeble air-conditioning. As in Iraq, the drive was long and flat and hot; as in Iraq, they faced the risk of checkpoints. But the Syrians, unlike the Iraqis, were purposeful and suspicious. This made Azid necessary.

  For miles, they moved in a line of vehicles—trucks, vans, beat-up cars, a few luxury vehicles. Shortly before eleven, traffic slowed abruptly. Though Al Zaroor did not yet see a checkpoint, there could be no other reason.