Saul's Game

by Andrew Kaplan

  “How do I know it’s real amber?” she said.

  “Many ways.” He smiled. “Feel it grow warm in your hand. Real amber is alive. Rub it with a piece of soft cloth or fur. It will become charged with static electricity and attract lint and dust. Did you know the ancient Greeks called amber ‘electron’? The word ‘electricity’ comes from amber.” Again he smiled. “There are simple tests for true amber. Put it in salt water. Real amber floats. The fakes, plastic, glass, they all sink. Or rub a drop of alcohol or nail polish on it; doesn’t bother real amber, but the fakes turn nasty. Hold it in a flame. Real amber burns nicely with a wonderful pine aroma.”

  “I wouldn’t want to burn this,” she said.

  “No, miss. Allah forbid. Not this necklace.”

  They were in his shop in the Al-Hamidiya Souk, an Aladdin’s cave of jewelry and expensive handicrafts, handmade gold, silver, and amber jewelry, Damascene silk brocades hanging from racks, copper engraved pots and vessels, mother-of-pearl-inlaid tables. “One of fourteen shops I own,” he told her.

  Carrie had been walking fast toward Orhan’s shop in the souk, checking for watchers, but seeing nothing out of the ordinary. Despite the late hour, there were still plenty of shoppers and a few tourists wandering the lanes of the souk; some young people gathered at an ice cream stand. Most of the shops were open, but strangely, many of the shopkeepers were not at the front, beckoning people inside as they normally did. True, it was late, nearly time to close, but still, not normal.

  Internal alarm bells began to go off. Her skin began to prickle all over, like before one of her descents into depression, the opposite of her bipolar “flights,” when she wasn’t on either lithium or clozapine. The black times when she could barely move, when she would sit for hours, days even, catatonic; the only ray of light, the terrible beckoning seduction of the small Glock 26 pistol in her handbag. Lift me out, it seemed to call to her. Why go through it all when you can end it with a little squeeze of the trigger? Trying to tell herself, it’s not me, it’s the bipolar talking. It’s not you, Daddy, because sometimes it was the voice of her father, Frank. And it’s not me.

  Something was happening. The souk seemed normal enough. The strolling water vendors, the side streets open to the night, the women in hijabs with plastic shopping bags. But was it her imagination, or were two shopkeepers talking furtively to each other as she approached the turn that led to Orhan’s shop? And there was a man in a suit jacket talking into a Bluetooth headset while standing next to a shop selling women’s shoes. Shit, she thought.

  The question now was whether they had arrested Orhan already. The needle was off the chart on this approach. She decided to get near enough to see if his shop was open and then leave by a side street.

  “Do you remember me, lovely miss?” The merchant who had been with Orhan earlier in the day had stepped out of his shop into the passageway. Then coming closer, he whispered: “The rug dealer is dead. Come inside.”

  “You were playing with Orhan,” she said, stunned, as though she’d walked into a wall. She stepped into the merchant’s shop and looked around. Delayed reaction, she told herself. Like when you just miss getting hit by a truck. For the moment, they appeared to be alone. She said the first thing that came into her head. “You know he cheats.”

  “So do I,” he said, offering her a seat on a chair with an intricate inlay of mother-of-pearl. Clapping his hands, the merchant told a teenage boy who suddenly materialized from the back to bring them tea.

  “Bring baklawa and ghraybeh cookies too,” he added. As the boy left, he introduced himself. “Aref Tayfouri, miss. Businessman; also import export.”

  “And what game are we playing now, Mr. Tayfouri?” she asked, exhaling. Suddenly realizing she’d been holding her breath all that time.

  He leaned closer.

  “Listen, miss. I don’t know what this is. I don’t know what Orhan’s done. I don’t know you. I don’t want to be involved,” he whispered, at the same time showing her an exquisite honey-amber necklace with a gesture that would not have been out of place from a courtier presenting a crown to a queen. “Lovely, isn’t it, miss?”

  “Why are you helping me?” she asked, her eyes darting to check out passersby, then looking at the necklace. It looked very expensive. If Orhan had been arrested, the souk must be thick with GSD agents, she thought.

  “I don’t know. Here.” He handed her a copper-and-honey-amber brooch. “A gift.”

  “I can’t,” she said, pushing it away.

  “Please,” he insisted, pushing it back to her. “It’s from your friend. For you, lovely miss. Perhaps to match the beautiful necklace, if you would like to buy,” he said loudly, then whispered urgently: “Truly, I thought of throwing it away. But what if they traced it to me? Ah, good, the chai,” as the boy brought the tea and pastries on a copper tray. “Please,” gesturing for her to enjoy.

  Carrie took a sip of the tea and a bite of baklawa. She wasn’t sure how far to trust this Tayfouri; clearly he was scared and out of his depth. Or pretending to be. Making sure no one was watching, she pinned the brooch on her blouse based on the theory of hiding in plain sight. But first she needed to confirm that it had come from Orhan and when.

  She fingered the amber necklace. It looked expensive.

  “Lovely,” she murmured. “When did he give it to you?”

  “The brooch is mine, madam. It has a clasp that opens. I thought it best, understand?” he whispered back.

  She nodded. There was something concealed inside.

  “Barsani came to me barely an hour before they came for him,” he went on. “How he knew they were coming, I have no idea. The rumor in the souk is that when the security police came for him, they found him wrapped in his favorite yellow Bidjar rug. The rug was soaked red with blood. He had cut his own throat, the knife still sticking in it. Can you imagine?”

  He took out a pack of Marlboros and lit one, his hand shaking. He angrily snapped the lighter shut. “I have a wife and three children, miss. I don’t need this.”

  Two Syrian policemen armed with submachine guns walked by the entrance to the shop and looked inside. Carrie had to grab her teacup with both hands to keep it from spilling. After a moment, the two policemen walked on. Now that she thought about it, the souk had grown suddenly empty. Her nerves, never her strong suit, were screaming. She had to get away from here soon. But she was a trained operations officer. She couldn’t take this at face value. She had to know why Orhan, no matter how desperate, would risk giving something for the CIA to Tayfouri.

  “Why did he come to you?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. We’re both Kurds. Do you know what that’s like in this country?”

  “No.” She looked at him. “Tell me.”

  “Like walking barefoot on broken glass, miss. Carefully. Only you smile. And smile. And smile,” gritting his teeth.

  “So he came to you because you’re both Kurds? Or maybe because you both cheat at tawla? What do you import-export?”

  He hesitated. “That depends.”

  “On what?”

  “On who’s asking.”

  Strange why people do things, thinking of what it must have been like for Orhan in those last few minutes, making his choice about who to trust with whatever was in the brooch.

  “I’m beginning to understand, Monsieur Tayfouri.” She leaned closer to whisper. “The sooner I leave Damascus the better for both of us. Can you be of assistance?”

  He thought for a moment. “Do you know Aleppo?”

  After leaving Tayfouri’s shop in the souk, she took three taxis and a servee microbus, all going in opposite directions so that she had to run from one vehicle to another, to make sure no one had followed her from the souk before she risked going back to her room at the Cham Palace.

  Back at the hotel, there were the usual low-level GSD watchers sitting and looking bored in the lavish lobby and atrium, but no one seemed particularly interested in Jane Meyerhof, she thought. S
he went over to the concierge’s desk and asked him to make arrangements for a bus trip to Aleppo.

  “You will like Aleppo, madam. It is famous for its mother-of-pearl inlaid boxes. Many important sights, although not like Damascus, of course,” the concierge said.

  “Of course. Thank you,” she said, paying him for the tickets and heading for the elevator.

  Once in her room, she locked the door and took her time going over the room and bathroom, checking for bugs and hidden cameras. The room was clean except for the normal GSD bug in the room telephone, which she left alone. She used that phone to call room service to order a sandwich and a mint lemonade and got to work on her laptop.

  Inside the amber brooch was a compartment containing a thumb drive. She hefted it grimly in her palm. Orhan—and maybe Cadillac too—had died to get this to her. She plugged the drive into her laptop, turned on the sound, and suddenly she was watching people dancing at a wedding led by the young couple, the bride in white, swaying in front of a multitiered cake.

  She lurched to turn down the sound and close the laptop, because right then there came a knock at the door. She grabbed her pistol, holding it behind her back, and moved to the door.

  It was a waiter with her sandwich and drink. He brought it in. She waited till he had gone, then started the video again, this time with the sound turned low. Whose wedding? she wondered. Then she saw Cadillac and his wife among the guests. They had taught Cadillac well, she thought wryly. Looking at this video, the GSD would assume it was just an ordinary wedding video. They’d watch it, but never see it for what it really was.

  Next, she ran the NSA software that parsed out a file hidden in the video. The software pulled millions of bits together to create an .avi file, which she titled “Damascus sights.” She put in her earplug and, placing her pistol beside her on the bed, sat down to run the file.

  The video lasted less than a minute and thirty seconds. After she ran it, she sat there, stunned. It changed everything. A whole new ball game. All she could think was, I have to get this to Saul ASAP.

  Her instincts had been screaming for her to leave Damascus. With the SOG team incursion and the deaths of both Cadillac and Orhan, right now she was in the bull’s-eye of the red zone. She couldn’t risk trying to communicate with Saul from here. Her only chance was to get out of town and send the intel to Saul from Aleppo.

  The video had been taken with a hidden camera. In all likelihood, the one concealed in the sunglasses Carrie had personally given to Cadillac at their second meeting in Beirut. It had to have been taken by Cadillac himself.

  It was in two parts. The first locale was obvious. One of the restaurants clustered on the ridge of Mount Qasioun, the mountain that loomed over Damascus. In this most ancient of cities, it was said that it was on these slopes that Cain killed Abel.

  She could tell it had been shot close to sunset, the lights just coming on in the city spread out below and the lamps of the restaurant on, but despite the shadows, still enough sunlight to see, although not clearly. It showed two men talking at a table, with a breathless voice-over by Cadillac. One of the men was an Arab in an expensive suit. Because of the angle from which the footage was shot, she could only see the Arab’s back and, just for one second when he turned, part of the side of his face. My God, Carrie thought. Could it be him? Abu Nazir? Was it possible this was an actual sighting? There was no way to tell who the Arab really was. Nothing definite; a man’s back. But still, something told her Cadillac had delivered something important. A shiver went through her. Seated at the table with him was a European in a striped shirt worn outside checked wool trousers, talking while he ate a slice of pizza.

  The voice-over was by Cadillac. Added later, she thought.

  “The man in the suit is Abu Nazir,” Cadillac’s voice said in Arabic. It could be him, Carrie thought. It absolutely could be him. “I don’t know the name of the man he is with, but I’ve heard him referred to as ‘the Russian.’ But here’s something interesting. Seated at the table next to them.” As Cadillac spoke, the video moved to the next table, where three Syrian men were sitting, all wearing white shirts and ties.

  The three men were eating little dishes of mezze. One of them was smoking a shisha water pipe and watching the next table with great interest.

  “I know the one smoking the shisha,” Cadillac said on the voice-over. “His name is Omar al-Mawasi. He is definitely GSD. All these guys are GSD. They’re calling the guy with Abu Nazir ‘the Russian.’”

  And then Cadillac must’ve pointed the pen with the hidden microphone at Abu Nazir’s table. It caught a jumble of voices in Arabic and a bit of the man Cadillac said was Abu Nazir and the Russian speaking in English.

  “. . . will change the course of the war,” Abu Nazir said. The voice, even with the poor quality of the recording and the noise of conversations, was somehow familiar. She stopped the video and played it again. And again. She’d heard the voice before somewhere, searching her memory for where. She played more of the video.

  “Your action will change everyth—” the Russian said, the rest drowned out by someone at another table saying something in Arabic about a car accident on Al Katheeb Road.

  “. . . regret the necessity of having to leave . . .” the Russian said amid a jumble of voices, including one of the GSD men at the next table talking about getting reimbursed.

  “An inconvenience. We always planned for such a . . .” Abu Nazir said, the rest lost in background noise. And then she had it. Back in 2006. The ruins of the porcelain factory in Ramadi and the recorded conversation and the voice of the man who had interrogated her agent, Walid Karim, code-named Romeo. It was him! Abu Nazir! It was his voice. She was certain of it.

  That section of the video ended and it left Carrie’s mind reeling. It confirmed—at least tentatively—that Abu Nazir had been hiding in Syria, and for some time, with the connivance of the Syrian government. The Syrians were playing both ends against the middle. But who was the European, the Russian? What did he have to do with it? Or with IPLA? More important, what was Abu Nazir planning that would change the course of the war in Iraq?

  The date of the recording had been automatically imprinted on it by the camera. Two days ago. Two days! Could the Russian have been warning Abu Nazir about the SOG team op? My God, was that it? Did Cadillac actually see it happen without knowing it? Because the timing was unbelievable.

  It was a breakthrough! Proof positive of a leak. And even better, a lead. The Russian. Saul would go nuts over this, she thought, racing to finish the video. That was a mistake.

  The second part of the video was gut-wrenching. It was jerky footage shot by Cadillac while walking on a wide, busy Damascus street, probably 17th of April Street, near his office. The video was nothing special; people and cars going by. The part that killed her was Cadillac’s voice-over.

  “Billie . . .” The cover name she had used with him—for jazz singer Billie Holiday. “I think I’m discovered. I got your captain message and the Cousin Abdulkader emergency message. I will try meeting you at the café tonight, but I have to tell you, I think I am done. Today, I saw my commander, Tariq. He and I go back many years. But this time, instead of the normal way he usually looks at me, or nods, he looked away.

  “I have never in my life felt as I felt at that moment. My whole body began to sweat. We say in Arabic, as if someone is crying on my grave.

  “So I said something to him about ‘those idiots in the petrol depot. They got the amounts wrong again.’ This is something we both always complain about. But instead of agreeing, or calling them ‘asses’ as usual, he just looked at me. Such a look, Billie. It turned my blood to ice. He said nothing, just walked on. This man is my friend, Billie.

  “Then in my office. Not a single phone call. No new emails. Nothing. No junior officers. No colleagues stopping by. It is like the word has gone out. I am haram. Forbidden. I left work early. I will try to get this to the drop in the souk now if I can. I will come to the café tonight
, but I feel it coming. The noose is closing around me. Please, if you get this, help my family. Get them out of Syria. Don’t let them be refugees, Billie. You can do this. I know you can do this. Allahu akhbar, Billie.”

  God is great, she translated numbly to herself as the video ended.

  Damn, damn, damn, she thought. And then Cadillac had led them right to Orhan. A shiver went down her spine. And they almost got me . . . closing the laptop and sliding the pistol under her pillow as she got into bed.

  She woke up sweating in the middle of the night. In the darkness, she had no idea where she was. A sense of panic closed in. Then she remembered. Her hotel room. Still in Damascus.

  She went to the window and peeked out from behind the curtain at the city, the strangely yellow streetlights and the minarets of mosques. Her mission sense was prickling all over her skin like a terrible itch. I have to get out of here, she thought.

  CHAPTER 6

  Aleppo, Syria

  13 April 2009

  In the year 1123, Baldwin II, king of Jerusalem, made what was for him a rare tactical error and was captured in battle by the Seljuk Turk Belek, who held him prisoner for two years in the Citadel castle in Aleppo. The massive white-stone castle still gleamed in the afternoon sun on its acropolis, an outcropping of rock over the Aintab plateau that had been used as a fortress since long before history. But it held little interest for Carrie, except for a few cell-phone snapshot photos that she would need.

  Coming from the bus station, her only real interest in Aleppo was the Internet café someone on the bus had mentioned. They said it was on Noureddin Zinki, a street that radiated north from the Citadel castle, which could be seen from all over the city.

  Once in the café, she sat next to a young Syrian college student. She got online, plugged in the flash drive, and uploaded Cadillac’s video file via a CIA cover website. The site, presumably for a freight forwarding company, was actually a server in Hamburg used to bounce files to a Vimeo-like international video website.