“That’s tantamount to turning him over to you,” Major Dell said. “You’ll work the claustrophobia, offer him space.”
“No,” Kealey assured her. “My ass is on the line, too.”
General Farrell sat in the armchair opposite the desk as he considered the request. In the distance, church bells sounded eleven a.m. That seemed to decide him. General Farrell pushed himself up using the armrests.
“Your patients have a more comfortable chair than I do,” he told the psychologist. He quickly became serious. “Has Major Phair been off base since he arrived?”
“Only locally,” she replied. “He goes to the movies, eats with students once in a while.”
“So this could be good for him, too,” the general said.
“It could.”
“Can you say that with more conviction, Major?” the general asked.
“Sir, ideally I would have more time to make a determination. Absent that, I can only guess.”
“And your guess is as good as his,” the general cocked his head toward Kealey, who stood like a car in neutral, idling with an occasional rev in his eyes.
“Mr. Kealey does have one advantage,” she said. “If he is allowed to take Major Phair from the base, at least he will be present in Washington to perform any mid-course corrections.” She regarded him. “If the major goes to Iraq, will he go alone?”
“I don’t know,” Kealey said. “In any case, he wouldn’t go unprepared. I don’t want to lose him or jeopardize my work.”
“Well, he’s been instructed to wait in his apartment in the event he was needed,” the general said. “I guess the next step is up to him.”
Major Dell rose. “Then I’ve said all I can.” She saluted the general and offered the other man her hand. “Good luck, sir.”
Kealey thanked her, smiling somewhat more sincerely than before.
The men left together, leaving Dell feeling as though she’d been used. It was a Kabuki-like drama that Kealey had clearly intended to go a certain way. The fact that General Farrell had come here personally suggested that he was under some pressure from Washington to comply. She didn’t see any point fighting it, and the general was correct. She had no good reason to dissent. If Phair proved reticent, he could be sent to some remote post like Fort Greely, Alaska, or on a typhoon-watch in the Republic of Palau, where soldiers had nothing to do but study radar screens and watch DVDs, and the clerics had less to do than that. If Phair opted to retire, he could be pressured by the threat of a dishonorable discharge or even a court-martial. Because the cleric had acquired a unique talent set in Iraq, his actions during and subsequent to the battle had never been reviewed by a military conduct panel. That was still an option. The DoD could still destroy him, professionally and spiritually.
She hoped that it would not come to that, though she wondered—even at the risk of personal peril—whether Phair would accept a position that might exploit the citizens he had lived among.
It wasn’t her problem, though Dell knew what she would counsel if Phair asked.
Take it. Not from fear, not even from patriotism, but because the Middle East needed people of conscience.
Washington, too, she thought as the men’s footsteps faded down the hall.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
FORT JACKSON, SOUTH CAROLINA
Making things happen in government was like trying to put out a wildfire with spit. It’s possible, but just barely. And unless you dance while you’re spitting, you’re definitely going to get burned, inhale smoke, lose your bearings, and maybe lose your house if there’s a sudden change in the wind. Which is why, when Ryan Kealey made up his mind to do something, he started spitting . . . and dancing.
Kealey left General Farrell at the front of the medical building, where the general’s driver met him and brought him back to his office. The general did not say much after they left Major Dell’s office, other than to iterate that he would honor Phair’s own wishes in this matter and abide by the psychologist’s findings—which did not seem like an endorsement to Kealey, but an avoidance of committing to one. The psychologist saw no reason to believe that Phair was a risk, but offered no real evidence that he was not.
If Kealey’s field operatives gave him reports like that, the nation would be in the gravest peril.
It was a pleasant afternoon and, having secured directions from the driver on how to get to the new residential block, Kealey decided to walk.
The air was scented with freshly cut grass and diesel fuel, and there were a few patches of late tulips along his walk. The orderly layout of the base, the passing columns of vehicles and marching recruits, the clean, emphatic lines of the buildings, all spoke to the kind of organization that went completely to hell outside these walls. Kealey had been to Iraq and Afghanistan several times and—though he’d never say this to General Farrell—he would take a questionable, free-ranging operative over a mechanized brigade any day. The way to get these guys was to undermine them from within, like decay, not hammer them from without. It was great when a couple of five-hundred-pound bombs took out a terrorist leader. By their nature, however, those weapons also took out any civilians, residences, shops, and passersby who happened to be in the blast radius. Unavoidable, but a real spreader of ill will. The Iraqis had more respect for a combatant who pulled some bastard warlord from a hole in the ground by his hair, as they did to Saddam. In the end, in this struggle, combat was just a distraction. The real work was on the inside, the erosive stuff.
And who’s the greater boon to the national goal? he thought. A morally numbed reservist on his third consecutive tour of duty, or an American cleric who can, hopefully, still distinguish between an opportunity and a target?
The salmon-colored homes with identical lines and sidings lay behind neat squares of lawns, which were tucked behind wide cement sidewalks and litter-free streets. It was a perfect, economical little community, and he wondered if that was an architect’s vision or someone’s compromise. Did someone think we’d all be better off living in giant ant colonies?
Is it a joke on the super-patriots? he wondered. Are the people in charge inevitably Communists at heart?
Sprinklers watered the small, identical lawns up and down the street. Kealey glanced at the numbers painted olive green on the curb. He squinted into the sun and saw Phair sitting in a folding lawn chair on a small patio at 323, away from the spray of the sprinkler. He recognized the cleric from his dossier photo. Phair was dressed in jeans and a military-issue short-sleeve shirt. His silver hair was cut short and he was clean-shaven. In the photos from Baghdad, it had been long and he’d worn a thin beard which had prevented his cheeks and chin from turning bronze.
Kealey raised his left hand in greeting, Phair raised one in acknowledgment—like two Native American braves meeting unexpectedly and warily on the trail—and the agent turned up the narrow cement path that bisected the lawn perpendicular to the sidewalk.
“Sorry to keep you hanging around like this,” Kealey said, extending his hand. It was always good to open an attack with an apology for it. That softened resistance. “I’m Ryan Kealey, special agent, CIA.”
The other man rose easily and accepted the hand. “James Phair.” Phair’s grip was strong. His brown eyes were wary but unflinching.
“Pleasure to meet you,” Kealey said.
Phair was studying him. “You don’t look like a Company man.”
“How so?”
“Those boys are all hungry, like bees in the morning. You’re relaxed.”
“I’m—well, let’s just say I’m not one of the regulars and leave it at that for now.”
“A defrocked priest who still has faith,” Phair said, warming.
“Something like that.”
“You want to talk inside or out?” Phair asked graciously. Either he had good manners or was looking to put Kealey at his ease for a counterattack.
“Here is fine,” Kealey told him.
“I’ll get another chair.”
Phair sat back down and squinted up at his guest. “What kinds of things do you do when you’re off this ass?”
“Nice try, but as I just suggested I’m not going to talk about that,” Kealey said with a smile. “Interesting work, though. I like to think it’s important.”
“Do you enjoy it?”
“That’s too strong a word,” Kealey said. “Let’s call it ‘necessary.’ What about you? Do you enjoy what you’re doing here?”
“Oh,” Phair sighed. “I’m guessing you know the answer to that.”
“Actually, I don’t,” Kealey told him. “I know what you’ve said to others and what they’ve said to me, but I don’t trust hearsay. Everyone has an agenda, even if they don’t realize it. Facts get spun. Let me be more specific. Do you enjoy teaching here?”
“The work is challenging,” Phair said carefully.
“Rewarding?”
“To a point,” he replied.
“Would you ever consider doing anything more challenging?”
Phair was still being cautious. “Such as? And please, Mr. Kealey. Don’t go fishing on me. What do you need?”
Kealey liked that. He had been waiting for a sign of the real Phair, and there it was. “Iran and Iraq are getting together on a nonsectarian hospital in Basra. We’re worried about the opium route, about why Iran would suddenly start promoting nonsectarianism, a few other things. We’re thinking about putting someone on the inside,” Kealey said. “I need you on it. Maybe to go inside, maybe just to plan, but definitely to be involved.”
Phair chuckled. “Wow.”
“What?”
“I spent sixteen years among a nation of hagglers,” he said. “The only people who were as direct as that had their faces covered with black cloth and carried Iranian weapons.”
“Well, at least you’re on the same side as this radical,” Kealey said with a mirthless little laugh.
He watched Phair’s reaction carefully. The cleric pursed his lips and nodded. He did not look away. “Thank you for that,” Phair said.
At that moment, Kealey saw a surety of purpose. He believed he could trust this man.
“You’re welcome. The heart of it is, I’m offering you a job, Major, a more interesting one, I hope, than what you’re doing now. But before I say more, I must know if you’re interested. There are security issues.”
“I’m interested in helping people spiritually, Mr. Kealey. I’m not clear how spying fits in with that.”
“That’s a ratty little word,” Kealey said with distaste. “Private eyes looking for adulterers ‘spy.’ We collect data.”
“My apologies,” Phair smiled.
“To answer your question, this is a larger task of intelligence-gathering and interpretation. With perks.”
“Perks?”
“We have a license to kill,” Kealey said.
Phair looked at him with horror that came on like a quick, summer thunderstorm.
“That last part was a sort of a joke,” Kealey said.
“Thanks for clarifying,” Phair said with a nervous laugh. “But you’re not kidding.”
“Major, like you, we’re interested in protecting the innocent, whoever they are. Anyone who is vulnerable to terrorist activity.”
“When I was in Iraq—”
“You hung out with some pretty rough hajiis,” Kealey interrupted. “And survived. Few Americans can claim to have done that.”
“I had to prove myself in ways”—Phair stopped, swallowed—“ways of which I’m not terribly proud.”
“Such as?”
Phair’s eyes dropped. He stared at the vinyl slats underfoot. “I once noticed men yelling at women and children just before an improvised explosive attack,” he said quietly. “That’s not uncommon, but after the street exploded beneath an American convoy I asked the onlookers if the men who were yelling were the men who had rigged the IEDs. They said yes. They said the men were telling them that if they warned the Americans, they would be killed in their beds. When the rest of the American convoy searched for the perpetrators, I remained with the children and said nothing. One of the bombers was still watching. I could have identified myself and left with the convoy, but these people could not. They would have been killed.”
“Tough call,” Kealey said.
“What would you have done?”
“I probably would have encouraged—no, urged—them to talk and offered them protection.”
“Where? In some other town? Would you want to be relocated from Washington to Havana or Cape Town?”
“Some days, yes.”
Phair smiled a little. “The point is, they wouldn’t have left and coalition soldiers couldn’t protect them forever. Jihadists have long memories. They’re still angry about the Crusades.” Phair’s faraway expression suggested there was something more.
“You gave the locals advice afterward,” Kealey said.
Phair’s eyes snapped up. “How did you know?”
“It’s what priests do. What did you tell them?”
Phair took a steadying breath. “That if they saw the insurgents again, to thank them for not harming the children.”
That surprised Kealey, though he didn’t show it. “Why?”
“The security of their families is the only blessing they can realistically hope for,” Phair replied. “They must protect that, aggressively. And—looking ahead, the Iraqis need more children who are going to grow up with reasonable voices based on generous spirits, not bombers.”
“Some people would say you were teaching them appeasement.”
“I would call it goodwill,” Phair said. “Feed an angry dog often enough and it may one day cease to be angry. That works for the spirit as well.”
Now he sounded like Major Dell, conjecturing and extrapolating. Kealey preferred facts: a dead terrorist was better than one who might be rehabilitated. Still, he understood where the cleric was coming from.
Phair looked toward the apartment. “Would you like a drink? I’ve got water and Coca-Cola.”
“I’m okay,” Kealey said.
“I’m going to get myself something,” Phair said, rising.
Phair went inside and Kealey looked out at the flat, chocolate-colored roofs across the street. There was a glint in the window of one, a prismatic sliver from behind a vase filled with hydrangeas. Kealey smiled. Somewhere in the distance he heard a lawnmower. Farther along the street someone was grilling hamburgers. There was a small garden to his right, just in front of the patio. The simple comforts and security Phair had described as lacking in Iraq were abundant here. Instead of enjoying them for himself, he was still clearly lamenting that others didn’t have it. That reinforced Kealey’s impression that the man would do what was necessary to bring peace to the land. He just had to choose the right time to tell him about Dr. al-Shenawi, the main purpose of the mission.
Phair returned with a plastic bottle, which he set beside him as he sat. His hand remained around the bottle.
“Does it remind you of Iraq?” Kealey asked, indicating the bottle.
Phair chuckled. “How’d you know?”
“Coke is big there. Plus, the bottle is safe here, but you’re holding it. Lot of quick thieves over there.”
“You’re a one-man intelligence agency,” Phair said.
“And a stockholder in Coke,” Kealey said. “Amazing what you learn about national habits from local bottlers. So, Major Phair. What do you think?”
“I don’t suppose I can have a day or two to think about it,” Phair said.
“My cell is on silent.”
“I’m sorry?”
“That’s a development you missed,” Kealey said. “It vibrated five times since I’ve been here. I didn’t answer it. In modern parlance, that means I’m serious about this.”
“I see.”
>
Kealey positioned himself casually but strategically between Phair and the street. “Would it help you decide if I told you there’s a woman using binoculars to watch and lip-read in the living room of number 324?”
Phair frowned. But he didn’t look over. Iraq had trained him not to look at potentially dangerous people. Men like those bombers he had seen didn’t like to be identified later, even by the design of their clothes or the shoes they were wearing. Not with American soldiers arresting anyone who might be a bomber.
“How do you know?” Phair asked.
“You spend a lot of time on the patio. The sun, Iraq, good memories—they comfort you, just like the Coke. The sprinklers would drown out audio, so I looked for someone eye-level with your chair and found her.”
“Damn.”
“That’s why I’m sitting with my back to the street.”
“I just got that,” Phair said.
“Your apartment is almost certainly bugged, so if you do stay here I would ask you not to say anything about what I just told you, any of it, to anyone.”
Phair shook his head. “How do I know it’s the general doing it and not you?”
“Well, there you have it.”
“Pardon?”
“The difference between spying and what we do,” Kealey grinned. “We engage people face-to-face.”
“I suppose it could be Homeland Security, too,” Phair said.
Kealey was surprised and showed it.
“You’re not the first agent to take an interest in me, Mr. Kealey,” Phair answered his unasked question. “Shortly after I was brought back to the base in Iraq, there was a woman who sat in on a session with me.”
“By your permission, I hope.”
“Yes, of course. I forget her last name but her first name was Dina.”
The Icebreaker, Kealey thought. Phair was right, that could be one of her agents across the street behind the hydrangeas. He doubted DHS would bother to send someone to shadow the cleric in Basra, but it was a possibility, and there could be some red tape and turf-squabbling as a prelude. Unless he snuck the cleric out but sent the Icebreaker the equivalent of a polite note, letting her know the man was now under Kealey’s care.
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