Hate scorched his throat. “Why didn’t you go to the authorities in Jerusalem? They would have protected you.”
“I was afraid. I had to report the progress I was making to a Palestinian terrorist leader in Jericho twice a week. He said they were watching me, that if I went to the police I’d be killed. You have to believe me,” she said. “After I got to know you I tried to get out of it. Remember when I said I went to Aleppo—that was a lie. I really drove to Lebanon. I thought maybe I could fly to Europe and hide so that Sarraj couldn’t make me hurt you. I got as far as the airport in Beirut. They brought me back and threatened to throw acid in my face if I tried escaping again.” She reached out to touch him. “I didn’t want to do it, but I was frightened. You have to believe that. I care about you. Don’t leave me here.”
He wanted to smash her face into the wall. What kind of fool did she think he was! She was lying; her only concern, finding Operative 66. Disgust and anger fused together inside him. He no longer cared to control his emotions. He’d give her what she wanted. He’d take her to meet Operative 66—for two seconds. Then he’d blow her fucking brains out.
“Get into the bathroom and wash your face. You’re coming with me.” He looked at his watch. It was three minutes to nine.
She jumped up and followed his instructions. When she returned he led her out of the room and down the hall. As they waited for the elevator Kim clung to his arm for support. He felt each of her fingers individually. Once in the lobby he crossed to the pay phones. Nobody stopped them; the Second Bureau would want to follow him to Operative 66. He inserted a brass five-piaster coin in the slot and dialed the number al-Alazar had given him. The senior Israeli agent answered after half a ring. Ari spoke the single word “Go,” then hung up.
“I’m hungry, why don’t we get something to eat,” he said.
“Fine,” Kim responded. She would agree to anything he suggested.
The pounding of his heart beat in his ears as the maître d’ seated them. Ari opened the menu, keeping a close eye on his watch. Exactly four minutes after he had called al-Alazar he got up and motioned to Kim to follow him. Walking up to the maître d’, Ari spoke in a quiet voice:
“Do you think you might be able to introduce us to the chef? Miss Johnson is very interested in watching him prepare her meal.”
The maître d’ frowned. “Such a request is highly irregular. I’m extremely sorry, but I don’t think…” Ari handed him a fifty-pound note. The maître d’s face registered no reaction. He simply took the bill and slipped it into his pants pocket. “I think something can be arranged. Please follow me.”
He guided them across the dining room toward the kitchen. As soon as the swinging doors closed behind them Ari grabbed Kim’s hand and pulled her past the surprised maître d’. “Come on,” he shouted, dragging her through the maze of cooks, food, and counters. Seconds later two men burst into the kitchen. Spotting Ari and Kim fleeing out the back door, they ran after them, knocking the perplexed maître d’ to the ground as he protested loudly.
Ari and Kim dashed into the alley behind the hotel, where an empty Triumph Spitfire was parked, its motor idling. As Ari leaped over the door of the convertible, Kim jumped in beside him. Quickly he threw the car into gear, sending the vehicle racing down the alley with the screech of rubber grating against asphalt. The two Second Bureau agents ran out of the kitchen just in time to get the car’s make and license number.
Ari drove quickly, aware that the police would have an all-points bulletin out on the Spitfire within minutes. To Kim’s surprise, instead of heading down side streets he followed Brazil Avenue into Farouk El Awal Boulevard, Damascus’s main thoroughfare, and turned left, toward the crowded Marjeh Square district. Veering around a donkey pulling a chestnut vendor’s cart, he drove through the main entrance to the Ministry of Justice, around the building, and into a back parking lot that was empty, except for a green Fiat. He parked the Spitfire against the building where it would not be seen and got out, carrying a dark tarpaulin in his hand. “Help me cover the car,” he said.
Kim hurriedly stepped out of the convertible, took one edge of the camouflaging canvas, and pulled it over the bright yellow vehicle.
“The Fiat’s ours,” he said, instructing her to follow him as he finished draping his end over the hood of the Spitfire.
Within seconds he guided the Fiat by the soot-covered obelisk in Marjeh Square and onto Farouk El Awal Boulevard, heading west this time. So far so good. It was 9:07. They would rendezvous with al-Alazar in six minutes.
“Are you scared?” he asked as they sped parallel to the Barada River which watered the spacious Jalaa Park stretching on the right side of the highway.
“A little.”
He looked at her.
She leaned over and kissed his cheek. “I’m incredibly happy.”
Driving just under the speed limit of sixty kilometers per hour Ari turned south, passing the domed Madrassa Selimiya, its weed-infested courtyard piled high with rusting bed frames. The eucalyptus-lined secondary road they followed wound through the suburbs toward the desert, skirting around the olive green Hamidieh barracks which serve as dormitories for Damascus University. Ari gripped the steering wheel tensely. When he was inducted into the Service, one of the first and most important rules drummed into his head by his training sergeant was not to ease up during the period of psychological vulnerability, that span of time when one appears to have succeeded but has not yet bridged all possible danger. Relaxing, even slightly, might prove fatal.
Kim touched his hand. “I love you,” she said.
Moving his arm away, he didn’t respond.
Soon they emerged from the suburbs and sped onto a narrow two-lane highway that continued straight ahead, disappearing into the desert. Ari switched off the headlights. The road was dark and quiet; the bright beams might attract attention. To compensate for the loss of light he reduced his speed.
“How much longer?” Kim asked nervously.
“A minute or two.”
Seconds later they passed a sign, barely discernable in the moonless night, that read: KUNEITRA 65 KILOMETERS. Ari slammed on the brakes and swung the car off the road.
“We were closer than I thought,” he said.
“But we’re in the middle of nowhere.”
“Precisely.”
As he stepped out of the car the silence seemed to quake in his ears. A quick glance at his watch informed him that they were two minutes late. She slid across the seat, climbed out, and moved next to him.
“What are…”
“Shush,” he said. He reached into the car and flashed the headlights. The beams illuminated the desert, then darkness enveloped the barren plain again. He waited. A heavy layer of clouds blotted out the stars. An uneasy quiet descended over the desert. There were no lights, no sounds, and no signs of movement. Ari shivered. The temperature was dropping rapidly and they hadn’t brought jackets.
“Al-Alazar,” he called into the night.
His voice rolled over the rugged plateau, climbing toward the Heights of Golan.
There was no response, no echo, no recognition.
Al-Alazar couldn’t have left; he would wait more than two minutes, he had to.
He led her away from the car, moving a few steps into the rocky plain.
“Al-Alazar,” he called loudly, a note of despair ringing in his voice.
Silence. The interminable silence of Orion, the dark hunter. Ari looked up to where the constellation should have been. What was the hunter trying to tell him? What was he always trying to tell him?
“Al-Alazar!” he shouted, perspiring freely in the cold air.
“Over here,” Sabri al-Alazar spoke softly from the road three feet behind them. The sound of his voice startled him. There was something in his flat tone, in the way he had snuck up behind them without being heard, but Ari couldn’t mold what he sensed into clear thoughts.
Spinning around, he saw al-Alazar pointing a snub-nosed
Smith & Wesson .38 caliber revolver at his chest.
Cracks formed in Ari’s fragile world. He couldn’t believe Operative 66 intended to kill him, but there it was: a gun leveled at his heart.
“What’s she doing here?” al-Alazar asked icily.
Abruptly the anger that had flashed through him was gone. He felt stupid. Why had he brought her along? To kill her? He could have done that in his room.
Kim looked at him, realizing he hadn’t believed the story she’d made up.
“You fool,” al-Alazar said, moving close to them. “Her father’s a professor of political science at the American University in Cairo and her mother’s a Palestinian. She’s been trained by the Egyptian Mukhbarat el-Amma since she was sixteen. She’s probably led the Second Bureau...”
He snatched her purse, opened it, and pulled out a small directional transmitter. Ari’s knees buckled. His chest felt weak. Not only had he ceased to be of value to the Service, he realized he’d become a burden.
Suddenly the sound of car engines shattered the silence. The two Israelis stared down the road as three pairs of headlights bore down on them. Their attention momentarily diverted, Kim darted into the desert.
Before Ari could turn, al-Alazar fired. The shot pierced the back of her skull and the bullet exploded inside her brain. She fell forward, dead. Ari felt neither sadness nor satisfaction; he no longer felt anything.
Al-Alazar turned back to the road. The cars were less than a minute away.
“Shit, we’ll never get out of here,” he swore out loud.
“Give me the gun,” Ari said.
Al-Alazar hesitated.
“Give me the gun!”
The senior agent handed it to him.
Ari weighed the light 24-ounce M-15 Combat Masterpiece in his hand. It was a good, reliable revolver, but he would have preferred a Browning automatic pistol with a multishot magazine.
“Now get in the jeep,” Ari said. “I’ll try to hold them off long enough for you to make it to the rendezvous point, or at least until you’re out of rifle range. Those cars shouldn’t be able to follow you through the desert, it’s too rocky.”
“But I can’t leave you here.”
“I’m no hero. If my life was worth anything to Israeli intelligence, I’d make you stay and I’d go. But it’s not. It’s important that you get out of here alive. Now move!” He shoved the smaller man toward the desert where the jeep was parked.
Al-Alazar grabbed his hand affectionately. “There are five bullets left, save the last one for yourself.”
Ari nodded.
As the Syrian vehicles screeched to a stop, al-Alazar broke into a run. Ari dropped to his knees and crouched behind the green Fiat. Uniformed soldiers with olive green helmets piled out of the cars clutching onto Kalashnikov AK-47 assault rifles. One of them adjusted the searchlight atop his car, scanning the desert for the two Israelis—in vain. Then Ari heard the sound of a motor starting up. Al-Alazar had reached the jeep. With a lurch the senior spy sped toward the rendezvous point. The searchlight darted toward the source of the noise, catching al-Alazar and holding him in its beam like a rabbit caught in the headlights of a car. Two soldiers aimed, flicking the rapid load on their automatic rifles. The AK-47 had an effective range of 440 yards. Al-Alazar was well within that distance.
Ari fired rapidly, three times. The first bullet shattered the searchlight, plunging the desert in darkness; the second caught the nearest soldier in the chest, but the third shot missed, hitting way wide of its mark. Before the soldier could turn and fire at him Ari squeezed the trigger and landed his fourth bullet in the man’s abdomen. The sound of orders wildly shouted echoed through the darkness. A fusillade of 7.62 mm bullets ripped into the Fiat. Ari crouched low to the ground behind a tire. He had one shot left. He would use it on himself, but not until the last moment. He had to give al-Alazar every additional second.
Then to his horror he heard a jeep approaching on the highway; the slower vehicle had not been able to keep pace with the faster Moskwiches. Ari had to stop it, protect al-Alazar, salvage the mission. Bullets exploded into the Fiat, fracturing the windshield. Then there was silence. Ari huddled against the tire.
Since he hadn’t fired back perhaps they thought he was dead. Then he heard it: the sound of men fanning out in all directions. They were going to surround him, then move in.
The jeep pulled to a halt twenty yards down the road. But Ari couldn’t get a clear shot at the driver, the army vehicles blocked his line of fire. More orders were shouted in Arabic and the jeep’s engine started up. The vehicle bounced into the desert, heading in the direction al-Alazar had taken. In the distance Ari could still hear the sound of his colleague’s jeep. The Arab would be able to follow him! Ari had to take a chance. Now. He picked up two stones and flung them behind him. A burst of fire erupted where the rocks had landed. He ran out into the desert in the direction of the jeep, dropped to the ground, aimed with both hands and squeezed the trigger. Just as two soldiers fired at him.
The first soldier’s bullet missed, but the second caught Ari’s head, flipping him onto his back. Blood gushed down his face. The sky spun. The ground seemed to pitch underneath him, and suddenly he was cold, very cold. But as he lost consciousness he was quite certain he heard the sound of air escaping from the jeep’s front tire.
23.
SEPTEMBER 22
Ari was wakened by a scream echoing somewhere in the distance. Then pain exploded in his brain. He lay rigid, realizing to his dismay that he was not dead. Remaining still, he tried to diminish the pain by breathing carefully and filling his lungs only halfway.
Slowly he explored as much of the room as he could without moving his head. The upper walls and ceiling were whitewashed. The floor on which he lay had to be stone, somehow he sensed that—for he was cold, especially his feet. He tried to lift his hand and touch the dried blood on his forehead, but his wrists were bound together behind him. He couldn’t move them. Suddenly he remembered al-Alazar, wondering if the Israeli agent had escaped.
The tiny world in which he was enclosed gradually crystallized into reality. The air was damp and stale and he was aware of the sour smell of prison clothes. Somewhere outside the cell he heard the sound of dripping water, or else his mind was playing tricks on him, for he was extremely thirsty. Instinctively he tried to sit up and as he did his whole body was torn with such pain that he screamed out. He fell to the floor panting and bit his lower lip until the blood filling his mouth jarred him into a realization of what he was doing. His body was stiff and bruised, his groin ached, and his feet were numb. They must have beaten him while he was unconscious. He spit a mixture of blood and saliva onto the floor, cursing the bungling soldier whose bullet had grazed his forehead and failed to kill him.
He lay there for a long time in the darkness unaware if it was day or night, if he had been in the cell hours or days. He wasn’t hungry and he hadn’t eaten much for dinner so he assumed it was early Saturday morning, still hours before dawn. The children were to be smuggled out of the haret Saturday night. He would have to hold out until then. He would not betray them, no matter what—he would die first.
Ari lay quite still and thought about the pain, daring not move lest his body start in savage convulsions again. It might be hours before they came for him. They would want him to lie there, alone, without hope—his mind doing their work for them. He know if he was to resist he would have to gain some advantage, achieve some goal, no matter how small. He would have to find a handhold to grab onto as he slipped down the face of a cliff descending into hell. He would sit up, that was it. He would defy the pain and sit up. Then he would use that small achievement to build a psychological fortress. No matter what happened later he’d rivet his thoughts to that success.
He lifted his head off the ground. Shaking, he lifted his shoulders. His chest hurt horribly...
Just then the door swung open and a uniformed guard stepped in. “I see you’re feeling better,” he said sa
rcastically.
Ari strained, just a few more inches.
The guard lashed out with his foot and caught the side of Ari’s skull, exactly on the spot where the soldier’s bullet had hit. He toppled over, drifting warmly into unconsciousness, the blood from the reopened wound forming a pool where his head struck the stone floor. He had not achieved his advantage.
◆◆◆
The Russian-built van hit a bump in the road, jolting Ari awake. Instantly the pain from his head reached every nerve fiber in his body. He lay on the floor handcuffed and manacled. Preceded and followed by Land Rovers filled with soldiers carrying AK-47s and Samoval machine guns, the van raced along the narrow dirt road leading from the Damascus-Kuneitra highway to Sigin al-Mazza, the central penitentiary where all political prisoners were held.
The prison, erected by the French during the mandate, juts from a steep hill ringed by a deep uncultivated valley and surrounded by a barrier of barbed wire and mine fields. The entire area is dotted with military installations. As an added psychological torture, al-Mazza was built close enough to the capital that those confined behind its walls can hear the planes landing and taking off from Damascus’s International Airport.
When the van stopped inside the prison courtyard two soldiers removed the manacles bolting Ari’s feet to the floor of the vehicle, picked him up, and dumped him into the dirt. He felt nothing upon hitting the ground.
“Stand up!” one of the soldiers ordered. The command was absurd; he could hardly move.
The soldier kicked him sharply in the groin.
Ari rolled onto his knees. Crawling to the side of the van, he put his handcuffed hands to the cold metal just as dawn broke over the desert. He was halfway up when the guard kicked him and he fell. Listening to the Arab’s laughter, he lay there for a moment, then struggled to his feet and abruptly thrust himself forward, driving his lowered head at the soldier’s stomach. The soldier sidestepped quickly and Ari landed in the dirt, his damaged head striking the ground hard. He waited for the guard’s retaliation, but the expected blows were not forthcoming. Instead the soldiers grabbed his shoulders and dragged him past a neatly stacked pile of palm frond lashes, into a gray-walled corridor. They shoved him into an interrogation room, shaved his head, ripped the clothes from his body, and left him sprawled on the floor, naked.
The Damascus Cover Page 21