He was flanked by two armed bodyguards who seemed more wired than necessary. A third bodyguard was waiting in a black Mercedes S600 parked illegally.
“That’s him,” Paris whispered under his fake mustache. He had a kaffiyeh on his head, held in place with a black agal.
Orchidea’s heart was fluttering. She was dressed in the loose slacks and blouse worn by Syrian Sunni women, her head covered by a hijab. Less than thirty yards separated them from Hattab and his bodyguards.
Last evening in Brussels, they had studied up-to-date pictures of the triangular park and memorized possible escape routes. Zengot had crammed an enormous amount of information into their heads in a short time.
The sun shone through the palms and pine trees that cast long shadows on the neglected public park. The locals called it Subchi Park, after the street that ran along its western leg. The paths were paved in white stone, and the lawns were bordered by a row of small yellow wrought-iron arches that had been painted over innumerable times.
It was cold out. They’d left the hotel looking like a pair of tourists and changed on the way. A tiny camera in the frames of Orchidea’s plain sunglasses enlarged the picture it captured and projected it like a translucent overlay onto the inner surface of the dark lenses.
The lenses were now covered by the figure of Omar Hattab, with trees swaying in the background.
Orchidea’s hand was on a small remote in her pocket. She pressed the button again and again.
Strapped to Paris’s chest under his cheap gray jacket was a thin dish antenna with a narrow range that would enable him to listen in on Hattab’s conversation. The sounds it picked up were transmitted to the white earbuds hidden beneath his kaffiyeh.
Everyone was waiting. Orchidea felt a nervous twitch in her stomach.
Five young men were sitting on the sandy grass, dressed in cheap knockoffs of Western designer jeans. They were laughing at something.
Subchi Park bustled with activity.
Omar Hattab glanced at his watch. His bodyguards looked like a pair of hand grenades with their pins removed.
Five after ten. Orchidea felt as if she could actually hear the buzz of time passing.
Between Paris and Orchidea and Hattab was a sinuous pond with a lifeless fountain in the middle. The water was a stagnant green. Casually dressed Damascenes were relaxing on the park benches.
They were the only foreigners.
Nearby, a woman in a hijab pushed her daughter on a swing planted in the sand. The young girl’s fingernails were painted red.
Hattab looked at his watch again.
Orchidea and Paris strolled casually around the pond.
The dog showed up first.
It was scrawny, and there were bald patches in its mangy fur. It touched its pale nose to the edge of General Omar Hattab’s highly polished shoes and sniffed at his pant leg.
A figure approached Hattab, moving slowly.
Orchidea muttered, “That can’t be him . . .”
ABU RUMANEH, DAMASCUS | 10:14
Small, quick steps. A gaunt, stooped body. His eyes were hidden by large sunglasses and a cap. His pale skin hung from his face like a drape, but the square jaw under his thinning gray mustache was firm. His hands were encased in leather gloves, and he was carrying an empty plastic bag. He stopped directly in front of Omar Hattab and, as if he were performing a military ritual, straightened his back, bent with age, to the best of his ability.
The much taller Hattab looked down on him with a forced smile.
The old man held out his right hand.
Hattab’s distorted face scowled. He clenched his lips. After a long pause, the old man nodded to himself as if recalling a joke, and then theatrically offered Hattab his left hand.
Hattab recoiled. The old man seemed amused.
“At least it’s not Justus.” She released a sigh of relief.
“Justus is dead,” Paris said.
“He must be from around here,” she said. “He couldn’t walk far.”
Paris nodded.
“He was over by the swings before,” she said.
Paris nodded again.
The mangy dog stuck close to his master’s feet. They began pacing slowly along the path around the pond. Paris kept his chest pointed in their direction.
Veiled women were pushing strollers. An infant howled, buses drove by, and car horns blared. Traffic was heavy on Abdul Aziz Street.
“It won’t work,” Paris muttered. “Too much noise. I can’t hear anything.”
“What are we going to do?” she asked. “We made it this far, and now . . .”
“We’ve already lost three critical minutes,” he grumbled. A large fly was buzzing around him. He chased it away with his hand, but the stubborn insect returned and settled on his nose. The Frenchman rolled his eyes.
“Give me a second,” she said. Hiding behind him, she thrust her hand under her blouse and pulled from her bra a small plastic pouch that Zengot had given her. It held three black dots, each the size of a pinhead. She peeled one off and stuck it to the tip of her finger, and then started toward Hattab and his companions.
The old dog had grown tired and was lagging behind his master.
Orchidea went over to the dog, crouched down with a smile, and stretched her hand out to pet it. Growling, the animal bared its teeth and retreated. A bodyguard rushed to plant himself between her and Hattab, his hand reaching for the gun under his polyester suit jacket. He mumbled something.
The old man turned around, clenching his jaw.
Orchidea slowly held out an open palm, making her intentions clear. The old man’s face grew softer. Nodding, he smiled, momentarily revealing a nearly gumless jaw.
Swallowing, she tried to stroke the dog. It growled and barked in the wrong direction, reluctant to come any closer. Finally, it gave in to temptation and moved toward her hesitantly, lowering its head, sniffing her hand, and licking at the air. She petted its head and then rose with a smile.
Hattab threw her a suspicious look. The old man smiled back at her, and the entourage resumed its walk along the path.
On the grass nearby, a group of boys was kicking around a tattered ball, shouting at one another. Orchidea looked behind her. Paris was petting a wide-jawed mastiff with its tongue hanging out. He gestured for her to come back and threw a stick in the direction of the men. The mastiff took off at a run.
The old man’s dog yelped in fright. Its master turned around and picked it up quickly. With a growl, the mastiff leaped into the air. A bodyguard grabbed the collar of the attacking animal, who clamped its teeth down on his hand. Swearing, the man struggled to free it. Suddenly there was a loud whistle and the bloodthirsty dog froze, lay down on the ground, and lowered its head submissively.
The bodyguard’s hand was bleeding. Hattab offered him a tissue. The group moved on, the old man still clutching his dog in his arms.
Paris was grinning. Orchidea could smell his sweat, and she found the odor oddly appealing.
“Is it working?” she asked.
“Perfectly!” he whispered.
There was no longer any need for the ungainly antenna strapped to his chest. The tiny microphone was transmitting the conversation between Hattab and the old man directly into Paris’s ears.
“I don’t know a word of Arabic,” he said.
It was all being recorded. Later it would be translated into Hebrew at Mossad HQ in Glilot.
“The old man has a foreign accent,” he said.
“Israeli?” Orchidea asked.
“Don’t know.”
“Hattab despises him.”
“How do you know?”
“Look at Hattab’s feet. They’re pointing outward. He keeps trying to put distance between them, but the old man just moves closer.”
Orchidea pressed up against Paris, took an earbud from his ear, and stuck it in her own.
The old man had started speaking English. His accent was pronounced. Maybe he was trying to emphasize h
is foreignness.
“Stop to lick me with compliments. Stage One is over. It is history. It achieve its purpose,” he said sharply to Hattab. English obviously wasn’t his mother tongue.
“And you have been paid in full,” Hattab cut in.
“You were supposed to transfer ninety-six million euros for Stage Two yesterday. I check just before I come. The account is still empty. I thought you are serious.”
“I do not have the authority to approve such a large sum,” Hattab apologized.
“So talk to someone who has.”
“It will take time. He has a country to run.”
“We do not have time. You don’t understand?! We do not have time!” the old man sputtered, his jaw trembling.
“Give me one more day.”
The man snorted contemptuously. “One more day? I take Max for walk so he can do his business. I be back in five minutes.” He grinned, exposing his bare jaw. It was a chilling sight. “When we be back, I want to hear the transfer go through.”
Spittle gleamed in the corners of the old man’s mouth.
“That is not possible,” Hattab said angrily, looking like a raging guard dog that had leaped into the air only to discover that the chain around its neck was shorter than it had thought.
The old man gave him a patronizing look. He took a step back, held up five gloved fingers, and said firmly, “Five minutes, Omar!”
The spittle spraying from his lips glittered in the harsh sunlight.
ABU RUMANEH, DAMASCUS | 10:27
The old man turned his back on the head of the Mukhabarat and walked away. The dog straggled along beside him, bumping into its master’s feet and sniffing its way.
Hattab was already on the phone. Repressing his resentment, he clenched his teeth, barked orders excitedly, nodded, and disconnected. Then he loosened his blue tie.
A few minutes later, the old man returned and stuck his smile into Hattab’s disfigured face. Hattab nodded, not hiding his disgust.
The old man pulled out a telephone.
Hattab marveled.
“I am old, not stupid,” the man said, his lips turning up in a cold smirk under his graying mustache. He brought the phone up to his eyes until it was touching his sunglasses, punched in a number, and turned his back to Hattab. He spoke into the phone and then turned around again, nodding vigorously. Returning the phone to his pocket, he reached out his right hand.
Hattab used his left hand to raise the prosthetic right one. Without flinching, the old man shook it and then twisted it sharply.
Hattab grimaced in pain and said indignantly, “Look at the ground you are standing on. It is Syrian soil. You are a guest here, a guest who has overstayed his welcome. Very soon, you are liable to discover that even our famed hospitality has its limits.”
The old man’s jaw trembled. Muttering something to himself, he looked piercingly at Hattab’s long neck. Then he let out another snort of contempt and hissed, “Omar, you should show respect for person who save you from the gallows.”
Hattab turned around and walked off, his bodyguards close behind. They were swallowed up by the black Mercedes and disappeared down Abdul Aziz Street with squealing tires.
“If the old man isn’t Syrian, where is he from?” Orchidea asked.
“No clue,” Paris lied.
ABU RUMANEH, DAMASCUS | 10:36
The old man exited Subchi Park onto Hafez Ibrahim Street, carrying his blind dog in his arms. Paris and Orchidea followed him to the Sha’alan Street bazaar, in the heart of the prestigious Abu Rumaneh district.
A young beggar in rags rattled a tin can. His corneas were cloudy.
The old man entered a shop with canaries in cages out front. The delicate chirping of the birds mingled with the melancholy trills of the Arabic music issuing at full volume from a nearby shop. Violins wailed, and a singer keened and moaned.
A dark, modern bus pulled up. Light-skinned tourists poured out into the bazaar, chattering in Dutch.
Paris took advantage of the wait to send the recording and photos they’d collected to the Brussels station via the satphone.
“How is the old man connected to the murder of the Nibelungs?” Orchidea asked in a low voice.
“It’s weird, right?”
The old man left the pet shop and walked in their direction. Paris threw his arm around Orchidea’s shoulder and pulled her into a shop selling pirated CDs.
The man walked past them, returned to Subchi Park, and settled himself on a cracked bench with rusty screws, sending a flight of pigeons into the air. The dog lay listlessly at his feet. He drew from his jacket pocket a fist-sized bundle wrapped in newspaper. The headlines were in Latin letters. Unwrapping the bundle, he took a pinch of birdseed and threw it on the ground in front of him. The pigeons alit one by one, grousing and jockeying for space. The feeble dog didn’t even bother to bark.
The park was crowded with local residents. A young boy came up and stamped his foot. The pigeons flew off in alarm, flapping their wings noisily.
Orchidea watched them fly away and perch on a nearby power line.
When she looked back down at the bench, it was empty. Her heart skipped a beat.
A few tense seconds later, she caught sight of the old man’s shuffling stride in the crowd. They hurried after him. He crossed the park and turned right onto Hadad Street.
The old man walked with surprising agility. At the corner of busy Abdul Aziz Street, he stopped at a red light. The traffic was crawling and jittery. Horns honked in deafening frustration, and curses were spat through open windows. A man on a bicycle wound his way among the cars, a square wooden tray filled with pita bread balanced on his head.
Paris didn’t speak. From time to time he touched her arm protectively.
The light changed. The old man continued down Hadad Street and stopped at a solid black iron gate in front of a yellow apartment building. From the top of the fence, a security camera peered down.
A buzzer sounded and the gate opened. The old man disappeared inside.
“He lives here,” she whispered. “The guard recognized him.”
Paris nodded. There was a troubled look on his face.
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.”
“Liar,” she said, adding a smile.
He looked at her in silence and led her into a cool stairwell across the street. Without warning, he came closer and kissed her on the lips.
“Wait here. I’ll get the car,” he said, his lips still glistening.
Before leaving, he fixed his eyes on the yellow building and then looked back at her.
Suffused with a delightful warmth, she smiled at the retreating figure. From within the darkness of the stairwell, she kept her eyes on the iron gate across the street.
Time passed slowly.
DIARY
12 JUNE 1944
A truck pulled up in front of the café. The barbarian invaders bayoneted the precious sacks of flour, emptied the wooden cases of dough, and toppled the proofing cabinet. The starter dough, the apple of my late father’s eye, lay contaminated on the floor.
Evil paid a visit here today. Evil will return. When the avenues of investigation of the circumstances surrounding the deputy commandant’s disappearance become blocked, it will return bayoneted and savaged.
10 JULY 1944
The ground is burning. I tried to persuade Jasmine. Once again, I pleaded with her to listen to me. In the end, the commandant will come. It will all come to an end, and my prayers will be of no use. I am crying now, and I did not cry when my father died or when my mother was taken.
12 JULY 1944
Jasmine is begging for help. Tonight the commandant drank until he was intoxicated, called her over, put his arms around her waist, and demanded that she caress him. She looked at me with gaping eyes. I averted my gaze and stared down at the floor. He touched the intimate parts of her body, and I was weak and contemptible and helpless. She fled to the kitchen in tears, and the com
mandant’s eyes flickered with the aroused look of a street dog smelling a bitch in heat.
I embraced her as tightly as I could. We both cried.
14 JULY 1944
I avoid my elongated image reflected in the side of the espresso machine.
15 JULY 1944
Tonight, at long last, I participated in a Resistance operation. We stopped a train heading east and saved 803 Jews. An entire transport!
16 JULY 1944
Jasmine has agreed to escape with the children, but only if I come with them. I cannot desert the battle. Not now. Not when the deputy commandant is on our side and we are rescuing full trains from death. I pleaded with her to escape with the children.
She wept and wept.
In the end, she refused.
ABU RUMANEH, DAMASCUS | 11:49
“Where were you?” she asked his shadow in the entrance to the stairwell.
“Were you worried about me?”
She nodded.
“It’s a long time since anyone was worried about me.
“I’m coming out,” she said.
Paris nodded.
She stepped out of the cool stairwell into the hot blinding sun and crossed the street to the iron gate in front of 7 Hadad Street. The worn head of a metal bell button gleamed in the bright light. There was no name beneath it. Orchidea continued down the street and crossed back to the cool stairwell. With Paris there, she felt safe.
“There’s too much light and too much traffic. We’ll have to wait,” he said.
“It could be hours.”
We can’t stay here. Everyone knows everyone around here.”
“What do you suggest?”
Paris smiled. “Wait here.”
He left and came back a short while later carrying two yellow bags with Arab lettering she couldn’t read. “This one’s yours,” he said.
Paris put a bra on over his shirt and filled the large cups with rolled-up socks. Then they both pulled on over their clothes musty black abayas that smelled of onions. They hid their faces behind black burkas. Paris looked like a Muslim woman, his face covered and only his eyes and thin eyebrows showing. She smiled, thrust her hand into her backpack, and felt around for the flat shoes she had packed. Her fingers encountered the gun and silencer. The feel of the cold steel gave her confidence. Paris hid his square hands inside black gloves.
Ring of Lies Page 23
