Damascus Station

by Unknown

  An old woman opened a window and began hanging laundry. Mariam looked up and saw a metallic glint in the blue sky. And then the tingle again, her heart rattling against her ribs. If this thing was what she thought, it was being used to deploy the teams. She could evade or spot foot operators and they’d just regroup later.

  For a beat her throat went raw, the sweat picked up, then she left through the service entrance. On the hot street she sensed immediately the watchers returning. She executed a set of quick turns near a cathedral and calculated she probably had thirty seconds, how had Sam described it, in the gap. Free of surveillance. She ducked into a kitschy tourist stand and paid cash for a large T-shirt intended for an English-speaking audience (NICE IS NICE), a baseball cap (I N ICE), and a cheap yellow scarf. She stuffed them in her purse as her count reached twenty-five and reappeared on the street.

  She melded into a thick crowd near a library and then broke free into a quarter of quiet side streets filled with empty kebab, Indian, and Italian restaurants. She was moving well now, she sensed, knowing when to accelerate, when to stop and dawdle, and she was very close to where she planned to lose the thing buzzing above her, which she now knew was an incredibly small surveillance drone.

  She went into a den of streets as narrow as anything in Damascus, with bright restaurant awnings meeting in the middle to blot out the sky. As she marched onward, she put on the hat, the horrendous T-shirt, and tied the scarf up around her neck. When she emerged from the awninged alleyway the tingle disappeared. She pressed on toward the “safe house,” a sidewalk café called René Socca. She started using the terrain to her advantage: turning, stopping, executing what she thought was a very nice corner hang—no one followed—and finally overshooting Socca to sit at another café three blocks north. She was black. The drone was gone, searching for a woman in a navy T-shirt and capris instead of the tackiest Arab tourist in southern France. When she started out again she did the final checks, scanning every passerby against suspects she’d seen earlier in the day, looking in parked cars without turning her head.

  Black. I am black, she said to herself.

  She found a table and ordered a glass of wine.

  Sam and Procter found her on the second glass, still wearing the hat, the impossibly tacky T-shirt, and a victor’s grin.

  “It’s been fifty-one minutes,” she said, smiling, as Sam and Procter approached. “You two hold the table, I’m going into the bathroom to change. I can’t spend another minute in this thing.” As she brushed past, she thought that Sam looked like he wanted to kiss her.

  THE GROUP DECAMPED TO THE safe house to debrief. Procter wheeled in her suitcase saying she needed a place to stay and would use an available bedroom or a shitty blow-up couch, I’m not picky. Sam wondered what Mariam would think of her.

  The BANDITOs brought the food. “Pizza Hut delivery,” Elias yelled as the brothers opened the door carrying several pizza boxes. Luckily, they were only messing with him. They had actually found a respectable Sicilian place in Villefranche. The BANDITOs watched the video and coached Mariam. “Tremendous first day, Mariam,” Procter said. “We do it again tomorrow until your feet bleed.” Mariam raised an eyebrow, then laughed.

  Procter motioned Sam into the kitchen as the BANDITOs explained how Mariam could make her visual checks less obvious as she executed a turn. He followed the Chief.

  “I think we’ve got the comms plan settled,” Procter said. She opened her tablet and explained they’d taken an extensive library of photos along Mariam’s running trail. Procter paused on an image that caught Sam’s eye. There was a fork in the running path, with a crumbling retaining wall separating both sides and trash heaped alongside. It was remote and consistent with her pattern of life.

  “This is the spot. We’ll use a can, like you did in practice. We’ll use the signals we talked about. She puts the blinds halfway up in her apartment if she’s loaded the drop. We use graffiti outside her apartment. We do this for a bit, get everyone comfortable, then we’ll try to get her a device.”

  Sam nodded. “Good, I’ll walk her through it.” Procter put the tablet aside and asked for his assessment of the case as she pushed buttons on the coffee maker. Sam had used the French press, Procter insisted on the machine. It beeped twice, then powered down. “Dammit,” said the Chief, smacking the water compartment.

  “She’s doing excellent so far.” Sam remembered Mariam smiling as she bent over to sip the can. “Great movement, great instincts. She’s a natural.”

  “Let’s hope she can transfer those skills to D-town,” Procter said.

  Sam wanted to change the subject. “Any follow-up on the call to Ali?”

  “Nothing. Syrians continue to deny any knowledge of Val’s whereabouts and offer to help us locate the criminals or terrorists that kidnapped her. Fuckers.” Procter smacked the coffee maker again. The machine finally hissed, and soon a trickle of coffee began filling the pot. Procter peered out toward Mariam and the BANDITOs to ensure she and Sam were alone. “Bradley says that POTUS got pretty worked up about it at the last Syria Working Group meeting. Everyone is sick of their games.”

  Now Sam turned to make sure all four Syrians remained in the living room, out of earshot. “The longer they hold Val, the more likely it is that they’re wringing her for information. We’ve got to do something.”

  “I know, I know. And I meant what I said. If Ali hurts Val, we’ll take his balls.”

  A FEW DAYS WITH A highly placed, valuable agent was rare, a gift from the intelligence gods.

  So Procter and Sam peppered Mariam with questions dispatched in a requirements cable from Langley. The pressing issues the White House, NE Division, and the analysts wanted to know about: how her office worked, the President’s views on the war, the plans and intentions of senior military and security officials. The banter was relaxed. Mariam and Procter seemed to enjoy each other’s company. The Chief somehow stuck the landing on an obscene joke about the President’s virility, complete with hand gestures, many of which were biologically and anatomically impossible. Mariam snorted in delight.

  They all went to bed early, exhausted from the training. “Another circus tomorrow,” Procter said. “Much to do.”

  Mariam kissed Sam’s forehead in the hallway after Procter closed her door. “I like her, Sam,” she said. “This team. It feels right to me.”

  THE NEXT DAY WAS BRUTAL, hot, and exhausting. “But the girl can feel the street,” Sam told Procter inside the surveillance van as she threw the drone again and the BANDITOs lost her somewhere east of the castle six hours into the second run. Procter watched video of her dead drop and pronounced it parfait (“PAR-FAT”). Sam noticed Yusuf shudder as the Chief butchered his second language. The Chief gave Mariam a big hug at the end of the day. “We will do great work together, Mariam,” Procter said before departing to return to Syria.

  Mariam tried, for the last time, to contact Fatimah. She could not get through, and called Bouthaina to provide a report. “Time to come home, Mariam,” Bouthaina said. “The bint mbarih has made her decision.”

  Now knowing it was their last night, Sam and Mariam drove the Moyenne Corniche, ostensibly so he could explain some of the mechanics of vehicular SDRs but in truth because he wanted to be alone with her and had become paranoid that Procter had bugged the safe house. They also had to talk about Uncle Daoud.

  They drove toward Monaco. A few stars peeked admirably between the haze. He pulled into an overlook. The cliffs below collapsed into a forest of palm and citrus overlooking a white beach. A few other cars were parked at the far end of the overlook, the occupants necking inside.

  For a while Sam and Mariam looked out in silence.

  “Daoud?” she said finally, scanning to the left to ensure they were out of earshot.

  “What do you think?” Sam said.

  “He will not work for CIA,” she said. “But I think he would tell me things he should not. He may assume his information would go somewhere else, but he woul
d not ask where, I think.”

  “You said he has grievances?”

  “Yes. Razan. He is enraged at her treatment. And he, like many people, does not support the indiscriminate killing. He also does not want to see the gas used. He is a patriot. He understood why it was necessary to deter Israel. He does not think it should be used on Syrians.”

  “You’ve talked about this?”

  She put her hand on his leg with a look that said, Let me explain Syria, silly American. “The conversations are more guarded, more vague,” she said. “In Syria we do not have such frank discussions because one can never know who is listening.

  “If I ask him questions, I will say the Palace is asking. It will allow him to speak candidly.”

  “Just be careful.”

  She rolled her eyes and turned away.

  Sam moved on: “What do you think he could provide?”

  “He is responsible for the stockpile in the capital, so he would know if the regime is planning to use the sarin in Damascus. He would also know about the security situation at the sites.”

  Sam nodded. “Whatever you can elicit would be extremely helpful. It would be a priority for us.”

  MARIAM INVITED HIM TO SHUT up by kissing him hard on the mouth. Then they awkwardly slid into the back of the car. He went first, she followed. Soon she was being rocked back and forth and squeezing her muscles and it was starting to feel good, that swelling expanding to fill her body. And his hands were knotted in her hair and his eyes were stuck on hers and he’d put his back up a bit to get the angle right, sensing where she wanted the pressure. When it was done, they lay winded in the backseat. This is how the weighty decisions get made, she thought as they breathed together.

  I did nothing.

  Not anymore.

  PART III

  Bombs

  16

  THE NEWS ARRIVED ON LANGLEY’S SEVENTH FLOOR courtesy of a Syrian document thief who photographed sensitive files for a generous monthly stipend. Bradley, briefing the Director, said his reporting was firsthand and reliable. The document and accompanying photo were almost certainly authentic. The Director summoned Procter back to Langley for consultations.

  For the next twenty-four hours, a small team from Security scrubbed Val Owens’s medical files and prescription records. They interviewed CIA psychologists. A team of doctors, pathologists, and coroners pored over the single photo. In the end, the lies in the document and the truth in the photo set in motion a late afternoon meeting with the Director. The whitewashed meeting record was placed into a Restricted-Handling compartment ineligible for declassification or Freedom of Information Act release. If read, the document would have revealed that between minutes fifteen and seventeen of the discussion, Chief of Station Damascus Artemis A. Procter “interrupted Dr. Pan to clarify the level of certainty in her medical judgment before speaking at length in an uninterrupted and vulgar monologue about the appropriate methods for revenge.”

  SAM WAS AT THE OFFICE of Medical Services—the Agency doctors—completing bloodwork in advance of the Damascus tour when he saw a patch of black hair appear outside the lab. Procter opened the door, pushing past the doctor, who wisely remained silent after sizing up the Chief. Sam had no idea Procter was in town.

  “Let’s get some air,” she said. “Take those needles out and let’s walk.”

  They left the Original Headquarters Building and made for the forested running paths off Chain Bridge. The afternoon was muggy, and he could feel the sweat collecting on his back and legs as they walked. Procter did not have a drop of perspiration on her face, a miracle given that she was clothed in a tweed skirt and maroon blouse. When they reached the paths, Sam’s white shirt was soaked in sweat.

  Procter accelerated, still holding the silence. Sam found himself struggling to keep pace, though Procter’s legs were almost a foot shorter than his own. A runner huffed past. They walked in silence until the man turned the corner and was out of sight. Sam zigzagged across the sidewalk searching for shade. Procter, face bone-dry and chalky white, tore a straight line through the sunshine until they reached a remote part of the path.

  She stopped.

  “Val is dead,” Procter said suddenly. “News arrived early yesterday. Ali Hassan killed her during an interrogation.” She spat.

  Sam walked off toward a bench and sat down. He watched leaves rippling in the late afternoon wind. He rubbed his hot forehead with a sweaty hand. For some reason he anchored on the small things, the details. Strangely, he thought of Mariam and wanted her here with him. He wanted her skin on his. He watched another runner go by. He rolled up his sleeves and stupidly smoothed his tie.

  Procter looked around. They were alone. She stared at Sam, his face dripping with sweat, and removed a rubber band from her pocket. She tied her curly black hair up into a lopsided ponytail. Then she removed from her tweed pocket two pieces of folded paper and handed them to Sam. Drops of sweat plopped onto the paper as he unfolded a picture. Sam had seen death before. As a boy, in the shadows of a north woods pine forest. As a man, in the muck and sand of Baghdad and Anbar. He looked at the paper into Val’s lifeless eyes.

  “They took her fucking scalp,” Procter said. “Agency docs and photography experts could see a thin incision in the photo, despite the makeup. They scalped her, then sewed it back on for the picture.”

  Fighting a surge of nausea, he folded up the picture and handed it to Procter. They watched another runner pass by. She joined him on the bench.

  “Read the other one,” she said. He unfolded the second piece of paper and read the English translation:

  15 APRIL

  FROM: BRIGADIER GENERAL ALI HASSAN, DIRECTOR, SECURITY OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENTIAL PALACE

  TO: HIS EXCELLENCY, PRESIDENT OF THE SYRIAN ARAB REPUBLIC BASHAR AL-ASSAD; LIEUTENANT GENERAL RUSTUM HASSAN, COMMANDER OF THE REPUBLICAN GUARD

  SUBJECT: CIA OFFICER IN CUSTODY

  CIA OFFICER VALERIE OWENS, UNDER COVER AT THE AMERICAN EMBASSY AS A SECOND SECRETARY, PASSED AWAY FROM HEART FAILURE DURING A ROUTINE INTERVIEW. PHARMACEUTICALS AND ANTI-DEPRESSANTS OBTAINED FROM HER RESIDENCE INDICATE OWENS SUFFERED FROM HIGH CHOLESTEROL, STRESS, AND PANIC ATTACKS. THE SECURITY OFFICE REGRETS MS. OWENS’ UNTIMELY DEATH.

  He folded the paper and handed it back to Procter. “Agency docs reviewed Val’s records, so we know the stuff about the drugs is bullshit, by the way,” Procter said as she placed it in her pocket. “Ali made that up to cover his ass. The Director is going to push the White House for a lethal finding. But I have no confidence we’ll get it. These things are hard. They take time. However, I have a particular goddamn problem with CIA officers getting murdered.”

  A covert action finding with lethal authorities, Sam knew, would be required for the CIA to retaliate for the killing. Findings required a robust intelligence justification and had to clear Office of Legal Counsel review at the Justice Department, not to mention the CIA’s in-house Office of General Counsel. Tricky, because an executive order from the Reagan years applied a blanket ban on assassinations.

  “I want a plan so we’re ready when called,” she said. “Off the books. You come to Syria. You bring the BANDITOs back to Damascus with you. I want you to run them to build a plan to take Ali out, in case we need it.” She continued staring ahead, unflinching.

  Another runner went by. Sam stood. “I’m going to get out of here for a bit, clear my head before Damascus.”

  “Good idea.”

  He knew that visible emotion would dampen Procter’s enthusiasm for his involvement in the case, so he kept his words simple and direct. “It will be an honor to join the hunt in Damascus,” he said. “Thanks for giving me the opportunity to be involved.”

  Procter nodded. “Welcome to the show.”

  SAM HAD A WEEK BEFORE departing for Damascus, so he flew to another desert to forget. Las Vegas was at full fever pitch: the glitter of the Strip, the bending palms, the booze and grime underfoot everywhere, on everything.

  He was a l
ittle drunk and on a heater.

  If he’d been a different man with a different past, he’d have already considered how to spend the $22,750 in winnings now stacked in towers on the green felt of his old table in the Bellagio’s poker room.

  But he’d made choices, and of the haul he would keep only a single hundred-dollar bill to cover the post-game buffet for two. The Vegas trips had become a kind of cathartic ritual after tours or nasty operations. He’d had the professional misfortune of serving in cities that frowned on gambling: Cairo, Riyadh, Baghdad. Sam could—and did—ravage the embassy and Station house games, but the struggle was less fiery, more like a slow-motion surrender of the opposition than the gladiatorial showdown he relished. The cards were peacetime’s combat. It was substitute spycraft where money, not an asset’s life, was the only thing on the line.

  Sam wore an old gray hoodie that felt lucky. He now stared across the table at the chubby suited Brit, the single caller to his raise. A bluff, really. Sam had nothing but 10-8, but he sensed an opportunity.

  The Brit coughed, showing his nerves.

  The flop came: two of spades, four of hearts, queen of spades.

  Sam checked. The Brit bet $500. Sam recalled his opponent’s betting patterns. His previous maximum had been $200 and his stack was about the same size then. It’s not betting inflation. If he landed a queen, he’d bet lower to lure me in. Make me comfortable. He wants me out of the pot. Maybe ace-king? Pocket jacks? Tens? Flush draw?

  Sam re-raised another $500. The Brit called.

  The turn: nine of diamonds.

  The Brit smiled, just a little, as he played with his chips. Sam had seen this hundreds of times on hundreds of people: the watery smile of a man convincing himself of something. The cough had vanished.