Damascus Station

by Unknown

  Mariam opened her eyes in the empty church and sobbed. For her family. For herself. For Sam. She thought of him and put her head on her knees and curled into herself, shuddering. She was alone. So alone.

  38

  THE SAFE HOUSE, ODDLY CODE-NAMED TAQUERIA, CONSISTED of a small cluster of medieval houses renovated in Tuscan country style, with mahogany furniture, red carpets, and sketches of agricultural scenes covering the walls. The houses were nestled into an isolated hilltop surrounded by vineyards, shadowed by an unoccupied castle owned by an obscure descendant of Italian nobility. He made his home available to CIA so he could pay for its upkeep.

  CIA officers in real life typically do not drive exotic sports cars. In fact, Sam had learned while discussing the rental with a very old-sounding woman in Global Deployment, Agency regs dictated that he could only choose from the “economy” class at Hertz. But as Sam drove the rental up a gravel drive lined with cypress trees and saw the villas, the swimming pool, and the abandoned castle, he silently cursed Procter. Nobody driving a Rav4 could afford to stay in this place. Though Procter had chosen the car, she rode shotgun. Crammed in the back was an apparel expert from the Office of Technical Services named Iona Banks. She would outfit Mariam with the materials necessary to take down Atiyah.

  Mariam would be joining Sam and Procter at the safe house that evening for dinner. She would spend the night. The BANDITOs had run a constant countersurveillance operation on her since she had arrived in Italy. They were confident that she was not being watched. “This place reminds me of Afghanistan,” Procter said as Sam pulled the car into a small, dusty parking lot surrounded by vineyards, now cooling in the cypress shadows of dusk. She jumped out and began to twist her torso and stretch her short legs. “Minus the grinding poverty and the terror, of course.”

  SAM WAS READING IN HIS room in the early evening when he heard a car crunching on the gravel in the parking lot. She was right on time. He walked up the drive to meet her.

  “Hey,” he said as she opened the car door—a BMW hatchback—but she did not smile back. She had a forlorn, glassy distance in her eyes. Something was off. “How was the meeting with Fatimah?” he said.

  “Terrible. Can we talk about it later?”

  “Sure.” He stepped back from the car as she opened the door.

  She opened the trunk and Sam yanked out her suitcase. A brisk wind whipped the hilltop, bending the cypresses.

  He wheeled the suitcase into Mariam’s room and said they would eat on the pool veranda, behind which Iona had discovered a fully equipped working kitchen. She’d gone shopping in Montalcino and spent the last few hours cooking. “That sounds lovely,” Mariam said. “Could I have a few minutes to get ready?”

  He ducked out of the room and went to the veranda, where he discovered a feast of fried olives, freshly baked focaccia bread, and lasagna. Procter was pouring the wine while Iona finished setting the table. Iona was thin, with pale skin, dirty blond hair shaved close on the left side, and a sleeve of tattoos on her right arm. From what Sam could see, most were horses.

  Procter poured the wine and rings formed on the tablecloth around the bottom of each glass. Mariam arrived, hugged Procter, shook Iona’s hand, and they sat, Iona explaining that the lasagna was not the marinara garbage you find in the States, it was real Bolognese sauce mixed with bechamel and fresh parmesan. “Six layers,” she said proudly. As they settled into the meal, Sam asked about Daoud.

  “He will be fine,” Mariam said. “He is still in the hospital, but the doctors expect a full recovery.”

  “Any leads on the perps?” Procter asked in English.

  “Perps?” Mariam said.

  “Who did it,” Sam said.

  “Oh, nothing specific. Rebels, certainly, but no one has been arrested.” She put down her fork. “I’m sorry. Could we talk about something else?”

  Sam assumed Procter’s duties and refilled everyone’s glasses. Procter glowered at him. Now, as he sipped his third glass, he stole a glance at Mariam. Ever since Cairo and, frankly, the tables in Vegas, he’d taken pride in his intuition and ability to shift his strategy—or fold—as the situation warranted. And now, as she looked up and met his gaze, he knew something had happened.

  Sam nodded to Iona, who plopped onto the table a plastic bag containing a black leather Ferragamo briefcase. Iona had purchased it in Florence for nearly five thousand euros.

  “We studied the video of your meeting with Atiyah. Besides being creepy, it was also helpful,” Sam said.

  “What were you wearing when you met with him, by the way?” Procter asked.

  “I think it was a black dress. Why?”

  “A sexy one?”

  Mariam coughed and wiped her mouth. “I suppose.”

  “Figured,” Procter said. “When we watched the video, it seemed like he knew there was a camera there because sometimes he just stared at it. Makes sense, with a tight dress and your chesty heft.”

  Mariam blushed and Procter winked indiscreetly and there was a general silence. Iona took a big sip of wine.

  “Now,” Sam said, pressing on, “we used your video to create large, high-res images of the bag here in Rome,” Sam said.

  “It was easy to identify the brand and the specific type, of course,” Iona said. “But then we studied every millimeter of the outside to create a replica. For example, in the video you can see a scuff mark just below the stitching connecting the handle to the bag.” She pointed to the case. “We’ve re-created that here.”

  The bag had just one pocket. It was simple, elegant, a briefcase meant only for documents. There were no inner compartments. Sam had timed himself removing a stack of papers and placing them in the new bag. He could do it in two seconds. He figured she needed to be alone in his office for fifteen seconds, maximum, to make the switch. He explained the logic to Mariam, who nodded, picking at uneaten lasagna with a glassy stare.

  When they had finished eating, Mariam picked up the briefcase, still covered in plastic, and examined it as if she were shopping. “We’ve put everything inside and sewn up the bottom, using the bag’s original materials, of course, so that Atiyah would never find it unless he destroyed the briefcase,” Iona said. “It deploys with a small spring lock mechanism embedded inside. But we did add one feature a trained mukhabarat team should spot if they look closely: we pulled away some of the stitching around this lock.”

  “That way,” Sam said, “when they dump out the documents and scan the bag, they’ll see a couple frayed stitches inside and pull the rest to pieces. Then they’ll find the device and the documents we’ve hidden inside. We’ll also make sure he receives texts and emails from strange sources.”

  “The key here,” said Procter, wiping bechamel sauce from her mouth, “is that in the tip you provide, you mention nothing about the briefcase. It should be innocuous, but enough to cast suspicion and get an investigation started. Then, as they pull the threads, they find the bag, and boom. He’s done.” She made a slicing motion across her neck.

  Iona nervously asked if she should open another bottle of wine. None of the palpable anxiety registered with Procter, who continued. “I’d suggest you tell Bouthaina you saw him typing into a strange device. That should be enough.”

  THEY ENDED THE EVENING PROFESSIONALLY: finalizing operational details, cleaning up the meal, and turning in early. Sam lay awake in his bed, turning the case over in his mind, Mariam maddeningly in the next room. By the time sleep came, he’d still not found an explanation for her coldness. In the morning, Iona took a large telephoto camera to visit a Cistercian abbey outside Siena. Mariam said she needed to run. “I’ll join you,” he offered. “Alone, habibi,” she rebuffed him, gently, with a kiss on the cheek. As Sam watched her run off, he realized that the flakes of guilt after France had either disappeared or been buried deep as the case had progressed and his feelings for her deepened, the two things bound together in one package. His relationship with Mariam—forbidden by CIA—to him seemed blindingly n
ormal, natural, the way things should be. He did not understand her coldness now. He also had no plan for how to manage the CIA fallout if it came to light.

  He drank coffee on the veranda overlooking the Tuscan countryside. On his second cup, Procter joined him. She wore a red pullover, unzipped just far enough to see the top of a banana-yellow sports bra peeking through. “They have hills in Minnesota?” Procter asked. “Or is it just a bunch of cornfields?”

  “Not like this,” Sam said. A bird chirped from one of the cypress trees. He took another sip of coffee and noticed Procter was looking at him. He turned his head and they stared at each other for a half second. Her green eyes narrowed. She was rooting through his mind, punching through holes in his poker face to find out what the hell was going on in there. He wished he knew.

  “What is going on with our girl?” she said abruptly.

  “She’s off, Chief,” he said.

  “I think so, too,” Procter said.

  “But I don’t know why.”

  Procter’s phone rang. “I gotta take this. Grab me in thirty minutes?”

  Sam nodded and exhaled in relief.

  “And wear your swimsuit,” she said.

  Sam smiled. “What?” Procter tilted her head sideways like a scientist examining an alien specimen.

  “Because it’s a pool party, Jaggers.”

  SAM KNOCKED ON PROCTER’S DOOR thirty minutes later. He had not brought swimming trunks to Italy, and instead was wearing a pair of running shorts that were stupidly short and flimsy. He was profoundly uncomfortable.

  Procter answered wearing a gigantic fluffy white robe, edges brushing the floor as if she were a wizard. She walked outside without a word and marched toward the pool. Sam followed at her heels.

  The idea of being half-naked and alone in front of Procter was not a pleasant one. Not that he thought she was into him. Or men—and maybe also women—for that matter. He hadn’t liked her sideways glance on the veranda and did not want to get into the details of the case with the Chief before talking to Mariam first. He threw his towel on a chair and watched as Procter fiddled around with the stereo system, stopping on a station blaring something terrible. “EDM, perfect,” she said.

  Then she removed her robe. She wore a black two-piece swimsuit that matched her hair and was actually kind of normal, unlike everything else in her wardrobe.

  Sam instinctively looked away—they didn’t prepare you for half-naked Chiefs at the Farm—but she walked straight past him along the edge of the pool, toward the steps. Realizing there was no way out of this, Sam grabbed two Peronis from the stocked wet bar.

  He handed her a beer, which she had half emptied before he dipped into the water. She leaned her head back, closed her eyes, and took in the EDM. Sam had never seen her this relaxed. Or, for that matter, relaxed at all.

  “I need to talk to her tonight,” Sam said after a minute.

  Procter put her empty bottle on the ledge, leaned back, and dunked her hair underwater. She came to the surface and slicked it back. “You have counterintelligence concerns?”

  Sam continued, barely able to hear himself over the thundering music. “No. She gave us paydirt intel on the sarin program, which we’ve corroborated through multiple channels. Not something the Syrians would offer if she was a dangle, I think.

  “But there is something off,” Sam said. “Last night did not sit right. There was something about her face. Something bad has happened. I know her. But I can’t tell if she doesn’t like the mission against Fatimah, the Atiyah op, or if something else is going on. I just know she’s off.”

  Procter looked as if she wanted to ask him something, but instead she said: “Well, take her to dinner tonight and figure out what’s going on. Tomorrow we review the covcom.”

  SAVORING THE VIEWS, SAM AND Mariam drove in silence to San Angelo in Colle, a sleepy hilltop town of steep, stony streets, chipped-tile-roof homes, and a single square with two restaurants. Three old women held hands strolling through the square as Sam and Mariam took a seat on the patio at one of the restaurants. Dusk was settling, and the murmurs of café conversations were broken occasionally by the bass notes of a local jazz band rehearsing in a basement nearby.

  She wore jeans and a white T-shirt underneath an olive drab Barbour coat. She’d curled her hair slightly and wore it down, but it did not hide the large gold hoop earrings dangling in the breeze. Sam was sporting a long-sleeve gray T-shirt and jeans with a pair of driving shoes, and he realized they looked like many of the other vacationing couples that had descended upon the square. He ordered Tuscan ragù with boar, Mariam cacio e pepe. “Just like in Èze,” she said as she handed the dinner menu back to the waitress. Sam smiled back at her, thinking of that first night, hearing her earrings jangling as they’d moved together. He wondered if they were the same ones she had on now.

  Sam let Mariam handle the wine order and, as the waitress scurried off, he put his hand on hers across the table. She smiled. “This makes me happy,” she said, seeming to relax for the first time since she’d arrived. The sound of brass rang from the band’s rehearsal, escaping the basement into the night air. A warbler called from the bank of hillside cypress trees. Sam dunked a piece of bread in olive oil and took Mariam in. He’d seen those eyes on other assets and, sometimes, across the poker table when a guy was over his skis and had too much money in the pot. He’d also seen it on Mariam once before, right after the attack in Villefranche. The waitress poured the wine. They drank in silence, holding hands on the table. He had to calm Mariam down. He had to assess ATHENA.

  “What are you afraid of?” Sam asked. He could have offered a half dozen legitimate hobgoblins but let it sit, letting her fill the space.

  “I am afraid,” she said, “of so many things.” She attempted a smile and gestured toward another couple, about their age, on the other side of the patio.

  “Look at them. They’ve been holding hands and kissing. And here I am, wondering if Atiyah or the mukhabarat are watching. Or thinking about what happens if you are expelled from Syria. Or worse. Things inside Damascus feel shaky, like we are all heading off a cliff. What happens then? What happens to my family, my cousin? I’m afraid of . . .”

  She sniffled into a napkin and set her jaw, trying to stop the tears from trickling down her cheeks.

  “What are you afraid of?”

  “I’m afraid for my family if I am caught,” she said through tears. “Not for myself. For them.”

  Sam shifted across the table into the chair beside her. He wrapped his arm around her, and when he did, she pressed her head onto his shoulder. He wasn’t sure how long they sat in silence. He waved off the waitress as she tried to collect the barely touched plates. The band had stopped playing. A few musicians trickled out toward cars parked near the hill’s green edges.

  “Did something happen?” he asked.

  She shook her head.

  “I will always protect you, Mariam. Always,” he whispered into her ear. “The work we’ve chosen is dangerous, but it led us to each other. And we’ll finish this together in Damascus. I promise.” He kissed her forehead and then her mouth, savoring the feel of her hair as he caressed her neck.

  “There is something about us,” she said. “It gives me power. I can’t do this without you, Sam.”

  He was beginning to think the same thing. But Sam pushed aside the realization that he’d become a massive fuckup, instead holding three thoughts in his mind, each at war with the others, and all, he was certain, completely true. One, he wanted to run off that night with Mariam. Two, everything she had said was true, but she still held something back. Three, Mariam was loyal. To him, to the CIA.

  The chef and bartender had already left, so the waitress finally tiptoed to the table with the bill, avoiding eye contact with the weeping Arab woman and her handsome boyfriend. Whatever they’d been fighting about, it was apparently over, because they were now kissing. The waitress smiled. So touching.

  Sam paid the bill and they k
issed walking down the hill to the car. An elderly couple sat on their front step drinking wine ten feet from the parked car, yelling at each other. Sam couldn’t understand what they were saying, but it was loud and angry enough that he had to consider a Plan B. He saw that Iona had left a blanket in the backseat after she’d taken the car to the abbey. “There’s a vineyard on the way back,” Sam said.

  “Perfect, habibi,” Mariam said. “Just drive.”

  THE DRIVE TO THE BOSCARELLO winery was fast and efficient despite the narrow, winding roads. Sam had learned how to drive in treacherous terrain when he’d finished second in his defensive driving course at the Farm a decade earlier. Now, though, the distraction was not an opponent smashing into his car, but the Syrian in the front seat.

  Reaching the winery, Sam pulled the car to the side of the road. A shallow ditch and a stone fence separated them from the vineyard. He opened the trunk and pulled out the blanket.

  They hopped the fence and walked deep into the neat rows of vines. Fifty yards in, Sam unfolded the blanket. The moon was incandescent.

  They lay down together, kissing, tossing away clothes until there was nothing but warm skin and the feel of her around him. She groaned and kicked her knees toward the vines, pressing her mouth to his ear. “You promise, habibi?”

  He ran a hand through her hair. “I promise, habibti. I promise.”

  He felt her nails digging into his shoulders as she laid her head back onto the blanket to see the sky. He moved slowly, locking onto her eyes, that glassy look gleaming in the moonlight, bothering him even as her eyelids fluttered and her muscles quivered in the shadow of the old vines.

  SAM, MARIAM, AND PROCTER COVERED the covcom device over breakfast. Mariam picked at a piece of toast while Sam demonstrated how the PLATYPUS system functioned. “It will work just like your iPad,” he said. “Because it is one. Or was one. The one difference is that it lets you communicate with us. I’ll show you. The device communicates with a satellite through a burst transmission. It is very hard to intercept.”