Damascus Station

by Unknown

  If Ali was to walk away certain that he had captured his spy, Sam would have to make the Syrian think he had won. Sam’s eventual breakage could not appear rushed and he could not be compliant. Ali would view both outcomes as evidence of subterfuge and continue onward, toward the summit, even after Sam had provided the name.

  If this happened, the plan would come apart. Ali would climb up the mountain, dragging Sam, until he drilled—maybe literally—into the safe hidden in his head. That safe held a name: Mariam. It had been the first item Sam packed away, deep in the mazework of his mind.

  Now, alone in the darkness, he rummaged through his mental organization to sort the rest of the material.

  A few items he classified as already burned or expendable: his CIA affiliation, the safe house, knowledge of the Republican Guard operation at Jableh and the second site, Wadi Barada. He thought of a package of defunct or lightly used drop, signal, and brush pass sites that CIA could replace. All of this he would reveal, over time and under extreme duress, after the denials of the base camp. These targeted revelations would build credibility with Ali, luring the Syrian into the mistaken belief his path toward the summit was bearing fruit.

  The gift-wrapped, bow-tied box set on the table for Ali contained a single name: Jamil Atiyah. With that, Sam had to convince Ali they’d arrived at the summit. The end. They would toss Sam back in the cell while they tore Atiyah’s world apart looking for proof. They would find the device, the money, the American passports under a false name. A search of his computer and phone would reveal the strange emails and phone calls.

  The cell door opened and blinding bars of light burst in. Two men grabbed him by the shoulders and dragged him to another dank room. The walls were covered in rusted pipes that snaked through rough-cut holes in the ceiling. A flimsy, floodlit table ringed by four chairs sat in the room’s center. Brown tile covered the floor and there was a drain under the table.

  The two men sat him down in one of the chairs and left. The floodlight bore down. He sank his head and closed his eyes for relief. Base camp. The initial discussion. He examined his mental organization again and tucked the safe with Mariam’s name deep away. The one containing his knowledge of her true loyalties: the operation against Bouthaina’s computer and the Republican Guard sites he imagined would soon be destroyed by U.S. warplanes.

  He waited for what felt like an hour. A metal door creaked open, bathing a section of corroded piping in light. It shut again.

  Ali Hassan sat down across from Sam and lit a cigarette. The Syrian rubbed his scar, put his hands down on the table, folded them, and began.

  “You did not heed my warning,” Ali said in Arabic. “You killed three Syrians. You went into hiding. Then you attempted to exfiltrate one of your spies. Mariam is in custody now, of course. In this very prison, actually. It is how we found you at your safe house last night.” He dragged on the cigarette, looking at Sam.

  Sam eyed the table and stayed quiet.

  “There is an outstanding matter, one of grave importance to my government. The name of a remaining spy. We know she was not your only contact.”

  He tried not to wince or move. He decided to mention her name, just to test. He suspected Ali would use his arrest outside the safe house as bait, would tell him they’d caught Mariam and try to use it as leverage or to throw him off. “I thought you said you already captured Mariam,” Sam said.

  Ali scratched his head and removed a cigarette pack from his shirt pocket. Tapping it on the table, he ashed the lit cigarette with his other hand. He shook his head.

  “The lies will not go so well for you, Samuel. I know there is another. I require the name, and the specific information he passed to you regarding our military plans. Now.”

  Sam squinted into the floodlights so the Syrian could see him staring back. “I don’t know what you are talking about, Ali.”

  ALI LEFT THE ROOM AND the two men returned. One stood Sam up while the other worked on his ribs with haymaker blows, alternating sides in rapid succession. No one said anything, but the room echoed with muffled grunts and gasps until they threw him facedown onto the floor. One sat on his back as the other swung something down on his right foot, working the back of his ankle in a precise fashion. His neck muscles tensing to failure, arc lights dancing across his vision, he heard a crunch. He screamed.

  They rolled Sam over, then split the work between his face and the phalanges and metatarsals of his ruined foot. The man who had been on his back now straddled him, holding tufts of his hair to stabilize the skull while he jabbed at his jaw, taking over where Procter had left off the previous evening.

  The head work, Sam thought as he lolled off, a classic mistake. Unconsciousness is a gift.

  “FOR GOD’S SAKE, COLONEL, YOU don’t knock the subject out,” Ali barked once a sheepish Kanaan and his brother had returned from putting the American into the refrigerated cell and dousing him in water to wake him up. “We’ve got to keep him talking.”

  “Gen—”

  “Not a word.” Ali scratched his scar. “Call me as soon as he wakes up. And wire him up with electricity for the next round.”

  Ali ran upstairs to his office, past the Russians now twiddling their thumbs waiting for orders to return to the Rodina. Ali shut the door, sat down, and looked out his window, toward the east. Fighters and a few attack helicopters operated over Douma. He had hunted this American for months, but he had failed to find all of his spies. Now he wondered why he even cared, when Rustum’s attack would begin, when the Americans would bomb, what Layla and the kids were doing.

  He heard a gigantic explosion in the distance. The building wobbled. Rustum must have begun. He lit a cigarette and went to the window, where he saw a tower of smoke over the SSRC’s headquarters in Barzeh.

  Then he saw a plane, not a MiG—not Syrian or Russian—soaring over Qasioun. He recognized it from one of the briefings the Russians had provided. It was an American F-35. It dropped several bombs on the Shaab Palace, conjuring a fiery flash, then a puffy, wafting cloud. The plane left his field of vision. The Americans. He craned his neck to see where the plane had gone. Nothing. He could hear his own breath; his stomach heaved. Then the plane, or maybe it was a different one, reappeared, banking south from the mountain toward Kafr Sousa and the Security Office.

  Ali remembered Layla and the twins, and felt sick that he didn’t have time to say goodbye. How he was a coward. The plane closed the gap in two seconds. It flew low, seemingly at eye level. He stepped back, turned away, and ducked, all instinctive and yet useless if the plane dropped a bomb on the building. At the last moment the plane knifed upward, easily clearing the building while shattering every pane of glass on its northern side.

  The shards rained down on Ali’s back as he huddled on the floor. The screech of the engines faded and he stood, dusting himself off. He was shaking. He could feel a weak trickle on the back of his head. He heard screaming down the hall. He stumbled to his desk and called Layla.

  “Are you okay, habibti?” He was shouting, trying to overcome the ringing in his ears. He could hear the twins shrieking in the background.

  Layla was crying. “My god, what is happening, I heard a couple big explosions and the boys are hysterical and the electricity is out and someone in a ski mask showed up outside the apartment and fired a gun in the air. Did you hear me?”

  He’d heard a lot of what she said. But my, the ringing.

  “We’re holed up here waiting to die,” Layla screamed. “And what were those planes, the Israelis? And I’m in the bedroom now looking into the street and militia are outside. Someone ran down the street this morning carrying a television, Ali, the city has gone insane. Get home, okay? When can you get home? When can you get home? When? Can you hear me? Ali? Ali?”

  The ringing swelled now. The building rumbled as another American bomb fell. Hot summer wind whipped through the open windows, kicking dust into his eyes.

  Layla screamed, Sami said, “Daddy, daddy, daddy,” in
the background. He heard another explosion in the distance. Then ambulance sirens and the air raid horns, ironically delayed.

  But mostly he heard ringing, dear god, the ringing.

  “Stay there, Layla,” he yelled. “Hide in the bedroom closet with the boys. I will come now. I love you. Tell the boys.”

  Ali hung up. He was walking toward his door when it swung open wildly, slamming into the wall.

  His big brother Rustum, commander of the Republican Guard, hero of Hama, stood in the doorway. His face was contorted, and specks of blood dabbed his collar, which clung to his bruised neck.

  He clutched Mariam’s right arm, manacled to her left behind her back. Her face was red, and her eyes were exhausted.

  He coughed something ruddy and wiped it on his arm.

  “Today is the day, little brother.”

  SAM AWOKE IN A MEAT locker, his skin soaked and frigid. Someone said he’s up in Arabic, and then a pair of rough hands grabbed him by the shoulders and led him to the table. They attached electrodes to his fingers and testicles and then he was alone under the floodlights.

  Sam looked down at his stillborn foot. He could not move it.

  The door flung open and three shapes walked through. He could not make out their faces, but the second seemed to be pushing the first one. The third one, trailing behind, closed the door. The second man led the prisoner to a chair facing Sam. He squinted into the bright floodlights and saw the prisoner’s outline.

  Time for the ascent.

  THEY HAD PLANNED FOR THIS in the safe house. Before the lovemaking on the mattress, their bodies begging each other for forgiveness. She, for her betrayal; he, for getting her involved in the first place.

  Mariam still felt sick knowing their crimes had not been equal. She had wanted to work with Sam, with the CIA, against a government she despised, against a life she did not control. She had betrayed him in Italy, it was true. She took the device. She might have told Sam and Artemis about Ali Hassan’s threats instead. Then they could have built a way out.

  “They might bring you to me,” Sam had said on the mattress that night. “Ali believes that I think you are a loyal CIA agent. He might use it as leverage. They might put you in the same room, or a cell next to mine. It’s important you keep up the act, that you play by Ali’s rules, follow his lead.”

  When the knock came, she’d expected to see Ali, to be brought into a plan to break the American spy. Instead, it had been his brother Rustum, Bouthaina’s blood dried on his uniform, eerie smile frozen on his face, his neck discolored by bruises.

  “Yes?” she had said.

  Then he slapped her, hard. Two men poured into the apartment behind him. She swung a knee into the groin of the first, but the second man barreled her to the floor, muscling her arms behind her back, pressing her neck into the marble. They bound and hustled her into a car, speeding for the Security Office as American planes soared overhead. Rustum brayed and squealed with each explosion. He had mumbled the same words during the drive: My Bouthaina, my Bouthaina, my Bouthaina.

  Now, eyes locked on Sam’s battered face, Mariam imagined driving her nail file through the neck of each brother, these sadists masquerading as policemen. But first she had to hold it together.

  “Why am I here?” she said to Ali, wriggling against the cords.

  No one answered.

  A PHONE RANG.

  Sam’s head slowly seesawed as he registered that it was Rustum Hassan answering.

  “Are you sure?” Silence, screaming through the phone. “Ya allah.” He slammed the phone onto the table. Sam could smell Rustum creeping closer. Breath stale and hot. Rustum pressed a hand into his shoulder and slid a chair beside him, breathing heavily. Rustum bent over to examine Sam’s foot. Then he pressed his boot into the top. Sam yelled as black dots littered his vision.

  Rustum removed his foot and stood. “Seems you survived the easy stuff,” he said. Then he looked at the wall, then the floor. He pointed several feet to Sam’s right and leaned in close. “Your friend Valerie died right about there, on the concrete. Ironic, isn’t it?” He mussed Sam’s hair.

  “Who is the spy?” Ali said suddenly. Sam saw that Ali was leaning over a small black box. He pushed a button without warning.

  He saw nothing but felt everything.

  The pain was pure and saturating. He had trained for this, but simulations are just that. Simulations. He did not realize that it would feel like boiling water running through the muscles and veins and bones, a stream of it running from his feet to his brain, now expanding like an overfilled balloon ready to burst. Then it stopped, just like that, and the room returned in a tide of light and noise and he saw his chest ripple and he vomited on the floor.

  He heard Mariam cursing.

  “Who is the spy?” Ali said again.

  In the memory palace he’d built in his mind, Sam caught a glance of the hidden safe containing Mariam’s name and her loyalty. He blinked to erase the memory, tried to forget what room it was in, but it was still there, beckoning. Sam blinked again. He thought of the first set of boxes and offered them in a rapid stutter.

  “I’m CIA,” he said. “I don’t know who you want, but I do know Damascus sites. Safe houses at the foot of the mountain. Dark, demon lights, got hit by the Chief, the Proctologist—”

  “Stop using code names,” Ali said.

  “Brush pass, by the mosque.” Even if he had wanted to, he could not string the words together for a full sentence. “Map. I show.”

  “We don’t care about this,” Rustum said.

  Ali pushed the button again and the world dropped away. Time an infinite, searing loop, the arc lights dancing across his mind as he considered the safe and its contents. He smelled a Minnesota pine forest, heard his mom weeping. Then he collapsed back into the chair. Was this the summit? How long had it been?

  Mariam yelled. Sam coughed and blood dribbled down his chin. He heard the two brothers bickering, but he could not make out the discussion. He heard Mariam’s hoarse voice again and his mind struggled to process the Arabic. “Why am I here?” she said.

  “How did you know about Jableh and Wadi Barada?” Ali asked.

  Sam’s head tilted back. Rustum pawed it forward.

  The peak. Now. Do it now. “Overheard Wadi in Palace,” Sam yelled. “The hall.”

  “What? Who overheard? What hall?” Ali said.

  Sam did not know how many times Ali pushed the button. Time had stopped, and in the blackness he saw the safe holding Mariam’s name. During one of the loops he placed his hand on its top, ran fingers along the bumpy metal, heard clicks as he spun the dial.

  The electricity started again. He tried for memories but could not hold them. They rolled by without stopping, each darkened, edges stained like old photographs: the corn hedges of Shermans Corner, Mom reading him a book, the mill, Vegas, the Bradleys’ humid kitchen in Cairo. Then Mariam: her silhouette in starlight, the laugh, the moon-drenched vineyard. He grasped at them, tried to pull them in tight like a shield from the wild currents thrumming his bones, but as his fingers reached the memories they vanished. He cried for help into the void, but the only answer was pain.

  Then he remembered the box wrapped for Ali. Play the hand now.

  He gagged bile onto the floor as the world again appeared. “Atiyah,” he gasped. “Atiyah, Atiyah.”

  “Jamil Atiyah?” Ali said. As the world focused, Sam could see the Syrian smoking, finger tapping on the table next to the torturer’s button. Ali appeared to be considering the name.

  Sam nodded. His eyes rolled back, then his head. Rustum jerked him forward.

  “Heard Wadi Barada. Bouthaina. Setup,” he stammered out.

  Something in the blackness bellowed at him. Then he heard cement scraping metal and felt himself sliding closer to someone, screeching across the floor. He saw Mariam’s shape appear on the horizon. The scraping stopped. They were facing each other now, knees inches apart, and he could smell her hair. He looked into her eyes
.

  Then Sam felt the heat on his neck. A metallic spray dashed his tongue, and the heat carved upward, along the mangled jawbone, into his face. He heard names shouted. Bouthaina, Atiyah. He saw the safe again and reached his hand toward it.

  ALI HAD TURNED HIS BACK to the interrogation for exactly fifteen seconds. In that time he called Kanaan with orders to turn Jamil Atiyah’s world inside out, immediately. Ransack his office, his villa, get the computers, the phones. Everything.

  When he turned around, he saw his brother carving a jagged ivy line into the CIA officer’s neck. Rustum screamed and said, “This is for my sweet Bouthaina.” Ali touched his own scar and watched as Rustum removed the knife from Samuel’s cheek and turned to Mariam.

  MARIAM SCREAMED FOR HELP AND rattled her bound hands and arms against the chair as Rustum cut Sam.

  “Do you know I killed her?” he slobbered, spittle flocking Sam’s dimming face. “You made me do it, you framed her.”

  He yanked the knife away. Mariam saw the blood beading along its path. Sam spit something from his mouth. Stay with me, habibi. Stay here.

  Rustum cupped his hand around Sam’s chin and bent over to focus his eyes. “I never liked the setup with this sharmoota.” He used the knife to point at Mariam. “I wonder what she told you in Italy. She worked with Bouthaina. Maybe she overheard about Wadi Barada. Maybe Bouthaina let too much slip.”

  Rustum shuffled around the chairs to Mariam’s right side and said softly into her ear: “Did you kill my Bouthaina?”

  “Who is the spy?” a voice boomed. She could not tell if it was Ali or Rustum or God himself.