Taking Morgan

by David Rose

  Ronnie put her hand on his; her signature gesture, Adam thought fuzzily. Somehow, out here, after so many weeks when he seemed to have been focused on only one thing, it didn’t feel inappropriate. He shifted his position and his knee touched hers beneath the table. She held it there long enough for him to feel the warmth of her skin.

  “I admit it, I was hurt when you just disappeared off to England without even calling me,” she said. “I know that seems a bit petty; I had no right to expect you to. So I’m sorry about what I did, blurting everything out to your mother-in-law, but I had thought you might confide in me.”

  “Ronnie, it’s okay. It doesn’t matter,” Adam said softly. He touched her arm with his remaining available hand. “It’s not like any of us affected by this business have had any kind of blueprint to guide us on what we should do, and as you know, it’s not something they teach you at law school. Actually, some good has come of it. Trying to maintain secrecy was killing me, and thanks to your talk with Sherry, I’ve been able to level with the one person I really feel knows what I’m going through—Morgan’s dad. Just being able to share it with him has been an enormous help. He and I come from very different worlds, but he’s a pretty decent guy. We’ve always hit it off.”

  As night fell, they began to eat. Ronnie told Adam stories from her childhood with Rachelle, and of her sister’s romance with Avram. Having been an investment banker with a promising career, now she did nothing more strenuous than sit on the boards of Jewish charities and support contemporary artists. He told her he’d been to Gaza, but little about what had happened there, and nothing at all about his mushrooming doubts about Morgan’s colleagues from the CIA. It was an enormous relief to spend an evening mostly focusing on something else. Slowly the restaurant emptied. Adam looked at his watch.

  “Jesus. It’s nearly midnight. I’d better find a cab.”

  “Wrong exclamation to use around here, my friend. Will you walk me home first? It’s only a couple of blocks, and I’ll show you how to get back to the main road heading back to Tel Aviv—you’ll find a taxi there in no time, even at this hour.”

  Adam paid the bill, and they stood. The street, a wide, two-lane boulevard with grass verges along the sidewalks, was deserted. Moonlight filtered down through the spreading, mature trees. As they walked, Ronnie took Adam’s arm and placed it around her well-toned waist. Beneath the cloth of his shorts, he felt himself hardening.

  Finally they stopped outside Rachelle and Avram’s villa. The lights were off. She turned to face him.

  “Hold me.”

  His hands grasped the small of her back.

  “Whatever you want, it’s okay,” she said. “If it feels wrong, I’ll understand. And if not now, well, maybe there’ll be a time when things are different.”

  “I can’t. I just can’t, even though a huge part of me wants to, and it might do us both a lot of good. But I’ve had a wonderful evening. In fact the best for a very long time—since long before Morgan was kidnapped.”

  She rested her head against his chest. She said nothing for what felt like several minutes. “So will I see you again before you leave?”

  “Why don’t you come to Tel Aviv tomorrow. It’s my last night.”

  “If I can. So long as it’s okay with Rachelle. Call me in the morning.”

  He felt the dampness: her eyes were wet with tears.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be pathetic,” she said. “It’s not really me who’s having to go through all this shit—what you and Morgan and Rachelle have to deal with. I’m just on the sidelines. But she did so want to be a mom. Thank God she has Avram.”

  “You’re not pathetic. Just human.”

  She gave him a final hug, then kissed his lips firmly, breaking away from him without opening her mouth.

  “Thanks Adam. Seeing you on your own for once was wonderful.”

  “Maybe see you tomorrow then.”

  “Like the Arabs say, insh’Allah.”

  All the way back to Tel Aviv, Adam breathed the scent she had left on his polo shirt.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Friday, May 4, 2007

  Adam awakes, only to realize with plummeting disappointment that the eroticism from which he surfaces is merely another dream—not of Ronnie, but of Morgan. They had been in their familiar bedroom in Bethesda, and she was on her knees, her legs straddling his face, maintaining her balance with a palm against the headboard. He was lost in her warmth, her nectar on his face as she moved her open vulva across his lips and tongue, and he was reaching up to pinch her nipples in the way he knew she loved. He could feel the tremor beginning in her thighs and buttocks that meant she was about to come. It wasn’t just the immanence of her smell and taste that made the dream so vivid, but the sound, the involuntary, throaty whimper Morgan made only when utterly abandoned. How long has it been since he’s heard it for real? Will he ever hear it again?

  Returning fully to consciousness, he orients himself. Of course, he’s in Tel Aviv. Last night he was with Ronnie. She made it obvious she wanted to sleep with him, and he has never needed sheer physical release so badly. But if they’d finally done it, the emotion now washing over him would not be longing but guilt. It was lucky they met in Ramat Hasharon. They could hardly have gone back to her sister’s place, and there was nowhere else to go. He remembers he asked her to come to Tel Aviv this evening, the last of his trip. Maybe he should call her and make an excuse. But first he has to prepare himself. A final meeting at the embassy. This time he will confront them, for now he knows that the chip in his passport can only have been put there by the CIA.

  Karim did not come back the previous day, and now once again it was the two of them, Morgan and Abu Mustafa, back in the dingy basement instead of the airy yard. “Karim says outside is becoming too dangerous,” Abu Mustafa said apologetically. “I’m afraid he is right. The situation here in Gaza is deteriorating.”

  “What’s happening?” Morgan said.

  “The usual, but worse. Factional fighting and Israeli air-strikes. It always goes up and down. You’ve been coming here long enough to know that. Now seems to be an up.”

  “So let me go. The longer you keep me here, the greater the risk—not to me, but you.”

  “First we have work to do. It’s time to get back to where we were before the Israelis interrupted us. Let’s start with Abdel Nasser.”

  Morgan had known this must be coming. Days earlier, she had decided that this was a subject on which she could safely digress. After all, Abdel Nasser was already a prisoner. There didn’t seem much she could say that would make his situation worse.

  “If you want me to talk about Abdel Nasser, I need to know he is okay,” she said.

  “He is alive. That is enough.”

  “He was injured. Let me see him, so that I know his wounds are being treated.”

  “That is impossible. In any case, he is no longer here. And if you do not want him to suffer, I suggest you continue to cooperate.”

  “So what do you want to know?”

  “It’s a strange thing, recruitment. Picking someone you can trust, who can fulfill your objectives, and who has the right skills and abilities. You and I, and the organizations we represent, we are really not so different. If I am looking for talent in a university or a refugee camp, I need to spot certain qualities. I need fighters who do not fear death, who will guard our secrets, who are intelligent and resourceful. And I have to determine their motivation, the purity of their commitment; someone who cares about money or glory could pose a lethal risk. Only when I am sure do I make my pitch. As a case officer, I imagine you go through a similar process. Tell me about how it went with Abdel Nasser. How did you meet him?”

  Morgan knew she had no choice. “There’s a colleague based in the region. I’ve known him a long time. We trained together. He recommended him.”

  “What did he say about him?”

  “That he and his family really know Gaza. That they know the politicians, and t
he people who run the factions and militias. And because of their strong American connections, they understand ideas that matter to us, like the rule of law and human rights.”

  “Good, Mrs. Cooper. Now we are getting somewhere. So how did you make contact?”

  “I emailed him. Because of my cover, I had a State Department email address. He replied in less than an hour, saying he’d be delighted to meet me in Gaza, but just then, he happened to be in California. He planned to be in New York the following week. This would have been early spring last year. A few days later, I took the train up from DC, and we met at an Italian restaurant.”

  “Your first impressions of him?”

  Morgan tried not to blush. “I liked him. He was beautifully dressed, and he had perfect manners. He was obviously intelligent, and he had a sense of humor. His first words after we introduced ourselves were: ‘New York, it’s great to be back. As you may have noticed, they named Gaza only once.’”

  “What did you eat? Did you both drink alcohol?”

  “I had fish. Halibut, I think. I really can’t remember what he had. And yes, we did drink alcohol. An excellent Pinot Grigio, if that means anything to you.”

  “What did you tell him was the purpose of your meeting?”

  “What you’d expect. I gave him my cover: that the State Department wanted me to begin independent monitoring of human rights violations being perpetrated by the main Gaza factions. I think he thought I was nuts. But he agreed to help if he could, and we arranged to meet in Gaza. A few weeks later, we did.”

  “But arranging to meet is a long way from recruiting him as an agent. Gaza may be poor, but a member of the al-Kafarneh family would not be attracted by money. How did your acquaintance develop?”

  “I made a few more visits, and truth to tell, we liked each other. I guess I was a point of contact to a world that he knew. Of course I never actually revealed myself to him as an Agency officer. But there was a definite moment when, if you will, our relationship shifted gear.”

  “Go on. I am all ears.”

  “It was an evening about ten months ago. We were sitting at a table on the al-Deirah terrace. We were gazing at the Mediterranean, drinking homemade lemonade with mint and arugula. The sun was just going down.”

  “You make it sound idyllic. How lovely.”

  “You can be snarky if you want, but the fact is that when you’re sitting out there, this idea that people used to have that Gaza could become a Palestinian Singapore doesn’t seem so improbable—so long as you ignore the sewage outlet pipe a little ways up the beach. Anyhow, I’d become aware that Abdel Nasser had a reputation as a bit of a playboy. But I’d also decided this was misjudged. Maybe he was different when he was younger. But when I got to know him, all I could see was a man of principle, and a Palestinian patriot. And that turned out to be the way to, uh, take our association to the next level.”

  “So you appealed to his sense of decency and persuaded him to become a spy. How very touching.”

  “Do you want me to tell you about this or not?”

  “I’m sorry. Please, go on.”

  “So there we were on the terrace, and Abdel Nasser started telling me that my own country, America, was the key to solving the Palestinians’ conflict with Israel—because many Palestinians, starting with him, shared our constitutional values. I can remember his words pretty much verbatim: ‘The thing I love most about the United States is your idea of a citizen state, in which race and religion don’t determine your loyalties, your responsibilities. Everything else that’s great about America stems from that—equality, freedom, opportunity. And that’s what I want to create in Palestine.’”

  Abu Mustafa looked incredulous. “Abdel Nasser, with all his wealth and influence, became a spy for this? For some half-baked vision that here on the soil of Palestine, you and he could reconstruct the American dream?”

  “Yes, he pretty much did. He told me that what hurt him most was that by always putting Israel first, America was disregarding Palestine’s potential. But he said he was convinced that if America’s leaders only knew more of the facts, their policy would change. It was actually quite noble, even if it was based on a completely idealistic view of America.”

  Abu Mustafa gestured for her to carry on.

  “He said that when he had been a student at Columbia, he’d campaigned to end the war in Bosnia, and eventually, America did. He told me it was always easy to predict failure: the daring thing was to hope and strive for success. Then he said: ‘I only wish I had some way to get this message across in Washington.’ And that’s when I made my pitch.”

  “And this was?”

  “I told him he did have a way to get his message heard in Washington. I said he could do it through me. All he had to do in return was use his network of contacts to find things out for me. I appealed to his nature and his hopes for his country, and he readily agreed.” Morgan sighed. “And now look at both of us. Maybe it wasn’t such a smart move, after all.”

  “Yes, look at you both. And that’s how things are going to stay until you begin to tell me what was the real purpose of your mission: why you needed an agent as well-connected as Abdel Nasser.”

  This too, Morgan knew, she had to disclose. “I told you I was observing. That’s actually the truth. It’s just that it wasn’t about human rights.”

  “But instead?”

  “It’s hardly a secret that the United States did not welcome Hamas’s victory in last year’s Palestinian elections. So we set up a program to see if we couldn’t, how shall I put this, change the facts on the ground, to strengthen the forces loyal to Fatah. We wanted Fatah to be able to smash Hamas on the streets if it had to. We didn’t ask them to start these violent clashes. But once they started getting aid, I suppose they were inevitable.”

  “So what are you telling me? That you have been coordinating some kind of coup? But why would the CIA choose you? You have no military background. You’re a woman. You’re not even here most of the time.”

  “I wasn’t running the program. I was sent here to evaluate the results. You know how it is: sometimes the guys on the ground get carried away. They know headquarters doesn’t want to hear about failure, and so sometimes they exaggerate: they’ll say things are swell when, in reality, they’re turning to rat shit. My job was to figure out whether what Headquarters was hearing was true—that Fatah was becoming so strong that if it came to a final showdown, Hamas was finished.”

  “And Abdel Nasser?”

  “He listened and he kept his eyes open, and hung out at night drinking tea with the commanders from both sides. Every so often, I’d breeze into town, he’d tell me what was happening, and take me to meet some of his sources. We’d sit with them in their dingy apartment blocks, drink more tea and smoke some shisha, and then I’d form my assessment.”

  “So did they confirm that the CIA’s plan was working, and that Fatah was bound to triumph?”

  “No,” Morgan said. “Neither Abdel Nasser nor the people he introduced me to used to say that at all. All the honest ones said the same thing: that Fatah was set for disaster. That’s pretty much what I said in my own reports.”

  “And then?”

  “And then my colleagues took no notice of them. But I’ll tell you what I think. I think Hamas will be in total control of Gaza within weeks. And then, my friend, you and Karim had better watch out. If you haven’t yet freed me and Abdel Nasser, Hamas’s guys will hunt you down like dogs, because the one thing they will not tolerate is a challenge to their power.”

  All three CIA men are waiting for him, sitting around the conference table in the familiar station office: Gary, Mike and Eugene. But there’s a fourth, whom Adam hasn’t seen before: a fleshy Israeli in late middle age. Even before they’ve been introduced, Adam guesses that this must be the “colleague” who asked Ben-Meir to meet Morgan, to make certain she would enter Gaza. They all stand as he enters, politely formal, and he shakes their proffered hands. How normal everything seems
. Through the blast-proof windows, he can see the bikini girls and bodybuilders on the beach.

  “Adam, I’d like you to meet an old friend and fellow combatant in the war on terror,” Gary says. “Amos, Adam, Adam, Amos.”

  Adam nods, trying to take him in. Gray hair, big black spectacles, a double chin; an air of inscrutability.

  “It is my pleasure,” Amos says. “I have heard great things about your wife. I am here to help us end her ordeal. But you must be very proud of her.”

  “Yes, I am.” Adam gestures at Amos and Gary. “So you two go back a long way?”

  “You could say that,” says Amos. “We long ago realized the mutual benefits of cooperation.”

  “I understand you’re leaving us,” Gary says. “I’m sorry your trip hasn’t been more fruitful. But you did your best, and that’s what we’re going to keep on doing. Now that you’ve been to Gaza, you can see it’s not going to be easy. But you’re leaving this job in the right hands, Adam. We’re not going to rest until she’s home.”

  “I’m pleased to hear that.” Adam smiles, trying to keep his voice even and pleasant. “And are you making progress yet? Any more messages from the kidnappers?”

  Gary holds up his hand. “Hey, easy now. I know you’re disappointed, but this is why I’ve asked Amos here to brief you. He’s the expert around here. And what he says is classified. But we figured we need to trust you. So, Amos. The floor is yours.” Amos looks at Adam, then at the CIA men around the table. He clears his throat. “You’ve seen for yourself how tense Gaza is getting. And by the way, I am very pleased to see you are safe. From what I hear, you didn’t choose the best of times for your visit.”

  “Not exactly. I got caught on the fringes of a firefight. But as you’ve observed, I escaped.”

  “You managed to hook up with Hamas?”

  “You know I did.”

  “I suppose your new friends tried to tell you that the Janbiya al-Islam is nothing to do with them.”

  “Yes. They did.”