Ferris followed behind Hani and his assistant, Marwan. They stepped carefully around the trash overflowing the dumpster in the alleyway and made their way toward the back door. The wall was smeared with fat block letters of graffiti, written in a mix of German and Turkish. The word next to the door looked like “Allah.” Or maybe it was “Abba,” the Swedish rock group. Hani put his finger to his lips and pointed to the windows on the third floor. Through the stained brown curtains, you could see lights. The target was home, but that was no surprise. Hani’s men had been watching the place for several months, and they didn’t make mistakes.
HANI SALAAM was a sleek, elegantly dressed Jordanian. His hair was a lustrous black, too black for a man in his late fifties, but the mottled gray in his moustache gave his age away. He was the chief of the General Intelligence Department, as Jordan’s intelligence service was known. He was a commanding, well-spoken man, and people usually addressed him by the Ottoman honorific “Hani Pasha,” which they pronounced with a “B” sound so that it came out “Basha.” Ferris had found him intimidating at first, but after a few weeks, he began to think of him as an Arab version of the lounge singer Dean Martin. Hani Salaam was cool, from the glistening polish of his shoes to the smoky lenses of his sunglasses. Like most successful men of the East, he had a reserved, almost diffident demeanor. His smooth manners could seem British at first, a remnant of the semester he had spent at Sandhurst long ago. But the bedrock of his character was the generous but secretive spirit of a Bedouin tribal leader. He was the sort of man who never told you everything he knew.
Hani had joked once, when he was giving Ferris his first tour of the GID in Amman, that Jordanians were so scared of him they referred to his headquarters as the Fingernail Factory. “You know, these people are very foolish,” he had said with a dismissive wave of his hand. Of course he didn’t allow his men to rip people’s fingernails out. It didn’t work; the prisoners said anything to make the pain stop. Hani didn’t mind that people thought him cruel, but he hated the idea they would think him inefficient. Hani explained to Ferris at that first meeting that when he had a new Al Qaeda prisoner, he would keep the young man awake for a few days in the interrogation room the Jordanians called “the blue hotel,” and then show him a picture of one of his parents or a sibling. Often that was enough. The family can do what a thousand blows from the prison guard cannot, Hani had confided. They undermine the will to die and reinforce the will to live.
People back at Langley always described Hani as a “pro.” There was something condescending in that, like white people describing a well-spoken black man as “articulate.” But the plaudits for Hani masked the fact that the agency had come to depend on him more than it should. As acting chief of station, Ferris was supposed to establish rapport with the head of the liaison service. So when Dean Martin himself had personally invited him two days earlier to join an operation in Germany, it was a big deal. The paper pushers in the Near East Division had objected that he should stay at his desk and answer cables about the Milan bombing. But Ed Hoffman, the division chief, had intervened. “They’re idiots,” he said of the subordinates who had tried to block Ferris’s trip. He told Ferris to call him when the operation was over.
THE JORDANIAN eased open the back door and waved Ferris and Marwan forward. The passageway was dark; the walls smelled of mildew. Creeping on the toes of his Jermyn Street loafers, Hani ascended the concrete stairs. The only sound was the smoker’s wheeze of his lungs. Marwan went next. He looked like a street tough who had been cleaned up for Ferris’s benefit. He had a scar on his right cheek next to his eye, and his body was as lean and hard as a desert dog’s. Ferris followed; the limp was almost imperceptible even though his leg still hurt.
Marwan was carrying an automatic pistol, its outlines visible under his jacket. As they climbed the stairs, he took the pistol out of its holster and cradled it in his hand. The three stayed close, moving in unison. Hani froze when he heard a door opening on the floor above. He motioned to Marwan, who nodded and steadied the gun against his leg. But it was just an old German woman heading out with her cart to go shopping. She passed the three men on the stairs without looking at them.
Hani continued up the stairs. All he had told Ferris back in Amman was that he had been preparing the operation for many months. “Come and watch me pull the trigger,” he had said. Ferris didn’t know if Hani and Marwan were actually going to shoot someone. That would be illegal, technically, but Headquarters wouldn’t mind if he wrote the report the right way. They weren’t so fussy about that kind of thing anymore. America was at war. In wartime, the rules are different. Or at least that was what Hoffman was always telling him.
The Jordanian motioned for them to stop when he reached the third floor. He took a cell phone from his pocket, put it to his ear and whispered something in Arabic. Then he nodded for them, and the three crept toward the door of the apartment marked “36.” Hani knew that Mustafa Karami would be there that afternoon. Indeed, he knew nearly everything about him—his job, his habits, his school friends when he was a boy in Zarqa, his family back in Amman. He knew what mosque he prayed at in Berlin, what cell phone numbers he used, what hawala wired him funds from Dubai. Most of all, he knew when Mustafa Karami had gone to Afghanistan, when he had joined Al Qaeda, who trusted him in the organization and who communicated with him. Hani had gone to school on him, so to speak, and now it was graduation time.
Marwan raised his pistol as Hani approached the door. Ferris remained in the shadows a few yards back. He had his own pistol in a shoulder holster under his coat and now put his right hand on the pebbled metal butt. Upstairs, in another apartment, he heard the faint jangle of Arab music. Hani raised his hand to signal that he was ready. He knocked once loudly on the door, waited a moment and then rapped again.
The door opened a crack, and a voice grunted in German, “Bitte?” Karami had a chain on the door, but he peered warily through the opening. He tried to slam the door when he saw the strange faces, but Hani quickly wedged his foot in the way.
“Hello, Mustafa, my friend,” said Hani in Arabic. “God is great. Peace be with you.” Marwan poised his leg so that he could kick down the door if he had to.
“What do you want?” answered the voice inside the apartment. The chain was still bolted.
“I have someone who wants to talk to you,” said Hani. “Take this phone, please. I promise you, it is only a phone. Don’t be afraid.” He handed the cell phone slowly through the crack in the door. Karami didn’t touch it at first.
“Take the phone, my dear,” said Hani softly.
“Why? Who is calling me?”
“Talk to your mother.”
“What?”
“Talk to your mother. She is waiting on the telephone for you.”
The young Arab put the phone to his ear. He listened to a voice he had not heard in three years. He had trouble understanding at first. She was telling him that she was so proud of him. She always knew that he would be a success, even when he was a boy in Zarqa. And now he was doing great things. He had sent her money, and a refrigerator, and now even a new television set. With the money, she would be able to find a new apartment, where she could sit in her chair and watch the sun set over the hills. She was so proud of him, now that he was a success. He was a great son, thanks be to God. He was a mother’s dream. He was God’s blessing. She was crying. When she said goodbye, Mustafa was crying, too. From the joy of hearing his mother, certainly, but also from the torment of knowing that he was caught.
“You are your mother’s dream,” said Hani.
“What have you done to her?” Mustafa brushed the tears from his eyes. “I did none of the things she said. You tricked her.”
“Let me come in, so we can talk.”
Mustafa waited, as if trying to imagine some means of escape, but already he was in Hani’s power. He unbolted the chain and opened the door. The three men entered the room. It was eerily empty of furniture or decoration, with only
a mattress against the wall and a prayer rug angled toward Mecca. Mustafa’s gaunt body was slack and crumpled, like a discarded suit. “What do you want?” he asked. His hands were shaking.
“I have helped your mother,” said Hani. He loomed over the younger man. He did not have to state the obvious corollary—that he could hurt her, just as he had helped her.
“You tricked her,” repeated Mustafa. He trembled slightly as he said it.
“No, we have helped her. We have given her many gifts, and we have told her that these gifts come from her son, who she loves. This is a hasanna that we have done, a good deed.” Hani let the words hang in the air.
“Is she in prison?” asked Mustafa. His hands were still shaking. Hani handed him a cigarette and lit it.
“Of course not. Did she sound like she was in prison? She is happy. And I would like her to remain so, all her days.”
Ferris watched, wide-eyed, from the corner. He didn’t move a muscle, for fear he would break Hani’s rhythm. His employers had paid for this show, in a manner of speaking, but he was just a member of the audience.
The silence stretched for many seconds, as Mustafa contemplated his predicament. They had his mother. They had made him a hero. They could destroy him, and his mother, if they chose. These were facts.
“What do you want me to do?” Mustafa asked at last. Ferris strained to hear the Arabic, to make sure he caught every word. He had a feeling that he was watching the onetime performance of a masterpiece. Hani had not touched his target or threatened him openly, or even pitched him, really. That was the beauty of the operation. Hani had built a sluice down which his prey was being carried involuntarily, inexorably.
“We would like you to help us,” Hani said. “And it is very simple, what you must do. We want you to continue your life, as before. We do not want you to be a traitor, or a bad Muslim, or to do anything that is haram. We only want you to be a friend. And a good son.”
“You want me to be your agent.”
“No, no. You misunderstand. We will talk about all this later. But first, I would like to give you a special phone, so that you can contact me.” Hani handed him a small wireless phone. Mustafa stared at it warily, as if it were a grenade that would detonate.
“I will meet you tomorrow, in a safe place, so that we can talk,” Hani continued. He passed him an index card, with an address in a Berlin suburb. “Please memorize that address, and then give me back the card.”
Mustafa looked away, wanting somehow to escape the net that was closing around him. “What if I say no?” he asked. There was a tremor in his voice.
“Your mother would be unhappy. She is proud of you. You are God’s blessing for an old woman. That is why I know you will not refuse.”
The words were gentle, but the look in Hani’s eyes was not. Mustafa could see there was no escape. He turned back to the index card and studied the address for ten seconds, then closed his eyes.
“Give me back the card, if you are ready,” said Hani. The younger man scanned it one last time and returned it.
“Good boy.” Hani gave him a smile of reassurance. “So it is agreed, we will meet at 114 Handelstrasse tomorrow at four. You should knock on the door of Room 507 and ask if Abdul-Aziz is there. I will answer by asking if you are Mohsen, and you will say yes. That is the recognition code. I will be Abdul-Aziz, and you will be Mohsen. If you cannot come tomorrow afternoon, go to the same address at ten the next morning. Use the same names. Do you understand?”
Mustafa nodded.
“If you try to trick us and run away, we will follow you. If you try to contact your friends, we will know. We are watching you day and night. If you do anything stupid, you will hurt yourself and those you love. Do not be stupid. Do you understand me?”
The young man gave a second nod of acceptance.
“Repeat the names, times and the address.”
“Abdul-Aziz and Mohsen. Four tomorrow afternoon, or if I cannot come, then ten the day after. The address is 114 Handelstrasse, Room 507.”
The Jordanian intelligence chief took Mustafa’s hand and pulled him close. Mustafa obediently kissed the older man on both cheeks. “May God protect you,” said Hani.
“Thanks be to God,” said the younger man, so softly that you could barely hear him.
THAT NIGHT, at a quiet table in a nearly deserted restaurant off the Kurfurstendamm, Ferris asked Hani a question. Part of him didn’t want to say a word, and just savor the last notes the maestro had played in the silence after the music stopped. But he had to ask.
“Is your guy going to help us with Milan?” That was the only thing the NE desk officers would care about.
“Well, I certainly hope so. And if not this Milan, then the next one, or the one after. This is a long war. There will be many attacks. We have a new piece of the thread in our hand now. We will follow it. And when we see where it leads, perhaps we will understand all the Milans. Don’t you think so?”
Ferris nodded. That wasn’t really an answer, at least not one the NE drones would understand. They would ask why Ferris had accompanied the Jordanian all the way to Berlin, if he hadn’t learned anything. And it would be a reasonable question.
“Why did you invite me along, anyway?” ventured Ferris. “I was just baggage.”
“Because I like you, Roger. You are smarter than the people Ed Hoffman usually sends to Amman. I wanted you to see how we operate so that you would not make mistakes like the others. I do not want you to be arrogant. That is the American disease, isn’t it? I do not want you to die from it.”
Hani was veiled in the filmy blue smoke of his cigarette. Ferris looked at him. The worm was turning. A month before the Milan bombing, there had been one in Rotterdam. They were using car bombs regularly in Europe now. These attacks should have made the members of the network easier to catch, but they had become more elusive. The enemy had changed its order of battle. There was a new intensity in its operational planning—the hand of someone new. Ferris was sure that Hani saw it—that was the thread, wasn’t it? That was what had brought them to Berlin that day.
“Who are you going after?” asked Ferris quietly.
Hani smiled through the tendrils of smoke. “I cannot tell you, my dear.”
But Ferris thought he knew. Hani was chasing the same man Ferris was—the man whose presence Ferris had first sensed months ago, in a safe house north of Balad, a few days before his left leg was ripped by shrapnel. When Ferris closed his eyes, he could see a flickering image in his retinal camera—of the man who was sending the bombers into the capitals of what people still wanted to believe was the civilized world. There wasn’t a photo; there wasn’t a location; there wasn’t even any certainty he existed. There was only a name, and when Ferris’s Iraqi agent had spoken it that day near Balad, his voice had been a furtive whisper. “Suleiman,” the Iraq agent had said. He had almost swallowed the word, as if it would kill him if it became audible. Suleiman. This was the name of terror.
2
AMMAN
AMMAN SEEMED PRICKLY AND anxious when Ferris returned the next day, but most places had the jitters these days. America had kicked over a hornet’s nest in Iraq, and they were buzzing into every souk and mosque in the Arab world—and soon, into every mall and shopping center in the West. The analysts back at Langley called this proliferation of Iraqi terrorism “bleed out.” On the Royal Jordanian flight back from Berlin, Ferris overheard two well-dressed Arabs in the row ahead of him in Crown Class talking knowingly about the Milan bombing. The car bomb was just like the one in Rotterdam; no, it was bigger, and there were propane cylinders in the car to enhance the blast. It was the work of Al Qaeda; no, it was the Shiites, pretending to be Al Qaeda; no, it was a new group, more terrifying than any of the others. They had no certainty about anything, except that it was America’s fault.
Even the flight attendant seemed skittish. She was dressed in a red skirt that hugged her ass, a fitted red jacket and a red pillbox hat, the kind you never saw anym
ore except on flight attendants. That was the endearing thing about Royal Jordanian: Like Jordan itself, it was caught in a time warp. But she hadn’t responded when Ferris tried to chat her up, and she had looked away with a slight grimace when she served him his meal. Her manner said: This is your fault, you Americans.
Ferris could feel the hostile stares as he went through passport control in Amman. The flight from Tel Aviv arrived at the same time, and the Jordanians were glowering at anyone who looked Israeli or American. The Jews. The Crusaders. For the Arabs, they had become interchangeable. Ferris wanted to get to work, to do something useful that might keep all these angry people from wreaking even more havoc. It was late afternoon, and most people at the embassy would still be at work. He could call Hoffman, look at the message log, answer the cables that had come in, think about how he was going to answer when people asked him what he, Roger Ferris, was doing to stop the car bombers before they arrived in Peoria and Petaluma.
THE AIRPORT highway into Amman was lined with billboards that might trick you into thinking that the world was still on the upswing: advertisements for competing cell-phone networks, for beachfront real estate in Dubai, for Citibank and the Four Seasons Hotel and the whole cornucopia of services that the global market had arrayed across these dry hills in the Arabian desert. It was only when you saw the giant roadside posters of the young king—looking faintly comic in Arab tribal clothes he would never have worn in real life, or embracing his late father in photographs that had become national amulets to pretend the old man was still alive—it was only then that you realized how nervous everyone was. This was still the land of lies and secrets, where survival was the only true aim of politics.
Ferris liked Amman, for all that. Its chalky white buildings gave the city a monastic look, that dizzying, arid purity of the desert that, every millennium or so, drives people so crazy they invent religions. Even at high noon in midsummer, Amman felt like a bracing sauna, as opposed to the wilting steam bath Ferris remembered from Yemen, or the pitiless furnace of Balad. And it retained many of the quaint folk-ways of the Arab world; even here on the airport road, young boys at makeshift stands were hawking fruit and vegetables and dispensing fragrant, bitter Arab coffee in tiny cups. Herds of sheep wandered onto the highways, attended by shepherds in flowing cloaks, as if they had fallen out of a time capsule. However much it tried to look like the West, Jordan was still the East. Hidden away in its markets were spice merchants and fortune-tellers and arms dealers—a whole secret life that was wired into a different set of circuits from those of McWorld.
Body of Lies Page 2
