Joan insisted that he stay for dinner. She made him what she always claimed was his favorite dish—a concoction of ground beef, canned peas and tomato sauce that she called “wheezing hash.” It had never been his favorite dish, or even close to it—something about the name made him wonder if it was very healthy. But he hated to disappoint his mother, who seemed to take such pleasure in making it, as if it proved she was a good mother, after all. She was odd that way. “I sometimes feel as if I’m a fraud and everyone knows,” she would occasionally say late at night, talking in the kitchen after dinner. Ferris would try to talk her out of it, but she would get a faraway look in her eye that conveyed that he didn’t really understand what she was talking about.
Joan Ferris was a genuine intellectual; she read widely and deeply, and Ferris always thought that she would have made an ideal college professor. She loved ideas and would discuss them for hours with Ferris while his father was off puttering in his craft shop, turning out meticulous woodworking pieces that had absolutely no practical use. Theirs was a house in which no one ever turned on the television Sunday afternoons to watch the Redskins. Joan Ferris had loved it when Roger went to work for Time, and been mystified when he left to go work for the “State Department.” But she could see that he liked his new job, and of course she knew, after all those years with her secret-keeping husband, where Roger really worked. What was more, she understood that he was evening a score.
After dinner, Ferris wandered over to the photo albums stacked neatly in the pantry. He tried to disguise his limp around his mother, but it never worked.
“Your leg isn’t getting any better, is it?” she said.
“It’s fine,” said Ferris. “I’m healthy as a horse.”
The albums were stacked and shelved in neat rows, with dates and places marked on the spines. Ferris pulled down the volume marked “Grandma and Baba.” Those were his father’s parents, who had lived outside Pittsburgh. His mother’s parents, who had lived in Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, were genteel folk known as “Honey” and “Gramps.” There weren’t that many pictures; Grandma and Baba had mostly kept to themselves. Ferris had always thought they were embarrassed: that they lived in Pittsburgh; that Baba had worked in the steel mills; that they hadn’t melted into the pot enough to suit their assimilated son and his WASP wife.
Baba was muscular like Ferris, but darker. His skin had a rich tone, a color like virgin olive oil, and his hair had the tight bristle of a scouring brush. “I wish we knew where Baba’s family came from,” said Ferris. He had asked his father often enough, but the answers had always been vague. The Balkans. Someplace that ended up as part of Yugoslavia. The closest he ever got to a precise location was, “Maybe Bosnia.”
“There’s a guy I know in Jordan who tells me I must be an Arab. Maybe he’s joking, I don’t know.”
“I think not.” She laughed. “Baba said he was from the former Ottoman Empire, which covered a lot of territory. I always imagined he was from someplace unpronounceable east of the Danube, like Bosnia-Herzegovina, or Abkhazia. He said his family had Muslim neighbors, I remember that. But he didn’t like to talk about it, and your father didn’t press him. Everybody got jumbled together in Pittsburgh, and I guess they didn’t like being called ‘Bohunks,’ or ‘Polacks,’ or whatever they happened to be. So they just thought of themselves as Americans. Or so I always imagined.”
“‘Ferris’ doesn’t sound like an Eastern European name, though, does it? Dad told me once it had been changed, but he said he didn’t know what it was before.”
“He told me the same thing, before we were married. I think he was embarrassed. He always said there were papers somewhere, but he never wanted to dig them out. I thought that was sad, that your father seemed to care so little about his background, but that’s what he loved about the agency: Whoever you had been before just disappeared. I tried to get him to help me do a family genealogy once, but he wasn’t interested.”
“Baba’s family was Catholic, right?”
“I think so. He always went to Mass with Grandma. He didn’t mind that I was a Protestant, but Grandma did. When I told her I was a Congregationalist, she said, ‘Not Jewish?’ to make sure. They were both quite rare in Pittsburgh, I gather.”
Ferris studied the photo of his grandfather again. “He looks like me, doesn’t he?”
“A bit. Though you are better-looking, my dear.”
Ferris put away the album. He had been stalling, wanting to put something off, but it was getting late, and he would be driving back to Washington early the next morning.
“I’ve told Gretchen I want a divorce,” he said. “We aren’t living together anymore. And we weren’t very happy before, when we were. So I think it’s time to be honest and make a break, before we have kids and it gets any more complicated.”
“I see. And what does Gretchen say?”
Ferris remembered all the different versions of “no” that had emerged during his evening with Gretchen. He was still ashamed that he had allowed her to seduce him so easily, and in her mind, at least, to obliterate the resolve he had tried to express about ending the relationship.
“She wasn’t happy. She claims we’re a good match. I’m sure she doesn’t want to be bothered looking for another husband. She’s very busy.”
“Oh yes, I’ve always known that about Gretchen. She looked busy the first day I met her, at your graduation.”
“So what do you think, Mom?”
“Gretchen is a very successful woman. I wish I had her drive. But I was never sure she made you happy. So if you have decided to make a change, and you’re ready for all the pain, then you should do what you think is right. Follow your heart. And since I’m being motherly, I’ll go ahead and ask the obvious: Is there another woman?”
“I don’t know yet. Maybe. I would want a divorce in any event. But I did meet someone I like a lot in Amman. I hope things work out with her. We’ll see.”
Ferris gave her a kiss and said he was going up to bed. His mother said she would just stay a moment and tidy up the kitchen, but she remained motionless at the table. There was a look of worry and helplessness on her face that Ferris had seen every time he had said goodbye.
GRETCHEN HAD been calling Ferris’s cell phone. He had ignored the calls from her home, office and mobile numbers, and he hadn’t responded to any of the various messages she left. But the phone rang again as he was driving back to DC, and since he didn’t see one of her numbers on the display, he answered. He recognized her voice immediately. She was using someone else’s phone, and she was almost shouting.
“Where are you, Roger? Damn it! Why haven’t you answered my calls? You can’t do this to me. You can’t. I’m your wife. Everybody knows.”
“I’m driving back from my mom’s. I told her we’re getting divorced.”
“We aren’t getting divorced. You love me. You know you do.”
“Let’s not go through a whole show, Gretchen. I don’t love you. I want a divorce.”
“You liar. You are so weak and pathetic. How could you fuck me like that the other night, if you don’t love me? Nobody made you do that. Nobody made you fuck me. What do you think a judge will say about that?”
“What does a judge have to do with it? You can’t make someone stay married. The law doesn’t work that way. Even I know that. Divorce isn’t a mutual decision. It’s the end of mutual decisions.”
“You came inside me. Three times.”
“Look, Gretchen, I am sorry that I succumbed the other night. You are very sexy. You always have been. If good sex were enough for a good marriage, we’d be fine. But it’s not.”
“You treat me like a whore. You think you can fuck me and then walk away from me, but you’re wrong. If you go ahead with this, you will regret it. I am telling you. I will make it very hard for you.”
“Don’t threaten me, Gretchen. I have to deal with people every day who are much scarier than you. Believe me.”
“Don’t be so
sure, Roger. You’ve never made me angry before. When I’m fighting on principle, I do not compromise. I do whatever is necessary. You will regret this, I promise you.”
Ferris was going to try to calm her down, suggest that they talk to a counselor before he left. But she had cut the connection.
17
ROME / GENEVA
FERRIS CHECKED INTO A SMALL hotel near the Piazza Cavour in Rome, in the gray district framed by Vatican City and the Tiber. The hotel itself was threadbare and anonymous, not fancy enough for Americans or charming enough for Europeans. The arrangements had been made by the kids on Azhar’s staff, who must have thought it would be a good place to hide. Ferris was to contact the ninjas by calling a cell-phone number when he arrived and wait for a callback from “Tony,” the chief of the little Special Forces cell. He made his call the afternoon he checked in, but there was no response that day or the next.
That first night, he called Alice from a pay phone. He wished they could meet in Rome, take long walks in the Centro, live on love and the occasional cappuccino, but as it was, he couldn’t even tell her he was there. It turned out she had been away from Amman on a trip, to refugee camps up near the Syrian border, she said. Ferris scolded her for taking risks, but she cut him off. “They need me!” she insisted. She was all cranked up about the latest news; more dead in Lebanon, more dead in Iraq. What was the world coming to? Ferris had no answer for that.
“I love you,” he said. He had never used those words with her before.
There was a long pause, and then Alice said, “Oh my.”
“I told Gretchen I want a divorce.”
“Good,” she responded. “I mean, good that you told her, not good that your marriage is breaking up. If you hadn’t told her, I would have worried that you were one of those people who don’t know how to be happy. Or that you were a chicken.”
Ferris laughed and then repeated, “I love you.”
“Come home, so I can love you, too.”
Ferris promised he would be back soon, but it might be another week or two. He felt something like physical pain when he ended the conversation.
Ferris waited two days for “Tony,” walking the cobbled Roman streets to wear down his nervous energy. He tried to imagine his Special Forces colleagues among the crowds of Americans at the Piazza Navona or the Fontana di Trevi. Muscular men, shirts not quite big enough for their chests, necks the size of pine trees; not talking, scanning the pavement through wraparound sunglasses. Everyone in Rome looked slightly outlandish to him, even the bums down by the muddy embankment of the Tiber.
Each afternoon he would return to his hotel to find…nothing. And then, on the afternoon of the third day, there was a slip of paper in his message box and the name “Antony.” Close enough. Ferris called the contact number from a pay phone across from the Palace of Justice.
“Sorry, things got fucked up,” said the voice on the other end of the phone. “Security problem. We had to cool down.”
“So, what’s the temperature now?”
“Cooler. We’ll be positively chilling by tomorrow morning.”
“Where should I meet you?”
“Temple of Faustina. Villa Borghese,” said the Special Forces officer. He had trouble in pronouncing “Borghese.”
The next day Ferris took a cab to the Via Condotti, wandered in and out of the shops for a while to see if he could pick up any surveillance and then took another cab to the Villa Borghese across the river. He told the driver to deposit him near the Temple of Faustina, by a little lake that bordered the Zoological Garden. There, planted in the ground as if he were wearing concrete boots, stood a burly man who had to be “Tony.” It turned out his real name was Jim, or at least that was what he said. He was dressed in jeans, a knit shirt and a V-neck sweater. He looked like a million other young men, except for the set of his eyes, which were continually scanning the middle distance.
Ferris shook his hand and studied his face when they were close up. “Do I know you?” he asked.
“Possibly, sir, but not likely.”
“Balad,” said Ferris. “Early this year. You were running ops with Task Force 145. I was operating over the wall. Until I got banged up.”
“Well, far out, sir. I guess that makes us buddies.”
They were instant friends now, having served in the shithole of Iraq. Normally military people didn’t think much of their CIA counterparts, at least the ones who hadn’t come out of the military themselves. But Ferris was an exception. He had been in Iraq, and he had nearly lost a leg because of it.
“So what’s up?” said Ferris. “You said on the phone you had a security problem.”
“These crazy Italians.” Jim shook his head in embarrassment. “One of my guys got in a traffic accident. It wasn’t his fault. The Italians don’t drive the same way we do. Anyway, the local cops began asking questions about where he was living and what he was doing, and they sent some Carabinieri people to our safe house, which all of a sudden wasn’t so safe. We were operating out of an apartment over by the university, a mile or so from here. Now we’re in temporary lodgings.”
“Where’s the temporary base?”
“The Cavalieri Hilton, up on Monte Mario.”
“Jesus! That place is five hundred bucks a day.”
“Roger that, sir.” A trace of a smile came over Jim’s face. “It’s good cover for Americans, with the swimming pool and the girls and all. We don’t look out of place. And we shouldn’t be fighting the global war on terror on the cheap, sir.”
Ferris laughed out loud. “How long have you guys been here? And cut the ‘sir,’ crap, please.”
“A month. We haven’t done much other than set up cover and commo, which I guess we sort of screwed up. The colonel said you would tell us the real drill. He said what you’re doing is super-black, and the general at MacDill had signed off on it, and we should just do what we’re told. I’m not sure the colonel knows. He sounded sort of pissed off about that. The way he talked, he made it sound like somebody had sprinkled you guys with fairy dust. Sir.”
“Let’s take a stroll,” said Ferris. He gave up the effort to dispense with “sir.” As far as Jim’s little team was concerned, Ferris was the rain god. They walked until they came to a bench that offered a clear view across the water and of the approaches to the lake from the zoo. Ferris motioned for Jim to sit down.
“So here’s the deal. We are running a very sensitive operation against the folks who are setting off all these car bombs. The operation isn’t CIA, exactly. It has its own compartment. My boss has cleared it with your boss, and that’s all we need to know. Right?”
“Roger that. But what’s going down?”
“I can’t tell you that. But I want you to be ready to do two things. The first is to be ready to pounce if one of our high-value targets surfaces. How many people do you have in your team?”
“Four, sir, plus me.”
“Okay. You need to be ready to move out anytime we register one of our bad guys. You should have kit, weapons, the whole thing ready, anytime. Have you done any of these takedowns before?”
The Special Forces officer nodded, the muscles in his neck rippling as he tilted his head forward. “Iraq. Indonesia.”
“Good,” said Ferris. “So you know the drill. Stealth. Nobody sees you coming. Nobody sees you leaving. It has to be invisible for forty-eight hours, so we can put the guy on a plane and mess with his network. And whoever we’re targeting has to come out alive. I know that’s hard, but it really matters on this one. We can’t bust this network unless we get intel from the folks we capture. Are your men all good to go? I mean, have they done this stuff before?”
“Yes, sir. All except one, and he’ll be cool. He’s from Biloxi, like me.”
“Well, be sure to remind him about pocket litter. The little stuff they’ve been squirreling away in their pockets because they’re too paranoid to throw it away. Charge slips, phone numbers, cell-phone cards, receipts from money ord
ers, thumb drives. You’ve got to make sure they don’t destroy that stuff after you bust down the door. When you do your ops plan, think about multiple entry points, so you can stop them from destroying anything.”
“Roger, sir.” The Army officer was scanning the horizon as he listened, watching for any hint of surveillance.
“And you need to do a really good search when you grab them, even though you’re in a hurry to get out of there. These guys carry everything on them—all their commo, all their files. They’re paranoid, because they know we’re coming after them. So they’ll have their laptops with them, and their cell phones, and a couple of different SIM cards, and their address books. They have it all with them, twenty-four/seven. Which means if we can take them down and grab all the pocket litter and paraphernalia, we’re in fat city.”
“Heard, understood, acknowledged, sir. You said there was a second thing. What’s that?”
Before answering, Ferris surveyed the area. He noticed a man walking toward them from a street that bounded the pond on the north side. He had a dog on a leash. “Who the hell is that?” said Ferris, rising from the bench.
They walked five minutes more, to another bench that commanded the view of a neatly terraced formal garden, before Ferris resumed his briefing.
“The second part is a little weird,” he said.
“We can do weird.”
“You’re going to need some explosives. They have to be the same type that were used in the Frankfurt and Milan bombings. Same tags. My people will help you get them. And we’re going to need detonators, the right kind. We’ll give you those specs, too.”
“Roger, sir, and what are we going to do with all this stuff?”
“You’re going to make a car bomb.”
Jim stared at Ferris. For once he didn’t say “Roger that,” he just nodded. “And what are we going to do with the car bomb, sir?”
“Well, basically, we’re going to set it off.”
“Holy shit. I guess this has all been approved. Right?”
Body of Lies Page 16
