by Alex Carr
At last his hand found the receiver. “Hello?”
“It's me.” Irene.
“Look,” Harry began, “you don't have to do this. I underst—”
“He called,” she said, cutting him off. Her voice was nervous, electric.
Loving it, Harry thought, as they all did. When it came right down to it, all those things he'd been taught at the Farm about people's weaknesses, about money or shame or sex, were nothing compared to the hook of power, of being on the inside looking out.
“He's in Casablanca,” Irene continued. “At the Hotel des Amis, in the medina. I told him you're coming.”
Harry didn't know what to say. “There will be questions,” he told her. “You'll tell Morrow that I forced you to do this. I threatened you.”
“I'm not afraid of Morrow,” Irene said, and Harry thought, No? You should be. But he didn't say it.
There was a long silence then, neither of them ready to go, but neither with anything left to say.
“I'm sorry,” Harry told her at last.
“Don't be,” Irene said.
“I think you must come now.”
It was 6 AM, and Marina's voice was Morrow's wake-up call. The words were ambiguous, but the meaning was clear, and Morrow was up as soon as they were spoken, jamming his feet into his shoes, shrugging into his jacket.
It was daylight by the time he crossed the Key Bridge, heading toward Georgetown, a postcard morning. Down on the Potomac a single scull slid fluidly upstream, the rower moving with machinelike precision. Sweep, dip. Sweep, dip. Legs gliding forward and back, hands crossing and uncrossing. Body sexless from this distance, transformed entirely by the singular concentration the task required.
It's time, Dick, he could hear Susan say. Another morning like this one, another hurried drive. Years earlier, and the details of it were still fresh in his mind. Susan's dress: red with yellow flowers. Her hair pulled back into a neat bun. Her face filled out, softened by the pregnancy.
The memory was so vivid that when he pulled into the driveway now he half expected to see her waiting for him as she'd been that day, her red leather suitcase in one hand, her other hand on her belly. Laughing at him as he leaped from the car. Mouth open, head thrown back, laughing.
But there was no one to greet him this morning. Morrow pulled into the driveway and sat in the Mercedes with his hand on the key, unable to bring himself to turn off the ignition, unable to go inside.
After what must have been at least half an hour, the side door opened and Marina appeared. She was wearing a housecoat and worn blue terry-cloth scuffs, and her hair was tucked, as always, into a cotton scarf. It had been weeks since she'd gotten a full night's sleep, and she looked justifiably exhausted.
She came down the steps and walked to Morrow's open window. “Just like the other one,” she said, shaking her head. “Too afraid to come inside.” She reached into the car and put her hand on Morrow's hand, turned the ignition off. Her face was almost touching his. Her smell filled the car. It was the odor of days of unwashed sweat and wet wool and boiled meat, a smell that seemed not acquired but somehow native to the woman.
He was going to ask her what she'd meant by her previous comment, but she interrupted him before he had a chance.
“Don't worry,” Marina said. “She has just had her morphine. You will not need to speak to her.” Then, triumphantly, she released Morrow's hand and moved away.
WHEN KAT WAS IN INTELLIGENCE SCHOOL, she took a class called “Games.” The course was legendary, as was the instructor who taught it, a wizened, grandfatherly figure whose heavy Slovak accent and crude forearm tattoo betrayed a past of which he never spoke, and to whom Kat and the other students referred simply as Yoda.
Appropriately, the curriculum of “Games” consisted of just that. Every day for three hours, Kat and the others would struggle through various seemingly unsolvable puzzles while Yoda looked on, offering a rare grunt of approval or, more often, a cluck of displeasure.
His favorite challenges, and by far the most difficult, were a series of three-dimensional wooden puzzles in which various pieces fit together to form sculptures of sorts. What made these puzzles so difficult was the fact that there were many possible solutions, but only one in which all of the pieces could be used.
“Remember,” Yoda would say as he paced the room, his long sleeves rolled conspicuously down to his wrists, even at the sweltering height of summer. “Every piece in its place, even the ones that look like they don't fit.”
The old man had died not long after Kat graduated, and “Games” was no longer offered. But on more than one occasion Kat had heard Yoda's signature phrase used by colleagues who had graduated long after she had.
Every piece in its place, she thought now as she sat in the window of the hotel room watching the narrow lane below. It was early afternoon and the passageway was clogged with foot traffic—housewives doing their daily shopping and tourists hunting for the ever-elusive deal. Behind her, in the room's single slip of a bed, Jamal was sleeping, as he had been for some time, moving now and again in restless dreams. She still did not know what to make of his Mr. Harry, but her options were slim enough that she was willing to wager a great deal on the boy's judgment. What other choice did she have at this point?
Down in the lane, a man appeared, a European with a build close enough to Kurtz's that Kat's heart seized up for a moment. Then he drew closer, passed beneath the window, and moved on.
Kat watched him disappear into the crowd, then reached into the breast pocket of her jacket for a pen and a scrap of paper. If she could see what the pieces were, she told herself, thinking of her old teacher again, she might just solve the puzzle.
She printed Bagheri's name and circled it. Outside the circle she wrote: Iranian $, escape?SAS?DOD?CIA?, court-martial testimony.
Next she made a circle for the dead prisoner. Here she wrote: Bagheri's traveling companion, killed during SBS interrogation at salt pits, suffocated, asthmatic?
The third circle was for Colin. Around his name Kat wrote: witness to prisoner's death?, Stuart's superior, meeting with Kurtz, al-Amir, court-martial testimony, overdose?
Next she wrote Kurtz's name and the words Jamal, meeting with Colin, al-Amir.
The last name she wrote was Stuart's, and around his circle: suffocated prisoner during interrogation, al-Amir, court-martial testimony, killed by lover? Gay?
She thought about this last piece of information for a moment. Then, remembering her conversation with Colin's father, she went back to Colin's circle and added knew Stuart was gay?
Admittedly, she didn't have much to work with. But then Yoda's wood pieces had never looked like much to begin with, either.
The most obvious connection to start was the court-martial. Colin and Stuart and Bagheri had all been potential witnesses in the trial to determine Stuart's guilt in the death of the prisoner. It was no coincidence that the two SBS men had been killed just days before the court-martial was scheduled to begin. But why the last-minute rush to do so?
If Kat's hunch was right, and the ambush at al-Amir had been set up by Kurtz, then there had been at least one previous attempt to silence the men. But still, the lag time didn't make sense. If the plan to kill Colin and Stuart had been in the works all along, it would have been much quieter to do so months earlier, when the connection to the court-martial was less apparent.
No, the two deaths had something to do with Jamal's reported sighting of Bagheri in Madrid. Perhaps Bagheri knew whatever it was that Colin and Stuart knew concerning the death of the prisoner. Perhaps Morrow and Kurtz were worried that their civilian counterparts would find Bagheri before they did, and that his testimony would force Colin and Stuart to reveal what they knew.
But if this was the case why would Colin and Stuart have agreed to help Kurtz with a cover-up in the first place? The SBS men had nothing but contempt for Kurtz and the other civilians. The Colin Kat had known at Bagram would not have sacrificed himself or his frie
nd for Kurtz's cause. Hadn't he said it himself: Our only obligations in this place are to ourselves and our friends.
Kat looked down at her paper again, her eyes coming to rest on Stuart's name, the question she'd penned beneath it: Gay?
Kat knew the culture of the Special Forces, if only tangentially. She knew that an admission of homosexuality on Stu-art's part would have meant instant expulsion from the group. In the regular military, homosexuality was a subject to be avoided at all costs. In a small group like the SBS team, with its own rigid mores, to even speak of homosexuality was taboo. But Colin had known.
Perhaps Kurtz had known as well. Perhaps Colin had agreed to lie about the events surrounding the prisoner's death in exchange for Kurtz's silence on the subject of Stuart's sexual preference. This Kat could believe.
But what of the prisoner's death? According to the official report, the man had suffocated while being detained with a canvas sack over his head, a practice that was certainly not extreme, and that would not have proved fatal had his health not been compromised in the first place. They're saying he was asthmatic, Hariri had told her that night in the ICE, rumors already trickling in. Kat had chalked Hariri's information and the speed with which he knew it up to disinformation, an early attempt to muddy the waters on Stuart's behalf. But if the prisoner really was asthmatic, if this was what had killed him, how could anyone have known so soon?
And what of Hariri's other suggestion, that Bagheri had not escaped on his own? If the Iranian had, in fact, known something incriminating about his companion's death, then it made a certain sense for Kurtz to arrange his escape. Though killing him would have made more sense, and would have been much less risky. No, she was still missing something.
Kat scanned the paper again, the five circles: Colin, Stuart, Kurtz, Bagheri and the dead prisoner, both Iranians. Every piece, she reminded herself, even the ones that look as if they don't fit. She glanced over at Jamal, remembering his story about the women soldiers, how she had dismissed it as fantasy.
Except for the first few times in the booth, when the boy had sketched in the details of his journey and his connection with Bagheri, there had been little time for Kat to actually interrogate Jamal. Instead, all her energy had been focused on preparing him for what lay ahead. Exactly, she now realized, as Kurtz wanted it to be.
A camp where the women were in charge. A camp near Herat, which put it close to the Iranian border. No, Kat told herself, Bagheri had not been kidding.
She rose and crossed the room to where Jamal was sleeping, touched him gently on the shoulder.
He rolled over and blinked up at her, groggy and confused, struggling to get his bearings.
“The camp in Herat,” Kat said. “I need to know exactly what Bagheri told you.”
“I HAVE GIVEN HER MORE THAN USUAL,” Marina said as she and Morrow entered Susan's room. Susan was fast asleep in her hospital bed, her eyes locked tight, her breath astonishingly even. On a tray at the bottom of the bed were a handful of morphine patches. A week's supply, at least, unwrapped and ready for use.
In the early days of her illness, before she was confined entirely to home, Susan had taken to wearing bright-colored turbans instead of wigs, and she was wearing one now, the jewel-green fabric twisted elegantly across her bare scalp, secured at the front with a gold clasp. She had had Marina make her face up as well, though here the attempt at beautification had been less successful. Susan's lips were several shades too red against the backdrop of her pale skin, her cheeks rouged in two perfect pink circles. The effect was that of a cheap doll.
Morrow took a tissue from the nightstand by the bed and gingerly wiped Susan's mouth. The gesture, which served only to smear the red off her lips and onto her chin, was worse than futile.
“You will see,” Marina told him. “It is easy.”
Not always, Morrow thought. But to Marina he said, “Yes, I'm sure it will be.” And then, without warning, he was violently ill. He rushed into the bathroom and braced himself over the toilet, retching up a watery bile. Nothing in his stomach except the remnants of the previous night's bourbons.
How Susan had wanted it, he thought then, catching a glimpse of his ragged reflection in the water. No real need for him to be here, except that this was how she had told the Russian it would be. At that moment, he hated her for forcing her death upon him.
“Mr. Morrow?”
“Yes, Marina.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and stood. “Everything's fine.”
JAMAL SAT UP AND RUBBED HIS EYES, clearly exasperated. “I told you before. He said there would be women. Women soldiers. He said they were Muslims, jihadis. That is all I know.”
“What else, Jamal?” Kat said, trying to impress the urgency of the question on the boy. “What did he call them?”
Jamal looked as if he were about to cry. He closed his eyes. It was a gesture, Kat remembered from Bagram, that meant he was recalling something unpleasant. Perhaps the nature of his relationship with Bagheri.
Kat moved back slightly, giving him space to think, to shake whatever dark memories had hijacked his mind.
Jamal's eyes blinked open and slid to the wall above Kat's shoulder. “Mojahedin. He called them mojahedin.”
“What else?” Kat prompted. She was wary of feeding him the full name, knew that subjects were bound to agree with almost any reasonable suggestion while under the stress of questioning.
Jamal's eyes moved downward, came to rest on hers. “Mojahedin-e Khalq,” he said at last, locating the words somewhere deep in his memory. “Yes. That was it.”
Kat nodded, scribbled the three-letter acronym MEK on her paper next to Bagheri's name. Not just another piece of the puzzle, she thought, scrounging to remember everything she knew about the group, but an important one.
After fleeing to Europe in the wake of the Iranian revolution, Kat knew, the MEK's first big break had come during the Iran-Iraq War, when Saddam Hussein, shrewdly recognizing it as a potential ally, had armed and financed the group. It, in turn, not only launched terrorist attacks against the Iranian army but also helped Hussein in his brutal campaign against the Iraqi Kurds and Shiites.
For these reasons, among others, the MEK had been labeled a terrorist group by most of the international community, including the United States. But as with so many terrorist organizations, Kat knew, the definition was a fluid one. For many years, when Iran had been America's primary enemy in the region and Iraq her friend, the MEK had found discreet support in Washington. Now the political ground had shifted once again.
Could the MEK have reconnected with its old friends in the United States? Could the group have found a new base in Afghanistan? If so, it was a partnership neither would have wanted made public.
Kat looked down at the paper, at her crude sketch with its tenuous connections. Colin. Stuart. Bagheri. Kurtz. The dead prisoner. She was getting closer, but she still couldn't quite make out how everything fit together.
KURTZ SLID DOWN IN HIS SEAT and watched the solitary figure make its way forward along the street. Cheap leather jacket. Knocked-off jeans. Knocked-off James Dean swagger. Yes, it was definitely the young man he'd seen at Ain Chock the day before, the one who had traded glances with Kat, who had wanted to tell them something but hadn't been able to.
Kurtz waited until the man was just about even with the Peugeot, then popped the door and stepped out, sliding his Beretta from the inside pocket of his jacket.
“Get in!”
The man eyed Kurtz, then turned his head and spit. “Go fuck yourself.”
“Get in or I'll shoot you.” Simple as that, Kurtz thought, and the man could see it.
Kurtz grabbed the man's arm, twisting it hard, and hustled him into the passenger seat, then closed the door and climbed in behind the wheel. “What's your name?” he asked, laying the Beretta across his lap and turning the key in the ignition.
“Mahjoub.”
Kurtz checked his mirrors and pulled away from the curb. “We met ye
sterday. Do you remember?”
A nod.
“Then you know what I want.”
Another nod. “You're looking for Adil's friend, Jamal.”
“Very good. He's been here, yes?”
Silence.
Kurtz fingered the Beretta's safety. “Here's the deal, Mahjoub. You tell me what I want to know, and I'll make it worth your while. You don't, and I shoot you. Understood?”
“He left this morning. With the woman, the one who came with you.”
Kurtz smiled. Now they were getting somewhere. “Did they say where they were going?”
“No.”
Of course not. Kurtz pulled the car to the curb and reached into his jacket, pulled out a hundred-dollar bill. “I'm at the Hotel Noailles,” he said, “in the city center. You see them again, you let me know.”
Mahjoub nodded, as if what Kurtz was asking was no big deal, as if he did this kind of thing all the time. But when he reached for the money his hands were shaking.
Kurtz lifted the Beretta and aimed it at Mahjoub's chest. “Now get out.”
It was not until late that afternoon, after two tattooed ex-convicts in hundred-dollar suits had appeared on behalf of the mortuary and removed Susan's body from the house, zipping her face inside a black plastic bag while Morrow looked on, mumbling awkward condolences, that Morrow truly understood what had happened. Just as Susan's presence in his life had been more physical than spiritual, so in death it was the absence of her body that grieved him most. Even wrecked by illness, she had maintained an almost disciplinary power in the house. Now she was gone, and Marina with her.
Morrow had not seen the Russian leave, but her room had been cleaned out entirely, her closets and drawers emptied, her bed stripped and the linens miraculously washed and folded and put away. It was, Morrow thought, as if she had never been there at all.
True to form, Susan had made a list of people to inform and the order in which to call them, starting with their son, Paul, in New York, on whose voice mail Morrow had left a vaguely urgent message, and ending with Susan's sister in Florida, whom Morrow still could not bring himself to call.
