The Amateur Spy

by Dan Fesperman

  “Absolutely. It’s been that kind of week for me, too.”

  Aliyah doubted it. But who cared as long as Bob supplied the proper dosage. Oh, hell, she told herself. Relax and enjoy yourself. All this worrying was exactly why they needed a night out. Let it go. Or save it for your next session with Annie Felton. Becky brought her drink and she swallowed deeply, tasting the sharpness of the juniper berries. Bob Harmon had mixed it too strong, but that was okay. She spotted Abbas across the room nodding pleasantly as he spoke with Maggie Wilkins, and she felt silly for having worried. They would be fine.

  It took two hours for her worries to resurface. By that time everyone was on the main course, tucking into slices of a beautiful tenderloin, red in the middle and charred at the edge. Blood crept across the china serving platter like a stain across a tablecloth.

  “Abbas, isn’t Senator Badgett one of your patients?” Skip asked loudly.

  “Yes. For some time now.” Abbas sounded wary. He had always been quite scrupulous about protecting his patients’ confidentiality.

  “I hear the prognosis isn’t good.”

  “That’s no secret, I guess. It’s been in the news. The family has been quite willing to talk about it.”

  “So I’ve noticed. I ran into his wife at a reception the other day. More details than I cared to hear, or would want to repeat over dinner.”

  Abbas frowned, either at the wife’s indiscretion or at the idea of discussing surgical matters over a plate of blood-red beef. Skip took no notice.

  “What she didn’t mention was all the worry over whether he’ll last another thirteen months, until next November.”

  “The elections, you mean?”

  “Yes. I hear the odds aren’t so great.”

  “I couldn’t say.”

  Skip smiled, as if he found Abbas’s reluctance quaintly amusing. Aliyah noticed Drs. Harmon and Wilkins nodding, as if to affirm that her husband had said exactly the right thing. Not that it had any effect on Skip.

  “I’ve been hearing he won’t even come close. Which is why his wife has been out and about, showing her face and trying to make an impression. There’s talk of appointing her to serve out his term. But if that’s the case, they’d prefer he went sooner rather than later, especially if he’s terminal anyway. Give her time to make a name so she can hold on to the seat next fall. All the betting is that he’ll go pretty soon.”

  “Simply because they want it to happen?” Abbas looked incredulous.

  “Well, from what I’m told, it’s more because of what people are hearing from the hospital.”

  “Maybe so.”

  “But not for certain?”

  “As I told you, that’s not for me to discuss.”

  Another round of approving nods. Skip forged on.

  “And I wouldn’t expect you to, of course. But, theoretically speaking, aren’t there certain treatments the family could withhold if they were so inclined? Once things have reached the point of no return, of course.”

  “Theoretically speaking?” Abbas paused, as if to consult his colleagues. Their faces were blank, so he moved gingerly forward, holding his fork and knife in abeyance. “Only if he was incapable of making the decision for himself, and had some sort of living will.”

  On this point, Aliyah was better informed than Skip. She had overheard Abbas on the telephone telling the hospital the senator had lost consciousness and was unlikely to regain it. She suspected Skip had heard something similar and wanted to confirm it. But Abbas said nothing more. There was an awkward pause. Then Bob Harmon spoke up.

  “You always were one for getting us talking about things we shouldn’t, Skip.”

  The others chuckled while Skip looked chastened, although to Aliyah he already seemed to be angling for another opening.

  Sure enough, when everyone later retired to the living room and broke into smaller groups, she saw him huddled in a corner with Abbas. The surprise was that this time it was Abbas, not Skip, who seemed to have initiated the conversation. And now her husband was the one with the eager look, the same expression that had unnerved her at times during the preceding weeks. Both men held cocktails mixed at Bob Harmon strength, and they stood by a table lamp that cast their faces in an unflattering light.

  Aliyah excused herself from a chat with Becky about college visits and took up a station at the end of a couch, just within earshot of Abbas. She arrived in time to hear Skip again mention Senator Badgett. To her surprise, Abbas was now the one probing for information, and Skip seemed happy to oblige.

  “Oh, yes, when the day comes it will be quite the event,” Skip said. “And you’re right, the church is very small. Every seat will be at a premium. Think of the most elite of the inaugural balls, then pare it down by a few hundred, and that ought to give you an idea.”

  “But hasn’t he faded from power in recent years? I can’t imagine many people of consequence would attend.”

  When had Abbas become a political gossip? This stuff usually bored him to tears. She glanced at his face and realized he was goading Skip on, a role reversal in which Abbas was playing to the lobbyist’s vanity as a so-called insider.

  “That’s not the point,” Skip said. “It’s not his power they’ll be paying court to. It’s his wife’s. You can bet she’ll be a lot more active once she holds the seat. She’ll be out to make an impression. Any way you look at it, she’s key. Swing vote on an important committee. Plenty of patronage. None of the big names will want to miss it.”

  “Really? Even the White House?”

  “Schedule permitting. Plus Cabinet secretaries, the Supremes. It’ll be an A-list event. Sort of a Fortune 400 of Washington, except with room for maybe only half that number. And as attending physician, you’ll no doubt be invited. So be prepared to arrive early and give me a full report.”

  Skip laughed oleaginously and placed a hand on Abbas’s shoulder.

  “Oh, I never have much use for such events,” Abbas said modestly.

  “So I’ve heard. You’ve never been one to use your position like some of them.”

  Aliyah could have sworn that Skip then nodded toward Drs. Harmon and Wilkins, who were chatting in other corners. Abbas, to his credit, didn’t nod back. But the conversation still bothered her for reasons she couldn’t put her finger on. At least Abbas wouldn’t be attending the funeral. She could imagine how tempted he might be to climb on his soapbox in such powerful company, lecturing on how they’d led the nation astray. Truth be told, she wouldn’t mind the opportunity, either. They could use an earful, all of them. But she could also imagine how that would go over with the Secret Service. An agent might place a hand on her husband’s arm, and then he would explode. Or maybe she was thinking back to the cop on Connecticut Avenue and projecting her own reaction. Another topic to raise next week with Annie Felton.

  “Dear, are you all right?”

  It was Abbas, standing by with her coat. Others were also preparing to leave. She didn’t know how much time had passed, just that she was the only one still sitting there at the end of the couch. Maybe she was the one with the problem, jumping to wild conclusions on the scantiest of evidence.

  “Yes, I’m fine. Just a little tired.”

  “Let’s get you home, then.” He leaned forward as she stood, and whispered into her ear, “Home, and into a nice warm bed.”

  It was unmistakably an invitation, and she was pleasantly surprised to find that she was receptive. Their eyes met, and she smiled back warmly.

  For the first time in months they made love that night, Abbas gentle and solicitous, the nimble compassion of his surgeon’s hands gradually giving way to urgency and more emphatic movement. So much for the supposed side effects of his antidepressants. It was the first time in more than a year that the act hadn’t seemed fraught with desperation. Perhaps the alcohol helped, but in any event she felt like they had crossed another threshold back toward normalcy.

  Afterward, Abbas fell into slumber—a silent one, thank goodness
—but Aliyah was wide awake. She lay there replaying the evening’s conversations in her head, with a nagging sense that a stray word or phrase had snagged on some troubling event from the past few days. But the connection lay just out of reach, as if hovering above the bed. She gave up and rolled onto her side, and she was about to drift off when the realization hit her. It was that morning in the Volvo on their way to work, when Abbas had muttered, “Sheer genius.” Something to do with a radio news report had triggered the remark, and it was now prodding her. All that her conscious mind could recall was a mention of Kandahar and a casualty total, but something more must have also registered.

  The broadcast would be archived, she knew. Available online. She need only remember the date and approximate time. She slipped out of bed, put on her robe, and crept downstairs to the computer in their kitchen. The link for NPR’s archives was easy enough to find. The page for Morning Edition displayed a calendar for the current month, and she clicked on the correct day for the previous week. Then she turned down the volume to keep from waking Abbas and slid the bar across to about where the story should be in the broadcast, based on the approximate time.

  A minute or so later it jumped out at her like a voice from a bad dream:

  Twenty-three people were killed today in Afghanistan when a suicide bomber struck at a mosque in Kandahar. The blast occurred at the funeral for a prominent Muslim cleric who had been assassinated by pro-Taliban gunmen three days earlier. Authorities said several local leaders were in attendance and are believed to be among the casualties.

  “Sheer genius.” That’s what Abbas had said of this horrible event. And she supposed that it was genius, in its twisted fashion. Kill someone prominent, then wait for his famous friends to gather at the funeral so you could kill them all. Aliyah flushed with horror, thinking of all Abbas’s questions about Senator Badgett’s funeral. She clicked off the rest of the broadcast before any further such “genius” came blaring from the speakers.

  It all added up, yet she couldn’t quite accept the conclusion. Everything had come together so fast that it literally made her dizzy, and she placed a hand on the table to stop the spinning. The gin, perhaps. Bob mixed drinks so strong. For a moment she felt as if she might be sick, but she held on. Could Abbas really be planning something so diabolically awful?

  She steadied herself and reconsidered. Then she took the mouse and clicked to a search engine. What church had Skip and Abbas been talking about? She couldn’t recall a specific name or denomination, so she tried typing in Senator Badgett’s name along with the words “church” and “Washington.”

  The hits were all over the map, mostly having to do with the senator’s past comments on the issue of school prayer, so she tried again with just the senator’s name. That gave her his Web site, where she clicked on the link “About Senator Badgett.” His bio appeared. The last paragraph said he was Baptist but didn’t mention a particular church. She searched again, adding “Baptist church” to his name, and this time she got what she needed on the first hit, right there in the summary.

  “The Badgetts are members of the United Baptist Church of God in Washington.”

  She found a Web site for the church. Its address popped onto the screen with the power of an alarm: Cordell Street, in Southeast. The same block as the vacant storefront Abbas had just rented. It was the church across the alley. She gasped out loud.

  It was too horrible for words, but now she had to know more. She walked through the family room to try the door of his study, but it was locked. Her heart beating urgently, she tiptoed back upstairs to the threshold of their bedroom, where she stood for a moment as her eyes adjusted to the darkness. Then she got down on her hands and knees and crawled to where Abbas had left his trousers, tossed on the floor as they had undressed each other in their rare moment of passion. She slid her hand into a pocket and withdrew his keys with a small jingle. She clutched them tightly to keep them from ringing further while she rose slowly to her feet. Abbas hadn’t moved a muscle, and his breathing was regular.

  Aliyah headed back downstairs, unlocked his study, then gently shut the door behind her. Barely able to contain her growing dread, she opened the desk and rooted carefully through the papers and envelopes, hoping she wouldn’t again come across Shereen’s passport. The note was still there with the address on Cordell Street and the name of the real estate agent. But nothing else seemed to offer a clue.

  She tried the rest of the drawers, and in the last one the back cover of a large paperback book caught her eye. White type inside a black box, with the words “Warning! Read this book, but keep in mind that the topics written about here are illegal and constitute a threat.”

  Aliyah turned the book over and sagged in despair. Her knees were wobbly, so she sat back on the floor while staring at the title stenciled white on black: The Anarchist Cookbook. Abbas had folded back the corner of a page for easy reference, and she opened the book to chapter four, “Explosives and Booby Traps.”

  At that moment the door to the study opened, and Abbas appeared on the threshold.

  He, too, had put on a robe.

  “Aliyah?” he asked, his voice ever so quiet, as if their children had returned home and he was taking care not to wake them. “What are you doing in here, down there on the floor?”

  His expression was neither hostile nor challenging. There even seemed to be a hint of sympathy in his eyes. Or maybe that was wishful thinking, because already he was scanning the evidence of her betrayal—the book in her hands, opened to the damning chapter; the scribbled address on Cordell Street atop the pile of papers on the desk—his deepest secrets, laid bare.

  Yet he did not shout, or even frown. That was the oddest and most disturbing thing of all, Aliyah decided. He didn’t seem to mind in the least.

  17

  Most first-time visitors to Athens are disappointed, and I assumed Omar would be no exception. To the untrained eye, the marbled glory of the Acropolis seems to frown down through the haze at the architectural chaos below, as if regretfully surveying Sparta’s final triumph. I once felt that way, too, until Mila helped me discover the city’s hidden charms. Without her at my side, maybe Athens would again hold me at arm’s length.

  I had only a few hours to prepare for Omar’s arrival. I hadn’t yet told Mila I was coming because I didn’t know if I would have time to see her. And after Black’s last message I didn’t want to mix her up in this business more than she already was. We had spoken often by phone, but she was clearly haunted by the thought of eavesdroppers parsing every word. This led to long silences that spooked us as badly as any warning.

  “When will it be safe?” she had finally asked, only two days ago.

  “Soon, I hope. But until then maybe you’d feel better if we didn’t talk for a while. Our conversations don’t seem to be making things any better.”

  “I’ll let you decide. You can tell me when it’s safe.”

  I had then vowed to myself to surprise her with a visit if at all possible. It now seemed that the Athens trip might be my only chance to see her for months, since my work in Amman had slowed to a crawl after such a promising start. Following my fruitless search of the files, I settled into a dreary round of meetings with doctors, medical suppliers, and pharmaceutical reps. Omar wanted me to secure pledges of donated drugs and equipment, and that left little time for visiting Bakaa. And when I did go I treaded lightly, still smarting from my close call even after the bruises healed.

  Nabil seemed equally wary. I hadn’t seen him since the day of the mob scene, which left me instead in the tiresome company of Dr. Hassan. I also hadn’t been able to drop by Sami’s salon. He was out of the country, destination unknown.

  I easily found the scooter shop in Plaka, a onetime slum of cobbled alleys and leaning homes that had recently been gentrified. There was only one fellow on Sunday duty, a gray-haired man reading a sports tabloid at a cluttered desk. The small office was set up like a tiny showroom, with scooters taking most of the
floor space.

  “Mr. Higgins,” he said before I could open my mouth. “I’ve been expecting you.”

  A Piaggio Typhoon had been reserved in my name, the same model I drove on Karos. But how would I sign for it without proper identification? The deskman supplied the answer by handing me a slim white envelope. Inside was a U.S. passport and an American driver’s license issued in Virginia. Both had my photo and the name Robert Higgins. There was also a Visa card in Higgins’s name, along with a strip of paper carrying the name and address of a local hotel.

  “Is this where I’m supposed to stay?”

  The deskman’s frown told me I had strayed from the script, so I took the keys without another word. The Typhoon was gassed to go. I didn’t bother mentioning I’d return it on Wednesday. He had already gone back to his newspaper.

  The hotel was also in Plaka, and as soon as I’d checked in I set out for a reconnaissance of the Grande Bretagne, which was only five blocks away. The lobby was spacious, but for all the grandeur of its mosaic floors and tall windows, it offered no suitable nooks where I could wait in seclusion yet still have a view of the elevators. I would have to sit in the open, with only a newspaper to hide me. I tried it out, drawing a suspicious glance from a woman speaking French on a cell phone. Uniformed desk clerks scurried back and forth at the far end. Outside there was a host of taxi hailers and liveried doormen. I would have to park my scooter around the corner, which could make for a rough start if Omar took a cab in the opposite direction.

  On the way back to my room I withdrew five hundred euros from an ATM with my own card, not theirs. Then I set out to find someplace sunny for a drink to steel myself for Omar’s arrival. Plaka’s outdoor cafés were already filled with Germans and Japanese, so I wandered farther, working my way around the base of the Acropolis. To my right, young men rolled dice on backgammon tables and sipped chilled Freddocinos from tall glasses. An old man sat at the curb playing a sort of Mediterranean bagpipe. I paused at an iron rail to stare up toward the Acropolis, where the white colonnade of the Propylaia was rosy in afternoon sunlight. Only at the last second did I notice a Greek man approaching in apparent interest.