The Amateur Spy

by Dan Fesperman

  I booted up one of the desktops while he stood at the darkened register, his face ashen. To my relief, Mila had fired off a message only moments earlier, with the good news that she had already booked a flight to Boston. She would depart in the morning.

  I sent a quick e-mail to Massachusetts with the details, asking my mom and dad to meet her at the airport. I was about to log off when I saw that a new message had arrived that very morning from Chris Boylan, titled simply “Update.” I felt a stab of worry. Had he, too, paid a price for my indiscretion?

  His message consisted only of two words, “Interesting timing,” followed by an Internet link highlighted in blue, which I clicked on immediately. A brief article from a newspaper Web site in Munich popped onto the screen. It was dated yesterday, and Norbert Krieger’s name was in the first line. My German was rusty, so it took a few seconds to make sense of the rest. Then I gasped in disbelief.

  It was an obituary.

  Krieger had been found dead at his office. Not murdered, just dead. Or so the story said. Then again, my employers were extremely talented, so who could say for sure. Black magic, I thought, and I was the apprentice wizard recklessly casting spells. I had conjured up the name of a man in Munich, bandied it about in a few incantations, and then—presto—he turned up dead a thousand miles away.

  The shopkeeper cleared his throat, impatient to leave, so I logged off. He waved away my dinar and I climbed back into the Passat, still in shock. What an evening. And who knew what bad news awaited in Bakaa. I had to get moving.

  I ran into two roadblocks before even making it out of Jebel Amman. Finally I escaped the hilltop via a steep, narrow alley that cut across to a side street through the edge of downtown. From there I twisted downhill and gradually made my way out of the city like a mouse through a maze, turning around and starting over each time my way was blocked. Eventually I slipped onto the highway to Bakaa well past a cordon of barricades that the police had set up around the rim of the city.

  Bakaa was in chaos. The main drag was impenetrable, which meant reaching Dr. Hassan’s office was out of the question. By using side streets and alleys I was able to drive within a few blocks of the field office. I parked the car and set out on foot.

  At the office there was a commotion outside the doorway, although everyone in the crowd was looking back across the street. I pushed through, barely able to open the door against the crush of bystanders. I flipped a light switch, but the power had been cut. Then I saw Omar, seated in the darkness next to a typewriter. He wasn’t making a sound.

  “Where have you been?” I said. “Hanan is worried sick.”

  “I just reached her. She’s fine now.”

  His voice was a monotone, the flat register of utter defeat.

  “What is it?” I asked. “Where’s Nabil?”

  Omar slowly shook his head.

  “I was too late,” he said. “Something terrible has happened.”

  I braced myself for the worst.

  35

  From almost the moment the door flew open, Jena began to wail. She was the first to realize what was happening in the mob scene outside. Aliyah figured it out next. Nabil must have thrown open the door just as his pursuers caught him. Her immense relief at seeing him alive changed instantly to fear for his survival.

  Two policemen in blue berets were tugging him backward, one at each arm. Their apparent destination was a blue panel van with a caged windshield, just across the narrow street. And that was the least of Nabil’s worries. A mob had converged and was growing by the minute. Angry shouts of “Traitor!” and “Murderer!” flew from every direction, and the policemen could barely make headway. A stone soared above the crowd and landed with a sickening thud against Nabil’s back. He gasped and staggered as Jena screamed above the din.

  Aliyah fought her way outside just as a chunk of cinder block landed by the doorway. Frightened for the child, she saw the girl squirming in her mother’s arms just inside the house. Dust from the maelstrom billowed into the living room like a brown spirit.

  The crowd surged, and Aliyah was carried along with it, her chest squeezed so tightly she could barely draw a breath. It was all she could do to keep her footing. Fall now and she would be trampled. She held her balance and turned her head just in time to see Nabil looking right at her from a few feet away. His eyes were wide, but they seemed almost serene, as if he had already resigned himself to whatever was going to happen.

  The policemen dragged him the final few feet to the van, where four more officers were wading into the crowd, clubs swinging. She heard the crack of wood against a skull. Several men fell, swallowed by the mob. The policemen gave a great heave, and Nabil ducked in through the rear of the van as his forehead banged against the top of the doorway. A spot below his hairline bloomed red just as the doors slammed shut and took him out of sight. Then the stones rained down in earnest, clattering off the top of the van.

  As Aliyah turned to see where all the missiles were coming from, she saw a familiar face, back toward Nabil’s house. It was the doctor. He was shouting, “Murderer! Murderer!” as if leading the charge. Aliyah must not have been the only one to recognize him, because she saw the doctor suddenly turn as if to ward off a blow, and then she heard Nabil’s wife shrieking.

  “You!” the woman said, stepping toward him with a sobbing Jena still in her arms. “It is your doing! You did this to Nabil!”

  For a moment the mob seemed uncertain whom to support in this new confrontation. Then a few men opted to protect one of their own, although Jena’s presence helped to blunt their fury. Aliyah quickly moved forward to help. She found it maddening that she still didn’t know the woman’s name. Some of the more levelheaded men in the crowd helped her to chivy mother and child back through the doorway, but Nabil’s wife continued to scream at the doctor, who, looking a bit rattled, nodded in a gesture of thanks to his rescuers. Then he saw Aliyah, and smiled. She turned to try and escape, but couldn’t push through the mob, and before she knew it he was at her side, aided by his impromptu bodyguards. He placed his hand on her forearm, exactly where he had gripped her in the lobby bar of the hotel, and leaned closer to shout into her ear.

  “How fortunate for both of us that I found you here.”

  Her anger overcame her fear.

  “What does she mean?” she shouted back. “What have you done to Nabil?”

  “Now, now,” he said, in the manner of parent to child. “We are all upset. It has been a long and terrible night, but I am sure now that justice will be done.”

  He released her forearm but then placed his hand around her shoulder. To everyone else it must have looked like a gesture of help or reassurance, but his grip felt strong enough to bruise.

  “Come over here,” he said into her ear. “Let’s get you out of harm’s way. This is not your affair.”

  Her impulse was to wrench free, maybe even to spit in his face. But she didn’t dare, not with emotions running so high. His protectors were still in tow, and the mob might do anything. So she let him steer her to the mouth of an alley, where they found a brief respite from the jostling. She opened her mouth to speak, but he beat her to it, lowering his voice so that only she could hear.

  “Surely you shouldn’t remain here. Not after who you’ve been seen with, and who you’ve been talking to.”

  “Are you threatening me with the same treatment?”

  “I’m offering my help. Please, you look very upset. I will take you to my office. It is safer there, and only a few blocks away.”

  “No, thank you.”

  “Please. Why ruin things for your husband?”

  Anyone watching might have thought from his expression that he was being as solicitous as possible. But his fingertips dug into her shoulder. She did as she was told. They walked side by side through the streets.

  “I don’t want to go into your office,” she said, turning to speak into his ear.

  “But you must, because I have news. Although perhaps you alrea
dy know.”

  “What news? Tell me now.” She tried to stop, but he dragged her inexorably forward.

  “Patience. Just know that even on a day as horrible as this, there has at least been one moment of good fortune.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He stopped, looked her in the eye.

  “Have you really not heard?”

  She shook her head. The doctor smiled.

  “The senator, your husband’s patient. He has at last left this world. Your husband’s glorious work may now proceed. Come, I will tell you all about it.”

  The doctor released his grip and resumed his progress. Aliyah stood dumbfounded in his wake, as stunned as if she had been struck by a stone from the mob. The last bit of sanity in her world had just slipped from her grasp, and was now lost in the chaos of the streets.

  36

  They’ve taken him away,” Omar said slowly, in apparent disbelief. “They think he did it.”

  “Did he?” I asked.

  By then I would have given even odds on a “yes” answer. It wasn’t just the warning signs having to do with Nabil—all those dark hints I’d foolishly ignored, mostly because I liked him, true believer or not. It was Omar’s bearing that now convinced me. He was slumped in a chair with his head in his hands. His eyes were brimming wells of despair. I knew as acutely as anyone the crushing power of guilt, and I saw clearly the impact it had made on Omar. He had met the blow head-on and was reeling.

  “Did he?” I repeated.

  Omar looked up with a start, as if finally hearing me from across a canyon. His eyes flared with anger.

  “How the hell could Nabil have done it? He’d be in a thousand pieces!”

  “Not if he planned it. Or supplied it.”

  Omar shook his head.

  “That’s crazy.”

  “Then what about his contacts? The people he’s been meeting. I’ve heard things, you know, here and downtown.”

  “I’ve heard them, too. I was even responsible for some of the introductions. But they were all part of a setup. If you think Nabil was capable of doing this to his own people, then you know less about all of us than I thought.” He looked up. “Do you truly believe what you’re saying? In fact, what do you believe anymore? I’ve been wondering that since the day you arrived.”

  It was the same question Nabil had asked, when he caught me following him. He certainly hadn’t behaved then like a person with something to hide, and I now felt ashamed of the glib answer I’d given, my usual boilerplate of foolishness. Nabil hadn’t scorned me for that, either. If anything, he had seemed to pity me, not as an infidel doomed to damnation but as someone still searching for a place to drop his moral anchor.

  “I don’t know what I believe. About any of this.”

  “Well, stop believing Nabil was involved. All he’s guilty of is associating with some of the wrong people in Bakaa. Or wrong in the eyes of Dr. Hassan. He’s the one who did in Nabil. And like an idiot, I was helping him along the way; if only I had realized it at the time.”

  “Dr. Hassan set up the arrest?”

  “He’s been setting it up for weeks, apparently. He actually seemed proud to tell me all about it. Arranging for certain people downtown to invite Nabil in for a chat—using my name as entrée in some cases—and then having the meeting photographed. Having it arranged for Nabil to play host to some stupid American woman who was up to God knows what. Then whispering all the details into a few key ears on the Eighth Circle. All a part of the usual political vendetta out here. More of the same old Palestinian fratricide. Which I was happy to exploit for my own ends, of course. Thinking I was being so clever by pitting one side against the other. I thought they would both try to outdo each other and that the hospital would reap the rewards. Instead it’s the opposite. Everything has been undermined. Then the bombings came along, and Nabil was already at the top of the police list. They were already looking for him, and by the end of the week they probably would have arrested him anyway. That’s the way it works with my people. We turn on each other like fools. Then some even bigger fool turns on all of us and blows himself up, and the police go out and start throwing all the wrong people in jail. Just watch—they’ll arrest a few hundred by Friday. It’s the perfect excuse for getting rid of all the ones nobody likes.”

  But I was still thinking of what he had said about the American woman.

  “I saw her,” I said. “The American. Not just with Nabil. With Dr. Hassan, too. And I’m not sure she’s so stupid. Maybe they’re planning something.”

  “Maybe.”

  Then he waved it off, seemingly disinterested. Or maybe he wasn’t paying attention. I knew that symptom, too. You became so absorbed in the idea of your own complicity that you refused to contemplate someone else’s. He needed a good shock to the system. So I administered one.

  “Listen to me, Omar. Dr. Hassan isn’t the only one who’s been using you. So have I.”

  He seemed to finally emerge from his stupor.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, for starters, I was over on the Eighth Circle this morning. They sent a car for me. Asked me all kinds of questions about you.”

  He surprised me by smiling, although it was not a happy smile.

  “Fat fellow in a bad suit? Served you tea on a horrible painted tray?”

  “Yes.”

  “His name’s Mahmoud, or so I’m told. My personal case officer. Always looking into my business.”

  “You know about his interest?”

  “How could I miss it? He’s questioned about half my friends. I think he does it just to put me on notice.”

  “Why?”

  “Because of my work.”

  I gave him an opportunity to lie, just to see if he would take the bait.

  “For the hospital?”

  “No. Other work. Things I haven’t told you about.”

  Now we were getting somewhere. If he would level with me, then I would level with him. And as far as I was concerned, then neither the Mossad, the Mukhabarat, nor the CIA need know what passed between us.

  “Like helping Basma Shaheed, you mean?”

  “Mahmoud told you about her?”

  “He wasn’t the only one.”

  Omar raised an eyebrow, and seemed to store that item away before continuing.

  “She is a Palestinian who does the good work of helping people keep their houses and their land, so I support her when I can.”

  “With whose money?”

  “My own, mostly. Sometimes I pass along donations from Europe. From people who are more comfortable doing business that way. It isn’t always so popular helping Arabs these days, you know.” He seemed to detect the wariness in my face. “What? You don’t think I’m giving her money from the hospital fund, do you?”

  “Mahmoud thinks so. He said you’re keeping two sets of books.”

  “Of course I am. One for the charity and one for, well, whatever it is you want to call this other passion. That doesn’t mean I’m stealing from one for the other. But it doesn’t surprise me Mahmoud would say that. It’s probably his latest way of fighting us. Smear us behind our backs.”

  “Who’s ‘us’?”

  “You’ve met most of them. Sami Fayez. Rafi Tuqan. A few others. Then there’s our artist friend, Issa Odeh.”

  “The one who painted the stuff on your living room wall.”

  “Yes. He got us hooked.”

  “On what?”

  “History, if you strip it to its essentials. Archaeology, if you want to get technical. Staking our claim on the future by finding our past. He took us out in the desert one weekend, one of his little excursions. He puts them together to recruit people to the cause of land preservation. I’m sure he never dreamed it would go over so well. And it probably wouldn’t have if I hadn’t just seen some news report from Israel. One of those biblical archaeologists who had just dug something up. You know how it goes. They find a few stones and say they belonged to King David. Th
en everyone oohs and aahs and says, well, it must really be true, then. They really are the chosen people, and this is their promised land, so those Arabs should go take a hike.

  “Well, a few days later Issa takes us out to the terrace of a big wadi, out in the desert northeast of Amman. It’s a Late Bronze Age site, practically virgin. Hardly anyone knows about it. Why? Because no one cares, of course. Because no one is kicking in money for a dig, and no one is saying, ‘This was King David’s royal outhouse’ or ‘This was Solomon’s mudroom.’ But when you pick up an object from the sand, and then hold it in your hands knowing that someone made it over three thousand years ago, and not a soul since then has ever touched it, well, there is a certain power in that experience.

  “And that’s when it hit me. Why not make those old ghosts work for us, too? Because Arabs have been walking these hills just as long as Jews. Longer, even. The Edomites, the Moabites. All of them built bigger and grander civilizations. If we can raise them from the dead—archaeologically speaking, of course—they’ll become part of our army. And that’s where Basma Shaheed comes into it. Support her and you save a few Arab houses, a few more dunams of Palestinian land. Hold on to enough land and, who knows, maybe you can get your own diggers in place, legally or otherwise. So that next time you find a site in East Jerusalem, or Nablus, or wherever it might be, then you have another army fighting for you. No need to throw stones anymore, Freeman. You just dig them up and put them behind glass.”

  Omar’s eyes were ablaze. I hadn’t seen him this impassioned since our days on patrol.

  “But that’s the West Bank. Why should anyone on the Eighth Circle care?”

  “Because we’re doing it here, too. Jordan is untapped, untouched in so many places. That makes it the perfect place for building our body of evidence, establishing our tradition. It’s like staking claims in a mine. Of course, land prices being what they are, not everyone wants you to stake a claim. So you start making enemies.”

  “Jordanian investors?”

  “Saudis, too. And Iraqis, Euros, Americans. Probably even a few Israelis. Everybody with money wants in on this boom. Except they want to buy and build, and we want to preserve and protect.”