Brooke shrugged. “Better than getting killed, I’m sure. What a joke of a death that would have been, taken out by a couple of amateurs from al Qaeda because my idiot station chief couldn’t tell a double agent from his own unfaithful wife.”
Grey laughed softly. “You don’t get out of life alive. You were hoping to die for a reason?”
“Everyone dies for a reason. I was hoping for a better one.”
“At least you helped the Lebanese break up an al Qaeda cell.”
“I could have done more,” Brooke objected. “When Lorber butted in, there was still work to do.”
Grey gazed out at the ridges and valleys. “Dangerous work. Thanks to Lorber’s blunder, you’re more likely to die in bed at the age of ninety-five. The question becomes how you kill the time between now and then.”
“Not this way. Serving as a bureaucrat erodes my sense of purpose. I’ve taken to reading analysts’ reports on al Qaeda just to sate my curiosity.”
“Which is a good thing,” Grey opined. “You need curiosity, and you need to care about the work. Have you thought about becoming an analyst?”
Brooke shook his head. “I’m a field officer by nature. As long as I’m with the agency I want to serve where it matters. I’ve been stuck here too long.”
“Granted.” Grey eyed him more closely. “But I heard another element just now—’as long as I’m with the agency.’”
Brooke fell quiet for a time. “I’ve started questioning my life,” he acknowledged. “I’ve always accepted that foreign postings made relationships harder. So does deception. Not that I minded lying to foreigners—that’s what we’re supposed to do. But now I’m telling Mickey Mouse lies to neighbors, the women I meet, and friends who’ve spent years believing they still know me. Even my parents think I’ve got some desk job at the State Department.”
“You’re allowed to tell your parents, Brooke.”
“And horrify my mother? She’d probably leak my identity to the New York Times.” Brooke paused, then added with resignation, “Feeling distant from my parents is nothing new. But sometimes I visit my friends from graduate school—with sharp wives, and little kids they like—and I want a family of my own.”
“Anne told me you were seeing someone. A lawyer, wasn’t it?”
“We’ve broken up. Erin was no fool—she’d started calling me ‘elusive.’ I had to decide whether we were worth breaking cover for, and concluded we weren’t.” Brooke smiled a little. “Besides, it takes a special woman to help you live a lie. Which is why, in my expert opinion, Bernie Madoff never told his wife he was a crook.”
“Maybe Madoff just liked lying,” Grey parried. “I grant you I was lucky in Anne. The life imposes a certain solitude. Further complicated, in field officers, by the rules against romantic entanglements with foreign nationals.”
Brooke raised his eyebrows. “I got entangled once or twice in Lebanon—it deepened my cover. But that’s all it was.”
“You’re lucky to have gotten by with it,” Grey said dryly. “I remember the case of one of our analysts, a Hindu, who started sleeping with his mother and sister…”
“Not at the same time, I hope.”
“No. When confronted, our man said his transgressions were a matter of caste—he couldn’t find a wife of his station in the entire D.C. area. Nonetheless, we fired him. Not for incest, mind you, but for sleeping with foreign nationals. We have our standards, after all.”
Brooke could not help but laugh. “Thank God for that.”
“Which reminds me,” Carter continued, “wasn’t there an Israeli woman left over from your former life? You once were quite attached to her, I thought.”
“That was years ago. It’s been five years since I told her my last lie.”
Something in Brooke’s tone of voice caused Grey to appraise him. “What happened to her?”
“No idea. After the war between Israel and Hezbollah, she simply vanished. No email, no phone, no nothing. For all I know she’s dead.”
Studying Brooke’s face, Grey asked nothing more. “About your career,” he said at length, “it’s time for a think. And a drink.” He hesitated, as though reluctant to ask a favor. “Mind helping me get back up the hill?”
Regarding his mentor with fond concern, Brooke resolved to stop complaining. “Anything for a single malt scotch,” he said. But he knew Grey had more to say. His mentor had invested too much in Brooke’s career, and in Brooke himself, to remain silent about his future.
TWO
Restless, Amer Al Zaroor paced a safe house in Peshawar, waiting in the night for a Pakistani general.
The city was a gateway to Afghanistan, a crowded maze where a man could disappear. Outside the building, a tangled web of electrical wires hung over a dusty street. When morning came, motorized rickshaws and brightly painted buses would belch exhaust into air so polluted that it seared the throat. The apartment where Al Zaroor concealed himself was dingy and featureless, with a flea-infested carpet that stank of dog urine, and one small window over which he had drawn a blind. It was not the sense of confinement that chafed his nerves; as a soldier of al Qaeda he had endured far worse, sustained by a vision of the future. But now he was relying on a man he hardly knew, who might have as many loyalties as his failing country had factions, and whose shifting interests might cause him to deliver Al Zaroor to traitors allied with America and the Jews, Pakistanis with even fewer scruples than their masters. His consolation was that this stranger’s intermediary was a trusted leader of Lashkar-e-Taiba—the fearsome Pakistani jihadists—who had proved his mettle by planning the devastating attack on Mumbai less than three years before.
Like Al Zaroor, this man—Ahmed Khan—had been waging jihad since America had armed Muslim militia against the Soviet occupiers of Afghanistan. The most zealous fighters of that war became a fraternity. Thus, like Al Zaroor, Khan had extensive contacts among al Qaeda, the Taliban, LET, and the Pakistani military intelligence agency—the ISI—which had been among each group’s earliest patrons. LET and the Pakistani army recruited heavily in the Punjab region; Khan and the general were cousins. Such was Pakistan.
Al Zaroor’s cell phone vibrated in his pocket. When he answered, a man’s voice said, “We’re about to serve the curry.”
A message from Khan.
The line went dead. Heart racing, Al Zaroor switched on CNN.
Nothing yet. The fare remained innocuous, a documentary on micro-financing in India. Watching and waiting, Al Zaroor thought about his first meeting with General Ayub.
They had faced each other one year ago, in this same dreary room.
Dressed in a tailored suit, General Ayub was slender, bespectacled, and wholly unprepossessing. He did not remind Al Zaroor of a warrior.
Ayub sat across from him, fidgeting. For minutes the two men circled each other with words. Finally, Ayub said, “I’m told that you want a device. A special one.”
Al Zaroor gave a barely perceptible nod. After a moment, Ayub leaned forward, elbows on knees, hands clasped in the attitude of prayer. Softly, he said, “I control six.”
Al Zaroor’s alertness quickened. “Where are they?”
“In an underground vault beneath an air force base ringed by troops, sensors, and electrified wire. Like other such sites, it is secret. Few know that it exists, fewer know the precise nature of my responsibilities. Now you are one.”
Al Zaroor’s mouth felt dry. In a matter-of-fact tone he asked, “Tell me about the properties of this device.”
The general took out a British cigarette, lighting it with care before inhaling deeply. To Al Zaroor, who had no such vices, the man had the air of an abstemious smoker, trying to conceal from others that he lived for each carefully rationed cigarette. “It is two hundred pounds,” he said at length, “with dimensions suitable for a coffin. It is made to be delivered by plane. The intended target, as you must guess, is within India.”
“And its security features?”
“Until it
is needed, the triggering package is kept separate from the core. Even when assembled, there is an electronic code that must be activated before the device can detonate. Access to the code is confined to a few scientists and the technician who will accompany the device in flight.” A note of entreaty crept into Ayub’s voice. “As you can see, the barriers to unauthorized usage are considerable. It might well be easier to buy or steal highly enriched uranium and construct a device of your own.”
“I don’t want a technological problem,” Al Zaroor said curtly. “The Japanese group Aum Shan tried such a project with millions of dollars and a team of scientists. They failed. I prefer to buy off the shelf.”
“Then you would need the code,” Ayub parried. “Not even I possess it.”
“For now, let’s set that aside. How might an interested party acquire such a device?”
The general grimaced. “The most obvious way is to attack a base like mine. But that involves piercing an electrical fence manned by guards, and a second such fence around the vault itself. In between are several hundred soldiers.” Ayub drew a breath, as if the thought itself made him weary. “You would need at least six hundred fighters willing to die in pitched battle. That would also create a commotion visible to the American spy satellites. The odds against you are great.”
Al Zaroor stared at Ayub. Coolly, he said, “There are other ways, General.”
Faced with this tacit reproof, the general spread his arms, trailing ashes and smoke from his burning cigarette. “There could be a mutiny, of course, where a commanding officer takes over a facility. But on what basis does he enlist his troops? Any man who risked this and failed would face execution.”
“I would hate to ask such a man to hazard his life,” Al Zaroor replied with an edge of irony. “Perhaps it would be best if he gave up the device in secret.”
The general’s body stiffened. Taking a last drag, he ground the cigarette on the wooden arm of his chair. “How would this man smuggle it out without the complicity of others? Sooner or later, an inventory would be taken, and his own death would follow.” His voice hardened. “I believe in jihad, but not as a martyr. I have no use for seventy virgins in this life or the next.”
Al Zaroor smiled faintly. “You take us for primitives, General. Surely there are circumstances where the device is taken from its womb.”
Ayub shook his head. “Only during a state of nuclear alert between India and Pakistan. Such accidents of fate are out of my control.”
“Nonetheless, what would happen to your devices should Pakistan decide that it might use them?”
Ayub steepled his fingers. “They would be deployed for a possible second strike, from different airfields than the ones we assume the Indian air force would level. In the event of a first strike against India, our bombers would return to the new field. The devices would already await them.”
“How do the devices travel there?”
“By secret convoy. Quite probably at night.”
“And the location of these airfields?”
“Almost all are in the Punjab, close to India.”
Al Zaroor nodded, eyes narrowing in thought. “Before moving the device, do you unite its components?”
“Yes.”
“Then that reduces the technical problems, doesn’t it. All that remains is to unlock the electronic codes.”
Al Zaroor’s calm caused a look of irritation to cross the general’s face, closely pursued by worry. “You make this sound like a training exercise. The convoy would be heavily guarded.”
“Still, General, if one knew where and when the bomb was moving, you wouldn’t need six hundred suicidal jihadists to acquire it. A more modest plan might do.”
Ayub scowled. “Then you’re back to the element you conveniently dismissed—our security code, the so-called permissive action links that prevent accidental detonation.”
“PALs,” Al Zaroor said. “I’ve read of them—a clever American invention, designed to keep their own devices in transit from destroying Cincinnati. If the sequences of numbers entered to arm the weapon prove incorrect after several tries, the PAL system disables itself, rendering the device useless. Rather like an ATM.”
“Precisely.”
“But isn’t it also true,” Al Zaroor prodded quietly, “that Pakistan refused to adopt a PAL system provided by America for fear that the Americans would disable its devices? The Pakistani system, in my limited understanding, is simpler. And, as you say, a trained technician from the air force can defeat it.”
“That is true, yes. Assuming that you find him.”
Al Zaroor kept watching his face. “But you could help us locate such a man, couldn’t you. Or at least suggest one.”
Ayub hesitated. “Perhaps,” he conceded in an arid tone. “Then all you’d need is someone to provoke a state of nuclear alert between India and Pakistan.”
Al Zaroor smiled again. “Please don’t trouble yourself with that. I’ve asked enough of you, my brother.”
THREE
After a dinner of steaks and fresh vegetables accompanied by a good Bordeaux, Brooke and Carter Grey sat on the deck, watching the stars above the purple shadows of the ridgeline. Brooke sipped Calvados; Grey, who now drank sparingly, settled for decaffeinated coffee.
“I don’t quarrel with anything you’ve told me,” Grey began. “The life exacts a price. And you got screwed in Beirut, cutting your work against al Qaeda short. Since then, Anne and I have sensed a certain weariness of the soul, the residue of some very hard years.” Grey paused, softening his tone. “I also know why you joined, and how personal that is to you. What happened ten years ago could repeat itself all too easily. In a few swift strokes, the trifecta of transnational terrorism, Islamic extremism, and the proliferation of WMD could change the world as we know it—not only our security, but our values. Not many Americans get that. You do.”
Brooke took a swallow of brandy. “Does it matter?” he said finally. “As a nation we’re addicted to wishful thinking, staggering from crisis to crisis with the foresight of a two-year-old. Think of all the people who nearly bought us a worldwide depression: financial parasites, greedy lenders, cowardly regulators, venal politicians, and millions of gullible folks who lived on charge cards and thought they could buy a house for nothing. Or a massive oil spill, where a soulless company was enabled by a spineless bureaucracy that gave them what they wanted, and a populace too blind to see that oil has become like crack. It’s a moral failure on the most profound level, where everyone blames everyone else, and no one looks in the mirror.
“Apply that to our work. Before 9/11 Bin Laden did everything but advertise. Yet he had to blow up the Twin Towers just to get the serious attention of anyone outside the intelligence community.” Brooke paused, then finished with weary resignation. “So what did we do? We invaded the wrong country, killed the wrong madman, and too often used the wrong interrogation techniques on the wrong people—all because our leaders lost contact with the truth.”
Grey nodded. “A classic illustration of what I call Cheney’s Law: Theorists sit in Washington jabbering about the world like the inmates of an asylum, until they create their own reality out of fantasy, never imagining the havoc they’ll wreak. As for the Democrats, a lot of them live in the wing reserved for manic-depressives—on any given day, you don’t know who they’ll be. In either case, we become their whipping boy when things go wrong.”
“I’m sick of it,” Brooke said bluntly. “The Outfit’s job is to prevent the Apocalypse. But what have we learned as a society since Bin Laden took down the World Trade Center? Our political dialogue is even more empty and corrosive. As long as neocons like Cheney invoke terrorism and adopt an air of gravity, the right listens even when they’re babbling in tongues. Throw in the Tea Party folks, who think the president is ten times more dangerous than any external enemy. Then there are liberals like my mother and her rich friends, who have no more idea of what we’re facing than a gaggle of spoiled children.” Brooke
’s voice quickened with the frustration he could seldom express. “On 9/11 we were badly wounded by men without a country. Bin Laden’s death won’t change that. These people want weapons of mass destruction; sooner or later, they’ll have some. And unlike the Soviets or Saddam or the Iranians, you can’t find them.”
“But that’s why you joined up,” Grey argued. “In five years, someone like you will be the station chief in a tough place like Beirut. You represent the new breed of talent we’ve recruited since 9/11.” He paused for emphasis. “Even among them, you stand out. You’re an artist—imaginative, with a rare combination of operational and analytical skills. You can quote poetry in Arabic. You challenge conventional wisdom. Your guts and instincts kept al Qaeda from taking you out in Lebanon.” Wryly, Grey concluded, “With a little extra seasoning, you’ll be the equal of any terrorist.”
“Or of any desk jockey in Washington.”
“That shouldn’t have happened,” Grey replied. “But now they’ve brought back Noah Brustein as deputy director. He’ll be quick to see you’re being wasted.”
“And when Brustein goes?” Brooke asked. “Our leadership has become a game of musical chairs where the occupants change at the whim of the political classes. Good or bad, they’re gone in two years. And with every change, more good people think about leaving.”
“Maybe so. But al Qaeda never quits, and now they’ll looking to avenge Bin Laden.” Grey placed a hand on Brooke’s shoulder. “Give it time. There’s nothing more important than what we do, and nowhere else to do it—”
From inside they heard a soft cry. At first, Brooke thought Anne had fallen; fearing both for her and Grey, he rushed inside.
Pale, Anne looked up from her chair. Pointing at the television, she said, “Someone just hit the Taj Mahal.”
On CNN, the sacred site was rubble in which the marble domes had vanished, the graceful spires turned to stubs. Shocked, Brooke murmured, “Like Mumbai.”
Devil's Light, The Page 2
