by Dan Mayland
“Listen,” said Rad, interrupting his fiancée. “I gotta go. They’re waiting for me inside. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“OK. Enjoy your dinner.”
“It’s gonna suck.”
“Love you. Miss you.”
“Love you too, hon.”
Rad Saveljic eyed the salad on his plate with suspicion. Rule number one when traveling—don’t eat uncooked greens. He’d learned that lesson the hard way on a three-day trip to Mexico with his fiancée the year before.
But he was in the home of an Indian member of Parliament. And this MP in particular was a powerful man, with ties to many of the local construction firms. If BP wanted their new offices in Delhi to get built within the next hundred years, they needed the MP on their side. Also, it was a late dinner—Rad was used to eating at seven—so he was starving.
Which is why, instead of pushing his plate away, he reluctantly lowered his fork, skewered a fresh tomato slathered with a dressing he didn’t recognize, smiled, and said, “Looks great.”
Several of the other guests, including Rad’s boss at BP—a fifty-year-old American of Indian descent—concurred and for the next five minutes the room was filled with the sound of silver clinking and people making small talk.
Rad figured they would get down to business after dinner. That was when his boss would bring up what the MP might want in return for helping to smooth the way for the office development BP wanted to build in downtown Delhi. It would be a pretty basic pay-to-play deal, he was sure. Nothing Rad hadn’t seen, and even helped negotiate, dozens of times while helping his father manage and expand his gas stations in New Jersey. You buttered up the right people, then you got whatever permit, or waiver from the department of environmental protection, you needed.
“Ah, a vindaloo!” exclaimed Rad’s boss as a woman in a sari brought out a big steaming pot of what looked to Rad like a stew. Next came a pot of beef curry, followed by a plate of tandoori chicken.
“Wow, this all smells so delicious,” said Rad. As people began serving themselves, he ventured to ask, “Is one of the dishes less spicy than the others?”
“Oh, the vindaloo is not spicy at all,” said the MP. “I would suggest it to you.”
So Rad scooped a healthy portion of the vindaloo onto his plate. A minute later, he took a big bite of something he thought was pork.
The pain started in his mouth, but then radiated up to his eyes and into the back of his head. His throat burned and started to constrict involuntarily. For a second, he worried he might pass out.
He grabbed for his glass of water, and downed half of it, but that almost seemed to make things worse, so he grabbed a piece of the naan bread and stuffed it in his mouth.
“You like the vindaloo?” asked the MP.
Rad held up a finger as he tried to compose himself. Twenty seconds later, in a low croak that could barely be heard over the laughter that had erupted at the table, he said, “Delicious, but a bit spicier than I expected.”
“Rad’s still getting used to the ways of the subcontinent,” Rad’s boss explained. He gave Rad a patronizing pat on the shoulder.
Rad’s eyes were watering. He heard more laughter. In the center of the table, a lit candle, in the shape of a lotus blossom, floated in a brass bowl that had been filled with water. The candle seemed to be spinning but Rad wasn’t sure whether it was really spinning or he was just losing his mind. He looked up. A wall hanging adorned with elephants was also spinning.
He blinked. “I’m going to have to excuse myself,” he said. “I’ll just be a moment. The bathroom?”
“Just down the hall,” said the MP, pointing. “I’m sorry, I’m afraid I misjudged your palate.”
“No problem, no problem at all,” said Rad. “I just need a minute.”
Rad found the bathroom. The pain was subsiding, only to be replaced by anger. That son-of-a-bitch MP completely suckered me, he thought. The vindaloo is not spicy at all. Misjudged your palate, my ass. He knew what he was doing.
Hell of a joke.
26
The Yakovlev jet that was waiting for Mark in Osh was an old Soviet clunker that had originally been built in the 1970s for regional travel. It was now owned by a Kazakh air charter company that the police force in Bishkek used with some frequency.
Mark had flown on similar planes on many occasions and appreciated the facelift that the charter company had recently given this plane; instead of fraying vinyl seats with sharp metal springs poking out of them, he found two rows of reasonably comfortable captain’s seats. And whereas the original Yakovlev had almost certainly provided nothing in the way of in-flight entertainment, this one had been outfitted with a single small LCD monitor, along with satellite Wi-Fi throughout the cabin.
The LCD monitor didn’t work, but the Wi-Fi did. Mark used it to contact Daria, communicating via a series of near-instant draft messages posted to a mutually accessible Gmail account.
You OK?
Fine. Where is he?
With D.
D?! As in…
Yes, that D.
I thought YOU were getting him?
I was at the embassy. Don’t worry. He’s safe, hidden. It’s better this way. They suspected me. I heard you got picked up.
Yeah, but I ditched them.
That’s my gal, thought Mark. He wanted to ask where she was now, but thought it better that he didn’t know. He read Daria’s next message.
Should I come get him from D?
Mark had to think about that. At this point, a transfer from Decker to Daria would just complicate matters, he decided.
No.
Why were you at the embassy?
Ordered there.
Why do they want him?
They won’t say.
Then screw them.
That’s what I told them. Didn’t go over well.
Thank you. Thank you.
Mark smiled as he read those words, struck by a realization he thought was funny.
He liked to think of himself as an adept manipulator, a spy’s spy who’d learned the hard way all the various methods that could be used to bend people to his will—bribes, the threat of an embarrassing revelation, an appeal to ego, to a higher calling, or even just to basic human decency. But Daria had proved to be his equal or better in the bending-people-to-her-will department.
He recalled how she’d interrupted his narde game not even twelve hours earlier and had pitched him on a scaled-down mission in about ten seconds. Now here he was, hundreds of miles away, on a mission that had rapidly been scaled up into who knows what.
And the funny thing was, he didn’t even mind. At least not now; he’d minded a bit when he’d had to forfeit the narde game. He typed his next message.
Hope to learn more tomorrow. Stay hidden, so you can’t be questioned. Maybe they will think you have him, will take pressure off D. I won’t contact you again until I have this thing figured out.
Are you still at the embassy?
No.
They let you go?
Define let.
Where are you?
Next question.
Daria didn’t respond for a minute, then replied,
OK, I guess it’s better I don’t know. Be safe.
You too.
PART II
BAHRAIN
27
Bahrain
Mark touched down in Bahrain at seven in the morning.
He used his British passport to pass through customs without having to bother with a visa, exchanged money, bought three more prepaid cell phones—though his iPod was rigged like Daria’s, he didn’t want to be dependent on Wi-Fi—and then called the embassy in Bishkek.
“You’ll never guess where I am,” he said, after being transferred to Rosten’s cell.
“It damn well better be on the way to the embassy. I spoke with Kaufman, and he spoke with the director, and—”
“Bahrain!”
“What?”
“I’m in
Bahrain, just touched down. It’s nice here, Val.”
Mark was standing outside the main airport terminal. It was sunny out. Fellow travelers were milling all around him. He was tired, but he’d been able to sleep for a few hours on the plane. Maybe he’d try to find someplace where he could eat breakfast outside, he thought; take advantage of the good weather.
He wished he’d brought his sunglasses with him.
“You’re in Bahrain? Now?” Rosten sounded incredulous, as though he hadn’t heard Mark right.
“I figured, that’s where the kid was from, so if I wanted to know more about him, why not just come here, show the local cops a picture of Muhammad, and ask them to figure it out?”
“You didn’t. Tell me you didn’t do that.”
“Not yet, but I intend to. And if they can’t or won’t help, I’ll post photos of Muhammad all over Manama myself if I have to.”
Bahrain’s capital—Manama—lay just a few miles south of the airport, on the largest island of the Bahraini archipelago, which itself was situated on the western edge of the Persian Gulf. The airport was located on the second largest island in the archipelago, and the two islands were connected by a bridge.
“You’re determined to flush your life down the toilet on this, aren’t you?”
“Calm down.”
“Because that’s what you’re doing.”
“I’m calling your bluff, Val.”
“I’m not bluffing.”
“Well, regardless, I’ve listened to too much BS to feel comfortable just handing the boy over and trusting you to do the right thing. I need to know what’s going on, and then together we can make a call.”
“We’ll find you down there, Sava.”
Mark scratched the three-day stubble on his chin. It was beginning to itch. “I don’t doubt you could. But, you know, after the reception I received at the embassy last night, I put a few contingency plans in place. So finding me won’t mean you find the kid. Or end this.” He listened to Rosten breathe heavily into the phone for a while, then said, “I’m not going to wait around all day, Val. You’ve got two more seconds to decide.”
Rosten told Mark that he’d call him back after conferring with the director of the CIA.
“Actually, how about I call you back,” said Mark. “Say in a half hour.”
Mark tossed the phone he’d been using into a nearby garbage can. Then he hopped in a cab.
What a relief to be out of Bishkek, he thought, as he was being driven into Manama. The last time he’d been here, some ten years earlier, he’d been working with Near East on an arms trafficking op; it had been the height of the summer, when temperatures of a hundred and twenty degrees Fahrenheit were common. But it currently felt like a balmy eighty degrees or so. How pleasant.
He had the cabbie drop him off in the diplomatic section of Manama. A gentle breeze from the Persian Gulf wafted through the canyons that cut between the gleaming skyscrapers. Mark stuck his hands in his front pockets and began to walk, feeling remarkably relaxed about the whole situation. He’d dealt with CIA crap like this before. All the posturing and bluffing usually didn’t amount to much. It would all work out.
In the meantime, he was going to enjoy Bahrain.
The main island was just thirty-five miles long and some ten miles wide. The country’s culture had been defined by tact and restraint—at least until the uprising had started. While vulgar upstarts in Dubai built indoor ski areas and goofy islands shaped like palm trees, Bahrainis had built a thriving financial sector. While the Saudis to the west choked their citizens with a repressive religious regime, the king of Bahrain talked of allowing religious freedom, and even followed through on some of the talk. And while the Iranians to the north thrived on confrontation with the United States, the Bahrainis had developed deep ties to the Americans—especially to the US Navy.
Mark recalled that on the cab ride from the airport, the cabbie had actually switched on a real meter! True, the same cabbie had then tried to impose a dubious surcharge over the metered fare, but this was a small insult compared to what Mark had come to expect in Bishkek.
To be sure, he knew the island was no paradise, especially now; in the airport, he’d read that two anti-government protestors had been killed in a skirmish with the police just the day before. But Bahrain, even on the brink of revolution, was still a far cry from the third world.
He walked a few more blocks, then stopped at a Cinnabon, where he ordered a coffee and a cinnamon roll with extra frosting. He took a seat at one of the yellow metal tables that had been set up outside and ate his roll while basking in the warm breeze. After a full half hour had passed, he called Rosten back.
“OK, Sava. We’ll deal.” Rosten sounded more resigned than angry.
“Good news.”
“You’re not making any friends at Langley, though.”
“What’s going on, Val?”
“How familiar are you with the political situation in Bahrain?”
“Familiar enough.”
Mark knew that Bahrain was a monarchy, one that had been ruled by the same Sunni Muslim royal family for hundreds of years. The problem was that most Bahrainis were Shia Muslims. The Shias—or Shiites, as they were sometimes also called—weren’t happy about that arrangement.
Not happy at all.
“Good. Then I’ll make this simple. Muhammad is a Sunni.”
“Muhammad is a two-year-old.”
“A two-year-old who was born to a Sunni family. For political reasons, he was kidnapped by a group of Shias. We got involved, in a way that—in retrospect—might not have been the best call on our part. But now we want to help reunite the kid with his extended family in Bahrain.”
“His parents really are dead?”
“Yes.”
“How’d they die?”
“Let’s just say it wasn’t from natural causes. And no, the Agency had nothing to do with it.”
“Huh.”
“This is what you wanted, right? To know you were doing the right thing for the boy? Well, here’s your opportunity. You get to reunite the kid with his family. So pat yourself on the back, Sava. I’ve arranged—”
“Back up a bit—kidnapped for political reasons?”
“The specifics involve issues you don’t need—and probably don’t want—to know about.”
“How and when was he kidnapped?”
“I’m going to try to arrange for you to meet with someone who was taking care of Muhammad before the Shias kidnapped him. He should be able to provide whatever proof you need to convince you that the child really belongs with him.” Rosten paused, as if expecting Mark to weigh in. When Mark didn’t, he added, “The only thing I require in return is that you not mention the CIA’s role in this other than to confirm that, once we learned you had the child, we immediately worked to facilitate the process of getting Muhammad back to his family.”
“You’ve done nothing of the sort. You were complicit in kidnapping the boy and trying to shuffle him off to an orphanage over a thousand miles away from his homeland.”
“It’s a complicated situation, Sava.”
“I’m sure it is.”
“In a complicated part of the world. Bahrain is a tinderbox. We’re doing our best.”
“I’m sure you are.”
Mark wasn’t being sarcastic.
He knew that the CIA was capable of doing some pretty awful things—but never just for the hell of it. If they’d helped the Shias in Bahrain steal Muhammad, it was almost certainly because someone at Langley had thought—wrongly or rightly—that a greater good was being served by doing so.
Rosten said, “Listen, I can’t go into specifics, but I can say this—we’ve backed the royal family in Bahrain for years. They’ve been good to us, and we’ve been good to them. But the Shias outnumber the Sunnis on this island two-to-one and have shit for power. That can’t last forever. They’re going to fight it out at some point.”
Rosten was probably right about that
, Mark thought. The Sunni-Shia split, akin to Christianity’s Catholic-Protestant division, was at the heart of why Iraq, and then Syria, had devolved into civil war. Why not Bahrain?
The thing that got Mark was that the original cause of the schism—a disagreement over who would succeed the prophet Muhammad—was a dead issue. Dead, in the sense that everyone involved—all the Sunni caliphs and Shia Imams who claimed they had a right to rule—had died long ago. Granted, the Shias didn’t see it that way, but no one had seen their last claimant for over a thousand years, so Mark was counting him as dead.
Now the two groups were mainly just fighting for power in the region.
“Listen,” said Rosten. “This is the story I need you to sell: The Shias kidnapped Muhammad. We found out about it and were going to retrieve him ourselves, but then the Saudis beat us to it. At which point you interfered, not knowing that the Saudis were trying to help the kid.”
“Were they?”
Ignoring the question, Rosten said, “You’re working for us now, just trying to reunite Muhammad with his family.”
“I assume, given that the Shias thought it worth their time to kidnap him, that Muhammad is one of the royals?”
“Well, aren’t you clever.”
“So you and I form an alliance, Muhammad gets to go back to his family, the Bahraini royals are happy, the Saudis are happy. But the Bahraini Shias—and probably the Iranians—are pissed because the plug gets pulled on whatever damn cockeyed deal you tried to cut with them.”
Mark knew that any dispute between Sunnis and Shias was never just a local issue. It was inevitable that Iran, a Shia country, would be backing the local Shias, and that Saudi Arabia, a Sunni one, would stand behind the local Sunnis.
“Close enough. Minus the part about anyone being happy. We’re all just reacting to a bad situation.”
“Must be a really bad situation.”
“The Shias are going to rule this island eventually, Sava. The Saudis will try to stop it, they’ll send troops, but they’ll be fighting a rearguard action. We were just trying to manage a crisis and stay ahead of the curve. Support the local Shias, but fend off Iran—just like we’re doing in Iraq. I would think that would make a lot of sense to a guy who’s been in the business as long as you have.”
