by Gary Haynes
That done, he was told he’d have to wait for the deputy chief of mission and took a bench seat in the lobby. A tall, gangly guy with a sensible haircut and black eyeglasses arrived a few minutes later. He was wearing a white short-sleeved shirt and a pencil tie, and Tom thought the guy looked like a Mormon preacher. He stood up and introduced himself. The deputy chief just nodded.
“We have enough heat here as it is,” he said, with a mid-west accent. “We don’t need your kind of heat. What are you doing here anyway?”
Tom clenched his jaw. “I thought you’d already made up your mind on that, sir.”
“Listen, Agent. I speak, you obey, got it? Now what the hell is going on?”
“I think you’d better ask Deputy Director Crane of the CIA.”
“I’m reporting this to the ambassador,” he said.
Tom normally had a lot of respect for deputy chiefs and ambassadors, and he’d been barked out by more than one of them during his time overseas guarding embassies and their staff. But in the circumstances the guy’s threat sounded ineffectual. The female Turkish administrator at the front desk raised an eyebrow behind the deputy’s back as Tom stayed emotionless.
“Get in there and wait,” the deputy said, pointing to a door to the left.
The room was used to interview US citizens who’d had their passports stolen or were under the misapprehension that they’d obtain sanctuary from the Turkish authorities for some offence or other. Tom just walked over and opened the door, almost bored now with the deputy chief’s lack of manners.
He sat on a plastic chair at a metal table that was bolted to the floor. The harsh fluorescent tube lighting flickered now and then. Perched in a bracket opposite on the wall was a single CCTV camera. A pile of dog-eared magazines and ancient copies of Reader’s Digest were scattered on the bench along the wall. Apart from this, the square room had a payphone, a cylindrical water dispenser and a vending machine. The light blue walls were half covered with various laminated notices, highlighting important embassy protocol, which to Tom were second nature.
He noticed a sagging bonsai tree tucked away on a white plastic stool, like a pathetic afterthought. He guessed it had been brought in by one of the administrative staff in an attempt to cheer the place up. He got up and half-filled a plastic cup with water from the dispenser, walked over to the tree and gave it a hearty drink before fingering its crispy leaves. If he’d been back in the US he would have considered taking it home with him, as if it was a mangy stray dog.
He spent the next five minutes or so reading an article about the life cycle of the tree-hopping frog.
The door opened without a knock. In contrast to the deputy the man who entered was beefy, with sandy hair, ruddy cheeks and thick neck like a wrestler. He said his name was Jack Donaldson, the CIA guy that Crane had said would give Tom the package.
“The hell they gotcha waiting in here?” he asked.
Tom shrugged. Jack led him out of the room and across the tiles in the lobby to what he said was his own office, with a view of the pristine lawn to the side.
“Take a seat, Tom,” he said.
The room was on the small side but neat. They sat at a blow-moulded plastic desk. Tom thought the room smelled of scented polish, as if it had just been cleaned. He noticed a photograph of Jack and his family outside a large frame house, with gables and a porch, perched on the right-hand side of the desk. It reminded him of his own home near Arlington County.
“Nice family,” Tom said.
“Yep. Lucky man, I guess.”
Jack rubbed his forefinger across his thigh, as if he was removing some dirt, or had a slight cramp. The sleeves of his white shirt were rolled up, revealing heavily muscled forearms, his tie pulled loose from his thick neck. He dipped down, slid open a drawer and took out a large package wrapped in manila paper.
After unwrapping it, he placed the items on the tabletop. A SIG handgun, some spare clips, a secure cellphone, a miniature listening device and recording device, a secure satphone and a set of keys. Last, he unfolded a piece of paper and used his thick forefinger to pass it over the table to Tom.
“The top one is the address of a safe house and those are the keys. Only use it if you get in deep shit and need to lay low. Stay there until I come for you. Understood?”
Tom nodded. Peering down he saw there were two addresses. “And the other?”
“The address of a brothel. Mr Crane asked if there was any fresh intel on Ibrahim here. There ain’t. But that’s all I need to know, at least for now.”
Tom knew that it was run by the baba called Maroof, who was suspected of links with jihadists and, more particularly, Ibrahim. He guessed Jack was an analyst rather than an operative, he sure as hell wasn’t a paramilitary, but he looked as if he would stand back-to-back in a fight.
“Mr Crane has set up a secure video link, too,” Jack said. “I’ll show you.”
“Appreciate it,” Tom said, putting the items back in the package. “You got a light?”
“You can’t smoke in here. That would really piss off the deputy chief.”
Tom had memorized the addresses and simply wanted to burn the paper. He pushed it over to Jack. “Burn it for me would ya.”
Chapter 34
In the three-storey house in the old city, Ibrahim walked down a flight of wooden steps to the basement, still carrying the sword. The only light emanated from a portable gas lamp, the type used on camping trips, which was hanging from a piece of rope affixed to a low beam.
There were four fellow jihadists in the basement, all of whom wore face masks down to their necks and Hamas headbands, together with black uniforms and heavy infantry boots, several of which were blood splattered. The room was empty save for a video camera on a tripod in one corner and a rust-flecked bucket of water in the other.
The “present” was a Mossad operative. It was obvious that he’d been worked over badly. His eyes were swollen, his face and limbs streaked with blood. Moaning softly, his head lolled to one side. Thick masking tape had been used to secure his hands and feet. He was naked and lying on plastic sheets on the otherwise bare concrete floor. The sheets would be removed and burned later, the bucket of water used to wash down the floor to eradicate any remnants of body fluids or blood that had escaped the sheets.
Ibrahim guessed the Jew didn’t know if it was day or night. He was shivering, partly with cold, partly with fear, he imagined. The man’s nakedness would increase his sense of vulnerability, Ibrahim knew, and was an old psychological technique used extensively by the Gestapo. The Saudi who’d handed him his sword had said that the Jew had been here for three hours. Before they’d found out his true identity, he’d been treated as a brother jihadist, albeit he’d been on the fringes of their organization.
He’d been asking to get closer to the hub though, saying he was prepared to go on a suicide mission. It was then that he’d been put under surveillance, just to be sure. He’d been picked up in a white Mazda in a crater-ridden parking lot, with an Israeli satphone in the glove box. He’d been bundled into the back of a black SUV, his watch, wallet and shoes removed. They’d been picked over and analysed by a Qatari intelligence woman who was living in Gaza and aiding the cause. They were clean.
“He’s tough, but he broke, brother,” a fellow jihadist said. “He doesn’t know anything of importance. He has a wife and two daughters.”
That may or may not be true, Ibrahim thought. But he had to be sure. The man could easily have been making an encrypted transmission just a few minutes before he’d been caught. The satphone was secure and as yet no one had cracked the encryption code. He could have been making transmissions for weeks. But the house was a safe house, unknown to him, until he’d been dumped in the basement. No one would find him here.
Ibrahim addressed the Hamas fighter who had just spoken. “How is your father?” he said, knowing the old man lived in the West Bank.
“The Zionist settlers cut down his olive trees and burnt them. The tr
ees were eighty years old and he cared for them like a good father cares for his children.”
“Did the villagers not fight them?” Ibrahim said.
“The settlers were protected by Israeli soldiers.”
Nothing changes, Ibrahim thought. Even the walls of the houses, the tarmac on the streets, the earth itself were witness to the suffering of the Palestinian people and spoke of it, quietly, and were pulsating with rage because of it. The desire for violence came from despair, he knew, a deep and decades-old despair.
Ibrahim nodded to the Hamas fighter nearest to the Israeli. He knew him to be both fearless and ruthless. He was holding a switchblade, with the blade retracted. The man walked forwards and knelt down beside the Israeli’s head. The blade snapped out and the man waved it before the Mossad operative’s eyes. Ibrahim noticed that their victim began trembling all the way from his chin to his fingertips.
“You will only speak when I tell you to and you will only say what I ask you to say,” Ibrahim said, still inside the man’s field of vision. “You will not say a syllable more than I ask you to say. No pleading. No excuses. No lies. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” he replied, panting slowly like a dog.
Nothing was said for about ten seconds or so.
“Have you ever been to America?”
“Yes.”
“Who is the Amir?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’m a fair man,” Ibrahim said, “so I won’t lie to you. Things have changed. We don’t keep Israeli prisoners to exchange for hundreds of Palestinians that you cage simply for being Palestinians. You won’t survive this. But you have a choice. The choice is a clean beheading, or this.”
Ibrahim nodded and the Hamas man took out a cellphone from his cargo pocket. The video he’d show the Israeli, Ibrahim knew, had been taken in Syria at the Christian town where he’d let the last defender go free.
“Our brothers tortured Christians in Syria, Jew,” the Hamas man said. “We don’t like Christians. But we hate Jews. Think about that when you watch this,” he went on, retracting the blade on the switchblade and putting the cell about a foot from the Israeli’s face. “Focus now.”
Ibrahim knew that the video showed the torture and killing of the male members of the town, including the injured, and was graphic. The sound of screaming and begging filled the basement and Ibrahim saw tears forming in the Israeli’s eyes, and imagined a terrible fear rising in the other’s being.
When the five-minute video had finished, the Israeli was sobbing. The questions came in rapid fire, but the Mossad operative was indeed tough. He didn’t speak further.
For a second or two, Ibrahim was impressed by the man’s fortitude, but then it began to irritate him. “Begin,” he said to the others.
Chapter 35
Jack Donaldson had shown Tom to the COMMS room, a whitewashed box, with yards of cables, to speak with Crane on a secure video link. Crane, whose big head seemed to fill the screen now, told him about the wider implications – the fact that the Israelis had uncovered a plot which was going to cause mayhem among the military in the US, although they don’t know what means of attack the jihadists intended to utilize. But Ibrahim was at the centre of it, that much seemed assured.
“The US intelligence community is throwing everything at this now, Tom. I’ve been authorized to put a special team together, over and above what the different departments are doing officially. This is a black ops super team, if you will. The codename is Department B. Some are existing CIA paramilitaries and some are PMCs,’ Crane said matter-of-factly, referring to private military contractors. ‘The threat is so great that you’ve got just about a free reign. But you’ll all work alone, covering every angle, every possibility. Everyone answers to me.”
Sitting on a chrome swivel stool, Tom thought about it. He’d already agreed to do his part and he had no desire to mannyguard the youngest son of the Chinese premier for a month. Besides, his father was still in danger, let alone hundreds of thousands of servicemen and women. It isn’t hard to be a part of it, he thought.
“You got the address of that brothel?” Crane asked.
“Yeah, and I want a buddy on board.”
“You trust him with your life? Cuz that’s what we’re talkin’ here,’ Crane said.
With my life, Tom said, adding that it was Lester Wilson, the ex-Marine who’d helped save the secretary, and that he was a PMC, apart from his other talents.
“Good choice,” Crane said. “He took a bullet for her, didn’t he?
“He did.”
“But don’t tell him what this is about – just keep it at the level of your father.”
Tom nodded at the pixel image of Crane on screen. “The deputy chief thinks I’m trouble. He’s reported my presence to the ambassador. That gonna be a problem?”
“You see any bugs in the room?” Crane asked, scratching at the loose skin around his neck.
“Bugs? Tom said. “The CIA bugs US embassies?”
“Yeah, and?” Crane said incredulously. “We’d bug the Oval Office, we thought we’d get away with it. But not that kind of bug.”
“What kind of bug?”
“Ants or whatever.”
“Maybe,” Tom said, raising his hands, wondering what Crane was getting at.
“The hell you mean, maybe? Either ya do or ya don’t. It ain’t freakin’ quantum physics.”
Tom sighed. “Okay,” he said, seeing an earwig in the corner.
“Okay yeah or okay nah?” Crane said.
“Okay yeah. Jesus, Crane.”
“Well, that bug has the same clout as the ambassador does on this one, which means didley squat. Now quit worrying and start goddamned acting.”
Chapter 36
An hour later, the Israeli lay in a pool of his own half-congealed blood. It was sticky and turning brown. He was barely conscious. The pain, Ibrahim knew, would be pulsating through his body, rising in ever-increasing spasms from his head to his toes. It would be so intense that if the torture continued he’d pray to die.
He’d been tortured in an obscene manner with a lump hammer, a battery-operated drill, and a scalpel. He had holes in his hands and feet, and several bones were shattered; others merely broken. He’d blurted out something that Ibrahim had known to be a crazy made-up story. He was beginning to believe that the Jew really didn’t know anything of substance, and what he did know he’d said over and over again, mechanically.
A name, a Jewish name, and the false Arabic name, and that the operative had infiltrated Hamas. He’d said he didn’t know where the operative lived in Gaza. Ibrahim knew enough about how the Mossad worked to know that that kind of information wasn’t shared among deep-cover operatives for the simple reason that one could easily give the other’s location up, just as the Israeli would have done if he’d known.
He bent down low to the victim, sensing that he was on the verge of unconsciousness. “Your whole family,” Ibrahim said, “all of them, whoever they are and wherever they are, will die by my sword. Your wife and daughters first. It will be slow. So, tell me and I give you my word on the Holy Qur’an that they will not be harmed.”
The Mossad operative whispered then. He had told the Israelis matters of significance. That there was a plot to cause multiple deaths of the West’s military, but he didn’t know how. He’d told the Mossad about a jihadist leader called Ibrahim, too, but the name was all he knew, and apart from the operative he’d spoken about he didn’t know of any other Mossad operatives in Palestine.
“And the Amir? Did you tell them about the Amir?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know who I am?”
“No.”
The Israeli convulsed, as if what was left of his rational mind had given up, as if his body was trying to save him from further torment and had decided to shut down of its own volition. But Ibrahim had to be sure.
“Get the doctor,” he said.
The doctor would check him out and ascertain
if he was fit to go on, or had to rest for a day or two. He could pep the Israeli up with amphetamines and a drip feed of essential minerals and vitamins. He’d seen it done a couple of times before, and then they would start on him again.
He handed the Saudi the sword, who took it reverently.
The Amir had asked for him and he would see him before hearing what the doctor had to say.
Chapter 37
The Amir was a radical cleric, an extremist even among jihadist fighters. He had a boil-like mark on his forehead, the zebiba, or raisin, the result of many decades of praying by touching his head to the floor. He’d lost an eye fighting the Russians in Afghanistan and an arm fighting the Americans there back in 2001. Those who underestimated him called him a Zawahiri, shorthand for an inadequate and humourless religious fanatic.
No one knew his name, not even Ibrahim, who had entered the now empty room where the Amir had been holding a form of court a few minutes earlier. The Amir was said to guard his anonymity both jealously and pragmatically. Ibrahim knew that many jihadist leaders had been targeted by the Americans in drone strikes in the Middles East, and that the pull of a notorious form of fame was just too strong for them. The Amir was evidently not concerned with earthly matters.
He had in fact been a devoted family man, a man who’d put the happiness of his children and the contentment of his wife above all things. That had been before they’d all been murdered by a Russian gunship on the Af-Pak border. They’d been literally cut to pieces thirty years ago by twin Gatling guns fixed to the underside of the helicopter’s stub wings. There had been so many pieces of flesh and bone scattered over the valley in the foothills of the Hindu Kush that it had taken him a day to collect them before they could be buried. That was something that stayed with a man, fuelling hatred in a few to a form of insanity. And yet when it was so long ago, the days before such a tragedy happened sometimes morphed into an idealized world, such as are imagined in a perfect dream.
