The Big Book of Espionage

by The Big Book of Espionage (retail) (epub)

  It took them a while to reach the Imam’s study. A body search would be de rigueur, as would an electronics sweep. In the far window, a light came on. A young man in a white skullcap pulled the thin curtains shut. Sam held one side of the headphones to his free ear, checked the levels against some language, perhaps Kurdish, being spoken in the room, and began to record.

  A total of seventeen minutes passed before their arrival in the Imam’s chamber. During that time Sam talked briefly with Natalia and listened to Paul mouthing the late-afternoon Asr prayer with the congregation. Then a door opened in the room, and the Imam greeted Saïd and Lorenzo in Arabic. For the benefit of Lorenzo, they switched to Italian. The proposal was on.

  In his other ear, Paul whispered, “There’s some activity.”

  “Problem?”

  “Three guys breaking off prayer. Talking.”

  “It’s nothing.”

  “They’re going to the stairs.”

  “How do they look?”

  “Not happy.”

  Sam felt the old tension rising in his chest. The conversation with the Imam was going well. They had moved on to the makes of the weapons.

  Paul said, “They’re gone.”

  “Stay there,” Sam ordered.

  “Shit.”

  “What?”

  “Another one. He’s looking at me.”

  “Because you’re not praying. Now pray.”

  “That’s not it.”

  “Ignore him and pray.”

  Silence, just the throb of voices speaking to their god.

  “Natalia?”

  “All clear.”

  In his right ear, the Imam mentioned a price. As planned, Lorenzo was trying to raise it. A knock on the Imam’s door stopped him. Someone came in. Arabic was spoken. Sam’s grasp of the language was sketchy, but he knew enough to understand that they were discussing a suspicious worshipper in the prayer hall. According to the visitor, it was clear from the bulge in his pocket that he was carrying a pistol.

  “You fucker,” Sam said. “You brought your gun.”

  No reply.

  “Stand up and walk out of there before you get them killed.”

  No reply.

  “You better be walking.”

  No reply, just the sound of movement, a grunt, and then a single gunshot that thumped into Sam’s eardrum. A pause, then Paul’s wavering voice through the whine of his damaged left ear: “Shit.” On the right, the Imam’s room had gone silent. Lorenzo said, “What was that?” Movement.

  Saïd: “What’re you doing?”

  The Imam, in Arabic: “Get them out.”

  More movement. Struggling.

  Natalia: “Paul’s out. He’s running. Should I chase?”

  A door in the Imam’s quarters slammed shut.

  “Sam? What do I do?”

  * * *

  —

  It wasn’t until Thursday afternoon, two days later and a couple hours after he’d gotten the news, that he tracked Paul Fisher to a bar near the Colosseum, hunched in the back with a nearly empty bottle of red wine. Sam waited near the front, observing the shivering wreck of a man who was too drunk to see him. Behind Sam, two Italian men slapped on a poker machine, shouting at it, and he reconsidered the one thing he’d felt sure he would do once he found Paul Fisher.

  Though both had made a game of hiding their true feelings, he and Saïd had known from the start, when they were going about their various embassy duties in Nairobi, that they had found something unprecedented. Both had a broad enough sexual history—Sam in the Bay Area meat markets, where you could be as open as you were moved to be, Saïd in the underground discos of Casablanca—but from their second night together they’d opened up more than they had with anyone else before. Perhaps, Saïd had suggested, they were like this because they knew that Sam was leaving for Rome in a month. Perhaps. But six months later, in Rome, Sam’s phone rang. Saïd had wrangled a transfer and convinced his superiors that he should offer help to the Americans.

  “This is a bed of liars,” Saïd liked to say during their secret liaisons in what they started to call their Roman summer. But then he used that fantastical word, future, and Sam pounced on him with joyous descriptions of the Castro. Saïd was entranced, though he offered a countersuggestion: Rio de Janeiro.

  “Too hot,” Sam told him.

  “Northern California is too cold.”

  Now, listening to the angry Italians and blip-bleep of the poker machine, Sam wondered what would have happened. Might they have bought a place in some high-rise along the Rio beaches? Or had their optimism been a symptom of the Roman summer, and in the end things would have gone the way of all his previous relationships—nowhere? There was no way to know. Not anymore.

  Because of this drunk man in the corner.

  Kill Paul Fisher? Sam wasn’t that kind of agent—he’d never actually committed murder, and until now he’d never wanted to. Yet as he approached the table he thought how easy it would be, how satisfying. Revenge, sure, but he began to think that Paul Fisher’s death would be something good for the environment, the subtraction of an unwholesome element from the surface of the planet.

  Terrified—that was how Paul looked when he finally recognized him. Drunk and terrified. Sam sat down and said, “We heard from the carabinieri. Two bodies, minus their heads, were found in the Malagrotta landfill.”

  Paul’s wet mouth worked the air for nearly half a minute. “Do they know?”

  “Yes, it’s them. They’ll turn up the heads eventually.”

  “Jesus.” His forehead sank to the dirty table, and he muttered something indecipherable into his lap.

  “Tell me what happened,” said Sam.

  Paul raised his head, confused, as if the answer were obvious. “I panicked.”

  “Where’d you get the gun?”

  “I always have a spare.”

  “This one?” Sam said as he reached into his jacket and took out the Beretta Natalia had given him. He placed it on the table in front of himself so that no one behind them could see it.

  “Jesus,” Paul repeated. “Are you going to use that?”

  “You dropped it when you ran off. Natalia found it.”

  “Right…”

  “Take it back and get rid of it.”

  Paul hesitated, then reached out, knocking the wine bottle into a totter. He yanked the pistol into his stomach and held it under the table.

  “I unloaded it,” Sam told him, “so don’t bother trying to shoot yourself.”

  The sweat on Paul’s forehead collected and drained down his temple. “What’s going to happen?”

  “To you?”

  “Sure. But all of it. The operation.”

  “The operation’s dead, Paul. I haven’t decided about you yet.”

  “I should get back to Geneva.”

  “Yeah. You should probably do that,” Sam said, and stood. No, he wasn’t going to kill Paul Fisher. At least not here, not now.

  He left the bar and took a taxi to the Porta Pinciana and walked down narrow Via Sardegna past storefronts and cafés to the embassy. As he unloaded his change and keys and phone for the doormen, Randall Kirscher came marching up the corridor. “Where the hell have you been, Sam?” Though there was panic in his case officer’s voice, nothing was explained as they took the stairs up to his third-floor office. Inside, two unknown men, one wearing rubber gloves, stood around a cardboard box lined with plastic that folded out of the top. Though he knew better, Sam stepped forward and looked inside.

  “Sent with a fucking courier service,” muttered Randall.

  Sam’s feet, his stomach, and then his eyes grew warm and bloated. Though the men in the room continued talking, all he could hear was the hum in his left
ear, the residue of complete failure.

  * * *

  —

  No one saw him for three days. Randall Kirscher was inundated by calls demanding Sam’s whereabouts—in particular from the Italians, who wanted an explanation for shots fired in a mosque. But he knew nothing. All he knew was that, after seeing Saïd’s severed head on Thursday, Sam had walked out of the embassy, leaving even his keys and cell phone with the embassy guards.

  The next day the video appeared on the Internet, routed through various servers around the globe. Lorenzo and Saïd on their knees. Behind them hung a black sheet with a bit of white Arabic, and then a hooded man with a ceremonial sword. And so on. Kirscher didn’t bother watching the entire thing, only asked Langley to please have their analysts do their magic on it. In reply, they asked for the report Sam hadn’t filed. He told them it was on its way.

  On Saturday, two days after his disappearance, Kirscher sent two men over to Sant’Onofrio, where Sam’s debit card had been used on two cash machines to take out about a thousand dollars’ worth of euros. They, however, found no sign of him.

  Then on Monday morning, as if the entire embassy hadn’t been on alert to find him, he appeared at the gate a little after eight-thirty, dressed in an immaculate suit, and politely asked the guards if they still had the cell phone and keys he’d forgotten last week. Randall called him up to his office and waited for an explanation. All Sam gave him at first were oblique references to “groundwork” he’d been doing on a deal to provide inside intelligence on Somali pirates.

  “What?” Randall demanded, hardly believing this.

  “I got in touch with one of my Ansar sources. A member of Aslim Taslam was in town, and I approached him about selling us intel. I wasn’t about to blow my cover by contacting the embassy before we’d met.”

  “What was your cover?”

  “Representing some businesses.”

  “Sounds like the Company to me.”

  Sam didn’t seem to get the joke. “I talked with him yesterday. He’s loaded with information.”

  “How’d you verify this?”

  Sam blinked in reply.

  “And how much did you offer him?”

  “A half mil. Euros.”

  Randall began to laugh. He wasn’t being cruel; he just couldn’t control himself. “Five hundred grand for a storyteller?”

  Sam finally settled into a chair and wiped at his nose. What followed was so quiet that Randall had to lean close to hear: “He’s the one who cut their heads off.”

  The clouds parted, and Randall could see it all now. “Absolutely not, Sam. You’re taking a vacation.”

  “His name is Nabil Abdullah Bahdoon. Somali. Not a foot soldier, but one of the heads of Aslim Taslam. They’re desperate for cash, and we can use it against him.”

  “Against them.”

  Sam frowned.

  “Them, not him. We’re not into vengeance here. We’re not Mossad.”

  “Then think of it this way,” said Sam. “We have a chance to decapitate the group before it gains momentum.”

  “Decapitate?”

  Sam shrugged.

  Randall stifled a sigh. “Step back. Once again from the top.”

  “A bomb,” Sam said without hesitation. “In the bank computer. Nabil will want to be on hand to witness the transfer.”

  “Here in Rome?”

  Sam hesitated. “Not settled. Probably not here.”

  “Somalia?”

  “Maybe.”

  “You’re going to take a bomb through customs?”

  “I can have it made locally. I have the contacts.”

  Randall considered the loose outline, flicking over details one after the other. Then he ran into a wall. “Wait a minute. How does this bomb go off?”

  “With the transfer code.”

  “So who’s going to perform the transfer?”

  Sam coughed into his hand. “Me.”

  “Again?”

  “I’ll type in the code.”

  “You’re going to commit suicide.”

  Sam didn’t answer.

  “May I ask why?”

  “It’s personal.”

  “Personal?” Randall said, shouting despite himself. “I really should advise you to see the counselor.”

  “You probably should.”

  Silence followed, and Randall found a pen on his desk to twirl. “It’s ridiculous, Sam, and you know it. I know you’re upset about what happened to Lorenzo and Saïd, but it wasn’t your fault. Hell, it probably wasn’t even that idiot Paul Fisher’s fault. It just happened, and I’m not going to lose one of our best agents over this. You can see that, can’t you?”

  Sam’s face gave no sign either way.

  “Post-traumatic stress disorder. That’s what’s going on here, you know. It’s a sickness.”

  Sam blinked slowly at him.

  “I won’t insist on the therapist—not yet—but I am insisting on the vacation. Aren’t you supposed to go car racing next week?”

  “Cross-country rally.”

  “Good. Write up a report on the fiasco and then take three weeks.”

  Sam was already on his feet, nodding.

  “Keep safe,” Randall told him, “and do consider the therapist. Voluntarily. I’ll not lose you.”

  But Sam was already out the door.

  * * *

  —

  There had been an unexpected storm along the south side of snowcapped Mount Kenya that morning, and so by noon he was soaked with mud, and by late afternoon it had dried to a crust, turning his clothes into a lizard skin of hard scales. But he went on. His empty passenger seat set him apart from most of the Europeans and Americans taking part in the rally, and when asked, he told them his partner had dropped out because of business obligations, an excuse they all understood.

  At the end of each day, they drank together in tents set up by their Kenyan hosts. The Italians were loud, the French condescending, the Brits sneering, the Americans annoyingly boisterous. A hive of multinational caricatures bound together by speed and beer, business and tall tales about women they’d had. These things were, he reflected, the lifeblood of Western masculinity.

  It was Friday, two days before the end of the race, when through his exhausted eyes and muddy goggles he saw Benjamin Muoki standing among the T-shirted organizers wearing a suit, one hand on his hip, and no expression on his face. In his other hand was a bottle of Tusker lager. Sam pulled up amid the other drivers’ shouts and hoots, flipped up his goggles, and nodded at Benjamin, who took the cue and wandered away from the camp. Sam checked his time, rinsed off, and changed into shorts, a blue cotton button-up, and leather sandals from his waterproof bag. By then, Benjamin was a silhouette against a backdrop of fading mountains. Sam had to run to catch up with him.

  “Here,” Benjamin said, holding out his beer. “You need it more than I do.”

  They shared the bottle in silence, walking slowly, until Benjamin remembered and said, “You’re nearly the last one in.”

  “The rain does it to me.”

  “I’ll pray for clear skies.”

  “The sun is even worse.”

  Having known each other for three years, the men used the exchange of pass phrases not to recognize each other, but to signal if one or the other was compromised. “But really,” said Benjamin, “are you driving well?”

  “I’m surviving.”

  “It’s a difficult course.”

  They paused and looked back at the bustling activity of the camp. Lights flickered on to hold back the encroaching dark. A dusty wind came at them, raising little tornadoes, then died down. “Did you receive the instructions?” Sam asked.

  “I’m here, aren’t I?”

&n
bsp; “I mean the rest of it.”

  “Yes.”

  “And?”

  “What would you like me to say? That I think it’s dangerous? I’ve said that about too many of your plans to keep on with it.”

  “But do you see any obvious flaws?”

  “Just that you’ll end up dead.”

  Sam didn’t answer; he was too tired to lie convincingly.

  Benjamin looked into his face. “A life for a life? It’s a lot to pay.”

  “More than one life, we hope.”

  “We,” Benjamin said quietly. “I had a talk with your fat attaché. I don’t think he knows the first thing about this.”

  Sam felt his expression betraying too much. “You told him?”

  “No, Sam. I felt around some. I’m good at that.”

  “Good.”

  “It’s not on the books, is it?”

  “It’s above his clearance,” Sam lied, but it was an easy lie. “The computer finished?”

  “By Monday.”

  “I’ll be back next Wednesday.”

  “So I’ll give it to you then.”

  “Not me. You’ll give it to someone else.”

  A light seemed to go on in Benjamin’s always-astute eyes. “Someone even more foolish than you?”

  “I’ll let you know. You’ll give it to him, but you won’t say a thing about it. You’re a good enough liar for that, aren’t you?”

  Benjamin’s expression faltered. “This is a very stupid man?”

  “A nervous man. Just give him the case. He knows what to do with it.”

  “He knows he’ll die?”

  “You’re full of questions, Benjamin. We’re paying you well enough, aren’t we?”

  “You have always paid well, Sam.”

  * * *

  —

  On Monday, as he sat across from Paul Fisher in the Aéroport International de Genève, he wondered why he was pushing it so far. Was he pushing it too far? He hadn’t seen Paul since that bar in Rome, and now that they were face-to-face again the prospect of killing him here, now, seemed much more inviting. Easier. More wholesome.

  But he’d begun to fall in love with the balance of his plan. One bomb would take out not only the man indirectly responsible for Saïd’s gruesome murder, but also the man who had worked the blade through the muscles and bone. Now it was just a matter of persuasion. So after the invention of the technology that would wash bank accounts clean, he assured Paul that he wouldn’t be alone—Sam would be there, right by his side, to authorize the transfer with his index finger. That seemed to calm him. Then he told Paul what they both knew, that he wasn’t cut out for this kind of work and never had been. “Consider this a chance to redeem yourself,” Sam said, and it felt as if, through lies, he had cut to a deeper truth than he ever could have come upon honestly.