Body of Lies (21 page)

"You liar. You are so weak and pathetic. How could you fuck me like that the other night, if you don't love me? Nobody made you do that. Nobody made you fuck me. What do you think a judge will say about that?"

"What does a judge have to do with it? You can't make someone stay married. The law doesn't work that way. Even I know that. Divorce isn't a mutual decision. It's the end of mutual decisions."

"You came inside me. Three times."

"Look, Gretchen, I am sorry that I succumbed the other night. You are very sexy. You always have been. If good sex were enough for a good marriage, we'd be fine. But it's not."

"You treat me like a whore. You think you can fuck me and then walk away from me, but you're wrong. If you go ahead with this, you will regret it. I am telling you. I will make it very hard for you."

"Don't threaten me, Gretchen. I have to deal with people every day who are much scarier than you. Believe me."

"Don't be so sure, Roger. You've never made me angry before. When I'm fighting on principle, I do not compromise. I do whatever is necessary. You will regret this, I promise you."

Ferris was going to try to calm her down, suggest that they talk to a counselor before he left. But she had cut the connection.

17

ROME / GENEVA

F
ERRIS CHECKED INTO A SMALL
hotel near the Piazza Cavour in Rome, in the gray district framed by Vatican City and the Tiber. The hotel itself was threadbare and anonymous, not fancy enough for Americans or charming enough for Europeans. The arrangements had been made by the kids on Azhar's staff, who must have thought it would be a good place to hide. Ferris was to contact the ninjas by calling a cell-phone number when he arrived and wait for a callback from "Tony," the chief of the little Special Forces cell. He made his call the afternoon he checked in, but there was no response that day or the next.

That first night, he called Alice from a pay phone. He wished they could meet in Rome, take long walks in the Centro, live on love and the occasional cappuccino, but as it was, he couldn't even tell her he was there. It turned out she had been away from Amman on a trip, to refugee camps up near the Syrian border, she said. Ferris scolded her for taking risks, but she cut him off. "They need me!" she insisted. She was all cranked up about the latest news; more dead in Lebanon, more dead in Iraq. What was the world coming to? Ferris had no answer for that.

"I love you," he said. He had never used those words with her before.

There was a long pause, and then Alice said, "Oh my."

"I told Gretchen I want a divorce."

"Good," she responded. "I mean, good that you told her, not good that your marriage is breaking up. If you hadn't told her, I would have worried that you were one of those people who don't know how to be happy. Or that you were a chicken."

Ferris laughed and then repeated, "I love you."

"Come home, so I can love you, too."

Ferris promised he would be back soon, but it might be another week or two. He felt something like physical pain when he ended the conversation.

Ferris waited two days for "Tony," walking the cobbled Roman streets to wear down his nervous energy. He tried to imagine his Special Forces colleagues among the crowds of Americans at the Piazza Navona or the Fontana di Trevi. Muscular men, shirts not quite big enough for their chests, necks the size of pine trees; not talking, scanning the pavement through wraparound sunglasses. Everyone in Rome looked slightly outlandish to him, even the bums down by the muddy embankment of the Tiber.

Each afternoon he would return to his hotel to find...nothing. And then, on the afternoon of the third day, there was a slip of paper in his message box and the name "Antony." Close enough. Ferris called the contact number from a pay phone across from the Palace of Justice.

"Sorry, things got fucked up," said the voice on the other end of the phone. "Security problem. We had to cool down."

"So, what's the temperature now?"

"Cooler. We'll be positively chilling by tomorrow morning."

"Where should I meet you?"

"Temple of Faustina. Villa Borghese," said the Special Forces officer. He had trouble in pronouncing "Borghese."

The next day Ferris took a cab to the Via Condotti, wandered in and out of the shops for a while to see if he could pick up any surveillance and then took another cab to the Villa Borghese across the river. He told the driver to deposit him near the Temple of Faustina, by a little lake that bordered the Zoological Garden. There, planted in the ground as if he were wearing concrete boots, stood a burly man who had to be "Tony." It turned out his real name was Jim, or at least that was what he said. He was dressed in jeans, a knit shirt and a V-neck sweater. He looked like a million other young men, except for the set of his eyes, which were continually scanning the middle distance.

Ferris shook his hand and studied his face when they were close up. "Do I know you?" he asked.

"Possibly, sir, but not likely."

"Balad," said Ferris. "Early this year. You were running ops with Task Force 145. I was operating over the wall. Until I got banged up."

"Well, far out, sir. I guess that makes us buddies."

They were instant friends now, having served in the shithole of Iraq. Normally military people didn't think much of their CIA counterparts, at least the ones who hadn't come out of the military themselves. But Ferris was an exception. He had been in Iraq, and he had nearly lost a leg because of it.

"So what's up?" said Ferris. "You said on the phone you had a security problem."

"These crazy Italians." Jim shook his head in embarrassment. "One of my guys got in a traffic accident. It wasn't his fault. The Italians don't drive the same way we do. Anyway, the local cops began asking questions about where he was living and what he was doing, and they sent some Carabinieri people to our safe house, which all of a sudden wasn't so safe. We were operating out of an apartment over by the university, a mile or so from here. Now we're in temporary lodgings."

"Where's the temporary base?"

"The Cavalieri Hilton, up on Monte Mario."

"Jesus! That place is five hundred bucks a day."

"Roger that, sir." A trace of a smile came over Jim's face. "It's good cover for Americans, with the swimming pool and the girls and all. We don't look out of place. And we shouldn't be fighting the global war on terror on the cheap, sir."

Ferris laughed out loud. "How long have you guys been here? And cut the 'sir,' crap, please."

"A month. We haven't done much other than set up cover and commo, which I guess we sort of screwed up. The colonel said you would tell us the real drill. He said what you're doing is super-black, and the general at MacDill had signed off on it, and we should just do what we're told. I'm not sure the colonel knows. He sounded sort of pissed off about that. The way he talked, he made it sound like somebody had sprinkled you guys with fairy dust. Sir."

"Let's take a stroll," said Ferris. He gave up the effort to dispense with "sir." As far as Jim's little team was concerned, Ferris was the rain god. They walked until they came to a bench that offered a clear view across the water and of the approaches to the lake from the zoo. Ferris motioned for Jim to sit down.

"So here's the deal. We are running a very sensitive operation against the folks who are setting off all these car bombs. The operation isn't CIA, exactly. It has its own compartment. My boss has cleared it with your boss, and that's all we need to know. Right?"

"Roger that. But what's going down?"

"I can't tell you that. But I want you to be ready to do two things. The first is to be ready to pounce if one of our high-value targets surfaces. How many people do you have in your team?"

"Four, sir, plus me."

"Okay. You need to be ready to move out anytime we register one of our bad guys. You should have kit, weapons, the whole thing ready, anytime. Have you done any of these takedowns before?"

The Special Forces officer nodded, the muscles in his neck rippling as he tilted his head forward. "Iraq. Indonesia."

"Good," said Ferris. "So you know the drill. Stealth. Nobody sees you coming. Nobody sees you leaving. It has to be invisible for forty-eight hours, so we can put the guy on a plane and mess with his network. And whoever we're targeting has to come out alive. I know that's hard, but it really matters on this one. We can't bust this network unless we get intel from the folks we capture. Are your men all good to go? I mean, have they done this stuff before?"

"Yes, sir. All except one, and he'll be cool. He's from Biloxi, like me."

"Well, be sure to remind him about pocket litter. The little stuff they've been squirreling away in their pockets because they're too paranoid to throw it away. Charge slips, phone numbers, cell-phone cards, receipts from money orders, thumb drives. You've got to make sure they don't destroy that stuff after you bust down the door. When you do your ops plan, think about multiple entry points, so you can stop them from destroying anything."

"Roger, sir." The Army officer was scanning the horizon as he listened, watching for any hint of surveillance.

"And you need to do a really good search when you grab them, even though you're in a hurry to get out of there. These guys carry everything on them--all their commo, all their files. They're paranoid, because they know we're coming after them. So they'll have their laptops with them, and their cell phones, and a couple of different SIM cards, and their address books. They have it all with them, twenty-four/seven. Which means if we can take them down and grab all the pocket litter and paraphernalia, we're in fat city."

"Heard, understood, acknowledged, sir. You said there was a second thing. What's that?"

Before answering, Ferris surveyed the area. He noticed a man walking toward them from a street that bounded the pond on the north side. He had a dog on a leash. "Who the hell is that?" said Ferris, rising from the bench.

They walked five minutes more, to another bench that commanded the view of a neatly terraced formal garden, before Ferris resumed his briefing.

"The second part is a little weird," he said.

"We can do weird."

"You're going to need some explosives. They have to be the same type that were used in the Frankfurt and Milan bombings. Same tags. My people will help you get them. And we're going to need detonators, the right kind. We'll give you those specs, too."

"Roger, sir, and what are we going to do with all this stuff?"

"You're going to make a car bomb."

Jim stared at Ferris. For once he didn't say "Roger that," he just nodded. "And what are we going to do with the car bomb, sir?"

"Well, basically, we're going to set it off."

"Holy shit. I guess this has all been approved. Right?"

"Yes," said Ferris. "More or less."

"You want to tell me any more, sir?"

"No. I've told you everything I'm authorized to say. The only thing to add is that if you knew everything I know, you would say, 'That's a pretty fucking cool operation.'"

F
ERRIS LEFT
Rome the next morning for Geneva, where he was to initiate contact with Omar Sadiki. Ferris's cover name was "Brad Scanlon," and he worked for a company called Unibank, as its site development manager for Europe and the Middle East. He had business cards, fax forms, an Internet address for e-mail. He reread the script he and Azhar had drafted. The bank was planning a new branch in Abu Dhabi...Islamic ambience...need to negotiate the contract quickly...schedule a time to meet at the site...need contact numbers...will send literature...must respond by week's end. It looked seamless, but then it always did, until the seams pulled apart.

F
ERRIS PLACED
the call to Omar Sadiki the next morning. When the architect came on the line, Ferris introduced himself as Brad Scanlon, and made a brief pitch about Unibank and its new branch. He asked if Al Fajr Architects would be interested in bidding on the project.

"I don't know," said a cautious voice on the other end of the phone. "Our clients are Arab companies."

"You have been highly recommended by our Arab friends." Ferris read off a short list of Arab companies that had retained Al Fajr, which Azhar had compiled when he first thought of using Sadiki many weeks ago. "If you're interested in bidding, we would want you to come look at the site in Abu Dhabi. Would that be possible?"

"Perhaps. If my manager agrees." He was cautious, but not unduly so. Business deals in the Middle East always began cagily. Ferris needed to make the link before he went any further.

"Who would represent Al Fajr, if you decide you are interested?" asked Ferris.

"That would be me, sir," answered Omar. "I do all the on-site evaluations for new projects."

Ferris didn't want to sound too eager. He expressed regret that the general manager himself would not be coming and then offered to send the details of the project immediately, by e-mail or fax. Omar requested fax, and was assured the documents would be on their way from Geneva by the close of business. Ferris said he would need an answer within five days, and a meeting at the site in Abu Dhabi soon after that, if they were interested.

"May I ask, please, what is the fee associated with this project?"

Ferris named a handsome figure--a bit more than what such a project might normally command, but not so wildly generous that it would raise suspicion. Omar promised that he would respond within the week.

When he hung up, Ferris smiled. It had gone more smoothly than he expected. That was the only thing that made him nervous.

Ferris contacted Hoffman, through a new communications link they had established that bypassed NE Division. Hoffman congratulated Ferris and asked him where he was staying. Ferris gave Hoffman the name of the hotel. "Check your e-mail," said Hoffman.

I
T DIDN'T TAKE
Sadiki long. Two days later, on a Wednesday, the architect called to say that Al Fajr wanted to bid on the Unibank project. There was a new tone in his voice, almost of enthusiasm. He wanted to arrange a date when they could meet in the Emirates. Ferris studied his imaginary calendar and then proposed they meet the following Thursday. Omar consulted his real calendar, proposed that they meet a day earlier or three days later. He wanted to be home for the Islamic weekend, evidently. Good boy. So the meeting was set for a week hence, in Abu Dhabi.