Body of Lies (33 page)

"Time to bait the hook. This was your idea, Roger. What do you want in his briefcase? What should Harry Meeker, CIA case officer extraordinaire, be carrying with him when he is shot trying to make contact with an access agent in Al Qaeda? Run me through the drill."

Ferris closed his eyes and tried to put himself into the fantasy world they had worked so hard to create.

"He's carrying a message for Suleiman," said Ferris. "That's the detonator. He has a message from the CIA to Suleiman. When other people see it, they will think Suleiman is working for us. You have that ready?"

Hoffman nodded. "A message for Suleiman, to be delivered via an access agent in Pakistan."

Ferris continued, "Harry will be asking Suleiman for help in dealing with a dangerous new threat. And that threat is Omar Sadiki, whose dossier Harry has been assembling."

"Precisely," said Hoffman. "Sadiki has crossed a line. Suleiman had just been killing Europeans, but the new man is killing Americans at the air base in Turkey. So Harry is contacting his super-secret source in Al Qaeda. He wants Suleiman to stop the new splinter group Sadiki is running, outside Suleiman's control."

Ferris shook his head in wonder. "I just hope they will believe we're this devious. And this smart."

"Of course they will. They think we're Superman. That's why they hate us so much."

"Do you have the paperwork ready?" asked Ferris.

"Yup, but I want you to look at it before we load the torpedo."

Ferris walked along the row of manila folders, looking at the contents, and then returned to one folder. He pulled a grainy photo that showed Sadiki meeting with Bulent Farhat in Ankara. "We use this one, for sure. This proves Sadiki was in contact with an Al Qaeda guy in Turkey just before Incirlik. If the agency was making a dossier against Sadiki, this would be Exhibit A."

"Into the briefcase," said Hoffman, placing the photo inside. "What else?"

Ferris took a second photo from one of the early folders. It showed Sadiki in Abu Dhabi, meeting with the lawyer who had once been part of Al Qaeda's money-transfer system. "We need this. This is Harry's proof that Sadiki moved the money for the Incirlik bombing."

"For sure. What else?"

Ferris pulled a document on FBI letterhead and date-stamped that day. It purported to be an analysis of the plastic explosive used at Incirlik, matching it with the explosive used at the HSBC and Israeli consulate bombings in Istanbul in 2003. "Harry Meeker would want this one. It nails the Al Qaeda connection."

Hoffman laughed as he took the document. "This will make Suleiman's people crazy. How could they not know about a guy who has the same stash of plastic explosive they used for earlier ops? How could they be in the dark? Unless...
unless
...Suleiman is jerking them around. Unless Suleiman is not what he appears. Unless a worm has been eating at their insides. They won't know what to think!"

Ferris studied a third photograph. A caption said it was the office used by the Brothers of Awareness in Amman. Ferris recognized the neighborhood. It was near Alice's office, in the old part of the city.

"What's that?" asked Hoffman.

Ferris was still looking at the picture, lost in thought. "You don't need this one," he said very quietly, his voice barely audible. He put the photo back in the folder.

"What's the problem? Photo not interesting enough?"

"No. Leave this one out. It doesn't do anything for us."

Ferris added a few more items. He found a surveillance record from the UAE intelligence service about Sadiki's movements in Abu Dhabi. Harry Meeker would have studied that. And he added the airplane receipts, to and from Ankara. Those would have been in the dossier. And he had the report from the Turkish immigration authorities, forwarded to the agency by Turkish liaison, about Sadiki's entry and departure on December 21. It made a neat kit--evidence that Sadiki was part of an important new breakaway cell of Al Qaeda, which the CIA urgently wanted to contain. He took the briefcase in his hands and held it, feeling its weight.

"I hate these bastards," said Hoffman. "That's why I love this play. Because it will make them destroy themselves. The stuff in that briefcase gets passed up the chain, and it makes
all
of them wonder if the CIA is running their main man. We introduce that seed of doubt in the organization, and then we just let it do its work. They begin to doubt everything. Their whole world gets turned upside down. This is the poison pill. If they swallow it, they are dead."

Ferris nodded. It was his idea. He wanted to believe it, but he worried that they had missed something.

"So I'm Harry," said Ferris, holding the briefcase. "I've been working the Incirlik case for the agency. I've got all the evidence I need to prove that Omar Sadiki did it. I want Suleiman's help. How do I get to Pakistan?"

"Here's the itinerary," said Hoffman. "First, Harry goes to London and Paris to brief the allies. We'll have someone in a Harry disguise brief midlevel people at SIS and the DGSE to backstop the legend. He'll be flying on the same Gulfstream that's carrying the corpse. We've got pocket litter for London and Paris. Restaurant receipts for dinners, taxi receipts, all that shit. Harry will go see
Cats
in London, and he'll send a text message to his girlfriend on his cell phone, telling her how great it is. When the Al Qaeda boys find Harry's phone, they'll like the
Cats
thing. So American. We just added that yesterday."

"Lovely. But when does Harry get to Pakistan? That's all that really matters."

"He flies to Islamabad from Paris. He goes to see the ISI, first thing. We assume the ISI is penetrated, so we're sending the man in the Harry disguise. He briefs the Paks. But then Harry goes unilateral."

"He goes to see his Al Qaeda contact in Waziristan."

"Precisely. He and the base chief in Peshawar and a half dozen Special Forces guys go up into the mountains, supposedly to meet a Pashtu tribal guy named Azzam, who worked with Suleiman when he was in Afghanistan. We've been meeting with this guy Azzam for real, paid him some dough, trying to recruit him as an access agent. It hasn't worked, but the bad guys don't know that. And Harry is going to be carrying his message for Suleiman, addressed to 'Raouf,' which we know from intercepts is the code name Suleiman uses with his people. And the letter is...well, I'll say it, because Sami wrote it. It is a work of art."

Hoffman handed him a message, written in Arabic on paper that was so stiff it could only have come from America. Ferris read it aloud, translating it into English. "In the name of the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him et cetera, I send you greetings, Raouf, via our good friend and brother Azzam. We ask your help in the matter of a renegade Jordanian brother whose photograph and dossier I am giving to Brother Azzam. We ask that you take appropriate measures, as in the past. Peace and blessings be upon you."

"Let's include this photograph." Hoffman displayed a small picture of Omar Sadiki. Ferris handed the Raouf letter back to his boss, who attached the photo with a paper clip and put it in the metal briefcase, ready for Harry Meeker.

"He won't bleed," said Ferris. "You realize that, right? When Harry gets shot in this mountain village, he won't bleed."

"Of course he won't bleed! He's dead, for God's sake. But he will
ooze
. He will
seep
. We've done tests. It will be fine."

"Are we crazy?" said Ferris, half to himself.

"Maybe, but you know what? When Suleiman's pals see all this stuff and begin trying to figure out what it all means, they are going to be even crazier. It eats away at people, not knowing what's true and what isn't. It makes them wonder whether they believe anything at all. It's the great destroyer, doubt. It does the devil's work for him." Ferris nodded his assent. He tried not to think about the other ways in which Hoffman's statement might be true.

29

WASHINGTON

T
HEY RAN
H
ARRY
M
EEKER
through a final checklist, as if they were firing a human cannonball. Azhar stood over the corpse with a clipboard, reading off items while members of the technical staff confirmed the answers, and then said, "Check!" The first concern was body temperature. They had brought Meeker up a few degrees in the last week, to the level at which he would be transported. The agency's pathologist recommended a gradual process of increasing his body temperature so that it would reach the ambient air temperature a few hours before the body was discovered. They did various measurements with the surgical equivalent of a meat thermometer before Azhar announced, "Check!" and passed on.

They inventoried each pocket. Gum wrappers from London, Paris and Pakistan. (Hoffman had decided that Meeker should have chewing gum in his mouth when the body was found--a natural touch--and had designated Azhar to prechew it.) Some change: Two euros, a fat British two-pound piece and a handful of Pakistani rupees. Check! Then the wallet itself: the credit card receipts from the Exxon station on Route 123 and the laundry in McLean Center, the driver's license and credit cards, the autographed picture of the imaginary girlfriend, "Denise," the ticket stubs and matchbooks and condoms that added up to Meeker's identity.

And then the cell phone: Azhar had already constructed his pastiche of "Received Calls" and "Dialed Numbers." While they were doing the final review, he decided he wanted to add a string of three "Missed Calls" from Denise. If someone got curious and dialed the number that had made those missed calls, they would hear the breathy voice of a young woman saying, "Hey! This is Denise. Leave me a message or whatever."

And finally, Harry's clothes: He had a warm overcoat now; the body would be discovered in the tribal areas between Peshawar and the Afghani border in late December. They had bought a parka with a fleece lining from Lands' End, and that seemed right--except that it looked too new, even after a half dozen dry cleanings. So Hoffman put out a group e-mail message for Mincemeat Park that said "Clothing Drive" asking for a used size 44 regular men's outdoor coat, preferably fleece-lined. Two jackets came back: One looked newer than the one they already had; the other was shiny with wear, with a small tear on the sleeve and a lining that was matted from perspiration. Hoffman pronounced it perfect. The wool trousers still worked, and so did the white shirt, and the trekking shoes. During the last check, before they were going to load Harry Meeker into the refrigerated container for his last trip, Hoffman noticed a crease in the trousers.

"Jesus Christ!" he shouted. "Who tramps around the Back of Beyond with a goddamn crease in his trousers? What is wrong with you people?" Azhar, who was prepared for anything, had a steam iron and quickly removed the creases from Harry's pants.

F
ROM THE OPERATIONS
room at Mincemeat Park, Hoffman and his team were able to follow Harry Meeker's progress. They monitored the plane's landing in London, Paris and, finally, Islamabad. While Harry stayed in his box, a real case officer from NE Division in disguise left the plane at each stop and went to the local CIA station and from there to the offices of the friendly services, where he briefed officials on the latest in the Incirlik bombing. A short item appeared in
Le Figaro
the day after the Paris visit, reporting that the United States had new information about Incirlik implicating a breakaway Jordanian cell of Al Qaeda.

When the plane landed in Islamabad, the Harry decoy visited the Inter-Services Intelligence headquarters and traveled that night to Peshawar. He would return the next day to Islamabad and then, by a string of commercial flights, fly back to Washington. Harry himself--the "real" Harry, on ice--went to Peshawar overnight, stowed in the back of a truck.

Alex Smite, the Peshawar base chief, met the truck. He knew what was coming, but still, when he got his first look at the body, he called back to Hoffman. "You're sure the director has signed off on this?"

"Relax. It's going to work, and all the paperwork has been filed," Hoffman said. He couldn't blame his man in Islamabad: Life at the agency was about second-guessing.

The corpse was transferred to Smite's Land Rover, a soft-skinned vehicle with darkened windows. The corpse was propped in the right-hand back seat, the place of honor for the visiting guest. A tight seat belt held the body firm. Hoffman called on the encrypted phone, asking for a check on the body temperature. Smite used an actual meat thermometer, which left a hole but was all he could find. The body was about right. It would approach air temperature of thirty-five degrees in about twelve hours. Another twelve hours after that and the body would begin to decompose. But by then Harry would be "dead." Or, to be more precise, his dead body would be full of bullet holes and sprawled on the back seat of the Land Rover.

S
MITE MET
his Special Forces team in the hills outside Peshawar, at a camp that had been used the last several years as a basing point for mostly fruitless efforts to capture top Al Qaeda officials. He didn't care if the rendezvous was under surveillance. Hell, he wanted to be seen. They formed up a little three-car convoy; there was an armored SUV riding ahead of the Land Rover, and one to the rear. Each SUV carried four heavily armed men from SOCOMM. For the first fifty miles, a Pakistani army escort accompanied the vehicles. But the outriders withdrew when they entered the badlands, and the Americans continued on alone toward Kosa, a village just south of Mingaora in the Northwest Frontier regions. One of Smite's Pashtu agents had radioed ahead to Kosa to advise Azzam that American visitors would be coming.

The arrival in Kosa was carefully choreographed. Ferris watched much of it in real time, thanks to imagery from a reconnaissance satellite overhead. As the convoy neared Azzam's house, gun barrels protruded from the windows of the two SUVs. That was standard procedure in these areas--enough force to intimidate, but not so much that it provoked hostile fire. What wasn't visible from the overhead camera, or to the Pashtu men on the ground, were the four other Special Forces officers who had been hiding in the mountains and had slipped into town that morning.