Mad Dogs (24 page)

My hand cupped her mouth and at first, her blue eyes showed no fear. “
Shhh
.”

Her kiss wet my palm. Still I trapped her words. Stared into her blue eyes so I would never forget how they looked and looked at me
before
.

“We never get to pick our time,” I told her. “We only get to pick what we do.”

A wrinkle lined her brow. But she didn't back away.
Then
.

“Underneath all of this, two things are stone true: I love you.”

Derya flowed into my hand, her eyes misted and as sure as
T'ai Chi
taught me to sense an opponent's center, I felt her open and let go with joy.

“And I'm a spy for the American CIA.”

My hand fell away as her smile melted, her brow scarred, her eyes narrowed to make sense of what they couldn't see.

“What?”

“I spy for the CIA. Since I dropped out of grad school. Out here, I wanted to come anyway, knew Mandarin, been doing martial arts since I was 7, so it gave me a reason to be here, drift and mix with locals and… And do what I could do. I'm deep cover. Embassies, Chiefs of Station, they only know I'm around. I've been all over Asia. The Agency calls me a NOC—Non-Official Cover. Alley slang calls me a Trouble Boy or a Hotshot. I—”

“You're a spy?” She stepped back.

I was between her and the stairs. Nodded yes.

She whispered: “This isn't a joke.”

“None of this is a joke.”

Her face flushed, paled, hardened. “Me! Us! Is all this you being a spy?”

“Wasn't supposed to be like this! Loving you wasn't supposed to happen.”

“Oh, so good to know you don't fuck people for a living!”

She stormed towards the stairs, the hell with her shoes, she was going, running to where she knew where she was. I flowed ahead of her. Blocked her exit.

Saw fear crowd betrayal from her eyes.

“Derya, I'll tell you whatever you want to know,” I said, again breaking all the rules. “But first let me tell you what you
need
to know.”

I moved a chair close to the stairs. Nodded for her to take it. Wary of telling me no, she sat on its hardness. I sat on the bed. The illusion was that she could make it down the stairs and out the door before I reached her. In trust, every illusion matters.

“What I'm going to tell you sounds like a bad movie, but it's true. There's an international terrorist organization called al Qaeda. Muslim fundamentalists but they're not about Islam or reflecting its true heart. They're about earthly power. Al Qaeda's headed by a rich Saudi Arabian named Osama bin Laden. Now he's in Afghanistan with the Taliban who have turned that country into a kind of concentration camp. No freedoms. No laws outside of what ambitious clerics proclaim. Women locked up. Forced to wear
burkas
, treated like… water buffalo: good for work and breeding only. Raped and beaten by any man with clerical clout.”

“That's what they want for our whole world. They claim a divine right, just like kings and dictators from the Crusades to the Inquisition to Nazis or Communism. Their way or death. In 1998, Bin Laden declared war on all Americans, no such thing as noncombatants. Al Qaeda blew up our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. President Clinton counter-attacked with cruise missiles, just missed nailing Bin Laden.”

“Al Qaeda is why I'm in Malaysia.”

My head fell into my hands. I looked up and hoped she saw the truth in my eyes.

“I love you. I wasn't supposed to, but I have since… Since I saw you laugh.”

“What do you want? I can't help your America CIA—you've got such clean hands! I know about fake Muslims who are terrorists
and
I know about Chile, the Congo, Vietnam and… I can't help you.”

“Or,” she said, groping for a way out. “Did you have to tell me this because you do love me and because if we're not hon-est with—”

“The Malay Special Branch knows most of what goes on. When we press them, when we ask the right questions… They helped us put together that… You're my access.”

“To what?”

So I told her.

“No,” Derya said twenty minutes later. “I won't let you use me. I won't let you do that to her. I won't turn her over to you.”

“What's your other choice? Events have pulled the trigger. I can't back down. I'll have to come at this another way. That means trouble and pain. You said it: sometimes you have to push it. Everybody chooses sides by what they do. Lots of people get away without doing much. Not us. If we don't do this, how many innocent people will die or be enslaved by pious killers with their boxes?”

Took me an hour, but finally she slumped in her chair. Nodded
yes
.

But said: “I won't let you hurt her.”

“Nobody gets hurt. Nobody'll even know what happened. That's a successful Op.”

She closed her eyes. When they opened, I saw tears. That she banished.

“What then?” Her voice jabbed like a sword.

“Then it's over, and I'm over. Done. Quit.”

“Why? You'll be a CIA star.”

“Only reason I'm here, doing this… I want a world with a chance for us.”

“So you say.”

That last night of the Twentieth Century left us in the dark with our clothes on.

Morning, January 3, 2000. I hid in the school shed. Sweat trickled down my sides.

Footsteps
, coming closer outside on the roof.

Derya led in a woman sacked by a black
burka
.

I closed the door behind them.

The
burka's
hands clutched her heart. Eyes widened in the slit of her veil.

“We're trapped,” I said.

Derya said: “No, this is just—”

“Forget Miss Samadi,” I told her Malaysian student. “She's out of this now.”

I rattled off the student's name, her husband, their home address, their tile shop, the name of the
madrasas
their son had transferred to from a public school.

Fear pushed her down in the chair. In a defiant rebellion to keep some individuality, she wore curled toed acceptably-Arabic shoes, green shoes.

Derya paced in the shadows. With Derya, the big picture mattered.

For this woman, life had been ripped down to the personal.

“The Special Branch knows you're al Qaeda.”

“No!”

“A month ago, you suddenly started wearing a
burka
. Special Branch watched you, your home, your business selling handmade tiles all over the world. They knew your husband's cousin is al Qaeda. Now al Qaeda's taken you over. Threatened you, yes?”

She looked away.

“Special Branch told us. The American police. They want to arrest you and your husband. They don't care if you're innocent. We can stop them. Save you.
If.”

“Please!” she said. “Have mercy!”

“Al Qaeda operatives from all over the world are coming here to Kuala Lumpur in the next few days. For a secret meeting.”

“I'm just a woman! My husband is like a prisoner! If we say no to them…”

“They'll kill your whole family.”

She surrendered to the dread crushing her. Sobbed.

“We Americans are your way out. You're stuck between the Special Branch and al Qaeda. One of them will destroy you. Unless we pull you free.”

“Only Allah can save us.”

“Perhaps Allah sent us.”

Derya turned away with disgust.

“You enrolled here to learn about computers. You own a high speed Internet system. Bypass the government monitors. Al Qaeda killers use Internet cafés, but they know that's not secure. Their local thugs have been coming into your shop. Going upstairs. All that's up there is your fast computer. That's where the foreign killers will go. We need to know what they do on your computer.”

“I won't know anything!”

My hand opened to reveal three devices each smaller than my thumb.

“After they've used the machine… These are data keys. Not like you can buy. Plug one into your machine. They download e-mail, website histories, documents.”

I snapped a key in thirds.

“Geographic programming. This tiny rectangular chunk holds data. It's the part that matters. Operating codes are on different sections. After you break the key, without our machine, no one can use it to know what you've done.”

“Why are you doing this to me? To my family?”

Derya came to my side. Crouched lower than me.

“Sister, you are trapped by him. But not trapped like you are by al Qaeda. He trapped us both with truth. You will not be alone. I will not let you be alone. We must trust him to help us.”

Don't contradict her but keep control!
“Only your own hands can pull you free.”

That innocent, broken woman pulled off her
burka
to breathe the shed's stale air.

We had her.

January 5, year 2000: Two dozen al Qaeda operatives from all over the world drifted into K.L. They rendezvoused for days of planning meetings in a suburban condo.

Derya and I marched through fake lives. We spent nights at our safe house. Kept each other close enough to see. Didn't touch.

“You are America.” Rain drummed the skylight above the bed where we lay not touching and with our clothes on. “Fancy technologies.”

“Forget what Hollywood tells you. We can't hack that computer. Disconnected when not in use. Major firewalls. Local al Qaeda insists on that. Plus their standard procedure is to destroy hard drives when they scatter. Using a key before then is our only chance.”

Malay Special Branch followed the al Qaeda crew. Photo surveillance. Street tags tight enough to track them to Internet cafés. Loose enough to let paranoids feel safe. And show up at the tile shop. Across the street, the Special Branch manned a watch post.

January 7. Derya's cell phone rang. She answered. Listened. Hung up.

Told me: “
Tomorrow
.”

KISS
. Keep It Simple, Stupid. A dead drop blended into our
burka
ed agent's established routine. Evening class at the heretical school where the mere woman was learning technology of the decadent West that holy warriors could use for
jihad
.

KISS
. She'd ride two buses. First one from the market near the tile shop to a transfer. She could stand at that bus stop until she caught a second bus that let her out near the school. Or she could walk down a side street, past a store with a TV FIX sign, go to a tea stand and buy a warming cup, then retrace her steps and catch her second bus.

KISS
. Snapped into secure pieces or not, the data key was an easy fit through the mail slot of TV FIX's door. In the rain forecast to be pouring at that hour, even if she were followed, her watcher wouldn't see her drop something through the door slot, done, free, on her way to the relocation deal being put together by us and the Special Branch.

KISS
. Her phone call telling her teacher she'd make it to class signaled that she'd done the dangerous part, plugged and pulled the data key when no al Qaeda eyes were in the tile shop. All she had to do now was ride a couple buses, take a short walk.

Past me.

Rain raged on the city. Blurred the evening light with trillions of streaking gray drops zinging down like jagged diamonds. Vehicles were parked everywhere, pushcarts stood abandoned until the return of quiet skies. Almost no one walked the streets.

I stood in the dripping arch of a shop doorway across the street and up towards the bus stop from TV FIX. A hooded, charcoal Gortex rain shell sheathed me. That blackish jacket blended me into the shadows. Through the rain-blurring vision, neither the
burkaed
woman I'd hammered into being my spy nor someone following her could easily spot me covering her play.

A blur of light slid to a stop off to my left at the bus stop.

I wiped rain off my face.
Can't see, not yet, not for sure, not
—

Bobbing through the rain across the street.

A black shape:
burka
. No umbrella. And running. Running past my post.

Don't break cover. Wait.
Wait
.

A clattering killer bee tore around the corner, skidded onto the side street and crashed into a parked car. The driver flew off, stumbled, staggered, found his balance…