The Amateur Spy (24 page)

“How long will I have?”

“The senator should last at least another few weeks, assuming nothing unexpected happens. I figure I’ll need at least two for the work, even with some help. So you should try to finish up within a week. The visa you can get in a day. The ticket, too. So what do you think? Leave on Wednesday, maybe? Can you get the time off from work?”

“I’ll tell them it’s a family emergency. But there are some loose ends I’d like to tie up first, so I might need a day or two. Why don’t we say Friday?”

He frowned, but nodded. Already she had bargained away two days of his precious time. The moment she hit the ground in Jordan she could begin using up more. It would work—she was sure of it. Unless the senator surprised them all, of course, and kept on living for weeks on end. In which case Aliyah would find some other way out of this mess. If she was expected to gain enough knowledge to help him, perhaps she could also gain enough knowledge to thwart him.

Either way, traveling to Jordan seemed to be her only chance of stopping him, short of turning him in to the police. By succeeding she would save both their lives, and perhaps hundreds of others.

And if she failed? She wasn’t yet strong enough to consider the possibility.

She glanced at the clock on the microwave and saw that it was 5 a.m. She was exhausted.

“Let’s go back to bed,” she said.

Abbas nodded. He, too, looked spent.

She took his hand again, uncertainly now. Hard to believe that only a few hours ago they had been making love and she was thinking their worst days were over. They walked slowly upstairs, the bereaved suburban parents reunited in loss, now beginning their passage to someplace new and frightening.

22

I
awoke with a start at sundown, just as the wheels of the jet scorched against the tarmac in a swirl of desert dust.

Somewhere below me in the baggage compartment were two large suitcases stuffed with the items I’d picked up on Karos. But the heavier burden from the visit was the memory of the empty house. It overwhelmed me with its smells of cooking, of Mila’s soaps and perfumes, and the ashy taint of cigarettes left behind by the advance man for Black, White, and Gray.

Stavros made an appearance, but hardly said a word as he watched me puttering about the garden and shed, locking everything in sight. I didn’t feel like telling him we might never be back. Maybe he thought we had split up. His only real concern was getting paid, and once his euros were in hand he trudged back up the hill to his goats and windswept silence. Watching his retreat, I spied the rooftop of the DeKuyper place, and with an hour to kill before catching the ferry I decided on one last trek to the scene of the crime.

I got no farther than the driveway, where the same fellow who had shooed Mila and me away again stood in my path. This time he held a rush broom instead of a shovel, medieval pikeman on patrol. I surveyed what I could of the scene. Two cars were in the drive—a Mercedes and a Jaguar, but no red Opel. Perhaps the man himself was home. The curtains were open, but there was no other sign of life. I returned to the road and followed it around the hillside to the island’s southern tip. From there you could see DeKuyper’s big yacht bobbing at the dock. No motor skiffs. If I ever got back here, I was determined to demand entry and an explanation.

Item one on my retooled agenda in Amman was to get in touch with the three contacts I’d thought of at the taverna. Item two was to learn more about Norbert Krieger and Professor Yiorgos Soukas. Maybe Sami would be back by now—a visit to his salon would be item three. I would plug away until I had enough information to either condemn or exonerate Omar. If doing so took longer than I had initially hoped, so be it. One of my earlier mistakes was to assume I could succeed on the cheap. Quick in, quick out. Gather a few raw materials, ship them to Black, then wash my hands of any and all repercussions.

But that course of action left the interpretation of my findings entirely up to my handlers, whose motives I no longer trusted, not after what I’d seen of their tactics. With a little extra effort and risk I might be able to first place the information in context, or sketch out its grand design. If Omar was indeed contributing to harm in this world, then I would help stop him, and do us both a favor. If not, I would clear his name. For once I would leave behind nothing to atone for.

I doubted a professional would have considered such a strategy. From what I gathered, pros didn’t want to know anything beyond what was necessary to complete their assignment, in case they were caught or interrogated. But I cared little about protecting my employer’s secrets. Amateur status has its advantages.

No sooner had I entered the little stone house on Othman Bin Affan Street than I was greeted by a laptop computer on the kitchen table—the very one stolen from my hotel room in Athens. Impressive, I guess. But I wasn’t as rattled as I would have been even a few days ago. I headed out for groceries, and then got down to business, strolling to the Internet café I had chosen as the base for my online research.

An English-language bookstore on a neighborhood street, it kept late hours. I was the only customer, with my pick of five desktops just around the corner from the bored cashier.

I set up a Hotmail account for e-mail, then proceeded to Google. I doubt even the pros would have had such an amazing wealth of data at their fingertips fifteen years ago. The world at large was now better equipped for freelance snooping than at any time in history.

Or so I was thinking until the search for “Norbert Krieger” produced a mere five hits.

Only one seemed plausibly connected to the man I’d seen with Omar in Athens. It was an August 2002 newsletter for the Islamic Association of Germany, and listed a Norbert Krieger among several dozen guests at a fund-raising dinner. The event had been held in Munich. Perhaps that was where he lived. I did a quick search for the Islamic organization, found its sketchy Web site, wrote down a few names and numbers, and tucked them away.

Professor Yiorgos Soukas turned up most prominently on the staff of the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, where Krieger had gone to meet him. The museum’s Web site helpfully provided a link to the professor’s CV. He was a specialist in Iron Age archaeological sites and had participated in two digs in the Middle East—one at Jericho, another at a site in Jordan called Wadi Fidan. Nothing about either suggested any reason he would want to contribute to a hospital for Palestinian refugees or the region’s more radical activities.

The next order of business was to get in touch with my chosen contacts.

The first was Hans Wolters, my old boss from intifada days. Last I’d heard he was still somewhere across the River Jordan, although no longer on the UN payroll. He was said to be working for some peace group that preferred operating behind the scenes, functioning as middleman between parties who wouldn’t be caught dead in the same room. Hans had gone deeper into the morass while most of us had deserted it altogether.

A search of his name turned up a few quotes in an eight-year-old Reuters account of a Palestinian retribution killing in Jenin, but nothing more recent. I supposed I would simply have to ask around, and the best person to start with was next on my list.

That would be Chris Boylan, the former Aussie soldier and sheep farmer who had also patrolled the mean streets for Hans and UNRWA. A mutual friend had mentioned a few years ago that Chris was leading a UN disarmament team in Afghanistan, a role in which he worked hand in glove with intelligence operatives. Later he supposedly wound up in Iraq, working for a private security contractor. If he was still there, then he and I were practically in the same neighborhood.

Sure enough, his name showed up in a
Guardian
piece from the UK, only five months old. He was quoted as a consultant for a London-based outfit called Near East Security Ltd. The firm’s Web site was predictably tight-lipped but did offer an e-mail address for inquiries. Hoping for the best, I fired off a brief, general message asking if Mr. Boylan could please get in touch with his old friend, Freeman Lockhart, who was now working for an NGO in Amman.

The third name on my list might be described as a former adversary, although I had always respected his talents and his restraint. During the intifada I knew him as a patrol leader for the Israel Defense Force. Captain David Ben-Zohar was the one who figured so prominently in the famous blowup with Omar and me, when we were inquiring aggressively about the well-being of a Palestinian captive. For the most part he had treated us fairly, considering the circumstances, and had often been willing to barter information. With any luck, he still would be.

Supposedly he had been promoted up the ranks, all the way to brigadier general, before he took an early pension and formed his own security consulting business in Jerusalem for corporate clients. Yes, that line of work again—one of the world’s growth industries.

Both he and his company were easy to find, although I was a bit queasy searching for them on a Jordanian computer network. A new customer sat down two seats to my left just as the logo of Ben-Zohar’s company popped onto the screen in English and Hebrew, so I shifted in the chair to block his view. A moment later someone else began browsing the paperback shelves behind me. I minimized the screen and waited him out.

When the coast was clear, I clicked on an e-mail link, offered a bland hello and mentioned I was now in Amman, teamed with my old UNRWA partner, Omar al-Baroody. That alone would get his attention. Then I asked, as casually as possible, if we might meet the next time I happened to be over his way.

That was about all I could do for now. Send up a few flares and wait for help. The rest of my work was out at Bakaa, where, whether it was hazardous or not, I needed to probe deeper into the background of Nabil Mustafa and friends. Maybe that gun would be of some use after all. It was back at the house, in the same dresser drawer where I had stashed it the day I got it.

The bookstore was about to close, so I clicked on the history folder and erased the record of the sites I’d visited. I paid a few dinars and walked back to the house, and considered it a minor triumph when no message was waiting on the doorstep. After cooking up a light, simple dinner, I crawled into bed, tired yet oddly exhilarated by my small declaration of independence. The last thing I heard before falling asleep was my fellow lodger, the mouse, rising to resume his endless task of gnawing behind the baseboard.

I arrived early the next morning at the office, where the iron maiden Raniya curtly informed me that Omar was not yet back from Greece. He was two days overdue.

“Is he all right?”

Raniya seemed unmoved by my concern.

“His business took longer than expected. He asked that I tell you to take the rest of the week off. So that you may be better settled in by the time he returns.”

It was an odd request, as if he knew I might snoop around in his absence.

“When will that be?”

“He will see you here on Monday.”

Not exactly an answer to my question, but maybe Omar preferred it that way. Had he spotted me in Athens? Or maybe Krieger found some way to identify me. I had the whole weekend to stew about it.

“I’ve got some paperwork to do first,” I said, unwilling to give in so easily.

I checked the files—fruitlessly—for anything under the heading of “Krieger” or “Soukas.” Each time I opened a drawer Raniya sighed as if I had just stolen another dinar from the coffee fund. Two hours of this festive atmosphere was all I could stand. I decided to put off visiting Bakaa until Monday. No sense checking further on Nabil until I’d run his name by at least one of my contacts.

On my way home I stopped by the bookstore to check my Hotmail account and got a pleasant surprise. Chris Boylan had answered. Good news, if a bit cryptic.

“Freeman! Blast from the past! Yes, am still in the region. As luck would have it will soon pass your way for r&r. Can meet Tuesday if u like. Noon, courtyard Husseini Mosque? Yes-no only, pls. Regards, CB.”

He was in Iraq, by the sound of it, but apparently not in the mood to reveal much by e-mail. Maybe his employer often checked over his shoulder. I fired off a quick “Yes” and continued home, where I celebrated that little success with a late lunch.

I threw open the kitchen window to the afternoon air and chopped tomatoes and peppers on a board while garlic simmered in an oiled skillet. Birds chirped and flitted in the jasmine bush outside, and I began to relax.

A pleasant voice piped up, startling me.

“Whatever you’re cooking smells lovely.”

It was Fiona, calling out from her garden, where she was again on her knees in the dirt, planting and pruning. She stood gracefully, thigh-high shorts showing off attractive legs, her face shaded by a straw hat. The wide brim reminded me of the one Ingrid Bergman wore in the closing scene of
Casablanca.
Or maybe Fiona’s brown eyes brought the image to mind.

“You’re welcome to join me,” I shouted through the window. “There’s more than enough.”

“Only if I can bring the wine.”

“Perfect. There’s not a drop in the house.”

“I thought that might be the case. It can be hard finding it this month.”

She seemed to pointedly avoid saying “Ramadan,” as if that would have been singling out Islam for blame.

The wine was already chilled.

“I’m not even sure I have a corkscrew,” I said, still busy at the stove.

“Brought that, too. The glasses are up to you, I’m afraid.”

“Upper right cabinet.”

I glanced over my shoulder at the label as she poured, and was surprised to see it had come from Israel.

“Wouldn’t have expected to see that here.”

“Actually I bought this during a photo shoot in Galilee. But you can find it in Jordan if you look hard enough. Israel’s doing quite a bit of business here these days. Not just selling, either.”

“Investing in the boom?”

“Buying land, even.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“Not always in the open, of course. But they find their ways.”

I worried for a moment that she was about to remark on the shrewdness of the wily Jew, but perhaps I’d misinterpreted the tenor of her remark.

“How so? Silent partners?”

“Or very noisy partners, ones who’ll go around proclaiming their pan-Arab brotherhood before handing over the deed to some consortium in Tel Aviv.”

“That must go over well.”

“The people making a killing from it don’t seem to mind.”

“Like Sami Fayez?”

“Far from it. Sami’s one of the holdouts.”

“Maybe he’s waiting for the price to go higher.”

“That’s what the cynics say. Sami does have his doubters, even his enemies. But I don’t think so. I’ve done some work for him, writing about a few heritage sites he owns. Places he wants the palace to protect before some foreigner gets hold of them.”

“Is the palace receptive?”

“More often than you’d think. When half the king’s friends are striking it rich, it isn’t always easy saying yes to the preservationists. Of course, it isn’t easy saying no to Sami, either. Just ask your friend Omar.”

“Omar’s been cashing in?”

“For a while he was. Then Sami made sure he got religion. Now he’s on the side of the angels, supposedly. Protect everything before it’s gone.”

“I had no idea.”

“It’s not exactly a secret. Ask him. You might even get a free weekend in the desert into the bargain. Omar takes little expeditions to collect artifacts and botanical samples, he and his artist friend. They’re a regular Stanley and Livingstone.”

“Issa Odeh, you mean? The painter?”

“Yes. You’ve met him?”

“No. Saw his work in Omar’s dining room. Very nice. He sounds like quite the Renaissance man.”