The Devil's Light (17 page)

“Who'll tell them?” she rejoined. “Not you, and certainly not me. As far as everyone but Dr. Abboud is concerned, I'm exactly who I appear to be—a new Ph.D. looking for an entry-level job. My other interests need not concern them.” She paused. “As to money, perhaps we can address that. But I can't leave here in good conscience without making my case.”

“Then I'll listen. But only as a courtesy.”

Laura gazed at him directly, drawing on an allure of which she pretended to be unaware. Her voice held a throaty undertone of urgency. “We're trying to stem a tragedy,” she began. “Terrorists across the region help finance their activities by looting the treasures of countries crippled by war and civil discord. It's happening right now in Afghanistan and Pakistan. When the U.S. ripped apart Iraq, al Qaeda fighters helped pay for killing American and Iraqi soldiers and civilians alike by smuggling antiquities onto the black market. One bunker captured by marines contained guns, missiles, ski masks, night vision goggles, and thirty boxes of statuettes stolen from the Iraqi National Museum—”

“A stupid war,” Krupanski interrupted disgustedly. “America responded to September 11 like a wounded beast, thrashing blindly in all directions.”

Beneath this protest, Laura sensed resistance warring with the conscience
of a man whose most sacred belief was in preserving the past. Curtly she said, “Let's not argue about what can't be changed. But since you mention 9/11, I'll tell you a true story. Before the attack, its ringleader, Mohammed Atta, approached a German professor about selling artifacts stolen in Afghanistan. When the professor asked his purpose, Atta replied that he needed to buy a plane.” She softened her voice, still looking into his eyes. “I'm a New Yorker, Jan. I saw the Twin Towers go down, taking with them a friend I'd become quite fond of. Perhaps this traffic paid for his death.”

“But who
are
these terrorists? The Taliban is not here, nor have I heard of an al Qaeda presence in this valley.”

Laura gave him a level glance. “Al Qaeda still has affiliates in Palestinian refugee camps. But we both know we're talking about Hezbollah.”

“Yes,” Krupanski answered harshly. “The Islamic ‘Army of God.' They're all around us, even when we can't see them. Their green and yellow flag, showing a hand thrusting a semiautomatic weapon skyward, flies over most of the Bekaa. It's rumored they have underground installations very near our site, perhaps rockets concealed for the next war with Israel. Why should I endanger my project and my people by provoking such men?”

Laura stood taller. “They won't slaughter archaeologists,” she said crisply. “Hezbollah's public relations sense is way better than that. The only person at risk is me.”

“So why endanger yourself by coming here?”

“Because, like you, I care about the rape of history and the mass murder of civilians. One feeds the other. Nine out of ten antiquities plundered from the Middle East are controlled by Hezbollah or other jihadists. Many are stolen here: Lebanon is hemorrhaging its past. That aside, smugglers in the Anti-Lebanon Mountains, some affiliated with Hezbollah, are siphoning stolen Iraqi treasures through this valley. I've come where I'm needed.”

Krupanski turned to the river again. “You're one woman, proposing to stick your finger in the dike. How will you perform this protean task?”

“By doing my job well. You've seen my credentials—”

“Yes, and called one of your professors, an old friend. He speaks highly of you. You're more than qualified to run a dig house, if that were all that's involved.”

Glancing past them, Laura spotted a bearded man in the green fatigues of Hezbollah militia functioning as a substitute for ordinary police. “It's most of what's involved. Supplying the dig house would allow me to move around the valley, going places and meeting people without drawing undue attention.” Her tone became quietly persuasive. “I can also be our ambassador. My mother was Lebanese, so I speak fluent Arabic with a Lebanese accent. When we send out a survey team I can explain our mission to headmen in local towns, assuring them that we're not thieves ourselves. If I also hear about antiquities for sale, or see something that suggests it, I'll quietly pass that on to my superiors and, perhaps, to Interpol. My only weapons will be patience and observation.”

Troubled, Krupanski still gazed at the river. Moving closer, Laura stood beside him. After a time, she said, “There's one more thing.”

Krupanski seemed to sigh. “And what is that?”

“Money. Without going into detail, I believe I can help supplement the funding for your project. Rather than causing difficulties, I might well extend your time here.”

He turned, eyebrows raised in an expression that mingled surprise with fresh suspicion. “You're a very interesting woman, Dr. Reynolds. And very complicated.”

Laura smiled faintly. “Thank you. Whatever my complications, they won't make trouble for you.”

Still searching her eyes, Krupanski nodded slowly. “Trouble,” he said with muted fervor, “is something no scholar needs.”

Now Laura stood at the site, returning this man's ambiguous smile. You still have no idea, she thought. At least none you care to entertain.

T
hirty-six hours later, Brooke Chandler arrived in Dubai at dawn.

He was glad to be in the field again, however briefly. But this feeling was overcome by deep anxiety: This time the issue was whether a Pakistani dhow contained a nuclear weapon. And Dubai itself increased his restiveness—like everything around him, the site of his hotel, Palm Jumeirah, felt like a mirage. A massive landfill shaped like a palm, it jutted from the coastline of a glistening modern city, the high-rises surrounding its mosques piercing the sky in phallic competition. A special point of pride was a stunningly ostentatious shopping mall built around a ski slope supplied with snow at hideous expense. When Brooke had first come there, seven years before, he had emailed Anit Rahal that Dubai was “Las Vegas without the heart.” Then she had vanished from his life.

For another twelve hours, seemingly interminable, Brooke killed time in his room. Repeatedly, he parsed the theory he shared with Carter Grey—that al Qaeda had smuggled the bomb through Baluchistan; that its operatives would try to disappear in the maze of boats that plied the Gulf; that Dubai might be their transfer point of choice, enabling them to move the bomb toward America, Europe, or targets in the Middle East. Were they right, and the dhow they were tracking was al Qaeda's vehicle, the search was over, the prospect of nuclear horror averted.

But to be wrong meant more than a failure of sophisticated guesswork. Inevitably, Brooke's ultimate belief—that al Qaeda had targeted Israel—would hold less credence among his peers. He was restless, others
might say, still so angry at the screwup in Lebanon that he imagined al Qaeda's theft of a bomb was related to his aborted work. To lose one's detachment was a sin in an agency where judgment mattered.

When at last the phone call came, Brooke was still questioning himself.

His contact, Nuri Abbas, was a polite and slender man highly placed in the intelligence agency of the United Arab Emirates. The job had its perquisites, Brooke perceived, including the black Lincoln Town Car in which a driver took them to Jebel Ali Port. Noah Brustein had informed Abbas only that Brooke worked for the CIA, and that the agency believed that this particular dhow might contain important contraband. But Abbas was among the elite security officers in Dubai who knew that a bomb was missing, and some things need not be specified. The agency did not send field agents halfway around the world to chase down guns or heroin.

The discovery of a nuclear weapon, both men knew, would change everything. Brooke would call Brustein; calls at the highest level would follow. A hazardous-materials team was already in the area, ready to deal with the bomb. Brooke's best guess was that an aircraft carrier from the Fifth Fleet, with more experts on board, was prepared to relieve the Emirates of its unwelcome nuclear cargo. All this would occur without a whisper.

“A dhow,” Abbas murmured with a trace of skepticism. “Very quaint. One might have expected a larger ship out of Karachi, perhaps moving toward the west.”

“True,” Brooke responded. “But I think we're dealing with a very subtle mind.”

Perhaps Amer Al Zaroor, he thought. He had taped the operative's photographs to his office wall. Though captured in a ten-year-old image, the man looked elusive, about to disappear. And so he had.

The waterfront at Jebel Ali Port was filled with freighters and tankers. As Brooke and Abbas got out, a setting sun turned the mist hovering over the Gulf deep orange. From this band of color a two-masted dhow emerged, escorted by three boats filled with armed customs officials.

The dhow docked at the end of a pier, the escorts anchored on each side. Brooke and Abbas watched from a distance as the officials marched the crew off to custody. From a distance, none resembled Brooke's conception of Amer Al Zaroor. There would be time for questions later; the first concern was the cargo.

“Let's take a look,” Abbas said.

They walked to the end of the pier as customs officials began offloading crates and boxes. The dhow's hull was commodious; the process long. With mounting edginess, Brooke watched box after box emerge that could not, by their shape, hold a Pakistani bomb. All appeared to contain what their labels claimed—every electronic device known to man. Which was curious, Brooke told Abbas, for an ancient ship from some godforsaken port on the Makran coast.

Abbas smiled tightly, his keen gaze directed at the crates that kept appearing. “The world economy,” he responded. “A truly wondrous thing.” Brooke could feel the man's tension.

By now the orange dusk was fading into night, and a customs official shone a flashlight on each new crate. None was the right size or shape. As each new crate emerged, the men stacked them in two uneven walls, preserving a pathway to the dhow. “Perhaps there's nothing,” Abbas remarked. “I'm not sure what to hope for.”

“I am.”

Abbas did not respond. “How many more?” he called out.

“Maybe three,” an official answered.

Abbas gave Brooke a sideways gaze. Then Brooke saw the crate suggested by Ellen Clair's aerial photographs. Pointing, he said, “It's that one.”

Abbas issued an order. The seven-foot-long crate placed before Brooke was a rough-hewn construction that someone had stamped as machine parts. The crewmen had groaned beneath its weight. “Tell them to break it open,” Brooke requested.

Abbas turned to him with a questioning look. “It's not a problem,” Brooke said. “The people who usually handle these things don't wear spacesuits.” Nonetheless, he understood—the thought of a nuclear bomb at his feet filled him with superstitious awe.

Working swiftly, two crewmen pried open the box. What remained was a gray metal rectangle with latches, its size matching the specifications
of the bomb. Brooke flipped back its latches, then lifted open the heavy metal lid.

Inside, someone had crammed countless bags of white powder.

Angry, Brooke ripped one open, wet his index finger, and tasted the contents. But he already knew—heroin.

Dryly, Abbas said, “A small victory in the global war on drugs.”

Or possibly a decoy, Brooke thought—perhaps even a taunt. If so, someone very clever had undercut him, and the argument for Israel as target with it. Unless, as Brustein had intimated, Brooke could delude himself without help.

He stood and thanked Abbas, preparing for his return to Langley.

Al Zaroor sat in the stern of the ship, feeling the ancient vessel forge the dark, trackless sea.

He hated this feeling of helplessness, just as he hated the water. He was out of his element, compelled to trust men he did not know—the taciturn captain, the crew of six Baluchs. His cell phone did not work here. The yawing of the old dhow made him queasy—he had no gift for sailing. Few things terrified him; drowning was one. He did not know how to swim.

The dhow was seaworthy enough, he knew—handsome in its ungainly way, a well-maintained two-masted wooden ship whose design, in the words of its captain, was “older than the faith.” What troubled Al Zaroor far more was the as-yet-unseen presence of the American Fifth Fleet, no doubt prepared to board a suspicious craft. The captain did not know that the crate concealed beneath the TV sets and machine parts contained a nuclear weapon.

Little else would have bothered him. The captain was a small man, whippet thin, whose ancestors had plied these waters for generations. Perhaps they had shipped fruit and spices; their descendant smuggled drugs, gold, and women bound for sexual slavery. Now the man thought he was running heroin and a stranger to Dubai.

There was much in Dubai that Al Zaroor wanted to avoid. A transfer to another craft, immobilizing them for precious hours. The security services friendly to America and the Jews. Perhaps a minion sent by the CIA should their spy planes have fallen for his ploy. But it was hours yet before he would act.

He went below to his spartan cabin. After a time he closed his eyes, feeling the boat's fitful rocking until he achieved sleep.

When he arose, Al Zaroor discovered that disequilibrium affected his ability to walk. He inhaled, nauseated again, and then ascended to the deck with the halting steps of an old man.

Mist still enveloped the dhow. Seeing him, the captain pointed to the waters ahead.

In the distance, Al Zaroor saw the massive gray outline of what could only be an aircraft carrier. For an instant, he felt defenseless, imagining the huge ship smashing them into splinters. In a voice not quite his own, he asked the captain, “Is this a common sight?”

The captain gave him a quick, searching glance. “Not common, no. But their business here is pirates and Iranians. Not minnows such as us.”