The Devil's Light (29 page)

They took a circuitous route to Achrafieh, Brooke watching the side-view mirrors. Beyond the loyalty he owed Khalid, Brooke felt empathy and even a measure of affection. The PLO leader was his asset not simply because he despised al Qaeda, but because he did not want his oldest son ensnared in the squalor of Ayn Al-Hilweh. It seemed the wrong reason for this man to die.

When the cab dropped him, Brooke entered a restaurant, exited the back, and walked two blocks to a sedan parked near the Albergo. Sliding in, he checked the thin briefcase lodged between the driver and passenger seats.

Brooke drove for ten minutes, for no purpose except to shed or expose a pursuer. Satisfied, he placed a call on a ghost phone and let the other phone ring twice before hanging up. Then he braked abruptly in front of a nondescript hotel. Inside one of its rooms was a suit and a latex mask that turned Khalid into an American businessman. There were times, Brooke reflected, when his life seemed lifted from a book for boys, except that the violence was real. “Bizarre as this sounds,” he had told Khalid on a secure line, “it works. I knew a gorgeous six-foot blonde, stationed in Hong Kong, whose mask and silk robe transformed her into an aristocratic Chinese male. Many women desired him.”

Khalid had not sounded amused. “Did ‘he' also speak Mandarin?”

“Of course, in the voice of a middle-aged man. What do you take us for?”

“Don't toy with me,” Khalid said abruptly. “You're worried.”

More than you know, Brooke thought. “I'm concerned,” he had temporized. “Part of my job is to keep you safe. When you come out of the hotel, a silver Mercedes will be parked in front. If it's facing south, I'll meet you there. If not, I'll pick you up in front of the Abdel Wahab restaurant. We'll talk in the car—even if someone suspects me, they won't recognize the man I met. When I drop you off, you'll be yourself again.”

Khalid had assimilated a degree of tradecraft. Nervously, he asked, “Wouldn't a dead drop be safer? I can leave the photographs somewhere secure.”

“That won't do,” Brooke said coolly. “I have your son's visa.”

For a long moment, Khalid was silent. “As you wish,” he said at last.

* * *

At twelve-thirty, Brooke stopped in front of the Abdel Wahab. An American in a linen suit tailored to Khalid's short, stout frame stepped into the dimly lit street and slid into Brooke's car. Seeing the briefcase, Khalid asked, “Is that for me?”

Despite his tension, Brooke could not help but smile. “No,” he said. “It
is
you.”

The pseudo-American regarded him in puzzled silence. Then he reached into his jacket pocket and handed Brooke a roll of film. “These are the men, the best photographs I could get. It wasn't easy.”

Brooke quickly turned down another street. “Who are they?”

His latex face caught in the headlights of a passing car, Khalid instinctively flinched. “Outsiders,” he answered quickly, “from Tripoli. They met with the man we believe heads Fatah al-Islam. We're certain they're al Qaeda.”

Glancing in the rearview mirror, Brooke reached into the pocket of the Italian suit he kept at Michelle's apartment. “This is Imad's visa, Khalid.”

As Khalid took it, Brooke turned down another street leading out of Achrafieh. “And the other provisions?” Khalid asked.

“Are complete. When Imad books his flight to New York, his ticket will be paid for. Friends will meet him there. His tuition and housing are arranged, as well as a bank account to be replenished every month. He'll be fine.”

Brooke's agent placed a hand over his heart. “Thank you, my friend.”

Briefly, Brooke pictured the man beneath the mask—a mustached Palestinian, years of disappointment betrayed by the sag of his chin, the dark rings around serious brown eyes. Quietly, he said, “So now we're done, Khalid.”

Khalid stared at him. Quite reasonably, he had believed that Brooke would use Imad for leverage, extracting more information as long as the boy remained in America. Until Lorber's intervention, this had been Brooke's plan. But Brooke himself had changed it.
My agent is resigning,
he had told Lorber.
If you don't like it, complain to Langley. Maybe you can get me fired.

“I'll look after Imad,” Brooke assured Khalid.

Brooke imagined Khalid's emotions, a complex mix of worry and relief. Passing a double-parked car, he swerved down a cramped street. “In less than a minute,” Brooke said, “I'm taking another street and braking
at the mouth of an alley. For about fifteen seconds, no one behind us will see you. Peel off the mask, strip off your coat, and jump out of the car. A cab will be there. Take it.”

Turning again, Brooke accelerated down a cobblestone lane. Doors and streetlights shot by, Brooke glancing in the mirror. Then he braked suddenly. Shedding his mask and struggling free of his coat, Khalid left the car without words, a man hoping never to see Adam Chase again. The light of a taxi glowed in the alley.

Before Khalid had disappeared, Brooke placed the briefcase on the passenger seat and pushed a button. The head and torso of a man popped up, Khalid in his American disguise.

Brooke stomped on the accelerator, peeling around one corner, then another, taking a narrow one-way street of shuttered stores toward Gemmayze. In seconds he spotted the car behind him, emerging too quickly from a side street. He knew what would happen before the second car appeared, heading toward him in the wrong direction.

Reflexively, he hit the accelerator, willing his mind to turn cold. The car in front swerved sideways, half-blocking the street. Gauging the width of the sidewalk, Brooke kept speeding toward the car. Thirty feet, then twenty. Two men with guns leaped out behind the doors.

Ten feet now. A bullet shattered Brooke's window as his car struck the open passenger door, crushing the shooter and snapping his neck back against the roof, his open eyes caught in Brooke's headlights. Then Brooke clipped the rear bumper, spinning the car into the second man. He cried out, crumpling to the cobblestones.

Skidding along the sidewalk, Brooke sped up still more, glancing in the mirror. The car he had struck was sideways now, blocking the car behind him. He careened through the side streets, then veered into the artery that fed the highway from the city. Sweat dampening his forehead, Brooke threaded through traffic as quickly as he could. Horns blared at his recklessness; anyone who kept up was doing so to catch him. He would deal with that then.

Damn Lorber, he thought. That he might be killed was the least of it. Worse was what might befall Khalid, or what al Qaeda would do to Brooke while he still lived. Perhaps they would share this on the Internet.

Instead he made it to a safe house. In three days, Langley ordered him home.

Brooke gave his photographs and information to Bashir Jameel. One of the shooters was dead, Bashir told him; the other had vanished. “I'll miss you, Adam,” Jameel said. “Not every business consultant kills a man on the way out of town.”

The dead man was Fatah al-Islam; the men in the photographs were confirmed to be al Qaeda. Forced to act swiftly, the Lebanese army arrested seven men at Ayn Al-Hilweh. None revealed their confederates. Frank Lorber's source, Jibril Rantisi, disclaimed any knowledge of who they might be.

“And you don't believe that?” Terri Young asked now.

“With good reason,” Brooke answered softly. “A month later Khalid Hassan was found dead, garroted in an alley in Ayn Al-Hilweh. We flew Imad back for the funeral.”

W
aiting for an answer, Brooke felt the hours slipping away. To bolster his argument, he and Terri Young reviewed new scraps of intelligence from Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon. But there was nothing of interest. If their unknown operative was in the region, his activities were well hidden.

“Suppose,” Brooke said, “that the cigarettes
were
a decoy, designed to sniff out our surveillance before he moves the bomb. Where would it be safe for him to hide?”

Terri looked at his map. “A populous area. Perhaps a safe house in Basra.”

Studying the topography of southeastern Iraq, he again noted the two Kuwaiti islands off its lip, Bubiyan and Failaka. Pointing them out, he asked, “What's there?”

“Not much. They were pretty much abandoned after the first Gulf War.” Terri looked up at him. “That would involve an extra step. But, sure, someone could hide there, waiting out events.”

Sitting at her computer, Terri emailed Brustein and Carter Grey. “Ask the Kuwaitis to search these islands,” she recommended. “Sooner rather than later.”

The Bekaa Valley, Dr. Laura Reynolds reflected, felt even more stifling and hot.

The dig team was wilting in the sun. Just before they broke for lunch, Laura found Maureen Strafford silently weeping at the edge of the ruins. “Still worried for your parents?” Laura asked.

Maureen nodded. “They won't leave Boston. ‘This is our home,' they keep saying.”

Laura sat beside her. “Parents are like that,” she said gently. “If it's any consolation, I doubt Bin Laden is likely to target Boston. Only Bostonians think it's that important.”

As Laura intended, Maureen managed a half-smile. “What about
your
parents? Aren't they in New York?”

“They are. I implored them to visit our family here. No luck.”

Falling quiet, Laura allowed herself to imagine the horror of her parents' destruction, the end of a world she had loved since childhood. Tears surfaced in her eyes.

Maureen took her hands. “I'm sorry.”

“Don't be,” Laura said. “We'll all feel better when September 11 passes.”

Later that afternoon, Laura drove to Baalbek for supplies. When Maureen offered to keep her company, she demurred, pleading the need to reflect.

She bought paper and inkjets for their fax machine and printers, art supplies for Segolene Ardant's assistants. Turning a corner, she nearly bumped into a spindly Shia man.

Smiling, Laura pantomimed surprise and delight. “Habib,” she exclaimed in Arabic. “How long has it been?”

Though they did not touch, Habib conveyed his pleasure with a ceremonious half-bow. “Dr. Laura—God is good indeed.” His face clouded. “But not to your country, it seems. Do you fear this threat?”

At once, Laura's face changed. “For my parents, and for everyone in America.”

His tone filled with compassion. “You must find it hard to work.”

“Very hard,” Laura affirmed softly. “But all I can do for them is pray.”

“Then I will, too. I hope a Christian can accept the prayers of a Muslim.”

“With gratitude, and thanks.”

Pedestrians walked around them. Moving out of the way, Laura said audibly, “Please, though, tell me how your children are.”

Habib smiled. “Demons,” he replied with zest, as though every parent would want several. “Growing too fast.” Lowering his voice, he added, “There is a shipment coming through Syria, as before. But this one seems different.”

As a member of the Jefaar clan, Laura knew, Habib must be taken seriously. Miming interest in some pleasantry, she murmured, “Antiquities?”

“No one knows. But there are differences that suggest a great impatience.” He smiled again, the dissonance between demeanor and speech apparent to Laura alone. “It was arranged by a stranger, I am told. A man no one had ever seen.”

“What nationality?”

“I don't know, except that he wasn't Lebanese. But it is rumored that a lot of money came to members of my clan. It seems that he possesses some great treasure.”

Laura tried to control her expression. With a casual air, she asked, “Do you know where he's going?”

Mindful of those passing, Habib shrugged in a pretense of fatalism, a man dismissing trifles. “I do not.”

“Please keep listening,” Laura directed in a low voice. “This could be important to those of us who value the past.”

Smiling, Habib said, “May God bless you, Dr. Laura.”

“And may you and your family prosper.” Meaning, they both knew, his secret account at a bank in the Christian section of Beirut.

In the first hours of night, Al Zaroor, Haj, and a helmsman left Failaka by powerboat. His cargo rested between them. Beneath the thud of the motor, Haj cautioned, “You're leaving too soon.”

“Perhaps,” Al Zaroor said. “But we stayed on Failaka too long. An island is no place to hide.”

Both men fell silent. An hour passed, the boat feeling to Al Zaroor like flotsam in the vast darkness of the Gulf. A low mist settled over the water, shrouding them from the moon, now a faint half-disk. When they passed it, the island of Bubiyan was barely visible, a shadowy object squatting on the surface. Turning, Al Zaroor saw the first faint lights of Umm Qasr, the Iraqi seaport near the border with Kuwait.

A smugglers' haven,
Haj had told him.
But much nicer now. USAID spent thirty million U.S. dollars deepening the harbor so their Iraqi stooges could have a real port. Which, of course, made the beneficiaries even more corrupt.

“What will happen?” Al Zaroor asked him.

Haj's face became grim. “For another day and night, we'll hide you. It can't be helped.”

Edgy, Al Zaroor watched the harbor as they neared Umm Qasr, slipping between the massive hulls of tankers and freighters at anchor. He must rely on Haj's judgment, Al Zaroor reminded himself; he had chosen him with care.

The helmsman cut the motor, lowering its sound. Slipping past the last freighter, they docked at the end of a deserted pier.

Three of Haj's men awaited them. Using ropes and pulleys, they hoisted the wooden box onto the pier. They bore it down the catwalk like pallbearers at a funeral. Haj and Al Zaroor followed, quiet as mourners.