The Zero (33 page)

“As you know, Subject Number Five, Bobby al-Zamil, is dead.” Dave cleared his throat. “Al-Zamil was a former associate of Bishir’s.
The reason we initially approached you about March Selios was that Bishir brought her up under interrogation. He said he’d met her through al-Zamil, who had business dealings with her. We’re not sure why al-Zamil was eliminated; perhaps the group wanted him out of the way because he was under surveillance, or it could be that he was having second thoughts, or maybe it’s a kind of reality show thing and they just voted off a member. Whatever, it seems clear they killed him to avoid endangering the operation.”

Markham nodded earnestly.

“But rather than dissuade the group, al-Zamil’s death seems to have galvanized the others and, if anything, convinced them to step up the timetable. Which brings us to Subject Number Six,” Dave said, “the cell’s most mysterious member. Even Bishir isn’t sure of his real name. The others call him
Ibn ’Arabi
, which appears to be a reference to a pacifist Sufi teacher. We’ve given him the code name Jaguar.”

“Why not call him Iceman?” Markham offered.

“What?” Dave asked.

“Yeah,” Markham said. “You know…if it was me, I’d call him Iceman.”

Dave looked incredulous. “Iceman?”

“Yeah. Iceman.”

“You want us to call him Iceman? But his code name is Jaguar.”

“Isn’t that kind of…predictable?”

Dave put his hand across his chest, chagrined. “No, it’s not predictable…we chose Jaguar because of Tarzan. You know. It’s an animal.”

“Yeah. I guess. But isn’t it a bit melodramatic?”

Dave seemed stung by the criticism. “And Iceman isn’t?”

“It’s a literary reference. It’s more sophisticated.”

“
Top Gun
is a literary reference?”

“No…Iceman from the Eugene O’Neill play.”

Dave scrunched up his face. “It isn’t that play with the obnoxious kids trying to make a chorus line?”

“No, that’s
A Chorus Line
.”

“Because that was awful.”

“I’m not suggesting you name someone from
A Chorus Line
. I’m saying that you consider naming the cell leader Iceman.”

Dave shrugged. “Well, we can’t. It’s too late. And we already have an Iceman in Riyadh. It would be too confusing.”

“But
Jaguar
?”

“Yes,” Dave said. “Jaguar. Now, as I was saying, Bishir believes—”

“Jaguar?” Markham mumbled.

Dave cleared his throat. “Bishir believes the cell is being funded by…
Jaguar
. Unfortunately, we have no idea where Jaguar is getting his money. We’re following the usual charities, Swiss accounts, drug sales, energy markets, alt-country music royalties, et cetera…but so far we’ve come up blank. All we have is Bishir’s post office box. A week ago, a blank postcard arrived there—no prints—with a rendezvous point.”

The card appeared on the screen. It read
WM PARK
0800. This time Remy wasn’t terribly surprised to recognize the handwriting as his own.

“At this meeting, we believe, targets will be assigned. Once this happens, we have two choices. We could take them down at the meeting, but we cannot move until we can account for all of the members, especially Jaguar. If we move…too quickly, we risk allowing some of them to escape. Move too slowly and—”

“It’s a race against time,” Markham said. Then he snorted into his hand like a high school kid trying to suppress a laugh in class.

“What?” asked Dave.

“Nothing,” Markham said, straightening up. But he closed his eyes and snorted again.

“What’s so funny?” Dave asked again.

Markham straightened his face. “Nothing. Just…nothing.”

Dave clicked his thumb and the next picture came up, Dave keeping his eyes on Markham disapprovingly. “This is the only photo we have of the man we believe to be Jaguar.” It was a grainy photo of two men leaning on the railing of a ferry. At first Remy tried to make out the man on the left, who may have been smoking a cigarette. “The man on the left is Assan,” Dave said, clicking the plunger again.

An enlargement of Jaguar appeared, even blurrier than the picture from which it was taken. His face was impossible to make out. But it was clear to Remy that the man was older, perhaps in his late fifties or early sixties, and that he was Middle Eastern, with short gray hair. And he was wearing a long, gray wool coat.

“Oh, no,” Remy muttered.

Dave ignored him. “This is Jaguar, the man they refer to as
Ibn ’Arabi,
an ironic reference to the teaching of Islam as a religion of love. We think Jaguar may have been a professor at one time, and may have taught one or more of the members. We think he may have become radicalized when he lost a family member, perhaps a son, during the first Gulf War, although we don’t know how, or to which side. We also believe he is Americanized, highly educated, with a knowledge of explosives—”

“No, I know that guy,” Remy said.

“Yeah.” Dave sighed and turned to face the fuzzy image of Jaguar. “That’s how I feel.” He walked to the wall and stared into the fuzzy image of the man in the wool coat. “When you finally see the enemy’s face, it’s like you’ve known him your whole life.”

“No—” Remy began.

“Oh, there is…one other consideration,” Dave said slowly, as if searching for the right words. “And it comes from the highest levels, and is not to be repeated outside this room.” He took a breath. “There is some…concern—as I said, at the highest levels—that the perception of danger has…”

“Waned?” Markham said.

“Yes. And we think it’s counterproductive for the public to view our enemies as a bunch of harmless nuts, lunatics with shoe bombs, ineffectual zealots. In other words, we can’t afford to capture a band of unarmed cabdrivers and motel operators.”

Markham looked over and raised his eyebrows, as if this were good news.

“We’re not looking for anything fancy,” Dave said. “It wouldn’t even have to be necessarily operational. But an enemy without weapons is a dog without teeth. So we are not to move until the enemy has an incendiary device.” Dave waited for this to sink in. “And then…we need to move fast.”

And just as Remy was about to stand up and say this was all crazy, Markham burst into nervous, staccato laughter. “It’s a spelling bee with death,” he said. “A hockey game against evil—”

APRIL ANSWERED
the door of her apartment and stared coldly at him across the tightened chain. She was wearing jeans and an oxford shirt buttoned over a tank top. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail. Her face seemed thinner. Pale.

Remy was pleasantly surprised to be there. “Hi,” he said.

She refused to meet his good eye. “What do you want, Brian?”

“What’s the matter?”

“What do you want?”

“What do I want? I…want to see you.”

“Why?”

“To talk.”

“About what?”

Remy was surprised by her iciness. “I miss you.”

“Tell me what you want, Brian.”

“Well…” He wasn’t sure where to start. “I seem to be involved in something and…I don’t know. I need to see you.”

Finally she looked up and seemed to notice the eye patch for the first time. But she didn’t say anything about it. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out,” she said.

“What’s the matter?” he asked again. “Can’t I come in?” He looked past her, into her apartment. The living room was filled with cardboard boxes. Sweaters were stacked on the box closest to the door. “Are you going somewhere, April?”

“Yes,” she said. It felt to Remy that they were speaking too quietly and too quickly, like actors working over a familiar scene. “I’m moving.”

“What? Where?”

“I can’t do this now, Brian.”

“I can’t come in?”

“No,” she said. “You can’t come in.”

“Why?”

“I’m with someone.”

Remy looked past her. “I don’t see anyone.”

“You can’t see ghosts,” she said.

“Ghosts? What are you talking about, April?”

“Please don’t do this,” she said again, staring at the ground.

“Do what?”

“Act like you don’t remember.”

“I
don’t
remember. I never remember. There are these gaps.”

“Yes,” she said, easing the door shut. “So you’ve said—”

EDGAR LOOKED
different—older, more self-assured—although it might have been his haircut. His mop of hair was much shorter, stubble on the sides and a small tuft in front; his old baggy clothes had been replaced by sweatpants and a rain jacket. And physically, he was definitely
thicker, as Remy had noticed before, like he’d been lifting weights, his bony neck replaced by a kind of pedestal. Remy was parked along the street again, at dusk, at the top of the hill across from the same mall parking lot. He watched through one lens of the binoculars, traffic cresting the hill, and between the cars he caught glimpses of Edgar walking along the sidewalk. He stopped in the same place as before, hopped over the retaining wall, and dropped again down into the lot. Determined not to lose Edgar this time, Remy took off the binoculars, dropped them on the bench seat, jumped out of the car, and made his way across traffic. He ran down the sidewalk and climbed over the same retaining wall, his patched eye aching as he ran. It was drizzling as Remy dropped over the wall and into the parking lot, twisting his ankle on the five-foot fall. By the time he got back up, he’d lost the boy again.

“Edgar!” The parking lot was landscaped with little tree boxes at the end of every row, and Remy limped his way around cars and sickly trees, rising up on his tiptoes every few minutes to scan the mall for him. “Edgar!”

Groups of people moved along the sidewalks and into the courtyard at the center of the mall. A car honked and Remy got out of its way. He stepped up onto the sidewalk. “Edgar!”

He walked gingerly down the business storefronts, peering in each one: A futon store. A tax preparation business. Maternity clothes. Party supplies. A chiropractor. Rattan imports, golf supplies, tanning beds. He didn’t see his son anywhere, and honestly couldn’t imagine him in any of the stores. “Edgar! Where are you?” Stone ice cream and bagels, Army recruiting and guitar sales and cell phones and…

Remy stopped and stared at the stores he’d passed. He thought about Edgar’s haircut. He walked carefully toward the narrow Army recruiting office. It was a shallow storefront, and it looked as if most of the space was behind a single door. A sergeant with disquieting blue eyes, a thin mustache, and a fading chin was sitting at a desk, talking
on the phone. Remy went inside. The sergeant looked up and ended the call.

“Good day, sir,” he said. “What can I do for you?”

Remy looked around. This part of the office was like a false front, a small space with a door leading deeper inside, or maybe to a back exit. “Did my kid come in here?”

“I’m sorry…?” the sergeant said.

“Edgar Remy.” Remy pointed to the door leading to the back of the office. A poster on the door showed the face of a rugged young man wearing fatigues, with smears of black eye paint as if he were simply going to play football. The poster read,
ARE YOU READY
? “Is Edgar back there?”

The man spoke calmly, reassuringly. “Sir, I’m not at liberty to say who is or isn’t here, except to immediate family.”

“I am immediate family,” Remy said. He moved for the door, but the soldier moved quickly in front of him. They were a few feet apart. “Look, you don’t want him,” Remy said. “He’s just a kid.”

The soldier smiled warmly. “That’s a common reaction when a young man volunteers. It’s hard to acknowledge when a child becomes a man.”

“He’s only sixteen,” Remy said.

The sergeant seemed genuinely amused. “You can rest assured, sir, we’re not going to let a sixteen-year-old enlist.”

This didn’t make Remy feel better. Could Edgar be eighteen? He knew that time had passed, but Edgar wasn’t old enough to join the Army. Was he? “This is a mistake. He’s not supposed to be here. He hasn’t signed anything, has he?”

The soldier took Remy’s arm. “Listen. As I said, I can’t say who’s here and who isn’t. But when a young man makes a decision like this, there is no turning back. And if that young man happens to be someone who lost his father, and wants to do something to avenge that good
man, I find it hard to see how anyone who really cares for him could possibly call it a mistake.”

“I’m his father,” Remy said weakly.

“His stepfather?” the sergeant said.

“No. His father.”

The sergeant smiled patiently. “Look, call yourself whatever you want. I’m sure it’s not easy to raise another man’s child. A selfless job. I can see that—”

“Listen to me—”

“No.” He spoke so quietly that Remy had to lean in to hear him. “You listen. I’ve kept my patience, sir. But I’m not going to sit here while you dishonor the young men and women who put on this uniform.” The man tilted his earnest head and implored Remy with those electric blue eyes. “If you’re not going to respect and support this young soldier’s decision, I’m going to have to ask you to leave…before you disgrace the cherished memory of his father.”

Remy laughed; the noise struck him as slightly psychotic. He wondered—
If I ran, could I make it past the soldier to the door?
—but the recruiter seemed to anticipate this and slid over a step. After a moment, Remy backed out of the office. Through the closed glass door, the recruiting officer stood with his arms crossed.

Remy turned onto the sidewalk, staring first in one direction, then the other. There was something about being presented with choices that he didn’t entirely trust, so he hesitated, then began to walk away.

“Hey.”

Remy turned. Edgar was standing in the doorway of the recruiting office, staring at his shoes as the recruiter watched nervously through the window, waiting to pounce if Remy did anything suspicious. Edgar stepped outside, the glass door swinging closed behind him. His black hair, which he’d always worn moppy, was too short to part now, just a thin buzz that wasn’t enough to cover the pink of his scalp. “I just want you to know,” Edgar began, “that I understand how you feel.” He con
tinued to stare at the ground. “I do. It’s just…” He stared off to his left, a pose so familiar that Remy ached to see his boy again, wondered what this buzz-headed young man had done with him.