Saul's Game Read online

  She could hear the sounds of someone being beaten and screams coming from another room nearby. She couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman. Please God it wasn’t Aminah. The last thing she had wanted in all this was to bring added trouble to Mosab’s family.

  Three men came into the room. Two of them, big, muscled, in work shirts, stood there watching. The third, in a gray-striped suit, shirt open at the neck, came over and studied her as if she were a painting in a museum.

  “As you can see from my passport in the bag, I’m an American diplomat,” she said, looking up at him. “If I don’t call into my embassy in less than an hour from now, you’ll be hearing from people so high up in your government, you’ll wish you were never born.”

  He came closer. She could smell his sweat and unwashed body odor. He backhanded her across the face, knocking her to the floor. He hit her so hard she thought her jaw was broken.

  “Strip her clothes off,” he told the other two men, who tugged her pants off. She squirmed and kicked at them, but they pinned her legs and pulled her panties down.

  “Bastards!” she screamed, kicking. “Sons of bitches!”

  She was naked. The man in the suit pulled her up by her hair to the stool and sat her on it. He started to unzip his fly.

  “You American women like it in the mouth,” he said. “You all do.”

  The other two men came closer. They were smiling.

  “Do it and I’ll bite it off,” she said, her heart pounding.

  He took out a pistol and put it to her head.

  “You even start to think of it,” glancing at the others, “I blow your whore head off. Now, all three of us, me first.”

  He started to free his erection from his trousers.

  “Before you make the biggest mistake of your life, do one thing,” she said. “Call your commanding officer. Make sure. Look in my handbag. You will see a photograph of Abd al Ali Nasser himself. Go and look at it, you fool!” she shouted in Arabic. “Look for yourself! He’s the head of the Syrian Mukhabarat. Trust me, if he finds out what you’ve done, he’ll kill you himself. All three of you, you stupid assholes! So will Abdulkader Salih, head of the GSD. Call him. Call your own commander. Right now. Make sure. Don’t make the mistake of your life. Go look! Look! See if I’m lying. See the diplomatic passport. See the photograph. Look for yourselves, you fools!”

  The smile had faded from the two men. The man with the pistol no longer had an erection. He glanced at the others, who looked at each other.

  “She’s lying,” one of them said in Arabic, but without conviction.

  “Easy to find out,” the other said. He went and brought the handbag. They found the Glock pistol and looked at Carrie. Then the passport. Then the photograph of Abd al Ali Nasser and the Russian she’d printed on a printer at the embassy from a file on her laptop.

  “Is this him?” the man in the suit asked. “Nasser?”

  The other two men shrugged.

  “Ask your boss?” Carrie said. “Or his boss? If I don’t call into my embassy very soon, you’ll be hearing from some very important people in the Syrian government. More important than your boss or his boss, I promise you. Are you sure you want to risk it?”

  “Shut up, whore,” the man in the suit said, grabbing her by her hair.

  “Don’t be stupid. Call your boss,” she said, her head twisted by his grip.

  He looked at the other men. “Just to make sure,” he said, and went over to the table and called.

  Carrie couldn’t hear what was being said from the other end. The man in the suit kept saying “na’am,” “na’am,” “na’am.” Yes, yes, yes.

  When the man in the suit finished he brusquely told them to untie her and let her get dressed.

  It took two more interrogations, in nicer offices, but similar men and the same questions, till they came and brought her in a BMW sedan to the hotel in Bloudan outside Damascus.

  Now, sitting there with Abd al Ali Nasser, watching the shadows of the mountains creep across the trees and the plain in the late afternoon, she put the photograph of him and the Russian on the table between them. He had, of course, already seen it, or they would never have met.

  “So, how do we do this? Are we trading? Do I throw you in Adra Prison till we wring everything out of you and send what’s left of you back to the CIA in exchange for something we might or might not want? What is it about this photograph, which may or may not be real or Photoshopped, that is so important?” Nasser said.

  Here’s the tricky part, Saul had said. Terra incognita. Put your pieces out one at a time. But nothing is sure. Not for you. Not for him. Start with what you know.

  “Assume the photo is real, because it is and we both know it,” she said. “It was taken at a waterfront restaurant on Büyükada Island in Istanbul.”

  “May I know the source?” he asked.

  “What if I said Mossad? Israeli,” she asked.

  “But you are not Mossad, I hope,” he said, and for a moment, she saw traces of the skull. Strange how that happened. “I would have no choice, Anne, is it? Although of course, we both know that’s not your real name. Because if you were Mossad, dear Anne, pretty as you are, pleasant as this is, I would have to kill you.” Pointing his finger at her like a gun. “I would do it personally. Today.”

  “You know I’m not or you would have done it already,” she said, holding her breath. She tapped the photograph. “Tell me about the Russian.”

  “What makes you think he’s a Russian?”

  “Who is he?”

  “You mean his real name? Haven’t the foggiest. Don’t know yours either. Sort of how we do business, we spies, isn’t it . . . Anne?” He smiled. The seducer again.

  “Where do you think he’s from?”

  “Eastern Europe. You’re probably right about that. Not sure where. Not even sure about that.”

  “Who did he represent?”

  “Himself mostly. Don’t we all?” He glanced at her. “Is there a point to this?”

  She nodded. “A very important point.”

  He exhaled a long stream of cigarette smoke. For a moment, she watched the smoke swirl against the backdrop of the nearby trees like mist. Whatever he said now would decide things, one way or the other, she thought.

  “We’re enemies, you and I,” he said. “Syria is surrounded by powerful enemies: Turkey, Jordan, Israel, the American Army in Iraq. You want something from me. Me, in particular. And you went to a lot of trouble to get to me. Leading GSD men on a chase through Damascus, and losing them—this by someone who presumably has never been in Damascus before—nicely done, by the way. Why? This man? Why is he so important?”

  “This man.” She nodded. “And Abu Nazir.” Taking an educated guess that the reason for the meeting between Nasser and the Russian in Istanbul had something to do with Abu Nazir and sanctuary for him in Syria. “We were surprised you permitted IPLA, a radical Sunni group, to establish itself here.”

  “You Americans!” he snapped. “You make blunders out of unbelievable ignorance. You are not like a bull in the china shop, you are like an elephant. You are so big, you break things even when you don’t want to.” He tapped the table with his finger. “My country, Syria. You think we are bad guys. I’m bad. Assad is bad. But let me tell you something, Miss whatever-your-name-is. This is a big majority Sunni country. If the Sunnis were ever to rise here, even if we were stupid enough to have a real election, every Salafi, every lunatic jihadi in the world would be drawn here like moths to the flame.

  “What would happen to the Christians in this country, then? The Kurds? The Druze? The Assyrians? The Palestinians? And us Alawites? And even Sunnis who just want to live like normal people, like it’s not the Middle Ages? What if they were to win completely? You think it would be like some fine Constitutional Convention with Benjamin Franklin and George Washington? This is the Middle East. There would be a bloodbath in this country greater than the Holocaust of the Jews in Germany.

  “A
nd it wouldn’t stop here,” he went on. “They would expand their terrorism to Lebanon and Turkey and Europe. And then America, miss. A thousand times worse than your 9/11. You know why? Because they would have weapons captured from the Syrian Army. Serious weapons. That is the al-Qaeda way. And you Americans would stupidly blunder into it, the way you did in Afghanistan and Iraq, never even knowing what you did,” he said, shaking his head.

  “I think we can help each other,” she said. “I think we have to.”

  “Why should I help you? Why should I even let you go? I should let you rot for the rest of your life in Adra Prison. You’re a CIA agent conspiring with the wife of a traitor. What do you want?”

  “Why did you give Abu Nazir sanctuary?”

  “Not sanctuary. We ignored his presence. The way we ignored the presence of two helicopters that invaded our airspace near Otaibah recently.” Staring at her. Shit, she thought. She didn’t think they knew that.

  “Why did you ignore him?”

  “Because the alternative would have been pitched battles between Hezbollah and al-Qaeda in the cities of Syria. Right now Abu Nazir’s interest is Iraq. Maybe he’ll be killed there. We wish you Americans would do it for us.”

  “Is he back in Iraq now?”

  Nasser didn’t answer. The sun had gotten low enough that he took off his sunglasses and she could see his eyes. They were pale blue and gave nothing away. She understood why he didn’t answer.

  “It’s a poor merchant in the souk who offers a customer tea and little gifts and she doesn’t buy,” she said.

  He smiled. “Well, at least you are not completely ignorant,” he said, motioning to the waiter hovering in the distance for another drink. “Do you want another?”

  “Tell him not so sour this time,” she said.

  They waited till the waiter had gone.

  “Is Abu Nazir back in Iraq?”

  “Kos emek,” he cursed. “It’s none of my business. He’s not in Syria. Now it’s your turn. What are you offering?”

  He mustn’t see it as a quid pro quo, Saul had cautioned her. He’ll walk away. In Go, it’s called ko. It’s a threatening move. If done correctly, Saul told her, it should do more damage to your opponent than the value of losing the ko itself.

  “The 2005 assassination of Rafik Hariri in Lebanon. We’ve identified two Hezbollah operatives who were responsible: Mustafa Rabi Badreddine and Salim Ghaddari,” she said.

  “So you say,” he growled. “This is slander, propaganda.”

  “No. We have evidence, hard evidence.”

  “Have you?” he said. Looking as if he was about to kill her.

  “There’s more. We’ve tied an approval for the Hariri assassination and the RDX explosive used to one of your own Mukhabarat agents who was working with the two men, Badreddine and Ghaddari, on the attack. I’ll write his name down for you in case someone’s recording this conversation,” she said, taking out a pen and a small pack of Post-its from her handbag. She wrote the name on the top one, peeled it off, and stuck it on the table so he could read it.

  The Hariri assassination had created an uproar in Lebanon that even four years later hadn’t gone away. A United Nations tribunal was investigating the matter with the spotlight on Hezbollah and Syria. There was a serious possibility of international sanctions and renewed civil war in Lebanon if the tribunal ruled that Hezbollah and Syria were responsible.

  His expression didn’t change. He picked up the Post-it, looked at it, rolled it into a tiny ball, and stuck it in his pocket.

  “And what were you planning to do with this?” he asked.

  “Tell you. It’s why I got myself arrested,” she said as the waiter brought their drinks. She sipped the margarita, letting him go through the permutations and work out the trap Saul had lured him into.

  “I could kill you,” he said. Staring coldly at her, blue eyes, no Oakleys. She had no doubt he was seriously considering it, working out the pros and cons. “There would be no body. We would have no knowledge of what happened. People, women disappear all the time, even in America.”

  “Doesn’t even the score. Not even a little. And your foreign minister’s probably already gotten a phone call about me. Don’t be stupid. We can help each other.”

  “All this, just for this man?” Tapping the photograph of him and the Russian.

  “Who is he?”

  “I told you, I don’t know. Ask the Mossad, since according to you, they were there.”

  “We did. If they knew, I wouldn’t be here. Did he give you a name?”

  He hesitated briefly before he spoke.

  “He called himself Haroyan. Marcos Haroyan. An Armenian name. He was apparently trying to mislead me. I’m a Syrian. Believe me, I know Armenians. This one was no Armenian.”

  “Who is he? Who does he work for?”

  “I’m not sure. I got the idea that he was working for a third party, but I’m not sure who. But he’s connected. This I know.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because he can deliver.”

  “Deliver what?”

  “Anything. He’s a fixer, a kind of broker.”

  “So you agreed to meet him in Istanbul sight unseen? Out of thin air? Who vouched for him?” Suddenly it hit her. “You’d heard about him before, hadn’t you?” she said. “Maybe you didn’t know his name or who he worked for, but you’d heard about him. Where? Who told you?”

  He looked at her oddly.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “Don’t you know? Ya Allah, you don’t know!” he said.

  He leaned toward her. The sun was setting, turning the plain and houses below rose and purple. Lights in the hotel and the landscaping and in houses had been turned on. The view was magical. It was getting cold. In a minute, they would have to go inside. But Carrie didn’t want to break the moment. This was what it had all been about. Wait for it, her instincts told her. Wait for it. “What about the UN Tribunal?” he said finally.

  “The information on the Hezbollah agents directly involved, Badreddine and Ghaddari, will be turned over to the tribunal,” she said.

  “And the name that was on the Post-it?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “So. Blackmail. I don’t think so, Miss CIA Agent.” Looking away. Lighting another cigarette.

  “When your men—or GSD, who cares—first arrested me, they almost raped me. Three of them,” she said, staring out at the lights and the darkening plain.

  “Were you afraid?” he asked.

  “Yes.” Turning to look at him. “I was.”

  “Every government uses brutes. The problem is, they act like brutes,” he said, taking a drag on his cigarette, then stubbing it out like it had a bad taste.

  “Who was it who first told you about the Russian?” she asked.

  “An ally of yours. English. A diplomat we assumed was an MI6 agent. Don’t you people ever talk to your allies?”

  “Do you tell the Iranians everything?”

  “Of course not. Dealing with your friends can be more dangerous than your enemies,” he said, and they both smiled.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  “We expelled the Englishman from Syria. Which, my dear Miss McGarvey, is what I am afraid we are going to do with you. You have twenty-four hours to leave the country.” He stood up and looked at her. The skull was back. “Don’t ever come back, miss. If you do, God willing, you will never leave. As we Arabs say, not in this life.”

  CHAPTER 12

  Ibiza, Spain

  20 April 2009

  Saul was tired. So tired he’d fallen asleep in the taxi from the airport to the little village of Roca Llisa, not far from Ibiza town. The taxi driver woke him when they arrived at the villa. A concrete-and-glass slab, white as bone in the sun. The property was surrounded by a wrought-iron fence and was set amid a cluster of expensive villas and condos clinging to cliffs overlooking the sea.

  Saul tried the gate. It was open. He hadn’t expected
that and wondered if he was making a mistake. He’d been wondering this a lot lately.

  He’d just come in from Baghdad, where he’d met with Perry Dryer, CIA Baghdad Station chief, Virgil Maravich, the CIA “Black Bag” technical expert Carrie trusted above all others, and Lieutenant Colonel Chris Larson, whom General Demetrius had assigned as secret liaison on Operation Iron Thunder.

  Although it was April, Baghdad was already turning hot, even at breakfast time. They met at his hotel room at the Rimal Hotel in the Karrada district on the east bank of the Tigris River.

  They each arrived separately, a little uncertainly. It was the first time they had all met. He had deliberately chosen a hotel outside the Green Zone, one rarely used by U.S. personnel or journalists, even freelancers used to low-rent digs, to help preserve secrecy.

  They understood that Iron Thunder was a separate operation, outside normal CIA channels. No reports or communications of any kind were to go to Langley.

  “Everything through me. Only me,” Saul told them. “And none of your subordinates or colleagues can know. No little winks or ‘Sorry, can’t say,’ at the Al-Hamra.” The Al-Hamra Hotel, everybody’s favorite watering hole since they’d closed the Baghdad Country Club in the Green Zone.

  “General Demetrius wants to know about a GO and if so, what classification?” Larson said.

  “Yes. It has to be official. And Top Secret,” Saul said. Issuing a General Order would make it an official military order. Top Secret was the highest U.S. security classification.

  “But won’t that—” Larson started. If the mole couldn’t learn about the Iron Thunder General Order, wouldn’t that defeat the purpose, was what he was going to ask.

  “No. That’s the damn point,” Saul said, i.e., the mole already had access to Top Secret intelligence.

  “There’ve been two bombings in Baghdad in the last two days. Back home, everyone thinks this damn war is over. We have indicators that the Mahdi Army is gearing up for something big here in Baghdad. Frankly, Saul, I’m not sure my reports are making it into the PDB,” Perry said. The President’s Daily Brief. The summary the president of the United States saw every day of the most critical intelligence issues.