Saul's Game Page 16

  Inside, the grounds were exquisite. A glass opening to an indoor-outdoor pool, flowers everywhere in the landscaped garden, and, painted on the interior walls, a mural of nineteenth-century Baghdad, the Ottoman Baghdad of horses and carriages and palm trees by the Tigris River.

  What was unexpected were the guests: famous Iraqis, a painter, a poet, a glamorous television star, among others, and the food: a spread of mezzes, along with the best masgouf and kofta Carrie had ever tasted. In the background, a trio of musicians on the oud, piano, and violin played traditional Iraqi maqams.

  “And when the war ends . . .” Eric Sanderson, deputy chief of mission at the U.S. embassy, eyeing Carrie when she walked in with de Bruin and Dasha, was saying.

  “You keep saying that, but it is your war that will end,” Shaima Yassin, the television star, said, tossing her long wavy hair. “America will go home to its baseball games and its endless self-contemplation. You’d think Americans were Buddhists instead of Christians the way they study their own navels as though the rest of the world doesn’t exist, but the war you left us will go on for a hundred years.”

  “Now you set her off, Mr. Sanderson. Suffering is the new Iraqi art form. It infects every conversation,” Abdul-Jabbar, an archaeologist noted for his deciphering of Sumero-Akkadian tablets, said.

  “And despair. And ugliness,” the painter, Msayyiri, said.

  “Ya Allah. And what was under Saddam?” Shaima said.

  “Grandiosity. Stupidity. And banality. The triteness alone made you want to shoot yourself,” Msayyiri said.

  “And fear,” Carrie said.

  “And fear,” Msayyiri, looking at her, agreed.

  “And now?” Sanderson asked.

  “Sewage, Mr. Sanderson. And dead children. I hope it was worth it,” Msayyiri said, getting up and pouring himself some champagne from a bottle chilling in a silver bucket.

  “You’re the artist?” Carrie asked.

  He nodded.

  “It’s odd, sometimes there’s beauty too. You see rockets exploding or red tracer bullets arcing across the sky at night; it can be beautiful,” Carrie said.

  “Like Yeats,” al-Tariq, the poet said. “A terrible beauty.”

  Later, in the bedroom with Marius de Bruin and Dasha, overlooking the garden and an outdoor pool so still it reflected the stars, and flying on ecstasy, Carrie had some of the best sex of her life; the three of them intertwined, no way to tell where one ended and another began.

  And in the morning, first light, floating naked in the pool. Alone, with only the flowers and the birds and there was no war anymore and nothing except the sense that she had done it.

  Because she had gotten up in the middle of the night and used the thumb drive sewn on the inside of her clutch—and a good thing she had taken care to conceal it, because when they first walked in, she was frisked by one of de Bruin’s people, Estrella, a tiny Peruvian woman from the Andean highlands, obvious Indian blood, no more than five feet tall, with sharp dark eyes and a suspicious moon face, who opened her clutch and poked through everything, even her lipstick. But the little woman didn’t find the drive. Carrie connected it now to de Bruin’s cell phones and laptop to upload the NSA software that Virgil and Saul would use to GPS-track de Bruin’s every move and capture every word, every keystroke he typed from now on.

  And while she walked around in the darkness, still stark naked and a little buzzy from the ecstasy and the sex, checking to see de Bruin and Dasha were still sleeping and then looking to see if there was something else, a safe or place he might keep papers, suddenly there stood Estrella. A dark small shadow in front of her, like an imp. Holding something Carrie couldn’t see, but it could well have been a gun.

  “What are you doing, señorita?” the little Peruvian said.

  “Looking for the bathroom,” Carrie said.

  “No, you weren’t.”

  “Go back in your hole, little rata.”

  Going back to the bedroom, Carrie thought, We know each other, little rata. Because when Estrella had first searched her purse, she’d kept Carrie’s cell phone, with an email attachment detailing Iron Thunder on it, including General Demetrius’s planned military attack on Baquba. Nibble on that, little rata, Carrie thought. Nibble on the poison.

  Then, after dawn, floating in the pool, she watched the sky turn blue. De Bruin watched her from the sliding-glass bedroom door, a towel wrapped around his waist, and after a minute, Estrella came in, talking to de Bruin and pointing at Carrie in the water. De Bruin dropped the towel and came over to the edge of the pool, naked. With him was one of his Peruvian guards with an FN P90 submachine gun and Estrella, her eyes triumphant.

  “Coffee?” De Bruin asked.

  “Please,” Carrie said.

  CHAPTER 20

  Hart Senate Building, Washington, D.C.

  29 July 2009

  00:41 hours

  “There’s something I don’t get, Bill.”

  “What do you mean, Warren?”

  “Saul got the lead about the mole, this de Bruin, from what Lebedenko left behind? His cell phone? Laptop? The girl, Alina, whatever, right?”

  “Actually more than that. A number of leads. Including an influential member of the Salmani tribe, who had taken the kunya, the code name, Abu Ghazawan, after a companion of the Prophet. We were able to track this Abu Ghazawan from a location in northern Iraq to Karbala, which proved critical. Also, they found a gmail address that the NSA was able to tie directly to de Bruin with repeated contacts that closely matched the dates Saul had previously determined to be when the intel was passed.”

  “Including the raid on Otaibah?”

  “Yes, exactly.”

  “So this de Bruin character was what? . . . Head of Atalaxus Executive, Pty, a PMC, a private military company. So the question is, how in the name of all that’s holy does someone like that get his grubby hands on Top Secret American intelligence?”

  “Really, Warren? We’re sitting here with the president, and you, the head of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, ask me that with a straight face?”

  “Wait a damn minute, Bill. This is a helluva breach of security. If the senator doesn’t get it, I need to know. How did this de Bruin get his hands on our Top Secret stuff?”

  “We handed it to him, Mr. President. On a silver platter. Happens every day. It’s happening this second.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Excuse me, Mr. President? You know as well as I do, you can’t fight large-scale overseas wars like Iraq while maintaining a global military presence with an all-volunteer military. For political reasons, the American people decided after Vietnam, no draft. Your army isn’t big enough. Something’s got to give. So either we can’t fight a war or we do what the ancient Romans did. We hire mercenaries. Only nowadays we call them PMCs.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “Come on, guys, they do everything from cleaning up the garbage to training and security. Except they can’t do what we pay them to do without giving them intel, even if we have to remove the shiny ‘Top Secret’ wrapper. De Bruin was at the highest level. He met with CENTCOM’s top officers, the inner circles in the Coalition and the Iraqi government. He met with everyone every day.”

  “In other words, we outsourced everything in the war, except our casualties.”

  “You hire people who do things for money, Senator, you really shouldn’t be surprised if they do things for money. Including buying and selling inside information.”

  “There’s still something bugging me. I just don’t get it.”

  “What’s that, Warren?”

  “This business with the female agent, Carrie Mathison, and the Iranians? Why put her in harm’s way again? What for?”

  “You mean, why bother?”

  “Exactly. Why bother? Saul already knew about de Bruin, right? And whatever this Abu Whatever person was doing, Saul had identified the mole. And Carrie had seen to it that de Bruin got the intel about Iron Thunder.
Why didn’t Saul just shut the son of a bitch down?”

  “What you’re really saying, Warren, is that’s what you would’ve done. And to tell you the truth, maybe that’s what I would’ve done. But what I’ve been trying to tell you both—and believe me, I would never tell him—is that when it comes to this game, we three are amateurs. We are not the genius Saul is.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Look, the Iranians were part of this from the beginning, because from the minute we toppled Saddam, like it or not, Iran became a major player in Iraq. Saul understood that intel wasn’t just leaking to IPLA and al-Qaeda. The Iranians had been acting all along like they were getting a piece of the mole’s intel too. Yes, boys and girls, de Bruin was a businessman. As we were to learn, he was getting paid twice for the same goods. Saul suspected as much. But he knew if he simply leaked Iron Thunder to the Iranians through de Bruin, they would be suspicious. It was critical to the success of Iron Thunder that they believe it. The only way they would believe it without any shadow of a doubt was if they thought they had gotten it for themselves.”

  “You mean . . . ?”

  “Yes, Warren, the second arm of Saul’s Cannae double-flanking strategy. Stop the Iranians by making them think we were going to launch a massive attack against them in Baquba. And they would believe it—”

  “Because they would have gotten the intel for themselves.”

  “Exactly. Iron Thunder.”

  “It’s brilliant, Bill.”

  “I thought so, Mr. President. More importantly, given the circumstances we were facing, it was necessary.”

  “And Saul? Where was he when this was happening?”

  “Working the end game with General Demetrius, Warren.”

  “To get the mole and complete the implementation of the Status of Forces Agreement with the Iraqis?”

  “No, Senator. To save a war everyone thought was over.”

  CHAPTER 21

  Ramadi, Iraq

  24 April 2009

  They met in a two-story house in the Warar district, a few kilometers from the U.S. military base at Camp Blue Diamond. Like nearly all the houses in Ramadi, this one was surrounded by a high security wall, but from the comfortable second-floor room, its windows left open to catch a breeze, Saul could see the Euphrates River. There were overgrown green fields between the house and the river, and on its banks, U.S. soldiers keeping watchful guard around the house. The river was bordered with reeds and palm trees shimmering in the heat and, on the far side, a shepherd in a kaffiyeh and dark thaub robe, with his flock. It was like something out of the Bible. Saul wished his father could have seen it.

  Ramadi was nothing like the way Carrie had described it to him back in 2006, during the worst of the fighting. Driving through the paved streets in an MRAP armored vehicle with General Demetrius, he had seen combined patrols of U.S. Marines and Iraqi ISF vehicles, men in white robes, women in black abayas with baskets, and girls in blue uniforms on their way to school. There was construction and rebuilding everywhere. The transformation was astonishing.

  “You heard about the suicide bomber who lured children and then blew them to pieces in Haditha?” Sheikh Ali Hatem al-Rashawi said. He was a thin man with a goatee and dark sunken eyes, wearing a white kaffiyeh and thaub trimmed with gold thread suggesting his status as the leader of the Albu Mahal tribe.

  Two of al-Rashawi’s aides and Lieutenant Colonel Larson sat in chairs beside the door, all of them carrying weapons. Beside the table where they sat sipping cardamom tea, a fan hummed a small breeze to help relieve the heat.

  After the death of his brother, assassinated by Abu Nazir, Sheikh al-Rashawi had rallied most of the Sunni Dulaimi tribes of Anbar Province to join with the formidable “Sons of Iraq” tribal fighters to battle Abu Nazir’s IPLA. He had even brought some of the Salmani tribesmen, once the deadly rivals of the Albu Mahals, over to his side against al-Qaeda.

  “Abu Nazir is trying to retake Anbar. Only now you Americans went and made the Sons of Iraq part of the ISF, the Iraqi Security Forces, General. For us Sunnis, this is a problem. The Shiites always play politics. This must be dealt with,” al-Rashawi said.

  “It’s worse than that. Abu Nazir has mobilized for a series of attacks and assassinations he anticipates will force the Americans out. He wants civil war,” Saul said.

  “What would he gain?” al-Rashawi asked.

  “You know the Chinese saying? Out of chaos, opportunity. Otherwise, IPLA is dead. But if there were a civil war, where does it leave the Americans?” Saul asked.

  “Caught in the middle. Flat-footed. In the middle of a drawdown, pulling out—according to Napoleon, the most vulnerable time for an army—only worse, because we’re tied hand and foot by the Status of Forces Agreement and I have no support at home for additional military action in Iraq. We’d be sitting ducks. You know this for certain, about Abu Nazir?” General Demetrius asked, looking sharply at Saul. This was new intel.

  “There are a lot of moving pieces. If IPLA is moving, so is Iran. As we speak, they’re mobilizing to put weapons and Revolutionary Guards Al-Quds brigades into Baghdad. Possibly to link up with the Mahdi Army. It’s full-scale civil war,” Saul said.

  “Allahu alam, but this is evil news,” Sheikh al-Rashawi said. He turned to General Demetrius. “Give me more of your good American weapons, General, and I will push al-Qaeda all the way to Afghanistan.”

  “Saul, these attacks and assassinations, do you have locations? Targets? Timing?” General Demetrius asked.

  Saul nodded.

  “Not a hundred percent. But we’ve got a pretty good idea and we’re narrowing in.”

  “What are they?”

  “Abu Nazir and IPLA are moving on both Karbala and Baghdad.”

  “The Shiite shrine?” al-Rashawi said, looking at the others. From their glances, it was clear he and the general understood the implications immediately.

  The Imam Hussein Shrine in the city of Karbala housed the remains of Hussein ibn Ali, grandson of the Prophet Mohammed. Hussein and his followers were killed at the battle of Karbala in the year 680. It was the killing of Hussein that caused the final rift between Shiites and Sunnis that exists to this day. After Mecca, the shrine in Karbala was the holiest site in the world for Shiites. An attack that caused significant damage to the shrine or Hussein’s tomb would prompt violence across not only Iraq, but the entire Muslim world, with an end game impossible to predict. An Iranian counterattack would be almost inevitable.

  “How do you know, Saul?” General Demetrius asked.

  “We’ve traced intel from a mole who has been feeding Abu Nazir and linked it to one of Nazir’s commanders, a Salmani tribesman who uses the kunya Abu Ghazawan.”

  “Abu Ghazawan?” al-Rashawi said through gritted teeth.

  “Yes,” Saul said.

  “It was some of his men, dressed in uniforms like INP police, who came into Haditha and beheaded any man who did not have a beard and ordered the killing of the children. Like Abu Nazir, he is capable of any evil,” al-Rashawi said.

  “We’re able to track his movements,” Saul said.

  They both looked at him, surprised.

  “Where is he now?” General Demetrius asked.

  “Karbala.”

  None of them spoke.

  “How much time do we have?” General Demetrius asked, finally.

  “A week, maybe. Not much more,” Saul said. “There are a couple of pieces missing that I still have to fill in.”

  Al-Rashawi turned to Saul.

  “You have come to us before, Sha‘wela, our friend Saul. What is best now?”

  General Demetrius looked at the sheikh.

  “You trust Saul so much?”

  “Listen, General. Years ago, in the first American War—”

  “Back in ’91. Operation Desert Storm,” Saul put in.

  “Yes. After the cease-fire, there was a revolt by the Shiites and the Kurds against Saddam. You Americans had beaten his army
easily, but you stopped. You had not destroyed the Republican Guard. Many of them were Tikritis, of the Albu Nasir tribe, you understand? For Saddam Hussein, blood of his blood. The Americans, even their president, said, ‘Rise up against the dictator, Saddam.’ Secret emissaries came from the Shiites. ‘Join us. Help us, fight.’ In those days, before the Iranians helped them, trained them, they were weak like children.

  “I was a young man,” al-Rashawi said. “Ready for war. But the leader of our tribe was my uncle, Sheikh Abdul Jabbar Abu Nimr. A man respected across the Anbar among all the Sulaimi tribes. My uncle met with this man, General, Sha‘wela, and asked him the one question we had to know before deciding about what to do about Saddam: ‘If we fight, will the Americans help us?’

  “You must understand, General. Saddam was a tyrant, but like us, a Sunni. Here was the great American army only a hundred, two hundred kilometers away, with nothing between them and us but empty desert. We had to know. And Sha‘wela told us, ‘No. The Americans will talk, but they will do nothing.’ And he spoke the truth, General,” al-Rashawi said. “So we did nothing too. Of course I trust Sha‘wela now. What do we do?”

  Saul leaned in. Unconsciously, the others did too.

  “We end this. There’s a Top Secret operation called Iron Thunder. General Demetrius will place a strong American force in Baquba to stop the Iranians. That’s where all the arms and explosives are coming into Iraq from Iran. It will be the last operation of the war.”

  “Baquba? You’re sure?” al-Rashawi asked.

  Saul nodded.

  “Also, actions in Baghdad,” he added.

  “And the Sons of Iraq? The tribes?” al-Rashawi said.

  “They take all of Anbar, once and for all. Also, I need your help in Karbala. I need some of your best. Men you can trust. Four or five. Albu Mahals only.” Looking at al-Rashawi’s aides by the door.

  “Would they be killing IPLA?”

  Saul nodded.

  “Yes, also protecting a female agent of ours.” Saul tapped on his cell phone and brought up a photo of Carrie. He showed it to the general and al-Rashawi. “She is essential in this.”