Saul's Game Read online

  Now in his dreams, sometimes it was Gunner Brody beating him and sometimes Afsal from when they first captured him and he couldn’t tell the difference. He wished he would die. Get it over with. Do it. I don’t understand why my body keeps living when I don’t want to. What do you want from me, Allah? Tell me, because I don’t think I can do this anymore.

  “Why didn’t you let them kill me in the desert?” Brody asked Abu Nazir.

  Abu Nazir turned the teacup in his hands.

  “Truly, I don’t know. Before we left Syria, I gave the order to Afsal. You must understand, Nicholas Brody. You are a soldier too. This is war. But there, in the desert, when the moment came—truly, I don’t know why. They tell me you have become a Muslim. You pray salat with the others. Is this so?”

  Brody nodded.

  “Yes, but why? You were born Christian, yes?”

  Brody hesitated. He looked at the open window, at the gray sky. After all this, would being honest cause Abu Nazir to kill him? And if he was honest with himself, did he even care anymore, or had the Turkmen girl finally given him a glimmer of hope?

  “I understand,” Abu Nazir said. “You are afraid. But say the truth. It will be good. Why did you become a Muslim?”

  Brody put his face in his hands.

  “I don’t know,” he muttered. “At first, I needed to be with other people. I didn’t want to be alone.” He looked up. “But then, I couldn’t live without it.”

  Abu Nazir nodded. “It is so,” he said. “Sometimes we find Allah. Sometimes Allah finds us. Where are you from in America, Nicholas Brody?”

  “Alexandria, Virginia.”

  “Is that where you were born? Where you grew up?”

  Brody shook his head. “I was born in Twentynine Palms in the Mojave Desert in California, but I grew up in Bethlehem. It’s in Pennsylvania.”

  Abu Nazir stared at him. “Bethlehem? Like Jesus?” He stood up and folded his arms across his chest. “You? From Bethlehem?”

  “I didn’t know Muslims liked Jesus so much,” Brody said.

  “You are ignorant,” Abu Nazir snapped. “Muslims honor Jesus. He is a messenger of Allah and the Messiah, of a virgin born.”

  “So why do you hate Christians?”

  “Christians are fools. They say Jesus was the Son of God, that he was also God his own father and conceived himself with the Virgin Mary his own mother. This is both impossible and obscene. Allah is One. He makes no perversions.

  “Then these same Christians come into our lands and make war on us. This they have done since the Crusades. Our war is with America and unbelievers, not Jesus,” he said, and motioned for Brody to leave. But it was strange. After that, Afsal treated him differently. Mahdi and the others too. Almost as if he were one of them. And they let him sleep alone in his room at night.

  Now, walking in the rain back from the mosque, he glanced at the makhbaz shop as they passed. There were two of the round breads with the star patterns in the window. It was the sign Akjemal had said she would put there to let him know her uncle and his truck would be ready that night if he could get away.

  An hour down the highway—just one hour, after six years—and he would be in Mosul and free. Free.

  Except the previous evening, Abu Nazir invited him to dine with him. They were alone, just the two of them, eating chicken with rice and raisins, no Afsal with his gun, watching beside the door.

  “We are leaving Tal Afar, Nicholas,” Abu Nazir told him. “Very soon.”

  If he was going to try an escape with the Turkmen girl’s uncle, it would have to be tonight or never, Brody thought.

  “Why? What’s happened?”

  “Many things. We never intended to stay here. And there are things that are about to happen. The Americans think their war in Iraq is finished. They have foolishly handed Iraq over to the Shiites and the Iranians, thinking they can walk away like children who tire of a toy. They are about to learn their war is not over. As a Muslim and an American, your loyalty will be tested,” Abu Nazir said, leaning forward. “What will you do?”

  “I’m a prisoner of war. I want it to be over, inshallah,” Brody said. God willing.

  Abu Nazir clasped Brody’s hand and held it tight. “You have so much to learn, Nicholas. This is a very old war. If you let me, I will teach you. But we must be honest with each other.” His dark eyes peered at Brody as if he could see straight into his mind.

  “Why did you save me in the desert? I have to know,” Brody said.

  “Truly, at the time, I did not know. All I knew was that I felt a sudden urgency that I had to stop it. I sense the hand of Allah in this, Nicholas. We shall see.” He frowned. “When we get to our new destination, I have something important to ask you.”

  That night, he lay awake calculating his chances. If he failed, they would kill him and probably the girl and her family. If he succeeded, Abu Nazir would, at a minimum, bomb the makhbaz, killing her and whoever was in or near the bakery. Probably go after her family too. But he would be safe and out of this hell.

  Could he live with that?

  He’d killed Tom Walker. He was already living with it, he told himself. Guilty of murder. The girl, Akjemal, what did he owe her? And what about Jessica—and his kids? He owed them something too, didn’t he?

  He’d kissed Jessica good-bye so long ago. She must think I’m dead. My kids; my mother; my buddy, Mike; and Mike’s wife, Megan; they must all think I’m dead. What did he owe her and the kids now? He had no choice, even if it meant Akjemal’s life. He had to try. Even though there was a good chance they’d catch him. In his mind, he could picture Abu Nazir’s face, what it would look like, when he told Afsal to kill him.

  He stood up from the pallet on the floor that was his bed and pulled on his pants. He picked up a kaffiyeh head scarf in which he’d bundled his shoes and the rest of his clothes. If anyone stopped him, he was going to the toilet. Barefoot, he made his way down the dark hallway, feeling his way along the wall.

  It had to be the balcony; there was no other way. They were on the second floor. There was always someone on guard at both the front and back doors and at a secret basement tunnel to the next building. But there was an iron drain pipe that ran from the house’s tile roof down to the alley below. The pipe was about a meter from the side of the balcony. In his mind, he had reached over and climbed down that pipe a thousand times.

  This time he would do it.

  The balcony was in a bedroom shared by Daleel, his wife, Heba, and their two children. He tiptoed into the bedroom. Daleel was snoring as he crept past them to the balcony door, luckily left open for air. It had stopped raining. The air smelled of rain and there were a few stars out. The stone floor of the balcony was cold and wet under his bare feet.

  He tied the kaffiyeh bundle of clothes around his neck. It was awkward, but it would only be until he was down on the ground, he told himself. As he lifted his leg up onto the balcony ledge, he felt his foot graze something. Oh God! He had dislodged a piece of tile. He heard it scrape and fall. Please no, he thought, his blood freezing inside as he heard the tile smack into pieces on the stone of the alleyway below.

  Instantly, he dropped on all fours. Heba stirred. Daleel snorted and stopped snoring. Brody began crawling through the bedroom on his fingers and toes.

  “Maadha?” What? he heard Heba say. “Did you hear that?”

  “What?” Daleel said.

  Brody was moving quickly to the dark rectangle that was the doorway to the hall. O Allah, he thought.

  “I heard something. Was it the children?”

  Brody heard her getting up, but by this time, he was in the hall. Now upright and moving fast on bare feet, he walked back to his room, stripped off his pants, and slid back on his pallet. Less than ten seconds later, a flashlight was shining in his face.

  Brody raised up on one elbow; one hand shielding his eyes from the flashlight. It was Afsal.

  “Did you hear that noise?” Afsal said.

  “I don’
t know. What happened?” Brody said.

  “I don’t know. I thought it was you.”

  “No. Maybe a cat. They’re all over,” he said, dropping back on the pallet.

  An hour later, his arm over his eyes, he thought about trying again. If it was risky before, it was ten times riskier now. He could see Jessica receding from him, the way it was at the bus station when he first joined the Marines with Mike, looking back from the bus watching her and Dana grow smaller in the distance.

  I tried, Jess, I tried. And then, the finality of it. There was no other night. No other chance. The girl, Akjemal, had left the two loaves in the window for him. If he didn’t do it tonight, he would never escape. He would die a gutless prisoner.

  He would do it tonight, he decided. He would kill whoever was guarding the front door and just run all the way to the bakery shop. One way or another, his captivity would be over tonight. All he had to do was wait one more hour till everyone was back asleep.

  An hour later, just as he was about to leave, he heard Afsal get up. His nerves screaming, he could only wait. A minute or two later, Afsal came back and turned on the light. Brody closed his eyes. Afsal poked him.

  “Come. He wants to see you,” Afsal said.

  Brody pulled on his pants and followed him to Abu Nazir’s bedroom, which showed signs of activity, weapons and suitcases out. Abu Nazir looked at Brody.

  “Nicholas, get ready. Much has happened. We are leaving Tal Afar,” he said.

  CHAPTER 10

  Latakia, Syria

  16 April 2009

  He was waiting for her by the ship’s rail. For some reason he always seemed taller, thinner than Carrie remembered, but at the sight of him the knot that had tied up her stomach for days was gone. No, better than that. She felt safe. Saul.

  “The seagulls aren’t flying over the rocks,” she said. Code that she hadn’t been followed in the taxi to the dock where she’d caught the ship’s tender.

  “I know, or you wouldn’t be here,” he said, putting his hand on the rail. They stood side by side at the ship’s rail looking at the city, savoring being together—Saul and Carrie—then he turned to really look at her. “How are you?” he asked.

  “It got a little hairy there—actually, damn hairy—but I’m okay,” she said. “It’s good to see you.”

  “You were alone. There wasn’t another way.” Despite his words, he was smiling, beaming almost, as if he couldn’t stop himself if he wanted to.

  He wore a windbreaker and had a canvas, messenger-style bag slung from his shoulder. Behind him was the seascape of the harbor in early morning. Container ships at the dock and other freighters like theirs moored offshore. Beyond them, looking north along the curve of the coast, she could see the palm-tree-lined, white sand beaches and hotels of the tourist area the locals, in imitation of the Côte d’Azur, called “the Blue Beach,” where she’d waited for him to arrive.

  It was a beautiful sunrise, she thought. The sun was split by a cloud edge over the hills like a painting, the sky a dozen shades of blue. They were aboard a rusty Malta-flagged Turkish freighter, MV Denkaya II, bound next for Famagusta, in the Turkish portion of Cyprus.

  “We have a mole,” she said.

  “I know. I’ve suspected for some time,” he said.

  “What about those assholes upstairs?” Langley. “Do they know?”

  He nodded. “The director does. So does Bill Walden. It’s being closely held. I’m running a special op; completely separate from Langley. We’re calling it Operation Iron Thunder.”

  “Who else knows?”

  “Besides Walden? The director; Higgins, the president’s national security advisor; the president; General Demetrius; me—and now you.” His voice almost lost in the sound of the ship’s anchor chain rattling up and an increased thrumming of the engines.

  “Interesting,” she said, swaying and grabbing on to the rail as the ship’s horn sounded and they began to move.

  For a time he didn’t say anything. They waited as the freighter maneuvered out of the harbor. After a few minutes, they became accustomed to the movement, the sway and splash below at the waterline. Standing by the rail, they watched the city recede. The cranes and buildings at the harbor’s edge and the city, a jumble of buildings along the coast, began to merge with the horizon.

  “Carrie,” Saul began, “I’m not sure I have the right to ask you to do this. Especially after this last one.”

  She felt vaguely nauseous—and wasn’t sure whether it was the movement and noise of the ship or the idea that he might have lost confidence in her. It felt a little like when she was coming down from one of her “flights,” when she was off her meds.

  “Saul, what are you saying? That I can’t do this?” she said, almost panicked.

  “I’m not saying anything of the kind,” the wind tugging at his hair and beard, so that for a second, she thought he looked like an Old Testament prophet. “I don’t want to lose you.” He held on to the rail and looked into her eyes. “You’re good, Carrie. We both know it,” he said, the words thrilling her. He’d never said anything like that to her before. “I know you’ve been in some pretty hairy spots recently, but you have to trust me on this. This op is—will be—by far, the most dangerous thing you’ve ever done. I don’t want to minimize the danger.”

  She put her hand on his arm, nearly falling on him as the ship’s motion began to increase. The swells were bigger now. They were getting into rougher seas.

  “Why are you trying to talk me out of it, Saul? What’s going on? Guilty conscience? In case something happens to me, you want it on some kind of karmic record that you tried to talk me out of it?”

  “It’s not like that and you know it.” He frowned. “Two minutes—and we’re already fighting. Why is that—with the people I really care about—I always end up . . . ?” He leaned against the rail.

  “What is it? Tell me.” She touched his arm with her fist, relenting.

  “You deserve better. What you’ve been through, it isn’t fair. You’ve earned better,” he said. “I don’t want to have to put you through this again. You’d think there’d be someone else, dammit.”

  She looked around. They were truly out to sea now. The coast, the city of Latakia, was distant. The freighter’s engine throbbed through the ship, the motion rocking them through ink-blue waves that raised and lowered them at each heavy swell. The wind had come up too, whipping her long blond hair.

  “Does this bother you? Do you want to go inside?” Saul asked, tilting his head to indicate the salt wind, the sea, the ship’s sway.

  “In a minute. I like it,” she said.

  “I know. So do I.” He smiled. “I want you to know, you don’t have to say yes. Say the word, I’ve got something waiting for you at Langley. You’d have your own team. A promotion in grade with a nice jump in pay. It’s a good position. I’m not just saying that. It’s damned important. It’s not a placebo, Carrie. It’s an important job that could use someone like you.”

  “Come on, Saul. Who are you trying to sell? You or me?”

  He leaned back against the rail next to her, the way he used to do, the two of them side by side, leaning on his desk at Langley.

  “Both of us, I guess. I had to at least try.”

  “Saul, it’s me.” She looked at him. “What are you trying to tell me?”

  “A life. Find somebody, Carrie. A good guy. Have some kids. Have a life, a real life, for chrissakes.”

  “Jesus, Saul. Who the hell do you think I am?” The wind whipping her blond hair about her face, and behind her the rolling sea. Do you really want to get into this, Saul? she thought. What life is like for a single woman? Much less one who’s a CIA spy and has a bipolar mental condition to boot? The nights alone, just me, my laptop, and a bottle of tequila because it’s better than Singles’ Night in downtown anywhere. The times when you walk into a bar, ready to pick up any man who isn’t physically repulsive and doesn’t smell like taking out the trash, just because
you need to hear the sound of a human voice other than your own. Believe me, that isn’t a road you want to go down, Saul. “You want me to bake cookies? Maybe in five, ten years, Saul. But not today. Not today, not when we’ve got a son-of-a-bitch mole. Tell me the truth. Why don’t you want it to be me?”

  “Because it has to be you.” Again he frowned, turning to her. “Everything I just said was bullshit and we both know it. It has to be you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re good and you’re the only one I can trust. I said all that other crap because there’s a real chance you won’t come back from this one. And I hate that, Carrie. I can’t even begin to tell you how much I hate that. That stuff about you with a husband and kids, that’s my fantasy for you. That’s my Jewish guilt talking,” he said.

  “Yeah, well, Catholics know a thing or two about guilt too. The sisters at Holy Trinity High made sure of that. Speaking of marriage, how’s Mira?” she asked, pulling up the zipper on her jacket.

  “I’m supposed to be in Mumbai right now. On leave, spending time with her and her family.” He grimaced. “I let it slip to Sandy Gornick that I was actually going to India to try and patch things up. That’s the cover.”

  “Oh Saul, that bad?”

  “Worse.” Shaking his head.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, nudging him with her arm.

  “So am I,” he said, patting her arm. “We have a problem with ‘the Russian.’”

  “Why? Wasn’t the image on the—” she began.

  “Image was fine—for the Russian. There’s no clear sighting of the guy you said was Abu Nazir, but for that we had Cadillac’s comment, plus your voice recognition on him. Image of the Russian was wonderful,” he said angrily. “Trouble is, nobody knows who the hell he is.”

  “That’s impossible,” she snapped. “We have . . . Do we even know if he’s Russian?”

  Saul shook his head.

  “What about Moscow Station?” she asked.