The Terrorist, page 13
Bobby chewed vigorously on his lip. His mustache twitched from side to side. “Wait here,” he said. He went inside.
“Did you hear all that?” he said.
“Most of it,” said Lillian.
“Yeah,” said Jamal. He lowered the shotgun, but he continued to watch through the window.
“What do you all think?” said Bobby.
“I don’t know,” said Lillian. “It all sounds too crazy to be made up.”
“He’s a cool number,” said Jamal. “Damn. The way he came through that gate. And what about the lady?”
“She doesn’t say anything,” said Bobby.
“She’s French,” said Lillian. “The man’s not in good shape. She may be along just to help him out. They sure don’t seem like al Qaeda to me.”
“What he said about coming back and not hurting Fareed and all,” said Bobby, “that makes sense.”
“To me too,” said Jamal. “And the way he found Fareed. He’d find him easily, wherever he is. The best thing you can do, Bobby, is have them meet where we can protect Fareed.”
“So how do you do that?” said Lillian.
“It’s got to be a place where we’re all alone,” said Bobby, “where we can organize things, and where we’re protected, Fareed is protected, and he’s not.”
“I’ve got just the place,” said Jamal. “And just the protection. I need two, maybe three hours.”
Bobby went back outside. “Okay,” he said. “Here’s what we’ll do. We’ll take you to a meeting with Fareed three hours from now. But you can’t go anywhere between now and then. You stay right here where we can see you the whole time.”
“Fine,” said Louis.
“Could you bring him a chair?” said Pauline.
Bobby brought out two chairs. “You need some water or something?” he asked.
“Could you let your dog out while we wait?” said Louis.
“Junior?” said Bobby. “What for?”
“I like him,” said Louis.
XIV
Jamal sat in the backseat of the Cadillac, and Louis sat beside him. Pauline sat in front, next to Bobby. Bobby headed down Keyser Street. After a few blocks, they crossed the Bergen canal on a black, iron bridge. The bridge rattled and groaned as they drove across. On the other side of the bridge, the landscape changed. Streets were crumbling, the sidewalks had mostly disintegrated. Junk sumac and locust trees grew up through cracks in the pavement. Trash was everywhere—tires, cardboard, cans, bottles. The plywood across the windows and doors of most of the houses was covered with grafitti. Abandoned cars with bashed-out windshields and missing wheels sat collapsed by the curb. In the distance, behind the houses, were rusting storage tanks and, farther back, a tall, black stack with a staircase spiraling up around the outside. A jet of yellow flame erupted from the top.
They passed the remains of a warehouse or factory. Every one of its hundreds of windowpanes had been broken out. Shards covered the sidewalk below. There were no people on the streets. It was as though the purpose of this place had been to be destroyed. That work was done and everyone had moved on to the next job.
Bobby stopped the car behind the remains of a small factory building made of yellow bricks. Its windows were gone.
A young black man leaned against the building beside its steel entry door. Jamal walked up to the man. They bumped fists and spoke briefly. Jamal signaled with his head.
“Let’s go,” said Bobby. “That door sticks,” he said to Pauline. “You have to kick it.”
The young man by the building wore low-riding, baggy jeans, blue sneakers, a black T-shirt, a Yankees hat cocked on his head, and a thick gold chain around his neck with gold letters that spelled eek. He had prison tattoos on both arms. He did not indicate in any way that Louis or Pauline were even visible to him.
Jamal led the way inside and down a long corridor. They came to a large windowless room. There was a broad round concrete pit in the center of the room with a series of wide drains in its floor. Five more young black men sat on the edge of the pit with their legs dangling. Like the man at the door, they watched without watching. Jamal went from one to the next and bumped fists. No one spoke.
Jamal came back around the pit to Louis. “Sit here,” he said. Louis and Pauline sat down on the edge of the pit. Bobby sat down beside Louis.
“I’ll be right back,” said Jamal.
When he came back, Fareed was with him. “Sit here,” said Jamal. Fareed sat down on the edge of the pit so that Bobby and Jamal were between him and Louis in one direction, and the five young men were between him and Louis in the other.
“Who are you?” said Fareed. “And why are you following me?”
“My name is Louis Morgon. I am following you because I need your help.”
“I do not believe you.”
“I don’t blame you,” said Louis. “Let me explain.” Louis told the story he had already told Bobby, about his CIA experience, about Zaharia. The five young men sat impassively as though he were talking in a language they did not understand.
Fareed listened intently. He leaned forward and kept his eyes on Louis. “How did you find me?” he said.
Louis explained that he had gotten Fareed’s name from Abu Massad in Cairo. He explained that he had not been looking for Fareed particularly. He was looking for anyone he could use to effect Zaharia’s release from prison. It just happened that Fareed was the name Abu Massad gave him. “I don’t know how or where he got your name, or why he gave it to me. I didn’t ask.”
“Why was the boy arrested?” said Fareed.
“They think he is a terrorist,” said Louis.
“Why does the American government arrest innocent people?”
“They also arrest guilty people. In times like these, they are not very good at telling the innocent from the guilty. Nobody is. Everybody is too fearful to see things clearly.”
“And so you are not from al Qaeda?”
“No,” said Louis.
“You have not come to assassinate me?”
“Is that what you thought? Is that why you ran?”
“Of course,” said Fareed. “Who else but al Qaeda could know about me? And now you want to trade me for this boy?”
“Tell me why I should not,” said Louis. “Abu Massad, the man who gave me your name, said you are al Qaeda. And you have just said so yourself. Tell me why I should not trade your life for that of an innocent boy.”
Fareed jumped to his feet. “But you are no different than they are,” he shouted.
“I am completely different,” said Louis. “I am talking with you. I am asking you questions.”
Fareed’s body slumped. He saw now that it did not matter who this Louis Morgon character was, if that was even his real name. Whether he was an al Qaeda assassin or a CIA agent, it made no difference. Fareed’s life as a free man was over. Maybe his life was over, period. He had trained with al Qaeda and had, in that long-ago act, condemned himself to prison or death by one hand or the other. CIA or Qaeda. It did not matter. Joining al Qaeda had been an irreversible and unforgivable act that had sealed his fate. Perhaps that was as it should be. Fareed dropped his face into his hands. Jamal stood up, and so did the five young men. “Say the word, Fareed, and this meeting is over,” said Jamal.
Pauline was the last person anyone expected to hear from. And what she said was probably the last thing anyone expected to hear. In fact, her words did not even register at first. They fell into the center of the circle and reverberated in everyone’s ears without making sense, as though someone had dropped a handful of ball bearings on the concrete floor and they were rolling around.
“Does al Qaeda believe in forgiveness?” she said. Everyone looked at the floor of the pit, where the ball bearings would have been.
Pauline had understood Fareed’s panic. “Fareed,” she said, speaking more slowly now. “Answer this one question. It is important. Does al Qaeda believe in forgiveness?”
“What?” said Fareed. He still did not understand what she was asking.
Pauline posed the question yet again. This time she said it in French. Does al Qaeda believe in forgiveness?
Was it that she was a woman? Perhaps she made Fareed think of Natalie, who was hidden somewhere, waiting anxiously with Lillian, wondering, not about her own fate, but about Fareed’s. Natalie certainly knew about forgiveness. She had forgiven Fareed. Or maybe it was simply the sound of the French words, the sound of the language in which he had renounced violence and found happiness, Natalie’s language. Whatever the reason, Fareed crossed his hands in front of him, and answered in a barely audible whisper, as though he were speaking some odd, new vow of renunciation. “Non,” he said, first in French, then in English. “No.”
“And what about you, Fareed?” said Pauline. “Do you believe in forgiveness?”
“Yes,” said Fareed.
“And you?” said Pauline. Louis looked at her in astonishment. She was talking to him. “Louis, do you believe in forgiveness?”
Louis had definitely not meant for things to go this way. The first rule for transactions like this was to shut out everything else. All feelings, all private agendas and business, preferences, likes and dislikes, everything had to be put aside. Certainly questions of forgiveness. The negotiation at hand was paramount. And yet, despite his best efforts, prompted by the completely unexpected turn of events, Louis felt his mind racing backward over his life, beyond Pauline, to Zaharia, to Solesme, to Jennifer and Michael, the children he had more or less abandoned, to Sarah, the wife he had left, to all those he had offended and harmed. They all rose in his mind’s eye, like an army of the wronged.
He looked up at Pauline. “Forgiveness?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Forgiveness is something I hope for every day,” said Louis. “Without forgiveness…” He could not finish the thought.
The young men on the other side of the concrete basin sat back down and dangled their legs again. They watched without watching. Later Louis remarked to Pauline that these young men were like a Greek chorus in an ancient play, watching pitilessly while the pathetic and foolish mortals concocted yet another complicated ceremony to sort out what should have been a simple situation.
Jamal sat back down. So did Fareed. “Fareed,” said Louis. “Can we talk?”
“Yes,” said Fareed.
Louis withdrew some papers from his pocket and passed them to Bobby who handed them to Fareed. Fareed looked at the papers.
“These are from my lab at MicroBio,” he said. He looked astonished. “They were hidden.”
“Yes,” said Louis. “And pretty well hidden too. What are they?”
“They are telephone numbers and encrypted computer codes,” said Fareed.
“Telephone numbers?” said Louis.
“For Qaeda in New York, in New Jersey.” The Greek chorus moved uneasily where they sat.
“And the computer codes?”
“Codes to gain access to the Qaeda communications net on the Internet.”
“How does the encryption work?” said Louis.
“It uses the pages of a magazine,” said Fareed. “You buy the current issue of a specified magazine, turn to a specified page. I can show you.”
“What is encoded?”
“Internet addresses and then passwords that allow you to access Qaeda sites.”
“In order to do what?”
“In my case, just get the updated codes. To stay current.”
“In other cases?”
“To report actions, to make liaisons, to get instructions.”
“You didn’t report actions or make liaisons or get instructions?”
“I was a sleeper,” said Fareed. “I was planted as an agent for some future action. It’s different. I had no assignment. I was just waiting. I would have reported actions. But I had none to report.”
“Why not?”
“Because I didn’t do any actions.”
“Why not?”
Fareed paused and looked at his hands. “Because I watched the towers fall on September 11. I couldn’t do that. It turned out I didn’t hate anyone.”
Louis gave Fareed a long, hard look. “Why were you afraid of al Qaeda? You were a sleeper. You could have lived out your life without ever doing anything.”
“I panicked,” said Fareed. “I don’t know why. Are you going to turn me in to the CIA?”
Louis thought for a long moment. “I need you to verify the information you’re giving me.”
“I can do that,” said Fareed.
“Then,” said Louis, “I’m going to need you to meet with a man from the CIA.”
“Why should I trust you?” said Fareed.
“You don’t have to trust me. You only have to trust them.” Louis made a gesture that took in everyone else in the room.
“I don’t understand,” said Fareed.
“Trust them, ” said Louis. “Because it’s all going to happen right here. Or somewhere like this. We’ll work that out to your satisfaction. And all your friends”—Louis indicated Bobby, Jamal, and the Greek chorus—“and anyone else you’d like to have present will be there to protect you.”
The Greek chorus shifted once again. They glanced at one another and murmured softly.
In order to be as certain as he could be that Peter Sanchez would go to Cairo, Louis had bought himself an airline ticket for Cairo and reserved a rental car there. He had even booked a room at the Toledo. He could have saved himself the trouble, and the money. Peter Sanchez did not even check; he could not afford to stay home. There were still the who-the-hell-is-Peter-Sanchez stories that could end his career. And if Louis did turn up something in Cairo, which was by no means out of the question, given his resourcefulness, Peter had to be there.
Peter Sanchez departed Washington the afternoon of the eighth and arrived in Cairo the afternoon of the ninth. He went to the Ramses breakfast room the following morning. Louis did not appear. Peter did some checking. He was on his way to the Toledo when his telephone rang.
“I have something for you,” said Louis.
“Where are you?” said Peter.
“I have something for you.”
“It better be good,” said Peter.
“If you are the first to get it, it will make you a hero. If you aren’t, it will ruin your life.”
“What are you talking about?” said Peter.
“Zaharia Lefort,” said Louis.
“I told you, he’s on his way out of prison. It’s days away.”
“Well then, that should make it easy for you,” said Louis. “Bring Zaharia to New York. Restore his passport. Hand him to me. In return, I’ll give you at least three al Qaeda cells in and around New York City. Cells that you know nothing about. I’ll give you access codes for monitoring Qaeda communications. And subverting them if you’re clever enough. And I’ll give you an al Qaeda operative.”
There was silence from Peter. Louis waited. “It doesn’t work like that,” said Peter finally. “I can’t produce the boy just like that.”
“Really?” said Louis. “Then you better find someone who can. If I don’t get the boy, then the information and the informant, everything, goes away.”
“You would do that?” said Peter Sanchez. “You would jeopardize the security of your country like that? You would risk the lives of thousands of innocent American citizens, just because you can’t have your way?”
“Sanctimony doesn’t suit you, Peter.” It was the first time Louis had ever called him by name. “And sanctimony doesn’t work on me. New York on the fifteenth. That’s a gift. It gives you four more days. I’ll call you that morning to set up the meeting that afternoon.” Louis hung up the phone.
“Son of a bitch!” said Peter. “Stop the cab,” he said to the driver. When the driver didn’t stop immediately, Peter shouted at him. “Stop the goddamn cab.” Peter instructed the driver to return to the Ramses immediately.
The square ahead was jammed with buses, cars, and trucks. The air was filled with blue fumes. Horns honked. People shouted. Teenage boys jumped from the back of the buses where they had been hitching a ride. “Go that way,” said Peter, pointing to an open side street. But, in fact, there was no way the driver could maneuver his cab in that direction. He shrugged and smiled helplessly into the rearview mirror. “Accident,” he said.
It took an hour for Peter to get back to the Ramses. He could have walked it faster. His shirt was soaked in sweat. He had a headache. As he walked into the lobby, his telephone rang. He did not recognize the number on the screen.
“Hello,” he said.
“Peter Sanchez?” said the voice. “This is Phillip Dimitrius.”
“You’re kidding,” said Peter.
“No, sir,” said Phillip Dimitrius.
“Why are you calling me?”
“I was told to call you when I got close,” said Phillip.
“Close?”
“Yes, sir,” said Phillip. “And I think I am. Finally.”
“Where are you?”
“New York. The Metropolitan Hotel.”
“And where is he?” Finally something was going right.
“He’s staying here at the hotel. He’s been spending time in Newark.”
“You know where?”
“Yes, sir,” said Phillip.
“Can you stay with him?” said Peter.
“Yes, sir.”
“Have you seen him with anybody?”
“Besides the Frenchwoman?”
“Yes. Besides the Frenchwoman.”
“There’s a couple in Newark. A black dude and his Arab girlfriend.”
“Who are they?”
“A black dude and his Arab…”
“Yes, I understood that. What’s the connection?”
“She’s an Arab…”
“All right. Here’s what you do. Keep Morgon in sight. Don’t lose him. Find out what you can about what he’s up to. Don’t let him know you’re there.”
