The Terrorist, page 7
Smarth called himself a “currency trader,” which meant he was in the smuggling business—money, drugs, weapons, chemicals. But Smarth’s most lucrative commodity had always been information. It was easier to handle and easier to dispose of than material commodities. Smarth sold information for money. After all, he needed to live. But he always preferred that there be a swap involved as well—one tidbit for another. It was a kind of insurance against betrayal by the other party.
Besides, Smarth had an impeccable ear for valuable information. He always seemed to know from whom a particular piece of information might fetch him something even better. Smarth operated from several cafés located on the edges of various bazaars. He found safety and comfort among the crowds.
Louis found him at a market café on the west bank of the Nile. Boats bobbed in the sunlight behind the market stalls. People milled about. Women eyed the vegetables and fruits suspiciously, turning them over, squeezing them despite the vendors’ protestations. They bent over the crates of salted and dried fish, sniffing them, looking into their dead eyes. The air was filled with the noise of vendors crying their wares, customers haggling, men arguing about football, and, in the background, the relentless traffic.
Smarth’s eyes narrowed as Louis approached. He looked away quickly.
“Hello, Giorgio,” said Louis.
Smarth sipped his coffee and pretended not to hear.
“It’s Louis Coburn,” said Louis. Giorgio’s eyes snapped to attention. They narrowed and then widened.
“Louis,” said Giorgio. He stared in astonishment. He looked around, as if to see what other ghosts might suddenly emerge unexpectedly from out of his past. “My God, Coburn.” He did not stand or offer his hand. “Sit down. Tea, right?” Giorgio turned and signaled to the waiter. “Tea,” he shouted. “Cardamom. Am I right?”
“You’re right,” said Louis. “And you, still coffee with too much sugar?”
Giorgio laughed as though Louis had made the funniest joke in the world. Giorgio’s teeth were mostly gone. His laughter ended in a fit of coughing.
“How’s business?” said Louis when the coughing finally subsided.
Giorgio peered intently into his handkerchief, then gave his mouth one more wipe. “Cairo is changed,” said Giorgio. “Business? What business? I barely stay alive. And you, Coburn? I can’t believe you’re still at it.”
“Only on special occasions,” said Louis.
“Aha,” said Giorgio. He took a sip of coffee. “Special occasions. So, what is the special occasion?”
Louis smiled. “You never used to be so direct, Giorgio.”
Giorgio shrugged. A beggar approached their table, and Giorgio shooed her away. “You see? There’s still the old Cairo. No. No. I’m old, that’s all. And sick. I just don’t enjoy the game anymore. You tell me what you’ve got and what you want. If I like what you’ve got, and I’ve got what you want, then we deal. That’s how I work these days. I can’t do the old song and dance anymore.” He laughed and pointed to where his leg used to be. “There are no one-legged dancers. Diabetes,” he said.
“I’m looking for some people.” Louis mentioned some names. Giorgio shrugged. “Don’t know them.”
“What about Abu Massad?” said Louis.
“That crazy bastard? Him I know and wish I didn’t.”
“I need to find him.”
“No you don’t, Louis. Believe me, you don’t. He’s a crazy fucking Taliban.”
“Is he still in Cairo?”
“Don’t ask me things you already know,” said Giorgio. “Of course he is.”
“How do I get to him?”
“He’s surrounded by thugs,” said Giorgio. “No, no. I can’t help you there. They’d come after me.”
“They’d never know it came from you,” said Louis. “Besides, I’ve got something for you.”
Giorgio snorted. “Don’t be ridiculous. Anyway, it’s not worth it.”
“You don’t know what I’m offering,” said Louis.
“Don’t tell me, I can’t do it. I don’t want to know. I can’t do it.”
Louis leaned over and whispered in Giorgio’s ear.
Giorgio sat bolt upright. “Are you crazy? Are you trying to get me killed? What the hell can I do with that kind of information? Jesus, Coburn.”
“It’s worth a lot,” said Louis. “Iranian nuclear sites. Test results. The Saudis would love to get it. The Israelis. Anybody would. You’ll have the files tomorrow.”
“No, no. I can’t do it.”
“And a small down payment today. Five hundred.”
“A thousand,” said Giorgio. “And files and photos tomorrow.”
“A thousand dollars?” said Louis.
“Euros,” said Giorgio with a thin smile. Louis gave him a thousand euros.
“One of Abu Massad’s killers is a client of mine,” said Giorgio. “He can get you into his inner sanctum. But that is all he can do,” he said. “He can’t get you out.”
VII
Louis took a taxi to a particular street corner. After several minutes, a man walked up, took his arm, and steered him into a narrow alley. At the other end of the alley a Land Cruiser was waiting, along with three armed men. They tied his hands and blindfolded him.
Louis sat in the backseat between two of the men. He tried to listen for distinctive sounds as they drove, but the windows of the Land Cruiser were up, and rap music was playing. He could hear Cairo’s chaotic traffic, but that was no help. They drove for about an hour. The traffic noises disappeared. The ride become rougher. The Land Cruiser lurched and swayed over the damaged road.
Finally they slowed. One of the men jumped out. They drove into a garage. The car doors opened, and the other men got out. Someone took Louis’s arm and helped him from the car. They led him through a door. “Sit,” said one of the men. Louis sat down on a straight-backed wooden chair. They left him alone. The only sound was the buzzing of a lamp somewhere above him.
A door opened and someone entered the room. He lifted Louis’s arm and Louis stood. The man steered him across the room. He opened a door. They walked down a narrow hallway. Louis kept bumping into the wall. Again Louis was told to sit. The blindfold was removed.
Abu Massad was seated at a writing table in front of him. He was thin and pale. His folded hands trembled slightly. Behind him a small window looked out on an enclosed courtyard. Abu Massad lifted himself from his chair with difficulty and, leaning on the writing table for support, peered hard at Louis. He said in a high, reedy voice, “I remember you. Louis Coburn. You are not someone I expected to see again in this lifetime.” He sat back down.
“I am grateful,” said Louis, “that you agreed to see me, Abu Massad.” He bowed his head toward the old man.
Abu Massad frowned and lowered his eyes. “Let us have some tea,” he said to the man who had escorted Louis into the room. The man left the room and returned with a lacquer tray bearing a teapot and two small bowls. Abu Massad instructed the young man to untie Louis’s hands. Then he sent the man out of the room. Louis and Abu Massad drank tea in silence.
Finally Abu Massad spoke. “I do not welcome strangers. Tell me why you have come.”
“Abu Massad,” said Louis, “a great deal has changed since we last met.”
“A great deal,” said Abu Massad. “The world has changed. And I have changed with it. I have put aside foolish dreams.”
“Which foolish dreams?” said Louis.
“A young man’s foolish dreams. Dreams you helped foster in me. I do not like to think back on that time. Foolish dreams of peace and democracy in Egypt. Ridiculous. It was a time of wandering in the desert for me.” Abu Massad paused. “It agitates me to think about it, even after all this time. The path to righteousness leads only through the Holy Koran.” The cup began shaking in his hand, and he set it down. “What do I have to do with your ways any longer? Nothing. Nothing. Why have you come to bother me? I am old. I do not welcome this agitation. I have found the path to righteousness.”
Louis said nothing.
“I know that look,” said Abu Massad.
“Forgive me, Abu Massad. There are too many paths to righteousness for me to know which is the correct one.”
“There is but one path. Why do you contradict me in my own home? What do you want?”
“I want to find my way to Osama bin Laden.”
“Of course you do. Everyone does. I am not surprised. And your CIA masters think that I can help you get to him.”
“They do,” said Louis.
“Then they are not only misguided,” said Abu Massad, “they are fools.”
“I am not surprised to hear you say that,” said Louis. “And I agree with you. You see, I too have learned something with time. They are fools.”
Abu Massad stroked his pointed gray beard and studied Louis. “Let me teach you something else, Louis Coburn. You can take it back to your American masters, although I think it is too late for them. You Americans are always too late. You are always searching for what is finished, while the next thing has already begun.
“First of all, bin Laden is probably dead, buried under some mountain in Pakistan. The videotapes and sound recordings that al Qaeda releases from time to time are either old or they are forgeries.”
“How do you know this to be true?” said Louis.
Abu Massad ignored him. “Secondly, even if he is alive, what does he possibly matter? His time is past. If you kill him, you will only turn a ridiculous man in a painted beard into a martyr. Anyway, he would flee before me or anyone I sent. In me he sees Allah’s avenging angel.” Abu Massad was on his feet now. “I charge bin Laden with using God’s Holy Word, the Holy Koran, to advance his own corrupt political dreams.”
“And your dreams?” said Louis.
Abu Massad was unsteady on his feet. “Do not interrupt me.” He swayed to and fro in the grip of his passion. His eyes were wide and watery. His hands were planted on the table for support. “You dare compare my dreams with bin Laden’s? My dreams,” he said, “are as the Holy Prophet’s dreams. I dream of a time when all worldly law and power springs from the Prophet’s Holy Word. I want to transform Egypt into a Muslim Holy Land, to restore the greatness and power that was once ours. And to send Osama bin Laden and his fellow infidels straight to hell.”
“Then why not make me the instrument of your dreams?” said Louis. “Make our common purpose—the destruction of this man—work for you.”
Abu Massad sat down. He leaned forward in his chair. He reached for the teapot and filled the two bowls. The aroma of spiced tea once again filled the room. He gave Louis a hard look. “You begin to interest me, Louis Coburn.”
“I am glad to hear it,” said Louis.
“Except I cannot help you find him.”
“Because he is dead,” said Louis, smiling slightly.
“There is that, of course,” said Abu Massad. “And there is the act of treachery. Whatever my desires, sending you to him would entail the greatest act of treachery imaginable. Even my own followers would see it that way. Think of it. Waging Holy War against bin Laden is one thing. But sending the infidel to destroy him would be treachery and cowardice and … it is too much to contemplate. My life would be finished.” He lifted his bowl in both hands and took a sip.
“Anyway,” he continued, “you Americans are simpletons. Bin Laden does not even matter anymore.”
“I do not need him to matter,” said Louis. “As long as those I work for think he matters.”
“Who are you working for, Louis Coburn?”
“The CIA.”
“Of course. But who else?”
Louis thought for a moment. “A boy,” he said. “An Algerian schoolboy. An innocent. Taken prisoner by the American FBI.”
“One of many.” Abu Massad waved his hand.
“He is a friend of mine,” said Louis.
“I think I am beginning to understand.”
“Perhaps you are.”
“You are looking for … leverage against … his captors.”
“Something like that.”
“You are too late to get bin Laden, you know.”
“Because he is dead.”
Abu Massad did not smile. “Because his eggs have hatched and his offspring have flown to the four corners of the world. Oh, you can look in Waziristan, in Afghanistan, in Indonesia. But it is too late for that. The people you’ll find there are servants, lackeys, peons. If you want to find the terror brains now, look where they can do the most harm, and where they can most easily disappear, where there is the kind of anonymity they need.”
“Where would that be?” said Louis.
“Look closer to home.”
“Closer to home?”
“Copenhagen, Berlin, Madrid, New York. In fact, I went to Paris last year,” said Abu Massad. “I stayed in Clichy-sous-Bois. Do you know it? That part of Paris has miles of high-rise slums filled with undocumented, anonymous people. These people, millions of them, are prisoners of their own dire circumstances.
“When the police go there, they brutalize the people. But mostly they do not go there, because if they did, it might all explode again. The government, which ignores their plight, leaves them alone for the same reason. They are, as Sarkozy said, scum. The only freedom they have is the freedom to destroy. You can find the same situation in a hundred cities. If I were you, I would look close to home. Look in Paris.”
“Give me a name,” said Louis.
And to his surprise Abu Massad did. “Fareed Terzani,” he said.
In the backseat of the Land Cruiser once again, blindfolded, his hands bound, Louis could tell they were not driving toward Cairo. There was no traffic to be heard, except for an occasional truck roaring past. When they stopped finally, and Louis’s blindfold was removed, it was night. The only light came from the distant horizon. They all got out and stood in the headlights of the Land Cruiser.
“Kneel,” said one of the men. When Louis didn’t move quickly enough, they pushed him to the ground. Instead of shooting him though, they got in the Land Cruiser and drove off.
Louis was still working to untie his hands when Peter Sanchez walked up. He helped Louis to his feet and removed the ropes from his wrists.
“They only meant to scare me,” said Louis, brushing the dust from his pants. “It was a message. ‘Don’t come back.’”
“Maybe,” said Peter Sanchez.
“Were you behind us the entire time?”
“I followed you from the moment they picked you up,” said Peter Sanchez.
“Did they see you?”
“Only at the end,” said Peter Sanchez. “When I flashed my headlights.”
“Ah,” said Louis.
They got in Peter’s car. Peter turned around and drove toward the lights glowing faintly on the horizon. “What did you get?” said Peter.
“A lecture. Otherwise, nothing.”
“Nothing?” Peter looked over at Louis.
He saw an old man. Louis was slumped on the seat, his hands forgotten on his lap, his entire body slack, his hair disheveled, even for Louis. “Nothing,” he said.
“Are you all right?” said Peter.
“I’m going home,” said Louis.
“Home?! You’re going home?! You brought me all the way here just so you could go home? Just like that?” said Peter.
“Not just like that. I have cancer.”
“What?!” Peter looked over at him again.
“Watch the road,” said Louis. “You didn’t know?”
“No.”
Louis snorted. “I thought you had investigated me. I have cancer. Prostate. I have a treatment. I need a week. Then we’ll start again. Afterward.”
“Afterward?” said Peter.
“Afterward,” said Louis.
Zaharia tapped on the wall. There was someone new in the adjoining cell. Zaharia tapped the alphabet three times before he got an answer. Zaharia, he tapped. Here one week. He thought he knew how long he had been there. You could tell by the meals. They came twice a day. And the guards. They changed shifts regularly, probably every two hours. Once every morning he was taken from the cell to empty his slop bucket. He had been taken once for a shower. It was almost as good as having a clock.
Mahmoud, came the reply. From Pakistan. This better.
How?
One man, one cell, tapped Mahmoud. Pakistan ten men, one cell.
Why prison?
Moslem, tapped Mahmoud. Why you?
Innocent, tapped Zaharia.
Ha ha, tapped Mahmoud. Me too.
Innocent, tapped Zaharia.
I was in Taliban school, tapped Mahmoud.
I was in school in USA. The sentence brought tears to Zaharia’s eyes. Had he really been there? What had he done to end up here? Wherever here was. Why hadn’t this terrible ordeal stopped? Where was Mr. Korngold? Where were Jennifer and Michael? Did they even know what had happened to him? And Granny Camille? And his mother? And Louis Morgon? Did anyone know or care?
Last guy here released, tapped Mahmoud.
Ahmed? tapped Zaharia.
Yes, tapped Mahmoud. Sent home.
Why? How?
Ahmed cooperated.
How?
Confessed.
Confessed what? tapped Zaharia.
Confessed crimes. Everything.
I am innocent, tapped Zaharia.
Then name somebody else, tapped Mahmoud.
Who?
Name somebody guilty.
Who?
Somebody not innocent.
Who? tapped Zaharia.
Somebody free while you here.
Who?
He is free because you are here.
Who?
Mahmoud did not answer.
Late that night Zaharia heard Mahmoud tapping. Zaharia. I am so happy. I go home tomorrow. Free.
Zaharia cried out. “No! No,” he sobbed. “Please. How?! Why not me?!” When he had stopped sobbing, he tapped, How you go home?
I name friend, tapped Mahmoud. Not real friend. He use me. I just boy.
Zaharia stood facing the concrete wall. His eyes widened. Mahmoud was just like him. Then Zaharia recognized the deceit. He heard the tapping from next door, but he did not listen. He did not count the taps.
