The Prince of Bagram Prison (32 page)

He stood just inside the doorway for a moment, letting his eyes adjust to the dim interior lighting, scanning the dark depths of the building for the public phones he knew were there. He located them at last, made his way back, and slipped into one of the empty booths, pulling the glass panels of the ancient folding door closed behind him before fishing Mous-saoui's card from his damp shirt pocket and carefully dialing the number printed on it.

Moussaoui answered quickly, cutting the second ring short with a curt “
Allo?
”

“It's me.” With the door closed, Harry could smell himself, his own funk mingling with that of the booth. Decades of unwashed bodies.

“I believe I have something for you,” Moussaoui said, sounding proud of his own resourcefulness. “I spoke with a friend who worked as a doctor at Oukacha Prison during the time frame you've given me. He recalls several incidents like the one you described, but only one in which the child was a boy. May of '83. The boy was sent to an orphanage. The Ain Chock Charity House.”

Harry gripped the receiver. “Do you have a name?”

“The mother's name was Manar Yassine. Unmarried. She was transferred to a facility in the South almost immediately after the child's birth. There appear to be no records after that.”

A death sentence, Harry thought. Worse. “Her family didn't know about the child?”

“Of course they knew.” Moussaoui was slightly defensive. “The Yassines are a respectable family. The arrest of their daughter would have been humiliating enough. They would not have taken the child.”

Of course not. Jamal, born out of wedlock and in prison, would only have served as a reminder of the ways in which his mother had dishonored them. If they had not wanted him then, it was hard to imagine they would want him now. Still, Harry could try. “Do you have an address?” he asked.

Moussaoui hesitated. “Tell me. What is it about this boy? You are in love with him?”

Harry laughed grimly. “How long have you known me, Abdul?”

T
IME TO MOVE ON
, Kurtz told himself, snapping the sample case shut, slipping the last of the spare magazines into his jacket pocket. He'd paid for three nights' lodging when he'd first arrived, but after just two the place and its staff had become uncomfortably familiar. Tonight he would find somewhere different to stay. Something out near Voyageurs, perhaps.

Hoisting the case and his small bag, he stepped to the window and scanned the street below, as was his habit. The two boys were still at their post at the Wafa Bank ATMs. Their competition had increased since Kurtz first observed them from the café, but they were still doing well. Making a killing for someone. Directly across the street, several doors down from the bank, a slouched figure stood in the doorway of an apartment building, smoking and watching the hotel. Mahjoub.

Kurtz was mildly surprised to see the young man. After their ride the previous night, Kurtz had wondered if his methods hadn't been just a bit too brutal. Apparently, the money he'd offered had been enough to overcome whatever missteps he'd made.

Leaving the room key on the bedside table, Kurtz let himself out into the hall, then made his way down the stairs and out onto the street. He didn't go to Mahjoub, but, after confirming that the young man had seen him, turned in the opposite direction. He walked away, slowly and deliberately, then ducked into the narrow service passage that ran along the side of the hotel.

It didn't take long for Mahjoub to catch up. Kurtz could hear the hard soles of the young man's boots on the concrete almost immediately. A few seconds later, a wary silhouette appeared at the mouth of the passage.

“In here!” Kurtz hissed.

Mahjoub glanced behind him, then stepped forward. “I've seen the boy,” he announced clumsily, a dog returning a stick he'd been thrown.

“Where?” Kurtz asked.

“In the medina. This morning. I saw him go into the Hotel des Amis.” A smile then, anticipating his pat on the head.

“A hundred dollars.” Kurtz, reaching into the back pocket of his pants, fitting his hand around the stock of his Beretta, smiled back. “Wasn't that the agreement?”

Mahjoub nodded, then stepped closer, just as Kurtz wanted him to do.

A snitch for money, Kurtz thought, as he brought the gun forward and up. There was nothing worse. He squeezed the trigger and the silencer flashed, illuminating Mahjoub's face—a look of confusion, then the blank stare of death.

Now it really was time to move on.

“W
HERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN
?
” Kat asked angrily.

Harry glanced over Kat's shoulder at Jamal, then motioned for her to join him in the hallway.

“It's been over five hours,” she hissed, following him out of the room. “I thought something had happened to you.”

Harry pulled the door closed behind them. “I found his mother. I was right; she was sent to a dissenters' prison after he was born.”

“Where is she now?”

“Disappeared,” Harry whispered. He reached into his jacket and produced Moussaoui's business card, upon which he'd scribbled the name, Yassine, and the Anfa address Moussaoui had given him. “Her parents,” he explained.

Kat took the card and glanced down at the smeared writing, then back up at Harry. “What's wrong?”

“They knew,” Harry told her, lowering his voice. “The family knew about Jamal.”

Kat shook her head. “I don't understand.” But then she did.

Harry saw the expression on her face change from bafflement to comprehension to disgust. “I'm going to pick up your passport,” he told her. “You'll take Jamal to Anfa.”

“What makes you think his family will help him now?”

“Nothing,” Harry answered honestly. “But it's the best we can do.”

He pulled his remaining cash from his pocket and counted out enough for cab fare to the print shop and back, then pressed the rest of the money into Kat's hands.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“We'll meet at the Hassan II Mosque,” he told her. “Eight o'clock. If I'm not there by eight-fifteen, I want you to leave without me.”

“No,” Kat protested. “We'll all go together. We can ride out to meet Rafa now and come back to Anfa afterward. There's no hurry.”

But Harry was already turning toward the stairwell. “Eight,” he repeated, and then the lie, for his own benefit as much as hers. “I'll be there. I promise.”

The street was like so many others in the city's wealthier neighborhoods: whitewash and black ironwork, leggy poinsettias breaching high garden walls, shutters folded grimly in on themselves. On the sidewalk, children and servants came and went, nannies pushing strollers or gripping their charges' little hands, old women in
abayas
carrying bread for the evening meal.

Kat stopped in front of a tall iron gate and took Harry's business card from her pocket one last time, confirming the address.

“This is the house?” Jamal asked with trepidation.

Kat had not yet told the boy why they were here, only that there was someone Harry wanted them to see, someone who might be able to help them. “Your mother lived here once,” she said, “before you were born.”

“She worked for these people?”

“No, Jamal.”

The boy peered through the gate at the front courtyard and the imposing house beyond, struggling to understand.

“She grew up here,” Kat said, pressing the gate's brass buzzer. “This was her home.”

A woman's voice erupted from the intercom, a garbled greeting in rough Moroccan Arabic.

“Madame Yassine?” Kat asked.

There was a click and then silence. Kat was about to ring the buzzer again when a second voice warbled out at her, this one more cultivated than the last.

“This is Madame Yassine.”

“My name is Katherine Caldwell,” Kat said in her most respectful Arabic. “I would like to come in and speak with you if I could.”

“Speak to me about what?” the woman asked, after a lengthy pause.

“It concerns your daughter, Madame.”

Another pause. “What about my daughter?” The voice was wary now.

“If I could just come in,” Kat pressed.

Silence.

Kat glanced up at the house and saw a figure move behind the front window, then disappear again. “He is your grandson, Madame!” Kat called out, loudly enough to be heard inside without the help of the intercom. “His name is Jamal!” She looked down at the boy and saw him staring back at her, frightened. “It's okay,” she told him. “She will let us in.” How could she not?

The speaker clicked again, and for a moment, hearing the static, Kat was flooded with relief. She put her hand on the gate, ready to push it open, but it was still locked.

“I'm sorry,” the first, rougher voice said. “Madame would ask that you do not come here again.”

“M
R
.
COMFORT
!
” Rafa greeted Harry at the front of the shop, smiling like the cheap whore Harry knew he was. “Come in. Come in. I am just putting the finishing touches on your document.” He nodded obsequiously, showing Harry the top of his bald head, and motioned to a thick curtain that separated the front of the shop from the rear. “You can wait back here. It is much more comfortable.”

Harry stepped forward as instructed. “I don't recall telling you my name before.”

Rafa flinched, then quickly recovered himself. “But of course you did,” he said, camouflaging his error with another smile. “How would I have known it if you had not?”

How, indeed. Harry returned the man's lunatic grin. “Of course. I'm afraid this business has made me a bit jumpy.”

Rafa nodded sympathetically, then parted the curtain and held it for Harry to pass. “There.” He pointed to an intricately carved cedar partition beyond which Harry could see a small sitting area furnished with pillows and ottomans. “I will join you in a moment.”

Death at its most gracious, Harry thought as the curtain fell behind him and he heard Rafa moving away. He stepped around the partition and took a seat on one of the ottomans. A low table—a traditional brass plate set atop a wooden tripod—was set with a teapot and two glasses. And who would be joining him? Harry wondered. Not Rafa, surely, for Harry did not think the printer had the discipline required to kill another man, no matter what the wage. No, Morrow would have sent someone he trusted for this task.

Harry poured himself a glass of tea and sat back to wait. Tea and more tea, he thought, the great weapon of the Arab world. If the West fell, it would fall not to bombs or guns but to the politesse of the tea table, the endless bargaining to which Europeans would never be more than baffled guests.

Through the partition, Harry saw the curtains move aside. A figure approached, a man, a Westerner, in standard Agency uniform: rumpled khakis and a tropical shirt, a lightweight safari jacket with multiple pockets. In his right hand was a silenced pistol. A Beretta, Harry noted appreciatively, though the man himself looked to be nothing more than a thug.

Harry spread his arms and gestured to the table, as if he were the host of their little party. “Join me?”

To Harry's surprise, the man came forward and sat down opposite him, letting the Beretta rest between his legs.

“I understand you and I have something in common,” he said.

Harry bristled. “I doubt that very much, Mr.…?”

“Kurtz,” the man said, and then, returning to his earlier train of thought. “Our former employer, I believe.”

“A slim thread, no?”

“Thicker than one might think,” Kurtz replied.

Harry took a sip of his tea. It was achingly sweet.

Kurtz gestured over his shoulder toward the front of the shop. “You really should pick your friends more carefully,” he remarked.

“My business associates as well, it would seem,” Harry countered. He leaned forward and set his tea down on the table, moving with careful deliberation, keeping the Beretta in sight. If he was going to die, he wanted at the very least to see death coming. “Tell me,” he said. “What happened with Bagheri?”

“Now, why should I tell you that?” Kurtz asked.

Because you're going to kill me, Harry thought, because it hardly matters now. He shrugged. “Professional courtesy. That, and the fact that I know where Bagheri is.”

“A trade, then?”

Harry nodded. “I already know most of the story. It's the end I can't quite figure out. Am I correct in assuming that Bagheri was already working for you when he was picked up by our British friends?”

Silence, which Harry took for assent.

“That Bagheri's traveling companion did not know of his affiliations; that the only way to return Bagheri to his friends in the MEK without arousing suspicion was to arrange for the other man's death and Bagheri's subsequent escape.”

Kurtz relaxed slightly, content to continue with the game. Confident, Harry thought, of its ultimate outcome.

“The Iranian's condition,” Harry continued. “Did Bagheri know his companion was asthmatic, or was that just luck?”

Kurtz smiled. “A bit of both, I would say.”

“Here's where things get hazy for me. I can only assume Bagheri was not all he appeared to be, that he did not return to his friends, as had been the bargain. I must also assume that, as with all such intrigues, there was money involved.”