The Prince of Bagram Prison (6 page)

It was Colin.

David Kurtz turned off Whitechapel Road and headed north along Brick Lane, letting his ears bathe in the cacophony of languages. Friday prayers at the Jamme Masjid had let out not long before and there was a preponderance of Arabic on the street, along with the usual mix of Bengali and Urdu and Hindi, and the odd remaining snippet of cockney English or Hebrew.

Women in full
hijab
ducked past him on the sidewalk, some in groups of three or four, some walking just behind their husbands with small children in tow. Little boys in suits and preadolescent girls in ruffled dresses. The newest arrivals, Kurtz thought, watching the shrouded figures navigate the sea of Westernized flesh, skirting second-generation Bengali girls in hip-huggers and high heels, Hindu women in midriff-baring saris.

From the front window of one shop, racy Bollywood film posters looked out on the passing crowd, offering glimpses of dark-skinned women in suggestive poses. In the neighboring storefront, dour
abayas
and chadors hung crookedly behind the glass. And farther along the street the old Jewish bakery perfumed the air with the smell of freshly baked bagels, sustenance for the cabbies and clubgoers who would make their way to the East End much later in the evening.

Even in the mismatched crowd, Kurtz was glaringly conspicuous, his physical stature and blond hair marking him indelibly as the other. And yet there was nowhere else in London, and very few places in the Western world, where he felt so comfortably at home. Moving with the gait of someone who knew exactly where he was going, Kurtz crossed Han-bury Street and ducked into a doorway marked Kensington Court.

Not to be confused with the Kensington on Cromwell Road, I assume,
Peter Janson had joked when Kurtz first gave him the name of the hotel. And Kurtz had thought, No, not in a million years, thank God.

“Message, sir.” The Bengali proprietor flagged Kurtz down as he entered the postage-stamp reception area. “Your brother, sir. He would like you to call him as soon as possible.”

Not a hint that the man thought otherwise, and yet Kurtz couldn't help wondering. Four years he'd kept a room here, since he'd first left the Agency and gone to work for Janson and Morrow. Four years of odd hours and midnight departures, and always that same jester's grin to greet him. As if the presence of a beefy blond American selling funeral supplies out of a Brick Street hovel was the most natural thing in the world.

Hello
,
Mr. Kurtz. Welcome back, Mr. Kurtz
.
Business again, Mr. Kurtz
?
That's the way it is with the dead: there are more of them every day.

“Thank you, Hamidur.” Kurtz nodded, then started up the impossibly narrow stairs to his room.

The funerary salesman was an old cliché from the Farm, a guaranteed conversation stopper for use in waiting rooms or on long flights, anywhere questions were best kept to a minimum. By the time Kurtz joined the Agency it was more joke than anything, a good laugh for the new recruits, but Kurtz hadn't forgotten about it, and before leaving for his first posting he'd ordered an Edison Funeral Supply catalog to take with him.

He'd used it immediately, on his flight from Dulles to Amsterdam, leafing through the pages of cavity fluid and Eterna-Cribs, until the nervously talkative Dutch woman beside him fled to an empty seat.

What the creaky old OSS retiree at the Farm had failed to tell them, and most likely had not known, was that the farther east one traveled the less effective the ruse became. Once you breached the boundaries and safety of the Western world, death became less remarkable, and the accoutrements of death nothing more than a curiosity. This was something Kurtz had discovered on his own, though by the time he did, he'd been playing his part too long to give it up.

Kurtz slipped off his shoes and set them just outside the door, then undid the lock and let himself into his room. There was a smell to the space that he found immediately comforting. Dust and cheap disinfectant, the slivers of sandalwood-scented soap the maid left each week. And the sharp odor of cooking that lingered in the linens and drapes. Old grease and heavy spices from the kitchen two floors below.

On the desk was the newest version of the Edison catalog and Kurtz's black sample case. On the luggage stand sat a single small suitcase, neatly packed. Four years in this room, and this was all Kurtz had brought of himself. Even his Dopp kit was zippered and stowed.

He sat down on the bed and picked up the phone, glancing at his watch as he did so, noting the time back in the States before dialing Janson's number.

“Yes?” Janson answered on the second ring.

“You wanted me to call?” Kurtz asked.

“Yes. I need you to take a trip.”

“You've found our Iranian friend?”

“No. It's the boy. He's gone.”

Kurtz thought for a moment, letting the implications of the boy's disappearance sink in. “I thought we had a team in Madrid.”

Janson didn't answer.

“Gone on his own or taken?” Kurtz asked finally.

“On his own, I presume.”

“Any guesses where he's heading?”

“My money's on Casablanca. It's where he came from.”

“And where he ran from once already,” Kurtz reminded the man.

“Still,” Janson countered. “It's home.”

“Where do you want me first?” Kurtz asked.

“There's an overnight train that will get you to Madrid in the morning.”

“And from there?”

Janson cleared his throat—a sign, Kurtz had learned long before, that the news to come was something he would doubtless prefer not to hear. “There's someone from army intel meeting you there.”

Kurtz was silent.

“Special circumstances,” Janson said, sensing Kurtz's unease. “It's the interrogator from Bagram. She's the one who turned the boy in the end. They were quite close, as I understand it. It will help to have someone he trusts.”

She,
Kurtz thought,
Kat,
but he didn't say anything.

“Any reason this is going to be a problem?” Janson asked.

He already knows how this is going to end, Kurtz thought, hearing the hesitation in the other man's voice, the gravity of the question.

“No,” he said. “No problem at all.”

“M
AJOR
?
”

Kat looked up from the papers she was grading to see the dean of faculty at her office door.

“General,” she answered, rising from her chair.

Still playing army?
she could hear Colin say, and suddenly she was embarrassed by the pretensions of the place. Her rank a lie, even. The rank of an officer.

The man shifted from one foot to the other, glanced down at his fingers. Nervous, Kat had always thought, uncomfortable with his own authority.

“How's the new crop of cadets treating you?” he asked, with the forced joviality of someone who's about to break a particularly bad bit of news.

“Fine,” Kat answered.

“There's someone coming to see you this afternoon,” the dean said. “From Arlington.”

Kat motioned to the papers on her desk. “I have class.”

“It's been taken care of.”

No explanation other than this.

Out in the hall a pair of cadets passed, walking with the strained posture that was required of all first-year students: chins up, backs straight, hands at sides.

Arlington, Kat thought. The Pentagon. “Am I being called up, sir?”

The General hesitated. “I don't know,” he said guiltily.

But Kat could tell that he did, and that she was.

“You don't like us very much, do you?” Colin had asked.

It was Kat's last night in Oman, and she'd taken a taxi to the sprawling, American-style mall in Muscat. She'd been hoping for a change of scenery, a respite from the constant sea of army drab, but the mall's one bar, an American chain, was packed with coalition soldiers.

She didn't recognize Colin at first. He was wearing real civilian clothes. Without his M-16 and his entourage, he looked like any other off-duty soldier or civilian contractor.

“Bagram to K-2,” he reminded Kat, climbing onto the empty stool beside her. “I was the green-looking one sitting across from you, trying not to sick-up my last MRE.”

Kat took a long pull off her Budweiser, then set the bottle down on the bar. A group of marines had commandeered the jukebox, and it was belting out “Sweet Home Alabama” for the third time in a row. “I thought you SAS guys weren't afraid of anything.”

“SBS.” Colin grinned. “Special
Boat
Service. No mention of airplanes.”

He'd shaved since she'd seen him on the C-130, and the skin on his jaw was pale where his beard had been. He was slight of build, not much taller than she was, with the body of an acrobat, all finesse.

“And you?” he asked. “What brings you to our little corner of paradise?”

“Army intel,” Kat said. “I've been at Kandahar.” She didn't mention her transfer to Bagram. She had already made up her mind to sleep with him if things worked out that way, and she didn't want to complicate the situation with the possibility that they might see each other again.

Colin laughed. “No wonder you hate us so much. I'd be jealous, too, with the leash they keep you on.”

“It's called the law,” Kat countered defensively. “Without it we're no better than they are.”

“Don't tell me you actually believe that bullshit.”

“Don't tell me you don't.”

Colin tilted his beer to his lips and finished off the bottle. “As far as I can tell,” he said, “we're already no better than they are.”

She half expected him to leave then, and was relieved when he signaled the bartender for another drink.

“So why are you here?” she asked.

He shrugged. “My friends are here, my team. We watch out for each other—it's what we do. And you? God and country, I suppose, setting the score straight like your compatriots over there?” He nodded at the marines.

“My brother died on September eleventh,” Kat said.

Colin colored slightly. “I'm sorry.”

There was nothing trite about the remark, no expectation of anything in return, just the truth of it, and Kat immediately regretted having said anything, as if she'd hit him below the belt.

“I didn't love him,” she said after a moment, surprising herself with the confession. “I didn't even like him.” It was the first time she had admitted this to anyone, but it seemed necessary, a reciprocation of his honesty.

T
HE KIND OF TOWN
Susan had always wanted them to end up in, Morrow thought as he surveyed the hilltop campus and the neighborhood beyond. He had been here before, not this town, exactly, but ones just like it. Green hills and narrow streets, brick colonials looming importantly over garden club lawns. Carriage rides for the weekenders from D.C. Main Street storefronts selling overpriced antiques and useless knickknacks. The reek of history and horse shit. The past and all its idols like a cudgel.

A place to which old spies retired. Wives finally getting their due after a lifetime of reheating dinners and going alone to dance recitals and high-school football games. On the drive in, Morrow had seen more than one of the discreet bumper stickers people like him used to quietly announce themselves as members of the club. It was the kind of thing you wouldn't see unless you knew to look.

It was early afternoon, but the sky was dark as dusk, the horizon bruised and black by the fist of a thunderstorm moving across the valley. Down on the green plain of the campus, a handful of figures hurried to beat the rain, while the first-year cadets kept their slow and painful stride.

On the far side of the parade ground, a solitary figure in faculty green emerged from behind one of the barracks and darted forward, her heels sinking into the soft turf as she ran, her stride shortened by the hem of her skirt.

“Here comes Major Caldwell now,” the General said solicitously. He raised his arm over Morrow's shoulder and pointed out the window.

She was smaller than Morrow had expected, with a soldier's precision of appearance, her brown hair cropped short against her neck, her shirtsleeves holding their creases in the damp September heat. Though even from a distance Morrow's practiced eye told him her meticulousness did not come naturally. Fifteen years in the military and she still walked with the cautious carriage of someone who had worked hard to learn her part. Precision and something else. Anger, perhaps. Years of resentments. What she'd had to fight for and what others had been given.