Threatcon Delta (13 page)

“I suppose it could be Homeland Security, too,” Phair said.

Kealey was surprised and showed it.

“You’re not the first agent to take an interest in me, Mr. Kealey,” Phair answered his unasked question. “Shortly after I was brought back to the base in Iraq, there was a woman who sat in on a session with me.”

“By your permission, I hope.”

“Yes, of course. I forget her last name but her first name was Dina.”

The Icebreaker,
Kealey thought. Phair was right, that could be one of her agents across the street behind the hydrangeas. He doubted DHS would bother to send someone to shadow the cleric in Basra, but it was a possibility, and there could be some red tape and turf-squabbling as a prelude. Unless he snuck the cleric out but sent the Icebreaker the equivalent of a polite note, letting her know the man was now under Kealey’s care.

“I had never heard of Homeland Security before I was introduced to Dina,” Phair said. “I was somewhat removed from the news. On September eleventh I was half a day’s travel from a television.”

“They had cleaned up the broadcasts then, by the time you saw any of them,” Kealey said.

“Yes, but I’m accustomed to imagining stories left untold,” Phair said. “Such as a person’s last choice between a wall of fire and an open window. I believe that one of the greatest achievements of Jesus was simply his journey among people whose stories were ignored, to reveal and honor their suffering with the hope that it would then be changed. He saved them from the eraser of historians with too little time and too few pages. That was an act as divine as any other.”

“I suppose you could say that about any prophet, as well as the messiah.”

“In nearly every faith,” Phair said.

“I’m curious, did you have conversations of this kind in Iraq?”

“You’re asking, did I express my Catholic faith freely?”

“Yes.”

“It was so clear to me that I was there to learn, Mr. Kealey. The sound of my own voice would have obstructed my ears. But yes, there were certain moments with certain people, when there were no feelings of suspicion, that I discussed my faith, too.”

“Your awareness of those feelings of suspicion, of being able to gauge the emotional tenor of a situation, that was what I was guessing would make you a good candidate for me.”

“I am not foolproof,” Phair said. “I was told, and shown, that I was being watched and I did not change my behavior.”

“But you’re sharpening up right now.”

Phair took a swallow of Coke. He held the can in front of his mouth while he used his forearm to wipe his brow. “They’re that worried about me?”

“That cautious.”

“Mr. Kealey, I love this country and I love those poor, besieged people. If I have to decide right now—if I can help one without hurting the other, I’m in.”

“We want the same thing,” Kealey assured him.

“I won’t harm innocents on any side,” Phair insisted. He lowered his arm, revealing his lips to the surveillance. “Nor will I put them in jeopardy.”

“Life is never so clean and clear-cut, and war is less so,” Kealey said. “I will try not to put you in that position. But I would also point out that, with me, you will be in a position to help those same people. And you will lose your guest across the street.”

Phair glanced at the house opposite, then at the sky. “For sixteen years I kept reminding myself that wherever I am, I’m beneath God’s sky. In the remotest village with the crudest of resources, I would look up and feel that I was home.” His eyes drifted back to the house at 324. “I liked it better when it was just God and His angels watching me.”

“Don’t be too hard on General Farrell,” Kealey said. “His higher authority is not as compassionate as yours.”

Phair took another draft from the bottle, then stood. “I’ll need about a half hour to pack.”

“Take your time. The plane doesn’t leave for two hours and I’ve got a chopper waiting to take us to Columbia Metropolitan.”

“We’re flying commercial?”

“Anonymity is our middle name.”

“What’s our first and last name?” Phair asked, half in jest.

Kealey replied earnestly, “Trust and No One.”

F
rom a distance, it is difficult to tell where the Monastery of St. Catherine ends and Mt. Sinai, situated to the north, begins.

The ancient walled compound is named after an evangelical who was beheaded in 307
C.E.
after trying to convince the Roman Emperor Maxentius to stop persecuting Christians. Her remains were carried to the mountain, it is said, by angels. The monastery has the greatest religious library outside of the Vatican and includes the Codex Sinaiticus, one of the oldest extant copies of the Bible.

Lieutenant Adjo had seen the monastery from the air, where the eye roved unstopping over the sprawling gardens outside and the seven structures and small, ordinary wells and staircases within. From the ground, it was all about the wall, which varied in height from twelve to fifteen meters with sides ranging some seven to ten times that in length. Rather than being dwarfed by the mountain behind it, the structure seemed to gain stature from it, as though the walls had been poured from heaven, down the slopes, and forged at this spot.

Though time was crucial, so was caution; Adjo came as a tourist, complete with a floppy white sun hat and camera. To watch any creature in its natural state, an observer could not himself be identified and watched. Besides, at this point, any group of tourists might include pilgrims journeying to the cave.

The night before, Adjo drove along the Gulf of Aqaba to Dahab, then stayed at an inn. The next morning he boarded a bus for the long drive to Mt. Sinai. Though there was no air-conditioning in the vintage 1970 vehicle, a hot and mildly refreshing breeze came through the windows as they passed through villages where the main trades were goat herding and tending fruit orchards.

En route, the only restrictions, their guide informed them, were that no one could go up the mountain without a guide. They were told that the military had planted land mines.

“To keep enemies of the state from attacking our guests,” the young guide said as they pulled up, pointing to razor wire that ran up the side of the mountain behind the gardens.

To keep animals from eating the fruit,
Adjo thought. If there were government-sanctioned mines here, Task Force 777 would have known about them. This was a fabrication told for commerce, to make sure people paid for the guided tour.

The bus heated quickly as it stopped. Everyone hurried out.

“What do you know of the Cave of Moses?” Adjo asked the guide as he climbed into the searing afternoon sun. He felt the contours of the hot rocks through the softened soles of his shoes.

“It is closed at present.”

“Oh?”

“There are patrols,” he said.

“Egyptian or United Nations soldiers?”

“I do not know. I was only told that they watch for terror.”

Ah,
Adjo thought.
The fearsome catchall designed to get the general citizenry to obey any edict, however unjustified.

It was another lie. Adjo had not seen patrols as they drove up, saw no military vehicles, saw neither the glint of polished metal nor the clouds of dust that accompanied the movements of any unit out here.

The guide said that walking tours were only going a short way up the mountain to look out across the Plain of el Raha where the Israelites rested while they waited for the prophet. Adjo thanked the man. He did not act guarded, like someone who knew more than he was telling. In all likelihood he was simply repeating what he had been told.

Adjo caught up with the group as they passed through the gardens to the massive main gate on the western wall. Up close, the pale orange walls of the monastery were clearly different from the fields of red and gray rock that surround them. It was also much busier than it seemed from above. It was late morning and hundreds of tourists were about, brought in by the dozen or so buses parked by the gardens or by taxicabs from Dahab. The visitors far outnumbered the twenty Greek Orthodox monks who lived here full-time. Most of the monks seemed tolerant of the intrusion, which lasted only from nine to noon each day. Once the gates closed, the only shelter came from the snack shacks that lined the mountain path. In this heat, Adjo knew that none but flagellants would be willing to make an unbroken three-hour trek to the summit.

Adjo moved among the tourists, looking for any who didn’t seem to fit the profile provided by the Ministry of the Interior: everyone seemed to belong because no one did. It was a melting pot of nations, ages, and affluence. The only common factor seemed to be awe.

Inside the compound, the officer made his way to a monk who was just entering a room that the tour map said was a library. The black-robed figure was looking down, a hood pulled low over his forehead. The monks were famous for not speaking to tourists, but Adjo decided to give it a try. Intercepting him, Adjo asked if he spoke Egyptian.

“I do,” the man said without looking up.

“Your worship,” Adjo said, “I have been told there is a holy man on the mountain, a son of the prophet Moses. Have you heard of such a one?”

The man did not reply but the hood turned slightly and he seemed to study Adjo from beneath its shadowy folds.

“You do not look like a pilgrim,” the man said.

“How should a pilgrim look?” Adjo asked. He touched his chest with his fingertips. “In here, I am a seeker.”

The hood lowered and the man turned toward the wooden door of the small, sand-colored stone structure.

“Your grace,” Adjo said, “I have come far and I must know if this man is
the
man of God, the
Gharib Qawee
?”

The monk entered the building and closed the door behind him. For the moment it was open, Adjo could see nothing but blackness inside. He understood why the brothers kept their hot hoods on as they moved from place to place. In that way they wouldn’t be blind when they got inside.

As Adjo stood by the door he heard a bolt being thrown. That seemed excessive. He hadn’t made any move to suggest he’d follow.

Something wasn’t right here.

As he turned back toward the interior structures, he felt something sting his ankle through his jeans. He heard a crack in the distance, like one rock hitting another, and thought nothing of it at the moment. He looked down, expecting to see a hornet that had lost its way from the garden. He saw a chipped piece of rock. Nearby he saw the fresh, white wound in the cobblestone from which it had come.

The sound had been gunfire.

“
Là-bas!
” one of the tourists shouted, pointing toward the mountain as he moved his wife into a doorway and stood in front of her.

Adjo looked over, thought he saw the last remnants of a chalky cloud.

Tourists were running from the mountain side of the compound, crouching low and protecting their heads with backpacks as they hurried to the perceived shelter of eaves and corners. Adjo hugged the arched entranceway, still scanning the peaks, looking for a glint that might indicate a weapon or sunglasses—anything. He felt naked without his binoculars.

Several thoughts came at once.

First, this was unlikely to have been a coincidence. Someone must have been watching—or listening to?—what was going on here. Perhaps Adjo had been pointed out by the tour guide, possibly for asking questions, or maybe for stopping the monk and asking about the prophet. Perhaps he was being watched simply because he was traveling alone. That was careless; virtually everyone else was in pairs or groups.

Second, the gunman had intended to miss. Otherwise, there would have been another shot. They did not want Adjo dead because they did not know who he was. The local police were corrupt and could probably be bought, but if he were an investigator for a group like the al-Mukhabarat al-’Ammah—the General Intelligence and Security Service—that could cause problems.

Third, the shooters were not likely to be terrorists, as the guide had said, for there had been virtually no precedent for that here. Even jihadists respected this site.

Urged by guides, tourists were returning to the garden and from there to the buses and taxis. Adjo lingered. Feeling sufficiently immune to assassination, he looked around for the bullet and found it, a crushed shell that looked like it came from an assault rifle. From the flattened remains, there was no way to tell what kind.

Adjo made his way to the monastery gate, thinking he might jog to St. Catherine’s village, which lay a quarter-kilometer away on the road to the monastery. In his backpack was an STU-III. He would use it to call Lieutenant General Samra. The secure phone was larger than a regular cell phone and he did not want to take it out where anyone watching from the mountain might see. Whoever had fired that shot still could not be certain he meant them harm. He did not want to give them any reason to change that opinion.

As he jogged down the stone path, looking for a suitable place of concealment not only to make the call but to lose himself, he had a stabbing sense that he was going the wrong way. That truly great men went up this mountain.

I’ll be back,
he assured himself as he headed toward the red clay tiles of the roofs below.

J
ames Phair hadn’t been on a commercial airplane for nearly twenty years. It was a disappointing experience.

The interiors were plastic; the seats barely reclined and were narrow, thinly cushioned skeletons much too close to those in front and to the side; the in-flight meal had disappeared along with the in-flight movie, which was now an in-flight television broadcast; and the stewardesses were flight attendants and not as attentive as they once were.

The engines were quieter, though. That was something.

Security, too, was very different. It seemed thorough on the surface, though Phair had seen nimble-fingered Iraqis deftly raid pockets, fruit stands, and café tables for flatware. Someone who was trained and determined could easily mislead these disinterested TSA souls with one hand while concealing something in another, then passing it back like it was a card trick. He probably could have brought down the plane himself. They scanned him with a metal detector, found his dog tags, and thought nothing of allowing him to keep them and the chain. He could have gone into the restroom, used the ID to unscrew the fan casing, and fed the chain between the blades to cause a spark, thus simulating an electrical short-circuit. That would have thrown a breaker and affected the linked navigational systems and stabilizers. He remarked to Kealey that he had overheard that scenario being discussed by two men at a bus stop in Mosul. Later, while he was in the lavatory, Phair realized he could have smashed the mirror and transformed a shard into a perfectly functioning knife.

Phair was surprised that Ryan Kealey didn’t talk to him more and resisted any efforts at a get-to-know-you exchange. Kealey spent most of the short flight working on his laptop and organizing his expenses. There was something mundane and somehow reassuring about curled paper receipts scattered about the keyboard. Whether Kealey kept apart to maintain professional objectivity—in the military that was called “emotional distancing,” the idea being that a commander wouldn’t ask a friend to cover a retreat, knowing he might die—or because he simply didn’t care remained to be seen. This early in a professional relationship, it was discouraging.

A nondescript black sedan met them at the airport, one of many parked along the curb.

“D.C. is like Vegas,” Kealey said. “Only the tourists take cabs.”

“I’ve never been,” Phair remarked.

“I know,” Kealey replied.

The driver opened the door for them. Inside, a glass partition separated the front seat from the passengers. The dark windows made it impossible to see in; looking out, Phair saw a world in monochromatic blue, carefully delineated but without subtlety.

“I wonder if all your employees feel this naked?” he asked.

“You mean knowing you hadn’t been to Vegas?” Kealey said.

“Not only knowing it, but remembering it,” Phair said.

“The people of America pay me to be on top of things,” Kealey told him. “We’ve been burned in other parts of the world by interpreters and informants, nationals mostly, because we didn’t know enough about them, let alone everything. The stakes are too high for that.”

“They weren’t Americans.”

“Did you report what you heard those men discussing at the bus stop in Mosul?” Kealey asked.

Phair felt betrayed by the question and did not answer, except with embarrassed silence. In the future, he would remember not to offer any information. Maybe that was why Kealey avoided small talk.

Phair looked out the tinted window. He saw the Washington Monument and Capitol Dome near and then fall away.

“It’s been two decades, but I’m pretty sure we needed to turn off back there,” he said.

“Not to go to McLean, Virginia,” Kealey told him. “That’s where CIA HQ is located.”

“Not Langley?”

“One and the same,” Kealey assured him.

“Why didn’t we just fly military point-to-point?”

“I wanted to make sure no one was watching for you.”

“Who? General Farrell’s people? Or Homeland Security?”

“Anyone.”

“You mean Iraqis? Hell, if I’d wanted to tip someone off I could have sent a coded e-mail right from my airplane seat, tell them where I was going! Wouldn’t that have been simpler?”

“Only if you knew,” Kealey replied. “This isn’t a fucking game, Major. There’s no room for hurt feelings.”

That was the last they spoke until they reached their destination.

The car let them off at the security entrance. As they passed through the metal detector and bag check, Kealey acted as he had back at Fort Jackson, affable and welcoming, as if their last exchange had never happened. Phair wasn’t sure whether he admired or resented that. He only hoped that he himself could overlook it.

Once they were inside, crossing a wide lobby and headed toward a bank of elevators, Kealey said, “We had a man of Iranian descent, twenty-eight, born and raised in New Jersey, who we sent to Iraq in 2005. His job was to contact Iranians who were part of the insurgency and learn about their personnel and supply routes. It took about six months for him to decide that these killers were his people and that he wanted to help them.”

“I see. But he was of Iranian descent–—”

“Theology is a tricky business,” Kealey said. “Holy man to holy man can be a strong bond, too.”

That hadn’t happened to Phair, but he had to admit the theory was sound. “How did you find out about your defector?”

“When we stopped hearing from him, Centcom in Iraq sent a special-ops team to find him,” Kealey explained. “You can’t have people who know your secrets going to the other side. They brought him back so his family could bury him.”

Phair couldn’t tell whether that was meant to impart information or a threat. Again, he decided he had to look past it. That traitor wasn’t him.

They took the elevator to the sixth floor. The place had the feel of a kind of mad newsroom, people rushing here and there from cubicles, studying video monitors on the desks. Phair was still getting used to the proliferation of LCD screens in every house, office, or store he entered.

“You didn’t lose a lot of weight in Iraq,” Kealey said.

They were weaving through the maze in a pattern Phair could never have repeated. The cleric’s mind snapped to attention. They’d had several hours to discuss this. Why now?

Because you’re distracted,
Phair told himself.
He wants to catch you off guard, see if you hesitate.

“The populace tends to be generous with holy men,” Phair said.

“India is that way, too,” Kealey said as if he had expected the answer. “You told Major Dell that you earned some money teaching English and helping men haul goods to market.”

“Is there a question?” Phair asked.

“Who wanted to learn English? Young people, mostly?”

“Mostly, and typically men,” Phair said. “A lot of merchants saw the GIs as potential customers—at least, when insurgents weren’t there, threatening to kill anyone who did business with them.”

“Them?”

“Us,” Phair said.

“Did you ever have encounters with American soldiers?”

“No.”

“You didn’t want anyone asking about you, entertaining ideas about bringing you back.”

“That’s right. Not until I had experienced everything I could.”

“If you hadn’t been spotted, how much longer do you think you would have stayed?”

“I honestly don’t know,” Phair said. “I’ll admit to being homesick for a soft bed and a fast-food hamburger.”

Kealey smiled. He seemed satisfied.

They walked through a secretarial office into a larger office beyond. Kealey smiled at the young man behind a desk. He introduced “Major Phair” but didn’t stop, so there was no handshaking.

Kealey shut the door behind him.

“Major Phair, I believe you’re a good man and you’re certainly a patient one,” Kealey said. “I believe you’re a patriot and would be an asset to us. But we need to have an understanding.” Kealey stepped behind his simple glass-topped desk and folded his arms. “The military had reasons for making you a hero and not an AWOL, but I don’t. If you are in the field and go off mission for any reason, you will come back like our friend from New Jersey.”

Phair’s heart rate jumped. He’d gotten reprimanded before, especially during the Gulf War. He had witnessed a lot of excessive zeal among commanders who felt that pockets of resistance were better blasted out and buried than smoked out and imprisoned. They had deadlines to meet. Phair had been vocal in his disapproval of the hammer-down approach, and that was one reason he’d gone to help the wounded Iraqis on the day he became separated from his unit. He believed that his presence offered them a little protection. Kealey’s tone wasn’t what bothered him, and the threat of death didn’t get to him. He’d faced that daily in Iraq. What troubled Phair was the recurring doubt. Every time it seemed to retreat, back it came in full, ugly flower.

“I do try to be a good man and an understanding one,” Phair said. “But I have to tell you, Mr. Kealey—you push me on that. Leaders who rule by doubt and denunciation are never as effective as those who govern by trust and hope.”

“Your personal and philosophical priorities may change when thousands of lives depend on every decision you make, when you worry that you’ve missed a clue that can cause the next World Trade Center attack or Madrid train bombing,” Kealey said. “When you have the resources at your disposal to destroy a village just to get one particularly nasty radical, it’s tough to keep from lashing out like the angel of fucking death.

“But thanks for the sermon,” he added pleasantly as he sat and gestured toward the sofa. “It’s something to shoot for.”