“Nothing that can’t wait. Obviously you’re busy.”
He led her gently toward the door.
“Pleasure meeting you,” I said. I then took one of the business cards that Omar had printed for me and pushed it into her hand. “Hope to see you again before you leave, Mrs. Rahim.”
She smiled wanly, then disappeared into the crowded street.
Well, now. What was that all about? I somehow doubted she had really heard about us in town. I decided to check later with Dr. Hassan. Maybe he knew more.
By then it was well past noon. What I would have liked to do next was to visit a falafel stand for a fat, overstuffed sandwich. But during Ramadan that was out of the question, so I settled for yet another visit to a market for fruit and bread to eat in the office.
I was just finishing when a blare of loudspeakers caught my attention, and I threw open the door in time to see a Toyota truck rolling by with hand-painted banners on its sides and a young fellow in a red-checked kaffiyeh leaning out the passenger window. He held an electric megaphone, barking out announcements over the heads of the midday throngs. In the truck’s wake were a few dozen schoolboys, who seemed to be following for lack of anything better to do.
It wasn’t easy deciphering the message through the fuzz and burn of feedback, but as best I could tell he was urging everyone to attend a rally that weekend. Maybe it was the same event Nabil’s friends were promoting. For all I knew, the pamphlets being scattered like flower petals from the back of the Toyota had been printed in this very office.
It was the usual junk and glory of Palestinian activism. The rally, the fellow on the megaphone said, was going to offer everyone who attended a chance “to show them all up.” Whoever “them” was. On the West Bank, “them” always meant the Israelis, the armed occupiers of the IDF. Here it could be referring to local political rivals or the Jordanian government, and I had little doubt that such processions attracted their share of Mukhabarat operatives or informants. By later this afternoon, a full report would probably be on someone’s desk at the big building off the Eighth Circle.
The noise faded as the parade rounded a far corner, and I decided to check in at Dr. Hassan’s. A twenty-minute stroll brought me to the crowded waiting room, where I asked the receptionist to tell him I had arrived.
“I am sorry, sir, but Dr. Hassan is away.”
“Then maybe you know where Nabil and his guest have gone.”
She regarded me with puzzlement.
“Nabil Mustafa, I mean. Wasn’t he here earlier? With a Palestinian woman from America?”
Her puzzlement turned to amazement.
“He would never come here uninvited, sir. He is not welcome.”
I left a bit sheepishly, feeling as if I had been made the butt of a practical joke. As I went out the door the little political procession passed my way again. It had picked up more followers, and now there were about fifty chanting males in its wake.
I wondered again about the mysterious Mrs. Rahim. Whose rallying cry, if any, was she marching to? Maybe, as she said, she was simply a tourist on a sentimental journey. It wasn’t unusual for wealthy Palestinians of the Diaspora to want to see how the less fortunate were faring. That could account for why she seemed embarrassed once I showed up. A fellow American had caught her in the act of slumming.
But there were other possibilities, too, involving more secretive and even alarming motives. Nabil’s cryptic phrase, “It mostly depends on how you’re wired,” certainly covered some interesting territory.
I added the name of Aliyah Rahim to the list of those worthy of further scrutiny.
24
T
he surreal nature of Aliyah’s mission didn’t sink in until she landed in Frankfurt for a six-hour layover.
She hadn’t slept a wink on the overnight crossing. Instead she squirmed her way through a dreary movie, three European sitcoms, and a chilly breakfast served in the blinding glare of sunrise over the North Atlantic. By the time she finally slumped into a cushioned chair along one of the terminal’s busiest thoroughfares she was too dazed to do anything but stare at the passing crowds with eyes that felt sanded and buffed.
That was when it hit her: In a matter of hours she would be meeting with plotters and bomb makers, the very people she had always scorned as a hurt and hindrance to her family. In trying to imagine the days ahead, she envisioned hooded men bristling with weapons. They would blindfold her and bundle her into the trunks of cars to drive to their hidden lairs and safe houses, where bearded men would sit cross-legged on threadbare carpets beneath posters of Mecca and Jerusalem’s Dome of the Rock. She would drink tea served on brass trays in between discussions of bomb placement and wiring, and she would endure endless diatribes against infidel Americans. Arab or not, she supposed she had been influenced by Hollywood as much as any American.
She shifted uncomfortably in the airport chair. Next to her, an Asian man in a business suit began snoring. How had matters come to this? Could she really pull it off? Suddenly it seemed like a terrible idea to have left Abbas to his own devices in Washington. He might get it in his head to try anything. Thank goodness they had never owned firearms.
Their parting had been awkward. Abbas drove her to Dulles with quiet solicitude, but his farewell at the security barrier unnerved her.
“Remember,” he said, reaching up to lightly stroke her cheek, “you are doing this for our children.”
The gesture was touching, the words chilling. Carrying out his plan would damn their children’s names forever, and his words rendered her speechless. She only nodded in reply, and then held him tightly as she wondered what other thoughts and secrets were adrift in his mind.
Then she reminded herself that, under her agenda, this trip really was for the children. And for Abbas, too. But what if she were caught by local authorities? A day earlier she had read a story in the
Post
about how the Jordanian government was cracking down on young jihadists as they straggled back across the border from Iraq. Maybe she would wind up in the net also. And even if she had the best of intentions, her actions could land her in jail back in the United States if American authorities ever got wind of what she was up to.
Such thoughts continued to trouble her in Frankfurt, so she went to an airport café in search of relief. A strong cup of coffee and a four-euro pastry revived her spirits. She watched with envy as a young mother at the next table tended to a drowsy pair of twins in a double stroller.
In a surge of optimism she bought a
Herald Tribune.
Perhaps there would be a late bulletin of the senator’s death, making a shambles of Abbas’s plans. Instead there was only more news from Iraq, with its bombings and failures. She shoved the paper into an overflowing trash bin as bile rose in her throat, tasting of burned coffee. No more looking back, she told herself. No more hoping for an easy way out.
The burst of resolve calmed her, and by the time her plane took off for Amman she was relaxed enough to sleep.
No one met her at the airport, thank goodness. The only information she had to go on was the contact name and number from Abbas. He had insisted that she stay in first-class accommodations, and had booked her a room at the InterContinental. She reached the hotel in late afternoon. The bellhop threw open the curtains onto a street scene of heavy traffic and long shadows. Just one more hour of daylight, she told herself. Wait it out, drink a bottle of water, and then sleep. She would telephone the contact number in the morning. That way she would have already put one day behind her without having advanced Abbas’s cause.
For security reasons, Abbas and she had agreed not to be in touch until the day before her departure, when she would send an e-mail detailing her flight plans. She believed this isolation would work to her advantage. He would have no way of knowing how little she was doing, or what sort of questions she was asking. Her plan, apart from her delaying tactics, was to learn more about disarming bombs than making them. But she also realized the potential disadvantages. What if Abbas did something rash in her absence? Or, worse, what if he grew impatient and found some way to carry it off without any help from abroad? Teamwork had always been a hallmark of how they dealt with important family matters, and she was counting on that to prevent him from acting alone. But she worried that in his current state of mind, if he was pushed for time, his resourcefulness might overcome his spirit of cooperation. That, and his vial of little pills.
Aliyah slid open the door to the balcony and stepped outside. The crisp evening air felt perfect. It was her first time in Amman, and she hadn’t expected all the hills, with their crowded, blocky architecture, everything rendered in watercolor shades of tan and off-white. Or so it seemed in the slanting light. The air had a strange smell, which stirred a vague familiarity. It was the dry, smoky character, she supposed, which took her back to distant times she hadn’t revisited in ages.
She recalled in particular a walk she had taken with her brothers between West Bank villages high in the crags above the Jordan River’s valley. They had been visiting relatives at the time, and she must have been only five, just before the ’67 war. Her brothers grew impatient with her slow pace and told her to wait for them to collect her on their return journey. She was tired, and happy to oblige, so she stretched out on her back on a barren hilltop, feeling the warm ground against the back of her cotton dress as she stared up into the sharp blue sky. The noise of her brothers’ chatter receded until she was blanketed by a thrilling silence.
A few minutes later, as she still gazed skyward, there was movement in the corner of her eye, followed by a light wisping sound from above. It was a stork, she saw. No, three of them, now hundreds, maybe thousands. They were far overhead, like a great mass of white confetti, blowing south toward the Sinai. Then they paused as if the wind had stopped them, and the white particles began to circle. It took a few moments before she realized they were moving closer, easing lower with each revolution. Maybe they were coming to say hello, or just to find out who she was, what she was up to. She never felt threatened, only thrilled, as if at any moment one of the storks might cry out, try to speak to her. Soon they were close enough for Aliyah to hear every wingbeat, a thousand whispers like a roomful of gossips. By then they were no more than a few hundred feet above her, casting shadows where she lay. Then, as if following some silent command, they suddenly began to rise, until they were high enough to continue southward. She was so spellbound by the experience that when her brothers returned they were certain she had been bewitched by a jinn, some rogue spirit loose on the landscape.
Now where had that memory come from? She looked across the city, certain that deep within her there were plenty of other connections to this land. It might do her some good to acknowledge that more often. She knew it was what their son, Faris, wanted from his parents. He yearned for touchstones.
Aliyah hadn’t been to this part of the world in nine years, and even that visit had been a sad journey to Nablus for the funeral of Abbas’s mother, a trip that had turned tense and ugly when an Israeli soldier was shot in the town. They spent most of the week indoors or waiting at checkpoints.
She yawned. The hours of travel were catching up to her, so she stepped back inside and slid the door shut. The hum of the air conditioner beckoned her to bed.
At 10 the next morning, after a leisurely breakfast in the lobby café, she reluctantly got down to business by punching in the phone number. As the line rang she prayed for a tape-recorded answer, hoping against hope that the number had been disconnected. Instead, a woman picked up on the second ring. Aliyah asked to speak to Khalid. It was the only name she had.
“Just a moment.”
The line crackled with static as the phone changed hands. Then a male voice said, “Call my mobile instead.”
He gave her the number and hung up. Aliyah scrambled to find a pen before she forgot it. Then she calmed herself and dialed again. Khalid answered right away but still wasn’t ready to do business.
“Where are you?” he said.
“My hotel. The InterContinental.”
“Those lines aren’t so good. Please try me on
your
mobile.”
“I don’t think my cell phone will work here.”
“There are some shops down the street where you can buy one. I will be here all morning.”
He hung up. A matter of security, she supposed. Just as well, because it was another delay, and she would make the most of it.
She spent two hours finding the right shop and settling on a phone. Then she ordered a room service lunch, ate at a snail’s pace, and shoved the tray and its clattering silver lids into the hallway before calling back. With any luck, Khalid would have given up.
He again answered right away, with no hint of impatience.
“We need to meet,” he said. “Preferably at a café, someplace in public. After sundown, of course.” Because it was Ramadan, he meant. She hadn’t been at all vigilant about her holiday fasting back in the U.S., but supposed that she should take more care here. “I must break fast first, and then I will see you. Eight o’clock. The Al Khabar Café, in Shmeisani. Any taxi driver will know it.”
The more she saw of the city on the ride across town, the less it impressed her. It was a sprawl with no center, and everything had been built in a hurry. Each successive boulevard looked like the one before it, with the same billboards and banks. Clean enough, she supposed, and some of the new hotels begged spectacularly for attention. But there was little of the concentrated bustle that she had always found so stimulating in other Arab cities, such as Cairo or Damascus.
When she arrived at the Al Khabar she wondered if the taxi had taken her to the wrong place. The clientele and atmosphere wouldn’t have been out of place on Dupont Circle in Washington. Subdued track lighting beamed onto leather-backed stools and black circular tables with chrome edging. Wall-mounted speakers pulsed with a driving beat. Was that Madonna singing? Anticipating something far different, Aliyah had dressed conservatively and covered her head with a scarf. Only one other woman here was similarly attired, and even she wore a scarlet silk blouse and tight jeans. Half the customers were smoking cigarettes, which took some getting used to. Others puffed at hookah pipes of flavored tobacco.
Shortly after entering she noticed a small man with a trim salt-and-pepper beard nodding to her from across the room. She nodded back and approached his table.
“Khalid?”
“Yes.”
“Is that your real name?”
“Of course.”
As if he would have said otherwise. He signaled to the waitress, and Aliyah ordered coffee. Then, perhaps to set the tone, Khalid began tossing out the euphemisms they were presumably supposed to use from then on.
“I understand you are looking for investment expertise to help in your acquisition project.”
“Yes. We need lots of advice.”
He nodded, as if to affirm she had answered in just the right way.
“What is the timing of your acquisition?”
“That depends.”
“On executive health issues, correct?”
“Yes.”
“Then we will try to act as expeditiously as possible.”
“All right.”
She felt supremely ridiculous, and could hardly believe the conversation was taking place. Between jet lag and nervousness, she wanted to burst out laughing. It was like a school play, and her pose as a willing participant made it a sham within a sham. Nor did it help that Khalid cut a ridiculous figure. His short legs didn’t even reach the floor from the stool, which made him look like a boy with a fake beard. At least no one else seemed to be paying them any attention.
Her coffee arrived, hot and strong. She sipped and looked down at the table while trying to forget where she was. Khalid leaned across the table and spoke up to be heard over the music.
“I am going to put you in touch with two people, both of them in the Bakaa camp. The first will advise you on technical matters. His name is also Khalid.”
“Are all of you named Khalid?”
“Don’t ask those kinds of questions, please.”
She searched his face for any hint of amusement, and found none.
“You will meet him tomorrow. A driver will come to your hotel at noon. We will reveal the name of the second contact only when we have decided you are ready.”
“You mean I have to prove myself?”
“There is no need to burden you with too much information until you are fully prepared for the next step.”
“And how long will that take?”
“Not so long. After you meet your contact tomorrow you will receive a call on your mobile with further instructions. Always use your mobile. And, Aliyah?”
It was the first time anyone had used her name since she left Washington, and it was jarring. It told her this wasn’t playacting after all.
“Yes?”
“Do not create any further delays. I understand why you might have some reluctance. You are taking an important step. But it should not have taken you two hours to buy a phone and return my call.”
His tone wasn’t angry and his expression didn’t change, but she got the message all the same. They were watching closely, and wanted to see a more convincing performance.
“Tell me one more thing,” she said.
“If I can.”
“Why am I using my real name when no one else is?”
“Because your name is one of your advantages. In Jordan, where many names automatically attract attention and suspicion, yours is a good name, beyond reproach.”
Tell that to the authorities in London, she thought, or in New York. Maybe she should even say that out loud. It was why she was here, after all, the mere fact of their name and the consequences it had produced. But Khalid had already hopped down from the stool and was dropping dinars on the table. He then headed for the door without a further word. Aliyah followed a few seconds later. By the time she reached the sidewalk he was gone.