“First things first,” I said in a low monotone. “Turn that damn thing off.”
Black nodded, and Gray complied. Like magic, Tanzania disappeared into the ether.
“If it’s any comfort,” Black said evenly, “if Tanzania didn’t do the trick, we were going to bring your marriage into it next. Threaten possible visa complications for your Balkan wife, that sort of thing.”
“Just tell me what you want me to do.”
“It’s Omar’s money we’re interested in. Where it’s coming from. How much. Where it’s going. What it’s paying for. Not the donations from the jelly jars, or Queen Alia’s charity kitty, or even the World Health Organization grant money. Just the big money.”
I considered that a moment while trying to calm myself.
“A WHO grant isn’t exactly small money.”
Black waved dismissively.
“A hundred thousand. Mere seed capital. He used it to set up the office and it was gone inside a month. I’m talking about donations from Europe. Money from people who would probably rather not be identified, and so far haven’t been. And of course, whoever is kicking in cash from the Gulf States. Seven figures at a time, or so we hear, but staying in Omar’s accounts barely long enough to accrue a penny of interest before it flows right back out via some back channel we can’t seem to locate.”
“I thought you shut all the back channels down after 9/11.” I tried to sound combative, but it came out halfhearted.
“Some of them we did. But you know what happens when you dam things up in one place. The water backs up for a while and then it flows somewhere else. I’m talking about the sorts of transactions that don’t show up in any bank records. The kind that might be detected only by someone on the ground. You’re that someone.”
“When would I start?”
Black raised his eyebrows.
“Excuse me,” I corrected. “When
do
I start?”
“That will be up to Omar and you. You should reply as soon as possible to his e-mail. Better still, give him a call. Tell him you’re reserved on a Tuesday nonstop to Amman out of Athens. As long as that suits your schedule, of course.”
It was Friday morning. That gave me only four days to prepare.
“Do I really have a choice?”
“You have lots of choices. We know from your track record that you like to operate independently, so from here on out you’ll be pretty much in charge. Your choice of tactics, your choice of equipment. We might even be able to supply you with a few necessities. Within reason, of course. Find out what we need to know and you’re a free man, even if it only takes a week. Then you can tell Omar the job wasn’t your cup of tea and fly home to your rustic paradise on Karos. Like I said, we’re running this from the bottom up.”
“And if it takes longer than three months?”
“That will mean you’re not doing your job. There’s a shelf life to this kind of information, and at three months your coach turns back into a pumpkin and your horses become mice. If you need more motivation than we’ve already supplied, then consider that lives may be at stake. Think of it as your chance to balance the books. Well, sort of. Only if Western lives are worth more than African ones. But hasn’t that always been the going exchange rate? Which reminds me. There is one thing we’re
not
asking you to do, Freeman, and that is to be any sort of action figure who takes matters into his own hands. Your role is to provide information, not to act on it, or even to ‘notify the authorities.’” Black made quote marks in the air. “From here on out, we are the only authorities you are answerable to, and when the time for action comes, we’ll take it. We—not you, not the Jordanians—will stand as judge and jury.”
“And executioner?”
“Let us worry about that.”
“Great. And what about training?”
“Training?”
“Technique. Tactics. What to do in an emergency.”
Black almost laughed.
“The way I see it, you’ve spent your whole life training for this. Playing at neutrality all over the globe. The aid chameleon, jumping from one tree to the next. Rubbing elbows with scoundrels while pretending to be their friend. Just be yourself, Freeman. As for your means of communication, don’t worry. We’ll set something up.”
“And what am I supposed to tell Mila?”
“Whatever you like. If you’ve somehow managed to keep all this hidden from her”—he gestured toward the blank screen, little knowing how close he had just come to the truth—“then I’m sure you’ll think of something.”
3
I
n the course of my travels, I have mastered three foreign languages—French, Arabic, and Greek. I’ve picked up enough Spanish, German, and Serbo-Croatian to fend for myself in restaurants and supermarkets, and during my final years in the field I achieved a brisk fluency in “Directorese,” a UN dialect of acronyms and officiousness invaluable when confronting the high and mighty.
But as Black and Gray escorted me back to Mila in a red Opel—a car they seemed to produce from out of nowhere—I confronted a new and unexpected gap in my linguistic skills. Namely, my deficiencies in the language of deception. Because that is what I would need to employ with my wife, less for my own good than for hers.
Over the years I’ve watched less-harmonious couples develop an all-too-easy fluency in this language, and it has never failed to dishearten me. They disguise it sometimes by hiding among crowds of their colleagues, letting their lies blend in with the surrounding babble. If Mila and I were still traveling, perhaps I could have tried something similar. But out here in virtual isolation, only our voices would be heard. In order to describe my current predicament without treading onto dangerous ground, I was going to need a subtle array of half-truths and misdirection.
Yet, as the Opel rounded the final curve I felt as ill-prepared as a lazy exchange student, still fumbling through the phrase book as he approached the host family’s doorstep.
Gray was at the wheel, with Black at his side. I was alone in the back. They had secured the child locks just in case. Black slung an arm across the front seat and turned toward me. He looked relaxed, his mission accomplished, and he spoke in an offhand manner.
“We’ll set up a way for you to file progress reports from the field, of course. Details to follow. Don’t sweat it—we’ll be in touch.”
“How will I know when I’ve given you enough information?”
“We’ll make our feelings known. In the meantime the best rule of thumb is to tell us anything and everything you learn. Names, numbers, we want it all. You’re to go where he goes, see who he sees. If Omar has a meeting, find out who it’s with. Crash it if you can, ferret out the details later if you can’t. Whatever files he has, you need to see them. And whenever you find a money trail you’re to follow wherever it leads, through records if possible, or on foot if necessary. Even if it’s someplace you don’t particularly care to go.”
He glanced forward to check our progress as Gray bumped the car into the rocky driveway. The headlight beams swung across the front of the house.
“The less you can get away with telling your wife, the better, you know. That’s the best policy with spouses. It’s in their own best interests.”
Interesting that he had arrived at the same conclusion as I had, if for different reasons.
“Is this what passes for training?”
“Relax. Amateurs do surprisingly well in this business. All their mistakes look like honest ones. It’s the professionals who have to be extra careful. Which only makes them easier to spot for anyone who’s watching for them.”
“And who will be watching for me?”
“If I told you, you’d just waste all your time looking for them. Nobody you need to worry about.”
“Comforting.”
“Just concern yourself with Omar.”
We pulled to a stop. Gray left the engine running. Black handed an envelope across the seat.
“Here’s your plane ticket. Tell White we’re waiting outside, if you don’t mind.”
“You’re not leaving him behind to make sure we behave?”
“You’ll behave.”
“And if I can’t make the flight Tuesday?”
“Then trade in the ticket for Thursday.”
“What if I’m not on that one?”
“Then Gray and I will be back in touch. Even more up close and personal than this time. I don’t think you’d like us very much.”
The locks thumped open, and I stepped into the night. White opened the front door of the house before I could even turn the handle, and he passed me without a word. Mila stood behind him in the alcove, still in her robe.
She slumped into my arms as they drove away. We watched until the taillights disappeared on a switchback far above us. I felt the air leave her body in a huge sigh like the beginning of a sob. But when I pulled back for a look, her face was dry.
“Are you all right?” I asked. “Did he…?”
“He was fine. Very polite. Just sat in a corner and made sure I didn’t go anywhere. What did they want with you? Where did they take you?”
“Up to the DeKuyper place. They had a key. We went to some kind of boardroom. Why don’t we sit down?”
She nodded, and we sleepwalked to the couch, the one with the fine view out the picture window down to the sea, except now the curtains were drawn. After being in DeKuyper’s house the room felt tiny.
“They want me to go to work for them. Just for a few months. Then they’ll let me go.”
“They scared us like this just to make a job offer?”
“I guess they wanted to make an impression. It’s secret work. In the Middle East.”
She shook her head.
“Why you? Doing what?”
“Remember Omar al-Baroody? From Jordan? They want me to spy on him.”
She had met Omar on our honeymoon, when we had toured Cairo, Jerusalem, and much of Jordan. To her Omar was a big smile and a deep, booming laugh. I’m sure she could easily recall our dinner with his family in Amman, at a Chinese restaurant run by an old diplomat from Taiwan, reputedly a retired spy. The image was still vivid in my mind: Omar, his wife, and their three squirming children seated with us around a circular table in the corner, with all the serving dishes on a lazy Susan. We talked about our futures in the relaxed manner of old campaigners who believed that from then on their greatest worries would be cholesterol levels and colorectal exams. Then we swapped stories of our wild old days on the West Bank. As we polished off a second bottle of wine, Omar and I agreed that dangerous living was for young men, and our wives heartily seconded the motion.
“It seems that he’s started up an NGO in Amman. Something about health care in the Bakaa refugee camp. But they’re worried he’s really giving his money to all the wrong people, so they’re vetting his operation for security purposes. He’s got a job opening, and they want me to fill it. Apparently it’s all been arranged. I don’t even have to formally apply.”
“And you’d do that? Spy on a friend?”
“It’s the people around him they’re interested in most,” I said, fudging it. “Who knows, maybe Omar’s been duped. In which case I’ll be doing him a favor. Not that I have a choice. They made it clear that it’s pretty much mandatory.”
“How can they
make
you do it?”
“Oh, you know, the usual threats. Control over visas and passports. Mine and yours.”
“That’s illegal.”
“Not when they’re making the rules.”
“So we’ll move to the U.S., then. We don’t need visas for that.”
“You might.”
“We’re married. That makes me a citizen.”
“It’s not that simple anymore.”
After 9/11, I meant, but didn’t have to say. We knew enough couples of mixed national origin whose marriages had been called into question, or whose spousal visas had been denied, to realize that the easy ways of the past no longer prevailed.
“Besides,” I said, “this is our home now. And if I don’t go, they promised they’d be back.”
The statement about home echoed a bit loudly off the living room’s bare walls. We hadn’t done much decorating, and it still had the look of a place where the occupants were determining their style.
“How long did you say?” she asked, with a note of resignation.
“No more than three months, they said. Or as soon as I can find out what they need to know. Then I’ll be back.”
She sighed, as if she wanted to ask more but couldn’t bear it. Or maybe she was too tired, which was how I felt. We said nothing for a while, and then we curled into a tighter ball of silence and fell asleep right there on the couch. I suppose we were too weary to get up, but it was also true that neither of us wanted to face the bedroom just yet. For the moment, Black, White, and Gray had made it their own. For all I knew, the window was still open. Hard to believe that only a few hours ago we had been making love and laughing about old times.
Later we were up with the sun, groggy and stiff, barely saying a word over coffee until Mila asked, “When do you have to start?”
“Tuesday.”
She seemed taken aback, but why even mention the possibility of Thursday? I could bring it up later if I changed my mind. For now I only wanted to get everything over with as soon as possible.
“They already bought the ticket.”
“I wonder if they’re still here.”
“I don’t know. Why don’t we find out?”
The words came out on impulse, but surprisingly Mila was all for the idea. Or maybe it wasn’t so surprising. Like me, she had always favored direct action, even when it wasn’t necessarily a wise idea. Risk, like urgency, has its own addictive properties, and it had always been a powerful attraction of our work.
So she threw on some jeans and a shirt, and we rode our scooters up to the DeKuyper place through a chill morning breeze. It made me feel better to answer their assault with our own minor incursion. I also wanted to check for any lingering evidence of their presence. Or maybe I just needed reassurance that they had left. Anything was preferable to sitting around the house.
The big place was locked up, with the shades and curtains drawn. The Opel had disappeared. We walked around back to a path that led down to the sea, going just far enough for a view of the dock. The same yacht that was always there bobbed on the incoming waves, but there was no smaller craft like the one they’d used last night. I wondered when they had picked up the Opel. Had there been a fourth man helping out, someone I hadn’t seen? A resident of the island, perhaps? Maybe that’s where the smell of cigarette smoke had come from in our house, someone local paid to case the place for the easiest points of entry. Meaning they might still have a way to keep an eye on us.
Mila said nothing, just followed in my wake as I doubled back. I tried the sliding doors and window locks at the rear of the house, but they didn’t budge. We peered through an opening in the curtains, but you could hardly see a thing. Then Mila touched my shoulder just as a gruff Greek voice spoke up from behind.
“Do you need assistance?”
I turned. A stocky fellow who could have been Stavros’s cousin stood with dirt on his pants and a shovel in his hands. He was frowning.
“Oh, hello. No. Just looking for someone.”
“There is no one here.”
“There was last night. Do you know where they’ve gone?”
He shook his head, the mute certainty of the villager.
“No one has been here for weeks. Do you know this is private land?”
“Yes,” Mila said, trying to sound neighborly. “We’re going now. We live near here, just down the road.”
“I know. Stavros told me.”
The remark was innocent enough, but under the circumstances it stung like a betrayal. That was when I realized that we would always be outsiders here, just like DeKuyper, only with less power and pull, and on a much smaller budget. No matter how many goats we herded or pots we made, we would forever be visitors, even as years gave way to decades. I was reminded of the scrub pines that grew on the island’s windward side, with gnarled roots barely clinging to the rocks. Even after a hundred years they scarcely grew taller than eight feet. All that endurance, and so little to show for it.
“Then maybe you could tell Stavros not to smoke so much next time he comes looking for my shotgun shells. Or maybe it was you who did the poking around?”
Mila tugged at my sleeve, and the man with the shovel just stood there, no change in his expression. I reluctantly gave up on the cause, and we walked back to our scooters while he followed like a terrier. As we twisted the handlebar grips to accelerate across the gravel, I felt his eyes on our backs, a sensation that lingered all the way down the hill. For the first time, our plans for making a life here seemed like an empty gesture, an elaborate hoax.
Back at the house, Mila got right to the point.
“Why are you really doing this? What have they done to make you take this job? Because if it’s about me, I can take it.”
No, actually you couldn’t. That’s what I wanted to say, but knew better. So I looked into her unwavering gaze and tried to assess how close I could come to leveling with her.
“They seem to think they’ve cooked up some sort of case against me. From all the deals we had to make with Mbweli.”
She shook her head, and seemed to shiver a little. Mbweli had always upset her, and that was without even knowing the worst of what he had threatened.
“But you had no choice,” she said, repeating what I had told her long ago. “No one did. It’s the same way things worked in Sarajevo. We used to lose twenty percent of every convoy that came across Mount Igman. After a while it was like a regular highway toll.”
“Maybe. But they seem to think certain prosecutors might not see it that way. And even if they couldn’t make the charges stick, well, you know how those things can go.”
“That’s ridiculous, especially after what happened in Tanzania. All of the audits cleared you completely.”
So she had gone there, anyway, despite all my precautions. And for a harrowing moment I wavered on the precipice, peering down at all those dead faces. They stared up from a great muddy ditch, eye sockets gorged with flies, their mouths gaping, as if daring me to finally tell all.
It took all my restraint to simply shrug and say, “I don’t think they found the audits very convincing. Maybe they’ve bribed someone to make it look worse. Who knows? Either way, going to Jordan seems like the path of least resistance.”
I could tell from her eyes she was disappointed. So was I. But she nodded in grudging assent, then put her arms around me and rested her head against my chest. I could feel her support in the gesture, and also her sorrow. What I couldn’t determine was whether the latter was empathy or pity.
“I should try calling Omar,” I said.