The Convert's Song (27 page)

Mustafa greeted him. The driver gave Pescatore his iPhone. It was the weapon he needed the most right this minute. He told Mustafa to take him to the hotel. His sweaty hands shook as he worked the keyboard of the phone.

He wrote a four-word e-mail:
“Adam Raised a Cain.”
It was the title of an old Springsteen song and the code phrase he had chosen.

The response arrived immediately.

Please confirm song request: “Adam Raised a Cain.”

Affirmative,
he wrote.
Can’t wait to hear it.

The Suburban neared downtown. He saw high-rises. He saw bridges across the Tigris River, a steel sheet in the heat. He didn’t spot a tail. But he had been the subject of a full-fledged surveillance deployment since Amman. Agents under U.S. command with the aid of MI6, the French DGSE, the Mossad, and the Jordanian Mukhabarat. They had outfitted him with two tiny GPS-tracking devices. One was embedded in his belt buckle. He had secreted the other device in the weeds at the safe house while retrieving the soccer ball.

“Checkpoint,” Mustafa said over his shoulder, sounding perturbed.

Two pickup trucks full of Iraqi soldiers blocked the street ahead. Pescatore could see why Mustafa was uneasy. The checkpoint had the look of a special operation; the soldiers wore commando-style uniforms and were poised and fierce. They swarmed the Suburban. Mustafa stammered at the gun barrels in his face. Soldiers hauled out Pescatore and hustled him away. He did not resist. He jogged amid the soldiers, matching their pace, their hands propelling him by the back and shoulders.

When he saw the Americans, he knew he was finally safe. The warrior duo consisted of a dashing and brawny black guy in his forties and a shorter, younger white guy with helmetlike hair and a farm-boy frame. They introduced themselves as Malone and Stockton. Both wore cargo pants, body armor, wired earpieces, wraparound shades, and pistols. They steered him into an armor-plated mini-truck with tinted windows. As Malone started to close the door, an Iraqi commando reached in and handed him something. Malone passed it to Pescatore. His U.S. passport, retrieved at gunpoint from Mustafa.

“All good?” Malone asked.

“All good.”

“Where’s the other client?”

“He didn’t make it,” Pescatore said. “The plan’s the same.”

“Roger that.”

The meetings in Madrid had quickly discarded Raymond’s proposal to lure Brigadier Ali into a capture. Raymond wasn’t reliable. Brigadier Ali was too slippery. There was no guarantee he would venture into harm’s way to oversee his plot. Even if he did travel closer to the target zone, he might remain safely out of reach in Venezuela or Cuba.

At the same time, another point had become clear: Brigadier Ali was an urgent threat. Independent intelligence confirmed Raymond’s account of Ali’s project to strike the homeland. Sources warned that the general had more than one U.S. plot under way. He functioned with alarming independence. He had to be stopped. After years stalking him, the Israelis said that this was a unique opportunity, and the British and French agreed. The spies took over, though Isabel remained as Pescatore’s minder. It turned out that Brigadier Ali had earned a distinction: he was on the kill list of terrorists designated for assassination.

The U.S. embassy in Baghdad was the biggest in the world. The fortress complex had housing, shopping and recreational facilities and internal street signs. Malone and Stockton led him from a garage to elevators, through secure hallways and sealed doorways with prominent warnings about secrecy and safety. The destination was a conference room with a view of Baghdad wreathed in the afternoon heat haze.

The three of them sat down at a table. There were plastic cups and a large bottle of water. Pescatore drank like a man who had been crawling through the desert. They were sitting and drinking in silence when they heard an explosion in the distance. They felt it too: a low resounding thump.

Pescatore closed his eyes.

“Hel-lo,” Malone said.

“Hello, Hellfire,” Stockton said.

Pescatore opened his eyes. Malone and Stockton bumped fists. Malone extended his arm across the table. Mechanically, Pescatore bumped the big fist.

On the edge of the city, a plume of smoke rose toward the sun.

The planners had counted on the fact that the Quds Force simply did not believe the U.S. government would do a drone strike in Baghdad. Too politically delicate, too diplomatically volatile. Although the Iranians were correct in theory, Brigadier Ali was a special case. He had crossed too many red lines. Washington had decided to send a message. If the Iraqis and the Iranians didn’t like it, tough shit.

Another crucial premise: the brigadier trusted Raymond. And Raymond trusted Pescatore. Raymond was told nothing about the real mission. Pescatore’s orders were to act as if they were laying the groundwork for an eventual arrest. He would secretly pinpoint Ali’s location and drop a tracking device to mark the kill zone. When he and Raymond left the meet, he would signal for the air strike. A trusted Iraqi military unit would scoop them off the street. At the embassy, Raymond would be told the truth. The plan was to give him a choice: accept removal from Iraq in U.S. custody or remain on the turf of the ruthless spy agency that he had so colossally betrayed. Once back on home soil, he could haggle. Isabel Puente had predicted that the prosecutors would offer little more than a promise not to seek the death penalty. Pescatore hadn’t been so sure.

An hour later, Isabel arrived from a command post. Malone and Stockton left her alone with Pescatore. She said preliminary reports from sources and witnesses indicated that Brigadier Ali was dead. A television news crew had filmed his body being pulled from the rubble. No one in the safe house had survived.

Pescatore told her what had happened. He had decided to take the shot while he could. He had sacrificed Raymond.

Isabel nodded sympathetically.

“You had no choice, Valentine,” she said. “You did good.”

“Maybe,” he said. “But I feel bad.”

F
acundo said he was reminded of a joke.

The old joke about the bear hunter, he said. He sipped tea with a wistful glance at Pescatore’s espresso.

A guy goes bear hunting. He’s in the woods with his shotgun. Someone taps him on the shoulder. A large bear. The bear says: “Uh-oh. What are you doing with that gun? Don’t do that.” As punishment, the bear has forcible sex with the guy. The next year, bear-hunting season arrives. The guy shows up again. Someone taps him on the shoulder: the bear. The bear says, “You again? I warned you.” And the bear has forcible sex with him. Same time next year, hunting season begins. Sure enough, the guy returns to the woods. The bear taps him on the shoulder and says, “You don’t come here to hunt bears, do you?”

Pescatore laughed. He was happy to be back in Buenos Aires at La Biela on a nice September Friday. He had arrived from France a few days earlier. It was the first time he had seen Facundo in three months. His boss was in good form. He had lost weight and gained color. His basso profundo voice had recovered its verve.

“Pretty good.” Pescatore said with a chuckle. “I’m not sure how it relates to my situation, though.”

“It does, in a way.” Facundo grimaced apologetically. “Perhaps it was not the most appropriate metaphor. What I mean is, there are situations in which one perseveres no matter how much one gets banged up, how crazy and traumatic it is. Does that make sense?”

“Not completely as far as the scenario with the bear.”

“The point is, son, I could not be prouder of you or more impressed with your achievements on this case. Not to mention the goodwill and positive image we have gained with several intelligence services.”

“Thank you. I was mainly just hanging on for the ride.”

“What was it like to be a Parisian?”

“Great. I got pretty comfortable.”

“I was worried you would not come back. By the way, I had a frank conversation with an interlocutor. The federal police no longer bear you a grudge.”

“Good news for me.”

“How is your French friend?”

“Better. Her doctors let us go to Bretagne for a week. She’s on light duty now. She wants to visit soon.”

“Promising, no?”

Pescatore grinned. “I don’t know, Facundo, to be honest. I’m American. She’s French. Her life is in France. But I can’t wait to see her again.”

“And Isabel?” Facundo asked.

“We’re close again. I’m amazed.”

“Ay. I wish I had your youth and your problems with women.”

“She’s just a friend.”

They talked about work. When Pescatore got settled, Facundo wanted to send him on a foreign assignment. In fact, he had enough international business that he had thought about setting up an office in Miami or Washington. It had occurred to him that Pescatore could be his company’s U.S. representative.

“Exciting,” Pescatore said.

“No rush. We’ll discuss it calmly.”

Facundo signaled the waiter for another tea and espresso. He folded his massive hands and lifted his round shoulders. He lowered his voice.

“I had a long talk with a
paisano
the other day,” Facundo said. “The best insight I have had into the case. Especially the Iraqi aspect.”

“Anything new?”

“The Israelis and Americans obtained a detailed report from Iraqi sources about who and what was found at the site of the missile strike.”

Pescatore remembered the television images of the devastated house. The pulverized bodies. The fleeting footage of the brigadier on a stretcher, his face swollen and sooty.

“Although there was little doubt, the DNA confirms absolutely that Brigadier Ali met Allah,” Facundo rasped.

“How did they get a match?”

“The Mossad cleaned the general’s brother in Istanbul years ago.”

“Oh, yeah. Raymond told me that.”

Facundo said the report had identified other casualties: three Iranian soldiers, five Iraqi Shiite militants, three Lebanese Hezbollah fighters. However, questions had arisen about the identification of Raymond Mercer, aka Ramón Verdugo, as one of the dead.

“How can that be?” Pescatore asked. “At the embassy, they said a source established visual confirmation of Raymond’s corpse. They heard chatter about him being dead.”

“Yes. Well. That was sloppy. There has been a development.” Facundo’s bushy eyebrows knit. “Weeks ago, in Dubai, a man withdrew seventeen thousand dollars from a bank account linked to Raymond Mercer. His only account that was not frozen yet. A security camera recorded a clear image.”

Pescatore rocked back in his chair. “So you’re saying…”

“He is alive. The
chorro.
”

Pescatore looked out the window. The sun shone. The outdoor tables were crowded. He took a breath.

“That’s quite a bomb you just dropped on me, Facundo.”

“I know, son.” He inclined his bulk over the table, his face grim. “Look, he might as well be dead. Everyone is hunting him. And there is a good chance of an, eh, extralegal resolution. For the Iranians and Hezbollah, he is a repugnant traitor. They want to make a memorable example of him. The Israelis too, for different reasons. The French. And the Americans are hot on his heels. Not just the FBI, the clandestine side.”

Pescatore nodded. “They don’t want him talking about all those years he was an informant. Or how they almost wasted a U.S. citizen in an air strike in Iraq. Even though that’s my fault. It wasn’t the plan.”

“The official story remains that a militant arsenal exploded. Of course, in Iraq, people think every explosion is really an American air strike.”

“Do they have an idea where he is?”

“Africa or Latin America. Don’t worry, someone will find him. He will talk on the phone, leave tracks on the Internet. One of the scoundrels he has screwed will screw him back. The death sentence has been imposed. The execution will be a formality.”

Pescatore had struggled to come to grips with his actions in Iraq. For his own sanity, he had buried Raymond Mercer and his memory in the rubble. Now, he did not know what he felt. Anger? Dread? Relief?

The waiter appeared and deposited the drinks on the table. Facundo drew a merciful curtain over the topic. He reminded Pescatore about Shabbat dinner that evening. He asked when Fatima planned to visit.

“End of October,” Pescatore answered. “I thought I’d take her to Punta del Este. It will be pretty slow then, no?”

“Yes. Until December. Do you know the joke? If the Apocalypse comes, move to Uruguay. Because everything there happens fifty years later.”

Pescatore paused with his cup halfway to his mouth. He put the cup down. He picked it back up and drank.

“Yes,” he said. “I’ve heard that one.”

Dinner at Facundo’s that night had the feel of a homecoming. Pescatore took refuge in the rituals at the table, the family banter about Facundo’s diet. He had fun reading
The Cricket in Times Square
to David. He left early, saying he still had jet lag.

Pescatore awoke at dawn. He packed clothes and his hunting knife. He took a hydrofoil across the river to Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay. A bright windy day: the river was choppy, the ferry half empty. In the port, disembarking passengers were greeted by the sight of a gourd
for
mate
tea standing atop an unmanned immigration counter. The Uruguayan border inspector showed up minutes later, dignified and unhurried.

In the museumlike silence of Colonia, a town of cobblestone streets and nineteenth-century Portuguese architecture, he rented a Chevrolet Vectra sedan. He drove fast toward Montevideo.

Florencia had said that Raymond loved this coast. He had told her he’d be happy to wait for the Apocalypse playing piano in a joint by the beach.

Pescatore had done an Internet search for clubs, restaurants and hotels with live music. He started looking in Piriápolis, a genteel and dilapidated resort sunk in off-season somnolence. The wind swept a chipped and empty boardwalk. Whitecaps gleamed on the horizon where the river met the ocean. Palm trees swayed. Locals strolled carrying
mate
gourds. Vintage cars chugged by. Uruguay was an automotive dinosaur paradise roamed by lovingly maintained Packards, Bugattis and Model Ts.

He spent the weekend searching in and around Punta del Este, the flagship resort city. Quite a few places were still closed. On Monday afternoon, he got lucky. He was near the town of La Paloma, which in the summer was a sedate alternative to the glitz and crowds of Punta del Este. He asked a cashier at a grocery store where he could find a fine cup of espresso. The cashier suggested the Hotel Viento Dulce, a new inn on a narrow peninsula.

He was the only customer in the hotel bar. The long room had ceiling fans and an adjoining terrace with a panoramic view. He noticed a piano in a corner. He gathered intelligence from a svelte tanned waitress with spiky, sun-streaked hair. As a matter of fact, the bar did have a pianist. An Argentine named Dino. A real charmer. And quite a voice. Funny story: He had showed up a couple of weeks ago and convinced the owners to give him a gig.
Dino was off Mondays. He usually came in to practice in the morning when the bar was closed. She didn’t know where he lived.

Pescatore prowled the area until evening. He roamed businesses, cruised residential streets in the fading light. He spent the night at the hotel. His dreams were troubled.

The next morning, he tucked the sheath of his hunting knife in his belt at the small of his back. He put on a denim jacket, went downstairs and made his way to the terrace. Above the sounds of the surf, he could hear the piano playing. He used the shelter of a hedge to approach the tall windows. The glare on the glass made it hard to see inside. The French doors he had scoped out the day before were still unlocked.

Raymond sat at the piano in the corner. His back to the terrace, a wall on his right. He was playing a Latin jazz melody. Pescatore had heard it before. Raymond bent over the keyboard, teasing out a syncopated riff, repeating it slowly. He was alone. The bar was dark. The plants and tables were shadows. The only light came from the terrace.

Pescatore padded closer. Raymond was lost in the music. He wore a hooded sweatshirt, jeans and flip-flops. His hair had grown long. The bangs dangled toward the keys. Pescatore stopped ten feet away. He had his arms at his sides, knees slightly bent.

“Dino,” he said.

Raymond whirled. He lurched to his feet, banged into the piano, and dropped back onto the stool. His hair fell across his face, which twisted with terror. Seeing that Pescatore had blocked his path of escape, he cringed in the corner.

Pescatore advanced, right arm back near his knife. He saw no weapons, no aggressive moves.

“Motherfucker,” Raymond sobbed. “Motherfucker, what are you gonna do?
Por el amor de dios.
”

Raymond’s chest heaved. He pushed his hair out of his bloodshot eyes. He looked haunted. Pale, puffy, stubble around a goatee.

“Easy, man,” Pescatore snapped. “Easy.”

He spoke in the command growl he had used in the Border Patrol for controlling groups of aliens solo. He waited for him to catch his breath.

“You scared the shit out of me,” Raymond said in a strangled voice.

“Uh-huh.”

Raymond’s back remained against the wall. He was shaking.

“What are you going to do? What do you want?”

“I wanna talk. We didn’t really get a chance last time.”

Pescatore pulled a chair from a nearby table. He turned it around and sat, his chest against the seat back. Raymond watched like a witness to an alien landing. He glanced at the shadows and the windows.

“You broke my heart in Iraq, man,” Raymond blurted. “We were a team. I worked with you, risked everything. You broke my heart.”

“Isn’t that a fucking pity.”

“You figured out I sent those shooters after your French chick. That’s why you set me up to die.”

Pescatore had already concluded that Raymond was behind the ambush of Fatima. He felt conflicting emotions. He was relieved that Raymond was alive. After all, he had betrayed
Raymond in Iraq, not the other way around. Still, he had no illusions. He knew what had to be done. He knew it with absolute clarity, as if a fog had lifted once and for all.

“See, that right there tells me a lot,” Pescatore said. “You say I’m your oldest, dearest friend, you’d give your life for me and all that shit, but you don’t understand me. That’s one of the things we need to work out.”

“How did you find me?”

“I know you.” Pescatore shrugged. “I remembered something someone said and put it together from there.”

“Who?”

“A woman.”

Raymond sighed.

Pescatore said, “I haven’t hurt you yet. So give it up. Explain to me how it is you’re alive and sitting here playing piano.”

Raymond reached down—Pescatore tracked his hands—and retrieved a bottle of beer. He drank, spilling a little. He wiped his chin.

“Actually, it’s a pretty good story.” His voice lacked affect and energy; a dull echo of a voice. “I’ll give you this: You did try to convince me to leave with you that day in Baghdad. Took a while for it to sink in. Thank God you fucked up at the last minute.”

“How?”

“You called me
cuate.
” He managed a weak smile. “I’ve been calling you
cuate
for years. I never heard you say it back. Not once. You acted so hinky. I thought you were worried I was setting you up. Then you called me
cuate.
That’s when I knew you were the one pulling something.”

Cuate
meant “twin.” Mexicans used it affectionately to mean buddy or pal. Pescatore had never liked Raymond calling him that. The more ambivalent he had grown about their friendship, the less he had liked it.