Читать книгу The Red Cell - André Le Gallo - Страница 12

Um had never been on the island of Cyprus before; nevertheless, she felt at home. The people were a mixture of just about every ethnic group in the Mediterranean. Some of the women dressed in Muslim garb, but most preferred European fashions. Many of the men, whether Greeks, Turks, or Lebanese, were bronze-skinned and liked to hide behind huge black mustaches. She no longer felt self-conscious about her nose.

While she glanced at the passing landscape from Larnaca Airport to her hotel, Um nervously reviewed her instructions. Ahmed had said he would meet her in the lobby of the hotel and introduce her to an important person, someone who would explain exactly what he needed from her as a translator with the CIA. Bob, her case officer, had told her to “act naturally” and not to ask too many questions—to find out, basically, this new player’s life history: his date of birth, schools attended, sexual preferences, permanent address and phone number, the name of his superior, and anything else she could “without raising suspicions.” She did not know whether to laugh or cry at the impossibility of such guidance.

As Um stepped out of the taxi, two porters from the Livadhiotis City Hotel rushed to help with her bags. She understood her attraction. She was not only a woman and her clothes easily identified her as an American, and she most likely would tip them generously.

She felt apprehensive at the range of circumstances that could befall her in her new role as an international spy like the first time she swam past the point where her feet could touch the bottom. She scanned her vicinity, almost expecting the worst. Was the local police onto her? Was the Mossad about to kidnap and interrogate her? But the scenery was benign; palm trees framed the horseshoe driveway leading to the front entrance, a couple of taxis awaited American or European tourists, hoping to book them for the day, and she saw no threatening figures with submachine guns lurking in the bushes. She took a breath and followed her luggage to the reception area defined by majestic ferns in tall stone pots. Before she could start the check-in process, however, Ahmed appeared behind her, greeted her curtly and led her toward two athletic-looking young men in Arab dress and Reeboks.

“They will take us to El Khoury,” Ahmed told her, “a Hizballah military leader who wants to talk to you. Leave your luggage at the front desk. You will get it later.”

The three men hustled her to a side parking lot and into an aging Toyota Land Cruiser. Before she knew it, they had covered her eyes with a black scarf and pushed her down to the floor in the back seat.

“Ahmed, what are they doing? What’s going on?” she called out.

“It is all right, it is all right,” he replied. She felt another body that had been pushed down next to her. She realized it was Ahmed and she began to hate him for placing her in this situation.

Although she tried to keep track of elapsed time in left and right turns, she quickly gave up. Instead, she began replaying the events that had brought her blindfolded and confined to the floor of an SUV in the middle of the Mediterranean. And she hated Ahmed even more. She was being treated more as an enemy than an ally. Was she in the hands of a competing organization? Was she being kidnapped for ransom? Was she about to be tortured?

The car stopped after what she estimated to be an hour but probably was shorter. Her captors helped her out of the Toyota and led her by the hand across a rocky driveway and up several steps before crossing a threshold onto a rug or carpet. Someone removed her blindfold, and she saw two new people. One was a bearded man, perhaps in his fifties, wearing a djellaba and scuffed black shoes. He eyed her speculatively from his easy chair, as he fingered a string of beads. The other was a woman about 10 years younger. She stood next to him and also looked Um up and down.

“Salaam alaikum, my children,” the man said. “You have come a long way. I am told that Allah, may His name be blessed, is your guide, as he is mine. You are welcome in this house.”

“Alaikum Salaam,” she replied automatically.

He motioned to one of the young men to pour a glass of water for each. “But because of the importance of our task, I will ask you to be patient and follow them.” He pointed vaguely to the woman and to the driver, who led Um and Ahmed to two separate rooms, closing the doors behind them.

“Pretend you are at an airport,” the woman said. “Raise your arms and spread your legs.” It was only then Um understood she was about to be searched, not for contraband, but for listening devices. Bob had mentioned that possibility, although he clearly doubted whoever she would meet would be that careful or professional. They were in a small bedroom with closed curtains, the dimness of which caused the woman to click on a light switch before going to work. Dressed in a long sleeved, ankle-length dress, she had black hair, black eyes, no makeup, and what would have been an attractive oval face, had it not been for her prison-guard expression.

Her hands methodically patted Um down, but more slowly and carefully, than Um had ever experienced going through airport security.

“Take off your clothes,” the woman said, with a hint of a grin.

“What? That is not what they do at airports.”

“Do it now, or I will bring the boys in here, and they will be happy to help.”

“Whatever it is you’re looking for, you are wasting your time,” Um said curtly. When she saw the woman was not backing down, she headed for the door, saying, “I am out of here.” But one of the young men in the living room barred her exit.

The woman called her back. “If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to hide. It will be easy. Come on.”

In extreme frustration, Um slammed the door closed and walked back into the room, trying to repress her anger.

“Remember,” the woman said sincerely, “we are all on the same side, Allah is our salvation. I must examine you. Go ahead. You can put your clothes on the bed.”

Um removed her light jacket and unbuttoned her blouse while trying to avoid the women’s searching eyes.

“Quickly, quickly.”

She threw her blouse on the bed, revealing a lacy red bra from Victoria’s Secret she now wished she had left at home.

“How does a girl like you afford this? Is it with your CIA salary? Did the CIA build a micro-microphone into your bra?” The woman stepped toward her and said, “Don’t move. This will not hurt.” She reached for Um’s breasts, fondling each gently. “I cannot yet feel the wire, but I know it is there.”

“Stop it!” Um said, yanking the woman’s wrists away from her chest.

“Now take off those jeans.”

When the jeans joined the other clothes on the bed, revealing matching red panties, the woman again stepped forward with a predatory grin, pressing her body against Um and giving her a light kiss on the lips.

“Don’t tell me you don’t like this, or this is completely new to you,” the woman said. “Your eyes betray you.”

The remark made Um flashback to her student days in Beirut, when she and a friend had experimented together for a week before going back to boys. She remembered it had not been a totally unpleasant experience. She allowed the woman’s lips to stay on hers for a second longer than she knew she should before pushing her away, causing her to fall to the floor. She took a breath and quickly dressed.

As the woman stood up, she told her, “I am saving you from Allah’s wrath.” Then she left the bedroom.

El Khoury and Ahmed turned toward her when Um reentered the living room. The two young men apparently had been sent on an errand.

“Ahmed has told me about you,” El Khoury said. “Your courage in working side by side with the Americans infidels will be rewarded. We will not be able to meet very often, so today we will instruct you regarding communications and give you the requirements you must fulfill if our cause is to be served.”

Um’s bedroom interrogator returned and stood at El Khoury’s side, a bit flushed but sternly attentive.

“I will be your contact,” Ahmed said hurriedly, as if afraid to be preempted. “I will meet you in New York every two weeks. I will give you the address of the apartment later. These meetings will be preset. But for emergencies, you will contact an Internet message board. Remember the Web address, www.esquisitecuisine.com. If you include the words ‘green eels,’ with the second word misspelled as ‘eals,’ and sign the message ‘AL,’ I will meet you the next day in the parking lot of the Vienna, Virginia, Metro station at one p.m. The alternate will be six p.m. the same day.” He glanced at El Khoury, seeking approval.

Still fingering his beads, El Khoury nodded. “All this seems overly complicated to me. But I agree we cannot underestimate the enemy. America is the puppet master of the Jewish State, which has too often used Satan’s tricks to kill our people.” He paused and added, “Fortunately, Ahmed has been taught by our Iranian brothers.”

“Remember I am just a translator,” Um said, taking a sip from the glass she had left on the table prior to her bout in the bedroom. “So far, I am mostly given speeches and public comments that appear in the Arab and Iranian media. When I translate them, they give me a new batch. My office is not even in the CIA building. It is in a business center in a town called Reston, fifteen kilometers away from CIA headquarters. However, I have been told I could be transferred to another office that requires much higher clearances. I believe they deal with secret telephone taps as well as with intercepts.”

“Alhamdu’llah,” El Khoury exclaimed, thanking God and giving Um a broad smile, the first sign of emotion she had seen. He dispatched his female assistant to get him a bottle of orange juice from the kitchen.

“To better serve you,” Um said, starting to regain her senses, recalling Bob’s instructions and crooked nose, “It would help me to know how my information will be used. Since I will be serving you primarily, please tell me, Sai’d, how I can help your mission.”

Before El Khoury could reply, the phone started ringing, and he motioned for Ahmed to answer it. As Ahmed walked toward a small desk next to the window, El Khoury looked at Um and said, “My mission is to destroy the Jews and Crusaders, and their allies among us. To do so, we need help from our Iranian brothers, and it is to our benefit to help them help us.”

Ahmed picked up the phone and put it next to his ear. Just then, a small explosion in the phone’s headset blasted Ahmed’s brains across the room in a pulpy jet that colored the rug and the opposite wall with grayish-red matter.

Stunned, Um could only stand transfixed by the horror she had just witnessed.

El Khoury, his hands now still, focused his gaze deeply into Um’s eyes, as though he was staring through her. “As I said, we will destroy the Jews and Crusaders, and their allies. Let us talk more tomorrow.”

With that, he dismissed her, and soon her captors had again blindfolded her, returned her to the floor of the SUV, and after another hour deposited her at the hotel.

During her fitful sleep that night, she dreamed her mother was being prepared to become a suicide bomber.

Per El Khoury’s instructions, Um was escorted back to him the next day. This time, however, the two men had not blindfolded her, and she could see the route they traveled, through the city and its outskirts to the northeast, ending up somewhere near Larnaca Bay. She thought briefly it meant she was going to be assassinated, but she eventually decided if El Khoury had wanted her dead he would have killed her already.

They were met at the front of the house by two armed guards. Um walked to the front door by herself. El Khoury’s female assistant let her in with a slight gleam in her eye, and El Khoury again sat in his easy chair, flanked by a new younger man in a black suit and a collarless shirt. His short, severely trimmed black beard and glasses projected intensity and fervor.

“Ahmed’s execution has changed things. Mr. Khazaee has come from his embassy in Nicosia to talk with you.”

The three of them sat around a coffee table, while El Khoury’s assistant continued to stand silently behind him. Um wondered what role she served. Except for the bedroom scene, she had not said a word. Her loose clothing could well hide a weapon. Um turned her gaze toward the new player, pegging him as Iranian intelligence.

“Ahmed did many things for us in the United States and, until he is replaced, you will have to take on some of his tasks,” Khazaee said, following preliminary and traditional polite exchanges. After obtaining Um’s silent assent, he continued.

“We can no longer communicate with our helpers in America through the usual means. We have been warned by reports in the American media that the National Security Agency, the CIA, and other arms of the U.S. intelligence apparatus are spying against their own people,” he said without irony. Therefore, we cannot use telephone or email.”

His eyes fixed on Um just as El Khoury’s had, and she felt as if she could not move. She felt relieved when he lit a cigarette and took a puff while looking at the ceiling. El Khoury took a sip of water.

“Do you think you will be able to make an occasional trip to the rendezvous point without alerting your CIA employers?”

“I do have a full time job and, as I said yesterday, I am beginning to have better access to secret information. My new office will be in the CIA headquarters building. I could certainly make contacts in the evening after work.”

“I have reviewed the communications plan Ahmed gave you yesterday, and I will not change it,” Khazaee said.

He paused for a moment. “Your new access to information and to the CIA headquarters building will be useful for both us and for our Iranian friends. You will be able to give into the house of the apostates.”