Читать книгу The Red Cell - André Le Gallo - Страница 6

The CIA recruiter, “Just call me Bob,” had first interviewed Um in a rented office a few miles north of the Golden Gate Bridge. He seemed friendly, as a recruiter should be. He said he served in Iraq and showed off his few words of Arabic, as they both laughed at his accent. Three weeks later, she responded to his invitation for a second interview, this time in Northern Virginia.

As Um followed Bob’s directions, her heart beat faster than normal. She steered her used red Mustang into a parking lot dominated by a twelve-story office building, turned again, and stopped in front of a lowered white barrier across the entrance to a side lot. The secondary lot was not visible from the street, nor did her GPS acknowledge the presence of the red brick building she could now see beyond the guardhouse. A uniformed Federal Protective Service officer in his late twenties emerged. He examined her Mustang then studied her face a moment before smiling. She wondered if the sports car was too high profile.

About to enter a CIA building for the first time, she was tense. She replayed Ahmed’s words, “Stay calm, think of the beach in Beirut, the water skiers, the kids playing in the sand, the ice cream peddlers ... You haven’t done anything wrong, you have broken no American laws. The lie detector—they call it a polygraph—is nothing. It’s just a machine. Those wires and clips and computers are there to scare you into saying things you don’t have to say, don’t want to say. Stay calm inside. Within yourself. Be peaceful. They need translators. With your Arabic and your Farsi, they will be easy on you, Insha’Allah.”

Inside, the guard took her driver’s license and, with his eyes still on her in a way that made her anxious through the bullet-proof window, made a phone call. He nodded to the voice on the line, hung up, returned her license, and gave her a parking permit. “Space twenty-three is in the second lane.” He pointed to the right and gave her another smile. “Good luck.” He winked and opened the gate. She gave him a grateful nod, as she pushed back her dark hair and wondered if their common age had elicited the unexpected encouragement.

She parked and lowered the visor, the mirror reminding her yet again that her nose was too sharp, too Semitic, too much like her father’s, who had died in the Shia rebellion following the First Gulf War. Lamina, her best friend in Lebanon, had told her, “Be pretty, or be smart.” She had found, however, that being a smart woman in the Arab world, even in Beirut’s relatively liberal atmosphere, wasn’t often to her advantage.

She refreshed the light makeup on her olive skin, starting and ending by dusting the sides of her nose. She unbuttoned the top button of her blouse and got out of the low-slung Mustang long legs first. As she smoothed out her slacks she wondered if she should have worn her mid-thigh black skirt, instead. She took a breath, and pointed her high heels toward the building’s entrance.

I have broken no American laws.

She tried to recall her time as a student at the American University of Beirut, of her Sundays on the Corniche with its nightlife, oblivious of the daily violence. Although the Civil War was over, there seemed to be no end to the killings, the car bombs, and the hostage takings. Now, it seemed so long ago.

An hour later, she was sitting in a small, windowless office in the basement of the red-brick building.

John, an African American polygraph operator with rimless glasses, sat across the desk and explained at the outset that all answers had to be yes or no. He then reviewed the ten questions he intended to ask during the test. “If any of your answers need discussion, let’s clear them up beforehand.”

Um nodded, and John ran through the questions. She said she understood. He attached sensors to measure her pulse, blood pressure, respiration, and galvanic skin response. She didn’t ask about the wire coming out of the cushion on her chair.

“Only yes or no during the test. Okay?

“Is your name Um al Ali?”

“Yes.”

She maintained a friendly expression, just as Ahmed had instructed her. “Establish rapport with him,” he had said.

“Is today Monday?” Another control question, John had told her, to establish her reaction during a truthful response.

“Yes.” She tensed the muscles of her legs as she spoke, just as she had for the first question. Would Ahmed’s instructions work? John lifted his eyes from the screen to her face.

“Let’s try that again,” he said. “Is today Monday?”

“Yes.” This time she tensed only one leg.

“Were you born in a Shiite family?”

“Yes.” She tensed her muscles a bit less this time.

“Did you move to Beirut at the age of twelve?”

“Yes.”

“Did you come to California to join your brother Malik?”

“Yes.” She tensed with the other leg this time. Perhaps she should have followed him to Montréal as well, she thought, and she would not be going through this insane test.

“Do you have any contacts with government officials from any country’s intelligence service?”

“No.”

She stayed relaxed. Ahmed was not with a government. He hated all governments.

John studied her again and repeated the question.

“No.” She moved her foot slightly under the desk.

“Did you apply for this translator position of your own free will?”

This was crucial. She found the part of her mind that revealed a wide expanse of beach with the Riviera Hotel on the left as she gazed to the west.

“Yes.”

She remained still. No one had actually forced her. When she had met her brother’s friend Ahmed in Montréal, he suggested it one day. Being a substitute teacher of Arabic at San Francisco’s Transworld School didn’t pay enough, and he had suggested she look at openings in the government, specifically in the CIA. He had even found the agency’s Web site for her and walked her through the online application. He had been so helpful.

“Again,” John repeated the question, his eyes steady on her face.

“No.” The waves ... the sky ... Had Ahmed actually suggested the CIA? She couldn’t remember exactly.

“Do you intend to use this position to harm the United States Government in any way?”

“No.” She didn’t move. She and John had discussed this question prior to the actual test, and she had explained in the most earnest way she could that she was now a U.S. citizen, that she took her oath very seriously, that this would be her life career, and that she would be very proud to work for her new country.

“Is there anything in your background that could potentially expose you to blackmail?”

“No.” She twitched slightly. John had already told her that whatever she had smoked as a student in Beirut was not a problem, unless she was still smoking it.

“Besides your mother in Beirut and your brother in Canada, do you have any blood relatives outside of the United States?”

“No.” No need to mention Ahmed, since he was not a relative. She thought about her mother and became anxious. She hoped the money she sent her each month was sufficient. She knew Malik was not sending any.

“Have you been completely truthful in this interview?”

“Yes.” She looked at John, seeking eye contact. But he didn’t look up from his computer screen. She could almost smell the surf now.

John stood up and disconnected the sensors. “I’m going to leave you here for a few minutes, while I review the charts. He picked up his laptop and added, “If you want to visit the ladies’ room, I’ll have someone take you.”

In John’s absence, Um did not dare move, although she tried as subtly as possible to scan the room for the camera she had been told would be recording her every move.

John returned without his computer and sat down. He offered her a bottle of water, which she accepted. “Are you taking any medications?” he asked. “There are some anomalies in your chart, and I’m trying to explain them.”

“No. I’m in good health. No pills. I hate pills, in fact.”

“How about ibuprofen or anything like that? Advil? Tylenol?”

“Oh yes, I did take two Tylenols this morning. I had a headache. I didn’t think of Tylenol as real medication.”

“I’m afraid we’re going to have to do this again. Can you come back tomorrow at nine? We have several issues here unrelated to Tylenol.” He paused, fixing his gaze on her eyes and added, “Unless you want to tell me anything now.”

She shook her head, and John walked her back to the security guard at the front door.

Back in the Mustang, Um sat and took a deep breath. Did she really want to start all over the next day? Why not tell Ahmed she had given it her best shot and move on? Were they asking her to come back in order to arrest her? She sat still for another few minutes and called Ahmed, who reassured her. “This work is important,” he said.” He emphasized that high-level people were depending on her. “By the way,” he added, “Your mother is fine. She is in good health. I wanted you to know.”

The next day, when the guard opened the door to the windowless polygraph room, Um found herself face to face with Bob, who had interviewed her in California. “Salam alaikum. I came by to say hello since I knew you would be here today.” He smiled.

Um was glad that, at Ahmed’s direction, she had worn her skirt, which accented her curves, as she stepped forward to shake Bob’s hand. He was a balding 40-year-old with wide shoulders, a nose that looked broken, and a boyish smile. She was mildly surprised to see him but assumed he was following normal procedures by providing a human dimension to the recruitment process. She tried to watch his eyes, as he guided her to a small, dark-wood roundtable she had not seen the day before, but he was looking elsewhere.

“Let’s get the administrative stuff out of the way.” He opened a file on the small desk and slid a form toward her. “The good news is the CIA is as far removed from the government bureaucracy as possible. The bad news is we still have to account for taxpayer dollars. So when you get home, just fill this in, send it in to the address at the top, and the guys in the green eyeshades will reimburse you for the trip.”

He poured two glasses of water from a silver carafe that had not been there the day before and placed one of the glasses in front of her. “How did your session go yesterday?” He took a sip.

“Alright I guess.” She tried to recall if she had powdered her nose in the car. “Except I had a headache and I took some Tylenol. I guess I wasn’t supposed to.”

“When we met in California,” he said with a slight frown, “you convinced me you would be a good CIA officer. My personal standard in recommending someone is whether I would like to work with that person in the field. I thought you met that standard.”

“Thank you. I appreciate that.” Where was this going? She had a feeling Bob was taking her on a different track. She was losing control.

Bob moved his glass revealing a wet ring on the table. “I recommended you, because I thought you had all of the basic qualities I look for in a team member.” He paused again for a second. “In other words, someone I can trust with my life, because that’s what we do when we work together. Someone who will have the common sense to know the right thing to do, even during a fast-moving, unscripted situation. You also convinced me you are serious about wanting to work with us. Are you?”

Um suddenly felt under pressure. She sat forward in her chair, tense. This was like taking an oral exam. “Wait a minute. I am only applying for a translator position.” It was no longer as easy as Ahmed said it would be. She was beginning to think he was not as smart as he pretended to be. Now she felt far from the beach, in the middle of the ocean with no land in sight and no compass. She gave Bob a tentatively flirtatious smile to try to get back on familiar territory.

“That’s true, but with your foreign background and languages, I want you to consider an operations-officer position. Unfortunately, John, your polygraph operator yesterday, thinks we should turn you down, because you’re not telling us everything. If you want this application to go forward—and I’m on your side on this—you need to open up. I don’t know what you’re hiding. It might only be a trivial thing.”

I am not hiding anything. I have broken no American law.“What do you want to do? You can walk out right now. Or I can ask John to come back in the room.

“Or you can talk to me.”

I have broken no American laws. I have broken no American laws, the voice kept repeating in her head. Um felt confused. She wanted to walk out, but that would make her seem guilty. Perhaps she had broken some law after all. Did Ahmed know what he was talking about? The Malik she had visited in Montréal was different from the Malik with whom she had grown up. He had let his beard grow, and he had become an outspoken supporter of radical Muslim clerics. Ahmed had stayed with him only for a few days before going back to Yemen. At least, she assumed he was back there, but their only communications were by telephone, and she couldn’t be sure where he was. Why had he mentioned her mother on the phone yesterday?

“How is your mother?” Bob asked.

Um brought her hand to her mouth to stifle a cry. “What? My mother? Is she all right?”

Bob suddenly stood giving Um the impression the interview had reached a new phase. Um wondered what she had said that seemed to give Bob the information he needed to go forward.

He pushed a folded newspaper aside and, placing his elbows lightly on his desk, he leaned forward.

“I’m asking because you’re obviously concerned about her. Why?”

Um looked to the side toward an imaginary window. “Well, she is in Beirut. Wouldn’t you be concerned?”

“Yes, of course. But I sense there’s more to your worry than you are telling me.”

Um looked away again without replying, but Bob waited. “All I want is to live a normal life,” finally burst from her. “We pretended our life in Iraq was normal. Then my father was killed by Saddam Hussein’s soldiers. And we pretended our life in Beirut was normal in the middle of the daily violence from the Hizballah, the Syrians, the Iranians, the Palestinians, the Christians, the Druze, the Israelis...”

She stopped herself. Sitting back in her seat, she seemed more relaxed than she had been, almost relieved. “But I didn’t know what normal meant until I came to America. Frankly, my goal is to earn enough money to bring my mother here. I want to get her away from the violence.”

“I understand and that’s what I would want also. Do you think your mother is in danger now?”

“I don’t know.” She looked to the side again.

“Is there a special threat, other than living in Beirut, which is relatively quiet these days?”

Um did not reply.

“Tell me about Ahmed. He sent you here.” Bob said, gentle as a confessor.

“I don’t know how you know. He is my brother’s friend.”

Bob took a sip of water. “Ahmed Baghdadi is a Jihadist operative responsible for recruitment in North America. He is responsible for continuing the violence in the Middle East by recruiting people who don’t look Arab. Some will be trained as fighters and go to Yemen, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Some will become human bombs in San Francisco and Boston. His job basically is to spread violence and terror. Our job is to try to stop the killing. Do you think that is worth doing?”

“Ahmed is a militant? I don’t believe it,” she said without conviction. “Why don’t you arrest him then?” She had suspected there was more to Ahmed than she knew or wanted to know. She did not believe Ahmed would harm anyone even if he believed in the cause.

“Do you want to end the violence? You can start by joining us, which is what Ahmed wants you to do, and by helping us learn more about his plans. We know what his goal is: to restore the Islamic Caliphate through jihad. That was a paraphrase. Here’s a direct quote.” He opened the file on the desk and read, “I am acutely aware body parts must be torn apart, skulls must be crushed, and blood must be spilled for our goals to be fulfilled.”

Um touched the gold bracelet that adorned her left wrist. “What about the American violence?”

“Don’t equate terrorism, the targeted killing of innocent civilians, with American military operations that are often canceled for fear of hurting noncombatants. Our job is to stop terrorist operations before they occur. We need to know what people like Ahmed are planning. You applied to the CIA to help him, but helping him only continues this conflict and means more innocent people will get killed. Instead, you can help us to save lives.”

“What about my mother?”

Bob explained the terms of their agreement. A few minutes later, he invited John back in the room. This time the polygraph cleared up the remaining issues.

Bob watched from an upstairs window, as Um drove the red Mustang out of the parking lot. He picked up the newspaper he had been reading before the meeting and studied an article on the front page, below the fold: “Iran hangs CIA spy.” He understood that, with the acquisition of a new double-agent, also came the responsibility to keep her alive.

“It’s a start,” he said to himself and, in his mind, he started to compose the cable he would be sending to the agency’s Beirut station.