What troubled him most was that he was afraid to die. Paul believed, though he had no evidence of it, that other spies did not suffer from this. But evidence holds little sway over belief, and so it was for him.
He thought of Sam. The last time they’d spoken had been in Geneva, in the international lounge before Sam’s flight back here to Kenya. Years before, they had trained together, and while Paul had done better than Sam on the written tests, it was on the course that Sam had shown himself superior. Later, when he heard rumors that Sam was plagued by suicidal tendencies, he understood. Those unafraid of death usually were better on the course.
But the visit was a surprise. After Rome, the only way he’d expected to hear from Sam was via a disciplinary cable or at the head of a Langley tribunal. But Sam’s unexpected invitation to the Aeroport International de Geneve had included no threats or reprimands.
“You’re just following,” Sam told him in the airport. “You’re the money, a banker; I’m the deal maker. I’ll use my Wallis papers-remember that. You won’t have to say a thing, and they’ll want to keep you well so you can take care of the transfer. It’s a walk in the park.” When Paul, wondering if any operation in Africa could legitimately be called a walk in the park, didn’t answer, Sam raised his right index finger and added, “Besides, I’ll be right there beside you. Nothing works without this fingerprint.”
The target was Aslim Taslam, a six-month-old Somali splinter group formed after an ideological dispute within Al-Shabaab. Over the last month Aslim Taslam had begun an intense drive to raise cash and extend its contacts in preparation for some large-scale action-details unknown. “We’re going to nip them in the bud,” was the way Sam put it.
Sam had come across them in Rome, just after things had gone to hell-perhaps because things had gone to hell. Aslim Taslam was in Italy to establish an alliance with Ansar al-Islam, the very group that he, Paul, Lorenzo, Said, and Natalia had been performing surveillance on.
Now, their cover was information. Sam-energetic, perpetual-motion-machine Sam-had contacted Aslim Taslam’s Italian envoy with an offer of two million euros for information on the Somali pirates who had been plaguing the Gulf of Aden shipping lanes. Which was why he’d called this rushed meeting in the airport. In three days-on Thursday-Paul would show up in Nairobi as a bank employee. He would carry a small black briefcase, empty. His contact at the hotel would have an identical case containing the special computer. “Once we make the transfer, you board the plane back to Geneva. Simple.”
But everything sounded simple from Sam’s lips. Rome had sounded simple, too.
“You’re still pissed off, aren’t you?”
Sam shook his head but avoided Paul’s eyes, peering past him at the pretty cashier they’d bought the coffee from. He’d just returned from a working vacation in Kenya, a cross-country race that had left a permanent burn on his cheeks. “It’s a damned shame, but these things do happen. I’ve gotten over it, and you should, too. Keep your head in this job.”
“But you can’t let it go,” Paul said, because he could feel the truth of this. Only three weeks had passed since Rome. “Lorenzo and Saïd-they’re dead because of me. It’s not a small thing. You deserve to hate me.”
Sam’s smile was tight-lipped. “Consider this a chance to redeem yourself.”
It was a tempting thing to be offered a way to wash such dirt off the surface of his soul. “I’m still surprised.”
“We’re not all cut out for this kind of work, Paul. You never were. But with those losses I’ve got no choice but to use you. I can’t send Natalia down there-a woman wouldn’t do. Don’t worry. I’ll be right there with you.”
That was the first and last time Sam had let it be known that he could see Paul’s secret soul. After Rome, the evidence of Paul’s cowardice had become too glaring for even an old classmate to ignore. Drinking tall caffe lattes in the too-cold terminal, they had smiled at each other the way they had been trained to smile, and Paul had decided that, even if his old friend didn’t feel the same way, he certainly hated Sam.
This radical shift in emotions wasn’t new. Paul had always been repelled by those who saw him for what he was. In high school, a girlfriend had told him that he was the most desperate person she’d ever known. He would do anything to keep breathing. She’d said this after sex, when they both lay half-naked on her parents’ couch, and in her adolescent logic she’d meant it as a compliment. To her, it meant that he was more alive than anyone she’d known. It was why she loved him. Yet once she had said it, Paul’s love-authentic and all-encompassing-had begun to fade.
In a way, Paul felt more affection for the two very dark strangers questioning him now than he did for Sam, because they didn’t know him at all. It was twisted, but that was just the way it was.
“Listen to this guy,” said the lanky one in the T-shirt and blue jacket, who had introduced himself as Nabil. He spoke as if he’d learned English from Hollywood, which was probably what he’d done. He was speaking to his friend. “He wants us to believe he doesn’t even know Sam Wallis.”
“I do not believe it,” the friend-one of the two men who’d abducted him at gunpoint-said glumly. His English was closer to the formal yet quaintly awkward English of the rest of Kenya, though neither man was Kenyan.
“I might believe it if I was an idiot,” Nabil said. “But I’m not.”
Though they were probably still within the Nairobi city limits, both these men, as well as the gunman in the hall, were Somali. He suspected that simply being outside their wild fortress of a country, stuck in a largely Christian nation, made these jihadis nervous. From his low wooden chair, Paul raised his head to meet their gazes, then lowered his eyes again because there was no point. The windowless room was hot, a wet hot, and he found himself dreaming of Swiss air-conditioning. He said, “I work for Banque Salève. I don’t know Mr. Wallis personally, but I came here at his request. Where is Mr. Wallis?”
“He wants to know where Sam is,” said the unnamed one.
“Hmm,” Nabil hummed.
Paul had followed Sam to Nairobi that very morning. It was on the long taxi ride down Mombasa Road that he’d received the call from Geneva station that Sam had gone missing. Yesterday, a Kenyan witness had spotted him in the neighborhood of Mathare with his Aslim Taslam contact. A van pulled up beside them, and some men wrestled Sam inside and roared off, leaving the contact behind. That hadn’t helped his upset stomach, nor had the black Mercedes following him from the airport all the way to the hotel.
There were rumors that Aslim Taslam, in an effort to collect money as quickly as possible, had entered the black-market organ trade. Occasional victims appeared with slices in their lower backs or opened chest cavities, missing vital parts.
But not even in his secret soul did Paul fear this. He could live with fewer hands, with half his kidneys or one less lung. He would never wander willingly into that world of pain, but he didn’t fear it with the intensity that he feared the actual end point.
For most people it was the reverse: They feared pain but not death. Paul could not understand this. When a film ends, the viewer can replay it in his head for the rest of his life. But each person is the sole witness to his own life, and when that witness dies, no memory of the viewing remains. Death works backward; it eats up the past, so that even that sweat-stained couch on which he’d stopped loving his girlfriend would cease to exist.
Paul said, “I’m not going to pretend I’m not scared. You’ve locked that door, and I saw the gun the man outside is wearing. I can only tell you what I know. I work for Banque Salève, and Mr. Wallis asked me to fly here to perform an account transfer.”
The unnamed one, who had earlier used his fists on Paul’s back, spoke quickly in Arabic, and Nabil said, “All right, then. Let’s do the transfer.”
“I’ll need Mr. Wallis’s authorization. Where is he?”
“I don’t think you need Sam.”
“You don’t understand,” Paul said patiently. “The transfer is done with a computer. It’s in my hotel room. It has a fingerprint scanner, and we calibrated it to Mr. Wallis’s index finger.”
“Which hand?”
“Excuse me?”
“The left or the right index finger?”
“The right.”
Nabil pursed his lips. He had a young, pretty face made barely masculine by a short beard that reached up to his cheekbones. Paul imagined that he would have had to work particularly hard to be taken seriously in an industry full of battle-scarred compatriots. He wondered if, in a final need to prove himself, Nabil would someday end up driving a car full of explosives through a roadblock, or sitting in the pilot’s chair of a passenger airplane, praising his god and then holding his breath. Men like Nabil were careless about the only important thing. They were as foolish as Sam.
There had been a Kenyan contact waiting in his stuffy hotel room. Benjamin Muoki, from the National Security Intelligence Service, was sitting on Paul’s bed when he entered, sucking on a brown cigarette that streamed heavily from both ends. After they had exchanged introductory codes, Benjamin said, “This is what happens when you run an operation without proper help.”
“Sam got your help, didn’t he?”
“This isn’t help. I’m giving you a machine, that’s all. This is what happens when your people are not completely open with us.”
“I don’t think we’re the only ones keeping secrets,” Paul said as he began to unpack his clothes.
“Is that what Washington tells you?”
“Washington doesn’t have to tell us anything.”
“We get no points for giving you a president?”
“If another Kenyan tells me that I’m going to have a fit.”
Benjamin sucked on his cigarette and stared at the floor, where a heavy black briefcase lay. His color was lighter than that of most of his countrymen, his nose long, and Paul found himself wondering about the man’s parentage.
“That’s the computer?”
Benjamin nodded. “You know the codes?”
Paul tapped his temple. “Right here. As long as the machine works, it should be a cinch. You’ve tested it?”
The question seemed to make the Kenyan uncomfortable. “Don’t worry, it works.” He lifted the case onto the bed and opened it up to reveal an inlaid keyboard and screen. “Turn it on here and press this to connect to the bank. Type in the codes, and there you are.”
“Where’s the fingerprint scanner?”
“The what?”
“For Sam’s authorization.”
“You’ll have to ask him.”
Paul wasn’t sure if that was supposed to be a joke. “Does it really connect to the bank?”
“How should I know? I’m just the courier.” Benjamin closed the briefcase and set it on the floor again. He squinted as if the light were too strong, though the blinds were down. “They picked up Sam yesterday. They suspect him, and so they suspect you. They will be after you.”
“They already are,” Paul told him. “They followed me from the airport.”
That seemed to surprise the Kenyan. “You are very cold about this.”
Paul slipped a shirt onto a wooden hotel hanger. “Am I?”
“Were I you, I would be planning my escape from Africa.”
Paul didn’t bother mentioning that he was here to clean his soul, or that the idea of running had already occurred to him a hundred times; instead, he said, “Leaving’s not as easy as it sounds.”
“All you must do is ask.”
Paul reached for another shirt, waiting for more.
“Listen to me,” said Benjamin. “I keep secrets, and so do you. But no matter what Washington tells you or Nairobi tells me, we are in this together. Your friend Sam, he’s been captured. He was stupid; he should have asked for my help. There’s no need for you to follow in his footsteps. If you show up dead, missing your liver or your heart, then that is a tragedy. The operation is already blown. If you stay, you will die.”
Benjamin Muoki made plenty of sense. More than Sam, who placed abstract principles above life itself. Only a man with such a twisted value system could have been able to forgive Paul his failure in Rome. So he agreed. Benjamin whispered a prayer of thanks for Paul’s sudden wisdom. They settled on an eight-o’clock extraction, and Benjamin insisted that Paul remain in the hotel until then.
Paul didn’t contact Geneva, or Sam’s case officer in Rome. They would either agree to eighty-sixing the operation, or they wouldn’t, and in that case, he didn’t want to be forced to refuse a direct order. There were far better places to die when the time came. Places with air-conditioning. He repacked his bag, left it beside the briefcase computer, and went down to the ground-floor bar. It was there, during his third gin and tonic, that they arrived.
He hadn’t been able to see the faces that had followed him from the airport, but he knew that these were the same men. Tall, hard-looking, pitch black. They asked him to come quietly, pressing into his back so that he could feel their small pistols. He began to do as they asked, but then remembered the simple equation Benjamin had drawn for him: If you stay, you will die.
He swung his arms above his head. They wanted quiet, so he screamed. Hysterically. “I’m being kidnapped! Help!” The bartender froze in the midst of cleaning glasses. Two Chinese businessmen stopped their conversation and stared. The other few customers, all Kenyans, ducked instinctively even before they saw the guns his kidnappers began to wave around as they shouted in Arabic and pulled him out onto the street, into the waiting Mercedes.
They were infuriated by Paul’s lack of cooperation. While one drove, the other pushed him down in the backseat and kept punching his kidneys to keep him still. It made Paul think that, if nothing else, they had no plans to take that organ. But all hierarchies are riddled with fools and bad communication, and there was no reason to think that later, in the operating room, the Aslim Taslam surgeon wouldn’t recoil at the sight of his bruised and bloody kidneys.
It was cooler when Nabil finally returned. No one had turned off the blaring white ceiling light during the hours he’d been gone, but Paul suspected it was night. Nabil looked pleased with himself. He said, “You can do what you came here to do.”
“And then I can leave?”
“Of course.”
“Then let’s get to it.”
Nabil tugged a black hood from his pants pocket. “We’ll take a trip first.”
During his long wait, Paul had begun to believe that things were going too easily for him. Though he was still sore from his rough abduction, once he’d arrived in that bare room, no one had laid a finger on him. They had talked tough and hadn’t offered him anything to eat or drink, but other than his hunger he was feeling fine.
Nabil walked him hooded through corridors, down a narrow staircase, and outside into the backseat of a car. An unknown voice asked him to lie on his side. He did so. They drove for a long time, taking many turns, and Paul believed they were turning back on themselves in order to confuse his sense of direction. If so, they were successful. Before they finally stopped, they drove up a steep incline noisy with gravel they later crunched over as Nabil walked him into a building.
When the hood was removed, Paul stood facing three men in a long, wood-paneled room that seemed built solely to hold the long dining table that filled it. Two small, barred windows looked out on darkness and the bases of palm trees; this room was half in the earth. Two of them he recognized from the kidnapping; they smoked in the corner, and the one who had earlier helped Nabil with the interrogation even gave him a nod of recognition. The third one, a heavy man, wore a business suit. His name, Paul knew, was Daniel Kwambai.
Sam was the one with the long Kenyan background, not Paul, and so before leaving Switzerland Paul had browsed the Kenya files for background. Daniel Kwambai, the one Kenyan in the room, was a former National Security Intelligence Service officer who, after a falling-out with the Kibaki administration, was suspected to have allied himself with the Somali jihadis just over the border. The reason was simple: money. He was a gambling addict with expensive tastes that he couldn’t give up even after washing out of political life. Here, then, was the evidence. Whatever good that did him.
Kwambai held out a hand. “Mr. Fisher, thank you for coming.”
Unsure, Paul took it, and Kwambai’s shake was so brief that he got the feeling the man was afraid to hold his hand too long. Then he noticed that the computer briefcase wasn’t anywhere in the room; there was only a crystal ashtray on the far end of the table, which the kidnappers used. Paul said, “Well, I didn’t have much choice. Can we get this over with?”
“First, some questions,” said Kwambai. He waved at a chair. “Please.”
Paul sat at the head of the table. Behind him, Nabil had withdrawn to the door; the kidnappers remained in their corner, smoking. Daniel Kwambai sat a couple chairs down and wove his fingers together, as if in prayer. He said, “We would like to know some more about Mr. Matheson, the man you know as Wallis. You see, we discovered that he was working for the Central Intelligence Agency. He wanted to purchase something from us, and we think that by this transaction he was going to try and destroy us.”
“By giving you two million euros?”
“Yes, it seems unbelievable. But there it is. Nabil here fears trackers.”
Paul shook his head. “It’s my bank’s computer, and it hasn’t been out of my sight.”
“Except when you left it in your room and went to the hotel bar.”
“Well, yes. Except for then.”
Kwambai smiled sadly. “Nabil puts his faith in trackers and things he can hold in his hands. I put my faith in the ephemeral. Data, information. No, I don’t think there’s a tracker on your computer. I think the act of transferring the money is part of the plan.”
Uncomfortably, Paul realized that Daniel Kwambai was nearly there. As Sam had explained it, the virtual euros sent to their account were flagged, leaving traces in each account they touched. As Aslim Taslam moved the money among accounts, it left a trail. Tracking it to a final account was unimportant, because within that data flag was a time bomb, a virus that would in two weeks clear the entire contents of that final account, then backtrack, emptying whatever accounts it had passed through. The more accounts it moved through, the more damage it caused.
In the Geneva airport, Sam had said, “I know, I don’t understand it either, but it works. Langley tested it out last month on some shell accounts-wiped the fuckers out.”
Now, on the outskirts of Nairobi, Paul said, “I wouldn’t call myself an expert in these matters-I’ve only been at the bank two months-but I don’t see how that could be done. If the money moves through enough accounts, tracking it becomes impossible.” He shook his head convincingly, because that part was the truth-even having Sam explain it to him had made it no easier to understand. “I don’t think it could be done.”
Kwambai considered that. He rapped his knuckles on the table before standing up. “Yes, I don’t see it either. But something else has ruined our transaction. Which is a shame.”
“Is it?”
“For you, yes.”
The man’s tone was all too final. “What about the transfer? I just need Mr. Wallis’s-Matheson’s-fingerprint.”
Behind him, Nabil moved, and Paul heard a thump on the tabletop. A hand. A roughly chopped hand, the severed end black with old, stiff blood. Paul’s stomach went bad again.
“As you see,” said Kwambai, “we were prepared to do the transfer. But there’s one problem. Your computer. It’s not in your hotel room.”
That cut through his sickness. He stared at the politician, mouth dry. “It has to be.”
“Your suitcase, yes, full of clothes-you hadn’t even unpacked. But no magical computer.”
Despite the old fear slipping up through his guts, Paul went through possibilities. Benjamin had taken it. He had either secured it because he didn’t think it would be needed, or he had stolen it for his own reasons.
The hotel staff-but what use would they have for it?
Or Daniel Kwambai was lying. They had the case somewhere and were sweating him. That, or…
Or they had found the case, then checked it for one of Nabil’s trackers. And found one. Sam had sworn that there would be none, because they were too easy to detect. But… Lorenzo and Said. Perhaps this was some act of posthumous revenge. Perhaps Sam had cared about life after all.
“I don’t believe you,” Paul said, because it was the only role left to him. He heard the door behind him open and glanced back full of nerves. Nabil was leaving; the hand was gone. “Where’s he going?”
“I’m going, too,” said Kwambai. “It hurts me, it really does. Know that.” He spoke with the fluid false compassion of a politician.
“Wait!” Paul said as Kwambai began to walk away. The kidnappers, still in their corner, looked up at his outburst. “Tell me what’s going on.”
Kwambai paused in mid-step. “You know what’s going on.”
“But, why?”
“Because we all do the best we can do, and this is the best thing for us to do.”
The undertow pulled at his feet; the fear in his intestines felt like concrete. Everything seemed to be slowing down, even his desperate reply: “But you don’t understand! I don’t work for the bank. I never did! I work with Sam. I’m CIA, too!”
Kwambai tilted his head and licked his lips, interested. “Sam said you were, but we weren’t sure we believed him.”
“Sam said what?” Paul blurted, confused. What was going on?
“Thank you for clearing it up,” said Kwambai.
“And?”
Kwambai’s hand settled on his shoulder. It was heavy and damp. He patted a few times. “And I must go.”
“But the money’s real,” Paul told him. “It’s real. And I know the codes.”
“But there’s no computer. The codes are useless.”
“Someone has it. As soon as you find it, I can use the codes.”
Kwambai stepped back, frowning. He wasn’t a man used to doubt. “But who has the computer?”
“Benjamin Muoki. From the NSIS. He’s got to have it.”
“Benjamin?” Kwambai grinned. “Well, well. Benjamin.”
“You go get it. Or I’ll get it myself. Then I-”
“Tell me the codes.”
“They’re,” Paul began, then stopped. “I’ll type them in.”
“We can’t risk you typing some emergency signal. Tell me the codes now,” said Kwambai. “Please.”
Paul looked up at his fleshy face. “If I told you, I’d need some assurance that I’d be safe.”
Kwambai blinked at him then, and suddenly began to laugh. It was a deep, room-filling laugh. “Of course, of course.” He shook his head. “You didn’t think we were going to kill you?”
Paul tried to remember the man’s words. No, he hadn’t said that Paul was going to die. He’d never said that. Just hint, nuance. Threat. He exhaled loudly, then, closing his eyes, recited the key combination to connect to the bank, the ten-digit number that accessed the accounts section, and then the holding account number.
“There’s nothing else?” asked Kwambai, a smile still on his face.
“No. That’s all.”
“Good.” Again, the politician patted his shoulder. “You’ve been very cooperative. Aslim Taslam will be sure to let your family know.”
And he was gone. The logic of that last sentence didn’t arrange itself in his head until Daniel Kwambai was closing the door behind himself and the two men were putting out their cigarettes in the crystal ashtray.
Paul began to say more things, but no one was listening. He couldn’t see the men’s expressions as they approached; fresh tears made details impossible to make out. He remembered Sam saying, We’re not all cut out for this kind of work. You never were. Then, as the two men neared-one had already taken out his pistol-he realized they hadn’t tied him down. He was just sitting there, waiting for death. They hadn’t tied him down!
He stood, knocking the chair over, feeling a burst of hope that remained even as he felt the hammer of the first bullet in his chest. He stumbled, tripping backward over the chair. The breath went out of him; he couldn’t get it back. His wet arms floundered on the floor as he tried to find a handhold, and even when the two men appeared, looking down on him, his wet hands didn’t stop trying to hold on to something, anything. They kept slipping. The two men spoke briefly to their god.
“Don’t,” Paul managed, thinking of a damp couch and a beautiful girl who could see his secret soul. Then they all disappeared-the couch, the girl, the soul-as if they had never been.
The Imam reminded him of those unnaturally serene Afghans who first taught him the Truth behind the truth. The hairs of his long beard were thick, black wires that paled to white as they traveled down his robe. Around his lips they were stained yellow by hours spent around the communal water pipe.
His Arabic was fattened by his Kurdish accent, but his grammar was beautifully precise. It almost seemed out of place in this tenement building on the outskirts of Rome. “You have brought your offerings to me, young Nabil, and for this I thank the Prophet (praise be upon him). Though few in number, your people seem to me to be a worthy addition to our holy fight. It is not your heart we question here, but your abilities.”
Nabil, sitting cross-legged on the rug before him, kept his head low. “We are gathering weapons, Imam. We have communications abilities and the support of three major tribes in Punt-land.”
“That is good,” said the old man. “But what I refer to is the ability of the mind.” He smiled and tapped his weathered skull. “How does one discern truth from deception? How does one know the right path from the wrong, or the easy, one? Even the heart softened with love for Allah must be like stone when facing the infidels. The eyes must be clear.”
Nabil wanted to have an answer ready but didn’t. He was a fisherman’s son. He had no special qualifications beyond the fact that he loved his faith and had learned to speak English like a native. So he waited.
After a moment of silence, the Imam said, “Young Nabil knows when to hold his tongue, which is not only a virtue but a sign of wisdom.” He looked at the other men in the room, the young Kurds who now lived as his Roman bodyguards. By this look he seemed to be requesting their input, but they gave none. “And I believe you came to us via our mutual friend, Mr. Daniel Kwambai?”
“We’ve known him for some time. He is sometimes of use.”
“Yes,” the Imam said, pausing significantly. “But do not confuse use with friendship.”
“We endeavor to know the difference, Imam.”
“Those who can help are welcome, but those whose help takes too much from us, those should be dealt with harshly.”
Again Nabil nodded but could find no words.
The Imam leaned back and patted his knees. “Let us agree first of all that one does not give one’s hand without first knowing the other hand intimately So it shall be here. We will come to you, young Nabil. You may or may not recognize us-that is of no concern. You should act as you believe correct. That is all we ask. Once we have observed your sense of right, we will come to our decision. Does that strike you as satisfactory?”
“It strikes me as a blessing, Imam,” Nabil said, though his chest tightened. How much longer would this go on? He’d brought the money Ansar al-Islam had demanded, had given them a layout of the entire organization, and had even let them keep one of his men. Yet here he was, still feeling very much like the darkest man in the room.
“You are very patient for a man of your age,” the Imam told him, as if he could read his thoughts. “This does not go unnoticed.” He folded his hands together in his lap. “There is something you can do for us today, in fact. Something that would move things along more quickly.”
“However I may be of service,” said Nabil.
A smile. A nod. “Downstairs, in the basement of this very building, are two men. They became our guests only yesterday. Through questioning we have learned that they work for the
Americans. One is an Italian, while the other is more despicable because he is not even European. He is Moroccan. A foul, homosexual Moroccan, in fact. What they attempted to do to Ansar al-Islam is not important; it is only important that they failed. I would consider it a great kindness if you would kill them for us.”
One of the guards, sensing his cue, stepped forward. He held a long cardboard box, the kind used for long-stemmed flowers, and opened it on the floor in front of Nabil. Inside was a rather beautiful sword.
Four days later, on Sunday, after he’d finished his Dhuhr prayer and was packing to return to the continent he understood, where when you left you could say exactly what you had accomplished, the American knocked on his hotel room door. He found a light-haired but dark-eyed man in the spy hole who said, “Signore Nabil Abdullah Bahdoon?”
“Si?”
The man peered up and down the corridor, then lowered his voice and spoke in English. “My name is Sam Wallis. I’m here with a business offer. May I come in?”
Though his impulse was to send the man away, he remembered, We will come to you, young Nabil, and opened the door.
Once inside, Sam Wallis was surprisingly-perhaps even refreshingly-straightforward. He wanted information on the pirates. He represented some companies interested in securing their shipping lanes through the Gulf of Aden. “I don’t know what your rank is,” Sam told him, “but I’ll lay odds that the money I can give you will move you upward.”
“Upward?”
“In your organization.”
Nabil frowned. “What do you think my organization is?”
“Does it matter?” Sam said, flopping his hands in an expression of nonchalance. “There’s always some position above our heads that we’d prefer to fill.”
“You think like an American.”
“I think like a human being.”
Despite his pretty face, Nabil was a man of broad experience. He’d trained for three months in the mountains of Afghanistan, then spent a harrowing six months in Iraq on the front lines; then, once his worth was proven, he helped plan pinpoint strikes. Despite what Paul Fisher would later think, Nabil had not had to prove himself to his fellow fighters for years, and it was because of this respect that he would never find himself driving a truck or a speedboat laden with high explosives. He was too valuable to be wasted like that.
It was why he had been chosen to be Aslim Taslam’s envoy to Ansar al-Islam’s Roman cell. His comrades knew that he would think through each detail and come to the correct conclusions.
So when Sam Wallis offered a half million euros for intelligence on the pirates-a sum that Aslim Taslam needed desperately to further its plans-he did not answer immediately. He stepped back from the immediate situation and tried to see it from the outside.
You may or may not recognize us-that is of no concern. You should act as you believe correct.
Could this relaxed American be a messenger-witting or unwitting-from the Imam? Might this be the initial stage of the test? He pulled the blinds in the room, turned on the overhead lamp, and examined the American’s dark eyes. Refusing money from an infidel was a morally unambiguous way of dealing with the situation. But perhaps too simple for the Imam. Too simple to assist the jihad.
If the money was real, then it could buy weapons. Using the infidels’ technology and finances against them was a historically proven method of jihad. As for the information on the pirates, it could easily be manufactured, though there was no love lost between Aslim Taslam and those drunken thugs of the high seas.
“If you’re serious,” Nabil told him, “come to Africa and we’ll discuss it further. Mogadishu.”
Sam Wallis shook his head. “I’m not going anywhere near Mogadishu. I’m paid well, but not that well. Next week I’ll be in Kenya for the Kajiado Cross-Country Rally. Can we meet in Nairobi?”
Nabil was careful not to keep this a secret. He was thinking in layers now. If he kept the American a secret from his comrades, it would look to Ansar al-Islam’s observers-who he had to assume were everywhere-that he was either planning to keep the American’s money himself or hiding him because he was going to sell real information. Neither of these were true, and in a small house east of Botiala he sat with his five most trusted men and talked them through it.
All five of these tall, dark men were from his village, and in another world they would have remained fishermen like their fathers. But in this world the fish started to disappear from the gulf, their sleek bodies absorbed by the big trawlers from Yemen and Saudi Arabia and Egypt. They watched as the other young fishermen, many of them friends, learned that taking to the seas with speedboats and weapons, full of liquor and marijuana, could bring in more money than fishing ever had. They blew their money on satellite televisions and four-by-fours they sped up and down the coastline, sometimes running over children on the way. Nabil and his friends watched, remembering what the visitors from Afghanistan had taught them.
There were no fish left, and piracy was despicable to them. But there was a third way. A better way.
When he told them of the American, they pulled back visibly, so he took them through his line of reasoning. While the pirates were not their friends, giving them up was not an option. So they would fabricate the information. Transit routes, bank accounts, hierarchies. “And if it looks as if the American is going to cheat us, we will kill him.”
“But what of the Imam?” asked Ghedi, looking for unambiguously good news.
That he suspected the American had been sent by the Imam was too much for them to absorb, so he only said, “He wants to teach us patience.”
He returned to Kenya by one of the softer land routes, and on Saturday, before the start of the cross-country rally, he entered Sam Wallis’s Intercontinental room with a look of pain on his face. “I’m sorry, I cannot risk it. It’s an impressive amount of money, but in my region of Somalia if you become an enemy of the pirates, your life is no longer worth anything.”
Sam settled on the end of his bed and considered the problem. “It’s one reason I came to you, you know. Your group separated from Al-Shabaab because of their cooperation with the pirates. I thought you’d have the balls to stand up to them.”
“You think you know a lot about me, Mr. Wallis.”
“My employers think they do.”
“We may not like the pirates, but we still have to live in their country.”
“You needn’t stay in Somalia.”
“It’s our home.”
Clearly, this argument carried no weight with the American, but he accepted it as the logic of primitive peoples. “I shouldn’t tell you this,” he said after some thought, “but my bosses say I can go up to two million euros. So I’ll do that. The offer is now two million.”
It was as Nabil had suspected. No opening offer is a final one, and now he had quadrupled Aslim Taslam’s income. “How will you pay it?”
“Account transfer. I can get one of the bank employees to come to Nairobi to take care of it.”
“We would prefer diamonds.”
“We’d all prefer diamonds, but I’m limited by what my employers are willing to do.”
“How quickly can it be prepared?”
Sam considered this. “The race ends next Sunday, then I’ll go to Switzerland to set everything up. I can be back the following Wednesday. I’d guess that the banker could make it by Thursday. Will that work?”
Before returning home, Nabil set up a meeting with Daniel Kwambai, the man who had originally connected him to Ansar al-Islam. For the appropriate fees, Kwambai had been useful to Aslim Taslam, as well as to Al-Shabaab before Nabil and his comrades left.
They had met face-to-face a few times before, but this was Nabil’s first visit to one of Kwambai’s houses, a four-bedroom in the low hills north of the Karura Forest. In the comfort of his own house, fat Kwambai chain-smoked and sipped whiskey as if it were water. His house was full of representational art that made a mockery of Creation. It was an unnerving place to be.
While he gave Kwambai the layout of the situation, he was careful to avoid actual names, which didn’t trouble the politician. “You’ll need a secure place for a transaction,” Kwambai told him. “And the money-you can’t just send it directly to your account. I’ll have to move it around some.”
“Through your accounts?”
Kwambai shrugged, pulling at his fat lower lip. “I do have some accounts already set up. They’ve served the purpose before. I can put them at your disposal.”
Nabil had the feeling that Kwambai had been waiting for him, the accounts ready. He reminded himself that Kwambai was a politician, and as such had been thinking in layers since childhood. He was a man to watch carefully.
Kwambai was also nearly bankrupt. With his fall from political grace he’d lost the bribes that had kept his lifestyle and three large houses in operation. Debt was a wonderful motivator. “I suppose you’ll ask for a commission,” Nabil said.
“What’s this attitude?” Kwambai said, waving his empty glass. “I’ve helped your people for a long time now Of course I’ll need some money-there are bank charges, after all-but without my help you’d have nothing. Remember that.”
Nabil acceded that this was true enough. “How about this place?” he asked, looking around at all the decadence.
“What?”
“This house, for the transfer. I see there’s a basement. We can bring the banker here blindfolded and take him away likewise.”
Kwambai seemed troubled by the idea, which Nabil had expected. Though he had an attic apartment over in Ngara West he could use initially, he wanted to give the politician a reason beyond money to keep security tight.
“We would of course pay you for the trouble,” Nabil insisted.
He returned to Somalia and filled in his comrades on the developments. He asked Ghedi and Dalmar to come back with him for the final stage, and after a week, as they settled on their path back through the border, Kwambai called in a panic. “It’s off, Nabil. We’re not doing this.”
“Explain yourself.”
“Sam Wallis? One of my friends in the NSIS knows him. It’s the work name of Sam Matheson. Of the CIA.”
The question posed itself again: Was this a test? It didn’t look like one, but the Imam, he knew, plotted in the labyrinthine way he interpreted the Koran. His reach was long, and his thoughts were deep. Might he have knowingly sent an American agent to perform the examination?
But this was what happened when you began thinking in layers: It was addictive. There was always another layer to be discovered, another truth to be found. He said, “I never told you his name.”
“Don’t be petty, Nabil. You should be pleased I caught this early.”
With a smoothness that surprised even himself, Nabil said, “I was already aware of this.”
Stunned silence. “You were?”
“Of course. It wasn’t important for you to know.”
“Not important? Are you mad? Of course it’s important! I’m not bringing a CIA agent into my house.”
“He’s not going anywhere near your house,” Nabil said, not knowing if this was true or not. “Only the banker.”
It seemed to calm him some. “But still. This isn’t what I was expecting.”
“If that’s how you feel, Mr. Kwambai, then we can double your fee.”
Silence again, but there was nothing stunned about it. It was the silence of mental calculations.
“That’s my offer,” Nabil said, feeling very sure of himself, more sure than he had in a long time. “If you’re not interested, I’ll take my business elsewhere. We’ll know not to approach you again.”
“Let’s not be rash,” said Kwambai.
On Wednesday he again found Sam Matheson in his room at the Intercontinental. There were heavy rings beneath his eyes, sunburn across his forehead and cheeks, and Nabil wondered if the cross-country race had taken a serious toll on him. He’d verified that a man named Sam Wallis had registered, and that his car had come in eleventh among thirty-eight participants. According to the records, he’d originally signed on with a partner, one Saïd Mourit, but Mourit had been dropped before the race began.
He gave no sign that he knew Matheson’s real name, only suggested that they continue their conversation in the street.
“Too claustrophobic?” asked Sam.
“Exactly.”
In the nearby city market, they walked on packed earth among the crowds and vendors hiding under umbrellas. Nabil quietly said, “Mr. Matheson, I know who you work for.”
To his credit, the American didn’t slow his step. Above, the blazing sun made his sunburn look all the worse. A nonchalant grin remained plastered to his face, and he shrugged. “Who do I work for?”
“The CIA.”
“My assumption was that if I’d told you, you wouldn’t have accepted the deal.”
“You were right.”
Beside a table piled high with overpriced fabrics, he turned to face Nabil. He was a few inches shorter, but the confidence in his movements made him seem taller than he was. “The offer’s the same, Nabil. Those pirates are a public menace. They’re screwing with business. We’re getting pressured from all sides to get any kind of intel we can.”
“Even from people like us?”
Sam waved that off. “Your group’s new. No one knows about you. In a few years, maybe we’ll pay the pirates for intel on you. It all depends on what our masters ask for.”
“This is something we have in common,” Nabil said as he gazed at the intelligence agent who had suddenly opened himself up in a way that he would never have done. It was almost suicidal. What he’d expected was a denial, and then a quick withdrawal. Perhaps even this had been calculated by Rome.
Or perhaps, he thought suddenly, Ansar al-Islam had nothing to do with this, and it was precisely how the American presented it. The CIA just wanted some information.
It was time to make a decision.
“And this man from the bank who’s coming tomorrow?” he asked. “What is he?”
The smile faded from the American’s lips before returning. It was a momentary lapse-less than a second-but Nabil didn’t forget it. Sam said, “His name’s Paul Fisher. Yes, he’s an agent, too. But the money is real. After he’s finished the transfer you can do what you like to him.”
“You want us to kill your colleague?”
“I didn’t say that,” Sam corrected. “It’s up to you. Consider it a gift. If you like, you can claim responsibility, and he’ll be your first public execution.”
“A videotaped beheading. Is that what you imagine?”
“It’s not like you haven’t done it before.”
That was unexpected. “Have I?”
Sam Matheson licked his lips-nervousness… or appetite? “As I say, it’s up to you.”
It was only then that Nabil knew what to do. This man, whether or not he was from the CIA, had been sent by the Imam. Like the blinding sunlight pouring down on them, the realization fell upon him, and he knew. He was to kill a man named Paul Fisher. That was the Imam’s desire. Why? Matheson was little help on this; perhaps he didn’t know.
“He’s become a liability. We don’t need him anymore.”
Nabil turned toward Koinange Street, began walking, and reached into his pocket. He took out a pair of mirrored sunglasses and slipped them on, signaling Ghedi and Dalmar. “It’s a remarkable gift. First, money, and then one of your own. I just wonder why the CIA would give him to us. It’s not as if you couldn’t get rid of him yourself.”
“Despite what people say, the CIA prefers not to kill its own employees.”
“You’re very wicked, Sam.”
Sam Matheson didn’t answer. He seemed to consider the statement as they reached the street, and the van drew up, its large door sliding open. Ghedi and Dalmar jumped out and grabbed Matheson by the biceps and flung him inside. Nabil watched the door close again and the van jerk forward and swerve away. He watched it disappear into the afternoon traffic.
As he walked back to his car, he rummaged through his pocket and came up with a pack of Winstons. He lit one and inhaled deeply. It was the first one he’d had in three days; he was doing well.
When you’re being watched, all your actions, however small, take on a presence of their own-each has its own significance and its own variety of interpretations. You light a cigarette, and that might mean that you’re nervous, you’re relaxed, you’ve been co-opted by Western forms of decadence, or that you’re desperately stopping time in order to invent your next lie.
He had to stop thinking this way. If Ansar al-Islam was watching, the only important detail was the taking of Sam Matheson. They would know that Aslim Taslam left hesitation to those with less faith.
Nabil took Sam Matheson’s dry, surprisingly heavy hand from the table and dropped it back into the crumpled plastic bag, then slipped the bag into the pocket of his jacket as Kwambai fed Paul Fisher the lie: “Your suitcase, yes, full of clothes-you hadn’t even unpacked. But no magical computer.”
Nabil disagreed with this tactic, but Kwambai had been living with the doublespeak of politics for too long. He no longer knew how to be straight, and now he’d gone over the deep end. Yesterday’s evidence had been irrefutable. Nabil had returned from the market, having stopped at a mosque along the way to offer his Asr prayer. After Sam Matheson, he’d felt the need for some community. He’d driven up the hill to find Ghedi in the driveway, looking distraught. “He killed him,” Ghedi said. “Kwambai killed the American.”
Kwambai explained himself as they stood over Sam Matheson’s corpse in the basement. “He saw me. Your men brought him through the living room without a hood and he saw me. I couldn’t let him live.”
Kwambai had put two bullets in Sam’s chest and one through his neck; sticky blood covered the floor, and the flies had already begun to swarm. Standing over him, the politician began to tremble all over. It was probably the first man he’d ever killed with his own hand. Kwambai said, “His fingerprints. He said we’ll need them for the computer.”
“Why did he say that?”
“He thought it would save his life.”
“So you had a conversation first?”
The politician seemed to have run out of words, so Nabil asked Ghedi and Dalmar to remove the American’s hands while he took Kwambai outside and they looked for a spot to bury him among the low, dry trees in his backyard. Together, they dug a deep hole. Nabil stopped once, asked where east was, and kneeled in the dirt to offer his Maghrib prayer, while Kwambai ran into the house for more drink. By the time they finished, it was dark. All four men carried the body to the hole, and then Ghedi and Dalmar were given the unenviable task of cleaning the basement room.
Over those later hours, as they filled the hole and stumbled back to the house, Kwambai’s drunkenness faded and was replaced by a strange giddiness. He talked about the act he’d committed, the feel of the pistol, the kick of the bullet as it left the chamber, the American’s stunned eyes that slowly lost their sheen. He described these things as a man describes his first time with a woman, with the pleasure of a wonderful thing newly discovered.
The old politician had become a murderer, and he had enjoyed it.
Afterward, the dynamic changed. Kwambai wanted nothing more than to be at the forefront of their operation. He quit mentioning money, only asked endless questions and offered suggestions for improvement, and when they brought in Paul Fisher, he was waiting in the basement to stare directly into his eyes. He no longer cared who saw him, because he wanted to kill this one, too. Nabil had lost control of the operation.
And now Kwambai was twisting the interrogation with his doublespeak and lies. The computer was sitting upstairs on the long oak table, awaiting the codes and the fingerprint. All he had to do was ask Fisher to type in the code, and they would all be two million euros richer. But Kwambai wanted to stretch this out, wanted to torture the American, and Nabil had no interest in watching it.
So when Paul Fisher said, “I don’t believe you,” Nabil gave a quick but crucial signal to Dalmar and Ghedi, walked out, and climbed the stairs to the living room.
During the weeks since that bloody basement in Rome, he’d grown so tired of it all. He wondered when the light would begin to shine. People were not dying for the jihad; they were dying for the preparation for the jihad. For the bank accounts and the arms and the escapes from capture. One spent so much time dealing with the moment that the original dream, the one that made him cast away his fishing nets, seemed more distant than ever. How long could this go on?
Even the Imam had asked him afterward if he still had the heart for the fight. For fighting, yes, always. But when you descend into a tenement basement in Rome and find two bruised, broken men tied up, facing a camera on a tripod, and then use a beautiful ceremonial sword to remove their heads, there is no battle rush, no visible battle won. Just a flooded floor, your body soaked in blood and sweat, and the ache in your arms from hacking with a blade better suited to adorning a wall.
Daniel Kwambai’s woody house was full of European furniture mixed with Kenyan folk kitsch. It was as uncomfortable as Kwambai himself. Nabil settled at the long table beneath an iron chandelier and opened the briefcase, running his fingers lightly over the keyboard and the flat screen, the things that offered entrance to a Swiss bank’s deepest secrets.
It was all still so strange to him. For a fisherman’s son, none of this could ever feel comfortable. The computer. The narrow, Vespa-buzzing streets of Rome and the cacophony of Nairobi’s taxi horns. The wily, now quite mad, political animal that was Daniel Kwambai. He felt more comfortable with those drunk ex-fishermen the world called pirates.
He heard Kwambai climbing the steps slowly as the muted gunshots filled the house. The fat man paused, looked back, then continued. By the time he reached the end of the table Ghedi and Dalmar had finished. It could happen so quickly.
“I thought they would wait,” Kwambai said.
“I told them to do it as soon as you’d left the room. He’d been tortured enough.”
“Torture?” Kwambai shook his head. “Perhaps you would have given him all the facts up front, Nabil? We now know that Benjamin Muoki is working with them, but that’s all we’re going to get because you don’t want the poor American feeling distraught.”
Nabil shrugged.
“And what if the codes are fake?”
“I’ve considered that,” Nabil said, because he had. If they lost two million euros, then so be it. He wasn’t going to give this monster another happy murder.
Kwambai turned the computer around, closer to himself, and sat down. “Well, it’s reckless, and with this much money you can’t afford to be reckless. You know what’s going on here; you have to think. That’s what Rome expects of you. It’s what I expect of you.”
It was remarkable, really, how Kwambai was acting as if Aslim Taslam were his own fiefdom. But the politician was wrong. Nabil had been thinking for weeks. He’d been noting Kwambai’s own reckless moves and raising each one to the light to see it better, pairing them up randomly to find connections. But only now, hearing his command to think, did a single thread of logic form to connect all the disparate clues. It was so perfectly simple that his hands became warm from embarrassment. He’d been thinking in the wrong direction.
Do not confuse use with friendship.
“The hand?” said Kwambai. A pause. “What is it, Nabil?”
Nabil blinked but still couldn’t see the old man well. He rooted around his jacket pocket and came up with the hand. He dropped it on the table.
Those who can help are welcome, but those whose help takes too much from us, those should be dealt with harshly.
He heard the crackle of plastic as Kwambai took it out. “This had better work,” he heard the Kenyan say. “This thing is foul. You smell it?”
“Disgusting,” Nabil muttered as Kwambai powered up the computer.
“Where the hell am I supposed to scan the fingerprint?”
“Perhaps the Americans lied to you, Daniel.”
An awkward pause. “Perhaps.”
From downstairs came the sound of Ghedi and Dalmar grunting, moving Paul Fisher’s body around. Bodies everywhere. Yet here Nabil was, planning on one more, as soon as the money had been transferred.
“They’re inside,” Natalia chirped through the radio in his ear.
Sam leaned toward the apartment’s high window, careful not to touch the tripod and shotgun mike, and gazed across Via del Corso at the mosque, the sound of car horns and buzzing Vespas rising through the heat to him. Ticklish sweat rolled down his back. From her position at an outdoor café, Natalia had a clear view of the entrance, while Sam could see only the upper window to the room where Said and Lorenzo would be taken once they’d introduced themselves to the Imam.
It was a tricky operation, enough so that a week ago, sweating in his temporary Repubblica apartment near the station, he’d suggested that Saïd leave town. The Moroccan had gotten up on his elbow, the light playing over his long olive body, and stared, a flash of anger in his thick brows. “You think I can’t do this?”
“Of course you can.”
“I’ve built up all the contacts. It’s taken months. You know that.”
“I know. I’m just…”
“We shouldn’t have gotten involved.”
It was true, perhaps. But by now Sam couldn’t quite imagine what life would look like without Saïd in it. “Too late,” he said, watching his lover’s fleshy lips. “You want me to hide what I’m feeling?”
The Moroccan smiled. “It’s what we do. We should be good at it.” Seeing that the joke hadn’t played well, Saïd kissed him and said officiously, “Plenty of time, young man. We’re still on for the rally?”
“Absolutely.”
“You and me under the Kenyan stars again. We’ll have plenty of time to figure out our future.”
Which, Sam noted with satisfaction, was the first time Saïd had used that blessed word, future.
So he’d gone over the operation a hundred times more, adjusting details here and there and even bringing in an extra agent to provide coverage inside. Paul Fisher, from Geneva.
“Paul,” he said from his window perch. “You’re there?”
“Si,” came the whisper.
“Everything’s smooth. Just keep doing what you’re doing.”
Though they’d known each other in the academy, it was a surprise to see Paul again. He was the most visibly nervous agent he’d ever dealt with. Sam even called Geneva to make sure that this was a man he could depend on. “Fisher’s top-notch for his age,” was the reply, which told him nothing.
While briefing Paul in his apartment, though, Sam had discovered a small P-83, a Polish gun, in Paul’s jacket. “Where’d this come from?”
“A Milanese I know.”
“Why?”
Paul shrugged. “I like backup.”
“Not on this job,” he said and put the gun in his desk drawer. “I’m not having you get them killed.”
Paul had been sitting at the foot of the bed where Sam had last made love to Saïd. He hated this fidgety man touching those sheets. Paul said, “I wasn’t planning on using it.”
“Then you don’t need to carry it.”
Paul nodded unsurely.
While it had taken weeks to set up and could go wrong easily, the operation itself was simple. Lorenzo and Said were to visit the mosque and sit down with the Imam in his study to discuss a Camorra arms shipment they had intercepted and wished to sell to like-minded people. From his post across the street, Sam would record the conversation. Natalia would watch the street for activity or reinforcements. Paul was to wait in the prayer hall to help facilitate any emergency escape.
It took them a while to reach the Imam’s study. A body search would be de rigueur, as would an electronics sweep. In the far window, a light came on. A young man in a white skullcap pulled the thin curtains shut. Sam held one side of the headphones to his free ear, checked the levels against some language, perhaps Kurdish, being spoken in the room, and began to record.
A total of seventeen minutes passed before their arrival in the Imam’s chamber. During that time Sam talked briefly with Natalia and listened to Paul mouthing the late-afternoon Asr prayer with the congregation. Then a door opened in the room, and the Imam greeted Said and Lorenzo in Arabic. For the benefit of Lorenzo, they switched to Italian. The proposal was on.
In his other ear, Paul whispered, “There’s some activity.”
“Problem?”
“Three guys breaking off prayer. Talking.”
“It’s nothing.”
“They’re going to the stairs.”
“How do they look?”
“Not happy.”
Sam felt the old tension rising in his chest. The conversation with the Imam was going well. They had moved on to the makes of the weapons.
Paul said, “They’re gone.”
“Stay there,” Sam ordered.
“Shit.”
“What?”
“Another one. He’s looking at me.”
“Because you’re not praying. Now pray.”
“That’s not it.”
“Ignore him and pray.”
Silence, just the throb of voices speaking to their god.
“Natalia?”
“All clear.”
In his right ear, the Imam mentioned a price. As planned, Lorenzo was trying to raise it. A knock on the Imam’s door stopped him. Someone came in. Arabic was spoken. Sam’s grasp of the language was sketchy, but he knew enough to understand that they were discussing a suspicious worshipper in the prayer hall. According to the visitor, it was clear from the bulge in his pocket that he was carrying a pistol.
“You fucker,” Sam said. “You brought your gun.”
No reply.
“Stand up and walk out of there before you get them killed.”
No reply.
“You better be walking.”
No reply, just the sound of movement, a grunt, and then a single gunshot that thumped into Sam’s eardrum. A pause, then Paul’s wavering voice through the whine of his damaged left ear: “Shit.” On the right, the Imam’s room had gone silent. Lorenzo said, “What was that?” Movement.
Saïd: “What’re you doing?”
The Imam, in Arabic: “Get them out.”
More movement. Struggling.
Natalia: “Paul’s out. He’s running. Should I chase?”
A door in the Imam’s quarters slammed shut.
“Sam? What do I do?”
It wasn’t until Thursday afternoon, two days later and a couple hours after he’d gotten the news, that he tracked Paul Fisher to a bar near the Colosseum, hunched in the back with a nearly empty bottle of red wine. Sam waited near the front, observing the shivering wreck of a man who was too drunk to see him. Behind Sam, two Italian men slapped on a poker machine, shouting at it, and he reconsidered the one thing he’d felt sure he would do once he found Paul Fisher.
Though both had made a game of hiding their true feelings, he and Said had known from the start, when they were going about their various embassy duties in Nairobi, that they had found something unprecedented. Both had a broad enough sexual history-Sam in the Bay Area meat markets, where you could be as open as you were moved to be, Said in the underground discos of Casablanca-but from their second night together they’d opened up more than they had with anyone else before. Perhaps, Said had suggested, they were like this because they knew that Sam was leaving for Rome in a month. Perhaps. But six months later, in Rome, Sam’s phone rang. Saïd had wrangled a transfer and convinced his superiors that he should offer help to the Americans.
“This is a bed of liars,” Saïd liked to say during their secret liaisons in what they started to call their Roman summer. But then he used that fantastical word, future, and Sam pounced on him with joyous descriptions of the Castro. Said was entranced, though he offered a countersuggestion: Rio de Janeiro.
“Too hot,” Sam told him.
“Northern California is too cold.”
Now, listening to the angry Italians and blip-bleep of the poker machine, Sam wondered what would have happened. Might they have bought a place in some high-rise along the Rio beaches? Or had their optimism been a symptom of the Roman summer, and in the end things would have gone the way of all his previous relationships-nowhere? There was no way to know. Not anymore.
Because of this drunk man in the corner.
Kill Paul Fisher? Sam wasn’t that kind of agent-he’d never actually committed murder, and until now he’d never wanted to. Yet as he approached the table he thought how easy it would be, how satisfying. Revenge, sure, but he began to think that Paul Fisher’s death would be something good for the environment, the subtraction of an unwholesome element from the surface of the planet.
Terrified-that was how Paul looked when he finally recognized him. Drunk and terrified. Sam sat down and said, “We heard from the carabinieri. Two bodies, minus their heads, were found in the Malagrotta landfill.”
Paul’s wet mouth worked the air for nearly half a minute. “Do they know?”
“Yes, it’s them. They’ll turn up the heads eventually.”
“Jesus.” His forehead sank to the dirty table, and he muttered something indecipherable into his lap.
“Tell me what happened,” said Sam.
Paul raised his head, confused, as if the answer were obvious. “I panicked.”
“Where’d you get the gun?”
“I always have a spare.”
“This one?” Sam said as he reached into his jacket and took out the Beretta Natalia had given him. He placed it on the table in front of himself so that no one behind them could see it.
“Jesus,” Paul repeated. “Are you going to use that?”
“You dropped it when you ran off. Natalia found it.”
“Right…”
“Take it back and get rid of it.”
Paul hesitated, then reached out, knocking the wine bottle into a totter. He yanked the pistol into his stomach and held it under the table.
“I unloaded it,” Sam told him, “so don t bother trying to shoot yourself.”
The sweat on Paul’s forehead collected and drained down his temple. “What’s going to happen?”
“To you?”
“Sure. But all of it. The operation.”
“The operation’s dead, Paul. I haven’t decided about you yet.”
“I should get back to Geneva.”
“Yeah. You should probably do that,” Sam said, and stood. No, he wasn’t going to kill Paul Fisher. At least not here, not now.
He left the bar and took a taxi to the Porta Pinciana and walked down narrow Via Sardegna past storefronts and cafés to the embassy. As he unloaded his change and keys and phone for the doormen, Randall Kirscher came marching up the corridor. “Where the hell have you been, Sam?” Though there was panic in his case officer’s voice, nothing was explained as they took the stairs up to his third-floor office. Inside, two unknown men, one wearing rubber gloves, stood around a cardboard box lined with plastic that folded out of the top. Though he knew better, Sam stepped forward and looked inside.
“Sent with a fucking courier service,” muttered Randall.
Sam’s feet, his stomach, and then his eyes grew warm and bloated. Though the men in the room continued talking, all he could hear was the hum in his left ear, the residue of complete failure.
No one saw him for three days. Randall Kirscher was inundated by calls demanding Sam’s whereabouts-in particular from the Italians, who wanted an explanation for shots fired in a mosque. But he knew nothing. All he knew was that, after seeing Saïd’s severed head on Thursday, Sam had walked out of the embassy, leaving even his keys and cell phone with the embassy guards.
The next day the video appeared on the Internet, routed through various servers around the globe. Lorenzo and Saïd on their knees. Behind them hung a black sheet with a bit of white Arabic, and then a hooded man with a ceremonial sword. And so on. Kirscher didn’t bother watching the entire thing, only asked Langley to please have their analysts do their magic on it. In reply, they asked for the report Sam hadn’t filed. He told them it was on its way.
On Saturday, two days after his disappearance, Kirscher sent two men over to Sant’Onofrio, where Sam’s debit card had been used on two cash machines to take out about a thousand dollars’ worth of euros. They, however, found no sign of him.
Then on Monday morning, as if the entire embassy hadn’t been on alert to find him, he appeared at the gate a little after eight-thirty, dressed in an immaculate suit, and politely asked the guards if they still had the cell phone and keys he’d forgotten last week. Randall called him up to his office and waited for an explanation. All Sam gave him at first were oblique references to “groundwork” he’d been doing on a deal to provide inside intelligence on Somali pirates.
“What?” Randall demanded, hardly believing this.
“I got in touch with one of my Ansar sources. A member of Aslim Taslam was in town, and I approached him about selling us intel. I wasn’t about to blow my cover by contacting the embassy before we’d met.”
“What was your cover?”
“Representing some businesses.”
“Sounds like the Company to me.”
Sam didn’t seem to get the joke. “I talked with him yesterday. He’s loaded with information.”
“How’d you verify this?”
Sam blinked in reply.
“And how much did you offer him?”
“A half mil. Euros.”
Randall began to laugh. He wasn’t being cruel; he just couldn’t control himself. “Five hundred grand for a storyteller’?”
Sam finally settled into a chair and wiped at his nose. What followed was so quiet that Randall had to lean close to hear: “He’s the one who cut their heads off.”
The clouds parted, and Randall could see it all now. “Absolutely not, Sam. You’re taking a vacation.”
“His name is Nabil Abdullah Bahdoon. Somali. Not a foot soldier, but one of the heads of Aslim Taslam. They’re desperate for cash, and we can use it against him.”
“Against them.”
Sam frowned.
“Them, not him. We’re not into vengeance here. We’re not Mossad.”
“Then think of it this way,” said Sam. “We have a chance to decapitate the group before it gains momentum.”
“Decapitate?”
Sam shrugged.
Randall stifled a sigh. “Step back. Once again from the top.”
“A bomb,” Sam said without hesitation. “In the bank computer. Nabil will want to be on hand to witness the transfer.”
“Here in Rome?”
Sam hesitated. “Not settled. Probably not here.”
“Somalia?”
“Maybe.”
“You’re going to take a bomb through customs?”
“I can have it made locally. I have the contacts.”
Randall considered the loose outline, flicking over details one after the other. Then he ran into a wall. “Wait a minute. How does this bomb go off?”
“With the transfer code.”
“So who’s going to perform the transfer?”
Sam coughed into his hand. “Me.”
“Again?”
“I’ll type in the code.”
“You’re going to commit suicide.”
Sam didn’t answer.
“May I ask why?”
“It’s personal.”
“Personal?” Randall said, shouting despite himself. “I really should advise you to see the counselor.”
“You probably should.”
Silence followed, and Randall found a pen on his desk to twirl. “It’s ridiculous, Sam, and you know it. I know you’re upset about what happened to Lorenzo and Saïd, but it wasn’t your fault. Hell, it probably wasn’t even that idiot Paul Fisher’s fault. It just happened, and I’m not going to lose one of our best agents over this. You can see that, can’t you?”
Sam’s face gave no sign either way.
“Post-traumatic stress disorder. That’s what’s going on here, you know. It’s a sickness.”
Sam blinked slowly at him.
“I won’t insist on the therapist-not yet-but I am insisting on the vacation. Aren’t you supposed to go car racing next week?”
“Cross-country rally.”
“Good. Write up a report on the fiasco and then take three weeks.”
Sam was already on his feet, nodding.
“Keep safe,” Randall told him, “and do consider the therapist. Voluntarily. I’ll not lose you.”
But Sam was already out the door.
There had been an unexpected storm along the south side of snowcapped Mount Kenya that morning, and so by noon he was soaked with mud, and by late afternoon it had dried to a crust, turning his clothes into a lizard skin of hard scales. But he went on. His empty passenger seat set him apart from most of the Europeans and Americans taking part in the rally, and when asked, he told them his partner had dropped out because of business obligations, an excuse they all understood.
At the end of each day, they drank together in tents set up by their Kenyan hosts. The Italians were loud, the French condescending, the Brits sneering, the Americans annoyingly boisterous. A hive of multinational caricatures bound together by speed and beer, business and tall tales about women they’d had. These things were, he reflected, the lifeblood of Western masculinity.
It was Friday, two days before the end of the race, when through his exhausted eyes and muddy goggles he saw Benjamin Muoki standing among the T-shirted organizers wearing a suit, one hand on his hip, and no expression on his face. In his other hand was a bottle of Tusker lager. Sam pulled up amid the other drivers’ shouts and hoots, flipped up his goggles, and nodded at Benjamin, who took the cue and wandered away from the camp. Sam checked his time, rinsed off, and changed into shorts, a blue cotton button-up, and leather sandals from his waterproof bag. By then, Benjamin was a silhouette against a backdrop of fading mountains. Sam had to run to catch up with him.
“Here,” Benjamin said, holding out his beer. “You need it more than I do.”
They shared the bottle in silence, walking slowly, until Benjamin remembered and said, “You’re nearly the last one in.”
“The rain does it to me.”
“I’ll pray for clear skies.”
“The sun is even worse.”
Having known each other for three years, the men used the exchange of pass phrases not to recognize each other, but to signal if one or the other was compromised. “But really,” said Benjamin, “are you driving well?”
“I’m surviving.”
“It’s a difficult course.”
They paused and looked back at the bustling activity of the camp. Lights flickered on to hold back the encroaching dark. A dusty wind came at them, raising little tornadoes, then died down. “Did you receive the instructions?” Sam asked.
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
“I mean the rest of it.”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“What would you like me to say? That I think it’s dangerous? I’ve said that about too many of your plans to keep on with it.”
“But do you see any obvious flaws?”
“Just that you’ll end up dead.”
Sam didn’t answer; he was too tired to lie convincingly.
Benjamin looked into his face. “A life for a life? It’s a lot to pay.”
“More than one life, we hope.”
“We,” Benjamin said quietly. “I had a talk with your fat attaché. I don’t think he knows the first thing about this.”
Sam felt his expression betraying too much. “You told him?”
“No, Sam. I felt around some. I’m good at that.”
“Good.”
“It’s not on the books, is it?”
“It’s above his clearance,” Sam lied, but it was an easy lie. “The computer finished?”
“By Monday.”
“I’ll be back next Wednesday.”
“So I’ll give it to you then.”
“Not me. You’ll give it to someone else.”
A light seemed to go on in Benjamin’s always-astute eyes. “Someone even more foolish than you?”
“I’ll let you know. You’ll give it to him, but you won’t say a thing about it. You’re a good enough liar for that, aren’t you?”
Benjamin’s expression faltered. “This is a very stupid man?”
“A nervous man. Just give him the case. He knows what to do with it.”
“He knows he’ll die?”
“You’re full of questions, Benjamin. We’re paying you well enough, aren’t we?”
“You have always paid well, Sam.”
On Monday, as he sat across from Paul Fisher in the Aeroport International de Genève, he wondered why he was pushing it so far. Was he pushing it too far? He hadn’t seen Paul since that bar in Rome, and now that they were face-to-face again the prospect of killing him here, now, seemed much more inviting. Easier. More wholesome.
But he’d begun to fall in love with the balance of his plan. One bomb would take out not only the man indirectly responsible for Saïd’s gruesome murder, but also the man who had worked the blade through the muscles and bone. Now it was just a matter of persuasion. So after the invention of the technology that would wash bank accounts clean, he assured Paul that he wouldn’t be alone-Sam would be there, right by his side, to authorize the transfer with his index finger. That seemed to calm him. Then he told Paul what they both knew, that he wasn’t cut out for this kind of work and never had been. “Consider this a chance to redeem yourself,” Sam said, and it felt as if, through lies, he had cut to a deeper truth than he ever could have come upon honestly.
His love of the plan kept him moving forward even when, on Wednesday, Saïd’s murderer told him his real name and the name of his employer. Sam had put too much work into the plan to let it fall apart now, so he improvised. He absorbed this discovery into his tale, and even encouraged Nabil to murder Paul. He admitted the issue was personal. It was reckless, yes, but his sense of the rightness and beauty of his plan had made him delirious.
Yet it was too late. He realized his mistake only when they plucked him off the street and drove him out of town to that finely appointed house. Even then, however, he clung to hope. They still wanted the money, and if necessary he would type in the code himself. He would prefer if Paul were beside him to accept the blast as well, but he would make do with what was possible.
What he never expected was the politician sitting with a scotch in the living room, the fat one with the round eyes that stared in horror as he was dragged in. Their eyes met, but neither said a thing. Surprise kept them both mute. His captors dragged him to the basement and locked the door, and Sam settled at the table, thinking through the implications of Daniel Kwambai working with Aslim Taslam.
As if he’d read Sam’s mind, some ten minutes later Kwambai opened the door and stepped inside wearing a wrinkled linen jacket stretched on one side by something heavy in the pocket. He closed the door and stared at Sam. “What are you doing here?” came his falsetto whisper.
“You’re playing both sides, Daniel. Aren’t you?”
Kwambai shook his head and took a seat across from him. “Don’t judge me, Sam. You’re not in a position.”
“We don’t pay you enough?”
“No one pays enough. You know that. But maybe after this money you’re bringing I’ll be able to quit playing any sides at all. If the money’s legitimate. Is it?”
“Sure it is. Is the information going to be legitimate?”
“They don’t tell me much, but no, I don’t think so.”
Sam feigned disappointment. “You going to help me get out of here, then?”
“Not before the money’s transferred.”
“And then?”
Kwambai didn’t answer. He seemed to be thinking of something, while Sam was thinking about the bulge in Kwambai’s pocket.
“Well?”
“I’m considering a lot of things,” said Kwambai. “For instance, how you would stand up to Nabil’s interrogation.”
“No better or worse than most men, probably.”
“And I’m wondering what you’d say.”
“About you?” Sam shook his head. “I don’t think you have to worry about that. If he doesn’t follow that line of questioning, there’ll be no reason to answer.”
A sad smile crossed Kwambai’s face. “And if he just asks for a reason to end the pain?”
Sam knew what he was getting at, but things had become confused enough by this point that he couldn’t be sure how he wanted to answer. The obvious thing to say was that he’d protect Kwambai’s relationship with the Company to his dying breath, but no one would believe that, least of all him. The truth was that he recognized that sad look on the politician’s face. It was the same expression Kwambai had given just before accepting that initial deal, a year ago, to make contact with the Somali extremists who’d been doing business in Kenya. The look signified that, while he could hardly admit it to himself, Kwambai had already made up his mind.
So he repeated the lie he had used to encourage the coward Paul Fisher: “You still need me. For the transfer.” He raised his hands and tickled the air with his fingers. “My prints.”
But nothing changed in Kwambai’s face.
“Take it out, then,” said Sam.
“What?”
“The gun. Take it out and do what you have to do. I personally don’t think you can. Not here in your own house. Not with your own hands. And how would you explain it to Nabil? He wants me. Like you, he wants the money. He-” Sam stopped himself because he recognized that he was rambling. Panic was starting to overcome him.
Dutifully, though, Kwambai removed a revolver from his pocket and placed it on the table, pointing it at Sam much the way Sam had pointed the Beretta at Paul Fisher. Unlike the Beretta, this was an old gun, a World War II model Colt.45. Kwambai’s eyes were red around the edges. “I like you, Sam. I really do.”
“But not that much.”
“No,” Kwambai said as he lifted the pistol and shot three times before he could think through what he was doing.
Benjamin had lived most of his life making snap decisions and only afterward deciding whether or not they’d been correct. Intuition had been his primary guide. Even the occasional services he performed for the Americans and the Brits had begun that way. So all afternoon, as he tracked down a friend who would be willing to drive Paul Fisher to the border, he had wrestled with it, weighing Fisher’s life against the comforts of his family. If the Americans cut him off, George would probably not get to football camp this year; Elinah’s confirmation party would be more modest than planned; and Murugi, his long-suffering yet intractable wife, would start questioning the shift in the monthly budget. Was one stranger’s life worth it?
It wasn’t until the trip back to the hotel in his friend’s Toyota pickup that he really convinced himself that he’d done right. We’re all employed by someone, he told himself philosophically, but in the end it’s self-employment that motivates us. The sentence charmed him, provoking a mysterious, proud smile on his lips, and that only made it more disappointing when he arrived at the hotel and learned that it had all been for nothing.
His first clue was Chief Japhet Obure in the lobby, talking with the hotel manager and the bartender. The local police chief rolled his eyes at the sight of Benjamin. “Kidnapped American, and then you appear, Ben. Why am I not surprised?”
“You know me, Japhi. I can smell scandal a mile away.”
Benjamin’s disappointment was breathtakingly vast, bigger than he would have imagined. He hadn’t known Paul Fisher. Had he liked him? Not really. He had liked Sam, but not the feeble man who affected coldness to overcome an obvious cowardice. And it wasn’t as if Paul Fisher had been an innocent; none of the connected Americans who wandered into his country were. But his disappearance hurt just the same.
“Looks like he hadn’t even unpacked,” Japhet said once they were both in his room.
Benjamin, by the door, watched the chief touch the wrinkled bedspread and the dusty bedside table. But what the chief didn’t notice was the empty space, just beside the luggage stand, where the briefcase had been. As Japhet opened closets and drawers, Benjamin watched over his shoulder, but the all-important case wasn’t there. Why hadn’t Benjamin taken it with him when he’d left?
He knew the answer, but it was so banal as to be embarrassing. He, like anyone, didn’t want to run around town carrying a bomb.
Once everything had been brushed for prints, a long line of witnesses interviewed, and darkness had fallen, Chief Obure invited him out for a drink. Benjamin called Murugi and told her he’d be late. “Because of the kidnapped American?” It was already making the news.
By nine he and Japhet were sitting at a sidewalk café, drinking cold bottles of Tusker and eyeing a trio of twelve-year-old boys across the road sucking on plastic bags of glue.
“Breaks my heart to see that,” said Japhet.
“Then you should be dead sixty times over by now,” Benjamin answered as his cell phone rang a monotone sound. Simultaneously, Japhet’s played a recent disco hit.
A house northeast of the city, not so far from the United Nations compound in Runda Estate, had been demolished by an explosion. Benjamin knew the house, and back when Daniel Kwambai had still been in the government’s favor he’d even visited it. Still, the fact that the bomb had ended up in one of Kwambai’s houses was a surprise.
“Time for a field trip,” Japhet said when they’d both hung up.
It took them forty minutes to reach Runda Estate and head farther north, where they followed the tower of smoke down to the inferno on the hill. The firefighters had left to collect more water, and Pili, one of Benjamin’s assistants, was standing in the long front yard, staring at the flames. He was soaked through with sweat.
“The explosion came from inside. That’s what the fire chief says.”
“What else would they expect?” asked Japhet.
Since his boss didn’t reply, Pili said, “Car bomb.”
“Right, right.”
Both Pili and Japhet watched as Benjamin approached the burning house on his own. He stopped where the temperature rose dramatically, then began to perspire visibly, his shirt blackening down the center and spreading outward.
From behind, he heard Japhet’s voice: “What’re you thinking, Ben?”
“Just that it’s beautiful,” he answered, because that was true. Flames did not sit still. They buckled and wove and snapped and rose so that you could never hold their true form. Perhaps they had no true form. Wood popped and something deep inside the inferno exploded.
“Do you know what’s going on here, Ben?”
The wailing fire truck was returning, full of water. Farther out, headlights moved down the long road toward them. That would be absolutely everyone-government representatives, religious leaders, the Americans, the United Nations, the press.
He took Japhet’s arm and walked him toward his car. “Come on. I’ll buy you a drink wherever you like.”
“A rare and wonderful offer,” Japhet said. “You steal something?”
“I’ve earned every cent I have,” he answered, twirling keys around his finger. “I just feel like forgetting.”
“This?”
“If I forget it, maybe it’ll just go away,” Benjamin said, smiling pleasantly as he got in and started the car. In no time at all, they had passed the incoming traffic and made it over the hills and back into the city. It was as if the burning house had never been. Despite the sweltering heat, Benjamin had even stopped sweating.
Otto Penzler