A s Sameh drove away from the Lebanese Club, he could see Barry Duboe talking on his phone, busy making things happen in typical Western fashion. Normally Sameh found the Americans’ demand for instant results very irritating. It was one of the things he had most disliked about his time in America. They even had a terse definition for their own worst habit: Hurry up and wait. They demanded everything now, even when they didn’t actually know what they wanted.
Today, however, Sameh was actually quite pleased with the pace. Because somewhere in the distance, beyond the reach of his ears but not his heart, a frightened little boy cried for his mother.
Sameh was not ignoring Barry Duboe’s refusal to help him with this critical matter. He simply discounted it. Everything about their conversation, not to mention the thirty thousand dollars in his battered briefcase, suggested this whole matter was far bigger even than three missing Americans. What Sameh needed was a lever to make Barry Duboe change his mind and help him with the child. Not when Barry Duboe wanted. When Sameh needed. Which was now. Immediately. Without delay.
Sameh stopped by his office, put the money in his safe, and did a quick hour’s work. To his relief, the staffer from Hassan’s office arrived bearing a more recent photograph of the former gardener. Sameh then returned to his car and headed out.
The Al-Hamra was an unglamorous hotel frequented by European journalists and aid groups. As far as Sameh was concerned, it was perfect for an initial meeting. The better known establishments, like the Palestine Hotel overlooking Ferdous Square, were used by the well-financed private contractors and the television teams. Nowadays all such hotels were under observation by the extremists. Entering the Palestine Hotel and meeting with a civilian American would have marked Sameh just as certainly as entering the Green Zone.
The Hotel Al-Hamra’s security was supplied by off-duty Baghdad police. Sameh knew most of the senior officers through his work in the courts. The policeman accepted the keys to Sameh’s car and refused his offer of a tip by placing his hand on his heart, the gesture of a servant to a master. After the cold efficiency of the Lebanese Club, Sameh found the gesture quite welcoming. He patted the man’s back, shook his hand, and entered the hotel.
The cafe was divided from the lobby by a row of potted plants and was very full. Almost all the faces held the same watchful caution. Stay in Baghdad for any length of time and the look of tense fear became a fixture, along with the wary search for the closest exit.
As soon as the man entered the hotel, Sameh knew this was Duboe’s contact. Marc Royce’s clothes were too clean, too well pressed. Everyone in the cafe glanced over, the women’s gazes lingering there for a time. The American was quite tall, perhaps an inch or so over six feet. His features were even, his hair and eyes dark. His complexion suggested he might have a trace of Arab blood. His clothes framed a body at the peak of fitness. Not overly muscular. Very few Special Forces were. And this was how the young American struck Sameh. A handsome man trained to an assassin’s pinnacle of performance.
The American stood where he would be noticed and focused on nothing. His eyes touched lightly and passed on. But Sameh was fairly certain the man had marked him. Even so, Royce remained in the doorway with the stillness of a professional warrior. Content to wait there all day. Granting Sameh the courtesy of the next move.
Sameh rose from his table and walked over. “Mr. Royce?”
“Please. Call me Marc.” His expression was steady and calm and as hard as his handshake.
“Come and sit. Will you take anything?”
“I’m fine, thanks.”
The waiter appeared, and Sameh ordered the American a tea. “It will look better if you have something.”
“But you’re not having anything.”
“It is Ramadan.” Sameh took his time studying the man opposite him. Marc Royce accepted the inspection with a patience that was distinctly un-American. “You have been to Iraq before?”
“Not Iraq, not the Middle East.”
“Then why you, Mr. Royce? Forgive me for being blunt, but I need to understand why you have been placed here.”
Marc Royce described his previous day. He explained his fractured connection with the former head of State Department Intelligence. He used a minimum of words and no inflection whatsoever. It was a policeman’s manner of speaking, direct and unadorned. Sameh asked several questions, more to determine whether this stranger was open and honest with his responses. Sameh’s instinct was, the man did not lie. Nor did he intend to hold anything back. “So this Ambassador Walton knew you well enough to realize you would be at church on a Sunday morning.”
“Ambassador Walton lives on details. He considers the private lives of his staffers to be another source of leverage.”
Which was a very interesting response, on a multitude of levels. “You use the present tense.”
“That is correct.”
“And yet you say that Ambassador Walton has retired.”
“Officially. But yesterday he told me he has been re-hired in a secret capacity. Walton now advises key White House personnel on intelligence matters.”
“Do you believe him?”
“Yes.”
“So this gentleman you have not seen in several years suddenly appears and asks you to travel halfway around the world and become his eyes and ears. In Baghdad. I find that curious.” Sameh paused as the waiter returned, set down a tulip glass in front of Marc, and filled it from a thin-necked silver pot. The air was instantly spiced with the fragrance of boiled mint. A refreshing scent, one Sameh never tired of. He used the interruption as a chance to change direction, a habit derived from his time in court. Pose a series of gentle questions which circled around the target, coming from a variety of directions, masking the true aim. “Why do you suppose this ambassador would come to see you at church?”
“Because I am most disarmed there.” Marc Royce responded with the calm dispassion of a man who had dwelled long and hard on the same point. “He knew there was a risk I would refuse to listen. But at church I am more…”
“More what, Mr. Royce?”
“More connected to the past.”
Something about those words caused a pain to blossom in the man’s dark gaze. A pain both ancient and fresh.
“Are either of your parents Arab, Mr. Royce? I ask only because your coloring suggests a connection to this region.”
“Sorry, no. My mother came from Louisiana. Her family was Cajun, a name derived from Acadian. A region in eastern Canada.”
Sameh saw no need to tell the young man he knew about the region because he had fallen in love with Longfellow’s poetry, most especially the epic poem about the Acadian expulsion. Instead he asked, “So this gentleman meets you where you are most vulnerable, and asks you to forget past grievances. To help find a mutual friend.”
“Alex Baird. That is correct.”
“But why you? This is a critical issue, would you not agree? Don’t you think a man with White House connections could find someone with better-what do you call it-bona fides? Someone with Middle East experience? Someone who knows Baghdad and the situation here?”
“Three reasons.”
“I’m listening, Mr. Royce.”
“First, there are people inside the government who do not want Alex Baird found. Why, I have no idea. But this has left Walton’s hands tied. He would have gone through official channels if he could have. But he can’t.”
This mirrored the situation Sameh faced in Baghdad and had been confirmed by Barry Duboe. Sameh merely replied, “That is one reason.”
“My guess is, Ambassador Walton suspects Alex has gone missing because of some issue tied to the church. How, I don’t know. But one of the missing women is a missionary. And they all worshiped at the same Green Zone chapel. That is a coincidence. Ambassador Walton has another name for coincidences. He calls them fault lines. Points where the mystery may be resolved.”
“Your ambassador sounds like a very intelligent man. And point three?”
“Walton is using me as bait.”
Sameh leaned back in his seat. It was what he had himself been thinking. But to have Marc Royce suggest it in such a calm and analytical fashion was most remarkable.
The young man went on, “Barry Duboe is also a friend of Alex. And a longtime ally of Ambassador Walton. But he has hit the same stone wall. So they plant me in plain sight. You know the expression, ‘tethered goat’?”
“Of course.”
Marc Royce explained it anyway. “You trap a dangerous predator by tying live bait out where the beast can get a good look. And you hide your best shooters nearby. And you wait.”
“It does not bother you to have this gentleman in Washington use you in such a fashion?”
“I’d like to think Walton expects me to survive.”
“Even so. You owe Alex Baird so much?”
Once more, Marc Royce’s eyes met his host’s to reveal hidden pains. “My life and more.”
Sameh found himself far from displeased to have been handed this American. He was in fact very intrigued. Even so, he needed to be certain that this intense young man was actually worth the bother. “You ask a great deal of me, Mr. Royce. Your presence represents a very large and potentially dangerous request. And we both know it.”
Marc lifted his tea, blew across the surface, and tasted it. “This tea is great.”
“Before we discuss the issue that has brought us together, I need to know if you are indeed a man I can rely on.” Sameh pulled an envelope from his jacket pocket and set it on the table between them. “I have a situation. One that troubles me as much as the missing Americans disturb you. Perhaps more.”
Marc set down the glass. “Tell me what you need.”
“Inside the envelope is the photograph and name and fingerprints of a kidnapper. We believe he has taken the young child of my client. The child’s photograph and other details are also enclosed. I need help finding that man. He was employed by my client as a gardener. During Saddam’s regime he had been arrested for abduction and murder.”
Marc Royce underwent a remarkable transformation. One that actually silenced the tables to either side of them. The courteous facade simply vanished. In its place was a man of such cold fury that even Sameh was a little frightened. “He kidnapped a baby?”
“The boy turned four soon after he was abducted. Barry Duboe has refused to help me unless or until we find your-”
“I’ll talk to him.” He was already on his feet. “How do I reach you?”
– – During the drive from the hotel back to his office, Sameh repeatedly recalled the young man’s expression. It captured a fighter’s strength, an implacable force. Focused upon saving the life of a child he had never met. An Arab child.
Sameh wondered if perhaps the young man’s arrival was something more than it seemed. There was an expression many Iraqis used at the beginning of each day, actually a Christian prayer that predated Islam. But it was spoken by many Muslims as well. Ya sabbah, ya aleem . Salutations to the Giver of this new day, to the Giver of this life. It was intended to draw divine protection into a chaotic world. Sameh silently repeated the blessing, then asked the dusty day through the windshield, was Marc Royce’s arrival a sign? And if so, a sign of what?