Agents of Innocence

12

Amman, Jordan; February 1970

Rogers’s first plan was simple: trickery. He decided that he would wait for the next scheduled meeting between Fuad and Jamal, a few days hence, and crash it. He would be there in the safehouse when Jamal arrived, sit him down on the couch, and insist that he had to deal directly with an American. The worst that could happen was that the relationship would break off right then and there. Which would be better than waiting months before finding out that Jamal wasn’t willing to play ball.

The appointed day arrived. The meeting was set in an apartment in Ramlet el-Baida, near the seacoast. Rogers went early to the safehouse, waited for Fuad, and told him that there had been a slight change in plans. They would both be meeting with Jamal that day. He didn’t explain why, and Fuad didn’t ask.

Rogers and Fuad sat in the cheerless apartment for five hours, smoking cigarettes and waiting for the Palestinian. He never showed up.

Rogers suspected a double-cross. His fears were relieved by a bit of intelligence that arrived the next day. The Beirut station had learned from a source in the Deuxieme Bureau that a number of senior Fatah officials, including Jamal, had gone urgently to Amman, where some sort of crisis was brewing between the PLO and the Jordanians.

Details of the crisis emerged in the cable traffic from the CIA station in Amman. On February 9, the king had issued a decree banning the Palestinian commandos from carrying weapons in public in Amman. The decree also required the commandos to carry identity cards and put license plates on their cars. The king’s demands sounded modest enough. But in the supercharged atmosphere of Jordan, where the PLO commandos had become a virtual state-within-a-state, they amounted to a declaration of war.

It’s a bluff, thought Rogers as he read the cables. It has to be a bluff. The king doesn’t want a showdown yet.

The Fatah leadership seemed eager enough for a confrontation. The Foreign Broadcast Information Service, the CIA’s radio-monitoring unit, picked up a communique the night of February 9 from Fatah Radio in Cairo. In the tormented syntax of the Revolution, it declared: “The time has come for the masses to act and act quickly, not only to stop the new conspiracy, but to inflict final defeat on the conspirators.”

That meant that if the king wanted war, he would have war.

When Rogers put the pieces together in his mind, he saw that the crisis in Jordan might provide a useful opportunity. It represented movement, and movement of almost any kind was beneficial. Movement altered the field of play and created space in which to operate. A political crisis of this sort was better still, since it provided openings that, in normal times, wouldn’t exist.

The trick was to contrive the right moment, Rogers told himself. The moment when your target had no choice but to walk through the door you were opening for him.

Rogers decided to follow Jamal to Amman. He sent Fuad separately by car and booked an MEA flight for himself in the name of Edwin Roberts. The same name was on the Canadian passport that Rogers carried in his briefcase.

In a saner world, the MEA flight from Beirut to Amman would take about thirty minutes. The plane would fly due south from Beirut, enter Israeli airspace over the northern Galilee, pass over the biblical towns of Nazareth and Tiberias, then glide across the Jordan River near the town of Ajlun and land in Amman. But in the actual world of the Middle East in 1970, Arab maps didn’t even identify Israel by name, let alone overfly its airspace. The maps called it “Occupied Palestine” and the Beirut-Amman flight made a long detour through Syria.

Rogers scanned the bleak Jordanian landscape through the window as the plane approached Amman. Jordan was a dry, dusty country at the best of times, with rocky hills and arid plateaus alternating with sandy deserts. It was worse in the winter, when dust storms blew across the unprotected countryside and biting winds swept the hilltops. Amman was bitterly cold that day, and the air was so full of dust that it began to make a little sandpile in the bottom of Rogers’s throat soon after he stepped off the airplane.

As Rogers rode into Amman by taxi the afternoon of February II, he found the city in an uproar. The commandos were openly defying the king’s ban on carrying weapons and had set up roadblocks at the entrances to the Palestinian camps that ringed the city. The Jordanian Army, for its part, had established checkpoints on the four major roads leading into the city. They were stopping Palestinian commandos and refusing to let them pass unless they turned over their guns. Rogers waited more than an hour in a long line of traffic at one checkpoint on the airport road.

Amman is a city built on seven hills. The souks and mosques of the old Arab quarter lay in a valley at the center of town. The residents of the city, many of them Palestinians, lived on the surrounding hills, in houses of white stone that seemed to have been carved like steps out of the rocky hillsides. The international quarter, which housed the fancy hotels and shops and the American Embassy, was on a hill known as Jebel Amman. The Palestinian headquarters stood atop the next hill, called Jebel Hussein. It adjoined the sprawling Al-Hussein refugee camp.

Rogers headed for the safehouse in Jebel Hussein that night. He got past the Palestinian checkpoint at the entrance to the fedayeen quarter by showing his Canadian passport and a business card that said he was a construction contractor. He gave the address of a small engineering concern in the neighborhood, where he said he had an appointment.

The safehouse was a small, white stone villa on a road that skirted the hillside of Jebel Hussein. The road was called Jaffa Street, after the coastal city in old Palestine, and it was several blocks from the Fatah military headquarters.

Fuad was already there when Rogers arrived. He had his sunglasses off and he was sitting on the stone floor of the nearly-empty house, relaxing. He had a serene look, like someone who has finally begun a task he has anticipated and dreaded for a long time.

This is Fuad’s graduation day, thought Rogers. He is in a dangerous place, helping his case officer run an operation. He has made the team.

“What’s for dinner?” asked Rogers.

“Tuna fish and crackers,” said Fuad, who had already examined the meager provisions in the house.

“I’d like tuna fish and crackers please,” said Rogers. He scouted around the pantry and found a few cans of Foster’s Australian lager. Drinking the beer, he wondered who the previous users of the hideaway had been, and why on earth they had left behind cans of beer from the other side of the world.

There was a radio in the house. Rogers tuned in the BBC World Service.

The Old Man was visiting Moscow to discuss joint Soviet-Palestinian action in the Middle East, the radio said. Fuad muttered something derogatory about the Palestinian leader in Arabic.

That’s bad news for the king, thought Rogers. The Old Man has upped the ante by going to see his patrons in Moscow.

“And in Munich today,” continued the broadcaster, “a taste of Palestinian terror as three PLO commandos tossed hand grenades at a group of passengers awaiting a Lufthansa flight, killing one person and injuring twelve.”

Rogers turned up the radio. Things are getting out of control, he thought to himself.

“The Munich police captured an unusual message written by the leader of the group, which he planned to read to the passengers of the Israeli jet.

“According to police sources in Munich, the message read: ‘Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. This is the deputy commander of the 112th unit of the Martyr Omar Sastadi Division of the Action Group for the Liberation of Palestine. In the name of the Palestinian Revolution, we are taking command of this aircraft and renaming it Palestine II.’ According to German police, little is known about the Sastadi group.”

“Bullshit,” said Rogers over the sound of the radio. “Nothing is known about the group because there is no such group.”

“My dear Mr. Reilly, you do not understand the Arab mind,” said Fuad. “We think that if we announce that there has been an operation by the 112th unit of an organization that no one has ever heard of, then people will assume that this organization must have at least III other units. No Arab would believe it, of course. No Arab believes anything that anyone tells him. But we think the rest of the world is stupid.”

“And now for the soccer results,” said the radio newscaster. “In the fourth division, Hartlepool nil, Wigan nil. Doncaster two, Cardiff, one.”

“Turn it off,” said Rogers.

“And in the Scottish League, Partick Thistle nil, Queen of the South, one. Aberdeen two, Celtic two. Hibernians nil…”

“Turn it off,” said Rogers again. The radio went silent.

At 8:00 P.M. that night, they heard the sound of gunfire coming from the eastern part of the city, near Jebel al-Taj. It seemed to be a clash between the Jordanian Army and the commandos.

An hour later, the neighborhood of Jebel Hussein shook with the sound of heavy-caliber machine-gun fire. Rogers could see from the window a volley of tracer bullets coming from the rooftop of the headquarters of the Jordanian Ministry of Interior. It was answered by a rattling barrage from two machine guns positioned within Jebel Hussein.

“Now we know why Jamal was in such a rush to get here,” said Rogers as he peered over the windowsill.

Below him on Jaffa Street, Rogers saw a jeep fitted with a machine gun, careening up the street at breakneck speed. A dark-haired Palestinian commando stood in the back, legs apart and hips swaying with the motion of the vehicle, holding the trunk of the machine gun in his hands and rotating it on its turret. It was a sensual, almost erotic embrace of a deadly weapon, and it was an image that Rogers came to associate with the guerrillas; the posturing of a vain but ultimately powerless people.

“Come watch the show,” Rogers whispered to Fuad. “The fedayeen are in heaven.”

“They are children,” said Fuad. “When I want to watch children, I go to the playground.”

The sound of automatic weapons rattled on through the night but tapered off toward dawn.

When he awoke, Rogers set in motion the plan he had devised over the previous two days. He wrote out a message in neat Arabic script, sealed it, and gave it to Fuad.

The message read: “A friend with important information will be in Nasser Square at noon. If you want the information, follow him.”

Rogers turned to Fuad and spoke to him carefully and deliberately.

“Take this letter to 49 Ramleh Street and knock on the door. A bald Arab man will answer the door. Tell him you have a message for Jamal Ramlawi at the Fatah military headquarters at Nasser Square, on the corner of Khaled Ibn Walid Street.”

“What if he asks me who the message is from?” queried Fuad.

“He won’t ask.”

“Who is he?” asked Fuad, wanting to understand every detail.

“A friend who has maintained contact with us for many years, who travels easily among the commandos.”

“But won’t it be dangerous for Jamal to receive the message?”

“No,” said Rogers, smiling at all the questions that were tumbling out of the usually taciturn Fuad. “Jamal is an intelligence officer, and intelligence officers are supposed to collect information. That’s their job.”

“What if something goes wrong?”

“It won’t,” said Rogers. He put his two large hands on Fuad’s shoulders, as if to brace him for the task ahead.

“When you have delivered the message, return to Beirut,” said Rogers. “Here’s five hundred dollars for the trip.” He handed Fuad the money and walked him to the door. The Lebanese walked out into the chilly February morning. He walked deliberately, Rogers thought, with the confidence of a man who, with each step, feels that he is fulfilling his destiny.

Rogers tidied up the safehouse. He collected a few bits of paper that might identify the occupants of the apartment as Americans-a matchbook cover with advertising for a restaurant in New York, a well-thumbed copy of The International Herald-Tribune- and burned them in the kitchen sink. He checked his wallet to make sure it contained only documents that supported his Canadian identity.

At eleven-thirty, Rogers left the house. He walked slowly and deliberately, his head down, along Jaffa Street. The city seemed to have calmed down after the previous night’s gunplay, and some of the roadblocks had been removed.

As Rogers crossed a side street, two teen-aged Palestinians shouted at him. Rogers’s heart pounded like a hammer against an anvil. He shouted out in Arabic, “Death to the traitor King and all his family!” One of the boys roared back a similar epithet and they continued on their way.

At the edge of Nasser Square, the scene of the machine-gun exchange the previous night, Rogers saw a half-dozen small children creeping along the sides of the stone buildings that lined the street, darting out every few steps to retrieve small objects from the ground. They were scavengers, gathering spent cartridges from the previous night’s battle. The copper linings from the spent shells would bring a few piastres in the souk.

Just before noon, Rogers arrived at the entrance to Nasser Square. There was still a smell of powder in the air. The streets were nearly empty. At noon exactly, he emerged from Ameena Bint Wahab Street, walked halfway across Nasser Square, and sat on a stone bench. Directly across from him was a tin-roofed building that housed the Fatah military command.

He felt conspicuous and wished there were more people and noise around him. He saw a man walk out of a building and disappear down Khaled Ibn Walid Street; 100 yards away he saw another man, a blind vendor selling smuggled American cigarettes. At the edge of the square a woman with a shopping bag was sitting and resting. Every twenty seconds or so, a car or truck rumbled past.

Rogers looked toward one of the upper windows of the Fatah headquarters, fifty yards away. He thought he saw a figure, all in black, staring out the window. He stood and walked a few steps closer to the building. He counted slowly to ten, feeling his pulse beat against his closed eyelids. Then he turned and walked back the way he had come, across the square and into Ameena Bint Wahab Street. Had Jamal gotten the message?

Rogers walked very slowly. When he reached the shadow of a building, he stopped and turned around. There was nobody following him. He waited fifteen seconds in the shadows, then walked another half block. He was afraid to turn around. Afraid not of who would be there, but of who wouldn’t. He took a cigarette from his pocket and turned around to light it.

And there, ambling toward him, was a man in a black leather jacket.

Bingo! said Rogers under his breath.

Jamal approached Rogers and asked him if he had an American cigarette.

“Marlboro,” offered Rogers.

The Palestinian took the cigarette and lit it.

“What information do you have for me, friend?” said Jamal.

“Come back with me to a quieter place, where we can talk,” answered Rogers.

“No. Here.” He sounded like he meant it.

“Very well,” said Rogers. “The message I have for you is this: The King will rescind his decree about carrying weapons.”

“The King will back down?” asked Jamal dubiously.

“Yes,” said Rogers. “He will back down.”

Jamal looked at him suspiciously. He brushed a strand of hair out of his eyes.

“When?” demanded the Palestinian.

“I don’t know.”

“How do you know this information?” asked the Palestinian.

“Because I know it,” said Rogers. “I can’t say any more than that.”

The Palestinian took a long drag on his cigarette. If we stand here any longer, thought Rogers, we will become conspicuous.

“There are other important things I must discuss with you,” said Rogers.

“Not here,” said the Palestinian. “Not in Amman.”

“Where?”

“Somewhere else.”

“Where?” demanded Rogers.

“I will send you a message.”

“When?”

“When I return to Beirut.”

He took another cigarette and was gone.

Rogers, tired but elated, was back in Beirut that night.

Two days later, the king held a press conference and announced that he was “freezing” his order banning the fedayeen from carrying weapons in public. The confrontation had been the result of a “misunderstanding,” the Jordanian monarch explained. “Our power is their power and their power is our power,” he said of the fedayeen.

The king had capitulated.

A week after that, back in Beirut, Jamal sent word through Fuad that he would meet Rogers in early March in Kuwait.

Hoffman listened to Rogers tell the story of the encounter in Amman, and then asked him to repeat it.

“I have one question for you, hot dog,” said Hoffman, after he had heard the explanation for the second time. “How in the hell did you know that the King was going to back down? I didn’t see that in any of the cables.”

Rogers looked sheepish.

“To be honest, I didn’t know it. But it seemed like a safe bet.”

“You’re shitting me!” said Hoffman. “You mean you risked this operation on a hunch?”

“It was better than a hunch,” said Rogers. “It was a strong probability.”

Hoffman looked at his young case officer with a combination of puzzlement and new respect.

“You’re crazier than I thought,” said Hoffman. “In fact, you’re almost as crazy as I am.”

Rogers took it as a compliment.

“So Jamal thinks the CIA helped to pressure the King to stop the crackdown?” asked the station chief.

“Perhaps,” said Rogers with a trace of a smile. “But I doubt he’s that gullible.”

Hoffman called Rogers into his office several days later.

“Guess who’s packing his bags and leaving sunny Beirut?” said the station chief, his eyes twinkling.

Rogers shrugged his shoulders.

“A certain French diplomat.”

“Oh shit,” said Rogers.

“Hold on. It’s not what you’re thinking. The wife did it!”

“What?” said Rogers. “Why?”

“It seems,” said Hoffman, “that Madame Plateau got angry at her husband one day for being such an asshole and told him the whole story. How she was fucking her brains out with one of the Palestinian guerrillas and loving it, and what did he think of that? Apparently she didn’t tell him who, because the thugs from SDECE are making inquiries all over West Beirut trying to find out. The charge got so angry that he beat her up. They had to take her to the hospital. It’s the talk of Beirut.”

“What’s going to happen to them?” asked Rogers.

“The French Ambassador is mucho embarrassed. Frenchmen are supposed to screw other people’s wives, not vice versa. Anyway, it doesn’t look good for Mr. and Mrs. Froggie. They’re being recalled for extended consultations back home. Looks like bye-bye, Beirut.”

“And the photographs?” asked Rogers.

“I didn’t have the heart to give them to the Frenchman. The guy is miserable enough as it is. He didn’t need to see the smile on his wife’s face. Anyway, there wasn’t much we could have squeezed from him. Even if we had threatened to run the pictures in An Nahar.

“One more thing,” added Hoffman.

“When you see your Palestinian friend, tell him to keep his pecker in his pants for a while. People take sex seriously in this part of the world. Around here, if you touch the merchandise, you’ve got to buy it.”