Bloodmoney

29

Sophie Marx opened the door of the guesthouse onto the cloying heat of the afternoon. It was claustrophobic inside and she needed a walk. The stillness of midday had broken: The surface of the lake was thick now with bugs, and every few seconds there was a ripple as a fish broke the water in pursuit. A lakeside path had been carefully planted with a border of rosebushes in shades of red and pink and yellow; their petals were limp in the humid summer air. The grass was patchy, bleached by the light, more dirt than lawn.

Marx ambled along, lost in thought, until she heard a voice ahead call out sharply, “ Rukiye!” which means “stop” in Urdu. It was a Pakistani soldier brandishing his automatic weapon. Beyond him was a chain-link fence. She raised her hand apologetically and turned and headed back to the bungalow. So this was the limit of her freedom: fifty yards.

General Malik was waiting for her when she returned. He offered her a cup of hot tea that had been brewed by his orderly and sat her down on the couch, installing himself in a big easy chair next to it. The furniture was faded green velvet, topped by embroidered white doilies; like everything the Pakistani military touched, it conveyed a faint nostalgia for the bygone Raj. The general sipped his tea and ate one of the sweet biscuits that had been set out by his batman. The air conditioner chattered in the window.

“You shouldn’t go walking off on your own, madam. It isn’t safe for you.”

Marx didn’t answer. She was surely in jeopardy, but it wasn’t clear whether the general was her protector or her jailer. The Pakistani took another biscuit and sipped his tea. He seemed contented, which was not good. She spoke up.

“What are we going to do, General? I need to contact Mr. Hoffman soon. What am I going to tell him? We can’t do nothing.”

The general chuckled. He found her impatience amusing. He had resolved to help, but not quite yet.

“Do what? That is the question, you see. You Americans always want to do something. That is your nature. But the something that you do often makes things worse, whereas doing nothing would at least provide a neutral course of action. This is your problem, I think.”

“Maybe so, but I still have to do something. I’m in danger. You said so yourself. I need to take action, but I don’t know in which direction to go.”

“You really are quite brave, madam. I must say that. Cyril Hoffman chose a good emissary. And I want to be helpful, truly I do.”

The general reached into the pocket of his jacket and withdrew a piece of paper, edged with a red border.

“I have something more for you. Perhaps it will be useful.”

Marx took the paper from him. It had a classification marking at the top of the page and appeared to be an intelligence report in English. It began with a date, which was just over two months earlier. Below that there were two telephone numbers, identified as “Bhut 1” and “Bhut 2,” and the transcript of a brief conversation: BHUT 1: “Perihelion.” BHUT 2: “Aphelion.” BHUT 1: “Hello, there. This is your friend from the New World. I hope it is not too cold for you in Brussels.” BHUT 2: “Hello, back. It is the same here, always. It is Belgium.” BHUT 1: “I have new numbers. I am sending them to you at the same address as before.” BHUT 2: “You want all the transfers for these?” BHUT 1: “Yes.” BHUT 2: “It will take some time. There are new rules now. It is Europe: Privacy, privacy. I have to be careful.” BHUT 1: “How long?” BHUT 2: “A week. It has to be normal business. Is that too long?” BHUT 1: “No. That is soon enough. I want to have everything ready before we start.” BHUT 2: “Okay. I can do that.” BHUT 1: “Thanks, buddy. Perigee.” BHUT 2: “Apogee.”

Marx put down the paper and shrugged.

“Very interesting, no doubt. But what is it?”

“This is the transcript of a conversation we intercepted a couple of months ago.”

“Who are Bhut 1 and Bhut 2? The first man sounded like he must be an American, with the talk about the ‘New World’ and the ‘buddy’ stuff.”

“Very clever, that. It was meant to throw off anyone who was listening. But in fact, we believe that Mr. Bhut 1 is the gentleman I was describing before, ‘the professor.’ We have lost this link, I am afraid. He never used this cellular number again. But the person of immediate interest, for your purposes, is Bhut 2.”

“And who might Mr. Bhut 2 be? I take it from the transcript that he is in Brussels.”

“We believe that he is a Belgian national named Joseph Sabah. He is an employee of the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, also known as SWIFT, which you will recall plays a rather important part in the scheme of your adversaries. I suspect that he is what might be called the ‘inside man.’”

“Have you done anything with this intelligence, General Malik?”

“Not until now.”

She looked at the paper again, more intently now. She wanted to understand every word.

“Why did they talk about ‘perihelion’ and ‘aphelion’ at the beginning, and ‘perigee’ and ‘apogee’ at the end? Is that a code?”

“A recognition code, I would say. It’s science talk. My smart major tells me that these words are used by physics students studying celestial mechanics. The first pair of words refers to orbits around the sun, the second to orbits around the earth. Or perhaps it’s the other way around. They must have common academic interests, although we haven’t been able to find the link.”

“And what about your crypt ‘bhut.’ What does that mean?”

“Ah, madam, it means ‘ghost’ in Urdu. That is our problem. We are dealing with Ghost 1 and Ghost 2. But perhaps you will do better in finding them than we have.”

Marx studied the paper, as if she might read a deeper meaning between the lines. It was just a wisp of information, a few brief seconds of intercepted conversation, but it suggested the outlines of a meticulous structure of intelligence. How had such a powerful network been created out of such meager raw material?

“This man is very clever, this professor of yours, whoever he is. We’ve had thousands of people working for nearly ten years to develop money traces and link analysis, and your guy puts it together in his garage.”

“He is not ‘our guy,’ madam. You must put aside this CIA fantasy. It is a delusion.”

“Who is he? That’s what I’m asking. How can anybody be that smart?”

“Ah, now you are truly asking me a riddle. How high is the sky? How deep is the well? We cannot say.”

“But he must have learned all this from somewhere. People can’t do this sort of thing on their own. It’s not possible. They need help from an intelligence service.”

“I must protest. If the implication is that we taught him, you are wrong. Dead wrong, if you will forgive that phrase under the circumstances.”

“Then who taught him? Where did he learn how to use these techniques? These are things we thought only the CIA knew how to do.”

The general cocked his head sideways and gave her a look that was knowing, scolding, taunting.

“Well, then, madam, perhaps you have your answer. Perhaps this is the echo of the master’s voice.”

“Oh, don’t be silly,” she said. “Why are Pakistanis addicted to anti-American conspiracies?”

General Malik could only laugh. “Why indeed?” he said. “It must be part of our backwardness. Yes, I am sure of it.”

Marx looked at the intercept transcript one more time. “Do you have the coordinates of Ghost 2?” she asked.

“Of course.”

He reached into the jacket of his uniform once again and handed her another piece of paper. On it was written the name, phone number and address of Joseph Sabah in Brussels.

“Well, that at least gives me an itinerary. They say that Brussels is lovely this time of year.”

“Are you quite sure it’s wise for you to travel there? Perhaps Mr. Hoffman could send someone else.”

“Perhaps, but I’m greedy. I want all the fun for myself. Plus, I’m stubborn. And how dangerous can it be, really? Nothing ever happens in Brussels.”

“Do not joke, madam. They know that you are here. I told you that when we began talking. We monitored a circuit last night in which they discussed your arrival at the airport. They do not yet seem to know where you are staying, but they will. And if they have seen you come, they will see you go.”

“Not if you stop them, General. You can turn off their eyes and ears. You can distract them. The ISI owns Pakistan. That’s what everyone says.”

“I wish it were that simple. Truly I do. But it is not. To know what they are saying inside the tent, you must have someone of your own inside the tent. And we have done that, I am not embarrassed to say so. But that gets complicated, doesn’t it?”

“Playing both sides? Yes, it certainly does. Maybe you should stop.”

He smiled in that courtly way that said yes but meant no.

“I am playing your side, madam. I hope I have made that abundantly clear, to you and to Mr. Hoffman. I do not think it is wise for you to travel to Belgium. I think you should go home. But that is not my decision.”

“No, it’s not. No disagreement there.”

“To assist you, madam, and to demonstrate my good faith, I have one last gift. I obtained this from someone ‘inside the tent,’ as it were. I am sorry that I cannot give it to you, but I am prepared to let you take a look.”

General Malik shouted for his orderly, who was out back behind the kitchen. The young man appeared in an instant, thinking they might want some more tea, but the general ordered him to go get his briefcase from the car. He returned a moment later with the leather case. The general turned the dial of the combination lock and popped the top. He removed a sheaf of pages bound with a metal clasp and handed it to Marx.

“We obtained this from a confidential source. I cannot say more about the document, I am sorry. And I cannot let you keep it. You should start by looking at the heading.”

At the top of the first page were the words “ALPHABET CAPITAL,” and below that a subhead that read, “FBS Correspondent Accounts.” There were nearly a dozen pages, dense with listings.

Marx tried not to show any emotion as she turned the pages. Through its account at Federation des Banques Suisses, Alphabet Capital had done business with banks in London, Paris, Milan, Moscow, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Dubai, New York, Los Angeles and a dozen other money centers. At the top of the list was a Bank of America branch in Studio City, California. The four banks referenced in the file on the flash drive were all on the list.

“May I take notes?” asked Marx.

“No,” answered the general. “But my dear madam, the point is that there is no need for you to take notes. This information is available to you and your colleagues already. Unless I am mistaken, it is in fact your information.”

“How did you get this?”

“I cannot say. But I hope you can see now why I am advising you to be very careful. To some very dangerous people, you are an open book.”

General Malik sent her back to the Marriott in a different vehicle, a Mitsubishi van with civilian plates. She sat in the backseat with a scarf wrapped tight around her head. The general’s staff had found a flight leaving for Dubai just after midnight. He suggested that she take it and said it would be safer if one of his people made the reservation. She agreed.

The ISI chief sent a bodyguard with her, as well. He sat in the front seat next to the driver, cradling an automatic rifle across his lap. He didn’t speak as they drove north from Shakarparian Park; he studied the terrain ahead, his eyes moving back and forth with the constant, synchronous oscillation of a searchlight beam. Marx asked his name; he answered that he was called Sergeant Asif.

“I am at your service,” he said. Then he went back to scouting the road.

“Where are you from?” she asked.

“From Chitral, madam, in the north, where the snow leopards run.”

“Do you miss home?”

“Never,” he answered sternly.

Then he looked back toward her and softened.

“Always,” he said. “My wife is here with me, and a daughter. But my father and mother stay in the mountains.”

Lucky man, she thought. At least he has a home and people waiting for him.

When they arrived at the white concrete facade of the hotel, the bodyguard took charge.

“It is not safe for you,” he said. He told Marx to wait in the lobby while he went up and checked the room. When she protested, he said proudly that it was his duty. She gave him the key card and took a seat on a brocaded couch amid the marbled expanse of the lobby, while Sergeant Asif went upstairs.

The explosion rocked the hotel with the fury of an artillery round. The bomb sucked in the oxygen and blew it out with a fiery roar. The building rumbled, and then shuddered, and the chandeliers in the lobby swung sharply on their moorings, adding the sound of tinkling glass. The alarm immediately sounded, too, like an air raid, and the sprinklers spurted jets of water onto the floor, and frightened hotel guests tried to run or hide. Marx moved toward the elevator, but a security guard stopped her and took her to a shelter in the hotel basement. She tried to call Cyril Hoffman, but she couldn’t get any phone reception in the concrete bunker.

When they let Marx go upstairs, the medics were still working on the torn and bloodied form of the bodyguard. The bomb had blown out the windows of the room, and burst the plumbing so that the floor was awash in water. There was blood on the walls. The rooms on either side were barely touched. It had been a professional job-an attempt to kill one person only.

Sergeant Asif’s mouth was still moving. They were taking him out on a stretcher now. The blanket covering him was already soaked with blood. There was an empty space under the blanket where one of his arms had been. The rescue workers tried to push Marx away so they could roll the gurney down the hall.

“I’m going with him to the hospital,” she shouted. “This man was my bodyguard. They were trying to kill me. He was protecting me.”

The Red Crescent attendants had no idea what the American woman was talking about, but she was so emphatic that they let her come along. Down in the lobby, a television crew from Dawn TV had already arrived. They photographed the American woman, now in a blood-streaked scarf, hunched over the body.

When the Red Crescent ambulance arrived at the naval hospital on Lalak Jan Road, a gaggle of television cameras was waiting. They all filmed the American woman escorting the body and later talking to the victim’s wife, who had rushed to the hospital from her home in I-9, near the railway station.

Sergeant Asif died of blood loss an hour after he arrived at the hospital. A detail of ISI officers, who had found Marx in the family waiting lounge with Sergeant Asif’s wife, now pulled her away and escorted her out the back door.

Among the millions of Pakistanis who watched the television images that evening was a research professor at the National University of Science and Technology. He didn’t pay much attention to the newscast at first. The reporters were describing it as one more terrorist attack in Pakistan’s long war, and speculating that it must be anti-American because it had taken place at the Marriott Hotel.

The professor suddenly took notice when the cameras showed the American woman who had accompanied the victim. His contacts had described the CIA operative who had arrived at the airport the day before. He knew that the target had survived the bombing at the Marriott. What surprised him was that she had accompanied the Pakistani sergeant to the hospital, and tried to comfort his widow.

The professor was confused. That image did not fit within his template of vengeance. He tried to put out of his mind the television picture of the American woman embracing the Pakistani widow as if she were her sister, but the image persisted.

Marx reached Cyril Hoffman two hours after the bombing, after the ISI had finally pried her away from the hospital.

“Somebody tried to kill me,” she said. But Hoffman already knew that. He’d received a call from General Malik thirty minutes before.

“No more heroics,” Hoffman said. “We are getting you out of there now, before you go out in a box.”

Hoffman had already discussed with the Pakistani general the procedures by which Marx would leave the country. An ISI convoy would take her to the military side of Islamabad Airport, where she would be held in a secure VIP area. Then she would be driven in an armored car to the Emirates plane as it was about to leave.

“Won’t that blow my cover?” she asked.

“I hate to break this to you, Sophie, but there’s nothing left of it.”

“I got what I came after,” she said. “That’s something, anyway.”

“What’s the short version?” asked Hoffman.

“We’re screwed. I’ll send you the details by cable. Have you told my boss?”

“Yes. I thought I really must. He was not pleased. He had some rather sharp words for me about your unauthorized trip. I believe the word ‘betrayal’ was used.”

All the anger that Marx had been feeling toward Gertz suddenly broke the surface. She looked around. Nobody seemed to be listening, but it didn’t matter.

“Oh, yeah? Well, fuck him. Tell him I said so.”

Hoffman laughed, a high-pitched chortle. “Now, now. Chin up, my dear. Get on that plane and don’t talk to strangers. Watch a nice in-flight movie, why don’t you. Have a beverage. And for heaven’s sake, be careful.”

She composed her message for Hoffman while she waited at Islamabad Airport to board the flight. She sent it in her funny name, to his, as an encrypted email: To: Marcus Crabtree From: Doris Finn Here’s the bad news: 1. The Hit Parade’s network is compromised by Hostile Network (HN) that has used the public name Ikwan Al-Tawhid but is guided by a computer expert identified as “the professor.” 2. The Hit Parade’s financial transfers are being monitored by HN, in part by tracing SWIFT and IBAN account numbers. HN has a source at SWIFT HQ facilitating this analysis of financial flows. 3. The Hit Parade’s credit-card and travel records have been accessed by HN, using data-mining and probably also human sources, identity unknown. 4. The Hit Parade’s use of Alphabet Capital as a financial hub to coordinate money flows has been discovered by HN, probably prior to kidnapping of Howard Egan. 5. Identity of alleged HN agent in the SWIFT network: JOSEPH SABAH, Belgian national; residence Avenue George Bergmann 127, Watermael District, Brussels; cellular telephone 32-400-555-268. 6. Request operational support when I arrive in Brussels. Recommend we take immediate action ref: item 5. Here’s the good news: 1. There isn’t any. Finn

Marx did one more thing, once she was in her seat on the plane. She called Thomas Perkins in London. He didn’t pick up the first time. Rather than leave a message, she called twice more. The third time he answered.

“It’s me,” she said.

“Where are you?”

“I can’t say. But I’m coming home. It got a bit nasty out here.”

“That doesn’t sound good. Can I come get you? Send the G5 or something?”

“No. I’m fine. I called to warn you about something. Alphabet is in trouble. You need to send your employees home for a few days. It’s not safe. I can’t explain now.”

“It’s a little late for that, sweetheart. The trouble has already arrived.”

She froze. In her mind for an instant was the image of the trading floor in Mayfair, ravaged by the shrapnel of a suicide bomb.

“What do you mean? Tell me nothing terrible has happened.”

“Pretty goddamn terrible, as far as I’m concerned. We had a visit from the Serious Fraud Office this morning. They cordoned off the place: files, computers, the whole lot. We had to shut down trading. I sent the employees home, told them not to come in tomorrow.”

“Good,” she said.

“No. It’s a disaster. And I don’t understand why it’s happening. Is this what you were talking about? Is this the work of your friends?”

They were closing the door of the plane. The flight attendant was telling her, in the usual insistent way, to turn off her cell phone.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Just go home, and stay home.”

“What’s happening?”

“I don’t know,” she repeated.

The flight attendant had called the purser, who was wagging his finger at Marx. She said goodbye as the plane rolled back from the gate.