Carrie's run

CHAPTER 36

Central District, Beirut, Lebanon

Flying over the peaks of Mount Lebanon, approaching Beirut, the city spread out below her all the way to the Mediterranean, a distant blue in the afternoon sun. She hadn’t intended to come to Beirut. In fact, she’d been specifically ordered by Perry Dreyer and Saul to get her “ass back to Langley ASAP.”

She had gone back to the U.S. Refugee Aid Service, the CIA cover office at the Convention Center, escorted by Master Sergeant Travis, who made sure she was safe every step of the way, insisting on going with her right up to the door of the office before saying good-bye.

“Please thank Crimson for me. I’m sorry I had to leave. He saved my life today. Twice,” she told him.

“I’ll tell him. You did good today, ma’am.”

“Not really. I’m lousy at taking orders. And I was scared to death,” she said.

“So?” He shrugged and, giving her a little wave, left.

She went inside the CIA offices and called Saul via JWICS-based Skype with the code word “Home Run,” indicating Abu Ubaida was dead, no matter that it was four in the morning in McLean.

“You’re positive he’s dead? No question?” he said, and despite the excitement, yawned.

“One hundred percent,” she said. “It’s him. It’s over,” she said, suddenly sleepy herself. She hadn’t slept all last night and it was starting to hit her. Also, the adrenaline that was part of the battle was seeping away and she felt spacey. She needed her pills.

“Unbelievable. Truly, Carrie. That’s really something. How do you feel?”

“I don’t know. Numb. I haven’t slept. Maybe I’ll feel it tomorrow.”

“Of course. What about al-Waliki and Benson?” he asked.

“Why? Did Benson give the director an earful?” She tensed, imagining Benson demanding her head on a silver platter.

“Matter of fact, he was saying nice things about you. Says you acted appropriately, probably saved their lives. In fact, it made him feel part of the battle. He can’t wait to tell his war stories in the Oval Office. Actually had someone take a photo of him with the combat fatigues and the M4 you gave him.”

“No shit?” she murmured.

“We understand Secretary Bryce is fine. She’s supposed to meet with Benson and al-Waliki later today. They were setting the agenda when you broke up their meeting,” Saul said.

“Yeah. After her plane landed, they kept her in a secure bunker in Camp Victory while they made sure all was quiet in al-Amiriyah.”

“Listen, Carrie. David wants to debrief you himself. So do I. We need you back in Langley ASAP.”

A pang went through her. Was this like before with Fielding? An excuse to put her back in Intelligence Analysis?

“I haven’t done anything wrong, have I?” she asked.

“On the contrary, both Dreyer and David are writing letters of commendation for your 201 file. Congratulations. Hurry back, there’s lots to talk about-and we do need a full debrief,” he said.

“Saul, there are still loose ends. Beirut for one. Abu Nazir’s still out there, possibly in Haditha. And there’s something else. Something Abu Ubaida said when he was interrogating Romeo-sorry, Walid Karim, that I can’t get out of my head.”

“Be back in my office tomorrow. We’ll go over it all then. And, Carrie. .”

“Yes?”

“Helluva job. Really. I can’t wait to talk to you in person. There’s a lot to go over, even though Perry says he needs you there,” he said. A warmth shot through her like tequila. Saul was happy with her. She could lap up his praise like a junkie forever.

She’d booked her flight back to Washington, but on a sudden impulse, while waiting in Amman for her connecting flight to JFK and from there to Dulles, she’d changed her ticket and flown to Beirut.

Now, flying over Beirut, she could pick out the landmarks. The Marina Tower, the Habtoor, the Phoenicia Hotel, the Crowne Plaza. It’s funny, she thought. Everything that had happened had all started here with the aborted meet with Nightingale in Ashrafieh. It was like a single run, a kind of marathon that just hadn’t stopped. In a way, coming back to Beirut was like coming full circle, because this was where it began for her. Not just that night in Ashrafieh, but when she had gone back to Princeton after her first bipolar breakdown, the one that nearly ended her college career and anything resembling a future life.

Two things had saved her life, she thought. Clozapine and Beirut. The two were connected.

Summer. Her junior year at Princeton. She had gone back to class and spent all her time studying. She no longer ran, was off the track team. No more five A.M. runs. Her boyfriend, John, was also history. She was on lithium and sometimes Prozac as well. They kept adjusting her doses. But she hated it. She felt, she told her sister, Maggie, as if the lithium took away twenty IQ points.

Everything was harder. And it felt, she told the doctor at McCosh, the student health center, like she was seeing everything through a thick glass. As if she couldn’t touch it. Nothing seemed real anymore. Also, she had periods where she was excessively thirsty or she’d lose her appetite completely. She’d go two, three, four days at a time not eating, doing nothing but drinking water. She hardly ever thought about sex anymore. All she did was go from class to class, back to the dorm, thinking, I can’t do this. I can’t live like this.

What saved her was when one of her professors mentioned a summer program for Near East Studies students: the Overseas Political Studies Program at the American University of Beirut. At first her father wasn’t going to pay for it, even after she told him she needed it for her senior thesis.

“What happens if you have a breakdown there?” he asked.

“What happens if I have a breakdown here? Who’s going to help me? You, Dad?” Not saying, Remember Thanksgiving? because they both knew what she was talking about and that what had happened with him might happen with her too. What she didn’t tell him or anyone was that she was barely hanging on, that she wasn’t far off from suicide. Not far at all.

“I need this,” she told him. And when even that didn’t work, she added, “You drove Mom away. You want to drive me away too, Dad?” Until he finally agreed to pay for it.

And then, coming into Beirut, surrounded by this amazing city and ancient ruins, meeting students from all over the Middle East, walking on Rue Bliss with the other kids, eating shawarma and manaeesh, clubbing on Rue Monot, and when she was almost out of lithium, she made the great discovery. She went to an Arab doctor in Zarif, a small, clever-looking man who looked at her when she told him about the way lithium made her feel and said, “What about clozapine?”

Just being able to tell someone, finally, how it felt. And it worked. She was almost like the old Carrie, before the breakdown. When she went back to see him as a follow-up and to get a prescription refill, he was leaving on vacation. She asked, “What if I can’t get a prescription from another doctor?” and he told her, “This is the Levant, mademoiselle. For money, you can get anything.”

That summer in Beirut, where the pieces all came together for her. The ancient Roman ruins and Islamic mosaic art and listening to jazz late at night and the musicality and poetry of everyday Arabic, the Corniche and the beach clubs, the scent of fresh-baked sfouf and baklava, the call of the muezzins from the mosques, the clubs and the hot Arab boys who looked at her like they could eat her for breakfast, and she knew that whatever happened in her life, the Middle East would be part of it.

Now, descending to Beirut-Rafic Hariri airport, she wondered if the pieces would come together for her again in Beirut. This never-ending run she had been on since the night of the aborted RDV with Nightingale in Ashrafieh. Because she didn’t believe that asshole Fielding had killed himself. And if he hadn’t, it meant someone had killed him. Someone still out there. And that like her, an operation was still running.

She took a taxi from the airport. Riding in traffic on El Assad Road past the golf course, the driver, a Christian, telling her about the preparations for Easter in town and how his wife’s mother made the best maamoul-little Easter cakes made with walnuts and dates and topped with icing, that time of year-in the city. She had him drop her off near the clock tower in Nejmeh Square and walked the few blocks to the CIA’s cover office, where she was to meet with Ray Saunders, the new Beirut station chief.

Walking past the crowded outdoor tables of the street café under the old arched portico, she couldn’t help remembering the last time she’d been here, to see Davis Fielding, who’d basically told her that her career was over. It seemed a lifetime ago.

She went inside and up the stairs, pressed the doorbell, said who she was into the intercom and was buzzed in. A young American man in a plaid shirt had her wait in a small reception area till Saunders came out and greeted her. Saunders was a tall, thin, intense-looking man in his forties with long sideburns that gave him a vaguely Eastern European look.

“I’ve heard a lot about you,” he said, leading her to Fielding’s old office overlooking Rue Maarad. “Frankly, I was surprised to get your call. So was Saul.”

“Is he pissed I didn’t come straight back to Langley?” she asked.

“He said he couldn’t stop you from coming here if he tried,” he said, and gestured for her to sit down. “By the way, congrats. I heard about Abu Ubaida. Nice work.”

“I don’t know what to say. My being here might be a wild goose chase.”

“When I told him, Saul said you had a bug up your ass about Davis Fielding’s death. Is that what this is about?”

“You know it is,” she said. “Doesn’t it concern you? If Fielding didn’t commit suicide, then whatever reason or operation was the cause is still running. For all you know, you could be a target.”

“I’m curious. From what I heard, you and Fielding weren’t exactly a love match. Why are you so concerned about his death?” he asked, studying her with frank interest.

“Look, Fielding was a dick and no loss to anyone. He was going back to face the career equivalent of a firing squad at Langley and I’ll bet you’re scrambling right now to clean up his mess and figure out how badly Beirut Station’s been compromised.”

“Sounds like a pretty good reason to commit suicide to me,” Saunders said quietly.

“Yeah, but you’re not Davis. He wasn’t principled enough for that. Someone killed him-and I have to believe it has something to do with the actress, Rana Saadi, and Nightingale. That was my op and that means there is a loose end.”

He studied her, not saying anything. From outside, a car horn honked, starting a chorus of honking from other cars. The Beirut cinq á sept traffic, she thought mechanically.

“That’s what I think too. We found something, but I’ve been working with a handicap,” he said.

“What?”

“I didn’t know him. You did.” He motioned to her to move her chair around to his side of the desk.

“What did you find?” she asked.

“This,” he said, indicating his computer screen. It was a hidden-camera video of this very office. Carrie automatically looked up at the joint where the wall met the ceiling where the camera had to be located, but it was too small and well hidden in the molding. The screen showed Davis Fielding sitting at his desk, his back to the camera. Suddenly, he was on the floor, a Glock pistol in his limp hand, a pool of blood spilling from his head.

“There’s a three-minute-forty-seven-second gap,” Saunders said. “The dead man didn’t do it.”

“Can you freeze it?” Carrie asked.

“Why? Do you see something?”

She peered intently at the image of Fielding lying on the floor.

“There’s something wrong. I can’t put my finger on it, but as Saul would say, something’s definitely not kosher.”

“It’s not the angle he’s lying at. We had a forensics expert calculate that the body would fall in that position.”

“Is that all you’ve got?” she asked.

He shook his head. “We’ve got gaps in security cameras in the reception room, the staircase, the front and back entrances to the building. Longer, but all for the same period and on the same night Fielding was killed. Somebody didn’t want us to see him.”

“How do you know it’s a him?”

“Because he missed one,” Saunders said, switching the view on the screen. It showed a view from a roof security camera looking down at Rue Maarad beyond the overhang of the portico. “The roof camera’s digital recording disc was on a separate circuit. Watch. We’ve been able to extrapolate from the time gap. This is about forty seconds after the gap ended.”

On the screen, a man in a coverall appeared out from under the portico, crossing the street and walking away toward Nejmeh Square. She could only see his back.

“Not much to go on. Assuming that’s our killer,” she said.

“We found something else. This is from four days earlier, after one A.M.”

Another video, same view, appeared on the screen. A man in a similar coverall was caught walking toward the building briefly before he disappeared under the portico. To Carrie’s eye, it looked like there was a company patch or logo on the front.

“Go back. What’s that coverall say?”

Saunders rewound and froze the image, which, given the darkness and distance, was too fuzzy to get a clear glimpse of either the man’s face or the company name.

“Can’t you digitally enhance the image?”

“We did,” he said, opening another window and zeroing in on the patch. Although still indistinct, the patch read “Sadeco Conciergerie” in French and Arabic.

“Looks like a janitorial service. I’m sure you checked the company,” she said.

“Of course. It’s our janitorial service all right, but he’s not our regular janitor and according to Sadeco, no such person has ever worked there. We black-bagged their offices one night. Went through all their personnel files. They were telling the truth. Whoever he was, he wasn’t one of theirs.”

“What do your assets tell you?”

“Nothing. Not a damned thing.”

“And the Lebanese ISF? Or the police?”

“As soon as they realized who we were, they backed off and referred us to the Interior Minister, who happens to be from Hezbollah. We’re dead in the water. Do you have any ideas?”

“Give me prints of the two images: the one of Fielding and the mystery janitor. Oh, and a head shot of Fielding, something easily identifiable.”

“What are you thinking?”

“If this guy in the picture, whoever the hell he is, has got something to do with Rana or Hezbollah or Abu Nazir, I’ll find him,” she said, getting up, passing him her cell phone so he could add his cell number as a contact.

That night, having a margarita at the bar in the Phoenicia Hotel, Carrie took out the print of Fielding’s body and tried to spot what was wrong with it. The image had been shot from above, from the hidden ceiling camera, and behind. A body and a gun. What was wrong with the image? For one thing, it wasn’t the way she was used to looking at Davis. How was she used to looking at him? She reoriented the image in her mind as it would be if she were facing him. And then she saw it.

Idiot, she told herself. It was plain as the nose on your face. How was it that no one had caught it before? Of course, she told herself. After Fielding, they’d had to clean house at Beirut Station. No one who really knew Fielding had seen this image. She took her cell phone out of her handbag and called Saunders.

“Snapdragon,” he answered. His code name.

“Outlaw,” she said, still using the name because of Crimson. “Fielding was left-handed,” she said, and hung up.

He would see it the instant he went back and looked at Fielding’s body with the pistol in his right hand, she thought. Proof positive, if they needed any more, that Fielding had been murdered. But by whom-and why?

The answer, she hoped, was walking right toward her. Marielle Hilal, still redheaded, still pretty in tight Escada jeans and a low-cut top, with enough male eyes on her to give any girl’s ego an elevator ride to the penthouse suite.

“What are you drinking?” Carrie asked.

“Whatever you are,” Marielle said, sitting down at her table.

A waiter came over.

“Two Patrón margaritas,” Carrie told him, and motioned Marielle closer. “The man you knew as Mohammed Siddiqi is dead. Thought you ought to know.”

“I heard Rana was killed too,” Marielle whispered back.

Carrie nodded. “Also a Syrian named Taha al-Douni, who was running both Rana and Dima. Did you ever meet him?”

“No, alhamdulillah”-thank God-Marielle said, checking her lipstick and the room to see if anyone was watching them in her compact makeup mirror. As she started to put the mirror back in her purse, Carrie slipped the photograph of the unknown janitor into Marielle’s purse as well. “Is anyone still after me?”

“I’m not sure. I need you to do something for me,” Carrie said.

“Why should I? I’m already taking a chance meeting you,” Marielle said, looking around nervously. There were at least half a dozen men checking them out. No way to know if it was normal male interest or something else, Carrie thought. Except for one. Ray Saunders, putting away his cell phone and nursing a Scotch at the bar.

“Because I’m trying to help you. And because, well. .” She didn’t finish the sentence, a reminder that she knew where Marielle lived.

“I don’t like this,” Marielle said. “First Dima, then Rana. Their boyfriends. Who’s next? Me?”

“Take a vacation till things blow over. Someplace nice. Someplace safe. Where would you like to go?”

Marielle raised her eyebrows cynically. “I’ve had men try to buy me. This is the first time by a woman.”

Carrie put her hand on Marielle’s arm. “Listen, if I can solve this, you’ll be safe. In the meantime, what’s wrong with getting away? Where would you go?” she asked.

“Paris,” Marielle said. “I’ve always wanted to go.”

“I’ll give you five thousand dollars American,” Carrie said. Money she’d gotten from Saunders for this meet. “You can be sipping wine on the Champs-Élysées tomorrow.”

“Just like that? Five thousand American? You must like me better than I thought.”

“Too many have died over this,” she said, a pang going through her at the thought of Dempsey. “I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

“Makes two of us. So that’s it? We’re done?” Marielle said, reaching for her purse.

“There is one thing.”

“Now it comes. Do you know, habibi, I almost believed you. Almost,” she said, wrinkling her nose as if something smelled bad.

“I just need one thing. But it has to be the truth.”

“And the five thousand American?”

“Put your hand under the table.”

Carrie reached into her handbag under the level of the table, took out the wad of hundred-dollar bills and passed it to the other woman.

“I need to count it,” Marielle said. Carrie nodded. Marielle added, “How will you know if I’m lying?”

“Because I’ll know,” Carrie said, and leaned closer. “Go into the ladies’ room; make sure no one sees you. Count the money, then take a good look at the photograph I put in your purse. I need you to confirm for me who that man is.”

“What makes you think I know this man?”

“Because you do,” Carrie said with a lot more conviction than she felt. She didn’t have much time in Beirut, and Marielle was the best shot she had. All or nothing, she thought, taking a deep breath. All or nothing.

“I just tell you and then I leave? That’s it?” Marielle asked.

“And bon voyage.” Carrie nodded.

Marielle got up and said something to the waiter, who pointed the way to the salle des dames. Carrie sat there at the edge of her chair, thinking that this was such a long shot. But if she was right, Marielle had to know the unknown janitor.

That night, after the shootout at the Hippodrome and after she and Fielding and Saul had had it out at the safe house, when Fielding had gone back to his Rue Maarad office, he’d had his Beretta with him. Say what you would about Davis Fielding-and God knew she could say plenty-he knew his basic tradecraft. Under ordinary circumstances, he never would have let a stranger into the Rue Maarad office at night.

But that night, with everything that was going on and with him under suspicion from Langley, sitting there on edge, waiting for Saul and the ax to drop, never in a million years would he have let someone in unless he knew them very well, much less let them get the drop on him and kill him with his own gun. Which meant Davis not only knew his killer, he knew him well. And if he knew him, then Rana knew him-and that meant it was possible, even likely, that Dima and Marielle did too.

If not-and with the Beirut police out of it-they truly were at a dead end, she thought, gulping down the rest of her drink. Where the hell was Marielle? What was taking her so long? How long did it take to look at a photograph? She wouldn’t try to make a run for it, would she? No, she knew Carrie knew where she lived in Bourj Hammoud with her aunt or whomever the older woman was. Saunders, glancing over, caught her eye. She tried to look more confident than she felt. All or nothing. All at once, she breathed a sigh of relief when Marielle came walking back to the table.

She knows, Carrie thought excitedly. From her eyes, she could tell Marielle had recognized the unknown janitor in the photograph.

“It’s very strange,” Marielle said, handing her the photo and sitting back down. “Why is he dressed that way? Like a bawaab?” The Arabic word for “janitor.”

“Who is he?” Carrie asked, holding her breath. Come on, she thought. Come on.

“It’s Bilal. Bilal Mohamad. I’m surprised you didn’t know,” she said, looking curiously at Carrie.

“Why should I?”

“Everyone knows Bilal,” she said, tweaking her nose with her fingers in a sign for cocaine. “He’s a pédé. A friend of Rana’s. Also her American papa gâteau certainly knew him. Dima too. You’re not just testing me? You really don’t know him?”

Carrie’s mind was bouncing all over the place like a pinball. She had a name. Bilal Mohamad. A gay man who knew Rana-and according to Marielle, he also knew Rana’s American sugar daddy, her papa gâteau, Davis Fielding. It struck her like a bolt of lightning. Suddenly everything made sense.

What was it Rana had said about her sexual relationship with Davis when she’d interrogated her after Baalbek? “At first we did, but now I’m mostly just for show.” It had puzzled her at the time, but now it fit perfectly. Was this what Davis Fielding had been hiding? That he was gay? But why hide? Who gave a shit? Why would he need a beautiful mistress like Rana as a cover so people would think he wasn’t gay? And what about this Bilal Mohamad? Why did he kill him? Was Bilal Davis’s lover? Because if he was, it would explain why Davis had let him into the office that night.

Davis knew he was leaving Beirut. Probably forever. That was the other dangling thread that had been nagging at her, threatening her theory about the murder. How was it that the very night he faced ruin and the end of his career, his last night in Beirut, was the night that coincidentally someone just happened to drop by to murder him? Before Saul, who was on his way, showed up? Coincidences like that don’t happen. Not in real life, they don’t.

So Bilal hadn’t just shown up. Davis had called him. Probably told him it was urgent, that he was leaving. If they were lovers, Davis had wanted to say good-bye.

Bilal must have dropped what he was doing and hurried right over. It would have been his last chance to silence Fielding before he spilled everything to the Company, before he, Bilal, was in the CIA’s crosshairs. Nothing coincidental about it. She needed to get Ray Saunders and Saul to check Fielding’s landline and cell phone records.

The pieces finally fit. Once they started digging, she was confident they would find Bilal connected to both Nightingale and Abu Nazir.

“I’ve been away. What’s he do, this Bilal Mohamad?” she asked.

“This and that.” Marielle shrugged. “It’s Beirut,” she said, making a sign for someone sticking cocaine up their nose.

“Where can I find him?”

“Where do you think? Most nights, Wolf,” Marielle said. Of course, Carrie thought. A gay bar. “So I should just leave?”

“The sooner the better. Take a few weeks. Enjoy Paris,” Carrie said, getting up to leave. “Everyone does.”