The Traitor

CHAPTER TWELVE

After the murder of Anwar Sadat, the Egyptians rounded up Islamic fundamentalists in massive dragnets. They interrogated and tortured everyone who looked interesting. Everyone who had anything to do with the assassination plot was shot, as were hundreds of zealots who appeared pleased that Sadat was dead. Yet the authorities knew that there was a real, if somewhat hazy, limit on how many zealots they could execute and not trigger a revolution, so they locked up everyone they didn’t want to waste a bullet on.

Western observers of the Egyptian crisis watched with bated breath. The overthrow of the shah in Iran and the militancy of the Iranian clerics seemed somehow a part of the religious fervor sweeping the Islamic world, a brittle world atop a fossilized religion, one devoid of political freedom and chock-full of the desperately poor, a world threatened by encroaching Western civilization, with its prosperity, democratic values and freedom.

“The last iteration of bomb-throwing anarchists caused World War I,” Henri Rodet’s boss remarked. “This crop looks like they will be tossing them for the next half century. We need some agents inside the Islamic movement. Your job is to get us some.”

Rodet couldn’t believe his ears. “Recruit suicidal religious fanatics to spy on their friends? That would be the same as betraying God. No jihadist would take a chance on forfeiting his place in paradise by selling out his fellow holy warriors.”

“I know it won’t be easy,” the boss acknowledged. “Getting good intelligence never is. Nevertheless, I want you to try. Get us some agents inside the movement. Jihadists they might be, but saints they aren’t.

Rodet had spent two years in the French intelligence agency, and this assignment would undoubtedly be his last. There was no way under the sun that he could penetrate a cell of religious fanatics. It was a ridiculous assignment. Impossible. The boss didn’t like him, he decided, and had picked this method of destroying his career. He would be back on the streets of Paris within weeks looking for a job.

Unless he had help. Someone who spoke Arabic like a native, who knew the people and the religion and the fanatic scene — in other words, a real Arab — could indeed recruit traitors. The boss was right: These people were just people. Regardless of their religious proclivities, they wanted money and sex and power like every other human on the planet. Some of them — well, a few, at least — could be bought or bribed or blackmailed. The real problem was finding those susceptible people.

He thought about writing to Abu Qasim, who was in his final year at the Sorbonne, taking a degree in philosophy, and explaining the problem to him. Qasim believed in civilization, and these people didn’t. Still, his religion and ethnicity would allow him access to places and people that a European could not hope to match.

Rodet thought it over for a couple of days and decided to write. Qasim could always say no. He made that clear in the letter. “The job is identifying people inside the movement that we can target for recruitment. It’s a job that needs doing.”

A week later he got back a message, “Let’s talk.”

Rodet explained the situation to his boss, who was skeptical. Even so, he allowed Rodet to return to Paris. Rodet went by plane.

Even then Paris had a large population of Muslims, so he and Qasim had to be careful. He picked Qasim up one evening and they went for a ride.

They drove out of Paris and headed for a country inn that Rodet knew. At the bar three workingmen from the neighborhood drank calvados. The floor was uneven, the furniture old and scarred and the room chilly. Fresh from the heat and stench of Cairo, Rodet found it very pleasant. He and Qasim sat at a table in the corner.

Finally he asked the question. “Would you help us recruit some agents inside the Islamic movement?”

“Someone inside who will feed you intelligence?”

“Yes.”

“It could be done,” Qasim said simply. “But not if they know who is receiving the information. These people are committed to the depths of their souls, earning eternal life in paradise by fighting God’s battles. They may be a lot of things, but they aren’t hypocrites.”

“How can we keep our identities a secret from them?”

“The agent will have to become part of their world. He will have to be in a cell, or perhaps a financier or an armorer. Only if he is a trusted part of the conspiracy will he be told things. He will be given pieces of the puzzle. That’s about all one could hope for.”

Qasim was right, of course.

“Our agent will have to actually help them,” Rodet mused aloud.

“Indeed. He must become an actual part of the terror network and help them in a visible, material way. He must earn their trust every day. And if an operation is betrayed, he must remain above suspicion. It must be delicately handled.”

Rodet laughed. “I thought you were studying philosophy?”

“I have been. And I have been reading history. This war between civilization and religious zealots has been going on for nine or ten centuries, at least. Heretics, torture, witches, people burned at the stake, God’s kingdom on earth in the care of dedicated holy men… When holy men rule based on religious scripture, one gets hell on earth, not heaven.”

“There’s not a lot of flexibility in the ‘Thou shalts’ and the ‘Thou shalt nots,’” Rodet agreed.

“The holy men are fighting for the right to rule Islamic society,” Abu Qasim said. “History teaches that holy men always lose in the end. Even if they win the battles, they always lose their wars. It would be better for everyone if they lose this one quickly.”

The inn served wine from barrels. Qasim savored a glass with Rodet.

“You need a man,” Qasim said, “who knows these people and isn’t afraid of them. Surrounded by fanatics who are absolutely convinced of the correctness of their cause, he must be even more so, believe in himself beyond any shadow of a doubt, believe in what he knows to be right with a faith that will withstand all adversity. And he must be willing to drive the knife in to the hilt.”

“You are describing a superman, an idealist made of something other than flesh and blood,” Rodet objected. “Jesus and Mohammed, perhaps. People like that do not exist in the real world.”

“Oh, but they do,” Qasim said lightly, and helped himself to more wine. “The world is full of them, which is, perhaps, part of the problem. The men who murdered Sadat were such men. A dozen popes, Henry VIII, Cardinal Richelieu, Robespierre, Marat, Napoleon, Lenin, Dzerzhinsky, Stalin, Hitler, Churchill, de Gaulle… the list goes on and on.”

The proprietor brought their meals, but Rodet had no appetite. He stirred his food around with his fork and listened to Qasim talk.

“You need a man who can live by his wits, a man who is willing to play the game unto the last drop of blood. He must know the language, the religion and the culture. Any mistake will be fatal.”

Finally his younger friend got around to it. “I am that man.”

Rodet and Qasim finished their meal. Over the dirty dishes they discussed what the agent might expect to learn and methods of communication.

“If the agent plays it straight within his network, does his job and maintains his cover, he will do fine,” Rodet said, “unless they discover how he sends or receives his mail. That will always be a risk.”

“The biggest risk will be here in Paris,” Qasim mused. “Everyone who knows about the agent in place is a potential danger. Everyone who knows of the mail system is a danger.”

“In a perfect world only one man would know,” Rodet remarked, “and that one man would be the handler.”

“Then there is the problem of what use to make of the intelligence. Every terrorist arrested, every cell destroyed, every assassination plot thwarted will point, in some small way, back at the agent. He knew. Other people, too, but he knew. Eventually the noose will tighten.”

“We must always appear to have another source.”

“That will only work for so long. These people are paranoid. They don’t need proof, just a suspicion. Sooner or later they’ll get one, and from that moment on, the agent is a doomed man.”

“This game will be brief,” Rodet admitted. “Still, the intelligence could be valuable.”

The workmen at the bar had long gone and they were nursing snifters of cognac when Rodet asked Abu Qasim, “Why do you want to do this?”

“I learned one thing at the Sorbonne,” Qasim said, weighing his words. “Civilization is worth fighting for.”

“That’s not an explanation.”

“Maybe I don’t have one.”

Henri Rodet thought about that for a while. The truth was that he didn’t give a damn why Qasim was willing to risk his life. Qasim was a friend — well, more like a younger brother, really — and he didn’t want him hurt.

“All right,” he said after a while. “All right! We’ll give it a try. But only if you promise to cut and run if they began closing in, or when you’ve had enough.”

“I am not a martyr,” Abu Qasim shot back. “Dead men win no battles.”

That conversation occurred twenty-five years ago, and still Henri Rodet could remember every word as if it had happened yesterday evening. He was thinking about Qasim, about the life he must lead, when the telephone rang. The receptionist told him the man’s name. His banker.

“I have your balance, Monsieur Rodet.” He gave him the number. It sounded within a thousand or so euros of the sum Rodet estimated should be there. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”

“No, thank you,’ Rodet said. He murmured a pleasantry and said good-bye.

The watchers in the Fiat followed me when I left the American embassy late that afternoon. I walked, so they put one man on the sidewalk behind me, and the others — there were at least two more in the car — drove back and forth on cross streets or sat behind me in no-parking zones, always remaining within a block of me.

Grafton and I were pretty sure this bunch weren’t French. Of course, everyone was into diversity these days, so they could be working for any agency on the planet. Yet if they weren’t French, they were fair game. “See if you can find out who they are, Tommy,” Grafton said just before I left the embassy. “Be careful. Don’t let them hurt you and don’t hurt them so badly that you get arrested.”

“I understand,” I said.

The weather was excellent, with the temperature in the sixties, mostly sunny skies, and a whiff of a breeze. I took off my suit coat and folded it over my arm.

Strolling the boulevards of Paris, I considered my options. I needed to get one of these guys alone for a few minutes. The watcher in the Place des Vosges had been alone, but would he be in the future? If he came back at all.

I walked through the gardens of the Tuileries, heading for the Seine. I walked briskly, purposely, looking neither right nor left, taking no precautions against the tail that I knew was back there. The car couldn’t follow us and, with a little luck, would be struggling to get through late afternoon traffic on the Place de la Concorde.

My tail would have a cell phone with him, of course; he was probably on it right now. I didn’t turn to see.

I crossed the Seine on the Passerelle Soloferino, a walking bridge, and walked directly for the Musee d’Orsay, an old railroad station that had been converted to a museum. There was a line waiting to buy tickets, of course.

I joined the queue, ending up immediately behind a trio of young women from the States. From the comments they made, I learned that they were American students doing a semester abroad. One of them had met the love of her life a couple of weeks ago, so we heard all about him. As the girls chattered — they glanced at me when I got in line and then, due to my greatly advanced age and general decrepitude, ignored me — I glanced around.

My tail was in line, too, about fifteen persons back. He was from the Middle East, I thought, or perhaps a French Muslim. Clad in slacks and wearing a zippered jacket that hung open, he was studying a guide book. In my quick scan I noticed that he was holding his cell phone in his hand. That phone would be a little gold mine of telephone numbers, both called and received, that would provide a nice picture of the owner and the people in his organization, or cell.

I turned back toward the girls. My tail was in his mid-twenties, I suppose, of slightly above medium height, all muscle and sinew, weighing about 130 or 140. I hadn’t seen any bulges under his armpits, so if he was packing, which I doubted, it was in the small of his back or an ankle holster. On the other hand, it would not surprise me to learn that he had a knife on him and could get to it quickly.

I shuffled forward, listening to the girls giggle and gush, paid for my ticket, took it to the guard at the turnstile and passed through.

I had spent an afternoon in this building six months or so ago, so I knew the general layout. The building is an architectural masterpiece, a great enclosed space with a vaulted ceiling.

From the entrance one walks through what was once the waiting area into a huge open space where at one time trains sat on their tracks, chuffing smoke and cinders. On the wall above the old waiting area was a huge clock on an opaque glass wall. I glanced at my watch and found the clock was off by two minutes.

Most of the building had been converted to art galleries. Indeed, this museum was probably the best Impressionist museum in Paris. It was also full of really cool sculpture, some of it huge, by such folks as Rodin and Carpeaux. The biggest and heaviest pieces sat on the main floor. I went about halfway along the main gallery and arranged myself in front of a huge lion in such a way that I could see back toward the entrance.

Here he came, wandering along, looking at this and that. But where were his pals?

I didn’t see them.

I proceeded to the far end of the building and joined the crowd waiting for the elevator. I watched for my tail’s reflection in the marble wall… and saw him come around the corner looking for me.

I left the elevator crowd and took the stairs. I was the only person going up; everyone else was coming down.

I went up to the third floor, the top one, and perused the river-side galleries. There were some magnificent Impressionist paintings here, including several of the Rouen Cathedral by my favorite artist, Monet. Paying no attention to my tail, I wandered along with my hands in my pockets, absorbed in the art.

I passed the cafeteria — which was doing a land-office business— and turned the corner toward the men’s room instead of going left into the galley that led behind the huge clock.

For the first time since I entered the building, I was completely out of sight of every other person alive. I ducked into a janitor’s closet and pulled the door almost shut. Looking through the crack, I could see anyone going into or coming out of the men’s room.

This setup wasn’t perfect, but it would have to do.

A man came out of the men’s, then another. One man went in. None of the three noticed me inside the closet door, which was only open about an inch.

Three minutes passed, then four.

I was betting that my tail wasn’t a pro. He had followed right along since I left the embassy without once trying to blend into the crowd. It was almost as if he wanted to be seen. Now, there was a scary thought. What if he did want to be seen?

What if—?

I ran out of time to contemplate the nuances. There he was! Standing at the door of the men’s, trying to decide if he should go in or not.

His rabbit might not be in there. He was weighing that possibility, as I knew he must. I could have gone left instead of right.

He couldn’t afford to wait to find out. Even now his rabbit might be walking out of the building. He opened the door a crack and peered in.

That was the moment I had been waiting for. His back was to me, he was concentrating on looking through the partially open door, and if he heard anyone behind him he would assume it was someone who wanted to use the restroom.

I stepped out, glanced back to ensure no one was watching, then hit him with a solid right in the side of the neck. He went down as if he had been shot.

I dragged him toward the closet and pulled him inside.

I patted him down for weapons. He had none. I snagged his cell phone and pocketed it. He had a French identity card in his shirt pocket that said he was Muhammed Nada, a resident of Marseille. I compared his face to the photo — it was him, all right.

Nada groaned. His eyes were unfocused, his muscles slack. He was going to have the sorest neck in town for a week or so, which was his tough luck. I stuck his ID card back in his shirt pocket and left him there. We had been in the closet about fifteen seconds.

As I came out of the closet there were two of them striding toward me, young dark men, black eyes and unruly hair, no extra weight. They were sizing me up as they came — I could see it in their eyes. They made no attempt to avoid me or get out of my way. They separated just enough to get around me, and I heard one of them jerk open the closet door.

I bolted.

A couple topped the stairs and blocked the way, a portly man and white-haired woman. I spun around in time to set myself as the two Arabs raced toward me, digging hard. I went left and nailed the one on the left with a right to the jaw.

I ran back toward the cafeteria.

Now, I am a reasonably fast runner for a man of my size, and the guy who had come at me on my right side had had to reverse his momentum while his colleague went sliding face-first along the floor. Yet in two mighty bounds he was on my back, dragging me down.

I smacked my head against the floor, and that about did it for me right there. I saw stars from the impact and probably went about half out for a couple of seconds. I struggled to rise and actually got my feet under me.

Ahab the Arab was all over me. He slugged me in the face and gut, repeatedly. Through my haze I could hear a woman screaming.

I managed to latch on to one of Ahab’s arms. Got him above the wrist and used his momentum to slam him into the wall. He went to the floor, temporarily stunned.

I tried to move and couldn’t. With my head ringing like a bell, it was all I could do to stand there.

The woman sucked in a deep breath and screamed again.

I swayed, almost fell, and caught myself.

Ahab got it together and rose from the floor. Still sucking air and too stunned to run, I watched him produce a knife from a sheath in his pants and come at me holding it blade up. The fucker was going to gut me like a fish.

Maybe his bell was ringing, too, because he came charging as if he expected me to hold still while he ripped me from crotch to brisket. I didn’t. I grabbed at the wrist that held the knife and threw him with a rolling hip lock. He went over the railing and through the opaque glass wall.

As the glass flew in every direction, he fell the long two stories to the main floor of the museum, screaming all the way. The scream ended abruptly with a serious thud.

I lost my balance and sat down hard.

The guy I had nailed with my fist, Ahab’s pal, got up slowly. He took a long look at me, the hole in the glass wall, and the portly guy and out-of-air woman, then bolted down the stairs.