Alex Berenson - The Shadow Patrol

“Aleikum salaam.”

“How are you?”

“Fine. More important, how are you? You look different.”

“You think so? I don’t see it.” He smiled, and for the first time she recognized him. His smile, simple, almost shy, hadn’t changed.

“Are you hungry?” She’d put out bags of chips and bottles of soda. Case officers were supposed to have snacks at these meetings. Usually they went uneaten. Not today.

Rashid gulped down half a bottle of Coke. “I suppose I’m hungry. They took me to a camp. In the mountains. Then a missile hit another camp a few kilometers away. So none of us could go anywhere.”

“They blamed you for the attack?”

“No, no. Just when one camp is hit they keep the others quiet for a few days. They know that the drones watch for movement after an attack. So we were stuck. And this camp was low on food. We had to be careful we didn’t run out.”

“It sounds difficult.”

“I wasn’t used to it, that’s all.”

I was wrong, she thought . I should never have suspected you. Yet some corner of her mind still wasn’t convinced. The brave smile, the patchy beard. Was he acting? He couldn’t be. If he could pull this off, he belonged in Hollywood. If she wasn’t going to disappear into the counter-counterespionage funhouse, she had to believe in her agents. Anyway, Rashid had no reason to make up this story. He was a spy, not a charity case. He knew the agency would judge him on the intel he produced. Rashid — no, Marburg— had given them three solid reports in two months. Reason enough to trust him.

“But you got out.”

“On Wednesday, Abu Khalid — that’s the man who runs the camp, at least what he calls himself — said I could leave. Hamdulillah. ” Thanks be to God.

“Abu Khalid.” Holm didn’t recognize the name, but al-Qaeda commanders regularly changed their pseudonyms. “If I showed you pictures, could you recognize him?”

“Yes.”

“And where the camp is?”

“No. They made me leave my phone, all my things, before they picked me up in Peshawar. Then they blindfolded me and drove for a long time.”

“Today’s Sunday. That means you left the camp four days ago.”

“Yes.”

“When was the bombing?”

“The bombing happened, I want to say, five days before that. Yes. Nine days ago. Friday night.”

“You have such a good memory, Rashid. So specific and detailed.”

“I do my best.”

Specificity and detail were good, in theory. She could check the time line he’d provided against records of drone attacks. But if he was a double agent, he’d expect her to check. He wouldn’t make up an attack, slip on something so obvious. So all his specificity and detail proved nothing, in the end.

“ ’Round and ’round we go,” she said. “Where we stop, nobody knows.”

“I don’t understand.” He opened another Coke, drank deep. His thirst, at least, was genuine.

“You’ve grown a beard, too.”

“All the men up there have them. I expect the next time you see me, it will be even bigger.”

“Unless they want you to shave it so you can travel more easily.”

“I think they want me to stay up there. That’s why I asked for this meeting, Miss Simmons.”

“Call me Marci. Please.”

“Yes. Marci. They’ve told me a top man is sick. Some kind of heart trouble. They say they want me to see him.”

“Do you know who?”

“They haven’t told me, no. From the way they’ve talked about it, I think it must be someone very senior. But Abu Khalid told me that if they even suspect I might betray this man, they’ll kill all my family. He showed me a picture of my house in Amman to prove he was serious.” Rashid’s black eyes were hard and desperate. “You must promise you won’t let that happen.”

“I guarantee, you get us al-Zawahiri or bin Laden, we’ll move your whole family to America. And don’t forget the reward.” The twenty-five-million-dollar reward the United States had offered for the capture of al-Qaeda’s top leaders.

“You promise that?”

“You’ll be a hero. You’ll meet the president. Now, please, tell me about the meeting with Abu Khalid.”

“After he showed me the picture of my house, he went through the man’s symptoms. That he feels tired all the time and has sharp pains in his chest that make him lie down. He asked what was wrong with the man. I told him the truth, my best guess. This man may have had a heart attack. Now his heart is giving out. Congestive heart failure, we call it. And the altitude and the cold make it worse. But I can’t be sure without seeing him. This kind of thing, you have to hear the heartbeat, touch the skin, talk to the patient.”

“What did Abu Khalid say?”

“He asked me, ‘If you see him, can you treat him?’ I told him it depends how sick he is. And the medicines he needs, some are only in Karachi or even Dubai. Abu Khalid told me to get everything that I might need. He said he would let me know in a few days whether they would bring me to the patient.”

Holm thought through the options. “Don’t push. Don’t reach out to Abu Khalid. Pressing will only scare them.”

“And if they tell me to see this man? Do you want me to bring some sort of transmitter?”

“No. If this is al-Zawahiri, they’ll strip you naked before they take you to him. Check every pill bottle you have. They may even make you take the medicine you’re giving him. One for you, one for him. They’ll be paranoid. They find anything suspicious, they’ll shoot you, be done with it.”

“So what do I do?”

“You treat him, Doctor. As best you can. Make him feel better. That’s the best way to make him trust you.”

Rashid nodded.

“Just don’t cure him or he won’t need to see you again.”

“Don’t worry, Miss Simmons — Marci. There’s no cure for heart failure.”

“Good, then. So you’ll help him. And the next time they take you to him, they’ll relax. A little bit. That’s all we need. But before then, we’ll need to meet—”

“We—”

“A few of us will want to debrief you.” You’ll be pure gold, and half the agency will want the credit for this, Holm didn’t say. For the next hour, she refreshed him on codes and contact information. He told her his plan. It was simple enough. He would buy the medicines he needed. Finding them would take a day or two. Then he’d go back to Peshawar and wait for instructions.

“Are you ready for this?” she said.

“I don’t want to make any grand speeches, Miss Simmons. But I’m sure in my heart that these men must be punished.”

“Good luck, Doctor. Go with God.”

“The same God for us all. I wish we could remember that.” He extended his hand and shook hers briefly. Then he disappeared. She listened as his steps shuffled down the hallway and the stairs and into the Karachi night. Trying to track him would be pointless, and anyway she knew where he was going. Back into the mountains. To trap Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Unless the trap was meant for her.

BACK IN KABUL, Cota was thrilled. The agency put a Special Operations squad on what was called “black watch.” The term meant the unit, a twelve-man team, couldn’t be used for any other mission, no matter how important. Basically, the squad was under house arrest at Bagram Air Base, waiting for a shot at al-Zawahiri.

Holm was in a similar position. Cota pulled her off her other jobs. A week after she returned, he stepped into her office at the Ariana and gave her a salute. “I shouldn’t tell you. But Duto”—Vinny Duto, the CIA director—“briefed the White House about the op.”

“We’re way ahead of ourselves. Marburg may not even get the call.”