Andrew Kaplan - Carrie's run

So Dima and Rana knew each other. Were they working together? She raced through the rest of the album, but nothing else caught her eye. She put the album back in the same position on the closet shelf and began rummaging through the pockets of all the clothes hanging in the closet. It was near the end, in the pocket of a short velveteen jacket, that she found a cell phone. She took it out and showed it to Virgil.

He nodded and did a “swipe,” NSA-based technology that enabled him to hack someone’s cell phone with another appropriately configured cell phone just by coming within a few meters of it. Rana’s cell phone was now “slaved,” so that via NSA SIGINT satellite communications, Virgil could eavesdrop on everything said or done with it. He tapped the screen and checked the cell number. He and Carrie looked at each other. This wasn’t the one that Fielding had called and since Rana wasn’t here, it wasn’t the one she carried. So what was it for? Carrie wondered.

He looked at his watch. They’d been there almost forty minutes. There wasn’t much time left. Carrie put the cell phone back into the jacket pocket, went to a writing table in the dining area that Rana apparently used as a desk and started going through the drawers. It was while she was going through Rana’s checkbook and bills that she got the text message from the third person on their team, Ziad Atawi. A member of Les Forces Libanaises, a Maronite Christian militia affiliated with the March 14 group, Ziad had been one of Carrie’s old assets in Beirut. Now she had formed a team with him and Virgil without the knowledge of anyone else in the CIA’s Beirut Station, especially Fielding.

It read, “leaving bobs.” Bob’s Easy Diner was a popular Armenian lunchtime spot on Rue Sassine, only a few blocks away. It meant that Rana was leaving the restaurant and might be home any minute. She went over and showed it to Virgil, who nodded. They had to go.

They left the apartment, Virgil carefully resetting the alarm and locking the door. A few minutes later, they parted on a crowded avenue. He was heading back to Iroquois, the new safe house on Independence, near the Muslim cemetery, to monitor Rana from there. Carrie caught a Service to the Corniche, the palm-lined promenade along the sea front, to meet Julia/Fatima. Getting out of the Service, she placed a black hijab over her hair.

She spotted Fatima waiting in her black abaya and veil near the Mövenpick, not far from where the tourists gathered to take photos of waves crashing against Pigeon Rocks, jutting up out of the water.

“Dearest friend, afdal sadeeqa , petals of a chamomile cooled by the night,” Carrie said in Arabic, taking Fatima’s hand in both of hers.

“Ibn ’Arabi. You quote Ibn ’Arabi,” Fatima said, her eyes glistening.

“She is the cure, she the disease,” they said, reciting the poem’s famous refrain together.

“I missed you. I’m so sorry,” Carrie said.

“I thought you were never coming back.”

“I would always come back. And I must tell you, what you told me saved lives. Many lives. Whatever anyone else says, what you did was wonderful.” Holding hands like schoolgirls, they walked side by side on the promenade, the breeze off the water rustling the palm trees, the sun shining on the sea.

“Was it?” she asked. “Do they believe me now?”

“For them, you are solid gold. So. .” Carrie hesitated. “How goes it with you?”

“Not good,” Fatima said. “Sometimes I think he wants to kill me. There are days I think it is better to be a dog than a woman.”

“Don’t, habibi . Don’t say this. Just tell me, how can I help you?”

Fatima stopped walking and looked at her; only her eyes were not hidden by her veil.

“I want to go to America and get a divorce. That’s what I want.”

“ Inshallah , I’ll do what I can. I swear.”

“Don’t swear, Carrie. If you say it will be done, then I know it will be so. How is it they let you back?”

“Because of you,” Carrie said, squeezing her hand. “Truly.”

“Then I’m glad I did it.”

They walked along the Corniche, stopping at a kiosk for ice cream cones that they ate as they walked.

“Anything new?” Carrie asked.

Fatima stopped and tilted her head close to Carrie’s. “There’s something that’s going to happen in the south. On the Israeli side of the border,” she said.

“A terrorist incident?”

The woman shook her head. “More than an incident. A provocation.” She looked around again. “They think they’re ready for war. Soon.”

“Where will the incident be?”

“I’m not sure. But Abbas is being deployed in the south to a Lebanese town near the border, Bint Jbeil. Only underground, the entire town is a fortress. A trap for the Zionists. That’s all I know.”

“Good. There’s something else,” Carrie said, taking out her iPhone. “Something I want you to look at.” They stepped over by the seawall. She brought up Dima’s passport photograph. “Do you know her? Have you ever seen her?”

Fatima shook her head. Carrie closed Dima’s photo and brought up Rana’s picture.

“What about her?”

“That’s Rana Saadi. Everyone knows her,” Fatima said.

“Have you ever met her? Has Abbas ever spoken about her?”

She shook her head again. “I can’t help. I’m sorry,” she said.

“No matter. I’m so glad to see you,” Carrie said.

Fatima looked at her sharply. “You won’t forget about America?”

“I won’t forget,” Carrie said.

She went up the stairs to the studio on Rue Gouraud. It was on the second floor of an old-fashioned colonial-era building. Behind the glass door, a young, very pretty female receptionist sat behind a sleek, ultra-modernistic desk in a tiny reception area.

“ Bonjour. Do you have an appointment?” the pretty receptionist asked.

“I called earlier. I’m from al-Jadeed, the TV station,” Carrie said, handing her a business card with the Jadeed logo she’d had made up yesterday.

“I remember. François-that is, Monsieur Abou Murad is in the studio. I’ll let him know you’re here.”

Carrie looked at the photographs displayed on the walls. Fashion shoots and magazine covers, including a series of female models shot from behind wearing only striped bikini bottoms. After letting her wait fifteen minutes to make sure she knew how important and busy he was, Abou Murad came out and apologized as he led her back to his studio.

“I thought you would bring a crew,” he said as they walked into a space with screens, drop cloths and lights, tall windows revealing old colonial-style buildings across the street. He was unbelievably short, not quite a little person, but less than five feet tall. He wore his hair long, like an old-fashioned rock musician.

“We always do a preliminary first. Saves time,” she said.

They sat in director’s chairs. There were glasses and bottles of Sohat water on a tiny table between them.

“I’ve had an amazing career,” he said.

“I can see. You like women?”

“Very much.” He smirked, looking pointedly at her breasts. “They like me back too.”

“At least the short ones-or maybe just the ones you get magazine layouts for,” she said, and put her laptop, its screen showing the Aishti ad photograph of Rana, Dima and a third model, on the little table.

“What’s this?” he said sharply.

“You know these women? Rana and Dima? Who’s the third?”

“Marielle Hilal. A wannabe model,” he replied, shaking his head.

“Why only a wannabe? She’s pretty enough.”

“She doesn’t taneek ,” he said, deliberately using “ neek ,” the Arabic vulgarity for sex. “You won’t get much work that way.” He shrugged.