Andrew Kaplan - Carrie's run

“And the others?”

“Rana, of course. I’ve done thirty-two covers with her. Publicity stills too. Of course I know her. Better than her own mother.”

“What about Dima?” She pointed at her on the screen. “You knew her, didn’t you? And don’t tell me you didn’t sleep with her. I knew her too-and when it came to getting ahead, she wasn’t so picky.”

“Dima Hamdan. What about her?”

“You took that shot?”

“You know I did,” he said, eyeing her like she had grown a second, very ugly head. “What do you want?”

“How close were she and Rana?”

“They knew each other. What do you mean I knew her? What’s happened?”

“She’s dead,” Carrie said.

“Who the neek are you? You’re not the police. Are you Sûreté Générale?” He stood up, although standing he was no taller than she was sitting. “You better leave, mademoiselle.”

“If I leave, you’re going to get visitors you’ll like a whole lot less,” she said, opening her handbag and putting her hand inside. “Best get it over with.”

Neither of them spoke or moved. Carrie could see motes of dust in the light coming from the windows. It was almost quiet enough to imagine she could hear the dust settle.

“Like a visit to the dentist,” he said finally.

“Those are usually for your own good,” she said. He looked at her hand in the handbag and sat back down.

“Are you threatening me?” he asked.

“I don’t have to. You’re Lebanese. Surely you understand what can happen here.” The implication was obvious. Lebanese politics was volatile and dangerous. Being in the wrong place at the wrong time could get you killed.

“What do you want?” He frowned.

“Tell me about Dima and Rana. How close were they?”

“They knew each other. Are you asking if they slept together?”

This was new, Carrie thought. Dima liked men. “Did they?”

“For a short time. Pour de rire. For fun. They both liked men better. They knew each other from before Beirut.”

“Really,” Carrie said, her heart speeding up. That Dima hadn’t come from Beirut had never been mentioned in the 201 file Fielding had given her when she first took over as Dima’s case officer. “Where did they come from?”

“They were both from the North. Dima was from Halba, the Akkar; Rana from Tripoli. Said she grew up in sight of the Clock Tower,” he said.

Those were both Sunni Muslim areas, not Christian, she thought. So what the hell was Dima doing with the Alawite Syrian Nightingale? She was ostensibly a March 14 Maronite Christian, but it still didn’t make sense even if she had been lying about that and was actually a Sunni Muslim. The Alawites, like Hezbollah, were both Shiite groups. Either way, whether she was a Christian or a Sunni Muslim, she would have seen Nightingale as an enemy. In Lebanon, to cross sectarian lines was about as safe as crossing a California freeway blindfolded.

“Those are Sunni areas,” she said carefully.

The little man nodded.

“What are you saying? That Dima and Rana were Sunni?” she asked.

“Me? I say nothing.” He shrugged. “I take pictures of women. Beautiful women. C’est tout. ”

“They never discussed it?”

“Not with me. No,” he said, taking out a bright red pack of Gauloises Blondes and lighting one.

“But you suspected they were Sunnis. Did you know that Dima was involved with March 14?”

He shrugged. “I didn’t talk politics with them. Just fashion, photos and”-he picked a shred of tobacco from the tip of his tongue-“ enculer .” French for screwing.

“Dima dropped out of sight more than a month ago. Where’d she go?”

“You’re the Sûreté or the CIA or whoever the hell you are. You tell me.”

“You have no idea?”

“ La adri ,” he shrugged. No idea. “Ask Rana. She might know.”

“Tell me about Rana. Is she affiliated with any group?”

“Don’t know. Wouldn’t tell you if I did.” He smirked.

“Trust me, if I want I can make you tell me,” she said. She leaned over, ripped the lit cigarette from his lips and stubbed the lighted end hard against his cheek.

“Yeoww!” he howled, and jumped away. “Crazy bitch!” he shouted in Arabic. He poured water from the bottle onto his hand and rubbed it on his burned cheek. The receptionist ran in and looked at them.

“Tell her to leave,” Carrie said. “And not do anything stupid.”

“ C’est okay, Yasmine. Just go back to the front. Truly,” he said to the girl, who waited for a moment, then left.

“Bitch! Don’t do that again,” he said, wincing as he touched the burn mark on his cheek with his finger.

“Don’t make me,” she said. “Is Rana affiliated with any group?”

“I don’t know. Ask her,” he said sulkily.

“Is she seeing anyone?”

He hesitated. “Are you looking into Dima’s death? Is that what this is about?”

Carrie nodded. He looked at the window, then back at her.

“I can’t believe she’s dead. I liked her,” he said.

“So did I.”

“ La pauvre .” He frowned. The poor thing. “Dima had a new boyfriend. I never saw him. He was from Dubai,” he said, rubbing his thumb against his fingers in the universal sign for money. “I figured that’s where she went, because you’re right, nobody saw her in weeks. Poor Dima.”

“And Rana has a boyfriend too?”

He nodded. “An American. He must have money.” He smirked again. “Rana is high-priced goods.”

“Do you know who he is?”

His answer shocked her to her core. It told her the entire mission in Beirut had been blown.

“What are you asking me for? You should know. He’s with the CIA,” he said.

Halba, Lebanon

The house was an old-fashioned stone building on a hill looking out toward the town of Bebnine and the sea. Asking around at the salon tagmil , the local hair salon, the one place in the Middle East where it was an advantage to be a woman because you could find out everything about everybody, Carrie learned that Dima’s parents were deceased. But she found an uncle of the Hamdan family and soon she was sitting in the parlor with an older woman, Khala Majida, Aunt Majida, sipping iced tea, Lebanese-style, made with rose water and pine nuts. They sat on a sofa facing the balcony, the French doors open to the sun. Carrie, in jeans and a sweater, wore her hijab . She told Aunt Majida she was a friend of Dima’s from America. She didn’t tell her Dima was dead; the FBI was still keeping the attackers’ identities from the media.

“Did she tell you her father, Hamid Ali Hamdan, was with al-Murabitun?” the aunt said in Arabic.

“She told me,” Carrie lied. The Murabitun was the most powerful of the Sunni militias during the long Lebanese civil war. None of this had been in Dima’s file and she had never revealed any of this to Carrie or anyone else.

“He fought side by side with Ibrahim Kulaylat. The Israelis killed him in ’82, to Allah we belong, and may those sons of apes and pigs rot in hell. Dima was an infant. It was hard for her, a girl without a father,” Aunt Majida said.

“Of course,” Carrie murmured, looking around. It seemed inconceivable that sophisticated, party-girl Dima, the girl who knew everyone who was anyone in Christian North Beirut, came from this conservative Sunni Muslim setting.

“And no money. And then her mother got the cancer.” The aunt shook her head.

“How did she survive?”

“Her grandmother. And me. We helped, but then she went to Beirut and we didn’t see her after that.”