Andrew Kaplan - Carrie's run

And then there was Romeo. He was giving her actionable intel, but she could trust him about as far as she could throw the Brooklyn Bridge, the last thing Abu Ubaida had tried to destroy.

She went back inside to an open jail cell where Warzer and Virgil had spent the night. They were getting up, and in a little while, they were all sitting in the cell, drinking glasses of strong Iraqi tea with plenty of sugar and eating kahi , phyllo-dough pastries dipped in honey, that one of the Iraqi policemen had brought them.

“Now what?” Virgil said, brushing a fly off his kahi , then taking a bite.

“Anything on the bugs you planted at Romeo’s house?” Carrie asked.

“The women were talking. Arabic.” He grimaced. “Need you or Warzer to translate, but Romeo didn’t show.”

“Which means he’s with Abu Ubaida. He’s inside. That’s what we want,” she told them.

“What about the intel on the attack in Baghdad?” Virgil asked.

“We wait till we hear what Langley wants to do. Dempsey’ll tell us tomorrow when he gets back,” she said.

“You, wait?” Virgil grinned. “Doesn’t sound like you. Getting cold feet, Carrie?”

“I’ll admit it,” she said. “This place scares the shit out of me.”

“It should,” Warzer said. “I moved my family to Baghdad, not that that’s so much safer.”

“I have to admit, I don’t like the idea of waiting. Especially on Langley,” she said. “Once Abu Ubaida goes operational on this latest attack-and we’re talking a week at most-our chance at nailing him and maybe Abu Nazir becomes a total crapshoot.”

“What do you want us to do?” Warzer asked her.

For a moment, her eyes searched the walls of the cell as if looking for an answer there. But there was nothing but bits of penciled-in Arabic graffiti, which, except for the occasional invocation of Allah, was amazingly similar to Western graffiti.

“Go back to electronic surveillance on Romeo’s family. I gave him money. He’ll want to give them at least some of it. I’ll be by in a bit to translate,” she told Virgil, who got up, still holding the tea, and went out, presumably to a holding cell on the second floor where he’d set up his gear.

“What about me?” Warzer asked.

“Abu Ubaida is here in Ramadi. I can’t believe some of these Ramadi policemen don’t have snitches. See if you can find out if anyone knows where they’re hiding.”

Warzer started to get up. She motioned to him. Not sure how to say it, she just said it. “Warzer, do you think these Iraqi police think I’m a whore?” she asked, using the Arabic word, “ sharmuta .” “It’s just now, with death so close, there’s so little time. .” She faltered.

He looked away, clearly uncomfortable, then back straight at her.

“Carrie, you’re a very beautiful woman. Truly. For these men, you’re like a movie star from Hollywood. Someone so far out of reach. But also, our world with women is so different. So yes, maybe, a little like a sharmuta . But listen, Captain Dempsey, as a man, I like him. He has courage. But you don’t know him. There are rumors. Be careful,” he said.

“What kind of rumors?”

“Money,” he said, rubbing his thumb against his fingers. “Stories about sales of American equipment, medical supplies, ammunition, refrigerators, all kinds of things on the black market. This war is the biggest gold rush in history for companies. Blackwater, DynCorp, KBR. Everyone is getting rich except the people.”

“Do you know this is true about Captain Dempsey?”

“I know nothing. I shouldn’t have said anything, except. .”

“Except what?”

“I like you, Carrie. For me, you are the best of America, so good. About you and Captain Dempsey, I should not speak. Only”-he hesitated-“I think you are very lonely.”

She was talking with the police chief, Hakim Gassid, about informants when Virgil came and got her.

“You better come see this,” he said.

She followed him back to the cell where he kept his equipment. On his laptop, he showed her two interior scenes in the entranceway and main room of Romeo’s family’s house.

“This was last night,” he said, rewinding the footage, people making gestures and moving backward. Then he started playing it forward, with Romeo coming into the house.

She watched as Romeo came into the entryway and then into the main room. As in most of Ramadi, there was no electricity and the rooms were lit with lanterns and candles. She listened as he greeted his wife and mother and then cradled his children in his arms. Like most Iraqi homes, the furniture was sparse and set along the walls, a carpet on the main room’s floor. So far, everything and the conversation seemed normal, except she noticed he kept looking around. At one point, he got up and picked up a lamp and looked at it.

He’s looking for bugs, she thought. He knows. Of course he knows. Idiot, she thought, mentally kicking herself. First, he’s not stupid, and second, someone, some neighbor or extended family member, must’ve spotted Virgil, who even on his best disguise day couldn’t pass for a Kurd, not that people wouldn’t wonder what a Kurd was doing in Ramadi.

She watched him give his wife some or all of the money she’d given him-impossible to tell-and whisper something in her ear she couldn’t hear. And in the distance, even on the soundtrack, she could hear gunfire. As they watched, Carrie quietly translated what she could hear.

They watched Romeo go to the side of the room, turn over the corner of a carpet, pull up a board from the floor and take out an AKM assault rifle. He put the floorboard back and started to check the AKM.

The children came back; he talked with them and let them climb over him. The little boy tried to pick up the AKM and Romeo smiled and showed him how to hold it and aim. Then the wife and Romeo’s mother took them away, presumably to bed.

Something was missing. What was it? She watched the video intently and then she had it. No nervous tic. He wasn’t twitching. It was gone. That miserable son-of-a-bitch liar, she thought. Why did he do it? To gain sympathy in Abu Ghraib? To distract questioners? To help disguise his identity? Or was he just a pathological liar? Everything he said had to be taken with a huge grain of salt. But she knew that already, didn’t she?

“No tic. Is that what you wanted me to see?” she asked Virgil.

“Wait,” he said, holding up a cautionary finger.

The mother, Aasera, came and made tea and brought him a glass. They talked for a bit about the family. He asked her about Carrie, the American woman, and her Iraqi companion, Warzer.

“I don’t trust them,” Aasera said. “They pretend to be friends, but they are infidels. Why did you bring them to us?”

“Ama, I had no choice. Inshallah , they won’t bother us again,” he said.

“Take care. I think she is dangerous, this blond sharmuta .”

“Enough, woman. Stay out of my business,” he snapped, and waved her away. She darted a suspicious glance at him and left the room. As soon as she was gone, he took out his cell phone and began texting.

“Can we get what he’s texting and the number he’s calling?” Carrie asked Virgil.

“That’s not the phone we gave him. Baghdad Station can probably pick it up from Iraqna’s cell COMINT. AQI may have their own functioning cell station. Maybe we can pick it up from the Iraqna company and I can get it from them, but it’ll take a couple of hours.”

“Let’s do it,” she said, and started to get up.

“Wait,” he said, stopping her. He sped the video up so that about an hour had gone by when suddenly, she heard sounds from outside on the video and saw Romeo stand up. His wife, Shada, looked at him and asked who it could it be at this hour. He started to ready the AKM, then put it down on the chair and motioned for her to answer the door. He followed her to the entryway.