Andrew Kaplan - Scorpion Betrayal

Now he knew who they were, his mind racing. Plainclothes authorities, probably GSD, the Idarat al-Amn al-‘Amm. The Syrian General Security Directorate. It was worse than Hezbollah. He had to get away. If they arrested him, it would take weeks, if ever, for him to get out of Syria, and by then, whatever the Palestinian was planning, it would be too late. He also had to find out if the Syrians were involved, and he had to do it now. But first he needed to escape the tail. It would’ve been easier if he were driving, remembering Koenig once saying, “Breaking a tail requires a very good driver to behave like a complete maniac.”

Ahead, he saw the General Post Office, a square gray concrete building hung with red, white, and black Syrian flag banners and two-story posters of the Syrian president. Waiting till the last second, Scorpion told the driver to make a sharp right turn and step on it. “Now! Now! Dilwati!” he shouted.

The driver swerved, barely missing an oncoming car full of wide-eyed Syrian men. “Now where you want?” he demanded. “Crazy guy. Can’t decide,” he muttered to himself, shaking his head.

“I’ll give you an extra five thousand pounds if you can get me to the Cham City Center Mall in less than five minutes,” Scorpion said.

“For five thousand, habibi, I’ll get you to Amman,” the driver replied, speeding up and honking on his horn as he knifed between two cars to his right. Through the rear window, Scorpion could see that the white SUV had been cut off by a bus while trying to make the turn.

“Turn here,” he ordered.

“It’s faster straight,” the driver said.

“Turn here, then go the way you know.”

The driver made a fast sudden turn and accelerated down the street, bystanders raising their fists and screaming at him. Within minutes they pulled up in front of a big modern shopping mall.

“Maashi? It’s okay?” the driver asked.

“Zein al-hamdulillah,” Scorpion said. Fine, thanks to Allah. He shoved money at the driver and got out, and just spotted the white SUV coming around out of the corner of his eye as he raced into the mall.

When trying to break a tail, he remembered Koenig saying, it was essential to change the image. He ran into a men’s clothing store, grabbed a different color shirt and changed into it. He handed the money to the clerk and went out another exit, where he caught another taxi just as two women with their children were getting out. He told the driver to take him to al-Azmeh. On the way, he called the director of the Syrian Central Bank on his cell phone, apologized for missing the interview because of the traffic jam, and rescheduled the interview. Inshallah, they would do the interview bukra — tomorrow-which in the Middle East, as they both knew, could mean anytime from tomorrow to when hell freezes over.

He assumed it was the GSD that was after him, as they drove past shops and buildings draped with more Syrian flags and posters of the president along al-Ithad Street. He had to find out how deep in this the GSD was. If Damascus was running the Palestinian through Dr. Abadi, that would change the equation and he just might need the Pentagon and the U.S. Marines after all. He decided it couldn’t wait, he had to find out now, while the Syrians were still off balance and trying to figure out who he was and what was going on.

The problem was, how to penetrate the innermost circles of Syrian intelligence? Normal trade-craft procedure was to ID a Joe inside the GSD and turn him. But that could take months. He didn’t have the time. Worse, this was their country. They would pick him up the second they could. He would have to do something more drastic. He remembered somebody asking Koenig about how you could be sure you were getting good intelligence, and Koenig said, “If you need clean water, you have to go to where the water is.” It gave him an idea.

Spotting an Internet cafe, Scorpion told the driver to pull over. He went inside, paid for a computer stall against the wall, got online, and in a couple of minutes found the address of the Ministry of Interior, headquarters of the GSD. He went back outside and after checking the street for tails caught another taxi.

At a juice bar on a side street off al-Marje, as the locals called Martyrs Square, he was propositioned by a long-haired teenage shoeshine boy turned pimp.

“You want farfourd?” the boy said, using the Arabic slang word for very young girls. “Iraqi girls. Very nice. Moroccan. Albanian. How old you want? Twelve? Thirteen? Very clean. Beautiful girls. They’ll make you feel good.”

“I need a hotel room close by, where no one asks questions,” Scorpion told him.

“Come,” the boy said, picking up his shoe-shine box and leading him down the street. “What else you need?” he asked, looking back over his shoulder.

“Rohypnol, the date rape drug.”

“Listen, boss. With these girls, believe me, you don’t need it.” The boy grinned.

“I want Rohypnol and I’ll give you ten thousand pounds for you to forget you ever saw me.”

“Mafi mushkila,” the boy said. No problems.

The boy stopped at a tobacco stand and came back with a plastic vial with tiny white pills that he handed to Scorpion. They walked on, turned a corner and went into a small hotel with a narrow doorway. The lobby smelled of insect repellent and stale cigarettes. An old man in a crocheted skullcap behind the desk nodded at the boy. He was toothless and had one eye with a drooping lid, suggesting he’d had a stroke. Scorpion told him he wanted the room for the night.

“We charge by the hour,” the old man said. The boy sniggered.

“I’ll pay five thousand pounds for the night,” Scorpion said.

“You have your bataqa shaksia identification card? It is required by the police.”

“No. No ID card and no questions,” Scorpion said, looking at him with cold gray eyes.

“Six thousand,” the old man said, his good eye blinking rapidly.

Scorpion handed him the money, then took the boy aside and gave him five thousand pounds. The boy looked at the money in his hand.

“You said ten thousand,” he said.

“The other five will be in the room. Get rope and a tube of glue and bring it to the room.”

“Sure, boss. Mafi mushkila,” the boy said. “Anything else?”

Scorpion pulled the boy close. “Don’t come back after you bring the rope and glue. Forget you ever saw me,” he whispered into his ear.

He waited till the boy left, then went up, checked the room, bare but for the bed and a dresser, left the money on the dresser and went out. He took a taxi, bought an al Baath newspaper and sat at a sidewalk table outside a small hummus restaurant across the street from the Ministry of Interior office building.

At noon, employees began to come out of the ministry for lunch. Scorpion waited, glancing up from behind his newspaper. It was logical that ministry employees would eat at the inexpensive restaurant so convenient to their office. A man in a white shirt and tie came over and sat at a nearby table. They were close enough in height and build, Scorpion decided. He got up and on his way to the bathroom nearly tripped a waiter, then caught the man to prevent him from falling. During the distraction, he slipped three pills into the ministry man’s juice drink.

A few minutes later, after Scorpion went to the bathroom and returned to his table, the ministry man was showing signs of the drug. He staggered to his feet, reached for the table to steady himself and knocked over his glass, sending broken glass and juice flying. The man swayed, staring stupidly at the broken glass as the waiter hurried over.

Scorpion stood up. “I’m a doctor,” he said. “This man is sick.”

“I don’t feel so good,” the man said, his eyes bloodshot and nearly closed.