Andrew Kaplan - Scorpion Betrayal

“What do you think?” one blond long-haired backpacker with a British accent said to his friend, watching the TV.

“Beats me,” his friend, an American said. “She’s pretty. That’s why they’re playing it up.”

“Not anymore,” the Brit said, and his friend laughed as they wandered away.

The TV cut to a police assistente capo who was shown strenuously denying that the young woman had ever been taken into police custody. He pointed to a somewhat jerky security camera video that Scorpion had seen on the news that morning in his hotel room. It showed someone in the crowd who might possibly be the young woman-it was difficult to tell from the video-being pushed back by a policeman’s shield at a street barrier. Something in the video this time caught Scorpion’s attention, but it was gone too fast. He needed to see it again, frame by frame.

He sat down at an open computer, called Rabinowich using his latest disposable cell phone, and hung up the second he answered, then set up a real-time online chat session, using slang and abbreviations he knew Rabinowich would understand. u ‘ve any idea time here? 5 in f-ing am, Rabinowich typed. wakey, sleeping beauty. Need new HA pix, Scorpion typed back, referring to Hearing Aid, their code name for the Palestinian. u’ve any idea how many farangi come US in 6 mos? 12.5 f-ing million. Take time, Rabinowich making a joke mixing the Thai word for foreigners with the word for an alien race with a dubious reputation on the Deep Space Nine TV series. ng. need pix asap. whats new?

From amigos in P nr biergarten, and Scorpion understood that the “friends” he was referring to was the German BND secret intelligence service; biergarten probably referred either to the Octoberfest or Hitler’s Beer Garden Putsch, and either way it was Munich, so P near Munich had to be Pullach, a suburb of that city where the old BND headquarters were located.

HA fr 1st base 2 foster firebravo k Abitur, Rabinowich sent.

Scorpion took a deep breath. His first stop on this mission, “first base,” had been Beirut. It meant that according to the BND, Hearing Aid-Hassani-was originally from Beirut or somewhere else in Lebanon. He had to think about firebravo for a second before he realized that Rabinowich was just using Bravo in military parlance for the letter B. These were World War Two German references: fireb plus war suggested firebomb, and firebombing in World War Two could refer either to Hamburg or Cologne. The k had to be for Cologne, spelled Koln in German. The message suggested that Hassani had come as a child from Lebanon to Cologne, where he had been raised in “foster” care and gone to school for his Abitur — his high school diploma.

Scorpion sat back, his heart pounding. The conclusion was inescapable and he knew it must be as obvious to Rabinowich. If she’d told him the truth, Najla Kafoury had also come as a child from Lebanon to Germany. ditto Fraulein N, he typed. yup. defense? Rabinowich was acknowledging the fact that both Najla and Hassani were from Lebanon was unlikely to be a coincidence. His question about defense meant he wanted Scorpion’s evaluation of the security measures for the conference.

With sol tzu, where sol meant “sun,” he told Rabinowich, an admirer of the ancient Chinese military genius, to recall Sun Tzu’s doctrine on defense. He knew if Rabinowich thought about it, he would recall Sun Tzu’s famous saying that no war was ever won with a static or passive defense. stop HA? Rabinowich was asking whether the DIA and Italian preparations would be adequate to stop the Palestinian from accomplishing his goal.

Heavy C amp; B. What u think? pix? Scorpion knew Rabinowich would pick up his meaning-that though the DIA had put heavy Crash and Bang security measures in place, he did not think they would stop the Palestinian, and then he’d asked when he could expect the new photo. innaharda, Rabinowich typed; the Arabic word for “today.” buona notte, bambino, Scorpion joked, telling Rabinowich to go back to sleep like a baby. f u, Rabinowich responded, and ended the session.

Scorpion logged off, and as he headed out of the cafe, glanced again at the TV. They were showing the arrival of the Israeli delegation to the conference. The TV reporter, an attractive woman whose eyeliner made her look like a face from an ancient Egyptian frieze, said they would be staying under heavy security at the Israeli embassy, not far from the Villa Borghese, for what could be an historic conference for Israel.

That afternoon, Scorpion waited for Moretti at a pizzeria across from Carabinieri headquarters near the wooded Villa Ada Park. Moretti was supposedly at a meeting with the local heads and station chiefs of the Polizia di Stato, the Carabinieri, the DIA, the various EU intelligence agencies, and the Israeli Mossad and AMAN, to coordinate for the EU Conference. Because it was across the street from their headquarters, Carabinieri officers would often stop in for a quick pizza and vino, and two of them leaning on the bar glanced over at him when the text message he’d been waiting for from Rabinowich came in.

The text read, c pix, and he took a deep breath. As they had arranged, he looked up Rabinowich’s “Brooks” Facebook page, and there it was. Instead of his own face, Rabinowich had posted a photograph of Bassam Hassani taken less than two weeks ago for entry into the United States.

Hassani had aged well, Scorpion thought. He was no longer the geeky long-haired chemistry undergrad in the Karlsruhe University chemistry journal photograph. Along the way he had acquired expensive clothes and a new haircut. He looked smooth, confident, the kind of successful businessman who flies first class on his way to an international bankers’ meeting. Rabinowich hadn’t bothered to include the passport and visa information that Hassani had used to enter the United States. While Hassani would have used the cover identity while in the U.S., which would make it useful for the FBI in tracking his movements, for Scorpion it was useless. Hassani would have gotten rid of that cover identity the minute he was back in Italy.

He got up, tossed money on the table for the conto, and headed out toward where he had parked his rented Fiat. Moretti would have to wait. Now that he had Hassani’s photograph, he needed a closer look at that video of the demonstration at the police barrier. As he walked to the car, he used the cell phone to get directions to the RAI Uno television studio that had broadcast the video. It was in the Saxa Rubra district, north of the center of Rome. He got into the Fiat and called Moretti as he headed out.

“I’m still at the meeting. Where are you going, or shouldn’t I ask?” Moretti said in a hushed voice, and Scorpion could hear someone talking in the background.

“Why ask a question when you already know the answer?” Scorpion said.

“Have you heard from our mutual friend?”

“Yes.”

“You will stay in touch?”

“How do you like working with the DIA?”

“Is too soon to say. In Italian we say ‘metterci il cappello,’ to put the hat on the top, you understand?”

“You mean they try to run everything and then take all the credit?”

“Is good. You are beginning to think like an Italian. Where you are now?”

“Turning onto Via Flaminia.”

“You go to Saxa Rubra? The televisione, RAI Uno? You think they see something?”

Damn, the little Italian was quick, Scorpion thought. He had to watch every word he uttered. “I’ll let you know,” he said.

“This is famous street, Via Flaminia. This is the road the Roman legions use when they march to Gaul.”

“Are you telling me to watch out for the Barbarians?”

“Caesar was killed by his own people,” Moretti said.

“I’ll remember that,” Scorpion said, hanging up. He drove past office buildings and apartment houses. People were out in the street, well-dressed Romans living their lives, and it hit him that in two days this could all be gone. He drove through the suburbs to the television studio, showed the badge he had gotten from Moretti to the guard at the gate, and parked. Inside, he asked to speak to the station manager. A slender dark-haired woman, of what the French called “a certain age,” in a low-cut T-shirt top and a skirt too short for business, came out.