Agent in Place
In front of him on the pathway stood a man with a beard wearing a wrinkled dark suit. Standing behind him was a small young girl wearing a chador and a long-sleeve cotton shirt with black warm-up pants and a blue backpack. He didn’t notice at first, but quickly he realized she held an infant in her arms.
Saddiqi might have been nervous to be accosted in a dark parking lot at this time of the morning, but there was nothing threatening about the group in front of him at all.
“As salaam aleikum,” Peace be unto you, Saddiqi said, touching his hand to his heart. It was a polite greeting, but he fought a little disappointment inwardly. He was not unaccustomed to people showing up at his apartment in the middle of the night. It usually meant he wouldn’t be feeling the coolness of his pillow any time soon, and he desperately needed rest.
“Wa aleikum salaam,” And peace be upon you, replied both the man and the woman simultaneously.
Saddiqi looked them over for any obvious injuries. He saw some blood on the collar of the man’s shirt. “How can I—”
The man said, “Do you speak English?”
Saddiqi’s guard went up, but he wasn’t sure why. In Arabic he replied, “Who are you?”
The man continued, still in English. “Doctor . . . I’ve been sent by Rima Halaby. It is a dire emergency.”
Saddiqi turned away.
He put the key in the door lock and opened it. In heavily accented English he replied, “Please. Come inside.”
* * *
? ? ?
Ten minutes later Yasmin sat on a vinyl sofa in a small but tidy apartment on the fifth floor of the building. Jamal was in her lap, and he ate greedily from the bottle she fed him.
Court and Shawkat Saddiqi sat at a small bar area in the apartment’s kitchen, just feet away from Yasmin. The doctor had already made tea for his guests, and he’d put out a plate of cookies and sweets that Yasmin politely declined. Court, on the other hand, dug shamelessly into a stack of cookies made of dates and flour because he hadn’t eaten all day.
Saddiqi took out a first-aid kit he kept in a back room and began cleaning the wound on Court’s head. As he did this he asked, “So, how is Rima?”
Court put down his cookie. “I’m very sorry to have to tell you this. But she’s dead.”
Saddiqi looked up from the bloody wound. “When?”
“Rima gave me your name two hours ago. One hour ago she was killed.”
“My God. What about Tarek?”
“Tarek is dead, as well.”
Saddiqi sighed and poured more antiseptic on a fresh cotton swab, and he went back to work. Court thought the man showed little emotion, and he tried to gauge Saddiqi’s relationship with the Halabys from his lack of reaction to hearing about their deaths, but he stopped himself. This guy was a trauma doc in Damascus. He must have seen death every hour of every day of his working life, so his internal meter of heartbreak and sadness must have been so off-kilter Court knew he couldn’t judge the man by how he acted.
Saddiqi closed the torn flap of skin, holding it until the bleeding stopped. “The Halabys’ two children died last year. I assume you were aware.”
“Yes. How did you know them?”
“I was a couple years older than the kids, but their parents and my parents had been friends when we were children. We lost touch after they emigrated when the war began.
“I had been helping the rebellion here in secret, treating wounded insurgents who showed up at my door. Someone who got out of the country told the Halabys that even though Dr. Saddiqi was working at a regime hospital in the capital, he could be trusted. Tarek reached out to me via encrypted chat, and we’ve shared information to help save lives.”
Saddiqi added, “This is back when they were just involved with nonviolent aid.”
Court said, “And then, somehow they became leaders of the insurgency.”
Saddiqi used glue to seal the skin closed above Court’s ear. “Leaders? No. After their kids died, the only way they could sleep at night was to dream about killing Ahmed Azzam and his supporters. Two people in their fifties who’d spent thirty years saving lives learned to dream of taking lives. But now they are dead. All for nothing.”
“No,” Court countered. “For something. But only if you can help us.”
“The Halabys sent you to me. Why?”
“This girl . . . and the baby. They need a place to stay. It might be a few days.”
Saddiqi seemed surprised by the request. He’d obviously expected much more. “Of course. They are welcome in my home.”
“There is something else. It might be that Yasmin doesn’t really want to be here.”
Saddiqi stood up and looked over Court to the girl feeding the baby on the sofa behind him. “She seems okay.”
“What she’s been through tonight has been a shock. People react in different ways. Trust me, I’ve seen it. She might be totally compliant now, and then wake up in the morning and try to throw herself out the window to get away.”
Saddiqi had cleaned the blood from Court’s neck, and now he took off his gloves and threw them into the trash. As he did this, he looked again at Court. “You are asking me to hold a mother and her baby prisoner?”
Court did not want to tell Dr. Saddiqi everything, but he realized he had no choice. “Sit down, Doctor.”
Saddiqi did so. “In my profession, we tell people to sit down when we are about to give them very bad news.”
“It’s the same in my profession. That baby? His name is Jamal.”
“So?”
“Lots of people name their boys Jamal around here, right?”
“Of course. It is the given name of the man who ran the country for thirty years before his son took over.”
“Right,” Court said. “But that boy? His father named him Jamal because his father’s name was Jamal.”
“Who is the boy’s father?”
Court shrugged. “Ahmed Azzam.”
Saddiqi shook his head emphatically. “Ridiculous. Ahmed Azzam’s son is dead. It’s a secret, but Shakira took him to my hospital many times, and we all know—”
Court shook his head now. “This isn’t Shakira’s boy, and Yasmin isn’t the mother, either.”
It took a moment for the doctor to understand, but when he did he covered his face with his hands and muttered something in Arabic that sounded like a prayer. Finally he switched back to English. “Who is the mother?”
“A Spanish woman who has a house here. She’s currently out of the country.”
“And you brought Ahmed Azzam’s child here, to my flat. I assume people are looking for him.”
“I’d say that’s a very safe assumption. I can promise you that no one tailed me to your place. The main danger is the girl. She is complying because she’s worried she’ll be blamed for this even if she somehow manages to get away. But who knows? Like I said, tomorrow she might have second thoughts.”
“Again, sir. Do you think I just happen to be running a jail in the back of my flat?”
“I didn’t have any other place to take her. I have to leave town . . . just for a few days.” Court looked off into the distance. “I think. I hope.” He looked up at the doctor. “If I don’t come back by Friday . . . then I’m dead, and you’re on your own.”
“You aren’t making a good case for me helping.”
“I hear you’ve been helping for seven years. You’ll help now, because that kid back there might just lead to the end of this war.”
“How will the child end the war?”
“Better if you don’t ask any questions.”
Saddiqi rubbed his tired face again. After a long time he nodded, as if to himself, and said, “I have a neighbor. He is involved in the local resistance. He’s not a leader, but he is a good man, and I suppose he can watch over a girl and a baby for a couple of days in my apartment. If he can’t manage that, then I guess that means the resistance is useless.”
“That’s good. How soon can he be here?”
“I patched him up after he was shot two years ago. Since then he’s brought me other wounded fighters. If I need him, at any time, he will be here. I’ll call now.”
Court told Dr. Saddiqi about his contact in France who was looking for a way to bring the girl and the baby out of the country. He gave Saddiqi Vincent Voland’s phone number.
Saddiqi asked, “This Frenchman. Is he reliable?”
“If he screws you or me over, then I will tear off his nuts and shove them down his throat. He knows this. I think he has all the motivation he needs to come through for us.”
The doctor looked at Court a long time. Court broke the staring contest by glancing at his watch and standing up quickly. “I have to get to Babbila.”
“What’s in Babbila?”
“The Desert Hawks militia base. I’m sort of working for them at the moment.”
Saddiqi seemed as stunned at this as Court had expected.
“Long story,” Court explained. “It was my cover, and I wasn’t planning on using it again, but I’m going to need to find a way to get back in there like none of this happened.”
“You shouldn’t be out on the streets. But I can go anywhere. I’ll drive you where you need to go as soon as my neighbor comes to watch the girl.”
CHAPTER 53