The apprentice bombers started talking excitedly among themselves. Dante, suddenly edgy, barked at them to pay attention to the demonstration. The students reacted to the tone of his voice even before Abdullah, scampering back down to the group, translated the words. Dante, wearing a surgical glove on his right hand, finished pulling the intestines through the slit he’d made in the dog’s stomach and began stuffing the packets of PETN wrapped in burlap, and then the radio-controlled detonator, into the cavity. Using a thick needle and a length of butcher’s cord, he sewed up the slit with large stitches. Standing, peeling off the surgical glove, he addressed Abdullah. “Tell them to position the dead dog so that its stomach is facing away from the enemy when he approaches.” One of the students raised his hand. Abdullah translated the question. “He says you, is a dead dog more suitable than the papier-mâché rocks we learned to plant at the side of the road?”
“Tell him the Greeks couldn’t have used the Trojan horse trick twice,” Dante said. “Tell him the same goes for the Israelis. They’ll catch on very quickly to the fake rocks stuffed with explosives. So you need to invent other ruses. A dead dog lying in the middle of a road is so common that the Israeli jeeps will keep going. At which point—”
Dr. al-Karim appeared above them on the rim of the quarry. He raised a bullhorn and called, “Mr. Pippen, I would like a word with you, if you please.”
Dante saluted lazily and started to climb the path. Halfway to the top he looked up and noticed that several of the Hezbollah gunmen had joined the imam. All of them had pulled their checkered kaffiyahs over their faces so that only their eyes were visible. Out of breath, Dante reached the top and approached Dr. al-Karim. Two of the gunmen slammed bullets into the chambers of their Kalashnikovs. The metallic sound caused Dante to stop in his tracks. He forced a light laugh through his lips. “Your warriors seem jittery today,” he remarked. “What’s going on?”
Without answering, Dr. al-Karim turned and stalked off toward his house. Two of the gunmen prodded Dante with the barrels of their rifles. He bristled. “You want me to follow him, all you have to do is ask. Politely.”
He trailed after the imam to the large house next to the mosque. When he reached the back of the house he found the door to Dr. al-Karim’s office ajar. One of the gunmen behind him gestured with his Kalashnikov. Shrugging, Dante kicked open the door with his toe and went in.
Time seemed to have stopped inside the room. Dr. al-Karim, his corpulent body frozen in the seat behind the desk, his eyes hardly blinking, stared at the Israeli spy, bound with strips of white masking tape to a straight-backed kitchen chair set in the middle of the floor. Muffled groans came from the prisoner’s mouth under the black hood. Dante noticed the thinness of the prisoner’s wrists and ankles and jumped to the conclusion that Hezbollah had arrested a teenage boy. The imam motioned for Dante to sit in the other straight-backed chair. Four of the gunmen took up positions along the wall behind him.
“Where did we leave off our last conversation?” Dr. al-Karim inquired stiffly.
“We were talking about the Greeks and Aristotle. You were condemning them for teaching that reason gives access to truth, as opposed to faith.”
“Precisely. We know what we know because of our faith in Allah and His Prophet, who guide us to the right way, the only way. It may be seen as a transgression when a lapsed Catholic like you does not accept this; normally a believer such as myself should attempt to convert you or, failing at that, expel you.” He glanced at the spy. “When one of our own turns his—or her—back on faith, it is a mortal sin, punishable by execution.”
The imam muttered an order in Arabic. One of the gunmen came up behind the Israeli spy and tugged off the hood. Dante caught his breath. Patches of Djamillah’s long dark hair were pasted to her scalp with dried blood. One of her eyes was swollen shut, her lips were badly cut, several front teeth were missing. A large hoop earring dangled from one lobe; the skin on the other lobe hung loose, the result of having had the earring wrenched off without first undoing it.
“You do not deny that you know her?” Dr. al-Karim said.
Dante had trouble speaking. “I know her in the carnal sense of the word,” he finally replied, his voice barely audible. “Her name is Djamillah. She is the prostitute who worked the licensed tabernacle I visited in Beirut. She carted me off upstairs to what the Irish call the intensive care unit.”
“Djamillah is a pseudonym. She claims she cannot remember her real name but she is obviously lying; she is protecting members of her family against retribution. She was passing herself off as a prostitute in order to spy for the Jews. Aerial photographs of several training camps, ours included, were discovered hidden in the room she used. Some of the photographs had notations, in English, describing the camp layout. We suspect you may have provided her with these notations when you visited the bar in Beirut.”
A rasp of a whisper came from Djamillah’s cracked lips; she spoke slowly, struggling to pronounce certain consonants with her mouth open. “I told the ones … ones who questioned me … the Irishman was a client.”
“Who, then, made the notations on the photographs?” demanded the imam.
“The notations … were on the photographs when they … they were delivered to me.”
Dr. al-Karim nodded once. The gunman behind Djamillah slipped two fingers through the hoop of the remaining earring and pulled down hard on it. It severed the skin on the lobe and came free in a spurt of blood. Djamillah opened her mouth to scream, but passed out before the sound could emerge from her throat.
A pitcher of water was flung in her face. Her eyes twitched open and the muted scream lodged at the back of her throat like a fish bone exploded with savage force. Dante winced and turned away. Dr. al-Karim came around the desk and planted himself in front of Dante. “Who are you?” he demanded in a low growl.
“Pippen, Dante. Free-lance, free-minded, free-spirited explosive expert of Irish origin, at your beck and call as long as you keep depositing checks in my off-shore account.”
The imam circled the prisoner, looking at her but talking to Dante. “I would like to believe you are who you say, for your sake; for mine, as well.”
“Come on, now—she must have seen dozens, perhaps hundreds of men in the room over the bar. Any one of them could have been her contact.”
“Were you intimate with her?”
“Yes.”
“Does she have any distinguishing marks on her body?”
Dante described the small scar on the inside of her thigh, the trimmed pubic hair, the vaccination scar on her left arm, or was it her right—he wasn’t sure. Ah, yes, there was also the faded tattoo of a night moth under her right breast. Dr. al-Karim turned to the prisoner and, gripping the loose fitting shirt at the buttons, ripped it away from her body. He gazed at the faded tattoo under her breast, then flung the shirt closed, tucking the loose fabric under the strips of white masking tape.
“How much did you pay her?” the imam asked.
Dante thought a moment. “Fifty dollars.”
“What denomination bills?”
“Two twenties and a ten.”
“You handed her two twenties and a ten?”
Dante shook his head. “I put the bills on the desk. I weighed them down with a shell casing.”
“What was she wearing when you had sex with her?”