Then he was handed over to a lithe young woman, who appeared considerably better rested. She laid an Apple MacBook on a table, finger-combing her short red hair as she spoke.
“Go ahead, open it. Start it up.”
It was his own device. He could tell by a telltale scratch on the cover. He was glad to have it back. The arrangement of the desktop on the screen hadn’t been changed.
“So what did you do to it? You did something, right?”
“It’s not yours,” the woman said. “But we’re glad you think it is, Ruhi. It’s been outfitted with a history that makes it look like you were contacting jihadist websites. The Chinese did you a favor when they framed you. They made it plausible for you to assume this role. Gave you a vital history. It includes the email to al-Awlaki. It even includes email back from him.”
“The jihadists will know that I never contacted him.”
“No, they won’t,” she replied. “Al-Awlaki was sloppy with his contacts. He had horrible computer skills. It’s one of the reasons he’s dead. He’s the one guy we could do that to. But he’s still important, because he’s revered. He was a turncoat American citizen, just like you’ll appear.”
“He was a fraud,” Ruhi said.
“You’ll get no arguments here,” the woman said, sitting across from him. “Tomorrow, after lunch, you’ll be meeting with a cybersecurity expert to review deep encryption so once you’re in the Mideast you can stay in contact with Agent Anders and your agent supervisors here. You’re booked out of Dulles on a nine p.m. flight to Riyadh.”
“That’s it? That’s all?”
“No. You’ll have more gun training in the morning. Plus, more hand-to-hand combat. We’re doing what we can,” she added. “Time pressures are enormous. Did you sleep okay last night? Do you need a sleep aid?”
“What?” The question startled him.
“A sleeping pill. Sleep’s critical. You’ll need to absorb a lot tomorrow. Are you too charged up to sleep?”
“No. I’ve been sleep-deprived for the past couple of days.”
She nodded. “If you need anything, let us know.”
“Dinner?”
“You’ll enjoy it.”
“How do you know that?”
She smiled.
Why do I even ask?
It was his favorite meal, lamb rogan josh, served to him and Candace in a private room off the Farm’s main dining hall.
When they were alone — although Ruhi doubted they were unseen or unheard — he had an unsettling flash of uncertainty about Candace.
“I have to ask you, is your interest in me just to make me part of this insane mission?”
“I can understand why you’d wonder. All I can tell you is that I’m really attracted to you, Ruhi, and I honestly find that confusing. I’m sure that if circumstances were different, less pressing, I would feel much more comfortable with my feelings. But to feel this way while being forced to go out on what could be a hellishly difficult mission?” She shook her head. “It’s kind of crazy, I know. We hardly even know each other, but something definitely sparked for me right away. I don’t mean to sound immodest, but I saw that in you, too, the night in your apartment when we sat by the window.”
“You’re not being immodest at all. Of course I felt something. So where does that leave us on the personal side of things during all this?”
“The same place it leaves us on the professional side — just trying to survive. But I should tell you that I’m not a fast mover under any circumstances.”
“Meaning?”
“I’ve never jumped into a relationship with anyone.”
Ruhi was pleased to hear her last comment. His upbringing and Muslim faith, no matter how lapsed, still made him uncomfortable with women who flaunted their sexuality or used it too readily. Candace’s words didn’t strike him as a dodge or a convenient means to keep him at bay. They struck him as the truth.
Dinner ended on that sincere-sounding note. They walked back to the dormitory, escorted by the security team.
Ruhi settled down in his room by himself, wondering if he should have taken a sleep aid. Between his imminent departure and his feelings for Candace, he was as awake as he possibly could be. He lay with his hands on his chest staring into the darkness, head buzzing in the absolute silence of the room.
A moment later — or so it seemed — he awakened to his last day in the States. Maybe ever.
He still called it the “States.” Nobody he’d ever met who was native born used that term, but he did. A small part of him had never fully emigrated from Saudi Arabia, and he was reminded of that in little ways.
My last day.
He sat on the edge of the bed, shocked by the tectonic shifts in his life. His work at NRDC, as important as he had deemed it, now paled. But he guessed that any number of his colleagues probably felt the same way after seeing their country descend into mayhem.
A knock on the door startled him.
“I’m up,” he called out.
“Good enough, Mr. Mancur. You have fifteen minutes to shower.”
His “hosts” had provided a toothbrush, floss, toothpaste, soap, shampoo, conditioner, and a full complement of washcloths and towels. But no razor.
He looked at himself in the mirror. Stubble everywhere. It grew so fast. After only a few days he had the unkempt look of so many jihadists. He understood why his minders would want him bearded, less Westernized. That made sense — but it also itched.
Candace joined him for breakfast. She looked freshly awake and utterly beguiling. If he survived, if she did too, could they possibly make a relationship work? He knew better than to think that there could ever be an easy answer at this point, but he also knew that clinging to that notion could prove to be a critical lifeline.
Breakfast was ample. After a second round of sessions with his firearms and martial arts instructors, he was taken by elevator to a computer laboratory deep below a barnlike structure. It contained large rooms packed with so many devices that he thought they could have constituted the cybernetic stronghold of the country.
A salt-and-pepper-haired NSA official greeted him without using his own name, and then introduced him to a tall, attractive woman with black hair.
“This is Lana Elkins. She’s one of the world’s foremost experts on encryption and, to use the vernacular, hacking.”
Absolutely beautiful, Ruhi could not avoid thinking as Elkins shook his hand firmly. Her clear dark eyes were dazzling. Older than him by almost five years, he guessed, and every bit as striking in her own way as Candace. It made him wonder what it was about the spy trade that seemed to attract such appealing women. He knew that they couldn’t all be so alluring, not any more than all the men could resemble James Bond.
You sure don’t, he told himself.
A moment later Candace joined them as Ruhi’s tutorial began on his new MacBook. Candace had her own laptop and took copious notes. Elkins sent both of them material every few seconds for the first ten minutes.
“I guess it’s got a ton of memory,” Ruhi said to her.
“You’re guessing right,” Elkins replied without looking up. “Agent Anders is your immediate backup,” the computer expert went on, “but I’ll also be based in Riyadh for the time being.”
“Where?”
She shook her head as if he should have known better than to ask.
“You’re going to stand out in my home country,” he said.
“Conveniently enough, I’ll be doing some agency contract work.”