Mark had assumed the Bahrainis had been tracking him ever since his visit to Riffa. But unless he backed out of delivering Muhammad the next day, he’d figured they wouldn’t bother him. He doubted, though, that he’d get the same hands-off treatment from the Saudi in the Taurus.
He looked behind him. The Chevy sedan that had tried to cut him off was now tailgating.
Mark pocketed his iPod. They were approaching an exit off to the right. When they’d almost passed it, he leaned over and yanked hard on the steering wheel, sending the taxi screeching off the highway onto the exit ramp.
The driver fought for control of the steering wheel, which Mark released as soon as they were on the exit ramp.
Yelling at him in Arabic, the cabbie pulled to a stop.
Mark pointed behind him. “Problem!” he said, speaking English.
The guy in the Chevy sedan behind them hadn’t been able to react fast enough to make the exit ramp, but he was now backing up on the shoulder of the highway.
Mark fished a twenty-dinar note out of his front pocket. “Go,” he said, handing the money over. “Government Avenue.”
The cabbie looked at the money, and then at Mark. Government Avenue was a busy thoroughfare that cut through the old part of Manama.
“Min fadlak,” Mark added. Please.
The cabbie pocketed the money and started driving, though not as fast as Mark would have liked. They passed a big open parking lot and a Papa John’s, then cruised through an intersection, but before merging onto Government Avenue, heavy traffic forced them to stop behind a pink, blue, and white conversion van emblazoned with the words ICE CREAM FRUITY.
Mark jumped out. Fifty feet or so behind him, a man wearing sandals, jeans, and a white shirt burst out of the front passenger door of the Chevy.
Mark ran across Government Avenue, then turned down a narrow street. He was in a pedestrian-only district packed with little shops, an old part of Manama. One of the store owners had wheeled a rack of thawb robes out into the street for display. Without breaking stride, Mark pulled two twenty-dinar bills out of his pocket, handed the money — as though it were a relay baton — to a surprised-looking merchant, and grabbed one of the robes off the rack. Still walking quickly, he slipped it over his head and buttoned it up tight, right up to the priest-like collar.
From behind him came the sound of several men running on pavement. Mark turned left down another alley-like street, speed-purchased a Yasser Arafat — style kaffiyeh headdress from a street merchant who’d spread his wares all over a carpet, and arranged the kaffiyeh on his head as he walked.
In front of him, a man in dark slacks and sandals scanned the crowd. Though it wasn’t the same guy who’d jumped out of the Chevy, or the Saudi Mark had recognized, he didn’t look as though he was there to shop.
Mark spied a no-frills restaurant on his right; old men and young couples were sitting outside on chairs constructed of rough wood planks that had been painted bright blue. Mark slid into an open seat, positioned himself so that he was facing away from the street, and got the attention of a bored-looking teenage waiter. When the kid approached, Mark pointed to a Coca-Cola bottle on an adjacent table and held up one finger.
The kid brought the Coke, which came in a thick recyclable bottle that looked as if it had been in use since the 1950s. Mark took a sip, then a few deep breaths, listening more than looking. He didn’t hear footsteps running in the streets. The conversation behind him sounded normal.
The damn Saudis. What had they been up to? Why try to take him now? Had his visit to the teacher rattled them?
It must have.
A few older men sat smoking nearby, their elbows resting on plastic sheeting that had been stretched tight over the tabletops and stapled to the undersides. They wore thawbs like Mark’s, only theirs were unbuttoned at the neck, revealing T-shirts underneath.
Mark looked at the creases on the men’s faces. He imagined their families. Bahrain was their home, not his. They should be dealing with Muhammad.
A big part of him wanted to go back to the Sheraton, e-mail Decker with instructions on how to hand Muhammad over to the Bahrainis, take a long hot shower, and then settle in for the evening at the bar.
He took a sip of his Coke, and thought of Daria. No, he’d see this through to the end. He’d figure out what was up with this damn nanny, then make a decision about the best course of action.
Mark pulled out one of his prepaid phones. It was time to call Larry Bowlan.
41
While Ted Kaufman had been Mark’s last boss at the CIA, Larry Bowlan had been his first.
They’d met in Tbilisi, Georgia, just before the fall of the Soviet Union. Mark had been studying abroad on a Fulbright scholarship, having a blast living with his Russian girlfriend. Bowlan had been a middle-aged, Yale-educated CIA operations officer looking to expose a mole that had infiltrated an anti-Soviet student group. Mark’s decision to help Bowlan had led to his being kidnapped, interrogated, and tortured by the KGB. It had been a brutal introduction to the intelligence game.
Mark considered that history for a moment, then called the main number for the US consulate in Dubai and asked for the visa processing department.
His call was transferred and a woman picked up. Mark told her who he was trying to reach, adding, “He’s old. And cranky. White hair.”
“Yeah, I know him. And who are you?”
“Just tell him it’s an old friend from Tbilisi. He’ll know who it is.”
An exasperated sigh, then, “Hold on.”
A minute later, Mark heard whispers:
Who is it?
He wouldn’t say.
Jesus, I don’t have time for this crap.
Quiet, he’s on the line.
Someone grabbed the phone. A couple of buttons beeped, as if someone had pushed them by mistake.
“Who is this?”
The voice on the phone was gravelly and rough, the result of too many cigarettes over too many years. Mark could picture his former boss — the big Adam’s apple, the wrinkled cheeks, the thin red booze lines clustered around his nose…
“Hey, Larry.”
A pause, then, “Oh, Christ.”
“I need a favor.”
“Of course you do, why else would you call?”
“I’m close by, in Bahrain.”
“On a job?”
“Of sorts.”
Bowlan sighed. It sounded to Mark like a sigh of envy.
His old boss had retired at the age of sixty-five — Mark had sent him a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue as a send-off — then rejoined the Agency at the age of sixty-six, having failed miserably at being a retiree. And when he’d been hired back, it hadn’t been at his high-ranking GS-14 civil service pay level — Larry liked his drink too much for that — but instead as a GS-9 who took orders from a CIA pencil-pusher half his age.
Mark said, “I’m looking for a fifty-six-year-old woman who flew into Dubai three days ago. Can you search the visa records?”
Last Mark had heard, one of Bowlan’s jobs at the consulate was to help the CIA help the United Arab Emirates vet suspicious visa applications.
“Is she a Bahraini?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, if she’s Bahraini or from one of the other Gulf states, she wouldn’t need a visa so there won’t be visa records.”