… and find no sign of Holly. My phone vibrates. It’s from Olive Sun. I scroll through the message:
hi ed, hope wedding good, dufresne ok to interview thurs 22. can u fly cairns wed 21? dole fruits aunty take u direct from hotel. respond soonest, best, os
My first thought is, Result!Having excellent grounds for assuming that Spyglass’s communications are being intercepted by several government agencies, Olive Sun texts in code: Dufresne is our nom de textetaken from The Shawshank Redemptionfor the Palestinian tunneler-in-chief under the Gaza-Egyptian border; “Cairns” is Cairo; “dole fruits” is Hezbollah; and an aunty is a handler. It’s exactly the sort of Bondesque stuff that kids like Seymour suppose we do routinely, but there’s nothing remotely glamorous about being detained by the Egyptian security forces for seventy-two hours in a downtown Cairo bunker, waiting for a bored interrogator to come and ask you why you’re there.
I pitched the story to Olive last autumn and she’s pulled God knows how many strings to set this up. Dufresne, if he’s one man and not ten, has a mythical status in Egypt, the Gaza Strip, and Jordan. An interview would be a major coup and enhance our magazine’s reputation in Arab-speaking countries by a factor of ten. Blockades and sanctions have no news legs; there’s little to say and nothing to see. Who cares if Israelis ban imports of powdered milk into Gaza? Stories about tunnels under walls, however, that’s different. That’s Escape from Colditzstuff, that’s The Count of Monte Cristo, and people eat that shit with a spoon. I’m about to reply with a yes when I remember one catch: At seven P.M. next Wednesday, Miss Aoife Brubeck is appearing for one night only as the Cowardly Lion in St. Jude’s C of E Primary School’s performance of The Wizard of Oz, and her daddy is expected.
What kind of self-centered bastard would miss his own daughter’s star turn? Why care about other people’s six-year-olds who’ll never perform anything because they died when Israeli bulldozers or Hezbollah rockets destroyed their homes? They’re not ourkids. We’re clever enough to be born where such things don’t happen.
See the problem, Seymour?
THE SECURITY GUYS on duty at the Safir Hotel checkpoint recognized Nasser’s car, raised the barrier, and waved us through. Crunching to a halt, Nasser told me, “Okay, Ed, so Aziz and me, we come at ten tomorrow morning. You, me, we transcribe tapes. Aziz bring photographs. Amazing story. Olive is very happy.”
“See you at ten.” Still in the car, I handed Nasser an envelope of Spyglassdollars for the day’s fee. We all shook hands, Aziz let me out of his side, and the Corolla pulled away. It stopped after only a few yards. I thought it was mechanical trouble, but Nasser wound down his window and waved something at me. “Ed, take this.”
I walked over and he put his little tape recorder into my hand. “Why? You’re coming tomorrow.”
Nasser made a face. “If here with you, is safer. Many good words on the tape.” With that he drove around the roundabout and back to the checkpoint. I walked up the hotel steps. Every window was a dark rectangle. Even if the electricity is working, guests are warned to keep lamps off at night because of the risk of snipers. Meeting me in the metal-plated porch was Tariq, a security guard with a Dragunov. “How they hanging, Mr. Ed?” Tariq likes to practice his slang.
“Can’t complain, Tariq. Quiet day?”
“Today quiet. Thanks to God.”
“Is Big Mac back home already?”
“Yes, yes. The dude is in the bar.”
I tip Tariq and his three colleagues generously to tell me if outsiders are asking questions about me, and to be vague with their replies. Not that I can ever be sure Tariq isn’t pocketing fees from both sides, but the principle of the Golden Goose has held so far. From the porch I passed through the glass doors to the circular reception area, where a low-wattage lamp gleamed on the concierge’s desk. A mighty chandelier hangs overhead, but I’ve never seen it illuminated, and now it’s mightily cobwebbed. I never looked at it without imagining it crashing down. Mr. Khufaji, the manager, was helping a lad load used car batteries onto a luggage trolley. Dead batteries are exchanged for live ones every morning, like milk bottles when I was a kid. Guests use them to power laptops and sat-phones.
“Good evening, Mr. Brubeck,” said the manager, dabbing his forehead with a handkerchief. “You’ll be needing your key.”
“Good evening, Mr. Khufaji.” I waited while he fetched it from the drawer. “Could I have one of those batteries, please?”
“Certainly. I’ll send the boy up when he returns.”
“Most kind.” We retain old-school manners, even if Baghdad has gone to hell and the Safir was less a five-star hotel and more of a serviced campsite inside a dead hotel.
“I thought I heard your dulcet tones.” Honduran cigar in hand, Big Mac appeared from the dingy bar that served as common room, rumor mill, and favor exchange. “What time do you call this?”
“Later than you, which means you’re buying the beers.”
“No no no, the deal was the lastone back buys the beers.”
“That’s a shameless lie, Mr. MacKenzie, and you know it.”
“Hey. Shameless lies precipitate wars and make work for hungry hacks. Get any street action in Fallujah?”
“The cordon’s too tight. What about you day-trippers?”
“Waste of time.” Big Mac filled his lungs with cigar smoke. “Got to Camp Victory to be told the fighting had intensified, meaning the Marine Corps were too busy to keep our fat asses alive. We munched bullshit with press officers before being squeezed into a supply convoy heading back to Baghdad. Not the one that got IEDed into flying mince, obviously. You?”
“Better. We found a makeshift clinic for refugees from Fallujah, plus a shot-down Kiowa. Aziz took a few shots before a uniformed countryman of yours kindly suggested we leave.”
“Not bad, but”—Big Mac crossed the floor and lowered his voice, even though Mr. Khufaji had exited—“one of Vincent Agrippa’s ‘well-placed sources’ texted him twenty minutes ago about a ‘unilateral cease-fire’ coming into play tomorrow.”
I doubted that. “Mac, the Fallujah militia won’t roll over now. Perhaps as a regrouping exercise—”
“No, not the insurgents. The marines are standing down.”
“Bloody hell. Where is this source? General Sanchez’s office?”
“Nope. The army’ll be spitting cold shit over this. They’ll be, ‘If you’re going to take Vienna, take fucking Vienna.’ ”
“Do you think Bremer cooked this one up?”
“My friend: The Great Envoy couldn’t cook his own testes in a Jacuzzi of lava.”
“You’ll have to give me a clue, then, won’t you?”
“Since you’re buying the beers, here’s three.” Big Mac took a five-second cigar break. “C, I, and A. It’s a direct order from Dick Cheney’s office.”
“Vincent Agrippa has a source in the CIA? But he’s French! He’s a cheese-eating surrender monkey.”
“Vincent Agrippa has a source in God’s panic room, and it pans out. Cheney’s afraid that Fallujah’ll split the Coalition of the Willing—not that they’re a coalition, or willing, but hey. Join us for dinner after you’ve freshened up—guess what’s on the menu.”