He thought of these Egyptians whose world he passed through every day—how many friends had he made among them? None. He and most of his embassy co-workers were ghosts in this town, circulating only among themselves, as if the locals were there just to make sure their electricity and water flowed, and that they were well fed. He lived among Egyptians but not with them, which, on those rare days when he grew philosophical and critical of his life, bothered him deeply.
Ali Busiri found him easily. They didn’t know each other well; a couple of meetings in other parks were the sum of their personal relationship. There were no pass-phrases with a contact as high-ranking as Busiri.
He was plump and healthy-looking, and if Stan hadn’t known Busiri’s file he would’ve been tempted to use the word “jolly” to describe him. But he knew enough about Ali Busiri to know that he was far from jolly, and his expression that day, interrupted only by drags on a filtered Camel, did nothing to change his opinion. He sat down beside Stan, stinking of smoke. “This is about Emmett Kohl?”
Stan nodded.
“Otherwise I wouldn’t have come. He was a good man.”
“Maybe you didn’t know him that well,” Stan said in spite of himself.
Busiri turned to give him a look, something close to disgust. “You wanted to talk.”
“First I have a question: Do you know where Sophie Kohl is?”
The older man blinked. “Emmett’s widow? No. Is she missing?”
Stan very nearly answered the question before changing his mind. If Busiri didn’t know where she was, then that part of the conversation was finished. “I’d like to talk about Zora Balašević.”
Busiri smiled thinly; it did nothing to brighten his face. “The lady Serb. What about her?”
“She was working for you.”
Busiri rocked his head from side to side, but he wasn’t up to playing games today. “Yes.”
“She passed you intelligence from the American embassy.”
“Yes.”
“And her source was Emmett Kohl.”
This time the smile did brighten his face, just barely. “No,” he said.
Stan took a breath. “Then who was it?”
Busiri turned away from him to look up the length of the path. Stan supposed he was looking for shadows, though there seemed little reason for it. Meetings between American diplomatic staff and Egyptian civil servants happened all the time. Some, Stan had heard, were even friends. Speaking in the direction of the rest of the park, so that Stan could only see his profile, he said, “Mr. Bertolli, what did you think of Omar Halawi’s warning?”
“Who?”
Busiri turned back. “You think I don’t know about Omar? You call him RAINMAN, as if he’s some idiot savant, but he’s not.”
“You’ve been running him?”
Busiri looked surprised. “Of course. You didn’t know?”
No, Stan hadn’t known, though he’d had his suspicions. He felt stupid.
“But his message, Mr. Bertolli.”
“That we should look at ourselves.”
“Exactly.”
“I don’t know what to think. Particularly now that I know everything he told us was coming from you.”
Busiri snorted softly, then shook his head. “Omar liked Emmett. Omar also has some problems that I believe will eventually require medication.”
“Are you saying he’s paranoid?”
“I am no doctor. However, for some people the layers upon layers of lies have a detrimental effect. One has to rewire the brain to do the kind of work we do. One crossed wire can throw everything off.”
“What does he believe?”
Busiri took another drag and exhaled smoke. “Why don’t we start with a simple question? The inverse of yours. Where is Jibril Aziz?”
“Tell me what Omar Halawi believes; then we can move to that.”
“So you do know where Jibril is?” he asked, a trace of hope in his voice.
Stan nodded.
Busiri considered him for a moment, smoking, then tossed the unfinished cigarette into the damp grass, where it sizzled. “Omar and Jibril are friends. When Jibril drafted a plan to overthrow the mad despot in Tripoli, he brought it to Omar for consideration.”
That was a surprise—Aziz had brought a top-secret plan to the Egyptians? Stan shook his head; it didn’t matter now. “You know we rejected it, right? The Agency shelved the operation.”
“Did you?” Busiri asked. “Perhaps you rejected it. Jibril was certainly told that it was rejected. But what was the reality? In some back room at your Langley, the planners were reconsidering. They reconsider everything, don’t they? They put everything on ice.”
“I couldn’t tell you,” Stan admitted.
“I’m not going to be coy with you, Mr. Bertolli,” he said, opening his hands. “You see how open I’m being. However, you’ll also notice that Omar has been reticent of late. This is his decision, not mine. He’s appalled by what he believes the Agency is up to.”
Stan shifted on the bench so that he could see Busiri’s face better in the sudden darkness—sunset had occurred without him noticing, even though a distant prayer should have reminded him. “I don’t have keys to secret back rooms, so you’re going to have to be clearer with me. I’m just a cog.”
“Just a cog?” Busiri grinned, then lit another Camel. “I’ll tell you, Mr. Bertolli, because maybe you are just a cog, or maybe you’re the man with his fingers on the controls. Either way, you should know what I know, for perhaps that will lead you to reconsider your actions.”
Stan waited.
“Jibril called Omar a couple of weeks ago. February 22, five days after the Day of Revolt in Benghazi. He said, ‘They’re doing it, Omar. Stumbler is beginning.’ That’s all he had to say.”
Though Stan knew the answer, he still wanted it spelled out. “What did it mean?”
Busiri brought the cigarette to his mouth, blinking, and took a drag. “It meant,” he said, smoke coming out with his words, “that it was all set up. Once the Libyan people began to work for their own future, once they were dying in the streets, your people were prepared to take advantage of the historic moment. Take advantage of their courage and their martyrs. It meant that your world-renowned Agency was ready to steal the revolution from the bloodied hands of those in Libya who love freedom.” He paused, took another drag, then said, “And because of this breach of basic human decency, I suggest you keep your distance from Omar. If placed in the same room with a representative of your Agency—with you, perhaps—I fear he may become violent. And we don’t want that, do we?”
Stan thought about this a moment, briefly feeling Omar Halawi’s anger, an anger Busiri seemed to share. Busiri wasn’t talking about the CIA helping the revolution but taking it over, installing America’s handpicked leaders in the presidential palace. He could understand the Egyptian’s anger, but only to a degree. He thought again, then said, “I’m not going to take a lecture on basic human decency from a member of the Central Security Forces. We weren’t gunning down protesters in Tahrir Square.” Stan paused, but Busiri didn’t react, so he went on. “What do you think the radicals are going to do once there’s a vacuum in Tripoli? Do you think they’re going to sit back and watch from their caves? No. They’re going to threaten and sweet-talk the electorate until they get power, and then it’ll be sharia law, women as chattel, and the export of teenagers with backpack bombs. Which would you prefer on your border—a Western-leaning government, or an Islamofascist state?”
Busiri scratched the edge of his lip, smiling. “You speak as if there’s a world of difference when dealing with those two kinds of entities. There isn’t, Mr. Bertolli. States are predictable, particularly when they have an extreme ideology. So are intelligence agencies.”