Cold Snap (8 page)

"Your evidence for this?"

"I don't have any," she admitted
sorrowfully.

Ari was not convinced there was such a thing
as 'woman's intuition'. However, he had experienced first-hand that
some women were powerful psychics.

"You still love him," he said.

"I don't like using that word."

"Why not, if it applies?"

"'Love' means someone has something over
you."

"A pity," Ari said.

"Maybe." She reached forward, as though
intending to grasp Ari's hand. But she pulled back short of
contact. "Mr. Ciminon, all I want is for you to ask your police
friends if they've heard..."

"Of a fatal accident?" he ventured. "But they
would tell you, the spouse, if anything had happened to him."

"I think so, too. But what if..."

"Such as a charred corpse, for example?" Ari
did not regret his choice of words. He wanted to see her pain.
Something that he could verify.

"Has anyone ever told you you're a shit?" she
hissed.

"Excuse my poor choice of words," he said,
doing his best to appear the hapless, ignorant immigrant.

"Okay. But yes, something like that. Things
come out of the blue, you know?"

"The blue?"

"Ethan had found another job, everything
seemed safe and secure, and then this. It's like the worst
happening, then the best happening, and then...blank."

"Your ends were loose," said Ari
helpfully.

"You could put it that way. Don't put
yourself out too much, Mr. Ciminon. But if you can find out
anything, I would be so grateful..."

And how grateful might that be, thought
Ari...thinking of a cat.

CHAPTER THREE

Baghdad

March, 2004

Al-Amn al-Khas, known to English-speakers as
Iraq's Special Security Organization, was disbanded by the
Americans per Coalition Provisional Authority Order Number 2—Order
Number 1 being the banning of the Ba'ath Party from any
participation in the new Iraqi government. Along with the SSO,
Order Number 2 disbanded the Iraqi military. Many would consider it
to be the CPA chief's biggest blunder. Throwing so many young men
out of work was bound to radicalize much of the population, and
payback would be hell. But Ghaith was not one to point his finger
at Paul Bremer and declare him a charmed idiot. It was American
policy to reverse hundreds of years of murderous religious
antagonism. No policy imposed from the outside could possibly
succeed. The Americans might have learned from the British
experience in Northern Ireland. Perversely enough, a large number
of Sunnis and Shia had become good neighbors under Saddam. A case
of behave...or else. American thinkers thought that logic alone
could replace 'or else'. They were about to learn that in large
chunks of the world, logic and religion were still very much at
odds. Human ancestors had gone to a lot of trouble to pass on their
predatory lunacy; it would be a shame to chuck it for the sake of
some alien ideal.

Ghaith's superficial Sunni upbringing
(Ba'athists and their associates were lukewarm on everything but
holding power) was sufficient to teach him that the Sunnis were not
about to roll over and let the Americans rub their tummies until
they were placated.

He quickly proved his usefulness to the Iraq
Survey Group, but not in the way either party had anticipated. The
secrets Ghaith thought he had up his sleeve had already been pried
out of the SSO databases. But members of the international group
had difficulty deciphering what lay before them. Surprisingly few
were fluent in Arabic, putting them at a disadvantage with an open
source program like AMMORIA. Of course, Ghaith could not make heads
or tails out of Jeem or Phoenix, but the researchers were not
interested in programming languages. They lusted for bombs. Big
bombs. As far as this went, the pertinent data Ghaith translated
for them could have filled a thimble. He could have told him much
more off the top of his head.

Naturally, he didn't.

Although Ghaith could be ferociously
antagonistic when it suited him, he was also naturally gifted at
earning the trust of others. The ISG was reassured when he showed
no fanatical tendencies, and they were even more pleased when he
unhesitatingly guided them to various hidden personnel records, not
knowing that this trustworthy assistant, whom they knew as
Al-Sayyid Faisal of Al-Baghdadi, had doctored many of those files
before the first American JDAM fell on Baghdad. What a swell guy
Al-Sayyid was. Some of them even stopped calling him 'Haji'.

Enhanced by this reputation, the ISG began to
allow him to shuttle unguarded between the various points of
interest to them: Al-Hayat, Palestine Street, the office block
behind the Rashid Hotel, the Brigade of Amn Al-Khass near the
Baghdad Clock, the SSO Gun Club near Al Masba, the Security
Institute in Hai Al Amil, the Protection Office and the Office of
Public Opinion near the Agricultural Circle. The kids of the ISG
must have believed they were winning his heart and mind by allowing
him so much latitude They were also understandably reluctant to
expose themselves on the increasingly dangerous streets of Baghdad.
'Unguarded' also meant 'unprotected', and Ghaith had to tread
warily. This became all too clear when he received a call from
someone who should not have had his number and he found himself the
target of an ambush outside the city.

After the incident in the apricot grove,
where he had not only saved himself but also his surviving son,
Qasim, Ghaith had reported back to his office as though nothing had
happened. Whoever was behind the plot to kill him would probably
suspect his would-be assassins had been stopped by an American
patrol and bide his time until the next opportunity presented
itself. There were any number of parties who wanted Colonel Ghaith
Ibrahim dead. Uday Hussein himself had set a trap for him after the
colonel had played an unforgivable prank on the one-time heir to
the presidency. The Americans asserted that Uday was now gone, but
his adherents still viewed Ghaith's throat as a delectable target.
Then there were the insurgents, the snipers, and bombers and mortar
men who lobbed shells into American compounds and crowded markets.
As far as they were concerned, Ghaith was marked as a
collaborator.

The ISG regarded him with renewed uncertainty
after his two-day absence. Sometimes they kept him at arm's length.
At other times, they seemed inclined to stand him before a firing
squad. But he was the one who had fingered Uday and Qusay Hussein
for the invaders. With the eagerness of children on holiday, Task
Force 20 swept into Mosul and smashed the brothers' holdout,
allegedly killing everyone inside. The Americans offered Ghaith (as
Al-Sayyid Faisal of Al-Baghdadi) a reward of $30 million for the
betrayal. Even with his assumed identity, Ghaith could not accept
the money. He would be risking exposure, putting his wife and Qasim
in harm's way.

His refusal made the Americans more
suspicious of him than they already were. They were suspicious of
all of the people they had come to save. But turning down a
multi-million dollar reward made someone stand out. Ghaith did not
help his cause with his behavior after his meeting with Omar. The
major general in charge of the ISG had personally demanded an
explanation when Ghaith returned, wide-eyed with innocence—after
slaying a half-dozen men in apricot grove.

"I was visiting Saddam Hussein," Ghaith said
blithely. This was during the height of the manhunt for the former
president.

"You know where he is?" asked the MG, seeing
fame and a third star on the horizon.

"I knocked, but no one was home," Ghaith
shrugged. "He's always been a bit of a nomad that way. Do you know
how many palaces he had? Hopped from one to the other on the
slightest whim. Drove everyone nuts, not knowing where he'd be
next…"

"Well, it looks like he's still hopping,"
said the general, eyeing Ghaith sourly. During the early days of
the occupation, having one's leg pulled by an Iraqi was tantamount
to being subjected to a terrorist attack. It was far more onerous
when the butt of the joke held high rank. The MG had no doubt this
joker was a security risk. He ordered the head of the Physical
Security Detail not to allow Ghaith outside the operating range of
Sector Control Point-Baghdad, and to keep tabs on him at all
times.

His cell phone was confiscated. This was no
inconvenience because, under the previous regime, Ghaith had found
it prudent to keep several spares tagged to the same phone number,
one of which was taped to the back of a file cabinet in a hallway
of the office on Palestine Street. He retrieved it, checked that it
was charged and in vibration mode, then merged into the bustle of
techs and intelligence officers to offer his assistance, if it was
requested, and to otherwise stay out of the way. Now that he was in
the MG's bad graces, he mostly stayed out of the way. The SPC
charged with keeping an eye on him limited his intrusiveness to
half-hour checks. Whatever SSO building they were assigned to for a
particular day would be surrounded by guards who would keep him on
the premises. And at the end of the day he would be returned to
Camp Slayer, part of the Victory Base Complex at Baghdad
International Airport. Ghaith was not put out by this, as it gave
him the opportunity to enjoy the amenities of the Perfume Palace.
All of the furniture had been looted, but the thieves had been
unable to make away with the excellent indoor pool. He was
certainly better off than the Sinhalese, Indians, Nepalese and
Bangladeshis being held as slave labor in the American's KBR
warehouse just across the lake. Sometimes, their eerie lamentations
crossed the water.

He had no home to go to. Although there was
only minor damage to his house in al-Masbah, a house absent loved
ones was no home, and in his case was no better than a torture
chamber.

As the days passed and the ISG burrowed
deeper into SSO files and databases, they began to appreciate
Ghaith's almost impeccable English, marred only by the occasional
malapropism. They were glad to have his knowledge of the chaotic
filing system. They suspected (correctly) that he was imparting
only a fraction of his knowledge, and while he seemed somewhat
deficient in computer expertise, he had memorized a prodigious
number of passwords, making the chore a lark for the hackers.

He was standing next to one of those young
techies one day when the phone in his pocket vibrated against his
thigh. Few people had access to his alternate cell number. He had
used the phone solely to call the hospital, to find out if his wife
had finally emerged from intensive care. He told the tech he had to
use the bathroom, the current euphemism for going outside to use a
portable toilet. That particular day he had been assigned to the
SSO HQ on Palestine Street, and while the building sported toilets
that almost met Western standards, there was still no running water
in that part of the city. As a sop to the numerous American
civilians in the ISG, the Army employed KBR to set up portable
toilets down the entire length of the building.

The phone continued to shiver in his pocket
all the way outside. The doors to the porta-potties had been
removed to make them less vulnerable to bomb-planting insurgents,
but they provided enough privacy for a good sit-down. He took out
his phone, pulled down his trousers, and sat. While the cracked lid
pinched his ass, it was easier than hiding his scat in the field.
He opened the phone, but said nothing.

Several moments slipped away, silent but for
the gasps and grunts in the johns to either side of him as the
bowels of Coalition soldiers and contract civilians battled
manfully against the bacterial flora of a foreign land. He read the
notice on the plastic wall:

Please discard your toilet paper in the trash
can, not the toilet. If you dispose of materials in the toilet,
these privileges will be taken away.

That was pretty severe punishment, but
judging from the amount of tissue in the smoldering chemical stew
underneath him, the soldiers were willing to take the risk of being
banished. He did not bother to check and see if there was any
printed matter floating beneath him. A group of GI's had raised a
stink, so to speak, when some locals caught them using pages from
the Koran to wipe themselves. The mujahideen would just love to
isolate those fellows on a back road.

"Colonel?" came a voice out of the phone.

Ghaith frowned. The caller would want to
verify his identity. Anyone could answer a ringing cell phone. By
asking for him by rank, the caller risked betraying Ghaith's
identity. Where had the ISG put the phone it had confiscated? Was
it fully charged? Hopefully, it had been handed over to a young
techie already overwhelmed by a flood of captured Iraqi
communications gear and tossed in a forgotten bureaucratic drawer.
Still, it was a given that the enemy was monitoring the airwaves.
The caller was either very stupid, or willing to sacrifice Ghaith
to a greater cause.

Reception was poor and the gaseous
detonations of his neighbors made hearing difficult, but Ghaith
thought he recognized the caller's voice. How could he acknowledge
this without breeching security even further? Gritting his teeth,
he said, "Yes, sir."

Colonel? Yes, sir? If they were on their
toes, the Americans could cull a lot from that, alone.

"Are you able to travel?"

There had been rumors that the caller, a
general in the former Iraqi army, had been in negotiations with the
Coalition Military Assistance Training Team, offering his informed
services in return for a job with the Vinnell Corporation, which
had been hired to train the new Iraqi Army—a prospect that was
inevitable but which, at the moment, looked very distant. The
general was taking a huge gamble by making this call. If the signal
was picked up by SIGINT, U.S. Army Intelligence might think he was
contacting a member of the insurgency, making him a potential
double agent. And while his future military career might go up in
smoke, the life connected to that career would be shortened
dramatically if the man he was calling had himself joined the
uprising. He could not have possibly known what Ghaith was up to,
lately.