The Secret Soldier (45 page)

“Yes.” They’d driven past that house maybe a minute before. Sitting in an office in Virginia, six thousand miles from these streets, Shafer could see over walls and into backyards invisible to Wells. The science-fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke had said it best:
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

For fifteen minutes, Shafer described cars, yards, fences, garages, trying to find the clue that Wells needed. “Next”—Wells would say when Shafer had exhausted a property’s possibilities. “Next—”

And then Shafer said it.

“This one’s not on Shahab. Half a block down, looks like new construction, a garage behind it. Parked in front of the garage, I see a motorbike, small, and what looks like an ambulance—”

“Say again, Ellis.” Wells thought of the paramedic case he’d seen at 42 Aziz.

“In back. There’s a vehicle, maybe five years old, you know, a cargo van, white, red stripes and the red crescent logo on the side and brackets for a light bar on top, but I don’t actually see the light bar. Smaller than an American version, but an ambulance is pretty obvious, right?”

“Does it have a name, a hospital, anything like that?”

“I don’t see one.”

“What else?”

“The wall on this one is maybe eight feet, a little higher than the neighbors, nothing special. Nobody outside, nobody on the roof.”

“Any pipes coming off the house or the garage, any signs of ventilation?”

A pause. “Could be a vent off the left side of the garage. I can’t tell for sure.”

“Ways in and out?”

“Nothing obvious. It’s a fortress. The front gate’s solid, and the top of the walls is studded with glass. You can’t see it from the street, but it’s there. There’s no alley in back. You think this is it, John?”

“It’s our best shot.” By “best,” Wells meant
only.

“’Cause it’s gonna be tough. Too bad that ambulance isn’t running. You could call nine-one-one, get them out of the house.”

Nine-one-one. Get them out.
The words triggered an idea. “Maybe we can.”

 

 

WELLS HUNG UP, TOLD
Gaffan about the ambulance.

“You know, it’s probably coincidence.”

“What if I can prove it’s not?” Wells explained his plan.

“That’s the best idea anybody’s had since this whole thing started.”

So Wells reached down for the cell phone he’d taken from Usman.

CUTTING OFF KURLAND’S HAND HAD TAKEN LESS THAN A MINUTE.
After hitting bone twice, Bakr found the groove of Kurland’s wrist and pressed the saw forward. Kurland tore at the vises, but their grip held him tight. He screamed, but Bakr couldn’t hear him over the shriek of the blade. After the first surge of blood coated the floor, Bakr was surprised how slowly it came, thin, unsteady dribbles.

When the operation—as Bakr thought of it—was done, Bakr picked Kurland’s hand off the floor and stuffed it into a plastic bag. He wanted it for a keepsake, if nothing more. He wrapped Kurland’s stump in cotton gauze and strapped it to Kurland’s chest. Then he tugged Kurland’s mouth open and poured a half-dozen Cipro pills down his throat. Bakr didn’t know if Cipro would help, but he didn’t much care. Kurland had only two or at most three more days to live, anyway. Probably for the best. His eyes were dead already.

Before Bakr left the cell, he gave Kurland another hit of morphine to calm him. Still, Bakr had to be careful. Between the shock and the pain, too much morphine might send Kurland over. Bakr intended a messier and more public death for Kurland, an on-camera beheading. When he was done, Bakr would tell America and the world how the Saudi government had supported him. He’d have dates and bank accounts, evidence that the United States couldn’t ignore. He imagined the response in Washington. The Americans had already invaded Afghanistan and Iraq. Now they would do the same to Saudi Arabia. In turn, the Muslim world would rise against them. And Bakr would lead the battle. This was his destiny, the reason Allah had saved him that day on the dune.

 

 

AFTER WATCHING THE DIGITAL
video of the amputation on his laptop, Bakr decided he needed to make two versions of his propaganda tape. The raw footage was too graphic. Even his stomach turned as he watched Kurland’s hand hanging half off the stepladder with the saw digging in. He wanted to enrage the Americans, not sicken them. He would post the uncut video only to a few jihadi websites.

With the help of Abdul, his translator, Bakr recut the video to focus on the minutes before and after the cutting. He included a glimpse of Kurland’s face and a longer cut to the gauze-covered stump to prove the tape was real. At the end of the video, he made an explicit threat to execute Kurland in twenty-four hours if his demands weren’t met—and explained that the Saudi government had sponsored him, with the details to be revealed after Kurland’s death.

Bakr planned to get this video to the world’s news channels the same way he had delivered the first tape. Abdul would drive a freshly burned DVD to Hassan’s safe house in Jeddah. From there, Hassan would copy it and upload it to a site run by a Finnish company that specialized in anonymous Internet hosting. They’d used a Russian company for the first video. Then they’d call Al Jazeera and CNN and give them a link to download the video. Bakr knew that the Americans had amazing abilities to monitor the Internet. He wanted to be sure that they couldn’t track these transfers anywhere near him.

But he took too long cutting the second video. The curfew turned into a problem. So he told Abdul to let Hassan know that they’d deliver the video in the morning. Technically, the deadline for Bakr’s demands wouldn’t pass until noon, and Bakr wanted to wait until after the deadline to post the video. Of course, the United States would never agree to his demands, but waiting would look better. In any case, the video would be online by late tomorrow afternoon, and the United States and Saudi Arabia would be on the edge of war.

Abdul called Hassan. “He’s not answering.”

“Leave a message, then.” Bakr wasn’t worried. Hassan might have been on the roof, watching the neighborhood. Or even on the toilet. “If we don’t hear from him, we’ll call back later.” From a different cell. Since the raid on his camp, Bakr had become even more cautious about his phones and e-mail accounts. He never used the same phone twice in a row, and he turned them off whenever he wasn’t using them. E-mail he tried to avoid entirely, although he couldn’t always.

Sure enough, a half hour later, with the video finally finished, Hassan called Abdul back. But Abdul spent most of the call shouting into the phone. “What did he say?” Bakr asked after Abdul hung up.

“I couldn’t hear very well. Something about a helicopter. He’s worried. I asked him for details, and he said he’d get Usman, and after a few seconds the phone disconnected.”

“Lots of helicopters out tonight.”

“I tell you, he sounded upset. Not like himself.”

There were only four of them in the house: Bakr, Abdul, Ramzi, and Marwan. The last two were in their mid-twenties and did the menial work, running errands and cooking and watching Kurland’s cell. Bakr wasn’t worried about Kurland escaping, but he did fear that Kurland might try to hurt himself, stop him from making the video.

“Come on,” Bakr said. “Let’s talk to the infidel.”

 

 

A MINUTE LATER, THEY
stood beside Kurland. The ambassador’s skin was pale and slack. His breaths came fast and shallow. Bakr put a thumb into Kurland’s right nostril and tugged until Kurland came awake.

“Did you tell them where we are?” Bakr said, Abdul translating. Kurland shook his head. Bakr moved his hands up Kurland’s face. “Tell me. Or I’ll put out your eyes.”

Now Kurland giggled quietly. The sound he made was not noise as much as the
idea
of noise. “I believe you might. Wouldn’t even need the saw. Just get your thumbs in and push. You fool. How could I tell anyone anything? I don’t know where we are.”

“He says no,” Abdul said. “He says he doesn’t know where he is, anyway.”

“Is that all he said?”

“Yes.” Abdul didn’t want to translate exactly what Kurland had said. He had no wish to see Kurland’s eyes rolling loose, staring up at him from the floor of the cell.

“Fine, then.”

“They coming for you?” Kurland said. “Is that it? Coming to get you?”

“Tell him I’m going to cut his throat. The next time I see him,” Bakr said. Abdul hesitated. “Tell him,” Bakr repeated. So Abdul did.

“Good,” Kurland said. “It’ll be a relief.”

 

 

THEY HAD JUST LEFT
the cell when Abdul’s phone buzzed with a text from Hassan. “False alarm. All clear.” Yet Bakr wasn’t relieved. The message should have had the code “66” at the end to prove it was real. It didn’t. Maybe the stress had caused Hassan to forget, though Bakr had drummed the necessity for the codes into his commanders.

Bakr stepped outside, paced slowly around the house. Could the
muk
or the Americans be on their way? Bakr couldn’t imagine how. Hassan didn’t know the house’s exact location. No one did, except the four men inside it. And nothing connected Bakr to it. He’d rented it months before, paying cash, from a man who owned a dozen houses in Mecca. Anyway, the announcers on Saudi 1, the official television network, had said that the
muk
were focusing their search on the Najd and Riyadh. The announcers might be lying, trying to hide the truth about the search. But Bakr didn’t think so. He had been very careful. And the neighborhood was quiet. The streets were empty, and the helicopters well away.

He was safe. They were safe. He was sure. Almost.

Inside, he picked up another phone, called Hassan. But the call went directly to voicemail. Hassan’s cell was off. What was happening in Jeddah? He wished he could send Abdul to check, but the curfew made travel impossible. They would have to wait until the morning.

Ten minutes later, Abdul’s phone buzzed again. This time the message came from Usman, not Hassan. “At Ramada Shubaika. Room 401. Come soon. No more messages.” The Shubaika was a neighborhood in north-central Mecca, a couple of kilometers away, reachable on back roads. Even with the curfew, Abdul or Ramzi could probably get there on a scooter. But Bakr didn’t understand how Usman had gotten to Mecca. Barely fifteen minutes before the curfew, Hassan had said that Usman was on the roof in Jeddah. And if something was really wrong, why had Hassan texted the all-clear?

Nothing made sense. Unless Hassan had already been captured when he called, and Usman had somehow escaped and gotten here. Bakr stared at the Nokia’s screen: “Come soon. No more messages.” He didn’t fully believe the words, but he was afraid to ignore them. He couldn’t go himself, and he couldn’t chance losing Abdul. But Ramzi ... and if something went wrong, if this turned out to be a trap, Bakr was certain that Ramzi wouldn’t be afraid to martyr himself.

“Ramzi,” Bakr called. “Come here.”

WELLS LAY PRONE BESIDE A CONCRETE WALL, WATCHING THE HOUSE
where he hoped Kurland was hidden, waiting to see whether his bait would draw the jihadis. He was just a few feet off the road but well hidden from the houses on both sides, thanks to the high, unbroken walls that lined the street. And he’d hardly heard a car since the curfew started. The
muk
were in a mood, and no sane Saudi wanted to anger them.

Glass scratched at Wells through his thin gown. Dust coated his mouth and throat. Yet Wells couldn’t pretend that he didn’t enjoy this hunt. Growing up, he’d spent more than one November Saturday sitting with his dad on the forested flanks of the mountains outside Hamilton, waiting for deer and elk to bring their brimming bodies close. Hunting was as close as they came to bonding. Though his father hadn’t talked much, on those hunts or anywhere else. Most surgeons didn’t. A noisy operation was a troubled operation. Surgery was a strange way to spend a life. Surgeons saw the hidden damage time wreaked, blocked arteries and collapsed lungs. Inevitably, they grew to think of their fellow humans as broken machines. They cultivated their own inhumanity to cut with perfect dispassion. Yet a successful surgery was a kind of miracle. While Wells, whatever his philosophical musings, was a kind of anti-doctor, bringing death wherever he went, a one-man appointment in Samarra. Not for the first time, he wondered what his father would make of him.

So he lay on his stomach, staring at a gate two hundred feet away, in a hunt exactly like and exactly unlike the ones he’d known as a boy. Gaffan was a block back. Wells hoped someone came out in the next few minutes and made going in easy. He was tired of playing hunches. In Lebanon and again in Jeddah, they’d been forced to attack without knowing if they had the right target. This time, he wanted to be sure.

 

 

SOMEWHERE BEHIND THE GATE,
an engine croaked to life. It was gaspowered and no more than a couple hundred CCs. It had to be the motorbike that Shafer had seen on the overheads. Wells stood, held his pistol loose. He’d left the M-16 in the car, figuring on silence and speed instead of maximum firepower. He was flush with the wall and certain that no one in the houses could see him.

The bike rumbled around the house, stopped at the gate. Two men murmured in Arabic, and the gate squeaked open sideways. Wells crossed a driveway, one house between him and the scooter. Behind him he heard the Jeep’s engine turn over and crank up. He silently cursed Gaffan.
No.
Noise could only hurt them.

Behind the gate, a man said, “What’s that?” and another said, “Should I go, then?” and the first said, “Hold on,” and the gate stopped squeaking. Wells ran, ran as best he could with his bloodspattered gown bunching around his legs. He heard the gate squeak again, only now it sounded as though it was closing—

He got to the corner of the house. The gate was rolling forward, two feet between its front edge and the wall. Wells angled toward the wall and spun nimbly inside the gate—