Two days after our Skype conversation, Khalid text-messaged me, asking that I phone him as soon as possible. I was about to get on a previously scheduled call and asked how soon he needed to talk. I received a short reply: “ASAP was not urgent enough?” I canceled the other call and dialed Khalid’s number. He got straight to the point.
“I just received a call from Jamil. Apparently Bassel’s friend in Damascus was able to track down Anas in Amman. Can you be in Jordan tomorrow?”
I was thrilled and distraught at the same time—on the one hand, Anas had been located, but on the other hand I could not fly to Amman immediately. I had an appointment at the Justice Department in Washington, DC, the next day, one that I had already postponed twice, even though it was a meeting I had requested concerning one of our foundation’s initiatives in Mongolia. I had given my word that I would not bail again on this meeting, and I worried that if I took another rain check, my contact would refuse to meet another time.
“That’s wonderful news, thank you,” I said. “The only problem is that I cannot be in Amman tomorrow. I have a commitment tomorrow in DC that I can simply not miss. “The earliest I can be in Jordan would be late afternoon the day after tomorrow.”
The line fell silent.
“Khalid, are you still there?” I asked.
“Yes, I am here,” Khalid said in an ice-cold voice. “Maybe, in light of your other priorities, you should refrain next time from reminding me that a life is on the line.”
That stung. I felt terrible, but there was nothing I could do. “I’m really sorry, Khalid. I have no choice.”
“We always have a choice,” he shot back, still in that frosty voice.
“Well then, this is the choice I need to make.”
“No, Daniel. This is the choice you are deciding to make, the choice you want to make. If you needed to make it, it would not be a choice.”
“I don’t want to argue with you, Khalid,” I said, irritated that he was being so persnickety. “I am fully aware of how important it is that I catch Anas. I will fly out tomorrow evening. Hopefully it won’t be too late.”
“I hope so, too,” Khalid said, his tone now slightly thawed. “Apparently he stays at the Four Seasons when in Amman, where he meets with his partners. I don’t know how long he will be there, but from what Bassel’s friend could gather, Anas is continuing on to Dubai soon.”
“I was planning to fly to Dubai anyway, so a stopover in Amman works out well,” I said, instantly regretting my words. It sounded like I was placing my convenience above the requisite sense of urgency.
Khalid didn’t miss a beat. “Glad we could fit this into your schedule, Sheikh,” he said sardonically.
“Please stop beating me up, Khalid,” I pleaded. “I am extremely thankful that they were able to track down Anas, and you know full well how grateful I am to you.”
“I know,” Khalid said. “Sorry for being so harsh. These past few days have been a little difficult.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Is there anything I can do?”
“Not at the moment, thanks, though I might at some point in the future ask you to reach out to your friend Mr. Hubertus so that we can find out more about this former French intelligence agent friend of his.”
There it was, the universal principle—quid pro quo; do ut des. The Romans must have been world champions at back scratching, given how many of these phrases they coined.
“What is your interest in this intelligence officer, if I may ask?”
“It’s not my interest,” Khalid replied. “It’s Jamil’s. I recounted our last conversation to him, and he was very keen on learning more about this French guy. I’m sure you can put it together.”
I understood. By his approximate age as a retired agent, Huby’s friend could have been serving in Syria around the same time as Jamil’s biological father. Perhaps it even was one and the same person, as freakish as that coincidence would be.
“Do you really think it could—” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Khalid stopped me. “Stranger things have happened—after all, my own life has unfolded somewhere in between happenstance and providence, hasn’t it? We shouldn’t need any proof that God is pulling the strings in this world. Look at the Middle East—only the Almighty, with all his superpowers, could mess up a region so thoroughly. Coincidence and fate alone will not get that done.”
I smiled. Khalid really did express himself unlike anyone I knew—though his views on God were very similar to the way Jacques felt about the Creator. “Just say when, and I’ll check with Huby about his friend.”
“Not yet,” Khalid said. “Now is not the time. I’ll wait for Jamil to ask me again. The more important it is to him, the more chips in my basket. By now, you should have a pretty good sense of how this works.”
It seemed that the leverage game never stopped for people like Khalid and Jamil. I swore to myself never to forget that.
“Anyway, I will send you a few pictures of Anas, which we got from Damascus. There are also pictures of his partners, which I will add to the email. And don’t worry about the hotel room; I’ll take care of it. Please try to get to Amman as soon as you can and let me know once you’ve arrived there.”
“I will.” I would have preferred to handle my own hotel arrangements but didn’t want to hurt Khalid’s feelings by turning down his offer. I believed he was still on friendly terms with one of the shareholders of the Four Seasons in Amman, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim Al Thani, the former prime minister of Qatar, and as a result Khalid always had a room there at his disposal.
Khalid hung up before I could thank him. Ten minutes later, I received an email with some pictures of Anas and his partners. The men in the photographs looked like a nasty mix of bouncers in a grungy bar and pimps in a seedy red-light district behind the train station. Not exactly an uplifting sight.