Yassim turns to him again, and no matter how much Jacob wants to, he can’t resist the warmth in those eyes. It’s just like the garden in Beirut, like in that clinically cold apartment, or in the stairwell in Brussels.
‘I told you about the bombing,’ he says. ‘The one that wiped out my family.’
‘You said it was a drone strike,’ Jacob says. ‘That’s why you wanted to expose the US’s war crimes.’
Yassim nods. ‘Yes, that’s what I said. That was my cover story, that I believed that. That I hated the Americans so much because they wiped out my family.’
‘But that was also a lie?’ Jacob says calmly.
Yassim nods. ‘It’s not a lie that my family was murdered,’ he says. ‘But they weren’t murdered by the Americans. It was at the beginning of the war. Or before there even was a war, when it might, might still have been possible to save something. My father was powerful, a strong leader. He knew everyone important in Syria, and he invited them to my sister’s wedding, because that’s what you do, that’s how you broker peace. The only ones who didn’t come were the Islamists, Baghdadi Islamists. They didn’t want peace; they wanted what we have now, war and misery and hell. So they placed a bomb at my sister’s wedding to knock out their enemies. But the only thing they destroyed was my family.’
He falls silent, stares quietly at Jacob. ‘You have to believe me,’ he says. ‘This is the truth.’
‘Why did you lie to me?’ Jacob says. ‘Didn’t you trust me?’
Yassim smiles crookedly. ‘I’ve been living under cover for five years, darling. I don’t trust anybody.’
Then he pauses, puts a hand on Jacob’s knee.
‘I mean I didn’t trust anyone back then. We’d just met. In the beginning, the first year after the bomb, everyone thought the Americans were behind it. I mean this was in the Middle East; the Americans are behind a lot of shit. It was easy to believe that. I was already living in Beirut and working as a photographer. One evening at a bar in Gemmayzeh, a few months after the wedding, a Russian man offered me a few drinks. I thought he was coming onto me, and I was pretty self-destructive back then, open to anything really. But after we talked for a while, I realized he wasn’t just a diplomat, like he said. And that he knew exactly who I was.’
‘He was a spy?’ Jacob says.
‘Gregorij Korolov is his name,’ Yassim continues. ‘That first evening, he invited me to his apartment in one of those new buildings just above Cornichen, not far from my apartment. Then he opened a bottle of vodka. Such a fucking cliché.’
A slight smile and a glance out at the trees that stream by like water.
‘He showed me pictures from the wedding, from some satellite or drone, and I could see how a waiter at the wedding brought in some boxes. Gregorij said they were full of explosives. He showed me documents and a video of interviews with infiltrators they had in Baghdadi’s circle, who described the plan. Gregorij even had calculations that proved the bomb couldn’t have come from the air, had to have been placed under the buffet table at the party. There was no doubt. The Islamists were behind it. And he asked me if I wanted revenge.’
‘But why you?’ George asks, looking sceptically at Yassim. ‘You didn’t have any connections with them?’
‘That wasn’t hard to explain – they were expanding at that point, in need of good people. And I think I understood that I would be seen as valuable. I lived in Beirut and might be called westernized, had been in the United States, was a photographer. More or less openly homosexual, something I had to tone down with the Islamists. Although they knew, and that was one of the reasons they wanted me. It made me less suspicious, if you know what I mean? Why would a gay guy be working for ISIS? Gregorij had other infiltrators in Baghdadi’s outer circle. There were people who could vouch for me and pave my way. I started as a courier for small stuff, driving cars, carrying small items and messages between Tripoli and Aleppo. Slowly I worked my way up and in. They started to trust me and in the end I became a courier for Emni. And through it all I reported to Gregorij. Often, I didn’t know what was in the messages I was sending. But I could tell who they were sent between, and where their leaders were located. My work yielded results. The Russians were able to map out the leadership, how they communicated, and I got closer to the core of the terror machine itself. But then Paris started to be planned, and this plan we’re in the middle of right now.’
‘Did you know about Paris?’ Jacob whispers. ‘Did you know it was going to happen?’
It’s as if the air in the car is suddenly too heavy to breathe, there is so much hanging in that question.
‘I knew something was going to happen in Paris that week,’ Yassim says. ‘I knew who was planning it and who was carrying the information. I even knew who would be receiving the information in Brussels, because that’s where they met the courier.’
‘But why didn’t you say anything?’ Jacob asks. ‘Why did you let it happen?’
Yassim stares at him intensely. ‘I told all of that to Gregorij,’ he says. ‘And I told him it was something on a whole new level. Several independent cells. Concurrent attacks. I told him everything, and I can prove it. I recorded all our meetings with that phone and saved them.’
‘Then why did it happen?’ George interrupts. ‘If they knew everything except the exact date? Why didn’t they grab the courier or his contact in Brussels? This story doesn’t really feel like it adds—’
Yassim turns to George, with cold indifference in his eyes, and George’s eyes return to the dark road in front of him.
‘Because the Russians let it happen,’ he says slowly. ‘Because the Russians benefit from the instability that resulted from a terrorist attack in central Paris. The Russians fight ISIS in Syria because they’re allied with Assad. But it also serves their purposes to have ISIS seen as a threat in Europe. Nothing is black and white, no matter how hard you try to make it. You can play for both teams at the same time. But I have no excuse. I should have known better, and I’ll have to live with the fact that I trusted Gregorij and the Russians. The people who died in Paris, died because of my naivety.’
The car is silent again. What Yassim has told them is too big for the limited space inside this car, and Jacob wants to open a window just to burst the intensity of this bubble.
‘Are they really that fucking cold?’ George says. ‘They let Paris happen when they could have prevented it?’
Yassim shrugs. ‘I think they’re desperate,’ he says. ‘Or maybe not desperate, but they see themselves as under attack from the West, as if the West distrusts everything they do. Like a cold war I guess. Just somewhat less intense.’
‘So what Myriam said was true,’ Jacob says quietly. ‘She thought you were a terrorist. The only thing she didn’t know was that you were working for the Russians. Why didn’t you tell her about this new attack? I could have just given the information to her. Why did I have to smuggle it?’
‘Do you trust her?’ Yassim asks, still calm. ‘Are you even sure she’s a Swedish spy?’
Jacob thinks about the ambassador’s car and what happened at the bathhouse, Myriam’s blackmail and ruthlessness. He shakes his head. ‘I don’t know,’ he whispers. ‘I don’t know what I trust.’
They sit in silence for a while.
‘So what you’re saying is that the Russians want these terrorist attacks to be carried out,’ George says.
‘Look at it this way,’ Yassim says. ‘Several terrorist attacks in Europe at once, just a few weeks after the massacre in Paris. Coordinated with military precision. It would push Europe into greater involvement in the war against ISIS in Syria, and it would help those forces in Europe that want to take a more aggressive stance on immigration. There’s nothing that irritates the Russians more than a Europe with open borders. These attacks mean calls for the opposite. For the Russians it’s a win-win. A few hundred people are an acceptable price to pay.’
‘But why not go to the media yourself?’ George says. ‘Why pull Jacob into this?’
‘I had the chip,’ Yassim says quietly. ‘I had the plan, but I didn’t have the password. I knew it involved multiple coordinated attacks. But I had no details. And I trusted the Russians before Paris. But after that, when I realized how ruthless they were… I realized that if I gave the cell in Brussels the chip everything would be over, they’d have the information and I would lose control. And the Russians wouldn’t stop them. Jacob offered to do it that very evening.’
Yassim turns around and looks at him.
‘I didn’t want to at first. The thought had occurred to me, but I couldn’t pull you into this. I definitely couldn’t suggest it. But when you brought it up…’ He shakes his head slightly. ‘I knew it was an opportunity. It was dangerous, of course, but it gave me a few days to find the password and then pick you up at the airport. But they were suspicious and insisted on meeting you themselves. I had no alternative so I had to agree then try to improvise. It was just dumb luck that you were smart enough to remove the chip, Jacob. Even though in the moment I was afraid they were going to shoot us both. It was close – I think I got you out at the very last second.’
‘But how did you get the password?’ Jacob asks. ‘If you tried so long…?’
‘How do you think?’ he says, staring coolly into Jacob’s eyes.
‘You forced them?’ Jacob says. ‘Somehow?’
‘Somehow,’ Yassim says, turning his gaze back to the forest and darkness outside.