Beirut: Thursday 29 October 5:00 P.M. local time
Hotel Offredi was built into the side of a dusty, weed-strewn hillside scarred by piles of broken rocks and bulldozed raw earth. Cheap aluminum-framed windows reflected the glare of a pitiless hot sun that wilted the fig tree growing in a cinderblock container near the front door. Rows of rusting rebars thrust up from the walls at the roofline, as if in anticipation of another story that might or might not be built someday.
Inside, they found a thickset woman in a long dress and headscarf seated behind a desk with a simple sign that said in Arabic, ROOMS TO LET. English and French-speaking patrons didn’t usually make it into this part of town.
“I wanted to ask you,” October whispered to Jax as they followed the woman up a set of bare stairs to a narrow hall. “What exactly was the crop growing around Badr al’Din’s compound?”
“You didn’t recognize it?”
The hall was starkly bare, the floor paved with cheap tile inexpertly grouted by someone in too much of a hurry to wipe up stray blobs of mortar.
“No,” said October. “What was it?”
“Cannabis.”
“Cannabis? You mean—” She broke off. “Oh.”
Wordlessly, the woman leading them thrust open the door to a small room with a hard bed covered in faded red chenille. A battered, fifties-style blond-veneered chest of drawers and bedside table, and an orange plastic chair completed the room’s furnishings. Everything was worn and cheap but meticulously clean. Mohammed had taught his followers that cleanliness is next to godliness, and they still struggled valiantly against dust and sand and poverty to please God.
“Shukran,” said October.
The woman nodded and withdrew.
Jax went to stand at the window overlooking the mean street below. A withered old man, his head down, pushed a wheelbarrow loaded with propane tanks past a handful of noisy, half-grown boys playing what looked like a version of Star Wars. Otherwise, the street was quiet in the mid-afternoon sun. Yet, Jax’s palms were damp, and he could feel waves of heat rising from his stomach to his throat. He didn’t like this setup. He didn’t like it at all.
“It’s beginning to sound more and more as if there really was an atomic bomb on that sub,” said October, dropping her bag on the floor with a thump. “Or at least, the material to make a dirty bomb.”
Jax glanced back at her. She sank down on the hard plastic chair, hooked her heels on the edge of the seat, and drew her knees up so she could clasp them to her chest. He said, “Maybe. Maybe not.”
She tossed her head to shake the loose strands of honey-colored hair away from her face. “So what exactly are we hoping to get out of this mysterious contact of Azzam’s?”
“Confirmation.” Jax pushed away from the window.
“Is that really necessary at this point?”
“It’s always necessary. Remember the run up to the Iraq War? How certain individuals cherry-picked unconfirmed intelligence suggesting Iraq still had a WMD program and was in contact with al-Qa’ida? It was all bullshit.”
“Yeah, but that was deliberately planted bullshit, designed specifically to trick the American people into supporting a war. This is different.”
A dusty old white Mercedes crawled down the street, scattering the laughing children. Jax watched it through narrowed eyes. “I keep coming back to that remote viewing session you tried in Bremen.”
“You mean the one that didn’t work?”
“Yeah. That one.”
She pushed up from the chair. “It didn’t work because it was just too weird and distracting, having the Colonel task me over the phone. And because I knew too much about the target. When a viewer knows too much up front, their conscious, analytical mind can kick in and block out access to—”
Jax held a finger to his lips. She fell silent.
He heard it again. The scruff of footsteps on the stairs. The light treads of two men in the tiled hall.
The footsteps stopped outside their room. He saw her eyes widen.
“Mr. Alexander?” A light knock sounded on the door.
Jax moved to open it carefully.
Two young men pushed into the room. Lithe and clean shaven, they wore fatigue pants and T-shirts with black-and-white kafiyas draped rakishly around their necks. Both carried MAC-10 machine pistols.
“Kaif halak,” said the one in a white T-shirt decorated with a portrait of Che Guevara. He looked slightly older than his companion, perhaps twenty-four or twenty-five. “This is Abu Elias,” he said, nodding to his companion. “You can call me Amin.” His gaze flicked to October, one eyebrow cocking in inquiry. “You’re Ensign Guinness?”
Jax didn’t like the way the Arab used her Naval rank. She nodded, her throat working visibly as she swallowed.
The one called Abu Elias couldn’t have been more than nineteen or twenty. He said something in a low voice to Amin that Jax didn’t catch.
Amin nodded and said, “You will both take off your watches and empty your pockets, please. Very slowly and carefully.”
Jax piled up change, wallet, phone, and keys on the scarred dresser top. The only thing October had in the pockets of her chinos was a small yellow Burt’s Bees lip balm.
“Now hold your arms out at your sides and stand very still.”
Tucking his machine pistol under one arm, Abu Elias reached into his pocket and came out with a small black box with steady red and green LED lights. He carefully passed the box over each of them in turn, like an FTA employee checking suspicious-looking airplane passengers.
“What is that?” asked October.
“It’s a radio frequency detector,” said Amin. “It detects anything that emits an electronic impulse—hidden transmitters, tape recorders, tracking devices—whatever.”
“We’re not hiding anything.”
Amin flashed her a smile that showed his teeth. “You’ll excuse me if I don’t take your word for it. You”—he nodded to Jax—“will sit. But I must ask you, Ensign, to take off your shoes.”
Aware of Abu Elias’s narrowed gaze upon him, Jax settled carefully onto the hard plastic chair. He now had a really, really bad feeling about all of this.
October said, “My shoes?”
“Min fadlik.” Amin turned to survey the two bags standing just inside the door. “Which is yours?”
“The green one.”
Hunkering down beside it, the Arab laid the bag on its side and unzipped it. “Excuse me,” he said as he rummaged through her things, “but it is necessary.”
“Why?” she asked, kicking off her tennis shoes.
“It’s too easy to hide things in the soles and heels of shoes.” He came up with a pair of navy-and-white-striped flip-flops. “Here. You will wear these.”
She slipped on the flip-flops without argument. “I’m not carrying a weapon.”
“Nevertheless, I’m afraid I must also check your hair.”
“My hair?”
“My apologies.” Reaching out, he systematically ran his fingers through her shoulder-length, honey-colored hair. “Women have been known to hide razor blades in their hair.”
She cast an uncertain glance to where Jax sat in the orange plastic chair, his hands resting carefully on his thighs. They were both painfully aware that no one was checking his hair or making him take off his shoes.
As if conscious of the train of Jax’s thoughts, Amin said to him, “You are to stay here, with Abu Elias. Only the girl can come.”
“But—” Jax started to push out of his chair, then froze when the younger man made a tssking sound and jerked his head back, his finger twitching on the machine pistol’s trigger.
“Laa. Khalleek hawn!”
Jax sank back very slowly.
“Don’t worry,” said Amin. “She will come to no harm.” He glanced at October. “Are you ready?”