The Amateur Spy Read online

  “Old? Omar? Those two words never used to go together.”

  “Oh, he has become quite the preservationist. Always telling me not to sell this plot or that because of its historic value.”

  “And with good reason,” Omar said, approaching from behind. “It’s our heritage. Sami likes to pretend these old stones have no value whatsoever.”

  “Old stones can’t feed a hungry mouth,” Sami said.

  “No. But they can conquer a people. Look at what the Jews do with their old stones. The Western Wall. A few ancient foundations. They’ve turned them into biblical land claims, and in this part of the world that’s as good as a deed. Long as you’ve got an army to back it up.”

  “Is this the same Omar al-Baroody who used to say the past was worthless?” I asked.

  “Omar said that?”

  “At least once a day.”

  “This is the problem with old friends.” Omar grinned sheepishly. “They know too much.”

  By now Hanan had joined us.

  “Freeman’s right,” she said. “Tell Sami what you used to say about your parents.”

  “No one wants to hear all that.”

  “Then I’ll tell him,” I said. “Omar used to say his parents spent their whole lives looking backward. That all they ever talked about was 1948, or 1967, and that’s why nothing ever got done.”

  “My parents were the same,” said Rafi, the boy of the camps who had struck it rich. “Whenever I asked about fixing our house they said, ‘No, no, we are going to return.’ It was always an excuse for doing nothing.”

  By now everyone in the room had been drawn into the conversation. A few drinks more, and they would really open up. I decided to slow down my consumption so I would still be alert when that happened. The odd part was that they were all speaking English, although everyone must have known I was fluent in Arabic. I was reminded of the kids outside the Blue Fig. But I was reminded even more of those Moscow soirees in Tolstoy, where the Russians chat fashionably in French. Not that it stopped them from kicking Napoleon halfway across Europe.

  Dr. Hassan put a hand on my shoulder and, in a tone obviously intended to be sage, said, “If you are interested in old things, Mr. Lockhart, then you should visit Petra.”

  “Oh, please,” Rafi said. “Surely he can do better than Petra. Besides, he’s probably already been.”

  “I have, in fact. Not that it isn’t worth another visit.”

  I didn’t say that just to placate Dr. Hassan. Petra is breathtaking, an entire city carved out of rocky bluffs, a two-thousand-year-old public works project in bas-relief. And you got there by riding the final kilometers on horseback through a narrow gorge walled by three-hundred-foot cliffs. I suppose that it took a trendy financial hipster such as Rafi Tuqan to conclude that it had somehow become passé.

  “Too popular for you?” I asked him.

  “The tourists don’t bother me. Or even the trinket sellers. Let the Bedouins set up their little ice cream stands if they want. They certainly never made a dinar to compare with those ugly hotels the government built. In fact, maybe it would do you good to go back. There’s a real lesson for Americans at Petra.”

  “Is there now?”

  “Well, you emerge from your ride down the narrow siq and it is beautiful, yes?”

  “Spectacular.”

  “And you think, my goodness, what sort of refined and proud culture could have built this? Surely not Arabs? But, yes, it was. Then you round the corner, and see what?”

  “The amphitheater?”

  “Exactly. Built later by the Romans, of course. Because when they conquered a place they had to make it their own. Never mind that it was already the most beautiful city in all of Provincia Arabia. They had to put in a theater, a Roman road, a forum. Who knows, maybe someday they’ll dig up a stela engraved with ‘Billions Sold.’”

  I laughed. So did Rafi, which told me his lecture was in good fun. But a few of the guests stared silently at their shoe tops until Omar rode to the rescue.

  “Actually, the Romans helped save the place,” he said. “Gave it a bit of a renaissance. You’ve got to take the long view, Rafi, like our archaeologist friends. Besides, the most interesting aspect of the Roman works in Jordan is that none was ever really completed.”

  “Is that true?” I asked.

  “Oh, yes. Even the theater downtown.”

  It was a bit magical to see that Omar hadn’t lost his touch for peacemaking. In easing the awkward moment he reminded me of the times he used to step out of our Passat into the shebab and manage to cool tempers with a few well-chosen words.

  “Interesting,” I said. “Why do you think they stopped?”

  “Who knows? Maybe they ran out of money.”

  “Now there’s your American analogy,” I said to Rafi. “Some tightwad isolationist in the Senate must have gotten hold of the foreign aid budget.”

  This time everyone joined in the merriment. Omar nodded to me almost imperceptibly, as if to acknowledge we were still doing our bit for peace and harmony. It brought on a flush of nostalgia, which of course produced an immediate backwash of guilt. Maybe I needed another drink after all.

  Soon afterward, Hanan announced that dinner was served, and the gathering sauntered forward. But Dr. Hassan waylaid me before I could reach the dining room.

  “A quick word if I may,” he said in a guarded tone.

  “Yes?”

  “I am a little worried for our friend Omar, at least with regard to some of the company he keeps at Bakaa.”

  “Is this about Nabil?”

  The doctor nodded.

  “Tell me, when you visited the field office, were any of Nabil’s friends there?”

  “A few. Making phone calls.” I didn’t feel like mentioning the gun or the flyers.

  “I was afraid of that. It is not our work they are doing, you know. It would be best to keep an eye on that. I am afraid Omar does not always pay attention. He might be shocked if he knew. But he would be more likely to believe it from you.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “Good.” He placed a hand on my arm. “We are grateful to have you with us.”

  I followed him into the dining room. My earlier instinct that this fault line might produce useful information seemed to have been on the mark.

  The food was splendid, with literally a dozen dishes to start us off, a fine Middle Eastern mezze of olives, savory pastries, eggplant, fava beans, hummus, stuffed peppers, and so on. That was followed by a roast leg of lamb, encrusted with spices, along with huge bowls of rice and plenty of wine. As the last of the meat was carved from the bone, Dr. Hassan rose with a somewhat pompous clearing of the throat to propose a toast to Omar and Hanan. Everyone raised a glass with cries of approval. Omar then offered a toast to me, which under the circumstances made me blush.

  But it did offer an opening. Maybe now was the time to stir the pot. By steering the conversation back toward politics, who knew what I might learn. So I stood, raised my glass, and proposed a toast “to Jordan’s next generation.”

  Predictably, there was some wry grumbling.

  “No, I’m serious. Maybe they have the right idea after all. Pay enough attention to their own selfish concerns and they’ll forget all about ‘the cause.’ Get enough young Israelis to do the same and, who knows, you could end with something like peace.”

  They clinked glasses halfheartedly. For a moment I thought the topic would die for lack of a second. Then Sami, voice of experience, obliged me by getting the ball rolling.

  “The problem with that idea is that the children of Abdoun or Shmeisani will party on. But out in Zarqa, or in your favorite camp of Bakaa, everyone else’s children will still be seething and plotting. Hatred of Israel and, yes, even of America, is still the glue that holds them together. There are many danger spots. Last month, when those fools fired missiles in the Gulf of Aqaba, you know of this?”

  I nodded. I had read about it. A couple of locals with
al-Qaeda connections had fired a Stinger at a U.S. Navy ship. They missed. Arrests were made. Situation under control. Only it might not have been.

  “If they had been successful,” Sami continued, “all of us would have suffered, but there would have been celebrations in the streets.”

  “Surely not among most people,” I said, nudging further. Rafi took the bait.

  “It is true, what Sami says. For many, Osama bin Laden is Robin Hood. I would go so far as to say there is a small Osama in the heart of every Arab citizen, even at this table. And because of what is happening in Iraq and in Palestine, that small Osama is growing.”

  Now we were getting somewhere. There were gasps around the table, and Sami reddened in anger. I suppose they thought I was shocked, but I’d grown accustomed to hearing things like that, even from so-called moderate Arabs. It is a mark of their frustration, and speaks to their yearning for heroes, even disreputable ones. How else to explain why Jordanians cheered in ’91 when Saddam fired Scuds into Israel, even though they never would have wanted him as their leader. But I decided to say nothing, and waited placidly until Sami roared back into action.

  “You would never talk such rubbish, not even in jest, if you had been here in ’70, when fanatical idiots nearly tore this country apart.”

  “I was here in ’70,” Rafi said firmly.

  “Only as a boy. A mere boy in the camps.”

  The word “boy” was spoken with such obvious disdain that Rafi answered in Arabic. They were finally slipping off their party masks.

  “Yes, a boy in the camps. And not living well like you, perhaps, but—”

  “Please! This is not about class or status. I’m talking about public order, about fools who took us to the brink of anarchy! They hijacked four planes in the name of the Palestinian people, and because of that there was war in the streets.”

  “Black September,” Rafi said distastefully.

  “That’s what people who should know better are stupid enough to call it, only because the king dared to have a country instead of another Beirut. Anarchy is what happens when you let your ‘small Osama’ grow up.”

  I only vaguely recalled the episode they were discussing, mostly because it had happened when I was in college and was wholly ignorant of what went on here. I’m sure it struck me then as yet another blowup of desert nuts with towels on their heads.

  “No one was killed on those planes,” Rafi said. “Not one single hostage.”

  “But that was the beginning of the stupidity. From then on, someone was always willing to do anything to get the world’s attention. And all they bring us is ruin.”

  Sami had lowered his volume, and things might have cooled off further if Rafi hadn’t then tossed gasoline onto the embers.

  “They didn’t seem to bring you much ruin, out there buying their land for a few dinars a dunam. Isn’t that when you made your fortune?”

  “That is a lie! I’ve never invested at the expense of the public order!”

  Now even Omar seemed powerless to stop the whirlwind. I saw Hanan grip the edge of the table with both hands.

  “Please, gentlemen,” she said.

  But neither Sami nor Rafi seemed ready to back down. The torchlight of old battles was aflame in their eyes. Rafi, gray suit or not, was back among the shebab, reaching for a stone. Then, just as quickly, the muscles in his face relaxed. You could almost see the youthful anger give way to the businessman’s pragmatism. Say what he would about Sami, Rafi also had a bottom line to protect.

  “I am sorry, Sami.” He choked out the words in English, then dabbed his mouth with a napkin like someone who had received a blow to the face. “That wasn’t warranted.” He glanced my way. “In fact, most of what I said wasn’t warranted.”

  Sami responded with a noticeable tremor.

  “My apologies as well, to you and to anyone else who may have taken offense.”

  “Besides,” Rafi said, forcing a smile, “next time it may be me that these little Osamas will want to blow up.”

  That might have ended it if Dr. Hassan had not said, in his usual stiff manner, “Please. It is best not to discuss such things in this way. You never know when our friends on the Eighth Circle will invite one of us in for tea. If they did, we would not want such a conversation on our conscience.”

  It was an astonishing remark. If I understood correctly, he was referring to Jordan’s secret police, which had its headquarters at the Eighth Circle.

  “Are you referring to the Mukhabarat?” I asked.

  From the embarrassed silence that followed, I realized that my zeal for information had led me into a faux pas. I suppose no one liked being reminded of the one thing that made his country just like Syria, Saudi, or Egypt. Omar gave me the same exasperated look he had used on patrol whenever I’d said something stupid about his people.

  Rafi, of all people, then rescued me by raising his glass and announcing lightly, “Let us have a toast, then, to the value of selective silence.”

  Sami and Dr. Hassan nodded, and afterward the mood eased, even though Hanan still clung to the table as if it were a life raft. When she looked my way I could have sworn she seemed disappointed, which hurt a bit. But my overriding emotion was curiosity. The episode made me wonder how all the factions might shake out among a group like this if push ever came to shove, the way it had years ago. Sami and Rafi would probably be interested mostly in protecting their investments. So would Dr. Hassan. The missing ingredient was the rougher crowd, exemplified by Nabil Mustafa. Would he and his friends in the camps be the only ones still willing to admit they were warriors? Or, more to the point for my purposes, what if the fight was carried out on a more secretive level? If offered the cloak of confidentiality, I supposed that almost anyone here except Sami might offer some degree of aid and comfort to people whom my handlers would consider poisonous. Maybe they were already doing so. That was what I was here to find out.

  Later, with a full stomach and a few too many drinks, I rode back to my hotel with Omar. Just the two of us in his Mercedes. Toward the end of the party, I had announced to one and all that I was officially taking the job. It had put him in a jolly mood, and now seemed like a good time to learn a little more about the other guests. Or so I was thinking until Omar put me on notice.

  “I see that you are still just as curious as ever,” Omar said. “Or maybe more so.”

  “Sorry. Didn’t mean to get them all wound up.”

  “Didn’t you?” He eyed me across the seat, as if weighing my sincerity. “Perhaps so. I guess you have been away too long. But you know how things are here.”

  Maybe it was the alcohol, or the small thrill that comes with pressing your luck, but for whatever reason I couldn’t resist a bit more prodding.

  “Speaking of which, Dr. Hassan took me aside to tell me to watch your back. He said he was worried about some of the company you’re keeping in Bakaa.”

  “Nabil, he meant. You’re only the latest recruit to the doctor’s little war with Nabil.”

  “Who says I’ve enlisted?”

  “Good for you if you haven’t. He thinks Nabil and his friends are all wild-eyed bomb throwers. Not that the doctor minds bomb throwers as long as they’re from the right organization.”

  “I have to admit, things were a little, well, interesting over at the field office. One of them was even toting around an automatic weapon.”

  Omar shook his head, although he hardly seemed alarmed.

  “I suppose if you had to put a label on those people it would be Hamas. Unofficially, of course. The palace has banned Hamas, so they go by different names here. Dr. Hassan, on the other hand, is from a PLO family, a Fatah man. So you might say that he and Nabil are pre-disposed to rivalry.”

  “Hamas? Doesn’t that make Nabil a little worrisome?”

  “It would if he had joined for the wrong reasons. Ask Nabil and he’d tell you it’s because of the hopeless corruption in Fatah. The cronyism.”

  “So why put both of the
m on your team if they’re rivals?”

  “Political necessity. Street cred, to use an Americanism Kemal is always using when he’s speaking that awful hybrid Arabizi. Let’s face it, if they can’t work together even to build a hospital, then all hope really is lost for Bakaa. For all of us. Someone has to bring them together. Or something. And maybe this is it. If Nabil’s friends want to sponge a little off our phone lines, what can it hurt?”

  “Unless your European donors find out.”

  “Our European donors, Freeman. You’re one of us now. And part of your job is making sure they don’t find out.”

  “So I’m just a decoy? That’s why you hired me?” It was comforting to be able to muster a little righteous indignation.

  “Of course not. Nabil is the decoy. Just don’t tell him I said so. He’s our face in that part of the community, a link to some of the more ‘committed’ among the population, to put it nicely.”

  “It’s not as if those people are likely to chip in much money.”

  “No. But when, for example, one of the more anti-Zionist sheikhs from Dubai comes calling with his checkbook open, Nabil is there to reassure him that we’re true believers.”

  “And while this fun-loving sheikh is in town, does he also make out a few checks for explosives and suicide vests?”

  Omar scowled.

  “I’d forgotten what a purist you could be.”

  “Purist? I’m talking about blowing up buses full of women and children.”

  “I know. It’s dreadful. It’s inexcusable. But so is firing a missile into a house to kill one old man in a wheelchair even though he’s sitting down to dinner with twenty members of his family. The Israelis did that, you know, to kill an old Hamas cripple. It’s a war, Freeman. Just because Jordan doesn’t participate doesn’t mean that some of us don’t still cheer from the sidelines.”

  “As long as you’re not buying supplies for the home team.”

  “Who said I was?”

  He glanced toward me and held it a few beats, as if looking for something more. When I didn’t answer, he shook his head and swore under his breath.