The terrorist, p.5
The Terrorist, page 5
“I am going to school,” said Zaharia.
“Are you traveling alone?”
“Yes.”
“Look up here,” said the agent, pointing to a small camera. The agent handed the passport back to Zaharia. “Welcome to the United States,” said the agent.
Zaharia pulled his two suitcases from the carousel and walked out through the double doors. He found Jennifer in the crowd.
“Look at how tall you are,” she said. “You’re grown up. Oh, Zaharia, I’m so glad to see you.” She put her arms around him.
He wouldn’t let her carry either suitcase. “I can do it,” he said.
Michael and Rosita, his wife, came for supper. Zaharia ate his first pizza.
“Here is your room, Zaharia. And here is your bathroom.”
Zaharia was astonished. “My bathroom?” he said. “Wow.”
Jennifer laughed.
“Where did you learn ‘wow’?” said Michael.
“It’s not correct?” said Zaharia.
“It’s very correct,” said Jennifer, and Zaharia grinned. “Wow,” he said again.
The next morning, Zaharia boarded the bus for the Potomac School. He sat next to a Chinese boy. The boy eyed him warily.
“Are you from China?” said Zaharia.
“My grandparents,” said the boy. His name was Albert Chan. “What about you? Where are you from?”
“Algiers,” said Zaharia. “The capital of Algeria. My name is Zaharia Lefort.”
“Algeria? Wow,” said Albert.
The school’s headmaster took Zaharia to his classroom and introduced him to the teacher, who introduced him to the class. “Sit right there, Zaharia,” said the teacher.
Zaharia had waited his entire life for this moment. He hung on every word that every teacher said. He did every assignment, did work for extra credit, asked his teachers for more work.
“I want to be on the basket team,” he told the basketball coach.
“You mean basketball. Here,” said the coach, and handed Zaharia a basketball. “Let’s see what you can do.” The coach got into a defensive crouch.
Zaharia just looked at him. “I’m sorry, but I’ve never played basketball.”
The coach stood up. “Well, you’re big enough. But you’ve got to learn the game before you can be on the team.” Zaharia asked Albert Chan to teach him. “I’m only here one year,” he said. “I have to learn everything.”
Zaharia had been at the Potomac School for two months when he was summoned to the headmaster’s office. Two men, wearing dark suits and ties, stood waiting. “Zaharia Lefort?” the older one said. “Please come with us.”
“Where are we going?”
“Please come with us,” said the man. The men stepped to either side of Zaharia.
“Where are we going?” said Zaharia. He turned to the headmaster. “Is it all right, Mr. Korngold?”
“Yes, Zaharia. You have to go with these gentlemen.” Mr. Korngold’s face was ashen, his eyes were wide open as though he had just seen something terrible.
As soon as the men had taken Zaharia from his office, Mr. Korngold picked up the telephone. He dialed a number and waited. “Mr. Irelan, please. It’s urgent. This is Bernard Korngold. … Jack? Bernie Korngold … Listen, Jack, some federal agents just arrived at the school … FBI … They took away one of our students. … Of course they had warrants. … Zaharia Lefort … Yes, one of our international scholars. … They wouldn’t say … Algeria.”
Jack Irelan, the school’s attorney, asked Mr. Korngold to read him parts of the warrant. Mr. Korngold did and then listened for a long time. He sat down on his chair. His secretary had come into the office. She stood watching with both hands pressed over her mouth. “But that’s impossible,” said Mr. Korngold. “Not this kid, Jack. It’s impossible … It’s … Okay, Jack … Okay, Jack … Okay, call me back as soon as … Okay.” He hung up the phone.
“What is it, Bernie?” said the secretary.
Mr. Korngold looked up into her face. “Lynda,” he said, “my God. Jack thinks they’ve arrested him for … for some terror-related thing … for … terrorism.”
Mr. Korngold called Jennifer, but she already knew. Four men had shown up at her apartment, had presented their badges and a search warrant. They had pushed their way past her, and, when she rushed to stop them, two of the men restrained her while the other men went into Zaharia’s room. They went through all his belongings. They took some things, including a small notebook and a diary.
“They didn’t arrest Jenny,” said Michael.
“Where is she now?” said Louis.
“With me,” said Michael.
“Good,” said Louis. “Is she all right?”
“Not really,” said Michael.
* * *
“Peter Sanchez speaking.”
“Mr. Sanchez, this is Louis Morgon.”
“Mr. Morgon. Nice to hear from you. Have you changed your mind?”
“Mr. Sanchez, the FBI has just arrested a boy named Zaharia Lefort, an Algerian who is a student at the Potomac School.”
“Zaharia…?”
“Zaharia Lefort.”
“L-e-f-o r-t? First name, Z-a-h-a-r-i-a?”
“That’s right.” Louis could hear the keys of a computer clicking.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t know why you’re asking about this.” Louis heard the computer keys again. Louis waited. “Oh, I see,” said Sanchez. His voice had gone cold.
“I’m ready to undertake the project you approached me about,” said Louis.
“That plan is no longer operative, Mr. Morgon.”
“Really? That’s odd,” said Louis.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Morgon…”
“Mr. Sanchez, the project is still very much ‘operative’ on this end. In fact, you could say it’s in go-ahead mode.”
“Mr. Morgon…”
“With or without you, Mr. Sanchez. I’d prefer it were with you, but I’m perfectly prepared to proceed without you. I have a ticket to Cairo, where, as you know, I’ll try to make contact with Abu Massad, among others. That ticket is for one week from today. If you intend to run my operation, I suggest you come back to France before then. Let’s meet in Paris this time, shall we?” Louis hung up the phone. When it rang, he let it ring. Then he called Pauline. “I’m coming to Paris,” he said. “I need your help.”
Peter Sanchez arrived in Paris the following morning. When he called Louis’s number, the call was forwarded to a cell phone. Louis answered. The two men arranged to meet that afternoon on a bench in the Jardin du Luxembourg.
“See? That’s him down there,” said Louis. They were watching from Pauline’s window.
“He’s early,” said Pauline.
“He’s getting the lay of the land. And he knows I’m watching from somewhere. He wants me to feel reassured.”
“What an insane business you were in,” she said. “And do you?”
“Do I what?”
“Feel reassured.”
“Just watch us,” said Louis. “If I stand up before he does, call the police and tell them there’s an emergency in the park. … Say there’s an assault going on.”
Pauline stood at the window and watched. After some time, she saw Louis emerge from the trees. He crossed a broad gravel expanse toward Sanchez.
The leaves of the plane trees had fallen and were blowing about making scraping noises against the gravel. Sanchez stood up as Louis approached.
“Mr. Sanchez,” said Louis.
“I had no idea,” said Sanchez. “There’s no reason for you to believe me. But I had no idea.”
“Tell me what happened,” said Louis, and sat down beside him.
“Phillip Dimitrius, the man who was following you in Algiers,” said Sanchez. “And the Agency computers. A great deal of information—like your files for example—goes into the computers and is forgotten. We’ve got so much raw data coming in, there is no way it could ever be analyzed. It stays there, forgotten, in huge computer archives. That is, until a search for a phrase or a name or a case number brings something to the surface. In that moment something dead and forgotten instantly becomes alive and dangerous. It’s not supposed to happen, and usually it doesn’t. Everything is compartmentalized and firewalled to prevent something like this from happening.
“There were files on you, of course, including a false biography marking you as a traitor and a terrorist. You know all about that. Anyway, those files were safe. Whoever cleaned up the mess made certain they would not be available, except with a special access code. But they left the name of the files—Louis Morgon/France—available for anyone with Agency access to see.”
“Why were those files even kept?” said Louis.
“I don’t know,” said Sanchez. “They should have been expunged. You’re wondering whether anyone wanted to hang on to them, just in case. I don’t know that either. But I doubt it. I think it was probably the sheer mass of information. There’s not time to expunge everything that should be expunged. I’m looking into it. Before Dimitrius happened on them, they had not been accessed since they were active—four years ago.
“Anyway, Phillip Dimitrius is part of a terrorist task force focusing on France. He is known as a persistent and dogged researcher. He trolls Agency files, looking for suggestive leads. That is how your name eventually popped up on his screen. Having the file locked up made it especially tantalizing to him.”
“Suggestive leads,” said Louis.
“Yes,” said Peter. “Suggestive leads.”
Phillip Dimitrius had spent weeks staring at his computer screen in a small cubicle in the South Annex at Langley headquarters. He sat with his face close to the screen and his pen poised over a yellow pad.
As a boy Phillip had spoken a few lines in a school play. There is no accounting for why that brief experience affected him in the momentous way it did. But, from that moment forward, drama became the constant paradigm of his understanding. He saw everything in dramatic terms: his courtship and marriage, the deaths of his parents, the births of Phillip Junior, then Samantha, then David. And in his mind all these vivid and homely scenes of his domestic drama laid the groundwork for the larger drama, the gripping action playing itself out on the great world stage.
Phillip’s role in the greater drama was, he readily admitted, a minor one. But he was determined it would not remain an insignificant one. He believed himself to be a catalyst for resolution in the epic struggle between good and evil. That was how he found and locked on to Louis Morgon’s name and decided to follow wherever it led—to France and back to Washington. To Algiers and to Cairo. It suited the great drama so perfectly that Phillip could not imagine it was a drama of his own construction.
As Peter Sanchez explained it, “The more Dimitrius looked around, the better it got. He found Samad al Nhouri, who had been your contact in the sixties. He found Moamar al Nhouri, who had been active in anti-American and national-liberation organizations. He found Camille Lefort, Sabiha Falool, and Zaharia Lefort. They all had interesting connections with Louis Morgon, who, as far as Dimitrius could determine, had been abrubtly dismissed from the Agency for serious infractions—maybe crimes—and now was, possibly, a terrorist.
“Zaharia Lefort also had a file. He had been in trouble with the police in France and had been on the run until he was sent back to Algiers.”
“He was fourteen. The police killed his father. He was fleeing for his life.”
“All that may be true, but the file didn’t give the exonerating details. Anyway, Zaharia Lefort had been involved with you. That was what attracted Dimitrius. And Zaharia was all grown up now. He had applied for a visa to go to school in the United States. You can see how it added up in his mind.
“By now Dimitrius had sent a report up the line. When Zaharia Lefort showed up in Washington—on a student visa, with a one-way ticket, not long after meeting with you in Algiers—someone decided to bring him in. I don’t know who made the decision, or why, but it shouldn’t have happened. None of it should have happened.”
Louis studied Peter Sanchez’s face. “That is everything I know up to now,” said Peter. “I beg you not to go to Egypt. It will only make matters worse. For Zaharia Lefort. And for you.”
“Where is the boy?” said Louis.
Sanchez looked away. He folded and unfolded his hands.
“Where is he?” said Louis.
“A lot of foreigners they pick up on terror charges these days are sent—renditioned—somewhere else,” said Peter Sanchez. “It’s the way this administration avoids dealing with the courts.”
“Guantanamo?” said Louis.
“Tajikistan or Uzbekistan, I think.”
“Which one?” said Louis. “Where?”
“I’m still trying to find out. I’ll let you know the minute I do. What a colossal fuckup.”
Back in Pauline’s apartment Louis sat with his head in his hands. “I was going to stand up when he said that,” said Louis. “‘A colossal fuckup.’ I wanted the police to come and arrest the son of a bitch. To arrest both of us.”
“So they didn’t take the boy to force you…?” said Pauline.
“I don’t know,” said Louis. “I think his story is close to true, except I don’t know where Sanchez fits into his own story. What’s his part in all of this? Is Dimitrius working for him? Did Sanchez order the arrest himself? I just don’t know.”
“So you’re not going to Egypt?” said Pauline.
“I told Sanchez I wasn’t going,” said Louis.
“What did he say?” said Pauline.
“‘Thank you.’ He said, ‘Thank you.’”
“So you’re not going?”
“I’m going.”
“Why?”
Louis hesitated. He studied Pauline.
“Tell me what you’re thinking, Louis.”
“You didn’t ask for this, Pauline. It’s not fair to you. Everyone I come close to is in danger. I am poison.”
“Stop feeling sorry for yourself,” she said. That was exactly what Solesme would have said. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”
“When they send people to these foreign prisons, it’s to avoid due process. They can hold them as long as they like. And they do what they want with them. They can use extreme measures—torture’to extract information. Even people who are known to be innocent don’t come back easily. There have been a few cases in the newspapers…”
“I’ve read about them,” said Pauline.
“There was a German recently,” said Louis.
“I remember,” said Pauline.
“They snatched him on a business trip. His family knew nothing about what had happened to him. He was in prison for months. His only crime was having a Turkish name. Then they turn them loose on their own schedule. If they turn them loose at all. No one can help them. No lawyers, no hearings, nothing.”
“So why are you going to Cairo?”
“To look for something to trade for Zaharia, something to force them to release him. My God, Pauline”—tears welled up in Louis’s eyes—“he’s just a boy.”
She held his head in her arms.
V
Zaharia wore an orange jumpsuit. He was in shackles and leg irons. He kept his eyes wide open, even though he was blindfolded. He stared straight ahead hoping that some idea of what was happening would emerge somehow from the blackness before him.
He could hear other prisoners’ voices above the noise of the plane’s engines. They were fearful or angry or pleading. Their questions—in English, Arabic, other languages—went unanswered. Sometimes someone would start wailing.
The guards were not brutal. They spoke softly, and only when necessary. He could not tell how many prisoners there were. Or how many guards. He knew there was a guard seated beside him. When Zaharia had to go to the bathroom, the guard took his arm and helped him out of his seat. The guard walked him to the bathroom. Zaharia shuffled along because of the leg irons. “The blindfold stays on,” said the guard. “Piss sitting down. Like a girl.” He held the door open and watched until Zaharia was finished.
They had given him an injection in the beginning because he had become hysterical. He had remembered the sight of the policemen killing his father. He remembered watching them through the keyhole. So, for the first hours of his detention, he slept. Then he sat still, or rocked in place. Then he was taken in a bus and put on the airplane.
Zaharia did not know which direction they were flying. He did not know whether it was night or day. The trip went on and on. He had no sense of how long it lasted. The droning engine put him to sleep. Then he would wake up and have to figure out what was happening to him all over again.
The plane landed. After a while it took off again. When it landed again, they were escorted off the plane and onto buses. They rolled over bumpy roads for a long time before they stopped. Zaharia could hear that there was more than one bus unloading. By now no one was crying or asking desperate questions.
The prisoners were led into a building and down some stairs. Zaharia was put into a cell by himself. He was blinded by the light when his blindfold was removed. The guard turned and slammed the iron door behind him. Zaharia heard other cell doors slamming as other prisoners were put in cells.
His cell was three meters by three meters. It was lit by a single bulb in a metal cage attached to the ceiling. The concrete walls were damp. There was a metal bunk with a straw-filled mattress. There was a slop bucket. Some of the other cells had toilets. A slop bucket was better, since you emptied and rinsed it every day. The toilets were filthy and often didn’t work.
Zaharia had just sat down on the bed when the door opened and two men came in. They wore camouflage pants and shirts, but they were unshaved and didn’t look like soldiers. “Take off clothes,” said one. Zaharia didn’t understand at first; the man had a strange accent. “Take off clothes!” he said again. “I am doctor. I give examination.”
“Everything?” said Zaharia.
“Take off all clothes,” said the doctor. “I give examination.”
Zaharia stood naked in front of the two men. The doctor had a flashlight and a stick. “Open mouth. Put head back.” He shined the flashlight into Zaharia’s mouth. He used the stick to push his cheeks to the side and lift his tongue. “Lift arms,” he said. He jammed the stick under Zaharia’s arms.
