I Am Pilgrim(212)

I knew more about Zakaria al-Nassouri than any covert agent had a right to. I knew he was born and raised in Jeddah, that he had stood in anguish in the square where his father was beheaded and that his mother had taken him to live in exile in Bahrain. I knew the name of the mosque he had joined in Manama and that his fellow worshippers had arranged for him to go to Afghanistan and fight the Soviets. At the end of the war he had bought a death certificate, somehow acquired a new passport and vanished into the trackless Arab world. He had studied medicine, graduated as a doctor, met a woman who sometimes used the name Amina Ebadi and married her. Together they had worked on the undocumented and lawless frontier – the refugee camps of Gaza: a hell on earth if ever there was one. I now knew that the married couple were travelling with their young child when they were hit by an Israeli rocket, killing the mother and injuring the doctor. The little boy was taken to an orphanage and the doctor must have asked his sister Leyla to reach out and save him. Full of hatred, without family responsibilities, using his knowledge as a doctor, enabled by the vast haemorrhaging of information on the Internet, he had set about synthesizing smallpox. He had returned to Afghanistan to test it, and we heard him on the phone, worried about his beloved child, the only link he had left to his dead wife.

And after that? After that, the music stopped and there was nothing. Who was he now? What name was he using? And – more importantly – where was he? ‘A way in,’ I said softly. ‘Somehow you push forward and find a way back in.’

Nobody knew if I was talking to myself or offering a suggestion to everyone. I probably didn’t know either.

‘That’s all we have on the man,’ the director said, sweeping his hand across the floors of motorized files. ‘There’s no name, no identity and no trace. Not here, anyway.’

He was right, and the silence hung in space. Through the haze of smoke, I looked at the men. There was no way back in for any of us, hope was gone, and I knew …

We had lost him.

I forced myself not to show my despair and stood a little straighter. Bill had always told me there was no excuse for bad manners, and I owed the Saudi men something.

‘You’ve done more than anybody could have asked,’ I said. ‘It was a thankless task, but you did it with talent and good grace and I thank you wholeheartedly.’

It was probably the first time they had heard genuine praise instead of empty flattery, and I could see on their faces the pride it brought them.

‘Jazak Allahu Khayran,’ I said finally, butchering the pronunciation but using one of the only Arabic phrases I recalled from my earlier visit. It was the traditional way of offering thanks: ‘May God reward you with blessings.’

‘Waiyyaki,’ they all said, smiling kindly at my effort and offering the time-honoured response: ‘And with you.’

It was the signal everybody needed, and they got to their feet and started packing everything up. I remained where I was, standing alone, desperately trying to find another way forward, a route, a path. A miracle.

I journeyed through the catalogue of my professional memory, I let my mind wander down every unconventional alley, but I came up empty.

I had identified the Saracen, but I didn’t know him; I had located him, but I couldn’t find him; he was somebody, and he was nobody. That was the truth, and nothing in the world was going to change it.

I looked at my watch.





Chapter Eight


IT WAS THE worst phone call I have ever had to make. Nobody was angry, nobody shouted or made accusations, but the sense of failure and fear was overwhelming.

After I had said goodbye to the director of the Mabahith, one of the black SUVs took me the short distance across town to the high-security compound that housed the US consulate. Carter from Beirut Station had called ahead and alerted them to my presence, so I had little delay in getting through the anti-suicide barriers and guardhouses.

Once I was inside, the young duty officer assumed I needed a bed for the night and started to show me towards a guest apartment, but I stopped him halfway to the elevator and told him I needed a telephone in the building’s Tempest zone – an area specially engineered to prevent any electronic eavesdropping. The Mabahith and I might have ended on good terms, but that didn’t mean I trusted them.

The duty officer hesitated, probably wondering who I was exactly, then started activating the electronic locks on blast-proof doors, leading me deep into the heart of the building. We passed through an internal security checkpoint, which told me we were entering the area occupied by the CIA, before arriving at a small room with only a desk and a telephone. The blandest place you have ever seen, distinguished only by its complete lack of sound.