automatically.
He motioned to one of the young men to pour a glass of water for each. “But because of the importance of our task, I will ask you to be patient and follow them.” He pointed vaguely to the woman and to the driver, who led Um and Ahmed to two separate rooms, closing the doors behind them.
“Pretend you are at an airport,” the woman said. “Raise your arms and spread your legs.” It was only then Um understood she was about to be searched, not for contraband, but for listening devices. Bob had mentioned that possibility, although he clearly doubted whoever she would meet would be that careful or professional. They were in a small bedroom with closed curtains, the dimness of which caused the woman to click on a light switch before going to work. Dressed in a long sleeved, ankle-length dress, she had black hair, black eyes, no makeup, and what would have been an attractive oval face, had it not been for her prison-guard expression.
Her hands methodically patted Um down, but more slowly and carefully, than Um had ever experienced going through airport security.
“Take off your clothes,” the woman said, with a hint of a grin.
“What? That is not what they do at airports.”
“Do it now, or I will bring the boys in here, and they will be happy to help.”
“Whatever it is you’re looking for, you are wasting your time,” Um said curtly. When she saw the woman was not backing down, she headed for the door, saying, “I am out of here.” But one of the young men in the living room barred her exit.
The woman called her back. “If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to hide. It will be easy. Come on.”
In extreme frustration, Um slammed the door closed and walked back into the room, trying to repress her anger.
“Remember,” the woman said sincerely, “we are all on the same side, Allah is our salvation. I must examine you. Go ahead. You can put your clothes on the bed.”
Um removed her light jacket and unbuttoned her blouse while trying to avoid the women’s searching eyes.
“Quickly, quickly.”
She threw her blouse on the bed, revealing a lacy red bra from Victoria’s Secret she now wished she had left at home.
“How does a girl like you afford this? Is it with your CIA salary? Did the CIA build a micro-microphone into your bra?” The woman stepped toward her and said, “Don’t move. This will not hurt.” She reached for Um’s breasts, fondling each gently. “I cannot yet feel the wire, but I know it is there.”
“Stop it!” Um said, yanking the woman’s wrists away from her chest.
“Now take off those jeans.”
When the jeans joined the other clothes on the bed, revealing matching red panties, the woman again stepped forward with a predatory grin, pressing her body against Um and giving her a light kiss on the lips.
“Don’t tell me you don’t like this, or this is completely new to you,” the woman said. “Your eyes betray you.”
The remark made Um flashback to her student days in Beirut, when she and a friend had experimented together for a week before going back to boys. She remembered it had not been a totally unpleasant experience. She allowed the woman’s lips to stay on hers for a second longer than she knew she should before pushing her away, causing her to fall to the floor. She took a breath and quickly dressed.
As the woman stood up, she told her, “I am saving you from Allah’s wrath.” Then she left the bedroom.
El Khoury and Ahmed turned toward her when Um reentered the living room. The two young men apparently had been sent on an errand.
“Ahmed has told me about you,” El Khoury said. “Your courage in working side by side with the Americans infidels will be rewarded. We will not be able to meet very often, so today we will instruct you regarding communications and give you the requirements you must fulfill if our cause is to be served.”
Um’s bedroom interrogator returned and stood at El Khoury’s side, a bit flushed but sternly attentive.
“I will be your contact,” Ahmed said hurriedly, as if afraid to be preempted. “I will meet you in New York every two weeks. I will give you the address of the apartment later. These meetings will be preset. But for emergencies, you will contact an Internet message board. Remember the Web address, www.esquisitecuisine.com. If you include the words ‘green eels,’ with the second word misspelled as ‘eals,’ and sign the message ‘AL,’ I will meet you the next day in the parking lot of the Vienna, Virginia, Metro station at one p.m. The alternate will be six p.m. the same day.” He glanced at El Khoury, seeking approval.
Still fingering his beads, El Khoury nodded. “All this seems overly complicated to me. But I agree we cannot underestimate the enemy. America is the puppet master of the Jewish State, which has too often used Satan’s tricks to kill our people.” He paused and added, “Fortunately, Ahmed has been taught by our Iranian brothers.”
“Remember I am just a translator,” Um said, taking a sip from the glass she had left on the table prior to her bout in the bedroom. “So far, I am mostly given speeches and public comments that appear in the Arab and Iranian media. When I translate them, they give me a new batch. My office is not even in the CIA building. It is in a business center in a town called Reston, fifteen kilometers away from CIA headquarters. However, I have been told I could be transferred to another office that requires much higher clearances. I believe they deal with secret telephone taps as well as with intercepts.”
“Alhamdu’llah,” El Khoury exclaimed, thanking God and giving Um a broad smile, the first sign of emotion she had seen. He dispatched his female assistant to get him a bottle of orange juice from the kitchen.
“To better serve you,” Um said, starting to regain her senses, recalling Bob’s instructions and crooked nose, “It would help me to know how my information will be used. Since I will be serving you primarily, please tell me, Sai’d, how I can help your mission.”
Before El Khoury could reply, the phone started ringing, and he motioned for Ahmed to answer it. As Ahmed walked toward a small desk next to the window, El Khoury looked at Um and said, “My mission is to destroy the Jews and Crusaders, and their allies among us. To do so, we need help from our Iranian brothers, and it is to our benefit to help them help us.”
Ahmed picked up the phone and put it next to his ear. Just then, a small explosion in the phone’s headset blasted Ahmed’s brains across the room in a pulpy jet that colored the rug and the opposite wall with grayish-red matter.
Stunned, Um could only stand transfixed by the horror she had just witnessed.
El Khoury, his hands now still, focused his gaze deeply into Um’s eyes, as though he was staring through her. “As I said, we will destroy the Jews and Crusaders, and their allies. Let us talk more tomorrow.”
With that, he dismissed her, and soon her captors had again blindfolded her, returned her to the floor of the SUV, and after another hour deposited her at the hotel.
During her fitful sleep that night, she dreamed her mother was being prepared to become a suicide bomber.
Per El Khoury’s instructions, Um was escorted back to him the next day. This
