Damascus Station Read online

  DAMASCUS

  STATION

  a novel

  DAVID McCLOSKEY

  W.W. NORTON & COMPANY

  Independent Publishers Since 1923

  For Abby, my love and co-conspirator

  And for Syria and her people, for a future brighter than the past

  Damascus has seen all that has ever occurred on earth, and still she lives. She has looked upon the dry bones of a thousand empires, and will see the tombs of a thousand more before she dies.

  —MARK TWAIN,

  THE INNOCENTS ABROAD, 1869

  PART I

  Murders

  1

  THE EARLY YEARS OF THE SYRIAN UPRISING

  Eight hours into his surveillance detection route Sam’s grip on the steering wheel loosened and his pulse began to slow. He’d made three stops in and around Damascus and executed the planned turns on the SDR, each time scanning for watchers, his eyes darting between the mirrors. At each stop he’d lingered, trying to draw out opposition surveillance. The heat burned through the windshield and the air conditioner struggled to keep up. His back hurt, and his shoulders felt permanently hunched over. He hit traffic and idled the car in an intersection mercifully shaded by palm and pine. Sam drummed his fingers on the wheel and checked the mirrors as the light lingered red, comparing each vehicle to a mental catalog of the cars he had seen earlier in the day. The light turned green. A mukhabarat officer in a leather jacket marched into the road with his hand up and gestured for the first car in line to stay in place. A car behind him honked. Another mukhabarat officer now dragged into the road a sawhorse emblazoned with stickers of President Bashar al-Assad and waved the first car forward. Someone yelled that it was a checkpoint.

  Though it was the sixth of the day, Sam’s heartbeat picked up again. Nonofficial cover meant everything was on the line. There would be no diplomatic immunity if he was caught. There would be no trade. He would disappear into a basement prison. If you weren’t twitchy driving in a hostile country with no lifeline, you were probably a sociopath.

  He slid the passport from his breast pocket and placed it on the dashboard. The document was Canadian, dark blue (tourist), and included a picture of a man named James Hansen. The photo was Sam’s, as was the birthday. He’d collected the document from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service on a slushy spring day in Ottawa after touring the office spaces of the recently established yet nonexistent Orion Real Estate Investments, LLC. The cover was fully backstopped—humans would answer the phones and respond to emails—the Canadians only too happy to participate in exchange for a seat at the debriefing table once KOMODO was safe at Langley. For even friendly intelligence services do not share, they trade.

  KOMODO was one of the most productive assets in Damascus Station’s stable. Middle-aged, lonely, a little creepy according to the ops cables, he was a mid-level scientist in Syria’s Scientific Studies and Research Center, the SSRC, the organization responsible for Assad’s chemical weapons. The NSA believed that the Syrians had breached KOMODO’s covert communications system, and so over the course of a frenetic day Langley had built an exfiltration plan that involved Sam driving into Syria under commercial cover to get the asset out. CIA had also decided to bring home Val Owens, KOMODO’s handling officer. Sam and Val had served together in Iraq, her first tour, his third. They’d become close, like family. Val was a friend, an asset’s life was on the line, and when he thought of those two things his heart rate picked up again as a soldier waved him forward.

  A young soldier with hard eyes and a wispy mustache approached the driver’s window and asked for documents. Sam held eye contact for a respectful second, then gave him the passport—already turned to the page with the ninety-day Syrian visa—and stared out the windshield toward the highway. The soldier flipped through the book, scanned around as if questioning whether to call his supervisor, then squinted at Sam.

  “Why in Syria?” he said in heavily accented English.

  “Business,” Sam said in Arabic.

  The soldier nodded to one of his approaching comrades, their eyes nervously searching the parked cars and buildings. The regime controlled this part of the city, but rebels and jihadis sometimes hit the checkpoints. Suicide bombings, rocket-propelled grenades, the run-and-gun tactics like he’d seen during his tour in Baghdad—all of it was increasingly common in Damascus. The soldier set his jaw and smacked the passport into his own open palm.

  “Open the trunk,” he told Sam.

  Sam pressed the button to open the rear hatch. Another soldier opened the back and removed Sam’s suitcase, thunking it onto the pavement.

  “Is it locked?” the soldier said.

  “No,” Sam said. He heard unzippering and the muffled sound of clothes being tossed back into the car.

  “Why is nothing folded?” the other soldier asked.

  “Because I have already been through several checkpoints today,” Sam said.

  “Rental?” the first soldier said, smacking the driver’s door with the butt of his AK-47.

  Sam nodded.

  “Papers.”

  Sam opened the glove compartment and handed the soldier a set of papers indicating the car belonged to Rainbow Rentals of Amman, Jordan. As the soldier reviewed the papers, Sam shoved from his mind the image of an Amman Station mechanic using a mannequin precisely matching KOMODO’s height and weight (five-foot-five, 145 pounds) to illustrate how to fold a human into the specially fabricated trunk compartment.

  The soldier handed back the papers. “What type of business, Mr. Hansen?”

  “Real estate investment. Villas out here, maybe some homes in the Old City.”

  “The villas are cheap now.”

  “Yes.” Sam smiled. “Yes, they are.”

  “The suitcase is fine,” said the man behind the car.

  The soldier handed back the passport and grunted. “Move along.”

  Clear of the checkpoint, he nosed the car onto the M1 highway and toward the Old City as the maghrib, the sunset call to prayer, rang from the muezzins of the mosques. The evening traffic was light. Syrians now rushed indoors at nightfall to avoid the mortars lobbed between the regime and the rebels.

  As the sun dipped below the horizon behind him, his body now agreed with what his mind had already concluded: He was black. Free of surveillance. For a moment, he felt relief. Then the second-guessing began, an SDR ritual for every CIA case officer since the first training-wheels run at the Farm. This was the bitch of the Mission. The cold fact that you could never be sure, that it was always easier to abort when covered than to commit the operational act knowing you could be wrong.

  So he let the questions flow.

  Had he been made by the black Lexus with the scuffed passenger door in Yafour? Had he seen the dusty yellow cab now trailing him just after his second stop, at the tacky villa with the hourglass-shaped pool? Had the glint from an apartment building window during the last checkpoint been a fixed surveillance post? Sam popped a tab of spearmint gum in his mouth. He chewed slowly, staring through the weather-beaten windshield as Damascus neared. Vehicular SDRs made it maddeningly difficult to spot repeats. He wanted to get out onto the street but had no reason for the move. Suburban Damascus was now a war zone and Sam was James Hansen, real estate investor. James Hansen would not make random stops in a war zone. James Hansen would hustle to his rented house in the Old City and bed down for the night before returning to Amman.

  He stopped the Land Cruiser two blocks from the safe house. He slapped a yellowed atlas on the roof and pretended to scour the winding alleys for his ultimate destination. This was the final chance to abort. Sam took in a deep breath and felt the cool night air on his skin. The hairs on his neck did not stand. He did not feel watched. He looked ar
ound, picking up the atlas like an idiot tourist in one last attempt to search for watchers in the night. He looked down the correct road and tossed the atlas into the passenger’s seat.

  He pulled the Mercedes outside a house just off Bab Touma. The Canadians had picked an ideal location on the Old City’s outer rim: the ARCHIMEDES safe house had easy access to the winding alleys and narrow roads of the city center—perfect for surveillance detection—as well as the wider roads encircling it, making it accessible by car. The house was a three-story Ottoman-era palace that sprawled for what Sam judged was half a city block. Garages were uncommon in Damascus and considered unsightly in a grand old house like this. To achieve the functionality without sacrificing aesthetic, this owner—a Canadian support asset—had fashioned an elaborate door that appeared to be one of the home’s street-facing exterior walls.

  Sam pressed a button tucked beside a gas lantern on the northern wall. It opened with a creak and he backed the car into the garage. Despite the villa’s size, the corridor set behind the garage was tight. At its end, the marble floor spilled into a set of double doors fifteen feet high, with iron latticework wrought into Quranic phrases forming dozens of intricate panes. Sam opened the doors into the inner courtyard. A fountain gurgled in its center, ringed by small clusters of orange and lemon trees. Unseen rooks squawked warnings as he entered. To the east a mortar volley kicked up, and he flinched instinctively before backing inside the hallway and closing the doors.

  The Canadians had included a floor plan in the liaison traffic, so he had no trouble navigating the winding hallways to reach the kitchen. In a musty cabinet he found the items he’d requested: a pack of high-calorie granola bars, a baggie with ten two-milligram Xanax pills, a portable oxygen concentrator, a CamelBak hydration pack, and adult diapers. He filled the CamelBak with water and removed one diaper from the pack. He put everything into a black satchel and zippered it shut.

  Returning to the garage, he opened the Land Cruiser’s rear hatch. He slid open the compartment tucked into the rear seats beneath the trunk space by turning a series of hidden dials in the precise order demonstrated in Amman. Sam ran his hand along the compartment’s thin lining. It was black silicon, transported from a Langley basement to Amman Station via diplomatic pouch and designed to absorb heat, rendering warm objects underneath invisible to infrared sensors. He tossed the satchel inside, wishing that CIA could tuck cyanide pills in these go-bags like the Russians did for their assets. A CIA asset caught in Syria could expect months of interrogation and torture. If Sam were in KOMODO’s shoes he’d want the pill.

  TO WORK OUT THE STRESS Sam did rounds of push-ups and sit-ups for thirty minutes. When he’d finished, he took a hot shower. Val was fifteen minutes late. He didn’t need to check clocks or watches anymore. Training at the Farm had seen to that.

  He changed into a fresh white shirt and light gray suit and returned to the kitchen to see if he could find coffee. He located an old press coated in dust, along with an electric tea kettle and a tin of ground coffee. He didn’t check the expiration date because he didn’t care. He needed the caffeine.

  Sam steeped the coffee, let the cup cool, then drank it in three gulps. He filled a second cup, gazing at the escaping steam. He called a memorized phone number and asked for an update on the Dubai acquisition. The voice on the other end, a Syrian support asset who did not know the true meaning of any of the prearranged codes, told Sam that the transaction was on hold. Sam asked him to confirm.

  “It is on hold, Mr. Hansen.”

  Sam finished the second cup of coffee in two gulps and shattered the empty mug on the floor.

  THE PROSPECT OF KOMODO’S IMMINENT arrest and the deteriorating security situation in Syria meant CIA had to forgo the usual exfiltration playbook: spirit the asset between safe houses for weeks, let the heat simmer down, then smuggle them over the border. KOMODO had been under surveillance for weeks. All three would leave Syria from the safe house.

  Sam lay on the bed in his suit, heart stampeding from the caffeine and the adrenaline. If the mukhabarat had snatched up KOMODO, they’d come for Val next. And all he could do was wait for Val. It was, more than anything, a business of waiting. The waiting, though, created a sharp edge that made him want to drink half a handle of whiskey or take a couple of KOMODO’s Xanax pills. Some officers tried to numb the edge with booze or drugs or women. It always led to the gutter, dismissal from the service, or worse. They’d found one of his Farm classmates—an officer under non-official cover, a NOC operating in Belarus—hanging from an exposed rafter in his Minsk apartment, pills and syringes and empty vodka bottles littering the floor.

  The Mission could wear on you.

  It was almost two in the morning. He heard a door creak somewhere in the house, then footfalls in a hallway.

  He found Val in the kitchen, one foot tapping the floor, a shaky hand scooping coffee into the press. She spilled a spoonful of grounds and slammed her hands on the counter.

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” she yelled. “Three windows. He missed three pickup windows.”

  Her taut frame swelled as she sucked in deep breaths, trying to calm herself. She flipped on the kettle and slid onto the floor, back against the cabinets. Sam sat down next to her. Both were silent as the kettle bubbled to life. She was sinewy and lean, very much the way he remembered her in Baghdad, but she’d let her blond hair grow out well past the shoulders. He put his arm around her. She slumped her head on his shoulder.

  After a few minutes he stood and retrieved a red satchel from the Land Cruiser’s compartment. Returning to the kitchen, he tossed it to Val. It contained a Canadian passport that, like Sam’s, bore her own picture and a false name. She examined the disguises—wig, eyeglasses, foam gut to add twenty pounds—all bespoke to match the picture. “Dude, I look terrible as an overweight brunette,” she said.

  “I know. That’s why I picked it.”

  She smiled, then her face darkened. “We need to give him a few more hours to make the emergency signal. Then, if he’s still a no-show, we leave.”

  THEY SAT ON THE KITCHEN floor waiting for a signal that KOMODO had reappeared, for daylight, for the mukhabarat to kick in the door. They each took turns keeping watch while the other slept, but neither managed sleep, and both now rubbed raw eyes as a metallic screech rang from the street. The protester working the megaphone yelled, Selmiyyeh, selmiyyeh—Peaceful, peaceful—and the crowd’s murmurs reverberated inside the house.

  “Friday protests starting,” Sam said.

  “Abbassin Square is just a few blocks north,” she said groggily. “The big opposition committees and Facebook pages called for a demonstration today. They want to camp out until the regime falls. They are starting early today, though. We should leave soon.”

  Sam now looked out one of the windows at the large crowd pouring through the street below.

  “This is going to be the biggest protest so far in Damascus,” she said. “Could be bloody.” Val sat back down and folded her arms on the table. “I think he’s gone.”

  “Probably,” Sam said as he stood. “But we talk about anything other than this busted op right now. We should go.”

  She was opening her mouth to speak when the rooks squawked outside and the hairs on Sam’s neck shot up straight. Her mouth closed and Sam could see in Val’s widening eyes that she sensed the same disturbance.

  Selmiyyeh, selmiyyeh.

  They both stood. Sam’s chair creaked against the floor in the sticky silence.

  Selmiyyeh, selmiyyeh. The home’s ancient door groaned as it splintered from its hinges.

  2

  ONLY AS A LITTLE GIRL HAD MARIAM SEEN CROWDS SO large in Syria. Pressed shoulder-to-shoulder with the protesters, she approached Abbassin Square with the chanting mass. They carried homemade signs, many had painted their faces, and some carried coolers as if preparing for a picnic. A burly man on her left lugged a folding chair and a small green, white, and black tristar flag, the symbol of the rebellion. Each time
one of the protest leaders cried out on the megaphone, the man raised the flag above his head. A woman on Mariam’s right led a small girl by the hand, FREEDOM emblazoned on her little pink T-shirt. Mariam held the girl’s eyes as they moved quickly past. The girl flashed a V with her fingers before disappearing into the crowd. The square pulsed with energy, but Mariam felt only rising fear. She worked in the Palace, so she knew the government would not let this fester for long. In the meantime, she had work to do.

  From the square, a megaphone shrieked, Selmiyyeh, selmiyyeh.

  At Abbassin’s southern rim Mariam saw that the square—really a traffic circle—had disappeared beneath the crowd. A mass of heads, shoulders, flags, and banners replaced the roads and pavement. She was here to protect Razan, her beloved cousin. Careless, carefree. Simple to follow. Draped in the flag of rebellion, probably a little high, Razan marched to Abbassin under cardboard signs demanding freedom, the end of the emergency law, and new elections. All reasonable. All treasonous, legally speaking. Mariam knew this and pressed on, fighting the urge to yell for her cousin to return home. Avoid the square, the protest. Let’s go get drunk. Like the old days. Razan kept marching into the heart of the square, toward a stage fashioned with scraps of wood and furniture borrowed from the homes of those friendly to the opposition. Mariam scanned for mukhabarat officers and set herself sufficiently away from the stage so she could claim to be an innocent passerby. I went out for pastries and only observed the traitorous demonstration, Officer, she shamefully practiced the words in silence. Always have a story for the mukhabarat donkeys, Razan liked to say.

  Mariam stopped at a sweets shop just inside the square. The crowd’s sound was deafening now, a kind of revelry she’d never heard in Syria. Large gatherings had only been permitted for the staged, compulsory rallies the old President, the current President’s father, had held in the stadium just off the square. She had been a little girl immersed in the crowd, reciting a chant declaring him to be the country’s premier pharmacist. “Syria’s gallant knight!” the government officials had urged them to sing. “The Lion of Damascus!” Is he really a good pharmacist, the President? Mariam had asked her father afterward, old enough to understand one asked such questions in private, if ever. He’d just smiled, stroked her hair, looked around uneasily, and whispered in her ear: He is a good liar, habibti.