Damascus Station Read online

  SVR ASSET ELICITED NAME OF CIA OPERATIONS OFFICER HANDLING SYRIA CASE RELATED TO JABLEH AND ALLEGED CHEMICAL WEAPONS USE IN EFREH. SUBSOURCE DESCRIBED HIM AS “JOSEPH.” SVR TRACES INDICATE OFFICER IN QUESTION MAY BE US EMBASSY DAMASCUS COMMS OFFICIAL SAMUEL JOSEPH.

  Then there was the sarin test and the Jableh complex. Ali lit a cigarette and went to the window. His brother was not just a savage, he was insane. And he had no way to fight him. He’d been losing fights to Rustum for forty years, so Ali knew when he was beaten. Whatever this program was, the President had approved of it. But gas, really? And in such large quantities? What were they planning? Anytime the regime went on the offensive, the rebels punched right back. He saw no way out of the war, but also no way to win. And there was no safety net if they lost. So he would focus on the investigation. It was something he could control.

  Ali pulled his memo on the Samuel Joseph investigation from his desk drawer. He’d drafted it in an inspired spell after the SVR reports arrived. He wanted paper in front of Assad to have the upper hand over Rustum. He had addressed it to His Excellency Bashar al-Assad, President of the Syrian Arab Republic. He’d also sent a copy to Rustum. They would discuss it at the Palace in thirty minutes.

  Ali reread the memo. He thought it could work. Then he wondered to what end. An irritating, useless thought. He pushed it aside.

  Kanaan swung open the door. “Can I get you more coffee before we go?”

  Ali smiled as he stuffed extra copies into his briefcase. “Why do you ask?”

  “You look tired.”

  “As would you if Rustum was your brother.”

  THERE ARE TWO PALACES IN Damascus. One, the People’s Palace, is a gargantuan sandstone structure set on Mount Mezzeh, overlooking the city like a feudal castle. President Assad barely visits unless he needs it for sterile handshake photo ops with visiting dignitaries. The second, Malki, is Assad’s family residence, and it is tucked into a leafy district of central Damascus. It is more bungalow than palace. The rooms are well kept but cozy, and certainly not grand. Assad’s toddlers’ toys are scattered on the floors. Unlike Saddam Hussein and the House of Saud, Bashar al-Assad—like his father—does not display his wealth with innumerable mansions, gold toilets, faux–Roman bathhouses, and walls plastered with gaudy erotic paintings. Even amid the civil war, the House of Assad sees itself as an expression of the popular will. A dynasty with an earthy image to protect.

  Ali arrived first, and was ushered into Malki’s sitting room and served tea. The meeting would occur in Assad’s modest personal study amid cracking leather sofas, muted televisions, a treadmill, and stacks of files and paper. He had just finished his cup of tea when Assad’s secretary emerged from his office. “The President is there,” the secretary said. “But we are still waiting on the commander. You can go on up, though, General.”

  Ali knocked twice at the door and heard a lispy, “Come in, come in.” Bashar al-Assad, President of the Syrian Arab Republic, had forgone his usual jeans and dress shirt for a black suit and metallic blue tie, the one he usually wore for interviews with European TV stations. Assad was seated in front of his Mac as Ali opened the door. Three leather sofas formed a U shape around a mother-of-pearl-inlaid coffee table scattered with magazines. Behind the couch was a desk stacked high with manila folders and newspapers. A television broadcasting Al Jazeera hung on the wall.

  Assad was tall and slender, but there was something very awkward about his appearance, like he was constructed of random body parts that did not belong together. Some of the rebel graffiti, Ali knew from the intelligence reports, called Assad “the Giraffe.” He had a long neck that stretched into a weak jaw, topped with a faint boyish mustache. His ears, Ali had always thought, looked more elfin than human. But all of his weaknesses—his appearance, his lisp, the cerebral medical background (he had trained in London as an ophthalmologist)—played in his favor. For they all led observers and enemies to underestimate him. It was always a costly mistake. The President, like all of them, was a murderer.

  Ali took a seat on one of the couches and Assad sat down next to him. A copy of the memo, marked up with red ink, sat on the coffee table. “Inspired work here, Ali,” Assad said.

  Assad asked Ali about Layla and the twins. Ali did the same for Asma and the President’s children. Ali did not ask about the mistresses and girlfriends. The President, despite his awkward appearance—or perhaps because of it—used sexual conquest as a way to demonstrate his virility and power to the Syrian elite. Ali purposely kept Layla out of his sight whenever possible.

  The President checked his gold wristwatch.

  Rustum arrived suited in his full military attire, replete with black shoulder boards and the red cap of the Republican Guard. Ali’s jaw clenched when he saw Basil, also in his uniform, following at Rustum’s heels. These killers were all cleaned up. They almost looked respectable wearing those pressed uniforms, shaking the President’s hand, and politely providing tea orders to the assistant. One could almost forget the stories from the previous troubles, in the eighties, when Basil first earned the nickname Comanche.

  The President, who had been watching an Al Jazeera report on Saudi funding for Syrian rebel groups, cursed the House of Saud and turned off the television and gestured for Rustum and Basil to take a seat. “Now,” he said. “We have a breach. We need him rolled up quickly. Ali, what is the plan?”

  “Certainly, Mr. President. Has everyone read the memo?” Rustum grunted. Ali knew that he was furious that he had not been invited to shape its message. Basil shook his head no and licked his mustache.

  “I’ve laid out three paths to capture the traitor,” Ali continued, ignoring Basil. “All should be pursued simultaneously for maximum effect.”

  Assad put his right elbow on the coffee table and rested his chin in his hand as he scanned the memo again. He began questioning. “In this first path, you think your agent can get a CIA device?”

  “It is possible. The agent may also be able to elicit information for us on the CIA’s operations here in Damascus. I think this Samuel Joseph will bite with the right bait placed in front of him.”

  “And the Iranians are confident that they can exploit a device?” Assad asked.

  “Yes,” Ali said. “Assuming the CIA provides an actual device connected to a satellite and does not use a website as in the Ghazali case.” He stopped and set his jaw. “The Iranians are confident they can exploit it.”

  “Do you have an idea of who you would run against this Samuel Joseph?” Assad said.

  “We have a few ideas, including one who has met him before. I believe we can work quickly. And that we have nothing to lose by trying.”

  Ali grew silent as Assad’s secretary entered the room with a tray of pastries and steaming teacups. He placed it on the table and left.

  “I think this first approach is too elegant, in fact,” Rustum said. “And the payoff is uncertain.”

  Assad waved off Rustum. “I doubt it. Ali is correct: we have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Make sure to bring the Iranians in if it bears fruit as you predict. Their technical teams can assist in quickly exploiting the device.”

  “Of course, Mr. President.”

  Ali continued. “The second approach is to feed unique information to the list of people who knew about Jableh. Each one gets something different. The information has to be sufficiently important that it would be passed to the Americans. It also should be connected to our chemical weapons program. The SVR comments, and the markings on the CIA documents, suggest to me that their source is Israeli and the exchange is focused on chemical weapons. Then we see what comes back.”

  Rustum had picked up a teacup and now sniffed at the steam. “It’s correct,” he said taking a sip, “that the list of suspects has narrowed now that they’ve found the facility. Too damn sweet, by the way, this palace stuff.”

  Assad gave a high-pitched chuckle.

  Ali continued: “We know three things about their source. One, he know
s about a compartmented Republican Guard effort inside the SSRC. Two, he knows about a chemical weapons test in Efreh. Three, he knows the location of the Jableh facility. Who has this information?”

  “There are maybe four living,” Rustum said. “Shalish, but he is dead. The commander at Jableh and his deputy. Jamil Atiyah and the SSRC director. Rumors of the compartment and even the test could have percolated through the Palace, the SSRC, or the Guard, but the specific location of this facility narrows the list substantially.”

  “You are confident in the lockdown at Jableh?” Assad asked.

  “I am. It is a prison camp.”

  “You’re forgetting one name, though, big brother,” Ali said.

  Rustum smirked. “Who?”

  “Bouthaina. I have my little birds inside this government, and I know you used her cutouts to procure some of the material. And who knows what other information she may have come across in the course of her duties, official or . . . unofficial?”

  Assad smiled, enjoying the fratricide.

  Rustum waved in the air, staring at Ali with rising anger. “Fine. We test her.”

  “Good,” Assad said, waving his hand to end the debate. “The Jableh commanders, Atiyah, the SSRC director, Bouthaina.”

  “What do you recommend we pass to them, Ali?” the President asked.

  Ali ran fingers over his mustache. “The location of another facility. We say there is a backup. The Americans would want the information. And the story only has to hold up long enough for someone to report the information to the CIA. It should be a place where we will know if something happens. That way we have two avenues for information to come back to us. One, the SVR reporting. Two, if the Americans bomb it.”

  “Supply depots,” Rustum said, knuckles whitening as he gripped his teacup.

  “Yes, perfect,” Assad said. “Warehouses large enough to hide production equipment. Sufficient for storage.”

  Ali paused, looking at his brother’s clenched hands. An irresistible thought formed, an opportunity to dish something back to Rustum. “And you know, big brother, that you will need to pass this information to each person. I, of course, have no knowledge of the program.”

  “Of course,” Rustum said through clenched teeth.

  “And I would appreciate if you could write down the names of the suspects paired with the facility location you’ve given them. This way I can verify that everything is consistent.”

  Rustum’s eyes flashed. He scribbled the list and passed it to Ali. Ali caught the last two names and locations before he slipped it in his pocket. He would scan the others later.

  Jamil Atiyah—Khan Abu Shamat

  Bouthaina Najjar—Wadi Barada

  “Thank you, big brother,” Ali said.

  “Excellent,” Assad said. “Now, the third approach?”

  “We know the CIA officer running the spy. We beat him on the street by convincing him that he is free of surveillance, when he in fact he will be covered. He will lead us to his agent.”

  “And I assume your agent may also be able to determine when he is readying for an operation?” Assad asked.

  “It is possible, Mr. President, but it is not certain. The CIA typically compartments such information between its assets. But we will try.”

  Rustum now pointed to Ali’s memo, mashing his finger into the paper for emphasis. “Are you sure the Russian team is necessary?”

  “Yes. They have operated extensively against the Americans for decades.”

  Assad again waved off Rustum without looking at him. “I will call Putin this afternoon. This is approved.”

  Basil whispered something to Rustum in that burry voice. Now Rustum swung back. “Mr. President, this plan is very thorough, but why do we not just arrest the CIA officer and interrogate him for the name?”

  Assad leaned back, amused, and skimmed over Ali’s face for a reaction. The President enjoyed watching his lieutenants squabble. Better he be the hub, each adviser a unitary spoke at war with the others. The President sipped more tea.

  “What do you think, Ali?” Assad said, knowing the answer.

  Ali rubbed his scar. Rustum smiled. The damn thing always knew when it was in the presence of its creator.

  RUSTUM HAD IN FACT FAILED to kill Ali. Twice.

  When Rustum was eight he pieced together that his mother had died birthing Ali and decided he didn’t like the exchange of his beloved mother for the colicky toddler commanding his father and stepmother’s attention.

  So he led Ali, who had just started walking, toward the stairs and pushed him down. Rustum lied to his parents and claimed young Ali walked off the top step.

  Ali had no memory of this. Rustum explained it during his second attempt, the night their father and stepmother were murdered. The day Ali made the fateful decision.

  The decision, as an impetuous ten-year old, had been to demand his father make good on a promise to take him for a tractor ride.

  The Hassans had owned grocery stores and a distribution business. They’d just opened a new node in Homs, the country’s third-largest city, then—as now—roiled by rebellion. It was 1980, and the Ikhwan, the Muslim Brotherhood, was contesting Assad’s rule. Ali’s father said that the Ikhwan wanted two things: Sharia law and the Alawis dead or holed up in the mountains. Preferably both.

  In those days the Alawi presence in Homs was new. Ali’s father liked to say that the Alawis’ success—our ingenuity, my son—had brought them out of the impoverished mountain villages into the prosperous cities. The Ikhwan terrorists fought the tide, killing two of his father’s employees outside one of the stores in the middle of a sunny spring day. They opened the new distribution center soon after. The Hassans lived near the coast, in Latakia, but their parents brought the brothers to Homs for the grand opening and rented an apartment in the city. “We need to stay here for a few months to keep an eye on things,” said Ali’s father. Ali’s grandfather also came down from the coast and stayed with the family.

  Ali and Rustum had walked the aisles of the new building. Freshly painted walls filled the room with distinct chemical smells. The place was stuffed: dry goods, machine parts, furniture, farming equipment. And the centerpiece of Ali’s affections: a Soviet tractor, inexplicably painted aquamarine, in which he sat every day. After much begging on Ali’s part, his father promised him a ride before it sold, or at least before they went back home.

  By June the tractor had not sold and it was time to return to Latakia. Ali saw Rustum loading bags into the car and ran to his father, wailing because they had not ridden the tractor yet. He’d promised. Shut up, Rustum had told him, but his father waved his older son off and, looking at the boys’ stepmother, said they could all stay in town tonight and make an appearance at the governor’s party. She hated those events, Ali knew. Then he would take Ali on the tractor the next morning, and they would actually leave. Ali sniffed. That was okay.

  His father and stepmother went to the party that night in a black chauffeured Mercedes. The tint had been so dark that to this day Ali sometimes wondered if his father saw him wave goodbye.

  The driver had survived to explain the chronology to Ali’s grandfather. While Ali sobbed in his bed, Rustum eavesdropped outside the kitchen. The driver recalled how he had turned onto the street toward home and a man wearing a uniform appeared in the road holding out his hand, motioning for a stop. There were traffic cones scattered haphazardly in the street. The man declared himself to be captain something or other from the police and did you know there had been a shooting two blocks over? He showed a badge. We are taking the necessary precautions. ID cards, please.

  ID cards were checked and rechecked and there was a long wait, for apparently someone at headquarters was not responding on his radio. There was a solo crack and then two more and then a rattling volley that swept through the car’s back doors. Hands reached in through the window and yanked the driver out and sat him on the ground, dazed.

  You watch, you watch, the captain said angr
ily, pointing at the car.

  Two other men pulled Ali’s father and stepmother from the car, tossing the bodies to the ground before leaning them against the car facing the driver. The two men stuffed their IDs into their open mouths. Their native Alawi villages, printed on the blood-splattered cards, would be enough for people to understand the message.

  A car pulled up and the men got in, all except the captain. He told the driver to pass this message from the Ikhwan. You tell the others, he said. Tell them everything.

  In the kitchen, the driver put his hands over his eyes and wept. At this Rustum snatched a knife from a drawer and kicked open the door to the room he shared with Ali. Rustum straddled him in the bed and shoved the knife toward his neck. Ali pushed at his brother’s arms to keep the blade away. Rustum sank the tip of the knife into Ali’s neck and tried to slide it across his throat. Ali jabbed at Rustum’s arms and the blade slid into his jawbone and up the bottom of his cheek. Saliva dribbled from Rustum’s mouth as he screamed that Ali should have died on those stairs and he would die now. “Now I am vengeance,” Rustum screamed, “for my mother and father and stepmother.”

  Then Rustum and the blade fell away, and Ali realized that his grandfather had knocked Rustum from the bed. He saw through his tears as his grandfather’s strong fists rained down on Rustum. When it was finished, Ali’s grandfather had him taken to a local doctor to sew up his wound, Ali covered in his own blood, his grandfather wearing Rustum’s on his hands and his once-white linen shirt.

  THE TWO BROTHERS HAD NEVER discussed that night. Never had, Ali thought, and never will. What was there to say? Their parents were gone, Ali had inadvertently helped usher in their deaths, and Rustum, his brother Rustum, had died along with his parents. Now he was something else. Ali’s rival. Ali’s tormentor.

  Ali set down the teacup. He looked toward the President. “If we arrest and interrogate the American, we embark on a dangerous journey with an uncertain outcome. One CIA officer has already disappeared in Syria. Their tolerance for losing another, I expect, is low. The CIA will know we’ve jailed him and the Americans will immediately apply pressure for his release. We will have a limited time to squeeze out the name. We may not succeed. I expect the Americans, working with Zion, will then attempt to kill everyone in this room, you excluded, Mr. President. We should attempt the strategy outlined in my memo before taking such risks.”