The Spy House Read online

  His guardian must have sensed the conflict within him. “Listen carefully. I’ve traveled the world, seen more suffering than any man should. When people are surrounded by death, it has a different meaning. It’s almost as if it’s part of . . .”

  “Life.”

  “Yes.”

  Safa took another sip of his cocoa. It didn’t taste so good now. “How did she die?”

  “The phrase ‘passed away’ is apt. Because that’s how she went. Peacefully. In her sleep. No pain.”

  “Is she with God now?”

  “Yes, and your father is by her side.” The UN official removed his hand from Safa’s arm. “You have no one now. You must face up to that reality.”

  “I have you, sir.”

  “I am not family. Nor can I be.”

  “You look after me.”

  “I do, and I will do everything in my power to make sure you’re not sent back to that place.” The guardian’s face showed concern. “Don’t worry, Safa. I have connections. I know what I’m doing. And I will always look after you. But”—he adopted a stern tone, though his expression was now one of true warmth—“I am a man of rules and principles, and it is a rule and principle that my household always eats a good meal, no matter whether we are elated or full of sorrow.”

  The meal was unlike any that Safa had eaten. His tummy was swollen afterward, though he didn’t care. He’d consumed chicken with crispy skin, steamed fresh vegetables that were lightly glazed in butter, roasted parsnips, and stuffing, all covered with a homemade gravy. It was food fit for kings, and that was exactly how Safa felt—or maybe he felt like a prince who dwelled with a good king.

  They retired to the guardian’s study. This was their evening ritual. Safa would always have a glass of water; the UN official would allow himself a small glass of port.

  The guardian picked up a book from the many on his shelves. It was red and looked old. “Charles Dickens was a very skilled English author. This book is written by him and is called Hard Times. I want you to close your eyes and relax. Don’t worry that you can’t understand the English words. Tonight, that’s not what’s important. Instead, I want you to listen to the rhythm of my voice, feel the musical flow of each sentence, and where possible remember how I pronounce some of the words. You are fortunate to speak French and Arabic. In sound, at least, the English tongue falls somewhere between those two languages.”

  He read for thirty minutes, regularly glancing at Safa in case he opened his eyes or betrayed signs of not listening. But the boy looked entranced. In a calm and soothing voice, the guardian said, “Now we must turn our attention to your required medication and our daily reflection.”

  This was the part that the boy least enjoyed about his days in France, though the guardian said he was under strict orders from Safa’s doctors to administer their prescriptions every evening. In truth, each day was getting easier, and tonight the warm roast chicken in his tummy distracted him from his fear.

  The guardian opened a plastic box and withdrew from it a bottle of pills, a tourniquet, and three syringes. Safa knew what to do. He swallowed two pills with some water, rolled up his sleeve, and held out his arm.

  “That’s my lad,” said the guardian as he wrapped the tourniquet around Safa’s biceps. He swabbed disinfectant over a prominent vein inside Safa’s elbow, and eased the needle of the first syringe into Safa. “The first one’s always the more painful one, isn’t it?”

  Safa nodded, his teeth gritted together.

  “Just two more. Smaller needles; almost no pain.”

  The medicine was administered. Many times Safa had asked what was in the pills and syringes; always his guardian had answered, but the names he used to describe the medicines were in Latin and so long that Safa could never remember them. Still, all that mattered was that his doctors and guardian could.

  As always, he felt an almost instant tiredness overwhelm him, but also a sense that he was looking at himself from the other side of the study.

  “It’s the outside-in effect,” the UN official frequently told him after his evening administrations of Safa’s medicines. “It’s the drugs’ way of letting your mind watch your body get stronger each day. And in turn, they make your brain stronger because they give it reassurance that it’s no longer in a weak vessel.”

  Safa rolled down his sleeve after Band-Aids were applied over the puncture wounds and the tourniquet was removed.

  The guardian positioned four mirrors alongside each other on his study’s desk. “Remember the drill?”

  Safa swiveled in his chair to face the mirrors. “Yes. Though why so many mirrors this time?”

  “We shall explore your question together.” The guardian turned off the light so the room was in pitch darkness and stood behind Safa’s back. He shone a flashlight at the mirror on the left. “Look at the reflection of light, while we consider what we have learned and what we must still learn.”

  Safa nodded, his eyes transfixed, his body feeling as if it were floating.

  “Today, we have a new tragedy to add to the others, do we not?”

  “We do, sir.”

  “What is that tragedy?”

  “The death of my mother.”

  “Correct.” The guardian turned off the flashlight. “Is she gone?”

  Darkness.

  “Yes.”

  “Has the tragedy gone?”

  “No.”

  The guardian illuminated the second mirror. “That’s right. The tragedy does not want to die. Look at the light, Safa. What does it say to you?”

  “Burning. Things burning in eternity.”

  “Hell?”

  “Like hell, but on earth.”

  The guardian rested the flashlight on a shelf so that its beam remained focused on the second mirror. He picked up another flashlight. “The mirror on the left has no light and holds the lives that have been unnecessarily extinguished. Your sister, mother, and father belong there. No light. Their deaths were avoidable.”

  “Avoidable.” Safa knew that with certainty. “Avoidable.”

  “And the light that you can see reflected by the second mirror is the tragedy that we must allow to singe us with its flames. It must never be forgotten. But maybe one day it can be extinguished. Repeat that for me, please.”

  “It must never be forgotten. But maybe one day it can be extinguished.”

  “Good. I want you to look at the third mirror while allowing the tragic light to continue to wash over you. Can you do this?”

  Safa looked at the barely visible third mirror. “Is it bad? I don’t know if I want it to be bad.”

  “Oh, no. This is the most wonderful thing in the world. It is a thing that forges a path into the future while correcting the past. The light I will shine on it will be bright and virtuous. But if you’re not ready to see it then we can do this during one of our subsequent daily sessions.”

  “I want to see it.”

  The guardian illuminated the third mirror. “Do you know what this is?”

  Safa shook his head.

  “It is you.”

  “Me?”

  “The brightest light. Look at the mirror. It holds a reflection of you.”

  Safa stared at the mirror. Its light would normally hurt his eyes and cause him to blink, but the drugs inside him dulled his nerves and made him calm, at peace. He felt different, though he always did after receiving his medication. And every morning after, he felt his mind was developing greater fortitude and clarity. He was evolving. “Me?” he repeated.

  “You.” The guardian’s session was nearly at a close. There was so much more work to be done. Safa was nowhere near ready. But each daily session had to contain cautious little steps. Just as Safa’s body had to be coaxed carefully, step by step, back to normal nutritional balance, so, too, his mind had to be gently manipulated to the place where it would never be the same again. The guardian owed that to the boy in his care, a child who could otherwise be traumatized by the horrors of his youn
g life. “The mirror on the left with no light is beyond the control of you or anyone else. What has happened can never be undone. The mirror next to it burns with unbridled indignation and sorrow because it captures and holds tragedy. Only you can extinguish it, and only when matters have been put to rest. The third mirror is you. The brightest and purest light.” He paused, wondering if he should stop now.

  Safa asked, “The fourth mirror. Why does it have no light?”

  “It does have light. But it is an evil one. I’m not sure you’re ready to see what the mirror reflects.”

  “It reflects the bad in me?”

  “There is no bad in you. The fourth mirror is the key to everything—the death of your family, the terrible circumstances of your childhood, the unnecessary deaths of so many others.”

  “What is it?”

  “Gluttony, power, murder.” The guardian hesitated. “We’ve never given that light a name, have we?”

  “Never.”

  “Do you think it’s time to do so?”

  Safa was silent for a moment. Tonight his caring guardian had taken him to a whole new level of well-being. Thank goodness the man had singled Safa out for a better life where he could recuperate in the West. A child, still, but one receiving a very good education on what it took to be a balanced adult. “Yes, it’s time.”

  The guardian turned off all flashlights. Then he illuminated the fourth mirror. “Don’t be scared. But do be very cautious. Look at it.”

  The light was more intense than the others. Safa didn’t like it. He felt angry, wanted to smash the mirror, though he wasn’t sure why.

  The guardian crouched next to Safa, his mouth close to the boy’s ear, his eyes following his gaze toward the mirror. “It is a painful thing, is it not?”

  Safa felt uneasy. “Gluttony, power, murder?”

  The guardian whispered, “The embodiment of those nasty things in grown-ups who slaughter children.”

  “Where do those grown-ups live?”

  “You must look to the two mirrors on the left. They can answer your question. It would be wrong for me to do so.”

  Safa thought about his dying parents; the way his younger sister had grabbed his arm while shrieking in pain, her expression terrified as she vomited blood onto his raggedy shirt; the wails from Arab mothers in Gaza who served as belated air raid sirens as they ran down streets and alleys, their sons and daughters killed; and worst of all, the starvation of his country. That was the insufferable horror, a rot that was surgically injected into a landmass; the life of people evaporating over months and years, rather than seconds and days. “I have a word for the fourth mirror.”

  Safa’s guardian placed his hand over the boy’s shoulder. “But we must not run before we can walk. Our lesson is at a close. It is your bedtime now.”

  The guardian watched his care walk as if drunk toward his bed. In a few minutes he’d check up on him, make sure he had water next to his bed, was warm enough, and when he was asleep he would gently pinch his flesh to check its growth. He would never let the boy be without the tools to navigate his way through this world with success. The guardian owed him that. It was the duty of a man who called himself Thales.

  EIGHT

  Beirut, Six Weeks Later

  The CIA officer bade his three colleagues good night, watched them ascend the stairs toward the abandoned large house above, and shut the bombproof steel door. The air’s musky scent caused him to pinch his nostrils with one hand while using the other to slam seven titanium bolts into place and turn keys in additional locks. He walked along the long, wide corridor that led back to the four rooms in the underground complex, while thinking it sucked to work the night shift alone in a place that resembled Hitler’s Berlin bunker. The officer had operated in many hellholes and had done so with exceptional composure and bravery. But this place gave him the jitters. Everything about it felt, looked, and smelled wrong. Particularly at night.

  The bunker contained the most sophisticated communications intercept equipment in the world, but the CIA technical guys who’d outfitted and reinforced the house’s big wine cellar had evidently not been overly concerned with ensuring there were enough lights in the complex. Day and night, the bunker was too shadowy because no natural light could get in, and the air was rank because air vents weren’t allowed in the hermetically sealed fortress. It wasn’t intended to be a permanent station.

  The steel door was the only portal to the outside world.

  It was impossible to enter or exit the station by any other means.

  And now that it was locked, the officer felt the weight of the slimy concrete walls, ceiling, and floor closing in on him. Above him was a city that he and his English, French, and Israeli partners spied on. Elements within the city would happily behead him and his MI6, DGSE, and Mossad colleagues if the complex were discovered. But on nights like this the American operative often wondered if it would be preferable to take his chances in the city, rather than sit, cornered, in a basement. His three foreign colleagues always felt the same way when it was their turn to be night duty officer. Tonight they’d be relieved they were heading back to their hotel rooms, rather than sitting alone on the cruddy furniture they’d bought at short notice from a local purveyor of cheap, flammable shit.

  Five weeks they’d been in here, one officer per room, for the most part with earphones on while listening to intercepts of Hamas cell phones and landlines, as well as more traditional bugs in situ. So far, all of it was giving the Agency nothing bar insight on God’s peace, Real Madrid’s soccer scores, and the best way to debone and grill a goat. The officer sneezed as he walked along the corridor containing tall metal filing cabinets and an oil-powered electricity generator. He entered his room. All it needed was an oil lamp to make it look like the nighttime communications post of a lieutenant on the front line of the Somme. Tiny flies emerged from a hole in the acrylic armchair the officer slumped in as he attached his earpieces.

  An hour into his shift, one of the communications units’ lights flashed, meaning a call was being made to a Hamas target. The officer flicked a switch so he could listen in. He heard code name Stravinsky talk in Arabic to code name Stradivarius on their cell phones. The two senior Hamas leaders were on this occasion not discussing mundane matters. Instead, their tones were wary and urgent, and their words made the CIA officer’s heart beat fast.

  When the call ended, the officer dashed to the computer terminal he used to send encrypted telegrams to the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

  Using two fingers, he typed fast.

  STRAVINSKY HAS JUST CALLED STRADIVARIUS. THEY AND OTHER HIGH RANKING HAMAS LEADERS WILL BE MEETING FOUR P.M. LOCAL TIME TOMORROW TO DISCUSS THE “PARIS SHOPPING TRIP.” I HAVE COMPLETE ELECTRONIC COVERAGE OF THE LOCATION OF THE MEETING AND WILL ACTIVATE INTERCEPTION THIRTY MINUTES BEFORE THE MEETING. STRAVINSKY SAID THAT “THALES” HAD CONTACTED HIM AND TOLD HIM TO BE VERY CAREFUL BECAUSE THE AMERICANS MAY BE WATCHING HIM. I HAVE NO IDEA WHO THALES IS. ANY INSIGHT?

  Langley responded in less than a minute.

  EXCELLENT. REPEAT, EXCELLENT. THIS IS GOLD DUST. WE WILL IMMEDIATELY INFORM MI6, MOSSAD, AND DGSE. THE MEETING WILL GIVE US THE EVIDENCE WE’VE BEEN LOOKING FOR. THALES HAS NO MEANING TO US.

  The officer breathed out slowly and felt his shoulder muscles relax. Admiral Mason’s initiative six weeks ago to establish the bespoke intelligence station in Beirut had been the right call, although everyone involved in his initiative had always realized it was a long shot. And so much was at stake if the station couldn’t deliver. But it looked like the initiative had paid off. Tomorrow’s meeting would prove whether Hamas had killed the Israeli ambassador to France or not. But that wasn’t the only reason the officer felt relieved. He and his three colleagues had been going mad cooped up in the station. They were desperate to leave the complex for good.

  An intelligence complex that carried the name Gray Site.

  The American withdrew his handgun and stripped it down to its work
ing parts. After he cleaned each part, he reassembled the weapon and placed a fresh clip of bullets into the pistol. He waited for his colleagues to arrive in the morning.

  NINE

  Tucked behind a side street off London’s bustling Strand is the tiny Savoy Chapel. It was originally built in the Middle Ages and dedicated to St. John the Baptist, and throughout its rich history the religious site has been owned by royalty, who’ve used it for centuries as a discreet place of worship. It is also the last surviving building of the Savoy Hospital, once a hospital for the homeless. Very few residents of London and even fewer tourists know about the chapel. They’re missing out on something special, because though the exterior of the chapel is unremarkable, the inside is gorgeous. Its current owner is Her Majesty the Queen. Sometimes she comes here.

  And sometimes so do I.

  Not to pray, because I have no views on religion beyond thinking it can be a nuisance when idiots grab its principles and do bad things in its name. My American father and English mother rarely attended the church close to their home in Virginia. The schools I went to favored science and reason over more ethereal, otherworldly concepts. And I’ve spent my entire adult life dealing with the harsh and all-too-immediate realities of humanity. I’ve had no time to contemplate anything other than the sometimes chaotic hell that life on earth can be.

  I come to this spiritual site for two reasons. The first is that it is a quiet place and allows me time to think in peace.

  The second is that, despite my father being very much like me when it came to the topic of religion, according to my mother he, too, would often come here during his CIA posting to London in the 1970s. I can barely remember him—he was captured by revolutionaries in Iran when I was five years old, and subsequently murdered in Tehran’s Evin Prison—but my mother spoke a lot about him. She told me that he would come here to complete the Times crossword and stare at the ornate altar and the gold and blue mosaic on the ceiling.