The Midnight House

The security at the big Egyptian hotels seemed good. It wasn’t. At the Intercontinental, a blocky pink tower on the Nile, a low gate protected the front driveway, and a bomb-sniffing German shepherd nosed around every car. But a determined bomber could have plowed through the gate, Wells saw. The guards had AKs and pistols, but they didn’t wear bulletproof vests. Wells wondered if the men he hoped to meet on this trip had made similar calculations.

Since the mid-1990s, dozens of terrorist attacks had hit Egypt, killing hundreds of tourists. Still, Americans and Europeans came here every day to gawk at the pyramids and visit the splendid tombs near Luxor. Wells wondered if they understood the resentments in the giant city around them.

Wells reached the Intercontinental’s front doors and gave up his cell phone to pass through the hotel’s metal detector. Inside, the lobby was air-conditioned, with a pianist playing at a black baby grand, its elegance oddly disconnected from Cairo’s dirt and noise.

At the reception desk, Wells handed over his newly minted passport, which proclaimed him William Anthony Barber, forty-one, of Plano, Texas.

“Mr. Barber. You will be with us for a week.”

“You got it, sweetheart.”

The receptionist tapped on her computer, handed over his passport and keycard. “Room 2218. Please enjoy your stay in Cairo.”

“Of course.”

Room 2218 had two queen beds and a pleasant view of the luxury hotels and apartment buildings along the banks of the Nile. Feluccas, single-masted Egyptian sailboats that catered to the tourist trade, puttered along the water, along with open-air cruisers that ferried tourists and even some native Cairenes between the riverbanks. Wells watched for a while and then pulled the curtains and closed his eyes. When he left this room again, the mission would begin in earnest.

HE SLEPT WITHOUT DREAMING and woke dry-mouthed but refreshed. In the bathroom, he stripped. A day earlier, at Langley, he’d taped a plastic bag to the back of his thigh. Now he pulled it off, trying not to take his leg hair with it. He showered and scrubbed, and when he was done, he looked himself up and down in the bathroom mirror. Despite the wounds he’d suffered on his missions, age had been kind to him. Being free to work out for hours every day helped, too. Only actors, pro athletes, and spies, perfect narcissists all, could devote so much time to their bodies. And, of course, he didn’t have a wife or family or kids to distract him. Though that wasn’t entirely true. Wells closed his eyes. His boy was a ghost to him. When this mission was done, he would go to Montana and insist on seeing Evan, whatever his ex-wife said. It was time.

Back in the bedroom, Wells popped open his suitcases. The first was filled with jeans, khakis, polo shirts, sneakers, even a Dallas Cowboys cap. Just what the housekeepers at the Intercontinental would expect William Barber to be wearing. Wells neatly folded the clothes in his dresser and turned to the second, larger case.

It held a different culture’s clothes. One brown galabiya, the simple robe worn by many Egyptian men. Two pure white dishdashas, the more elegant robes favored by Saudis and Kuwaitis. For his feet, heavy brown leather sandals. A cell phone with a 965 prefix, the code for Kuwait City. A thick steel Rolex. No self-respecting Kuwaiti man would be caught without one. Under all the robes, an expensive Sony digital video camera and a brushed-aluminum iMac.

Wells considered a galabiya, then changed his mind and decided on a dishdasha. Then he pulled the fake passport that the agency had given him from the bag he’d carried strapped to his legs. According to the passport, he was a Kuwaiti named Nadeem Taleeb. An Egyptian visa showed that he’d entered the country at Suez, on a ferry from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The passport came with Saudi entry and exit stamps to support the story.

Back at Langley, Mike Merced, a talkative twentysomething who was Wells’s favorite document geek, had promised Wells that the passport would hold up to almost any inspection. “As long as you don’t try to get into Kuwait with it,” Merced said. “Though I don’t know why anyone would ever want to go to Kuwait.” Besides the passport, Merced had given Wells a wallet stuffed with Kuwaiti dinars and Saudi riyals, along with credit cards and a driver’s license in Taleeb’s name.

But Wells was missing one item that he normally would have considered essential. A weapon. He could have connected with the station here for a pistol. Instead, he was coming in dark. Not even the chief of station knew he was here. He’d chosen this course for two reasons. One was logical, one less so.

First, the Egyptian mukhabarat would have tails on all the station’s couriers. Wells preferred not to risk blowing his cover before his mission even began. More important, this mission wasn’t the kind for which a gun would help. If he wound up sticking a gun in someone’s face, he’d already failed. No, to succeed in this mission, Wells would need to become Nadeem Taleeb. And Nadeem would naturally stay as far from the CIA as possible. So Wells wanted nothing to do with the agency. Now, as Nadeem, he flicked the television to channel 7, MBC, and watched an Arabic sitcom, talking back to the screen, finding the rhythm of the language for the first time in years.

After an hour, he rose, pulled the curtains. The sun was sinking behind the city. As the heat of the day eased, Cairo came alive. On the Nile, the boats flipped on neon lights and glowed red and blue and green. Couples and families and packs of teenagers filled the sidewalks on the Tahrir Bridge, savoring the breeze that fluttered down the river. Beside them, battered black-and-white taxis and boxy green buses filled the pavement. The sun disappeared entirely, and the sky darkened. From every direction, the calls to evening prayer began, eerie amplified voices that echoed through the city.

Wells turned east, away from the river — the orientation was easy enough, since the room faced straight west to the Nile — and fell to his knees and pushed his head against the carpeted floor and prayed. As Nadeem. As a Muslim.

A HALF HOUR LATER, he walked out of the Intercontinental’s side entrance, carrying the larger suitcase. Before he could even get a hand in the air, a cab stopped.

“Salaam alekeim,” Wells said. Peace be with you. The traditional Muslim greeting.

“Alekeim salaam.”

“Lotus Hotel,” Wells said in Arabic.

“Come on, then.”

Wells slipped in.

“Where you from?”

“Kuwait.”

The driver was silent. Other Arabs often viewed Kuwaitis as arrogant. Then, as if realizing he might be missing an opportunity, the driver put a hand on Wells’s arm.

“First time to Cairo?”

“First time.”

“Tomorrow. I take you to the pyramids! Giza, Saqqara, Dahshur. All-day trip. Only two hundred fifty pounds”—about fifty dollars. “Give me your mobile number!” The driver was a bit deaf, or maybe he thought he could shout so loudly that Wells would have to agree.

“I’m here on business.”

“I drive you around Cairo, then! Very good price.”

“Maybe.”

“Definitely! ”

Wells didn’t respond, and eventually the driver dropped his arm. They fought through traffic onto Talaat Harb, a brightly lit street crowded with clothing stores, restaurants, and travel agencies. The pavement ahead opened up, and the driver gunned the gas.

As he did, a woman in a burqa stepped into the road about fifty yards ahead. With her feet hidden beneath her black robes, she looked as though she were floating over the pavement on an invisible river. A very slow river.

The driver honked furiously. Still, the woman didn’t hurry, didn’t even turn her head to look at them, as if her robes were a force field that would protect her from harm. Finally, the driver gave in and slammed his brakes.