The Faithful Spy

“Jalal,” Naji said, “have you found us any sponsors yet?” For months, Naji and Wells had joked to each other about starting a cricket team for Qaeda, maybe getting corporate sponsorship: “The Jihadis will blow you away.” Wells wouldn’t have made those jokes to anyone else. But Naji was more sophisticated than most jihadis. He had grown up in Amman, Jordan’s capital, paradise compared to this village. And Wells had saved Naji’s life the previous summer, stitching the Jordanian up after Afghan police shot him at a border checkpoint. Since then the two men had been able to talk openly about the frustrations of living in the North-West Frontier.

“Soon,” Wells said.

Hamra, Wells’s cat, rubbed against his leg and jumped on the thin gray blanket that covered his narrow cot. She was a stray Wells had found two years before, skinny, red — which explained her name; hamra means “red” in Arabic — and a great leaper. She had chosen him. One winter morning she had followed him around the village, mewing pathetically, refusing to go away even when he shouted at her. He couldn’t bear watching her starve, so despite warnings from his fellow villagers that one cat would soon turn into ten, he’d taken her in.

“Hello, Hamra,” he said, petting her quickly as Bassim walked into the hut. Shihab followed, murmuring something to Bassim that Wells couldn’t hear.

“Bassim and Shihab — Naji,” Wells said.

“Marhaba,” Naji said. Hello. Shihab and Bassim ignored him.

“Please, have coffee,” Wells said.

“We must leave soon,” Bassim said.

“Naji,” Wells said. “Can you leave us for a moment?”

Naji looked at Bassim and Shihab. “Are you sure?”

“Nam.”

As Naji walked out, Wells stopped him. “Naji,” Wells said. He ran his fingers over Hamra’s head. “Take care of her while I’m gone.”

“When will you be back, Jalal?”

Wells merely shook his head.

“Hamdulillah, then,” Naji said. Praise be to God, a traditional Arabic blessing. “Masalaama.” Good-bye.

“Hamdulillah.” They hugged, briefly, and Naji walked out.

BASSIM AND SHIHAB looked on as Wells grabbed a canvas bag from under his cot. He threw in the few ragged clothes he wanted: his spare robe, a pair of beaten sneakers, a faded green wool sweater, its threads loose. A world-band radio he’d bought in Akora Khatak a year before, and a couple of spare batteries. The twelve thousand rupees — about two hundred dollars — he had saved. He didn’t have much else. No photographs, no television, no books except the Koran and a couple of Islamic philosophy texts. He slipped those gently into the bag. And his guns, of course. He lay on the dirt floor and pulled his AK and his Makarov from under the bed.

“Those you can leave, Jalal,” Bassim said.

Wells could not remember the last time he had slept without a rifle. He would rather have left his clothes. “I’d rather not.”

“You won’t need them where you’re going.”

Wells decided not to argue. Not that he had much choice. In any case, he always had his knife. He slid the guns back under the bed.

“The dagger as well,” Bassim said. “It will be safer for all of us.”

Without a word, Wells lifted his robe, unstrapped his knife from his leg and tossed it on the bed. He looked around the room, trying to remember what else he might want. He had no computer or camera or cell phone. His cherished night-vision goggles had broken during the bombing at Tora Bora.

He had held on to a piece of shrapnel from that battle, shrapnel that had gashed a hole in a wall inches above his head. But he had no desire to take it with him. Had his life narrowed to this? Yes. Wells supposed that was why he didn’t fear what would happen next. He zipped his bag. “Good-bye, Hamra,” he said, stroking her thin fur. She arched her back, jumped off the bed, and strolled out of the hut without a second glance. So much for animal intuition, Wells thought.

“That’s all?” Bassim said.

“My good china’s in the other hut.” Immediately he wished he hadn’t made the joke, for Bassim looked blankly at him.

“Good china?”

“Let’s go.”

AT THE CAR Shihab opened the front passenger door and waved Wells inside. “Shukran jazeelan,” Wells said. Thanks very much. Shihab said nothing, just shut the door and climbed in the back. Bassim slid into the driver’s seat, and they rolled off. Wells wondered if he was being taken to bin Laden again — though if he was, they were using very different tactics this time.

He had met Osama twice before, in visits that left him no chance to carry out his vow to kill Qaeda’s maximum leader. The first came just before the United States invaded Iraq. Wells had been picked up outside Akora Khatak, blindfolded, and driven for hours over potholed roads. Then he was transferred to a horse-drawn cart and shuffled over rock paths for hours more. When the ride finished, he was stripped to his tattered T-shirt and shorts and searched. His blindfold was removed and he was led up a mountain path that ended at a stone cave.

Inside, a small generator provided light and three prayer rugs decoration. A half-eaten plate of lamb and rice sat on a rough wooden table; bin Laden sat behind it, flanked by bodyguards slinging AKs. The sheikh looked gaunt and weak, his long beard grayish white. Wells knelt, and bin Laden had asked whether he believed the United States would go to war with Iraq.

“Yes, Sheikh,” he’d said.

“Even if the rest of the world does not agree?”

“The crusaders are anxious for this war.”

“And will they win?”

“You saw what their bombs can do. They will be in Baghdad before summer.”

“So it would be foolish for us to send soldiers?”

Wells reminded himself not to be too negative. “We cannot stop them from destroying Saddam. But afterward, when they have taken over, they will be more vulnerable. Inshallah, we can hit them every day, small attacks, grinding them down.” At this Wells felt a pang of guilt, wondering how many American soldiers would die in the kind of war he had proposed. But bin Laden would surely have reached that conclusion anyway. Guerrilla wars were the only way to fight the U.S. Army.

Bin Laden stroked his beard, looked away, looked back at Wells with cunning narrow eyes. Finally he smiled. “Yes,” he said. “Yes. Thank you, Jalal.” And with that the sheikh waved him out.

* * *

TWO YEARS LATER Wells had been taken to a different cave for another meeting, where bin Laden had asked him about the Hoover Dam. “Is it a great symbol of America?” he had said. Wells had answered honestly. Most Americans had no idea what or where the Hoover Dam was.

“Are you sure, Jalal?” bin Laden said. He sounded disappointed.

Wells looked at the guards flanking bin Laden and wished for a gun or a knife tipped with rat poison. Even a chip in his shoulder so a B-2 could drop a bomb on this stinking hole. “Yes, Mujaddid,” he said.

Bin Laden nodded. “Shukran,” he said, and the guards escorted Wells out. He did not know how much credit he deserved for the fact that the Hoover Dam was still in one piece.

NOW, AS HE sat in the Toyota, Wells wasn’t sure what to think. If they had wanted to kill him they could have taken him into the mountains, or even shot him while he slept. The Pakistani cops wouldn’t exactly launch an all-out investigation. The police hardly came into the North-West Frontier without Pakistani Army escorts.

But they weren’t going into the mountains. They were heading toward Peshawar. Wells figured that increased his chances of survival. As long as they didn’t get hit by a bus. The roads in Pakistan were a constant