“To buy explosives from the Palestinians.”
“What?” asked Rogers, unsure that he had heard correctly. “Why would the Palestinians sell explosives to the Christians?”
“I don’t know,” said Amin. “That’s just what the Bombmaker told us.”
“What else did he tell you?”
“He taught us how to make remote-control detonators. That was really the most interesting part.”
“How do you make a remote-control detonator?” asked Rogers. He felt his stomach beginning to tighten.
“You start by buying a simple radio-control kit, like the kind that children use for model airplanes or boats. You can buy them in any big toy store. The Bombmaker warned us that we should buy only one kit in each store. Otherwise, people would get suspicious.”
“How do they work?” asked Rogers.
“In each kit, there is an emitting device and a receiving device. One for the ground controller, if it’s a toy airplane, and one in the plane itself. Mind you, when you use the kits to make detonators, you must change the frequency and select a new one that isn’t used by model builders or amateur radio operators. Otherwise, the bomb might explode in your hands because of a child who is playing with a model airplane nearby and sets it off by mistake!”
Rogers nodded.
“The kits usually have two frequencies, one to regulate the speed of the toy plane and one to control its direction. That’s the kind that you want, because it gives you two keys on the detonator. A simple electronic transmission on the first frequency opens one key; an audio signal-a voice, let’s say-opens the second key.”
“And then?”
“Then, BOOM! Remote-control detonator.”
“Amin,” said Rogers softly. “What were these bombs and detonators to be used for?”
Amin ignored the question. “Would you like me to tell you the most frightening part of the training?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Rogers.
“It was connecting the electric battery to the detonator. And do you know why? Because of static electricity! Sparks can jump from the battery to the detonator, even when the switch is off. Then, BOOM! The Bombmaker taught me a safety trick. Before you get the battery wires near the detonator, touch them together and make them spark. That removes the static electricity.”
Rogers nodded. Who is mad, he wondered, this poor man or his country?
“I hated attaching the battery,” said Amin with a shudder. “The Bombmaker made me do it over and over, and my hands trembled and shook. But he said it was necessary. Everyone had to do it.”
Remembering the experience, Amin trembled once again.
“The rest of the receiving device was easy,” he continued. “You just attach the detonator to the aerial.”
“The aerial?”
“Yes. The car aerial.”
“Amin!” said Rogers loudly. “Why did they need an aerial? What were they going to use the remote-controlled bombs for?”
“Don’t you know?” said Amin, tilting his head. “Isn’t it obvious?”
“No,” said Rogers.
“Car bombs!”
Rogers felt sick. He could not ask the next question.
“Why did your group need car bombs?” asked Fares.
“Because the other side had them. The Palestinians.”
“How did you know that?”
“Because the Bombmaker told us.”
“Yes, but how did he know?”
“He knew because…” Amin began to laugh. “It’s sort of funny, really.”
“How did he know?”
“He knew because a few months before he came to us, he had been working for the Palestinians. Teaching them how to make bombs. That was his job, you see. Teaching people how to make bombs!”
The young Lebanese continued to laugh. It was a nervous giggle-like the sound of a frayed nerve vibrating- that masked emotions Amin could not express.
“And who were the targets?”
“What?”
“Who were the targets?”
The question produced another stutter of laughter from Amin. Then there was silence, and a look of pain and exhaustion that distorted his face.
“That was what bothered me,” said the boy, his face frozen. “The Bombmaker told us that it didn’t matter! We could decide about all that later. He said it would be easy. With car bombs, we wouldn’t need specific targets!”
“Why not?” asked Rogers, almost in a whisper.
“Because we would only need an address.”
“An address?”
“Yes. A street address. Where to park the car.”
The apprentice terrorist looked at Rogers. He put his head in his hands. Was he crying? Was he laughing? It didn’t matter. Fares embraced the boy.
“Do you have any more training sessions scheduled with the Bombmaker?” asked Rogers.
“Yes,” said Amin. “One more.”
“Good boy,” said Rogers. “You are very brave to have come here and talked with us. Go to your next session. Behave normally. And don’t be frightened. We will make sure that no harm comes to you.”
The young Lebanese nodded. Fares escorted him to the door, speaking gently to him in Arabic. Rogers watched him walk out the door, into the Christian heartland of Kesrouan, and then turned to Fares.
“Follow him,” said the American.
29
Beirut; June 1971
They followed Amin Shartouni until he led them, several days later, to the Bombmaker. Then they followed the Bombmaker.
Hoffman organized the surveillance. It was, he said, the most interesting and complicated surveillance problem he had encountered. How do you track someone, with the utmost discretion, when you can’t use your usual trackers? Borrowing people from the Deuxieme Bureau was out of the question. Most of the other agents available to the CIA station would be too obvious. It was like trying to play chess without chessmen.
Eventually, with Fares’s help, they put together a small team, gathered mostly from Ankara, that could maintain loose surveillance on the Bombmaker. They also obtained photographs of him and some of the people he met. The results of this exercise were as startling as anything that Rogers had come across in more than a decade of intelligence work. When the evidence was ready, he took it to Hoffman and briefed him in detail.
Hoffman was standing at his open window when Rogers arrived for the briefing. The station chief was feeding bits of a chocolate eclair to a pigeon that had landed on the window sill.
“Show-and-tell time?” asked Hoffman.
“Yes, sir,” said Rogers.
“Awaaay we go!” said Hoffman. He scooted over to his desk with a dancelike motion similar to the one made famous by the comedian Jackie Gleason. Looking at him, Rogers wondered whether perhaps the station chief was becoming more eccentric than a government official could afford to be.
