The Increment: A Novel - By David Ignatius Page 0,138
had killed Hakim and executed the Turkmen driver. He prodded Jackie and Karim toward the sedan and waved them inside. He spoke a word to the driver, and then the black sedan was gone—beginning its journey to the border at Kalat, Harry knew. And the lone man, the shooter, was left there with what had to be four dead bodies.
“Who the fuck is that guy?” muttered Harry. He was speaking to himself. And in truth, he thought he knew the answer. But it was Marcia Hill who answered.
“That’s Al-Majnoun,” said Marcia. “The Crazy One.”
Marcia didn’t want to talk about it in front of the NRO techs. She was strange that way. After a career at the CIA, she didn’t really trust anyone, least of all other members of the U.S. intelligence community. So she waited until they were safely back in Persia House before she said any more. She padded to her cubicle and returned with a file folder and a pack of cigarettes.
“Give me one,” he said.
“But you don’t smoke, Harry.”
“I just started. Now tell me about Al-Majnoun.”
Marcia took a photograph out of the folder. It was a grainy shot of a man whose face looked like it had been drawn with a haphazard Etch A Sketch.
“This is Al-Majnoun,” she said. “I know it’s a crappy picture, but it’s the best one we have of him, version 2.0, or 3.0, or whatever this is.”
She removed a second photograph from the folder. It showed a younger man, someone who, from the image in the photograph, appeared to be entirely different from the dark and disfigured man in the first shot.
“This is Al-Majnoun, version 1.0. Or at least that’s what some of my Israeli friends think. These are their photographs. His name back then in Lebanon was Kamal Hussein Sadr. He was one of the first people the Iranians pulled into what became Hezbollah. He was a wholly owned subsidiary of Iranian intelligence, from the start. They used him as an enforcer. When they didn’t trust one of their own people, he took care of it.”
“Why don’t we know about him?”
“Because he was killed, supposedly. In 1985, by the Israelis. They were patting themselves on the back for months. Car bomb, body blown to bits in Baalbek so they couldn’t ID him afterward. But seriously dead, everyone thought. So everyone forgot about him. Except for a few skeptical SOBs at Mossad. And me.”
“What happened to him?”
“He went to Iran. In 1985, after the Israeli hit that almost got him. Personal invitation of Khomeini. So it was said, if anyone bothered to listen to the chatter, which no one did because the Israelis had killed him and the Israelis never make mistakes. But he was there. He knew he would need a new face if he was going to stay undead. So the surgeon’s healing arts were applied. They put so much new skin on this guy, they probably gave him a new dick, too.”
“Get a life, Marcia.”
“Bit late for that. Anyway, when you run the traces—meaning Marcia’s private traces, because honestly, honey, the main registry is useless—what you find is that Mr. Majnoun kept doing special jobs. Super Wet Work. When a dissident faction surfaced in the Rev Guard in the early nineties and people got revolverized, guess who pulled the trigger? When Rafsanjani had a problem with the Ministry of Intelligence and a few people got knocked off, who got the call?”
“The Crazy One.”
“But of course. He was the cleanup guy. Nobody owned him, you see, except the Leader’s office. And check this out.”
She took a third photograph from her file. It showed a tidy little man with a neat beard standing in front of an airplane. In the shadows behind him was a man in sunglasses, with the Identi-Kit face.
“This is the president getting off a plane in Damascus. Secret trip, never announced. The Israelis got the picture. The official Mossad line was that the messed-up-looking guy in the shades was just some fixer who was traveling with the president. But my pals down in the boiler room in Tel Aviv knew better. This is Al-Majnoun. The Leader’s personal enforcer. The man who doesn’t exist. And, I am sorry to say, the man who took down your operation.”
“You are one crazy old bitch.” Harry leaned across the table and kissed her.
“Thank you,” she said.
“But you’re wrong about one thing. I don’t think Al-Majnoun ran this Mashad operation for the Leader of Iran. He did it for someone else.”