came to visit me yesterday?”
“What guy?” asked Foxx.
“The one who’s part of the cell,” I said.
CHAPTER 23
FOXX FOLDED his arms, rolled his eyes, and let out a deep and pissed-off sigh all at once. “Way to bury the lede, Reinhart. And you wonder why I never liked you.”
“I never wonder at all,” I replied. “I know exactly why you never liked me.”
“You were reckless.”
“I took risks.”
“You withheld information from the Agency.”
“I was careful whom I told things to.”
“You were a wiseass.”
“Yeah, okay, you got me there,” I said. “Guilty as charged. Now, do you want to hear about this guy or what?”
I told Foxx everything about my visit from Benjamin Al-Kazaz, or rather, the guy posing as a lawyer by that name. He’d somehow connected me to Ahmed but clearly didn’t know if I was CIA or merely an old chum from our London school days. Hence the charade.
“How did you know the guy was lying?” asked Foxx.
“He picked the wrong fake name.”
“Al-Kazaz?”
“No, his first name,” I said. “I made a joke about his returning to Saudi Arabia and how they’re not exactly welcoming Benjamins these days. He had no idea what I was talking about.”
“That makes two of us,” said Foxx.
“A few years back,” I explained, “the Saudi government banned a bunch of baby names. There were about fifty in total, and if you were a Saudi, there’s no way you wouldn’t know about it. One of the names, if not number one with a bullet, was Benjamin.”
Foxx didn’t need any further explanation. It was all the more obvious to him given that he’d been stationed in Israel during Obama’s first term. “Really?” he asked. “Because of Bibi?”
“Yep.” Saudi parents were now forbidden from naming a boy Benjamin because of Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister. Talk about holding a grudge.
“So this guy, Al-Kazaz, or whatever his real name is, isn’t a Saudi, and he knew Ahmed was dead. Why did he want you to think he was Ahmed’s lawyer?”
“Because of this,” I said, opening my hand.
Foxx stared at the tiny flash drive in my palm. “He gave that to you?”
“In a sealed envelope, yes. He claimed it was from Ahmed and he’d been holding it for him. If Ahmed died, he was supposed to get the envelope to me.”
Foxx eyed the flash drive. “It’s probably a virus—a way for him to hack your files and learn more about you.”
“Not probably,” I said. “That’s exactly what it is.”
“Wait. You actually—”
“Of course I plugged it in,” I said. “That’s what someone who’s never been in the CIA would do, right? I just made sure to use an old laptop. Lecture notes, research for my next book—the guy saw the life of an ordinary college professor, that’s all.”
“Did he actually fake a letter from Ahmed?”
“No, this guy was cleverer than that. He put a file on there that wouldn’t open. Meanwhile, the virus gets embedded and he becomes a ghost. The phone number on his fake business card? It’s out of service.”
“What about fingerprints?” asked Foxx. “The envelope he handed you? Or the business card?”
“Both clean,” I said. “I figure he was using tips on his fingers.” Tips are ultrathin silicone patches used to cover one’s fingerprints. Bomb-making terrorists are big fans of them.
Foxx continued to grill me like a prosecutor. That was his style. “Any cameras in your building?”
“Plenty,” I said. “But he wore a baseball cap in the lobby and in the elevator.”
“So we’ve got nothing to go on, huh?”
“I’m just thankful he doesn’t either,” I said. “I’ve got a family, and he knows where I live.”
The sound of the door opening next to us brought our conversation to a halt. A head peeked out. There are only a handful of imams in the world working secretly for the CIA. This was one of them.
“Okay,” was all the imam said. It was all that was needed.
Foxx turned to me. “Go ahead, take a few minutes.”
“Thanks,” I said.
I knew what I would see when I entered the room. Ahmed had long ago educated me on the death rituals of Muslims, beginning with the body being bathed and shrouded in three sheets. The imam was slightly breaking with tradition by leaving Ahmed’s head uncovered until after I could say my final good-bye.
Still, knowing what to expect isn’t always the same as when it actually happens.
I stood there and stared at Ahmed’s face, the sadness running through me. I felt numb.
Then came the guilt. I knew it wasn’t rational, but I felt