The Faithful Spy

in the narrow back room of the barbershop in Ghazalia, officially known as Al-Jakra for Hair Cutting and Shampooing, Farouk Khan perched uncomfortably on a cheap blue couch. Boxes of old shampoo bottles lay on the floor, and three AK-47s had been left carelessly under a staircase by the back wall. A noisy generator in the corner powered an overhead bulb and a hot plate boiling water for tea. He looked again at his watch. Nine-twenty. Why hadn’t they arrived? Farouk was not a coward; cowards did not last long as nuclear spies. Still, he hated pointless risks. The door opened, but it was just Zayd, the skinny Iraqi who had guided Farouk from Islamabad to Baghdad. Farouk was thoroughly sick of Zayd. The Iraqi’s manners were atrocious. He spat and picked his nose with abandon, and he never washed. Plus, Farouk didn’t trust anyone so thin. Eating was a great pleasure; who would forsake it? But Farouk had to admit that Zayd had come in handy. He spoke Arabic, Farsi, Urdu, Pashto, and English. In fact, Farouk hadn’t yet heard a language that Zayd didn’t understand. And he knew half the tribal leaders between here and Pakistan. So Farouk had accepted the man’s medieval personal habits.

“Funny, isn’t it, Zayd,” Farouk said. “It’s easy to tell the wealth of a country from a hospital or a supermarket. But barbershops look the same wherever I’ve been. Here, Pakistan, Europe. Black swivel chairs, counters crowded with mysterious glass jars, posters of young men with close-cropped hair.”

“Umm.” Zayd put a knuckle into his nose. Farouk wondered whether the gesture was meant as an answer. For a man of so many tongues, Zayd said surprisingly little. Perhaps great conversations went on inside his head.

Farouk settled back in the couch, feeling it creak under his bulk. Outside he could hear the heavy low rumbling of American tanks in the distance. He jiggled the Geiger counter in his lap and tried to control his nervousness. “Will they be here soon, Zayd?” His companion merely shrugged and poured two glasses of tea, dropping in sugar with his dirty fingers. Farouk grimaced and drank. Then he heard the cars pull up.

c a p ta i n jac k s o n ’ s p l a n was simple. The barbershop sat on the western edge of Ghazalia. When his convoy reached the street that ran to the shop, the Humvees and Land Rover would peel off and race west. The tanks and Bradleys would follow. With any luck the guerrillas wouldn’t realize what was happening until the Humvees had already reached the shop. The heavier armor would establish a perimeter when it arrived.

The strategy had risks. Jackson had fifteen soldiers in the Humvees, along with the five Iraqi officers in the Rover. They should be able to take out four guerrillas. But if the shop had been fortified, they could be in for a fight. Especially before the Bradleys arrived with reinforcements. Normally, Jackson would put his heaviest firepower at the front and keep the lighter vehicles in the rear, but this time he could not risk alerting his targets. Even after his men got inside the store, their problems would not be over. Jackson didn’t know the layout of the shop, or even whether it had a second exit. His patrols had cruised by the store twice in the last three days, but he had feared more recon might spook the target. Still, he had no doubt his men could pull off the mission. They’d been through worse.

Jackson looked through his armored window at the deserted storefronts. Time to give the bosses one last chance to chicken out. He picked up his battalion radio and called the Tactical Operations Center at Camp Graphite. “Mad Dog Six to Knight Six, over.” Knight Six was the battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Steve Takahashi.

“This is Knight Six.”

Jackson looked at his watch. Nine thirty-three. The Humvees should hit the shop in minutes. “Our ETA is Niner Four Tree.”

“Tree” was army lingo for “three.”

“Niner Four Tree,” Takahashi said. “Roger that. You’re cleared for takeoff.”

“Roger,” Jackson said. A cold excitement filled him as he put the handset down.

farouk waved the wand of his Geiger counter over a narrow steel capsule six inches long. The headphones around his ears clicked rapidly, each click a signal that the capsule was emitting radiation. He put the wand over a second steel capsule and again heard the clicking.

Mazen, the mujahid commander, was a giant, the tallest Arab Farouk had ever met. He spoke a rough, peasant Arabic and carried both an AK-47 and a sword strapped to his waist. Since giving Farouk the capsules he had stood quietly by the stairs at the back of the room, nervously watching Farouk flutter the Geiger counter. He fears that he has brought me junk, Farouk thought. “How many are there?” Farouk asked.

“Thousands,” Mazen said. “Too many to count.”

And with that answer Farouk knew his trip had been worth the risk. Thousands of capsules of cobalt. Allah had bestowed a great gift upon his warriors this night. Khadri would be pleased. The ring of a cell phone startled him.