She took a fold of the cloth between her thumb and forefinger and pretended to feel the quality. ‘What can you tell me?’ she said quietly in Arabic.
‘Are you alone?’
‘Of course.’
He unrolled the cotton more, so that she could see a larger expanse of the print. It was vivid lemon and fuchsia. ‘ISGS is very happy about what happened at the N’Gueli Bridge,’ he said.
‘Happy?’ she said in surprise. ‘But they lost the fight.’
‘Two of their men died. But the dead are in Paradise. And they killed an American.’
This was the weird but familiar logic of the enemy. A dead American represented a triumph, a dead terrorist was a martyr. Win-win. Tamara knew all this already. She said: ‘What has happened since?’
‘A man came to congratulate us. A hero of the struggle in many countries, we were told. He stayed five days then went away again.’
Tamara continued to examine the cloth while they talked, giving the impression they were discussing the fabric. ‘What was his name?’
‘They called him the Afghan.’
Tamara was suddenly on full alert. There might be many Afghan men in North Africa, but the CIA had an interest in one in particular. ‘Describe him.’
‘Tall, with grey hair and a black beard.’
‘Anything special? Any visible wounds, for example?’ She did not want to lead Haroun, but there was one crucial detail she needed to hear.
‘The thumb,’ he said. ‘Shot off. He says it was an American bullet.’
Al-Farabi, she thought with mounting excitement. The leading figure in ISGS. The Most Wanted Man. Reflexively, she lifted her eyes from the length of cotton and looked to the south. Stalls and shoppers were all she saw, but she knew that the country of Cameroon was only a mile or so away in that direction – she could have seen it from the minaret of the nearby Grand Mosque. Al-Farabi had been that close.
‘And something else,’ said Haroun. ‘Something more . . . spiritual.’
‘Tell me.’
‘He is a man on fire with hatred. He wants to kill, he longs to kill, and kill again, and again. It is the way some men are with alcohol, or cocaine, or women, or gambling. He has a thirst that is never satisfied. He will not change until the day someone kills him, may God bring that day soon.’
Tamara was silent for a long moment, stunned by what Haroun said and the intensity with which he said it. At last she broke the spell and said: ‘What did he do, for five days, other than congratulate your group?’
‘He gave us special training. We would assemble outside the town, sometimes several miles away, then he would arrive, with his companions.’
‘What did you learn?’
‘How to make roadside bombs and suicide bombs. All about telephone discipline and coded messages and security. How to disable the phones in an entire neighbourhood.’
Even I don’t know how to do that, Tamara thought. She said: ‘When he left, did he say where he was headed?’
‘No.’
‘Was there any hint?’
‘Our leader asked him the question directly, and he answered: “Where God leads me.”’
Translated: I’m not saying, Tamara thought.
Haroun said: ‘How is the vendor of cigarettes?’
Was this genuine friendly interest, or an attempt to get information? She said: ‘Fine, last I heard.’
‘He told me he was going on a long journey.’
‘He is often out of touch for days.’
‘I hope he’s all right.’ Haroun looked around nervously. ‘You have to buy the cloth.’
‘All right.’ She took some notes from her pocket.
Haroun seemed intelligent and honest. Such judgements were guesswork, but her instinct told her to see him at least once more. ‘Where shall we meet next time?’ she asked.
‘At the National Museum.’
Tamara had been there. It was small but interesting. ‘Okay,’ she said, handing over the money.
Haroun added: ‘By the famous skull.’
‘I know it.’ The museum’s prize exhibit was the partial cranium of an ape that was seven million years old, and a possible ancestor of the human race.
Haroun folded the cotton and handed it to her. She put it in her plastic grocery bag. He turned away and vanished into the crowd.
Tamara returned to the car and rode back to the embassy, where she went to her desk. She had to put all thoughts of Tab out of her head until she had written her report on the meeting with Haroun.