For the most part, that was propaganda and paranoia. Ironically, today it was true. As Bob Herbert had put it when Hood called Op-Center from the embassy, "It's like the broken watch that's right twice a day. Today, the Turkish and Syrian Kurds are the enemy."
Herbert told Hood that operatives in Damascus had reported movement among the Kurdish underground. That morning, beginning at 8:30, most of them had begun leaving their five safe houses scattered around the city. These were houses Syria allowed them to keep to plot against the Turks. Shortly before noon, when Syrian security forces realized there might be a plot involving the unified Kurds, they went to the safe houses. All of them were deserted. Herbert's people had managed to keep up with a handful of the forty-eight Kurds. They were all in the vicinity of the Old City. Some of them were sitting along the banks of the Barada River, which flowed along the northeastern wall. Others were visiting the Muslim cemetery along the southwest wall. None of the Kurds had gone inside the walls.
Herbert said that he had not passed this information on to the Syrians for two reasons. First, it could very well expose his own intelligence sources in Damascus. Second, it might cause the Kurds to panic. If there were a plot against the President, then only the President and those close to him would be targets. If the Kurds were forced to act prematurely, a firelight might erupt in the streets. There was no telling how many Damascenes might be killed.
Hood did not bother telling Herbert that he might be one of those targets close to the Syrian President.
The embassy car entered the southwest sector of the Old City. The walls had fallen along a five-hundred-yard stretch here, and security was extremely thick. Jeeps had been parked fender-to-fender along the edges of the wall, leaving only a fifty-yard gap in the middle. This area was lined with over a dozen soldiers, all of them armed with Makarov pistols and AKM assault rifles. Tourist passports were being checked, and locals had to show identification.
The ambassador's car was stopped by a tough-looking corporal. He collected passports, then used his field phone to call the palace. After each passenger in the car had been okayed, they were sent through. Before proceeding to the palace, the driver waited for the DSA car behind them to be cleared. They took al-Amin Street northeast to Straight Street, and went left. They turned right on Souk al-Bazuriye and drove three hundred yards. They passed the oldest public baths in Damascus, the Hamam Nur al-Din, as well as the nine-domed Khan of Assad Pasha, a former residence of the builder of the palace.
The palace was located just southwest of the Great Mosque or the Umayyad Mosque. Named for the Muslims who renovated it early in the eighth century, the mosque is built on the ruins of an ancient Roman temple. Before that, three thousand years ago, a temple dedicated to Hadad, the Aramean god of the sun, stood on this spot. Though burned and attacked repeatedly over the years, the mosque still stands and is one of the holiest sites in Islam.
The palace is no less imposing than the Great Mosque. Three separate wings surrounded the great court, a quiet retreat with a large pond and abundant citrus trees. One wing was for the kitchen and domestics, another for receiving guests, and the third was the living quarters. On the south side of the palace was a spacious public receiving area with marble walls and floor and a large fountain.
The palace was typically open to the public, though the private apartments were shut when the President came here. Today, the entire palace was closed and the President's personal security force patrolled the grounds.
After parking along the northwest side of the palace, the DSA agents were shown to a palace security room while the ambassador and his party were conducted to a large receiving room down the corridor. The heavy drapes were pulled and the crystal chandelier was brightly lit. The walls were covered with dark wood paneling, ornately carved with religious images. The room was appointed with richly inlaid furniture. In the center of the wall opposite the door was a large mahmal or pavilion which contained a centuries-old copy of the Koran. Designed to be carried on the back of a camel, the mahmal was covered with green velvet embroidered with silver. On top was a large gold ball with silver fringes. The gold was real.
Japanese Ambassador Akira Serizawa was already present, along with his aides Kiyoji Nakajima and Masaru Onaka. Gray-haired presidential aide Aziz Azizi was also present. The Japanese bowed politely when the American delegation entered. Azizi smiled broadly. Ambassador Haveles led his group over and shook each man's hand. Then he introduced Hood, Dr. Nasr, and Warner Bicking in turn. After presenting his team to Azizi, Haveles took the Japanese ambassador aside. Still smiling, Azizi faced the rest of the American contingent. He had on black-rimmed glasses and a neatly clipped goatee. He also wore a white earphone with a wire which ran discreetly along his collar to the inside of his white jacket.
"I am delighted to meet you all," Azizi said in very precise English. "However, I am familiar by reputation only with the distinguished Dr. Nasr. I have recently read your book Treasure and Sorrow about the old Mecca caravan."
"You honor me," Nasr replied with a slight incline of his head.
Azizi's smile remained fixed. "Do you really believe that the Bedouin would have attacked the caravan and left twenty thousand people to die in the desert had they not been driven by despair and starvation?"
Nasr's head rose slowly. "The Bedouin of that time and that place were barbarous and greedy. Cheir needs had little to do with their misdeeds."
"If my eighteenth-century ancestors were barbarous and greedy, as you say," Azizi replied, "it is because they were oppressed by the Ottomans. Oppression is a powerful motivator."
Bicking had been chewing the inside of his cheek. He stopped and eyed Azizi. "How powerful?" he asked.
Azizi was still smiling. "The desire for freedom can cause frail grass to split a walk or a root to break stone. It is very powerful, Mr. Bicking."
Hood wasn't sure whether he was listening to an historical discussion, a foreshadowing of things to come, or both. Regardless, Azizi was like a cat on a fence, and Nasr looked like he wanted to find a shoe. Excusing himself as the Russian contingent arrived, the presidential aide withdrew.
"Anyone care to tell me what just happened?" Hood asked.
"Centuries of ethnic rivalry just clashed," Bicking said. "Egyptian versus Bedouin. Mr. Azizi's a Hamazrib, I'll bet. Successful at adapting to host cultures but very, very proud."
"Too proud," Nasr grumbled. "Blind to the truth. His people do have a history of cruelty."
"Certainly their enemies think so," Bicking said with a snicker.
Hood stole a look at Azizi. He was walking the Russians over. He hadn't done that when Haveles's group entered.
"Could his little freedom speech have been a warning about the Kurds?" Hood asked quickly.
"The Bedouin and the Kurds are fierce rivals," Bicking said. "They wouldn't be helping each other, if that's what you mean."
"It isn't what I mean," Hood said. "You saw how he set up Dr. Nasr. Maybe Ambassador Haveles hit it on the head when he said we could be used as bait."
"Maybe he was also being just a touch paranoid," Bicking said.
"Ambassadors always are," Nasr remarked.
After the Russian group of four was introduced, Azizi said that the President would be joining them shortly. Then he turned and motioned to a domestic who was standing in the doorway. The domestic motioned to someone who was standing to the side, out of sight. Hood had a photo-flash vision of camouflage-clad terrorists rushing in with semi-automatics and cutting them all down. He was relieved when liveried men in white walked in carrying trays.