Marc replied for the distraught aide, “I insisted.”
“You insisted?” Boswell’s face was made for tight fury, all narrow angles and sharp edges. He said to his assistant, “You actually let this twerp shove you around?”
Marc said, “Yes, Boswell. And so will you.”
Jordan Boswell rose from a straight-backed chair positioned by the corner of the ambassador’s desk. The ambassador remained seated. The desk’s empty surface reflected the ambassador’s placid expression. Behind the ambassador, the interior garden was illuminated by spotlights planted at the base of the palms, the trees glowing like golden sentries in the waning daylight.
Boswell snarled, “I should have ordered you shot the day you set foot in Iraq.”
“Two problems with that. One, you didn’t. And now you can’t.” Marc crossed the room and placed the documents on the ambassador’s desk in front of Boswell. “Sign these.”
“What?”
“All three copies. Print your name below each signature. Then your aide will notarize it.”
“You’re out of your skull.”
“There’s going to be a point when you feel you can renege on this. You’ll claim the ambassador went against orders and played the lone cowboy. Your signature will keep that from ever happening.”
“You are the product of a sick mind.”
“It’s that or I go downstairs and tell Ambassador Walton and whoever else he’s got on the link that the deal is off. All because of you.”
The ambassador spoke for the first time since the group’s arrival. “Jordan, sign the documents.”
“They can’t make me.”
“You think you’ll have any career left after Walton takes aim at you? Sign the forms. Next week it’ll be over and forgotten, and you’ll still have your office and your title and your future.” The ambassador took a pen from his pocket and slid it across the desk. “Sign.”
Boswell’s face had taken on a splotchy array of colors, purplish across his cheeks, blistering red on his neck and forehead, bone white around his mouth and eyes. Suddenly he lunged for the ambassador’s pen, scribbled furiously, then flung the pen at a side wall.
Marc said, “Now notarize them.”
The room remained frozen until the ambassador slid a notary stamp from his drawer and motioned to Boswell’s aide. “Do as he says.”
Nervously the staffer stamped and initialed each signature.
The ambassador rose from his chair. He rounded the desk, took the papers, tapped them together, then handed them to Marc and said, “Let me walk you out.”
As they left the office, Sameh could not help but glance back. Jordan Boswell sat staring at the empty spot on the ambassador’s desk. His face was drained of all color.
The ambassador led them back across the main gallery, over to a marine standing sentry before an elevator. The ambassador said, “These gentlemen are expected in the comm room.”
“Sir.” The marine punched in a code, then held the doors open with one white-gloved hand. “This way, gentlemen.”
As the doors were closing, the ambassador said, “Well done.”
– – Inside the elevator, Marc handed Sameh the signed forms. “These are for you.”
Sameh glanced at the documents, realized what he held, and could not speak.
Marc explained, “The ambassador is officially granting your family green cards. Show this letter to the consular officer. His name is there in the second paragraph. Your family needs to go with you to make it official.”
Sameh stammered, “I don’t know how to thank you.”
“There’s nothing that needs saying.” Marc’s voice was not so much calm as toneless, as though his mind had already moved on. “Go there tomorrow.”
Sameh folded the pages and realized his hands were shaking. “I still have not decided.”
“I know. But this no longer is an offer contingent on anything. You simply are granted the right to emigrate. Now or at any point in the future.”
Sameh folded the papers and slipped them into his jacket pocket, then pressed his hand hard upon his chest, as though trying to fit his heart back into its proper position. “I and my family are further in your debt.”
Marc looked at him. “You take in an American who has never been in the Middle East. You invite him into your home. You teach him. You shelter him. You trust him.” He turned back to face the doors. “There’s no debt. There never has been. We are friends.”
Hamid Lahm hummed a single note. Sameh doubted the police major was even aware he made a sound. Even so, Sameh felt as if his entire body vibrated with the tone.
He glanced over. Marc’s attention remained fastened upon whatever waited on the other side of the doors. As the elevator stopped, Sameh found himself wondering if this was how God answered prayers. First, by teaching the need to ask. Second, by using friends as holy messengers.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
T he elevator deposited them on the second basement level. Barry Duboe was there waiting when the elevator doors opened. “I’ll take it from here, Corporal.”
“Sir.”
Barry nodded a greeting to Marc and Sameh, then turned to the third man. “You’re Major Hamid Lahm?”
“I am.”
“Heard good things.” Barry Duboe gestured with his head. “Let’s move out.”
Marc noted the unease shared by Sameh and Lahm as they looked around. “What’s the matter?”
“Every Iraqi has heard stories about the bunkers linking Saddam’s palaces,” Sameh said, his voice low. “And what went on down here.”
“All that is behind us,” Hamid Lahm said, but he sounded uncertain.
Every room they passed contained men and women busy with the activities of government and war. The original doors were steel and concrete and over a foot thick. These had been lashed open, with cheap plywood doors fitted into new, smaller doorframes. Sameh could well understand the Americans’ desire never to be locked in one of Saddam’s rooms. The whispers and the ghosts and the memories were just too dreadful a combination.
The secure communications room took up half of one such bunker. The comm room’s floor had been elevated eight inches, like a room within a room. The floor and walls and ceiling were all lined with a padded beige fabric. Light came from two fluorescent strips. Duboe shut the wood and fabric door, sealing them inside. The wall opposite the doorway held a narrow window eight inches high and two feet long. Stacked electronic gear illuminated the otherwise darkened room beyond. A uniformed woman wearing headphones gave Duboe a thumbs-up through the glass.
A desk was bolted across the length of the chamber’s front wall. On it were positioned four large computer screens. A massive flatscreen television hung above them. All five screens showed a blue backdrop emblazoned with the U.S. embassy seal. Speakers had been bolted around the flatscreen, with two more positioned on the desk. A microphone rose from a stand in front of a lone chair. The speakers all clicked to life, and the woman’s voice said, “I have Ambassador Walton on the line.”
Marc said, “Ready at this end.”
“Sit at the desk, please. Thank you. Shift your chair two inches to the left. Okay, sir, you’re on camera. Ambassador Walton states that because you have others in the room, he is sending you a voice-only transmission.”
“Roger that.”
“If you want privacy, you can slide the curtain across my window.”
Marc pointed Sameh and Hamid Lahm into seats against the back wall. Barry Duboe had taken a position forward of the door, clearly angling himself so as not to be seen on camera. “I’m good to go.”
“If any of the others need to speak, I’ll have to come in and wire them up,” the woman told him.
“I believe I’ll be the only one talking,” Marc said. “If the others need to respond, they can lean toward the mike.”
She nodded through the window. “Once I make the link, I will no longer be party to this conversation.” There were a series of clicks, then, “You are now secure.”