SOME TWO YEARS HAD PASSED since the man with whom I now shared a tearful embrace had reluctantly accepted my proposal that he turn coat and secretly collaborate with me and the CIA against his terrorist friends and employer. He had found himself at the end of his rope when I caught up with him. Obligated to al-Qaeda, an organization from which one didn’t resign, he was on the run from a variety of security services in whose hands he could expect to meet an unhappy end. With his family in tow, he weighed the Hobson’s choice I presented him between prioritizing them, or a cause which had lost much of its luster.
The whiskers of his prominent beard scratched my cheeks, and we were slow to release one another. We had both thought of bringing gifts for the other’s young children at this, our final meeting, as I introduced him to the CIA colleague who would succeed me. I had met his children on a few occasions, recalling fond memories of him and I on the floor together playing with them. while an intoxicating scent wafted from the kitchen with the promise of his wife’s delightful home-cooked Arabic meal. TV usually followed, after which he would cry with abandon at the end of a sentimental romcom.
All this was quite remarkable. This same man had played a supporting role in terrorist attacks that had killed hundreds before agreeing to a secret relationship with me and the CIA in which he would go on to save thousands.