Green light for almost everything, no oversight. A hell of a thing.’
‘Sure is,’ the CIA man said. ‘And this is what we’ll show them.’
From inside his suitcoat pocket, he pulled out a thin metal object, tossed it down on the conference-room table, where it clattered to a stop. The other two men looked on. He said, ‘That’s all it took. Some box cutters and knives, nineteen airline tickets, and nineteen assholes ready to kill themselves. That’s all. And we lost several thousand people, four jet aircraft, the World Trade Center, part of the Pentagon, and billions of dollars in our economy. For any other asshole out there thinking to do us harm, that sounds like a hell of a bargain.’
The two other men stared at the box cutter, and then looked up at the CIA man. He said, ‘And we’ll tell those investigators, that’s what we were up against. And why we had to do everything to make sure that the next nineteen guys from the Middle East who didn’t like us or Barbie or Coca-Cola didn’t come here carrying suitcase nukes.’
There was a pause. He said, ‘You on board?’
The FBI man looked at the NSA man and said. ‘Yeah.’
His companion nodded. ‘Yeah. Let’s get the fuckers.’
‘Sure,’ the CIA man said. ‘But first, we’ve got work to do.’
CHAPTER TWO
In Lahore, Pakistan, the wind was blowing down from the Hindu Kush, bringing with it the smell of dust, cooking fires and burning coal. Nineteen year-old Amil Zahrain paused in his quest for a moment, letting his left foot — the crippled one — rest some as it ached. He looked about the crowded sidewalks with wide brown eyes. This was the busiest place he had ever seen in his life, and he was quite scared, and quite lost.
A hand went into his thin cotton shirt, into the pocket his sister had secretly sewed for him, not more than a week ago. There, wrapped in paper, was his midday meal, a piece of flat bread, wrapping goat cheese and cabbage, and nestled next to his meal was a small fortune: one hundred Pakistani rupees, and an American twenty-dollar bill. And, between both of them, a thin piece of black plastic that was his weapon this day, to help kill the Jews and the infidels.
But he was lost!
Amil looked around the crowded streets again, looking vainly for a street sign or any other symbol that would help him reach his destination. He sighed, shifted his weight, winced again at the pain in his left foot. He had gotten up this morning before sunrise in his small village, about fifty kilometers to the east of Lahore. With other day workers there, he had scrambled aboard a wheezing bus that rode the bumpy Route A-2 that led into Lahore, and he had stood for most of the trip, taking in the kilometers after kilometers of crowded shacks and buildings that had been erected up against the old walls of the city. All along the way to the city, he had murmured to himself, repeating the holy prayers that he had memorized in the few short years he had spent in the local madrassa, asking for God’s help and God’s strength to do what had to be done.
The ride had been uneventful, except for one brief moment, along a place called Killorney Boulevard, when he had spotted a small fortress of a building, flying that hated red-white-blue flag, and he had stared at it with such contempt for a moment, until he’d remembered his instructions. Be quiet, do not bring notice to yourself, just do what you’ve been told to do.
God be praised.
But now, he was lost.
In Amil’s hand was a dirty piece of lined schoolbook paper, with instructions and directions carefully written out in his scrawl that he was ashamed to show his sister, for her writing was much better than his. It was not fair, for his schooling had been the memorization and the glorification of the word of God, while their mother had insisted that his sister take part in some education and work program, administered by a women’s council (as if such a thing could be believed!) that was getting money from some infidel bank from Europe. He had complained bitterly to his mother about the influence this was passing on to his younger sister, and she had snapped at him one night that with his empty head and God’s words and a clubfoot, if he wished to do better, then by all means do better.
Amil looked up again and around, desperately seeking a sign. The instructions that had been dictated to him had been clear — he had been forced to read them back twice to the stranger who had first met him at the village mosque -and only then had he received the money.
The stranger — a tall Sudanese man — had said as they sat on a stone bench near the center of the village, under a willow tree, ‘I am looking for a pious young man, a man who wants to perform jihad. Are you that man, Amil?’
And he had replied, his hands trembling with excitement, yes, yes I am.
‘You’ve wanted to perform jihad for some time now, haven’t you.’
Yes, that I have, sir, he had said.
‘You’ve wanted to take up weapons against God’s enemies, to go to distant lands, but this has not occurred. Why?’
Amil had looked down at his feet in shame and sorrow, not able to answer.
The Sudanese had nodded. ‘But your crippled foot… it has prevented you from traveling to Afghanistan or Yemen or Iraq, am I right? You cannot walk for long distances. So you have stayed here, in your home, with your mother and your sister. Instead of being a warrior for God.’
Amil had almost whispered, it is God’s will. What else can I do?
The Sudanese had leaned in, his tobacco breath near Amil’s ear, and said, ‘There are other weapons to use against the Jews and the infidels, other ways to perform jihad without traveling too far or carrying a weapon. Are you interested?’
And Amil had said, his voice now strong, I am at your command.
The older man had smiled. ‘You are at God’s command, this is true. And this is what you shall do.’
And so Amil had learned and had written down the directions and the orders, and so it came to pass that he was now here, near where he had to go to do his jihad, to perform his holy struggle, and—
Lost!
The utter shame.
Two men made their way through the crowds and now eyed Amil, and he shivered. They wore uniforms of some sort, some type of policeman with large, fierce mustaches, and they carried long wooden staves in their weathered hands, and Amil started walking again, passing them, knowing instinctively that to stay in one place was to invite questions, and that was one thing that the Sudanese had taught him, over and over again, not to invite questions.
He walked up the street and thought for a moment, and then came back. Vendors and shopkeepers and buyers moved around in a chattering, bright flood, but he ignored the directions now for a moment, recalled what he was looking for, the bright sign the Sudanese said would be out there. The street sign was missing…how and where it went missing was not his worry. But the other sign that he sought… well, it must be someplace near. He could ask directions from one of the vendors, but no, with God’s will and God’s help, he would find it by himself.
And he did!
The sun had crawled higher up into the dusty yellow sky when in one of the narrow, unmarked side streets there had been the sign, in bright letters on a square piece of plastic. He looked down at the words laboriously written out in English on the paper, and matched them, letter for letter, with the overhead sign.
He murmured a prayer, thanks to be God, there is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his Prophet, and he went to the place.
The glass and metal door closed behind him, and Amil started shivering, both in fear and from the intense cold inside the place. He had never seen anything like it in his life. There were tables and booths and chairs, and
